Tempting(78)

Finally, finally I kissed her, relishing in the feel and taste of her icy cold lips between my own. We wound around each other, deepening the kiss with tongues and roaming hands. Adele grabbed my hand and started walking to the door to her place. I stopped her just after she unlocked it to let us in.

“Hey,” I said, not letting her go in just yet. She turned to me with a smile, drawing me closer with the hand I was gripping. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she asked, placing a soft kiss on my lips.

I took her face in both of my hands, rubbed the length of my nose against hers. “I’ll never do that again, I promise. Because I never expected to find something like this. To feel like this.” Adele drew her head back, clearly surprised by my declaration. I didn’t think she was any closer than I was to being ready to say those other words, but I’d give her everything I could. “I mean it. You’ve got me, Adele. And I’ll protect your heart, always give you a safe place.”

“That’s good,” she said with a shaky voice, resting her hands on top of mine where they still cupped her cheeks. “Because if anyone could catch me when I fall, it should be the one I’m falling for.”

I wrapped her in my arms, and we stood in that dark, cold stairwell, me holding her, her holding me, until the snow stopped.





Chapter Thirty-Five





Three Months Later



I pulled my car into the garage and didn’t get out right away, just taking a minute to not have an incredibly unprofessional freak-out. I’m talking full on yelling, screaming, bouncing off the walls celebration. Instead I kept my hands on the steering wheel and grinned, imagining Adele’s reaction when I went inside and told her.

Harvard. I was going to teach at mother fucking Harvard.

She was going to lose it.

When I’d pulled in the driveway, I saw a light on in the family room, so I knew she’d let herself in with the key I had given her about a month prior. For all intents and purposes she lived with me, only spending about one night a week at her apartment, since I was technically still an employee of Northern University, and she was a student there, regardless of the fact that she was no longer in classes I taught. So we kept it low key—driving out of town when we wanted go out, her maintaining the lease on her apartment and me making a point not to look her direction if we passed each other on campus.

But in four months’ time, we’d be able to do whatever the hell we wanted. I let out a relieved laugh and opened the door to go in.

God, what a relief. What a fucking relief. She’d be thrilled. No more being careful, no more wondering whose eyes were on us.

I tried to open the door, but it was locked. Hmm. Using my key to turn the deadbolt, I called her name when I walked in. But only silence greeted me.

“Adele?” I said again, a little louder. The kitchen was clean, a miracle when she’d been home by herself. On the island was the vintage Smith-Corona typewriter I’d bought her for Christmas. With a shake of my head, I pulled the cream colored paper out and brought it close enough to read.



I’ve been a very bad girl. You’d better come find me and see what I’ve done.



-A





That was the thing about living with Adele, or … sort of living with her, I guess. The number of times I’d come to home to find her in the mood to play still boggled my mind. I could feel myself harden, and I dropped my coat and car keys on the counter. My shoes stayed behind too, as I didn’t want her to hear me coming. I was just starting to loosen my tie when I passed my office and froze.

“Fucking hell, Adele.”

She was leaning against my desk, a tiny red plaid skirt barely covering her and a white cropped button-down tied just underneath a red lace bra that could hardly contain her breasts. She wore thick-framed glasses and had smoothed her hair into long blonde pigtails on either side of her face. White thigh-high stockings that tied with a red bow covered her legs, and on her feet were those red heels. The ones that I sometimes saw in my dreams.

I braced my hands on the doorway and we drank each other in.

“What have we here?” I said, finally walking toward her.

She blinked up at me, face painted with comical innocence. “Professor Easton, I was so naughty.”

With one finger, I traced the skin from the base of her throat and over the firm skin of her tits. “Is that so?”

Adele nodded, biting her lip and thrusting her chest toward me. “I don’t know what came over me. I started looking through your computer and found some … things.”

I hummed, using one hand to untie the knot on her shirt, the other to carefully pull the glasses off her perfect face. “What’d you find, little girl?”