“Thank you,” I said with a nod and settled back in my chair again. “Obviously I had no idea who you were last week. I don’t make a habit of frequenting that bar, or any other for that matter, and I certainly don’t make a habit of…” she lifted an eyebrow when I cleared my throat, “fraternizing with students. My point is that I’ll give you my word that one night will in no way affect my ability to treat you fairly as a student. I’ll forget it ever happened if you can do the same.”
What her reaction would be to that, I hadn’t really given much thought to, because it wasn’t a speech I was making for her benefit. I meant it. Adele Morello was one blip during the course of the last few years. I wasn’t willing to let her, and the few explosive hours we shared together, hold any level of importance over my life. She was young, probably twenty or twenty-one, and she’d find another diversion quickly enough.
Suffice it to say, I was mildly surprised when her reaction wasn’t to smile and nod, or make some cheeky comment. Oh no, she stared at me like she was trying to siphon my soul out of my body, and then turned in a smooth circle to quietly close and lock my office door.
Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.
She was one of those girls, one that any sort of challenge would be as good as waving the proverbial scarlet flag in front of the bull. And the look in her eyes when she turned back to face me?
I was fucked. Literally, if it was up to her, judging by the way she raked her gaze over my upper body.
“Unlock the door, Miss Morello.”
She hummed, drawing the tip of one finger around the top button of her shirt.
“Unlock the door,” I said quietly, keeping my eyes trained on her face. “Now.”
“No,” she said simply, unhooking the button and using her finger to pull aside the white cotton and trace circles on the newly exposed skin.
I rubbed at my forehead, the only sign of weariness I would allow her to see, then dragged the hand down my face, holding it over my mouth for a moment while I looked at her. “This isn’t a game.”
Still, she didn’t move from her perch in front of the door. Her face softened a touch when I said that, but the resolve in her eyes never wavered. Finally I stood, praying to anyone that would listen that I wouldn’t have to physically remove her from my office. But no matter how well I knew my hands fit on her body—on some really excellent parts, too—she was not worth my job.
I came to a stop just in front of her, motioning for her to step aside. She moved all right, stepping up against me and smoothing her hands up my chest. I grabbed her wrists to halt their movement, stupidly not taking them off me altogether.
“I don’t think it’s a game either,” she whispered, lifting up onto the balls of her feet so her mouth angled toward mine. I moved my head back when she came close enough that I could feel her breath on my skin. The hairs on the back of my neck lifted and tightened at her proximity, and I felt horribly powerless at the memories that assaulted me from the last time we’d been this close, the way she’d clutched at my skin with her hands. “In fact, I’m being perfectly serious when I tell you that I couldn’t forget that night even if I wanted to. The way you felt inside me, the bruises that you left me with.”
I closed my eyes, tightening the grip on her fragile wrists, wishing I could shove bricks in my ears just so I wouldn’t have to hear those words, feel what they did to me. Adele felt my hesitation and tipped her face forward so she could brush her lips against the corner of my jaw.
The soft touch of her lips snapped me into the present and I shoved her far enough away from me so that I could unlock the door and open it. Thank God the hallway was quiet. She was staring down at the front of my pants with a sly smile on her face.
Come on, any man would be hard after that.
With a careless shrug, Adele slipped her bag over her shoulder and then closed up the button she’d undone earlier.
“See you in class, Professor Easton.”
And then she was gone.
Chapter Six
I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t let me kiss him.
Three days later and I was still hung up on the fact that he’d all but shoved me out of his office and slammed the door in my face.
I knew I hadn’t misread his clear attraction to me the Friday night before, and even as he told me to leave his office on Monday, there was no mistaking the bulge in his pants.
I plopped into my favorite seat of the campus coffee shop I worked at: in the back corner, away from the number of fuckwads who decided the shop was the perfect place to show off their pathetic attempts at flirting. In the back I was almost completely obscured by the napkin dispensers and therefore often left alone.