by Linda Kage
“I’m having some right now.” And they were totally freaking me out, but fuck, I really liked watching her perfect, too-pure mouth forming dirty words. It was like some awful, humiliating sickness. I wanted her to do it again.
Say bitch again. Please. Just one more time.
But she didn’t.
“Good.” Her stare was direct. Knowing. “Let me guess. You’re feeling frustration. Anger. Hate.”
“Uh...” I lifted an eyebrow. Close, but not quite.
“That’s perfectly fine. You can use those. Make them bond with someone in this book and tell me all about it.”
As her words sank in, I frowned. Something hot and seeking inside me melted. Defeat. “How?” I asked quietly, feeling like a complete idiot because I still didn’t understand, would probably never understand.
She blinked. “What do you mean how? If you’re really frustrated, mad, and full of hatred for me right now, write about it, explain why, then explain where someone in the story shares these same sentiments and why they experienced them. Make the two one and the same. Bash me all you want on paper, just show me that correlation I want to see, and I will give you a better score.”
I snorted and shook my head. No way. No effing way. “I just don’t get why I have to write about my fucking feelings?”
She let out a frustrated growl, which only turned me on more. “So I know you understand the story and what happened.”
“Well, I didn’t understand the story. Goddamn it. I told you. I have nothing in common with—”
“Yes, you do!” she roared back, smacking both her palms on top of her desk before pushing to her feet to glare at me. “Everyone on the planet has at least one thing in common with at least one character in that story. Now go prove it!”
Seething, I just glared at her.
She closed her eyes and rubbed at the center of her head. “Okay,” she mumbled as if giving up the fight.
When she licked her lips, I almost lost it. Christ, this was getting embarrassing. Her mouth was going to be my downfall. If she asked me, I would probably take her on her nice, clean desk right then and there. I could so clearly see myself tossing her down, gathering up her frumpy skirt, wedging myself between her thighs and just hammering it home.
I also wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and strangle her for making me feel like such an idiot.
It probably wasn’t healthy to have two such drastic emotions roaring through me at the same moment, but there they were. Absolutely roaring.
The good professor sank back into her chair. “How about this? I’ll make your paper as easy as I can on you.”
Yeah, just cater to the idiot. I glanced away, my jaw knitting with mutiny. “I don’t need—” Damn it. Yes, I did. It’s why I was here, because I needed help.
“I’ll give you a theme to use. So...let’s pick a theme. Any theme.” Her eyes opened, the lines in her skin around them deeper than before. “Greed? Power?” She lifted her hands as she shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you feel whenever you play football?”
My face heated with outrage. “Oh, thanks a lot. I like how you mentioned my football right after saying greed and power.” Leaning ominously over the desk to glare, I poked my index finger into my own chest. “You think my entire reason for being on this campus is just some greedy, selfish power trip? Well, you don’t know shit, lady. You don’t know me at all.”
She pulled back in her chair, her green eyes huge as they blinked rapidly. Finally, she glanced away and her tongue darted out to wet her lips. Yeah, yeah, the move made my dick pulse with gluttonous need, but I was too pissed to care. At the moment, I hated what she was doing to my ego more.
In a much calmer voice, she murmured, “I’m sorry if I offended you,” which totally shocked the shit out of me and made me back up a step to sink into my chair and gawk back. “But I honestly have no idea what football is to you. So, why don’t you tell me? One word. What is football...to you?”
My breathing came hard as I glanced down at my fisted hand in my lap. “Desperation,” I said without meaning to.
Shit. Why had I said that? It was the honest-to-God truth. But why would I confess it? To her?
When I dared to glance up, I was surprised to find she looked equally startled. Her mouth had fallen open. “I…” She blinked, her eyes wide with shock. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
Turning my gaze away, I ripped my hand through my hair and cursed silently. “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to.”
Amusement lined her voice. “And yet I have a feeling it’s the most honest thing you’ve said since you stepped inside my office.”
My glower swerved back to her, but she merely lifted that damn challenging eyebrow of hers, daring me to contradict her.
Hissing out a breath, I slumped deeper into my seat. “So, what do I do with the theme of desperation then?”
Seemingly eager all the sudden, Dr. Kavanagh sat forward, her eyes lighting with an excited gleam. “Well, now is the easy part. You find a part in the story where someone feels desperate, on edge, as if nothing is under his or her own control. Explain why, then tell me how you understand this emotion and how you can relate to it by listing all the reasons you feel or have felt desperate, on edge, and like nothing is under your control.”
That should be easy. I felt that way most every day. About everything. Hell, I was feeling that way right now, about her. But still...
Closing my eyes, I whispered, “Christ.” The woman might as well ask me to bare my soul to her. Opening my lashes, I shot her a frown. “And you don’t have any qualms over the fact this assignment is utterly intrusive and infringes on a person’s privacy?”
She beamed. “None whatsoever.” Her bright smile threw me off guard. It was…lovely.
Hmm. Strange. Dr. Kavanagh had a lovely smile. It took my breath away and left me reeling.
I didn’t mean for it to happen, but my lips quirked in reluctant admiration. “You’re kind of evil, Professor.”
That seemed to please her. She straightened her back and preened. “Hey, I bet I just nudged you into writing the best damn paper you’ve ever written.”
Damn, I loved the way she said damn.
This time, I chuckled. I liked how she kept shocking me today. She acted so prim and proper in class, as if a curse word had never left her saintly lips.
“Maybe,” I murmured, looking at her in a new light. “We’ll see. How soon do you need it?”
“As soon as possible.”
I rolled my eyes. “No pressure or anything.” With a sigh, I pushed to my feet. “Okay, Dr. Kavanagh. I will have the best damn paper I’ve ever written in your hands as soon as possible.”
“Excellent.” She stood as well. “That’s all I ask.”
Jesus. She was a snarky little thing. I didn’t want to dig that. But I totally dug that.
I hesitated, and an awkward impasse passed between us. If she had been a man, I probably would’ve held out my hand to shake and thanked her for the second chance she’d just given me. Hell, if she’d been an older woman, or maybe just any other woman, I might’ve done the same thing. But with her, right then, it felt…forbidden. Naughty.
Hard-ass, straight-laced teacher or not, there was something about the soft curve of her porcelain pale face with an almost invisible splash of freckles dusting her cheeks and nose to go with her succulent lips that stirred me. I instinctively knew I should never touch her.
She must’ve sensed my unease because she shifted and cleared her throat, not making eye contact. “Well, then. I assume that’s all you need.”
“Yeah.” With a single bob of the head, I murmured, “Thanks.” I turned, but just before I left the small room crammed with shelves of books, I paused and glanced back. “And I’m, you know, sorry...about calling you a bitch earlier.”
This time, both of her trim, dark eyebrows lifted. She pressed a hand against the center of her chest. “What? You’re rescinding what might possibly be th
e nicest compliment I’ve received from a student all semester?”
I snorted out a laugh but nodded. “Yeah, I am. It was rude and undeserving. And I apologize.”
Her lashes responded by beating in overtime against the tops of her cheeks. When moisture glistened like a fine sheen over her green eyes, I panicked. Shit, I didn’t want to make her cry.
But wow. Who knew I could actually make the hard-ass, expressionless Dr. Kavanagh cry? She must not be nearly as tough as she put herself out there to be. It made me wonder just how soft she could get.
Which was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She held it together, thank God, and nodded. “Apology accepted,” she murmured as she motioned toward the door to let me know I was excused.
Wavering another second, I studied her delicate features, still amazed she was old enough to be a college professor. If she didn’t act so hoity-toity and wore such frumpy clothes, I probably would’ve mistaken her for an underclassman and hit on her by now. I wouldn’t have stopped my pursuit either, not until she gave in and let me have a piece of her, because my type or not, there was something about her that drew me in.
“How old are you?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Shit. Why had I just asked that? It made no difference what age my teacher was.
Lifting her eyebrows with what was either irritation or amusement—I couldn’t quite tell—she murmured, “None of your business,” in a low voice packed with heated sensuality.
It stirred every hormone inside me, even though I knew she hadn’t meant it to.
I shook myself free of the generating lust and muttered, “Right.” It was time to get out of here. Now.
***
“Quotable quotes are coins rubbed smooth by circulation.” - Louis Menand
***
~ASPEN~
Noel Gamble turned away and was about out of the door of my office when he paused and glanced at my quote board. A pincushion of cork for all my thumbtacks to hold up Post-it notes and scraps of paper, my quote board was full of sayings from books I had collected over the years.
Slowing to a stop, he studied some of the quotes I had accumulated. “What’s this?”
No one had ever asked me that before.
I ducked my hot face, feeling suddenly shy. But it felt like he was scanning a piece of my soul. Still unsettled by how he’d asked how old I was, I mumbled, “It’s nothing. Just my quote board.”
He glanced back, and the curiosity in his blue eyes sizzled my insides.
I cleared my throat. “When I read a line from a story I like, I tack it up there.” It was kind of my thing.
“Hmm.” He lifted his hand to slip aside one of the newer quotes to read one of the older ones hidden behind it. When he gave a low chuckle, my hormones jackknifed into immediate awareness. God, his laugh was stirring. “That’s a good one.”
Since I had no idea which one he was referring to, I didn’t respond. Then again, I considered all of them good since I’d taken the time to put them there, so I probably couldn’t help but agree.
He glanced back. “‘Sometimes the questions are complicated but the answers are simple.’”
That had to be the deepest thing anyone had ever said to me. But what did he mean? Was he referring to my assignment? Did he think I’d made it too convoluted? Should I work on my teaching approach?
I cleared my throat. “Excuse me?”
He flushed slightly and turned back to the quote board to tap the Post-its. “It’s Dr. Seuss. Another quote you could add.”
“O-oh. Thanks. That...that’s actually an excellent one.” And it was. It really was. Strange.
Noel gifted me with the hint of a smile. Then he ducked his face and headed from the room.
Once he was gone, I felt bereft. Setting my hand over my heart, I sank back into my chair and blew out a long, shaky breath. Okay, so my crush on a student had just grown to epic proportions. Wonder what my flawless, judgmental mother would have to say about that?
CHAPTER FOUR
"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun.'" -Groucho Marx
~NOEL~
Tenning was loitering in the kitchen when I came through the front door of our apartment. As I kicked it shut behind me, he appeared in the opening next to the breakfast bar, barefoot and shirtless with his track pants hanging low around his hips. He only had to look at my face to know something was up.
A smug leer spread across his features. “So...how’d your meeting with Kavanagh go?”
I sent him my best fuck you glare and dropped my bag heavily on the floor before slumping spine-first onto the couch. “Feels like I just had an hour-long session with a head shrink. I swear to God, who knew literature was all about feelings and emotions? God damn.”
Tenning chuckled. “So, is she going to let you rewrite a new paper or what?”
“Actually, yeah. Freaky, huh? But only because her boss has a hard-on for me or something and forced her to give me a second chance.”
“Really? Did you have to go down on him to make that happen?” Tenning leaned against the wall and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“What?” Swiping up a throw pillow that had been lumped behind my head, I threw it at him as hard as I could. “Jesus, Ten. You’re such a crude asshole, and you completely annoy me.”
Catching the cushion to his chest, he snickered. “Damn, I love you too, babe. Hey, I bet if you offered to teach the dyke to bat for the right team, she’d change your grade to an A without you having to worry about writing another paper for the rest of the semester.”
I sighed and decided to ignore him or he’d only get worse. But the douche had hit a nerve. If he ever realized I actually thought about her in that way, he’d never let me live it down. Talk about utter humiliation.
Focusing my attention on the ceiling, I noticed a new water stain growing in the corner. Swell. The worst part was I couldn’t mention the leak to our landlord or he’d just raise our rent again, as he had this winter when we’d asked him to fix the central heating system. Repairs aren’t free, he’d said.
“Hey, quit daydreaming about banging your teacher, dickwad.” Ten kicked my feet off the end of the couch as he passed, making his way toward the hallway that led down to our separate rooms. “It’s ladies’ night. We got work to do. I call dibs on the shower first.”
I groaned, completely having forgotten what day it was. Every Thursday was ladies’ night at Forbidden, the bar where both Ten and I worked. That meant only the male employees had to clock in, and since all five of us guys were bartenders, some of us had to switch over and play waiter for the evening.
My tips went through the roof when I waited tables on ladies’ night, but damn, drunk women could get freaking frisky. Not that I didn’t mind a little grab-ass from a table full of cute co-eds. But after a couple hours of it, my butt cheeks grew chaffed.
And that was only from the women who went for the back door. I’d taken to wearing a cup a couple months back due to all the hungry hands grabbing my junk.
Yeah, it was that insane.
An hour later, I was following Ten out the door, decked out in a tight black T-shirt and blue jeans, which was the regulation uniform for the men of Forbidden. Since I didn’t own my own set of wheels, I climbed into the passenger seat of Ten’s truck as he slid behind the wheel.
Five minutes later, we parked across the street from the nightclub and took a minute to stare at the quiet building before slipping out of the truck. In an hour, the place would be banging, and the peace we had now would be no more. But...it paid the bills and helped me send home some extra funds to Caroline so she could pay those bills too.
“You ready for this?” I asked, pushing open my door.
Ten snickered. “I was born ready, motherfucker.” As he followed me to the front door, I shook my head, wondering if he’d ever not been able to come up with some po
litically incorrect answer to any question a person asked him.
After unlocking the door and slipping inside, I glanced around the interior for the other three guys who were supposed to work tonight.
“Where is everyone?” Ten and I were rarely the first to arrive, and we weren’t even running early.
“Well, Pick’s always late,” Ten said, taking a chair off the first table he saw and tucking it upright underneath. “And the twins are...” He glanced around and scratched his head. “Huh. The twins are never late. Where the fuck are the twins?”
As if answering his question, the door to the manager’s office opened, and the owner of Forbidden’s oldest daughter, Jessie, strolled out followed by a stranger—a dark-haired guy, my age, about the same height and size...which could mean only one thing.
New employee. One of my coworkers must’ve quit.
“Fuck,” Ten growled, mirroring my thoughts, before he lifted his voice and called across the empty bar. “Yo, Jess. Where’s Huey and Louie?” The twins were actually named Heath and Landon, but Ten tended to assign everyone his own nickname.
Jess had never been an Oren Tenning fan, so she narrowed him a harsh glower. “Where do you think? They quit. Probably didn’t want to work with your punk ass anymore. Here’s his replacement. Someone show him what to do.”
With that, she turned away and started back into the office.
“Hey,” Ten called after her. “What about the other one?”
Jessie paused and glanced back to arch one intimidating eyebrow. “Other one what?”
“This place is going to be overrun within an hour, woman. We need at least five guys working tonight, not three and some clueless newbie. Are you seriously just going to replace both the twins with this one douche?”
The clueless newbie douche in question sent him a sidelong look that seemed more amused than insulted by the remark while Jess hissed with aggravation.
“Yeah, I am. So show him what to do.” With that, she slammed back into her office, leaving the three of us alone in the bar.
“She totally wants me.” Ten sniffed knowingly at the closed door, while I sighed and set my hands on my hips, taking in the new guy.