Page 73 of Loved

I looked down at her hand. My heart was racing so fast. She was about to tell me why she was crying earlier. And I could only think of one thing. She got nervous in class. So…she talked to Professor McCarty after class was dismissed. When the two of them were alone. And I knew what I always wanted to do when I was alone with Penny. She was beautiful. Alluring. Sweet. So fucking sweet. I clenched my jaw.

"It's okay,” I said. “I want you to tell me." I needed to know what that old prick had done. If he had touched one hair on her body, I was going to fucking kill him.

Chapter 20

Friday

Penny blinked fast, holding back her tears.

It felt like there was a knife in my chest, slowly twisting.Tell me what happened. Put me out of my misery.

"So, I waited till class was over and went up to ask him what the assignment was. He pulled out the paper that it was on and asked me to come behind his desk so he could explain it to me.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“I had never really talked to him before. I sit in the back row. I usually get As on all my papers and tests. I never had any reason to talk to him."

I know, baby. Fucking hell, just tell me.I ran my thumb up and down each of her fingers, trying to distract myself from my racing heart.

"He put his hand on my back when I went behind his desk. I didn't know what to do. I thought he was just being nice. I felt kind of frozen.”

Breathe.

“I thanked him for the extra credit assignment and told him I had another class to get to.”

I felt like I was slowly dying. I could picture the scene so easily in my head.Breathe.

“But he said he thought we might be able to work out some kind of arrangement that would be better.”

Breathe.

“And he put his hand on my ass.”

All I could see was red. I was going to fucking kill him.

“And I didn't know what to do. I told him to stop. I eventually slapped him. But he grabbed my wrist. He said he had more connections than you at the university, so it would be more worth my time.”

He was a dead man. Did I look like a guy who needed to prey on students getting bad grades? He’d leapt to the wrong conclusion about Penny. And now he’d never get another chance to jump to a conclusion again.

“I told him that I was going to report him to the dean. But he said that if I told Mr. Vespelli, he'd say I had come on to him. Somehow he knew I had two strikes. He knew I'd be expelled if I got in trouble again."

I dropped Penny’s hand and sat up. "Did you want to stay here or do you want me to drop you off at the apartment?" I got off her bed and pulled on my shoes.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to go pay your professor a visit."Don’t you remember when Tyler touched you? I really enjoyed breaking his nose.I couldn’t wait to rearrange Professor McCarty’s ugly old mug.

"James, I don't want you to do anything to Professor McCarty. That wasn't why I told you about it. I need to know what to do. I can't go back to that class."

"He touched you,” I seethed. This wasn’t up for negotiation.

"And I slapped him."

I shook my head.That’s not good enough."I'm going to kill him."

"James!"

"He shouldn't have touched you!"

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