Page 20 of Pleasuring Professor Pisces
“I don’t know how to trust, Salem. I’ve been burned too many times.”
“Is that the real reason? Or is it just in your nature?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Distrust of people is the Pisces nature, which makes it difficult for others to trust you. I’ll bet you don’t even trust your damn self.”
“I trust myself.”
He scoffed and squeezed my hand. “You trust yourself to be open to changing your mind and emotions at a whim, depending on how the tide flows, huh?”
“You make me sound flighty.”
“Nah. I just understand who you are.”
“Impossible when you don’t really know me.”
“Like you, sweetheart, I’m highly intuitive and empathetic toward other people’s pain and suffering, so I get it.”
“What’s your zodiac sign?”
“Scorpio.”
“That explains the stubbornness.”
He laughed. “I’m not stubborn. I’m just persistent, and that comes from life experience.”
“Salem, I love the rush that I feel when I’m with you. It makes me giddy and delirious like a little child, but I have to try to hold on to some semblance of reality, though it might be hard. The reality is that if I engage with you, someone will notice. I cannot afford another scandal or rumor.”
He licked his lips and leaned closer. “You can’t afford not to engage with me. You wanna know why?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re about to miss out on the love of a lifetime. You won’t find a more passionate, dedicated, and faithful lover than me, baby girl. I can promise you that.”
“Yeah, but Scorpios are known to be obsessive, manipulative, jealous, and violent too.”
He scooted his chair around the table and beside mine. Wrapping his arm around my shoulders, he whispered to me. “You’re right. I’m obsessed with the feel and taste of your pussy. I ain’t never had to manipulate no one for shit, because I keep it real. If you ain’t fucking around with no other niggas, I have no reason to be jealous. As far as violence is concerned, I’m guilty. Don’t make me jealous, and you ain’t gotta be worried about getting no niggas fucked up. I want you, Pisces.
“Rationalize that shit however you need to in your head, but trust and believe that you’re going to be mine. So, yeah. Maybe I am stubborn, pretty baby.”
Salem moved back to his side of the table, but that didn’t lower my heartbeat or stop my leg from jumping underneath the table. I was growing warm, and my scalp felt prickly. Salem gripped my hand tight in his.
“Chill ya anxious ass out. No one’s gonna figure out what we’ve got going on. And if they do, so the fuck what? I’m not the one running and complaining about you. They gotta ask my ass if you was harassing me first. The fuck you think I’m gon’ say?”
This was another side of him that I had not seen before. He was bossy, in charge, and all street edge. I liked this side of him, but I knew that I couldn’t afford to feel any type of way about him.
“It’s the principle of the matter, Salem. Aside from the possibility of me losing my job, you have a lot to lose too. You’re putting your academic career at jeopardy. If they put you on academic probation, you have to consider how that will affect you.”
“Listen, graduation is right around the corner. I ain’t worried about that shit.”
“All the more reason you need to be careful these next several weeks.”
“I got a handle on this.”
“This what?”
“This thing between you and me.”
