Page 105 of The Longest Shot
Danger! Predator approaching!
Also, extremely aroused!
Confused, send help!
Or don’t!
Actually, definitely don’t! We'll take our chances!
“Help me?” My voice cracks like I’m thirteen again, standing in front of the entire eighth grade with an unfortunate erection during my history presentation.
Her smile deepens, something wickedly amused dancing in her eyes. “Your sociology final is tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I?—”
“And you need to ace it.”
Not a question, but I nod anyway. The weight of it sits heavy, because even with Galloway’s restrictions suspended, I need this. I need to prove to myself, to my team, and to her that I’m more than just the loud idiot who makes everyone laugh when things get too serious.
I have to prove I can do this.
“Good.” She glides to her coffee table, where a sociology textbook sits. “Then we’re going to study.”
"OK…" I say.
“But,” she adds, turning to face me fully, her weight shifting in a way that makes her hips do something X-rated, “we’re going to make it interesting.”
My brain immediately supplies about seventeen different interpretations of ‘interesting,’ each more pornographic than the last. “Interesting?”
She picks up the textbook, flipping to a marked page without looking, her eyes holding mine. “For every question you answer correctly, you get a reward.”
The word ‘reward’ from her mouth hits like a promise wrapped in barbed wire, dangerous but impossible to resist. And I’m suddenly, viscerally aware of how her fitted blazer traces curves that haunt my dreams, and how the late-afternoon light sets her hair on fire.
“What kind of reward?” My voice comes out rough, like I’ve been gargling gravel and bad decisions.
Instead of answering, she shifts straight into professor mode. “What is Durkheim’s primary argument about the function of deviance in society?”
The question is like a bucket of ice water poured over my libido. My brain, which two seconds ago was calculating the exact shade of her lips, has to execute an emergency pivot back to academia. I scramble through mental files, dodging panic like it’s a defender. “Uh…”
"Youknowthis, James," she chides. "I guess you don't want your reward…"
“Deviance serves to… to clarify moral boundaries." I grin, like I've just conquered Everest or won the Stanley Cup. "It defines what’s acceptable by showing what isn’t. Like how we only appreciate normal because we see what fucked up looks like.”
“Good.”
The approval in her voice shoots straight to my dick. Academic validation should not be this arousing, but here we are, breaking new ground in educational kinks I didn’t know existed. But any further exploration of that theme dies when she reaches up and slowly, deliberately, shrugs off her blazer.
Yep, in no universe did I expect to see Morgan doing a striptease.
The blazer slides down her arms in slow-motion, revealing a crisp white blouse that’s suddenly the most erotic piece of clothing ever created. She drapes it over her couch, every movement deliberate, controlled, and specifically designed to murder me via sexual frustration.
“Next question,” she says, as casual as discussing the weather. “Explain Marx’s concept of alienation under capitalism.”
It takes three attempts to remember that words exist and I’m theoretically capable of producing them. She’s standing there in her blouse and slacks, utterly composed while I’m having what feels like a cardiac event, but eventually I spit out the answer.
“Workers become… alienated from the product of their labor,” I manage. “They don’t control what they make or how they make it. They’re just selling their time, not creating anything meaningful. I sympathize, because I'm currently experiencing that exact alienation from my ability to form thoughts.”
“Very good.” Her fingers move to the top button of her blouse. "Two from two, it seems…"
