Page 66 of His to Teach
I sit up straight, eager to hear what he wants from me. Eager to see where, exactly, he’s going to take this game I started.
“The kind of extra credit I’m offering is of a more personal nature,” he says calmly. “I have certain…needs. If you would be willing to help me satisfy those needs, I would be happy to change your grade.” When I don’t answer, he grins. “Oh, don’t sit there all high and mighty. You’re in college now. You must know how the world works. You need something I have. I want something you have.” His eyes slowly travel down from my face to the breasts hidden by my slim fitting pink sweater. “It’s simply an exchange.”
His gaze lights me on fire, heat spreading over every inch that his eyes travel. And his words are filling me with a crazy need, a desire to completely throw all caution to the wind. I know that I’ll do whatever he wants, whatever the consequences might be. I just don’t care. I want him.
“Now you have a choice to make,” he continues, his voice a dangerous whisper, and I fight off a shiver. “You can meet me in the supply closet in five minutes, or you can fail my class and lose your scholarship. Just think of how disappointed that would make everyone.”
I have a flash of Mason on the phone this morning, talking about how proud my parents would be, and I feel sick. I squeezemy eyes shut, trying to force it away. I don’t want to think about that, not right now. I just want to forget. I just want to pretend.
Nate must mistake my reaction as part of the game because he leans a little closer, letting his fingers trail over my knee under the table. “The closet is right over there, Miss Cain,” he says softly. I open my eyes and see that he’s pointing to a door just next to the restrooms, in a much more noisy and bustling section of the library. “I’m going to head in there and look for some…paperclips. If you join me, great. If not, your grade remains the same.”
Then he stands, leaving me sitting alone at the little table.
HARPER
Sitting here is torture. The images of what might happen when I walk into that closet are vivid in my mind. Having sex with Nate, here at school, where our relationship is strictly off limits. And in a public place. Where anyone might hear us…or even walk in. It’s almost painful, how turned on I am by the thought.
I look up at the clock. Three of my five minutes are up. I want to draw it out a little, leave him waiting, maybe wondering if I’m going to go through with it. But I can’t just sit here anymore. Nate is in there and I want him more than I want air in my lungs. He’s the only person who can silence the hurricane of emotions I’ve been feeling all day.
I stand on shaky legs, my eyes darting around the room. No one is watching. I grab my bag, crossing quickly to the closet and finding the door unlocked. Taking a deep breath, I turn the handle and step into the darkness.
“Took you long enough,” his voice says from somewhere inside. “Teacher is going to have to punish you for your tardiness.”
Before my eyes adjust enough to find him, hands grip my hips and pull me away from the door. I can’t help but let out alittle squeal, surprised in spite of myself. Nate moves around me and I can feel him in the darkness, his body warm and hard as he reaches back to lock the closet door.
“That’s better,” he mutters, then pulls on the dangling string above my head. The closet fills with harsh light.
“Couldn’t we keep that off?” I ask, squinting at him in the sudden brightness. He kept the glasses on.Score.
Nate snorts. “Wanna pretend like this is something else? No such luck, Miss Cain. You’re about to screw your professor in the closet at your school’s library to get a better grade. There’s no sugarcoating that.”
Hot fire rushes through my core at his words. I love that he’s playing along, that he’s taking my game seriously. God, all I want is to get lost in this, to get lost in him. And Nate realized that, just by looking at me. He knows exactly what I need.
To my horror, a lump comes to my throat and I struggle to swallow, not wanting him to see. But of course he does. He reaches out a hand, brushing it along my jaw, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just watches me in that dark, intense way of his, like he’s waiting for something. I swallow a few more times before taking a deep breath, straightening my shoulders. I’m ready.
He grins, just for a second, before his face turns haughty once more. Back in character. Ready to play.
“You never know,” he continues, as if we’d never paused. “You might even enjoy this. I have been told I give girls like you a pretty good time.”
“So you do this on a regular basis?” I ask, willing myself to fall into it, to get lost. “Take advantage of desperate girls?”
“Not regularly, no. Only when the girl in question has already been driving me crazy.”
I look at him, widening my eyes in mock surprise. “I’ve been driving you crazy?”
“Oh, like you didn’t know,” he says, a tinge of what I think might be real frustration in his voice. “Waltzing around my lecture hall in that damn short skirt, getting lost in daydreams and spending an hour running your tongue over those plump lips. Looking up at me with that lost little girl expression. You knew exactly what you were doing to me.”
There’s something in his eyes that tells me that this part, at least, isn’t all pretend. My knees suddenly feel shaky, everything becoming more real to me. “I didn’t,” I whisper. “I swear I didn’t.”
He stays exactly where he is, watching me. “You’re a fucking tease, Miss Cain. The least you can do is admit it.”
His words send a little rush of shame through me, even though I know they’re an act. And that shame, in turn, brings a delicious heat to my cheeks, my chest. It turns me on so much when he talks to me like this, when he’s demeaning.
There was a time when that scared me, the desire to feel degraded. When it made me feel bad about myself, made me doubt all my desires. But with Nate, I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to feel bad about anything. Because he sees everything there is in me, the powerful and the shameful. And he likes it all.
The expression on his face is so predatory that I have to look away, fear mixing in with the shame in a heady combination. Instead I glance around the sparse room. It’s dingy, depressing. The bare bulb above us has seen better days—it swings lightly in the air from the vent above, flickering weakly at random intervals. The walls are covered with metal shelves, each containing a variety of office supplies. Several boxes of printer paper are stacked tall in front of the far wall.
And it turns me on even more. That we’re going to do this in a dirty, dingy little room. That we can still hear the sounds of the library right outside the door, students and teachers mere feet away.
