Page 2 of Hot for Teacher
Ninety-two percent.
“Nice work, Mr. Adler.”
Another tingle of warmth went through Chase, and he grabbed his paper, his cheeks hot. “Thank you, sir.”
Burke held on to the test for a moment, leaving both their hands suspended over the desk, their fingers a hairbreadth away from touching. “You’ve been one of my top students this semester, did you know that?”
Chase shook his head.
“Even though you never once raised your hand.”
Chase didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.
Burke released his hold on the exam.
Chase tucked it against his chest, and then they were both silent. Chase should thank him again, tuck his paper away, and leave. But he stood here, waiting. He didn’t even know what he was waiting for. Something more, maybe. Something like that clipped “good” only … better.
He was standing, and Burke—ProfessorBurke—was seated. It should make him less intimidating, but it didn’t. Not at all. Chase was hyperaware of the size of him. His height. The breadth of his shoulders. All Chase’s own muscles, hard-earned from years of sports, seemed somehow inconsequential in comparison.
After a long moment, Professor Burke’s gaze … changed. His lids lowered, and his eyes darkened. They were already a deep sort of blue, and now they looked practically black. The heavy pheromones in the room deepened—sweetened—and Chase’s heartbeat sped up.
Professor Burke knew what Chase was waiting for, didn’t he?
It relaxed something in Chase, even as his heart raced like crazy in his chest. Professor Burke would tell Chase what he was waiting for. Chase only had to wait a little longer.
But in the next breath, the moment passed. Professor Burke sat back in his chair, letting out a slow exhale. The pheromones in the room went back to normal—maybe Chase had imagined that they’d changed at all. “You’re free to go, Mr. Adler.”
It wasn’t a suggestion.
Chase nodded his thanks, unable to muster the words. He walked out of the office, test still in hand, not sure why he felt so strangely bereft. Whatever he’d been waiting for from Burke, he wasn’t going to get it. That was their final exam he’d just completed. The class was over.
It was time to push the imposing alpha professor firmly out of his mind.
But still, as he made his way out of the mathematics building, Chase couldn’t help sniffing at his sweatshirt.
He smelled like leather. Leather and sweet cherries.
1
Chase
Hair still damp from his shower, Chase came out of his bedroom to hear his roommates arguing in the kitchen.
Or more like Spencer was nagging and Noah wasn’t being quite as forgiving as usual.
It wasn’t totally unheard of—stick two alphas and a beta in close quarters for the school year and sometimes tempers were going to rise, no matter how much they loved one another—but it was rare for it to be at this level before the semester even began.
Chase reached up to adjust a baseball cap he wasn’t wearing, then dropped his arm. Time to play peacekeeper, he supposed.
“C’mon,” he could hear Spencer saying. “You make ’em the best.”
“Dude. They’re scrambled fucking eggs. How do I make them better than anyone else?”
Chase shuffled into the kitchen of their three-bedroom apartment—paid for oh so generously by his parents, not that they’dever set foot inside the place—and found the two alphas in question facing off over a frying pan. They were dressed similarly, in sweats and T-shirts, but otherwise they were as different as two alphas could be, other than them both being annoyingly hot.
Spencer, tall and lean, had his dark hair artfully tousled in a way that was pretending to be haphazard but most definitely wasn’t (Chase knew for a fact the guy used at least three different hair products). He was making an outraged face that just barely flashed his tongue piercing.
Noah, just as tall as Spencer but built more broadly, with loose blond curls that actuallywerehaphazard and a surfer’s tan to match (not that he got any surfing done in Arizona), was scowling, which was rare for the upbeat alpha, but he’d been in a pissy mood since he’d been blown off by the mystery omega he’d lost his virginity to over winter break.
