by R. S. Elliot
What did one serve to family members you put away in prison? What did you even serve to said family member’s parents?
“What’s wrong?” Aly asked, when I remained fastened to the floor.
I shook my head. “I’m just so nervous. I don’t know why.”
“I can get rid of your cousins,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder toward the door. “I don’t know why you invited them in the first place.”
My head cocked to the side, and I regarded her with a knowing look. “Why did you and Zach invite his father?”
She bowed her head in submission. Zach had almost lost his inheritance and his mother due to his father’s selfish ways. And yet, the patriarch still somehow secured a ticket to his grandbaby’s shower. “Touche. However, I must say with all the horrible things his father did, he didn’t set our house on fire.”
“Oh, honey.” I smoothed the flyaway curls sticking out from my updo. “This is the South. Hospitality is sort of a whole big thing down here. I couldn’t not invite them.”
“I guess we can just check their gifts for explosives, then.”
“Ha, ha.” I took a seat in one of the chairs. Standing on my feet for long periods of time was becoming a chore. My feet felt swollen all the time. I’d had to forgo my heels in the first trimester. But Hunter had treated me like a queen, getting me whatever I needed, even when I didn’t ask for it.
I knew with him, our little girl would always be happy, would always feel loved. It was everyone else in our life that worried me.
“It’s just—” I struggled for the right words. How did you explain your fears about a child growing up amidst a feud that had since cooled? There was always the possibility for things to spark up again. And yet, this wasn’t medieval England. We weren’t vying for the attention of a king or trying to overthrow rulers. We were just a small family who didn’t get along.
Thanksgiving would be so awkward.
“This poor child is going to be entering a war zone,” I said finally. “What kind of life is that for a child?”
“You like to think of it as a war zone.” A voice came from just beyond the doorway. I recognized it instantly, even before my insanely handsome husband’s frame filled the doorway. “I like to think of it as a bridge. She will be the one member of the family loved by everyone.”
He closed the distance between us, wrapping his hands around my stomach. “Because she’s a little bit of you, and a little bit of me. Both sides get access to the house, and the legacy continues with a Saunders-Carson baby.”
He kissed me, a soft affirmation that, no matter what happened, things would always work out just as they were meant to.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Aly said, and ducked out of the room.
“Everyone is waiting,” Hunter said, drawing me into his arms. “You can’t still be worried about Vanessa and Kyle. I’ll tell them and your aunt and uncle to leave if you need me to.”
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’m not sure what’s come over me.”
My eyes wandered around the room, landing on photos from the past and present. This home demanded all the same love and attention my grandparents gave to me. My daughter deserved no less, and yet I still worried I’d never live up to those expectations—the ones I foolishly set up for myself.
“Let me guess,” Hunter said. “You’re thinking about all the places you can’t go to until the baby is old enough to travel.”
I laughed. He wasn’t entirely wrong. “We just traveled out of the country four months ago.”
“Yes, but you had morning sickness the entire time and were completely miserable.”
“Fine.” I shrugged. “I am thinking about things like that and thinking about how horrible I am for thinking those things. What if I’m not a good mom? What if I want a few minutes of peace to myself every now and then? Does that make me my parents? What if my daughter doesn’t even like me?”
“She’s going to love you.” Hunter peered back at me, his expression a meld of confusion and sincerity. “At least until she becomes a teenager, then it’ll be rough waters for a bit. But then she’ll love you again.”
My eyes narrowed onto him like missiles locking onto their target. “Very funny.”
“You’re not going to be your parents,” he added. “It’s okay to take time for yourself every now and then, even as a parent.”
“What if I can’t do this?”
“One, it’s too late to do anything about it now.” I thumped him across the shoulder. Now was not the time to be making jokes. He only laughed and continued. “Two, because I know you. You’re a wonderful person who believes in empowering others. You also like to call people on their shit, so you won’t let our daughter get away with much either.”
“Fine.” I sighed. Maybe it wasn’t hopeless. If anything, Hunter would always be there to guide me, to help me make sense of the world—the way he always had. He put me at ease the way no one else could.
His fingers cupped my chin, tilting me up to face him. “You’re not doing this alone, you know?”
“I know.” I smiled. “There’s no one else I’d want to start this new adventure with.”
He kissed me once again, filling me with all the love and warmth I never knew I needed until him. It was everything I could have ever hoped for.
Who would have thought laying down roots with a man like Hunter would give me wings?
I had found my own happily ever after by finding the right man his perfect match.
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Forbidden Professor is Book 1 in the “Forbidden Fairy Tales” series and is the story of Aly (Lyndsey’s friend) and Zach
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Aly
Professor Hawthorne stands, mirroring my stance and inclining closer toward me. I have to remind myself I’m angry with him, that he just upset me on purpose to prove my loyalty to this cause. Yet all I can seem to focus on is how close his lips are to mine, how warm my skin feels standing this close to him, and the erratic spike of my pulse. An irrational thought of pulling him across the table by his shirt sleeves and kissing him seizes me.
Well, that definitely won’t get your point across.
“You’re not starting out behind by any merit of yours,” he says calmly. “Your paper is significantly superior, and what you’re working toward is that much more important. But you are going to have to play the game a little bit more if you want anyone to care.”
“So brown-nose my way into the good graces of the board?”
He shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant. But if we can get the financial backing behind this proposal, if we can get people interested in what you are working for, then that’s everything you need to get ahead of the competition.”
“Is there a reason you didn’t just come out and say this? Rather than letting me believe you were… That you thought...” That he thought, what? That my proposal and everything I had worked for was ridiculous? Or was it the fact that I truly had thought him to be some snobbish playboy with no soul? The man who only paid his way into charities without giving people like me a second thought. The way I had the first day we met.
Why does it even matter?
A stupid question. I know why it matters.
“I need to go,” I say, then hurry toward the door. My fingers reach the knob and pull, just as a sudden force slams it shut again.
There’s no need to look at what is holding me here, what’s kept me from my hasty retreat. The heat of his body strokes my back, and all at once my skin prickles at the thought of his touch. His hand, just above my head, holds the door in place. I should feel trapped, frightened. Something other than the surge of
longing pulsing through every part of my body.
“Aly, wait.” His whisper flutters across my hair. A cold shiver weaves its way down my spine, tantalizing my fevered flesh with promises of intimate caresses and mistakes I can never take back. Mistakes I could not possibly mean to make with this man.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “That didn’t play out the way I had intended. It’s just something I do to make sure my students are serious about what they’re researching and ready to defend it at all costs. But I should have realized, with our interactions in the past, it wasn’t the best plan of action.”
My pulse leaps into my throat, strangling me. He should have realized this wouldn’t work? Because he still thinks I see him as some rich pretender who cares nothing for the less fortunate? Or because he knows seeing him act like that again is the closest to breaking my heart he can get?
There you go again, Aly. Being dramatic. There’s no way this man has your heart yet.
I had just grown accustomed to the idea of wanting him, of potentially being wanted by him in return. Only to have that fantasy ripped from my mind with one brief revelation. It would have been easier to think he was an arrogant jerk.
“Hey.” His hand gently closes around my forearm and turns me to face him.
The swirling haze encircling my throat rises to my cheeks at the sight of him. The coldness in his stone eyes flees behind a gaze that reminds me of sunshine streaming through a canopy of trees. He searches my face, the dimple in his worried brow the only indication of his concern.
“It’s alright,” I say, trying to soothe my own emotions as well as his. “Professor Hawthorne, I think-”
“Please, don’t call me that.” He winces.
A moment of silence passes between us. He clears his throat and casts his eyes briefly to the floor. “I mean, it’s not necessary. You can use my first name. Plenty of students refer to their professors that way, and we will be spending a lot of time together.”
“I don’t call any of my professors by their first name.”
“Yes, but…” He hesitates, seemingly distracted by a wisp of hair falling around my face. He gently brushes it aside, his fingertips lingering at my temple. “We knew each other before. So...it’s different.”
I tremble as his fingertips slide down my cheek, feathering along my jawline until they reach my lips. The lump in my throat tightens. It’s taking every ounce of self-control I have not to wrap my arms around him and demand he sex me up right here. “Is it?”
I barely recognize my own voice. My breaths escape in small bursts of air. I’m practically panting at this point.
“Say it, Aly,” he whispers.
His thumb grazes my lower lip. My mouth parts beneath his touch, willing and ready despite the warning bells going off in my mind. “Say my name.”
“Zach.” His name spills from my mouth in a plea, but he knows exactly what I want.
His lips press against mine, and instantly my legs buckle beneath me. This is nothing like my dreams, nothing like anything I could have ever imagined. I reach for his shirt, gripping fistfuls of it between my palms just to keep myself from crumbling. One arm curls around my waist, holding my body tight against his. The frantic thudding of his heart beats into my breast. I want to taste him, to feel him.
His tongue glides past the entrance of my lips, searching, hungry. I meet his playful strokes with my own ravenous desires. Each thrust sends a shudder of delirium between my thighs. I want him there, touching me, kissing me. Inside me.
A moan escapes my throat, prompted by my wicked thoughts. His hands glide down my hips and pin me back against the door. The hard length of his arousal presses into my lower abdomen. He’s so close to the place I need him, it’s almost painful.
I raise myself up onto my toes, shifting until the thrumming core between my legs meets the bulge in his jeans.
Another gasp tears from my lips.
This man will be the death of you, I warn myself.
But what a way to go.
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