Lover: A Student Teacher Romance (Court University Book 4)

by Eden O'Neill

  Besides wanting to fuck each other every moment of the day, we did tell each other a lot of personal shit. I broke an NDA because of him.

  I started to walk off, but he grabbed my arm again.

  “Just hear me out,” he said, quick and in front of me. “We talk to each other. Vent to each other instead of letting that shit bottle up.”

  “And what? We just pretend we didn’t screw?”

  I was suddenly incredibly aware of how quiet the donut shop was, and that old man behind the counter did make himself known.

  He wiped it down with a small smile before lifting his finger and heading to the back, and Ramses and I surprisingly both busted out laughing. Like full-blown laughter to the point where I grabbed my knees and Ramses shook his head.

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry about Charlie. He’s known me since I was a kid, but he’s old reliable. He won’t say anything to my mom.”

  I hadn’t even thought about that, but trusted Charlie if he did.

  The laughter dying down, Ramses braced his arms.

  “My own mother said I need to talk to someone,” he admitted. “She obviously said the same thing to you, and I can’t see why we can’t be that for each other.”

  I could, the first starting with said sex mentioned before. “And the screwing?”

  “Well, I’m not your student anymore. Won’t be soon once I get the transfer.”

  “Ramses—”

  He grabbed my hand, cutting me off, and I let him hold it because I was selfish. Because I wanted him to so desperately I could taste it.

  I think he did too, his long digits playing with the back of my hand. Eventually, he let go, and when he did, he took a step back.

  “I’m joking obviously,” he said when it wasn’t obvious, not at all. He forced a heavy breath. “It’s also obvious that’s not what you want our relationship to be, and I respect that, but I am selfish enough to ask for your friendship. I think it would be good. For both of us. And like I said, I’m not going be your student once I transfer out. It won’t be weird.”

  It would still be weird.

  But I was selfish too.

  My hand still burned despite being absent of his. I looked up. “And Evie?”

  “I don’t like lying to my mom, but I will if you don’t feel comfortable mentioning we are friends and only that.” He stepped forward. “Please. I’m begging you. This is me begging.”

  He started to get on his knees before I grabbed him and forced him up.

  He chuckled. “I’m joking.”

  Clearly, his need for friendship was desperate—clearly.

  But wasn’t mine as well?

  I’d been so lonely.

  “Only friends?” I asked him, needing to be sure. “I really can’t have anything else right now.”

  I wasn’t ready for anything else. I think I could take being Ramses’s friend.

  But his lover?

  God, I hadn’t known him long, but I felt he literally had the capability to destroy my entire heart. It’d be a blazing fire with him, so good and hot all the way in.

  But on the way down?

  Even worse, if I let him go there.

  He approached me again, his smile down on me. He lifted a hand. “Thumb war you for it? I win, you stay and be my friend. You win, I walk away.”

  He’d sucked at this game before but offered anyway.

  I raised my hand. “You promise?”

  He didn’t have to say, our hands touching. He counted us down, and I didn’t think it mattered who won. We both knew I’d call him back like I had that night.

  Because I sucked at this game too.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Bri

  The foray into Ramses’s and my friendship started with texts. Just texting. He’d send me these meme things he found funny throughout his day. Completely ridiculous, but I went along with them because they were funny in how often hilariously outlandish they were. They made sense with, well, his age and his laid-back personality.

  Don’t do the age thing.

  I didn’t for the most part, not really a thing. In any sense, we were friends now, and only that. I’d been hesitant when, during one of those ridiculous text messages, he sent me one about running. Apparently, he liked to run, just like me. He tended to go in the evenings since that was the best time for him after work and school.

  And so that was how that happened.

  Ramses and I running.

  Ramses and I exercising together like actual friends.

  Go figure, right?

  I’d been hesitant at first. Texting had been one thing but meeting up entirely another. He assured me there’d be no funny business, and since his running schedule matched my preference, I decided to try it out. Doing so also let Evie off the hook. She hated running outside during winter anyway and did prefer mornings.

  “Oh, I don’t mind, dear. Have fun!”

  I’d literally gotten her blessing. I left out the detail I was running with her son, and at this point, I wasn’t sure there really was a lie. I was running with a friend, a platonic friend at that. I could run with a guy and it not be a thing.

  So that was what I did.

  Ramses and I started jogging that first day after my last class. He was getting off of work too and actually offered to pick me up. That felt kind of weird. I mean, for me. I knew we were just friends now, but I thought it’d be best we meet up at a park or something. Of course, he understood, so that was what we did. We’d both shown up with winter running gear on.

  And he’d basically looked like a Nike ad.

  He was the epitome of in his stretchy black Under Armour, long and lean as it smoothed over his biceps and thick legs. He wore a dark hoodie and shorts over the bottoms and long-sleeved shirt, basically the hottest friend I’d ever had in my entire life. He had dark gloves on and a hat beneath his hood as well, completely ready for the run.

  “Ready, buddy?” He grinned that first day, and I suppose I had to be. I still couldn’t believe I’d told him about Alec, but he was right. There was something about us just dishing our secrets together. I told him things I didn’t mean to tell him, and he seemed to do the same.

  Hiking up my legs in my stretchy Lycra I allowed him to lead the run into the park, my “hot friend” beside me the whole way. It wasn’t lost on me Ramses had long basically everything, and though I did have to pump extra hard to keep up with him, I liked the challenge. He rarely had to adjust to me, which I caught him doing more than a time or two. For the most part, he wasn’t obnoxious about it.

  Though he did run backward a couple of times.

  He liked to taunt me, push me, and as it never failed to crack a smile out of me, I let him.

  I let him every time.

  Before I knew it, a couple weeks flew by like this. Weeks of me rushing through classes just to see my text messages, to see his silly memes or pictures of him bored at the office. He texted me whenever he had time, and I didn’t complain, basically high off the anticipated moments before. I was very aware of how this may have looked from the outside.

  I just didn’t care.

  I let him send the text messages. I ran with him almost every day and even ignored the fact that he still hadn’t opted out of my class yet. He mentioned looking into a minimester during our runs, one of those classes with a reduced length that had longer class periods. He planned to sign up for one once he figured out how it would coincide with his current work and class schedule. In the meantime, he was still with me, my student.

  My student who I ran with and listened to his silly jokes. My friend who talked to me about everything that wasn’t my divorce or his own issues. We probably should talk about these things. I mean, there was a reason we’d decided to dive into the valley of friendship, and it wasn’t just to be around each other.

  Or maybe it was.

  I liked being around Ramses, the heat of his hard body when we rounded a corner and his Under Armour brushed my white fleece. I liked t
he air of Ramses, how he consumed it with his male essence and heady flavor. I tasted him every brisk step during our runs and probably the same on his end as well. I often caught him staring down at me, his cheekbones haloed and chilled with red tint, his curls shifting and swaying beneath his hat. Our gazes collided a lot while we ran together, talked and enjoyed each other, but never once did we acknowledge the awareness between us. It went unsaid, like our various dramas, and there was nothing wrong with being attracted to each other.

  Not when it felt like this, easy with our laughter and banter. I found myself longing to be with him just because he made it easy, and today’s run was no exception. We’d decided to stick to some of the neighborhoods on campus, sprinting through suburbs and uphill. We’d started to venture back when I made the mistake of telling him about my internship during my undergraduate studies. Mistake because Ramses couldn’t take anything and not make a joke about it.

  “Wait, so let me get this straight,” he said, basically a visual feast in his sweatpants and breaker jacket. I was starting to get used to how ridiculously hot my friend was, his sweatpants low but fitted tight to his muscular ass, his jacket bulky and thick across his broad shoulders. I may be used to it, but that didn’t mean I failed to notice it. Ramses was hot, but there was no rule that said a girl couldn’t have hot friends.

  Yeah, that.

  Currently, said hot friend pressed an elbow into my side, an indicator a jostling was coming. Ramses couldn’t help but jostle, and I’d care more if I actually hated it.

  Which I didn’t.

  Again, it was so easy to be with him it was scary, and I think I needed more fear in my life. If fear was this, I needed more of it. More of Ramses Mallick and his carefree attitude. He grinned at me. “You used to do digs? Like actual digs like some shit out of Jurassic Park?”

  Nothing quite so Jurassic Park-esque, but he did get the gist of it. I shrugged. “Not nearly as exciting but yeah. We mostly dug up pottery and stuff.”

  It’d actually been the time of my life and the reason I’d gotten into early western civilizations as much as I had. I liked stumbling across and waking up old life. It was like a rebirth and completely exhilarating. Most of my work had been in Africa as well as some parts of Europe. I’d only come back because I had to graduate and had gotten married shortly after that time as well.

  It’d been early and exciting days, days before drama, trauma. It’d been days before Ramses, and I forgot about them as quickly as they surfaced with just a flash of his smile. He still handed those things out like penny candy, his jog backwards as he picked up.

  “You totally saw a T-rex,” he stated, eyebrows bouncing. “But if you wanna be modest and all tight-lipped about it, whatev.”

  “I didn’t.” I shoved him and he grabbed my hands. Trying to get this guy to move at all was hilarious. One, because he was bigger than me, and two, well, because he was bigger than me. He didn’t move an inch, and all shoving him did was get him to cradle me.

  He literally brought his entire big body around me, grappling me in a bear hug, which made me laugh my head off and nearly pee my pants. There were days I swear to God I lost a few pounds from sheer laughter due to this guy, but that didn’t mean I refused to fight back. I pinched at his wrists, digging my fingernails in until he cursed and released me.

  “Okay, claws are so not fair!” He chuckled, grabbing for me, but I was fast. I bolted off, but since his legs were long, I think I got maybe five feet before one of those Michael Phelps arms of his shot out. He got me completely around the waist, my feet off the ground, and I kicked.

  “Ramses! Oh my God. No. Don’t you dare!”

  Oh, he dared all right, laughing the whole time as he hugged me to his chest and spun me around like he was a carny and I was the Tilt-A-Whirl.

  He directed this ride while I laugh-screamed my lungs out, cursing all kinds of things at him, but that didn’t make him stop. Truth be told, I didn’t want him to stop, and I think he picked up on that. He spun me until I was thoroughly dizzy. I think he was too because the moment he put me down, we both fell to the ground.

  We both tumbled into the street like a couple of idiots, the cold, dirty street, but for some reason I didn’t care. For some reason, he didn’t care. We just laughed, me crying at this point, and it took me a second to realize I fell on top of him. That he still had his arms around me.

  That he hugged me.

  That he had me there, right against his chest as the laughter disappeared and our breaths clouded the air. We hadn’t seen a car our entire run, one of those residential areas with little traffic.

  “You saw a T-rex,” he said, his lips full and flush just like his cheeks. His hat had fallen off, his curls rogue and tousled. “Tell the truth, Jersey girl.”

  He shouldn’t call me that. I wasn’t his Jersey girl. Really, I was still his professor. He hadn’t gotten out of my class yet.

  I shouldn’t be on top of him. I shouldn’t be running with him. This whole exchange was completely inappropriate and had been for a while.

  Try telling my body that, my heart racing on top of his. His chest, mighty and solid, labored rapidly with heavy breath beneath me. His hand cradled my hip, his fingers moving to hover over my ass, but it didn’t stay there long before I shifted.

  Cold pavement touched my knees, my gloved hands on the ground, and Ramses lay there a second before shifting his head in my direction. He started to say something before his Apple watch pinged, and he raised his wrist.

  “Damn,” he cursed, and I frowned.

  “What?”

  “One of my colleagues needs a client file for a meeting in the morning. I forgot to send it before I left the office. The whole thing’s on my hard drive.”

  “Should we head back then?” We were going to anyway.

  We probably should anyway.

  Our gazes collided again and I saw that there. We should probably wrap things up today. It’d gotten weird and I think we both let it. Honestly, this was the first time something like this had happened. Ramses had never been any other way than completely respectful with me. He’d made good on his promise of friendship.

  What had happened just now had been natural. Him grabbing me, him touching me, and me letting him. I suppose it wouldn’t be weird if we had been just friends.

  He really needs to get out of your class.

  He said he had his reasons. I was just waiting for him to give me the transfer slip, but it was on me for not pushing him about it.

  “I don’t want to,” he said, making me find his eyes. He still lay there, but then shook his head. “I mean, we don’t have to rush. I have another copy of it on my laptop at home. If you don’t mind jogging over… I can send it off real quick, and we can get back to where we were.”

  Should we? Get back to where we were?

  I faced the pavement, and he did too. Getting up, he lounged next to me on his hip. His place wasn’t far. I mean, I hadn’t been to his home here in Queenstown Village, but we often jogged through this neighborhood, and he always mentioned he lived a block or two away. We’d just never jogged that route.

  I didn’t know why really, but maybe I did. Maybe that was just a little too much, and he knew that, us being friends or not. It didn’t matter if we were actually going inside.

  Just too much.

  Just like this moment, and I should tell him no, say no.

  “It won’t take but a moment,” he husked beside me, and my lips instantly closed.

  “Okay.”

  Okay, famous last words as he got up, then helped me up. He grabbed his hat, and with little movement, I realized how cold I was. Usually, I stayed pretty warm during our runs because we were constantly moving.

  Maybe it’s a good idea to go inside for a moment.

  That, in the end, was what I used as justification. How I justified the decision to go to my student’s house. I said going inside and getting warmed up wouldn’t be a bad idea, all the while something screamed in my
head that this was a bad idea.

  Something tugged at me as I followed Ramses on and we took the route in the direction of his house, but whatever it was didn’t seem strong enough to keep me from following him. We jogged the one or two blocks it took to get to his house here near campus, and I wasn’t surprised to see a property so modern and handsome.

  Ramses had mentioned a duplex set up, and though the condo had been that, there was nothing traditional about it with its upscale design. Multi-level, the property stacked on top of a three-car garage, all gray brick and dark wood paneling. It was one of many in a luxurious neighborhood donned with sculpted trees and driveways lined with soft lighting. Evening was starting to set in, and we should probably wrap up this jog quickly anyway.

  The words continued to scream at me, a bad feeling I really couldn’t place. I thought maybe because I knew this was wrong. What we were doing, what I was doing, but I still followed him up the driveway and through the garage. His sleek Mercedes was inside when he opened the garage door and the space immediately hummed with heat. My sneakers the same when they touched down. He either had heated floors or the garage was just that warm.

  “In and out,” Ramses assured, like he knew too. He unlocked the door and let me into his space.

  And what a space it was.

  A foundry type feel to the place and an underground look with the high brick walls and open space. He had large glass windows, which gave views of the entire neighborhood, a fireplace he summoned on with a click. It gave the room a soft glow, so he didn’t have to turn on the lights, and when he slipped off his shoes, I did too.

  “Laptop’s upstairs,” he said, backing inside. He didn’t bother to take off his coat, and why should he? We were supposed to be leaving soon. He palmed his keys. “Make yourself at home. If you need a drink, kitchen’s down the hall, bathroom near that if you need that.”

  I nodded, not going to make myself at home. We were supposed to leave soon.

  That unsaid, Ramses directed a thumb back in the direction he planned to head. An uncertainty lined his features that hadn’t before, and I wondered if he too realized this was a bad idea. That we hadn’t really gotten to this point in our friendship. That it felt weird, but I guess now that we were here, we both had to deal with the decision.