The entire way, I was fuming. Rationally, I knew there was nothing I could have done differently – Professor Marks was sick. He wasn’t avoiding me, and certainly not on purpose.
But it felt like a slight all the same. Was he really so sick that he couldn’t have emailed the class to tell us that our meeting that day had been canceled?
Did he have someone taking care of him? A girlfriend?
Or worse, a fiancée?
The thoughts ran rampantly through my head and I practically ran over the snow-covered campus to the street, where I crossed without even looking at oncoming traffic. My apartment complex loomed ahead, a safe beacon in my day of confusion and anger.
And it wasn’t even ten in the morning.
When I got home, I plopped down on the couch and grabbed my laptop. I opened my email and let my fingers hover over the keys.
Professor Marks,
Why are you avoiding me?
You know I didn’t run into you on purpose, right?
And you’re being a total ass!
I didn’t write that.
But I wanted to.
Instead, I took a deep breath.
Professor Marks,
Quick question about the paper – how many secondary sources would you say are appropriate? Would have asked you today but the TA said you were out sick.
I stared at the screen and bit my lip. Then, I signed off and hit ‘send’.
His reply came, lightning-fast and seconds later.
Eden,
2-5. Preferably at least 3 but no more than 4.
Let me know if you need anything else.
I stared at his reply for a long time, rolling the words around in my head.
Let me know if you need anything else? I thought, biting my lip and flushing hotly.
He must really be sick.
My stomach flipped and flopped as I hit ‘reply’ and then typed
Thanks.
Peter said you were sick.
I hope you feel better soon.
I knew it was foolish and dumb – the exact kind of thing I was trying to avoid doing. But if he really was sick, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. It was serious business for a professor, a tenure-track professor at that, to miss class. I could probably count on one hand all the times it had happened since I’d stated at Oakbrook.
I just hoped he was okay. I pictured him lying in bed, pale and wan, his winter-vacation tan faded. For some reason, I saw him in old-fashioned pajamas, like the kind Cary Grant or Gary Cooper would have worn in a movie.
I felt a strong, protective surge rush over me. I wanted to make sure that he was okay – I wanted to bring him chicken noodle soup and put my hand on his forehead and ask him if there was anything else I could do.
When my laptop pinged, I looked down at my email and gasped. I had a new message waiting for me from Professor Marks, and when I read it, my jaw dropped.
Oh, you definitely made me feel better.
I swallowed hard. My heart was pounding in my chest. I couldn’t believe that I was doing it, but I reached down and pinched myself on the thigh, just to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. The pinch hurt and I yelped in pain, then shook my head like a dog shaking itself dry.
He’s flirting with me, I realized. Professor Marks, who all the students want, is flirting with ME.
It was ridiculous. It was dangerous. Especially considering he’d sent it via email, on the school server of all things.
There was only one other possibility – that he was too sick to know what he was doing, that he hadn’t been flirting with me at all ... but rather had just taken far too much Benadryl or cough syrup or god knows what – whiskey with tea?
What did professors take when they got sick, anyway?
I tried to tell myself that it didn’t mean anything. I tried to tell myself that it meant nothing, that there was no way in hell he was flirting.
I couldn’t deny the truth, though.
He was flirting with me.
And now, I wanted him more than ever.
10
Will – Sunday
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so sick. It had to have been in grad school, where I’d missed an entire fucking weeks’ worth of work because I couldn’t stop throwing up for long to leave the shitty apartment I’d been renting.
I hated being sick. On top of how uncomfortable it was, it made me feel weak. I spent days lying on the couch, watching mindless television and flipping through the channels like a housewife.
By the weekend though, the worst of it had subsided, and I was starting to feel a lot more like myself. I woke up Sunday morning feeling pent-up, like I’d spent months inside instead of just days, and I knew I had to do something about it or I’d start to lose my mind.
Back at the end of the last year, I’d heard one of the other faculty members mention a new brewery that had opened on the outskirts of town. I wasn’t normally the type of guy who fancied sitting at a bar and drinking by himself for hours, but I really needed to get out of the house, and going to a new brewery would hopefully be just the low-key kind of thing that would relax me.
Not to mention, I really needed a break from my regular life. From work, from my well-meaning colleagues like Gina.
And especially from Eden. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face and her lush curves parading in front of me. I had to do something to shake this hold that she had on me, something to push her out of my mind.
Part of me wondered if I shouldn’t make an online dating profile and see if taking out another woman or six wouldn’t do the trick. But the semester was already starting to ramp up and I knew that I wouldn’t have a ton of time for things like dating. It wouldn’t be fair to the women, and while I wasn’t the world’s most considerate person, that wasn’t something that wholly appealed to me – the idea of using one woman to get over another.
Rolling out of bed, I took a shower (where I desperately tried not to think of how I’d jacked off to Eden) got dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a light button-down shirt under a sweater. The drive to the brewery was just long enough to be enjoyable – it was out almost to the country, down a long, winding road flanked by snow-covered trees. The brewery itself was small but not unimpressive – a fire roared in a large hearth by the corner and it was furnished with “rustic” touches: reclaimed wood and vintage kitsch.
Just the thing to distract myself, I thought as I bellied up to the bar and ordered a sampler flight of beers. While it wasn’t packed, most of the seats were taken, and suddenly it felt so fucking good to be in a place that wasn’t completely populated with students.
Maybe I’d gone in the wrong direction when it had come to my career – maybe I should have gone the library science route or something similar, something that didn’t mean standing in front of students year after year and lecturing them.
Or maybe I just needed to be nicer to myself, to realize when I needed a break ... and be diligent about taking those breaks. Now that I was tenure-track, I finally had a decent salary for the first time in my life.
I sipped my beer and thought about taking a vacation – maybe to Scotland, where I could travel from one isle to the next and sample all the Scotch. Maybe to Italy – Venice and Rome weren’t terribly appealing, but I’d heard good things about Siena.
At any rate, it would do me good to get out of the country for a while. I switched from one beer to the next and drank it, savoring the taste on my tongue. More people filtered into the brewery and the bartender who had been polite but distant grew even more distant. I was sitting with an empty flight in front of me for almost ten minutes before someone noticed and took my next order, where I took the opportunity to buy two pints.
That was when I heard peals of laughter coming behind me. When I turned around, my heart sank. Eden Cooper and a group of Oakbrook students were crowded around a small table. The table was meant for two, but there were six students, shoving and pushing and squabbling over the chairs.
Well, except for Eden. She was standing shyly to the side with her hands twisted in front of her curvy hips and looking down at her shoes. I sensed that she was uncomfortable and – I loathed myself for this – I couldn’t suppress the urge to protect her, the urge to go over and wrap my arm around her shoulders and guide her away.
Unfortunately, in that exact moment, she looked up and our eyes met. Twin pink circles appeared on her pale cheeks and her eyes got wider, as if she couldn’t believe that she was really seeing me, good ole Professor Marks, in the middle of Ravening Rock Brewpub.
“I’ll be right back,” I heard her say to her group of friends. As she picked her way through the brewpub towards me, I felt rooted to the spot. I instantly wished that I’d just paid my tab and left, disappeared before this crisis could take place, but she was at my side in seconds.
“I was just leaving,” I lied.
Eden glanced over my shoulder and saw the two pints of beer. “Then why did you order those?”
I sighed. “Eden, you should go back to your friends,” I told her. “It’s not a good idea to be talking like this.”
Especially not after I majorly fucked up and sent you that stupid email, I thought. Being sick did many things to me that I hated, but the fact that it lowered my inhibitions was probably the worst. Eden’s kind words had elicited a horrid, horny reaction in me ... and I’d responded in kind, which had been incredibly fucking stupid.
“Why not?” Eden asked. She raised an eyebrow at me and put her hands on her hips, like she was sassing me. “We’re in public. It’s a free country. I’m allowed to be here.”
I laughed and immediately, Eden looked wounded.
“Sorry,” I told her. “It’s just ... that’s the kind of thing some surly teen would say to their mother.”
Eden rolled her eyes, then hopped up on the bar stool next to mine. “Yeah, well, you treat me like a little kid,” she complained. “So, don’t be surprised when I act like one.” She paused and bit her lip. “I don’t get you, you know,” she continued. “It’s like, one minute you’re so nice to me. And then you pull back and you’re just like, icy-cold. What the hell?”
I stared at her. Had I really been coming across that way, so hot and cold?
Like I had been doing nothing but playing with her emotions on purpose?
“That’s not at all what I’ve been trying to do,” I said.
Eden flushed, and I realized that I’d sounded testy.
“Look,” I told her. “It’s about boundaries. You understand that, don’t you?”
She pressed her lips together and I sensed a torrent of words was about to flow from that soft little mouth of hers.
“It doesn’t seem so hard for my other professors,” she said. “We’re friends. Or maybe not friends – but they’re at least nice to me outside of class. They don’t act like I have the plague or something.”
“I don’t act that way,” I told her.
Eden didn’t look convinced, and I sighed.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” I told her. “I always feel that I’m trying to walk this tightrope of professional boundaries while still managing to instruct you and your classmates the way I want to. I want you all to connect with me and with the material – which you must, or else you wouldn’t have chosen to major in English.”
Eden frowned. She bit her lip and swallowed.
“But we can’t be friends,” I told her. “It’s not right.” You’re a child, I thought as I stared at her. A very, very sexy child with a woman’s body.
Eden glanced over her shoulder – if her friends missed her, they weren’t showing it. They’d settled down into the chairs, spilling onto each other and laughing.
“They’re not really my friends, either,” Eden said, as if she was reading my mind. The bartender appeared and before I could stop her, Eden ordered a beer and asked to have it put on my tab.
“Then why are you hanging out with them?”
Eden snorted. “You wouldn’t get it,” she told me flatly. Her beer arrived and she took a sip, foam coating her upper lip.
How I longed to lean in close and lick it off, to pull her into my arms and explain the truth – that I could never be her friend, that I could never open up to her and get to know her because I wanted her so desperately that I would have done anything to have her.
“Try me,” I said.
“You probably don’t know what it’s like to be so unpopular,” Eden said in that same flat, toneless voice. “My entire life, everyone’s treated me like an outcast. I mean, except for Petra.” She flushed. “She’s my best friend and my roommate – we were randomly assigned to each other when we were freshmen, but we got really close and stayed that way. She’s like, the only person who gets me. But now, things are different. It’s—” She clamped her lips together.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s different now?”
Eden flushed deeply. The red splotches on her cheeks just made her even more desirable and I suppressed a groan of lust. God, how lovely she was – I could have pulled her over my lap and spanked her for being so cute and sexy and fuckable.
“I guess because we’re graduating soon,” she said. “It’s like, we’ve become two totally different people.”
I nodded. “This might not make you feel better, but I don’t really talk to anyone from undergrad anymore.”
Eden frowned. Her forehead creased with worry. “That doesn’t help,” she said. “How the hell do adults make friends, anyway?”
I pressed my lips together. “I guess through work.”
She laughed shortly. “Are you friends with any of the other professors?”
“No,” I admitted. “But that’s because I work so hard.”
“And they don’t?” Eden asked skeptically. When I didn’t reply, she gave me a smug, satisfied look and reached for her beer, taking another long sip.
“I thought so,” she said. “You’re just a loner, aren’t you?”
But not by choice, I thought. Or at least, not because I want to. Don’t you understand how difficult my life is?
“Not really,” I lied again. Lying to Eden didn’t feel great – and it didn’t come nearly as easily as it should have, considering the wide gulf that lay between us. I should have been able to speak to her flippantly, like I was her superior.
But alarmingly, I was starting to realize that talking to Eden just made me feel like I was actually opening up to someone.
It was almost a frightening thought.
“So,” Eden said. She finished her beer and held up her hand for the bartender to get her a refill. Before I could stop her, she ordered a flight.
“So?”
She tossed her head. “I have to be honest. I don’t like The Waves.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
Eden laughed. “It’s like, so pretentious,” she said. “To the Lighthouse is way better. That one really got me.”
“To the Lighthouse is far more literal,” I replied.
Eden sniffed. “So, I’m dumb because I prefer it?”
I shook my head. “You’re not dumb,” I said honestly. “And you know that.”
Eden looked at me, and I had to stop myself from falling into the twin pools of her huge brown eyes.
“What am I, then?” She asked softly, and for a moment it seemed like we were talking about.
“You’re ... unfettered,” I told her.
Eden swallowed. She flushed again and reached for her beer. When I saw her wobble slightly on the stool, I realized that she was getting tipsy.
Hell, I was getting tipsy, too.
Tipsy enough not to stop this – tipsy enough to just relax and enjoy my time with Eden. It was wrong. It was a sin, and I had to put an immediate halt to it.
I didn’t, though. Talking to her felt too good. It felt like reconnecting with an old friend that I hadn’t seen for years.
And it didn’t hurt that she was stunning gorgeous and sexy. Whenever she
leaned in close or threw her head back to laugh, I caught a whiff of her floral perfume. It was innocent and delicate, and it made me wonder what she wore to bed.
If she wore anything to bed, or just her soft skin and curves. My cock began to throb and harden as I pictured Eden, naked save for a pair of flimsy panties, rolling around. The material would bunch around her pussy lips and she’d sigh in her sleep and tug it free, absentmindedly rubbing her hand over her clit.
Jesus fucking Christ, she was stunning.
“Professor Marks?” The worried note in Eden’s voice brought me crashing down to Earth once again and I clenched my jaw. Had she seen it on my face, the way I wanted her? The way I wanted to tear her clothes off and dive into her soft, curvy body. The way I wanted to cup her face in mine and kiss her until little pink lips were chapped and raw.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I was spacing.”
Eden’s eyes were wide with fear and my heart lurched to the side. Yes – no doubt, she’d seen it in my face. She was going to call me a pervert and spread gossip around campus and ruin my reputation and it was all my fault because I’d been so fucking stupid and—
“They left,” she said, nearly squealing in panic. “The people I came with, I just looked up and they’re gone!”
Cool relief washed over me and I sighed.
“What?” I asked dumbly. “What did you say?”
“My ride,” Eden said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I rode with them, I don’t have a car, I don’t have a way to get back home.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What about Uber?” I asked.
Eden flushed. “Those rides are really expensive,” she mumbled, glancing down at her phone. I saw that she already had the app open, which made me feel like a complete asshole.
I didn’t know what to say.
“Um, could you give me a ride home?” Eden asked. “You could actually just drop me off on campus, or whatever. I live pretty close to there.”
Forbidden First Times: A Contemporary Romance Collection Page 108