HIS PRIZE PUPIL

by Kane, Jessa

Someone in the lecture hall clears their throat uncomfortably and I realize I’ve been staring at Alana for a solid minute, trying to make sense of her being there. Have I already given myself away? What the hell am I going to do about this?

  Oh I know what I’d love to do. Keep Alana.

  Find out everything about her, get inside her head, get her even further inside of mine and never come up for air. When I returned to the room of the brothel, that’s exactly what I planned to do. Learn all about her situation and figure out how to make us work, despite the age gap. Despite the fact that she knows about my hunger. I was willing to throw caution to the wind because after having her, I couldn’t imagine not having her forever.

  Now that I know she’s my student?

  None of that is possible.

  I swallow hard and drag my attention off Alana, beginning my lecture in a hoarse voice. My cock is at full mast, so I spend the lesson behind the podium, powerless to keep my gaze from returning to her, drinking her beauty in over and over again. Throughout the sixty-minute class, she never loses that slightly dazed expression, though I notice her attempting to take notes in a sensible, spiral notebook. And damn it all, as if I need any further reason to be turned on…my balls grow heavy at the sight of it. Alana looking up at me and getting her lesson. Listening like a good girl. Wanting Daddy’s approval.

  You are a bad man.

  That truth is never more evident than when I dismiss class and make the sharp request for Alana to meet me in my office. I sense some of the students splitting surprised looks between us as they pack up their bags, but I ignore them, putting away my slides. I snap my briefcase shut, making eye contact with Alana over the top of it, and we walk out of the classroom together. We’re several inches apart, but she might as well have her fucking legs wrapped around me for the reaction my dick is having.

  I’ve never been attracted to a student. Not even a passing interest.

  Their work is how I tell them apart.

  But when I unlock my office door and step back, allowing Alana to precede me inside, the way she clutches the textbooks to her chest, her ponytail swaying gently, innocently, makes me so hot I have to adjust my erection, a low groan building in my throat. I watch goosebumps rise on her neck. Her eyes lose focus.

  I ram the door closed and turn the lock.

  The textbook slips out of her fingers and I’m all over her before the book hits the floor.

  I pick her up by the ass, pinning her to the door, my hips finding their way between her thighs, bouncing her roughly. “I told you not to move,” I growl against her mouth. “I told you to stay in in that fucking room, little girl.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she sobs, her cool palms molding to the sides of my face. “My friend had an emergency and I couldn’t wait for you. Estelle wouldn’t give me any information. But I tried to get it. I promise.”

  Christ, it never even occurred that Alana might be looking for me. The fact that she tried makes my tongue feel thick. “Even if she’d given you my number, I gave her false information. I didn’t want…”

  She rubs her forehead against mine, purring in her throat, as if she’s missed me. Yearned for me. Fuck. I’m insane for this girl. “You didn’t want what?”

  “Any part of that night…being used against me. I wanted to be anonymous.”

  Alana winces adorably. “Whoops.”

  “Princess,” I groan into a kiss, stroking my tongue as deep as I can get it, feeling her pussy soften and heat against my bulge. One yank of my zipper and I could be back in paradise. Back inside my girl. “Please tell me you didn’t need that money for tuition.”

  “I don’t regret it,” she whispers, sipping at my bottom lip. “I’ll never regret it. I’m just so glad we found each other.”

  Dread starts to shade my happiness, but I ignore it. I want to ignore it as long as I can. How am I supposed to tell her that being together could ruin me? I’m her professor. In charge of her grade. Board members are required to be above reproach—and fucking a student is the exact opposite. Jesus, I can’t believe this is happening. She’s my dream come true, but reality could keep us apart. “You’re a photography major,” I say gruffly, wanting to hold on to this moment as long as possible. “What do you like to shoot?”

  “Silly things,” she whispers, her eyes sparkling. “My favorite picture I ever took was a drunk bridesmaid at my cousin’s wedding. She danced the entire cha cha slide with her dress stuck in her pantyhose. I want my pictures to make people laugh.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” I murmur, planting a kiss on her bare shoulder. “You brought up saggy balls before you even told me your name.”

  Her giggle warms me head to toe. “You can’t say I didn’t make an impression.”

  “God, yes, you did.” The smile slowly bleeds from my face, a rupture taking place deep inside of me. “Alana, relationships between professors and students—”

  “Oh come on,” she breaks in with a sad laugh, her voice wavering. “Can’t we pretend rules don’t exist just a little bit longer?”

  That will teach me to underestimate this girl. When we walked into my office, she already knew this was coming. On top of being beautiful, intelligent and funny as hell, she’s astute. I can’t really be expected to let her go, can I? “I’m afraid we can’t pretend much longer,” I say, the tick of the wall clock echoing loudly in my ears. “I’m on my way to an interview for the university board of directors. I’ve been working toward this for years and it comes down to today’s vote.” I look her in the eye and I can see she’s already braced herself. “There is no official rule here against a professor dating his student. But the board would never allow it from a member. Especially…God, Alana, you’re a freshman. Eighteen.”

  “Isn’t that one of the things you love about me, Daddy?” she whispers against my ear, her thighs cinching tighter around my hips.

  The room spins around me. I can feel the throb of my cock in my stomach, my fingertips. I want to bang her against this door, to hell with the rules. But I can’t. “Play fair, Alana.”

  “Sorry,” she breathes, a sheen glazing her eyes. “It’s out of my system now.”

  Our lips graze and we both moan at the lightning contact. “Is it?”

  “It has to be, right?” No longer looking at me, she drops her legs from around my lower body and wiggles out from between me and the door. “Look…” Breathing heavily, she stoops down and picks up her textbook, holding it in front of herself like a shield. “The last thing I want to do is hurt your career, Gavin. Especially considering you’re the reason I get to be here.”

  “Don’t say that,” I rasp, loathing the distance she’s put between us.

  “It’s true.”

  She shrugs jerkily—and I can see I’ve lost her. I had her when we walked in here, but I’ve lost her now. Despite her astuteness, she followed me into my office with hope. That I would know how to make a relationship between us work. But I’ve let her down, haven’t I? The failure of it almost chokes me. In that moment, I’m desperate to take back everything I said. About the board of directors. About the rules. None of it seems to matter when that trust I won from Alana is gone from her eyes. Evaporated like it was never there.

  It’s been a long-standing goal of mine to be on the board of directors. They will never vote me in if I—a thirty-three-year-old man—presume to date this fresh-faced teenager. But while my career makes me happy, have I ever been happier than when I’m with Alana?

  Have I ever been more myself?

  Oh Jesus, I’ve fucked up. I took too long to make the right decision.

  And now I’ve lost her trust. An aching void exists where it used to be.

  “Alana—”

  “I’ll never tell anyone. I swear.” She smiles bravely, but it wobbles. “It never happened.”

  The hell it didn’t.

  To my utter horror, the tears are beginning to spill from her eyes and she lunges for the door, her face stained red. I ca
tch the door as she opens it, intending to follow, then drag her back into my office and apologize until I run out of breath, but one of my colleagues is standing in my doorway, his fist raised to knock. “Oh.” He glances at Alana suspiciously, then over to me. “I was just coming to collect you for the interview. The board is ready.”

  “Excuse me,” Alana mutters, ducking past the man. “Thanks for the advice, professor.”

  Professor?

  Fuck that.

  “Alana,” I push through my teeth, panic gnawing at my bones. “Wait.”

  But when I wheel around my colleague, she’s being greeted by a group of students, some of whom I recognize from my lecture. They must have met her at orientation because they clearly and understandably already love her, one of them throwing up their hands as if to say there you are!

  It does not escape my notice that boys belong to this group. They look my Alana over appreciatively, lust tightening the skin around their mouths and I want to commit murder.

  Cold-blooded fucking murder.

  Mine.

  As the group leads Alana away, she turns to look at me and time stops.

  It’s like she’s saying goodbye officially to what we have and it’s the knockout blow. I’m flat on my back in the center of the ring, the referee screaming at me to get back up.

  And I do.

  I regain my feet and let Alana know with my eyes that there will be another round.

  Goodbyes don’t exist for us.

  5

  Alana

  I slide the flash unit out of my Nikon and place it carefully in my camera bag, adjusting my aperture so I can try to shoot without it. There is a squirrel eating a student’s lunch in the quad and I’m going to tell him. Eventually. But first I have to get the shot.

  My eyes are gritty from crying myself to sleep last night, but I rub them with the back of my wrist and line up the shot through my viewfinder. The squirrel is just about to hit the bricks with one of the napping student’s Cheetos and—

  Damn. Missed it again.

  Mentally, I nickname that squirrel Speedy.

  Wrinkling my nose, I start to fiddle with my camera settings, hoping I can figure out the right mode in time to catch the thief in the act. I don’t have sociology class for another hour and I should be getting something to eat or catching a nap, but I have to distract myself from the fissure that seems to have formed in my heart. It would probably help to talk to Ripley, but I meant my promise to Gavin. I’m going to keep his secret.

  Knowing my best friend, if she found out a man broke my stupid, naïve heart, she would wait outside his classroom with a switchblade and carve him up like a turkey.

  That bitch is crazy.

  I’m kind of avoiding her, because she’ll take one look at me and know I did something dumb. I went and fell for a member of the opposite sex and trusted him not to hurt me. It’s a tale as old as time, isn’t it? There’s nothing special about my personal heartbreak, except I’m the one who has to try and breathe around the broken glass in my throat.

  I realize I’ve been staring into nothing for long moments and shake myself, going back to working with my camera settings. What did I think was going to happen when Gavin walked into that classroom? That he would say “damn the rules” and carry me off into the sunset? That’s not how life works. People have responsibilities and jobs and priorities. It’s ridiculous to be this depressed that I wasn’t Gavin’s top one.

  And yet.

  There’s this…bond that formed the night in the brothel. When I called him that name, when he asked me to call him by it, there was a transference of trust. He took responsibility of my fears and happiness and that title spoken in the heat of the moment…it seemed to imply that his protectiveness would extend everywhere. Never let anything bad touch me.

  Especially bad that came from him.

  It was an effective illusion, I’ll say that much.

  Maybe it’s a good thing I got my first shock of pain out of the way on day one of freshman year. It can only go uphill from here, right?

  The bench creaks beneath me, letting me know someone has taken a seat on the other side, but I keep my head down, not feeling much like meeting anyone new.

  “Set your command dial to M before you adjust the shutter speed,” comes Gavin’s deep voice beside me. “You should catch him that way.”

  Awareness is like a hand around my neck, fingers biting into me from all sides and preventing me from swallowing. “Thanks.” Still refusing to look at him, lest my heart actually leap out of my mouth and complete its death throes in his lap, I follow his instructions. I click the command dial to M and roll the shutter speed to the desired number, raising the camera and waiting, waiting for the right moment before snapping.

  There on the display screen is a shot of Speedy mid-leap after hijacking a Chewy granola bar. “Got it,” I breathe, the flush of satisfaction warming me enough so that I can at least breathe again. “Thanks.”

  Several beats pass. “You won’t even look at me.”

  The anguish in his tone brings my head up, my eyes zeroing in on his face to see he looks just as exhausted as I do. Worse, even. His face was clean shaven yesterday for the first day of class, but it’s covered in scruff now. I shouldn’t be wondering what those coarse whiskers would feel like rasping on my breasts, but my lady parts are apparently behind the wheel here. “How did the vote go?”

  “It went how I’d hoped it would,” he says, offering nothing more.

  Meaning he was voted in. Meaning the fact that he can’t be with me goes double now. I hate myself for the weight of disappointment in my belly. It’s selfish and immature. “Congratulations,” I manage. “I’m sure you worked very hard for it.”

  He doesn’t respond to that, continuing to watch me in that intense way of his. The way I once mistook for obsession. But it can’t be or he wouldn’t have let me go. He wouldn’t have been able to. And anyway, do I want him to be obsessed with me?

  No way.

  It would be super annoying to have this sexy professor who kisses like a God and loves photography chasing me around. No thank you.

  Real convincing, Alana.

  “You’re living off campus.” Not a question. A statement of fact. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. With my best friend Ripley.”

  A line forms between his brows. “Do you need help paying rent, Alana?”

  “No,” I say firmly, surprised he would ask. If Ripley’s father wasn’t footing the whole bill and I was required to pay rent, would Gavin actually give me the money? I should be outraged by the very suggestion. But instead I feel cared for. Like he wants to make sure I’m safe.

  He’s just being nice. Stop reading into it.

  With purpose, I straighten my shoulders and command myself to be friendly. It’s nobody’s fault that fate decided to be a jerk. He didn’t know he was going to be my professor. Expecting him to give up his dreams for me is ludicrous. Furthermore, I’m a photography major and he runs the department, so I’m going to be seeing a lot more of him. Best to set a friendly tone now. Grin and bear it, like a big girl. “Rip’s dad is a really strict judge back home. He sentences criminals to death row like he’s popping vitamins. So we’re in a gated community with tight security.”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah?” I shoot him a skeptical nose twitch. “I don’t know. I was kind of hoping for the whole college dorm experience. We’re skipping the irresponsible part and veering right into adulthood. Soon I’ll be carrying around a briefcase like you.”

  That surprises a deep, rich roll of laughter out of him that makes my toes curl in my sandals. “A briefcase is what makes someone an adult?”

  “It’s one of them.” I pretend to fuss with my camera, but in actuality, looking at his beautiful face outlined by the sun is making me want to snap a picture and I think that would step past the boundary I’m trying to set here. “Other things that makes someone an adult are credit cards that earn airline miles and
an open container of baking soda in their fridge. I bet you have both.”

  “Shit. You got me.” His amusement is making him look less tired, and I love that I have something to do with it. If things were different, causing this man to laugh would be my favorite part of every day. I hold his smile for a perfect moment, but as we keep eye contact, the air changes. His energy changes. Heat filters into his eyes. Thick, unruly heat.

  Gavin looks like he’s about to say something else when my name is called from the steps of the nearest building. It’s two of the male students I met earlier this week. Backpacks slung over their shoulders, they’re descending the stairs into the quad. One of them waves at me, the other one—Landen, I think—looks…kind of annoyed to see me sitting with our professor. What’s up with that?

  “Hey,” I call, shooting them both a quick wave.

  “Party tonight at our place,” Landen calls, and I don’t remember his voice being that deep. Is he trying to make it sound lower? He holds up his phone. “Everyone is going to be there. I’ll text you the details.”

  Gavin growls, for my ears alone, and a prickle of unease ghosts over my skin.

  I smile tightly at the guys, hoping they’ll take the hint and leave. “Sure, thanks.”

  Though Landen looks reluctant, his friend pulls him along toward the east side of the campus, leaving me and Gavin in a heavy silence. For some reason, I find myself looking down and studying my knees, as if waiting to be chastised. It requires no thought. I simply do it on autopilot. As the tense silence stretches between us, shame and excitement form a foreign mixture in my belly, warming and spreading to my thighs.

  “You gave those boys your phone number?” Gavin says softly, dangerously.

  “No,” I whisper. “I only gave it to one girl. She must have passed it around.”

  “Are you telling me the truth, Alana?”

  My knees begin to tremble, but it’s not with fear, it’s with anticipation. My Daddy is jealous. He covets me still, even if we can’t be together, and that’s something I can’t help but cling to. “Yes. I wouldn’t lie to you.”