by Mia Watts
“Shit.” Derek gritted his teeth together to keep from yelling his frustration. “Get the fuck off her. She may not care about her career, but I do.”
He grabbed Henry’s collar. With a yank, Henry stumbled back. Derek didn’t let go as he opened the office door to forcibly remove the young punk.
He looked over his shoulder at her, still laid out. She’d turned her head to look at him. He read shame in her eyes.
Crushed, disgusted, queasy, he snarled at her. “Pull yourself together and clean up. It smells like sex in here.”
Derek slammed the door behind him, tightened his hold on Henry’s collar, and shoved him toward the end of the hall. “I don’t want to see you for the rest of the week.”
“But Dr. Lasky—” he began with a knowing leer.
“—Won’t be needing you until I talk some sense into her. Get lost.”
Henry laughed. “She and I have an arrangement. There’s nothing you can do about it.”
Derek rushed him. Henry turned and ran, his feet slipping on the linoleum as he took the far corner.
A couple of students wandered into the hall. Eight o’clock already. Class was about to begin and he hadn’t begun to think of what he would say to Mina. It was just as well. There was nothing he wanted to say to her.
Enraged, he slammed his fist into a corkboard. It stung like it had been a stone wall but a queer satisfaction stirred in him when he saw blood trickle from his split knuckles.
At least if she was going to fuck the help, she’d tried to do it before students were in the building. Her career suicide track didn’t make sense but he’d seen people do stupid things before.
He supposed her reluctance in speaking outside her office on Friday had something to do with the presence of her lover on the other side of the door. And too, her fleeing their kiss just when he thought her feelings for him might be mutual.
“Damn it,” he swore to the filling hall. Is that why she had signed up for his lab? She had admitted that the prospect of getting caught, of being watched, made her quicken. Had the added bonus of knowing her lover was in the room watching her while she was shared with others been too much to pass up?
Had she used him? His lab? Did she run that night because she sensed he had been falling for her and an emotional-sexual connection would lead him too far down the path?
She must have thought he was a patsy, pathetic and leeching. How they must have laughed every time he tried to catch Mina alone.
Something akin to a lump formed in his throat.
The class buzzer sounded. He glanced at her door, as silent behind as it had been after he broke in on them. After she had screamed her orgasm for Henry.
Derek pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting the strange burning sensation behind his eyes and in his throat. He couldn’t talk to her right now. Maybe never. But he wouldn’t let her throw away her career after she had worked so hard to secure it.
He wrapped his hot hands around the door pull to his lab and tugged. Class first. If he could still the screaming denial in his head, brush away the withering seedling of new love, he might try to talk to her later.
Chapter Five
Sometime after the door shut, Mina heard the class bell. She was late. The students would wonder where she was before tossing the question away and filtering out of the room. But she clung to the truth that Derek had sent Henry away for a week.
A week. To figure things out. To go to the Dean and tell him what she had done by participating in Dr. Link’s lab. Tell him what had resulted and risk her career.
A week to talk to Derek. She knew what he thought. Part of her insisted what he thought didn’t matter while the other part knew better. It mattered a lot. She just hadn’t realized how much until what he thought had changed.
Her face throbbed. Touching it made it sting in pinpoints where her fingers met cheek and brow. Calmly, she hooked her bra and closed her shirt. After scooting off the desk, Mina smoothed her skirt down over her hips and tucked in her top. She tidied her hair and grabbed her purse.
She had to talk to Derek.
First she needed a shower.
Mina trudged to her car. She sat there, letting the heater drown out her thoughts. If she never faced the disappointment on Derek’s face again it would still be too soon.
Her wheels sliced through rain puddles marking an unseasonably warm November in the making, but her thoughts were on whether or not she’d be employed to see next November on campus. After the leaves had changed and the ground had a skim of white on it, what would her life be like then?
* * * *
“Link hates me,” Mina muttered to herself. She stared at the white phone, erect from its docking point like a sexual taunt. She didn’t want him to hate her. She hadn’t wanted him to particularly like her either. She wanted him to fuck her, but she’d gotten so much more. Along with fantastic clitoral play, it occurred to her that she had been very, very stupid.
She’d let her libido act for her. Let it sign her up and lay her out. Had gloried in the crashing waves of ecstasy. And she wanted more of him, more than talented fingers and almost kisses. What if she could have Link all the time? His hungry smiles and melted-sex voice. His sculpted lips and hot flicking tongue between her legs.
Her womb flexed with interest.
Mina picked up the phone and dragged out her copy of the faculty roster. Trailing her finger down the page brought her to Link. “What if I misread him? Is he still after the emotional sexual experience? The challenge? Do I owe him an explanation?”
He’d said he cared about her career and that’s why he’d ejected Henry from the room. Yet he’d believed she’d willingly let her T.A. touch her. Mina shuddered. She still felt Henry’s hands. She’d give anything to replace the memory with Link’s hands. Link’s mouth on her.
“Then the question is: how much is anything, Mina? Your pride?” She looked at the erect phone dubiously.
She put the directory down and strode to her freezer for a pizza. She popped it in the oven without waiting for it to pre-heat. Then she folded her arms and stared at the oven door. She could see the phone out of the corner of her eye.
A fist pounded on her door.
She gasped and swung her head toward it. “Please don’t let it be Henry,” she whispered, hugging her folded arms tighter against her chest. Her bare toes curled on the kitchen tile.
“Mina, open the door. We need to talk.”
Link.
She ran to it, her body in a flutter of nerves and excitement, dread and anticipation. Mina slid the last bolt free and opened the door. Her throat constricted as she looked into his handsome face, worn with emotion. With his hand propped on the doorframe, he stood there looking at her as though he didn’t know what to say first.
“Come in,” she said. Was that her calm voice?
Almost reluctantly, he entered. The aroma of pizza filled the air as the buzzer went off. Grateful for something to do, she went to the kitchen and pulled it out.
“What happened to your cheek?” he asked.
“I like it rough.” She slammed the oven door and dropped the hot mitts on the counter. “Want some?” she asked.
Link reached around her and turned off the oven. She hadn’t realized he’d been standing so close. His breath tickled her neck as he pushed her ponytail out of the way.
“I do. I want all of it, Mina.”
His hands smoothed around her waist. One detoured, climbing up her body to cup her breast. She moaned softly.
“If Henry, why not me?” he asked, squeezing her breast roughly.
Like cold water suddenly washing over her, she gasped with the shock of his implication. Mina knocked his hand away.
“What? Like I’m an office slut? That if I’ll give it to Henry, then you have a right to it too?”
“I’ll be more grateful,” he said.
She slapped him. His cheek turned angry red.
“You laid it out for my lab. You laid it out for me.
You laid it out for Henry. I’m just collecting the rest of my due,” he said bitterly.
“Get out!” she yelled, shoving him. “Get out, you bastard.”
“Then tell me where I’m wrong.”
“I’ve never laid anything out for Henry.”
“Looked like a banquet to me.” Link moved in, catching her by the waist. “So what’s the plate fee? Or are you by invitation only?”
Derek swept in and took her mouth. Mina tried to keep her lips closed and turn her head away, but he persisted. Gently sliding one coaxing hand up her back, he dragged his fingers over her spine. Not successful in his kiss, he pressed his lips to her swollen cheekbone, then nuzzled her neck.
He ached for her. More than pride for being cast aside, his chest ached for the loss of something he thought he’d seen in her eyes. Longing. He had to know what had gone wrong.
“Please,” he whispered against her neck, his voice breaking. “Please tell me what happened.”
Her breath shuddered as though on a strangled sob. “You already decided what happened.”
His lips found the dip just behind her lobe and trailed soft kisses to her shoulder as he continued to stroke his fingers up and down her spine. Mina shivered. She pressed her palm to his chest, but instead of pushing, she rested her forehead on his shoulder.
“I’m in love with you, Mina.” He said the words against the whorls of her ear. She stiffened. It was not the reaction he had hoped for.
She did push then and this time, he let her. “You, sir, are in love with your ego. You can’t stand the thought of losing a challenge to anyone, especially a student. And you had a challenge, didn’t you? The minute I left the experiment early, you had someone to chase in order to prove your thesis. Or your manhood. Take your pick.”
“You’re more than my Sex Ed class.”
“Am I?” she asked, bitterly.
“Of course.”
“Did you or did you not say that the second half of the sexual experiment on the female organism had to do with proving a woman’s expression of climax heightens with emotional attachment?”
Derek winced. He had. “And you think I care about you because of the posed hypothesis?”
“Why not? The minute the physical stimulation ended, you came on to me, not as a body, but as a woman.”
“Aren’t you?” he asked. Disbelief colored his voice. She did turn him on. He did want her. Not because of some proof he hoped to achieve. At least none related to his lab.
“Yes, but you promised to show me the second part of the lab, personally. Coincidentally, it immediately preceded your interest in me. What am I supposed to think?”
Mina turned around. Not easy since he stood so close to her, trapping her against the stove. She extracted a pizza cutter from the nearest drawer. Her ass pressed his groin and she gasped, stilled. “Look, I may not be interested in eating this pizza anymore, but I’m going to keep cutting it until you leave. So take the hint.”
“Bite size pieces it is then. Minced, even. I’m not leaving until I’ve said what has to be said,” he murmured. “I love you. I admit that during the lab, I was happy as a lark to get you off and watch you come all over my hands. God, that was hot. And I will admit that the prospect of fucking you until you couldn’t walk crossed my mind afterward. Hell, woman, you’ve had my dick on a string since we first crossed paths at the faculty conference and you sashayed that ass into the room.”
“And the truth comes out. You wanted tail.”
He dropped his hands on her shoulders. He wanted his cock nestled into her ass again. The timing seemed off at the moment. “Yours, sure.”
“But I ran.”
“Without giving me a chance to explain.”
“You admit you wanted in my pants.”
“You weren’t wearing any for the lab,” he reminded.
She sighed, holding up the pizza cutter like a weapon even though he stood behind her. “Classy. Well done, Link.”
“But, that’s not why I wanted to make love to you. The experiment ended when the class left. Once we were alone, that was between us.”
Could she believe him? Mina propped her hands on the edge of the stove. He stood so close it suffocated her rational mind. His body heat touched her, soothed her, without his chest actually meeting her back. And his groin; shit, her pussy clenched to take him.
“You can’t fall in love with someone because it suits your purpose,” she said, trying to reclaim her argument.
“Damn it, Mina, it doesn’t suit me at all. I didn’t go looking for it. It found me. And then you signed up for the lab and I thought I’d been given a gift all wrapped up in Mina. I could barely believe my eyes when I saw your application.”
“I need to turn around. Please, back off.”
He did. Though she didn’t hear him move, his body heat left her feeling stripped. She dropped the cutter and turned.
“Why did you sign up?” he asked.
She lowered her eyes. Too many reasons. Too many lustful fantasies. Should she confess them or would it strip the last of her defenses and leave her vulnerable to his seduction? Who was she trying to kid? Vulnerability had been in the cards from the beginning. Go, on, Mina, shoot the wad.
“You’re sexy. I figured the lab gave me a safe way of satisfying some curiosity about you.” No reason to reveal too much.
He looked affronted. “That’s it? You want my dick?”
Mina bit her lip. She stared over his shoulder and prayed her cheeks wouldn’t flush too much with her lie. “Mm-hmm.”
His eyes narrowed, raced over her face. Suddenly he smirked. “You’re lying.”
“You want me to be lying.”
“Hell, yes, but you are lying.”
Her cheeks did heat. Her ears rang and she felt the flutter of her pulse in her throat. He had to see the signs non-verbal admission.
He seemed to latch on to a thought. “If you only want my cock, why does the sound of my voice make you wet? Last time I checked, my dick didn’t have a voice.”
“I ran because you are a woman magnet. You can pick your conquests and they will flock to you like living sacrifices. A woman who resists you would be a great plaything,” she said, avoiding his question.
“If all you wanted was my cock, then why didn’t you jump at the chance to take it?”
She saw the minute he figured her out and nearly groaned when realization dawned on him.
“The prospect of sex didn’t scare you. What scared you was the introduction of the emotional component. Interesting.”
“Not really,” she muttered. “My dinner’s getting cold. Can you move on now? I think you know where the door is.”
“Emotion with anyone or emotion with me?” he mused. “Can’t be Henry. Yet he was sprawled all over you.”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” she rasped, her throat suddenly dry. Mina tightened her arms. The blush she’d worried about seconds ago faded. She could feel the slightly dizzy feeling of going ashen from a full blush.
“You think Henry’s safe? He might not hurt you emotionally, but look what he did to your face,” he said. “That’s not love.”
“I’ve never run to Henry. Thanks to your lab, he’s seen me naked, and thanks to your persistence, he figured out it was me on that lab table.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the rest.
Link gently stroked his fingers across her swollen cheekbone. “And you don’t really like it rough?”
She swallowed hard. “No.”
In a blur, he wrapped her close against his chest. “I’m going to kill him for hitting you.”
“He’s going to the Dean about my participation in the lab if he knows I told you.” Mina buried her face in his neck.
He held her, murmuring nonsense and rocking her gently. “I’ll take care of Henry.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked. She hadn’t depended on anyone to take care of her in years. Why did trusting Link come so easily? And why, if she could tru
st him with her career and problems, couldn’t she trust him with her heart?
Because I can survive a broken career. And if Link broke my heart, I’m not sure I could recover.
She recognized in him the meeting of minds and the capacity for him to rule her heart for a lifetime. Never a romantic before, she knew this man could not be duplicated. She would never find another Derek Link and she would never be capable of loving another man with the intensity he drew from her without even trying. She could give all of herself to him, leaving nothing back. It would be his, and if he crushed it, she’d be destroyed. Uncertainty swelled in her lungs until she thought she’d suffocate.
She loved him. Really loved him. If she turned out to be nothing more than a conquest, a lab that needed its scientific conclusion for a paper, she’d shatter.
More than anything, she wanted his hands on her replacing the memory of Henry. Something beautiful to replace the hate. Even if it was one-sided.
Her heart in her throat, she looked up at him. “Make love to me. Please?”
Chapter Six
Had he heard her correctly? Hadn’t she shoved him away and told him he didn’t have a shot in hell? That her career was on the line and— Oh, yeah, get out of her apartment?
Tentatively, he brushed his mouth across hers. He waited for her to pull away, chastise him, yell. It never came. He wanted this woman. He wouldn’t ignore the opportunity to show her exactly how much and how tenderly. It would speak to her more potently than any collection of words she might refute.
“He touched me,” she whispered. “I hate knowing what his hands feel like on my body. Take it away.”
Derek hated that too. His lips fluttered across her bruised cheekbone as he held her with the slightest pressure of his palms and fingertips on her back. The side of his nose stroked the side of hers. He closed his eyes, just feeling the soft curves of her face with the brush of his lips, a caress from his cheek and the barest stroke of his jaw or brow on hers.