by R. S. Elliot
“I’ll do it,” I say. “So long as I can be there after noon. I work until then.”
“Great.” His smile returns, wide and welcoming in a way that inspires too many x-rated thoughts. The man isn’t even trying to seduce me, and I am already at the point of begging him to take me here and now. I remind myself that my lips were there just yesterday, at his perfect mouth, our tongues intertwined in an intimate dance. I try to repress the fact that my hands roamed across the hard surface of his chest, while his hands explored parts of my body now tingling at the memory of his touch. And I want to so desperately do it all over again.
“I’ll pick you up at noon, then,” he says, and I realize just what I’ve agreed to do.
So, I’m not going alone.
And the man of my dreams has just asked me on the closest thing to a date we will ever get.
Chapter Twelve
Zach
I feel unprepared waiting outside Home Depot for Aly to finish her shift.
Does this count as a date? Does this change things between us?
I asked her because I thought it was something she might enjoy, and Marianne and Derek can use all the help they can get.
Still, the uncertainty lingers uneasily. I said we shouldn’t do this. We shouldn’t spend more time together than absolutely necessary or even entertain the idea that we can be together. But I race off in the middle of the night to rescue her like some gallant knight from a romantic epic, and now I’ve invited her to spend another day with me.
We won’t be alone, at least.
We may not even get the chance to work together. Derek has me putting in drywall or patching up something caused by wood rot and mold on the inside. Aly will be outside with Miles, planting and putting together the raised beds for the vegetable garden.
I convince myself this is also a good opportunity for Aly to learn what it’s like to run a charity like the one in her proposal. Marianne is an indispensable source of information. And while her ideas may seem bigger than any of us can match in money or hours, she has a way of putting people at ease and securing large donations without batting an eyelash. Things Aly will need to learn if she wants her ideas to be a success.
Ten minutes to noon, I unbuckle my seatbelt and head inside. I promised Marianne I’d pick up the flowers and seeds as close to my arrival time as possible. As I enter the garden center, the soft fragrance of unknown plants glides across the threshold of the automatic doors. It reminds me of fresh summer rain, the scent of moist green plants and subtle wood notes of cedar trees.
When she crosses my line of vision, Aly is standing in front of an older couple. Her smiling face lights up, sharing recommendations about her favorite plants as she gestures from one specimen to the next. Or so I can imagine based on her body language. I want to make her smile like that, to be the recipient of the sheer joy on her face when she talks about something like flowers or changing the future. Instead, I only seem to anger her or launch her into complete confusion.
She finally notices me watching them. The brightness in her smile fades, but she quickly recovers. Her attention fastens back on the couple in front of her. I resist the urge to wave and appear even more stupid than I feel in this moment. Instead, I amuse myself with a group of red and green plants until I remember exactly what it was Marianne sent me to buy.
I’ve never gone after a woman like this. I’ve never had to before. All my meetings with dates were either pre-arranged by our families or developed over the course of a business gala as a satisfying way to pass the time.
This. This is entirely different.
I can’t have Aly. I’m not even sure if she wants me. Though if I am any judge of kisses, what we shared the other day would suggest otherwise.
All I know for certain is that I can’t go about this the same way I’ve always done. She’s special, different from the money-grabbing women in my social circle who see me as a means to secure their future. I don’t even think she wants my money. She hardly even acknowledges it when she’s around me.
“You’re early.”
I resist the instinct to smile at the sound of her voice. She’s close beside me, forcing me to suppress another instinct more painful than the first. “I needed to pick up some plants for the project. Any suggestions?”
I turn to look at her, and my chest tightens. I’m not sure what she’s done, but she looks different. She’s wearing eye makeup, something simple but sexy. It accents the lovely shades of blue in her eyes, like two sapphire crystals floating in a pool of turquoise waters. Even her cheeks possess a soft glow to them other than the usual red blush I tend to elicit from her.
“You’re staring,” she says suddenly, her lips lifting at one end. Like a magnet being switched on, they pull me forward.
“Am I?”
“Yes.” She glances around. “Now stop before you scare off the customers.”
She walks over to the customer counter and reaches across it to retrieve a notepad. My eyes are immediately drawn to her perfect, heart-shaped ass. I clench my hands to fists at the side and try to compel the blood flowing into my hardening erection to stop. She’s doing this on purpose. There’s no way she doesn’t realize what she’s doing.
“I have your order.” She straightens and faces me before handing me a slip of paper. “Marianne called this morning. Said something about you probably forgetting what she told you to grab.”
A smooth grumble escapes my throat, half from the tag team I already see forming in the two women I’ve just introduced to one another, and in part due to my lingering thoughts of Aly’s backside. “Yes, well, it was a large order.”
“Nothing we can’t handle. I have it all together in the back. We can load up your car, whenever you’re ready.”
It takes us a few minutes to secure the plants in Derek’s truck and for Aly to punch out. She walks back out to the truck, orange apron draped across one arm and her hips in full view. Her emerald green shirt clings to her body like liquid, accentuating the full curves of her breasts and slim waist before diving beneath the waistband of her dark jeans. I follow the sway of her hips. She’s teasing me, I know it.
This woman has to know how she affects me.
My heart shuts off the flow of blood to my chest, to any part of my body that doesn’t play a role in pleasuring a woman. I try to focus on something else. Buckets of ice water. The frozen tundra. Iceland. Anything to drown out the thoughts suggesting I haul her against the side of this truck and take her right here. I want to know what she tastes like, what she sounds like. Jesus, I bet she sounds like heaven when she cries out during her orgasm.
I clear my throat. I’m not doing very well at keeping my thoughts in check.
When she reaches the truck, I notice she’s added a soft shade of pink lipstick. This woman is torture. How on earth are we going to share a car ride together? I groan as we claim our seats and head out toward the program.
This is going to be a long drive.
“Took you long enough,” are the first words Marianne says as we get out of the truck.
“We ran into some traffic,” I explain, shutting the driver-side door and moving to unload the truck with Derek.
“Sure.” Marianne stands with her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed and staring down her nose at me. Which is a feat in itself since I’m still a good five inches taller than her. Her intimidating pose shifts to a welcoming stance when she faces Aly, however.
“Aly, right?” Marianne’s voice is completely changed. I’ve never heard the woman sound so sweet in her life. If I wasn’t seeing her talk myself, I’d assume she was an entirely different person. She hauls Aly away from the truck and toward her by the arm. “Let the men take care of all that. I’m glad to finally meet you.”
Aly delivers one of her sheepish half-smiles. The tremors in her voice give her away. “Me too. I’ve heard a lot about you. Prof- Zach thinks there’s a lot I can learn from you and how you run your organization.”
I wince and
set down one of the plants in the area Derek has directed me to place it. We’re not even here a minute, and already Aly’s having trouble calling me by my first name.
“So nice to hear he says such complimentary things about me to others,” Marianne says, casting a look over her shoulder at me. “Since all I ever hear is, ‘this isn’t going to work,’ or ‘how do you expect to make this happen?’ Men, am I right? No vision, whatsoever.”
I lift a package of soil over my shoulder. The conversation is innocent enough, but I don’t trust Marianne with any woman I bring around. She always has some comments to make, whether they’re too shallow, too vapid or just too wrong in general. Aly is none of those things. She’s not even my date really. So, Marianne should have no reason to interrogate her mercilessly.
I set down the soil and take a sip from my water bottle.
“So, Aly, how old are you? Nineteen? Eighteen?”
I choke on a swallow of water. Marianne shoots another silencing glare over her shoulder. As if I can help stifle the sound of me choking in an instant.
“I’m twenty-one, actually,” Aly replies, paying no attention to me that I can tell.
“Ooo, girl. So we can enjoy a nice bottle of wine after all of this is over.” Marianne waits for Aly to turn away before signaling my imminent death with another scowl and some very graphic hand gestures.
So, there’s a slight age gap. Not that it matters. It’s not like I expect anything to happen between us. Not now, at least. Aly only has one semester left before she graduates, and there would be no issue with us dating after that. All I know is, no matter how much distance I try to place between us, it just makes me want to be near her even more.
This emotional revelation doesn’t spare me from the onslaught of questions Marianne hurls at me throughout the day. No matter how much I try to convince Marianne that Aly is just my student, she isn’t so easily convinced.
What are my intentions? Do I actually plan on dating my student? This isn’t something I should be doing, or even contemplating. Is it?
I step outside for the first time in hours since we started the maintenance work. We’ve finally finished with the inside maintenance. Derek says something about coming back in the morning to finish the painting outside. I nod absently. I’m so tired, I’ll agree to anything at this point.
The plants along the edge of the house complement one another perfectly. Each one uniformly separated and manicured to suit the available spacing adds a warm, cottage-like feel to the home's exterior. I follow the length of the home to the backyard, stopping near the porch within an excellent view to see Aly and Miles planting vegetables in a raised bed. Their backs are to me, and neither one hears me approach.
“So you sprinkle a little water here,” Aly says. “Then we need to add a little humus in the soil to make them grow better.
“You mean hummus? Like what we eat? How is that gonna help?” Miles asks.
Aly laughs, a musical tune that vibrates down into my core. “No, humus. It’s something you put in the soil to retain the nutrients it needs to survive.”
“Ah.” Miles tips his head back in that way that shows he really only understands about half of what she’s saying.
“So, how long have you played soccer, Miles?” Aly asks.
Miles shrugs. “Since I came to live with Derek and Marianne. Derek and Uncle Zach took me out to play one day, and they said I had a natural talent. So you know, I’ve been going since then.”
“Do you still go play with them?” Aly sprinkles something over the garden. I continue watching them, mesmerized by how easily they seem to fall into sync with one another.
“Yeah. They both play with me. Derek’s not too good, so Uncle Zach usually helps me practice.”
“That’s very sweet of him.”
That’s me. Sweet and loveable, eavesdropping on the conversation of the woman I want and a child I’m suddenly jealous of. The kid has had her attention all day. They’ve worked side-by-side on the projects, from what I can see. Some women might get bored babysitting a child all day. The women I’ve dated in the past certainly would have. Hell, they wouldn’t have even dipped their fingers in the flower bed or volunteered to come here in the first place.
I take a step back, moving closer to the house to give them their privacy.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” a voice says behind me.
I turn to face Derek, water bottle in tow and sweat pouring down the side of his face. It’s January, but we’ve been lifting large slats of wood and drywall in enclosed spaces with no A/C all afternoon.
“What am I doing?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. She’s your student, isn’t she? Can’t you just wait until she graduates to do this?” Derek’s face reveals no emotion at all. Though the tone in his voice echoes more of a warning than a scolding.
“Look, I brought her here to talk to Marianne,” I explain. “It’s good for her to know how a charity is run and all that goes into getting it started.”
“Sure. Because you don’t have any ulterior motives for asking her here.”
My eyes dart to the side, delivering their most effective silencing scowl before speaking. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You’d better. Because you’re not the only one who’s going to get hurt when all of this goes south.” Derek pauses. His eyes take in the interaction between Aly and Miles. What is he thinking about? Even Marianne let up with the guilt after the first three hours. “She’s better than the last few girls you brought home, I’ll give you that. I mean, they were fine, but she’s a little more than what you need right now.”
“What does that mean?”
Derek claps a hand over my shoulder. “You need someone down to earth. Someone who grounds you. Like Marianne does with me. She makes me want to do better. Be better. You kinda lost your way there for a little while. But…”
He pauses. His hand slides off my shoulder, and he downs the remaining swallows of water in the bottle. “I want to see you doing more of this. You used to help out all the time. So if she makes you want to do that, I’m happy for you, man. Just be careful.”
I rub my palm along the back of my neck.
Be careful?
How much more careful can I be without completely shutting Aly out altogether? She’s still my student. I still need to help her with her proposal. Just because we are out doing things together that relate to that proposal doesn’t mean someone will automatically suspect an affair. We act completely indifferent to one another while we’re on campus. Even our last two classes together, we carried on as if nothing had happened between us. I delivered my lecture, only glanced in her direction once or twice. No wild and racy thoughts scaled the fortress of my mind there.
Anywhere else we’ve ever been together, no one could mistake our acquaintance for anything more than that. Except for the club. Perhaps I had crossed a line. But what else was I supposed to do?
Keep my distance at all costs?
Not a chance.
Chapter Thirteen
Aly
The drive home is unbearable.
We both ride in silence, his eyes focused on the road ahead of him, mine trained out the side passenger window. Neither one of us has mentioned anything that happened tonight. I didn’t tell him about the things Marianne told me. Things not related to the business side of running a charity.
She cares for her friend, who both she and Derek treat like a brother. And she made it clear that Zach’s career means everything to him.
What am I doing? Do I want to start an affair with my professor? Is that why I let Lyndsey do my makeup and lay out my clothes? I can’t deny the effects were spectacular. Zach looked near ready to devour me on the spot.
But do I want to be devoured? Is this how I want to lose my virginity? To a man I will never be able to have? A man I can ruin with one misplaced look. A man who could ruin me and my future if anyone ever saw us together.
“You’re awfully q
uiet,” Zach says finally.
“I’m not the only one.”
“Hmm. Just thinking.”
“About what?” I pry. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself.
“I don’t want to bother you with the details.”
Perhaps he’s also contemplating why he’s doing this. Derek must have mentioned something about Zach bringing his student to volunteer. Though it would only make sense to reach out to students with a background in social work or psychology to volunteer for such an event, they didn’t seem too happy to see me there. At least, not at first.
It may have been worse if other students had been there, though. They would have seen us arrive together. They would have seen how we interact with one another, how I stare after him like a lost puppy.
We’re not being very discreet. Though what have we really even done? Our one moment of weakness, Zach wrote off as a mistake. Or tried to. The only reason he never actually came out and said it was because I cut him off. I didn’t want to hear him say it. That all of this is a mistake.
Because it is.
“This is it?” he asks, peering up at the multi-level apartment complex I call home.
“Yep. Home sweet home.”
Lyndsey took me to work this morning, before continuing on into the city. She mentioned something about an all-day spa retreat before her smoking hot date tonight. She’s been after this guy for a month now. So I don’t expect her home at any point tonight.
“I’ll walk you up.”
Panic seizes me.
What do I do? What is the protocol for something like this? This isn’t officially a date, so there’s no need to worry about the whole do-I-kiss-him-or-don’t-I dilemma. Besides, we’ve already kissed. Then quickly determined that was a horrible idea.