The Professor: A Standalone Novel

by Akeroyd, Serena

  Before she could change her mind, I reached for her, hauling her against my chest and dragging her into me. The second her body connected with mine, she moaned, long and low in her throat, as though I’d touched her pussy, rubbed her clit. She reacted to that simple caress like a woman starved of her man’s touch.

  Well, not anymore.

  I tipped my head forward, not stopping until our lips were bound, merged into one. My tongue thrust into her mouth, fucking her there like I’d soon fuck her. My cock pulsed, aching with an arousal so intense only this woman could satiate it.

  But she surprised me.

  She didn’t passively lay in my arms. Wasn’t as timid as I’d anticipated.

  That first time, she’d been hesitant. Unsure. Uneasy with her body and definitely unconfident with her sexuality.

  But the weeks of rubbing herself off in front of me, of baring her cunt to my eager gaze, of coming on my command, had worked their wiles on her.

  And the only thing I had to say to that?

  Halle-fucking-lujah.

  I growled as her hands grabbed my waist, squeezing there before moving down to grab my butt. She pressed me into her, holding on tightly so that the minute amount of space I’d brought between us disappeared and was swallowed up. She arched her ass though, rocking her pelvis back so that she could tunnel her other hand between us.

  When I felt her hand on my cock through my pants, I had no idea how I wouldn’t burst.

  Jesus Christ.

  This woman was my personal dynamite.

  I groaned into her mouth, loving the vibration that tingled along our tongues. She grunted in response, then I felt her nip my bottom lip. Hard. Not tearing into the soft flesh, but marking me as I’d marked her before.

  And I fucking loved it.

  God, I wanted her to claim me, because that would make me as much hers as she was mine.

  I shoved forward, only so I could twist us around and press her back against the door. Taking advantage of the new position, I reached up and cupped her tit, and the second I did that, her hand tightened on my cock.

  Fuck.

  My eyes would have crossed if they weren’t closed.

  I began rocking my hips, began thrusting into her palm, and just when I felt sure I was about to claim my woman for the first time against the front door, her cell rang.

  And my entire night went to shit.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What happened?” Phoebe sneered, and I realized I’d never truly seen her this denigrating, this angry and outraged. I mean, I thought I had, but I hadn’t. “Let me guess, you fell asleep, drunk as usual, and were smoking at the same time?”

  The woman sitting, coughing and spluttering into a ventilator, looked like the human equivalent of jerky.

  Not because she was burned. She wasn’t. But smoked? Yeah. She was brown and leathery, sweat streaked her skin, making white tracks appear here and there along the creases of her eyes and down her cheeks. Her body was wrapped up in a silver blanket, and the fact she was huddled up, her knees wrapped against her belly underneath said blanket, told me she hadn’t been burned because she’d be creased up in agony if she had.

  At her daughter’s words, however, Linda Whitehouse’s head drooped. “It was an accident,” she rasped, tucking the nebulizer out of the way so she could make her claim.

  “Always is with you,” Phoebe said with a scoff. “You know the only reason I answered?”

  Linda blinked at her warily. “W-Why?”

  “Because you hadn’t called me since I moved out. You didn’t give a fuck about me. And I figured this was someone in a hospital somewhere calling your emergency contact.” She snarled, “How right I was.”

  “I-I need your help, baby.”

  “I’m not your baby, and I’m already taking care of the only child that is. I have enough responsibility without dealing with a drunken, deadbeat mother.” Her top lip curled. “You’ll get no more help from me other than what I gladly give Scottie. I only came here to tell you two things.

  “I don’t and never will forgive you for being a useless mother. And the only way I will ever let you into mine or Scottie’s lives again, is if you complete the Twelve-Step Program and come to us clean. Otherwise, that’s it. You’re dead to us.”

  Before I could do little other than eye the frazzled woman on the smeared-with-charcoal hospital bed, Phoebe had grabbed my hand and was hauling me down the corridor we’d just traversed.

  The ER department was busy at this time of night, but Phoebe moved through it like the pro she was at avoiding crowds, thanks to her job at the bar. With my hand tucked firmly in hers, I let her guide me until we were outside.

  The second the warm night air hit us?

  She almost folded in two, and that was my Phoebe. The one in there had surprised me. Not disgusted me, just had taken me aback.

  Phoebe wasn’t perfect, and I didn’t think she was, but her disdain for her mother had come as a definite shock.

  But this Phoebe?

  Who sobbed as she propped herself upright? Whose tears sounded like they were being dragged from her kicking and screaming?

  This was my Phoebe.

  And she stood there, like the island she’d been but no longer was, holding up the tide, containing it all within herself, when now, she wasn’t just one but a part of a pair.

  Her tears killed me, decimated me, and under the blinking light outside the ER’s reception area, I rearranged her pretzel-like form and hauled her into my arms.

  She sank against me like I was a life raft in the stormy sea, and I let her, let her sob into me, let her drench my shirt with her emotions and took it for the honor it was.

  Around us, people stared, but this was a hospital, and they misconstrued her grief.

  They stared at us through a haze of cigarette smoke, some of them attached to IVs, others in wheelchairs. Some were surgically attached to their cellphones and peered up at Phoebe’s sobbing with a glower for her disturbing their concentration. Others ignored us, too intent on their own problems.

  Before us, the ambulances came in to dock, spitting out EMTs who shouted as they moved, wheeling in gurneys with patients who were bleeding and gasping for air. Some were silent, no lights required, as dead bodies were brought in.

  Around us, the world was chaos, and even though Phoebe still wept, her tears had slowed down, and I felt like I was in a calm space with her as we looked out onto the manicness of the scene around us.

  She brought, I realized, peace to me.

  Funny how I only just recognized that.

  Even when I’d followed her and had been stressed, my intention hadn’t just been to make sure she was safe, because I saw now that it was because of how it made me feel to be around her.

  Like she was my air and I was suffocating without her.

  I closed my eyes at the thought, and pressed my face into her hair. Like she knew I’d abandoned myself to her, thrown myself all in, she curled tighter into my arms, huddling into me as though together, we could make anything right.

  And hell, maybe she wasn’t wrong.

  Maybe the two of us together was the only thing that made sense in this godforsaken city.

  All those months ago, when Phoebe had walked into my world by strolling onto my campus, she’d been like a living representation of my past. When I saw her, the flick of her hair over her shoulder, her silken smile, the sinuous curves of her body as she wielded them like a knife in a duel, I’d seen Gina. I’d seen the bitch who’d controlled me, and I’d stalked that past. Had followed it to make sure I knew where it was at all times, because it couldn’t hurt me then. She couldn’t hurt me then.

  When she’d compounded my belief in her wickedness by stealing, I’d taken advantage of that, and inadvertently, had welcomed the present and the future into my life, because Phoebe was both. And she could never know the true origins of our relationship. If Phoebe ever did, that was it. My life was over.

  “Are you ready to g
o home?” I asked after a few moments longer. Peering up at the sky, I saw the clouds that had been threateningly dark all morning had moved over us, and looked set to trigger our own personal storm. I hoped that wasn’t a harbinger.

  “Home?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” I bussed her forehead and squeezed her tightly. “Our loft.”

  She gulped. “We haven’t talked about—”

  A short laugh escaped me, but it wasn’t mean or cruel. If anything, it was amused.

  “You’re mine, Phoebe Whitehouse. Don’t you realize that yet?”

  She pulled away from me, not out of my arms, but away enough that she could peer up at me. She was tall for a woman, around five-ten, but that was still short in comparison to my six-four. As she stared up into my eyes, she whispered, “You’ve just seen where I come from.”

  And she thought that was an issue?

  I snorted. “Gina’s father heads a law firm, and her mother is aiming for Senate next year.” When her shoulders dropped, I moved my hand there and rubbed one. “Hey. I didn’t mean it like that. I was just saying, she supposedly came from good stock, baby, and look at what she did to me.”

  Her throat visibly moved as she gulped. “I hate her.”

  Gina? Or her mother?

  When I asked, she whispered, “Both of them.”

  “Well, we never have to see either of them again.”

  She gnawed on her bottom lip. “If she gets clean, I won’t turn her away.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. But only if she gets clean?”

  We had enough psychos under one roof with me in the building. We didn’t need an alcoholic too.

  “Yeah. Only if she really, truly gets clean.” She licked her lips then peered at the doors to the ER. “I wonder where she’ll stay.”

  “The YWCA, probably.”

  She nodded. “So, she’ll have somewhere to go.”

  If they’d take her.

  I didn’t say that though, figured it wasn’t necessary.

  The trouble with addicts, you had to let them bottom out sometimes. Let them sink to the depths of degradation for them to realize they wanted more out of their lives.

  Did it suck?

  Yeah, it fucking did.

  But it was the only thing that worked.

  I kissed her forehead again and murmured, “My aunt was into prescription meds in a big way. Unless you let them fend for themselves, they’ll never sort themselves out.”

  “I know. I just—I don’t like what she brings out in me.”

  I could understand that.

  “She isn’t my mom.”

  My brow puckered at that. “What do you mean?”

  Phoebe stared up at me, her eyes burning, her chin set in a defiant slant. “Mrs. Linden was my mom.”

  Understanding struck. I reached up and tucked a curl behind her ear. “Of course.”

  “Just like that?”

  I smiled. “Just like that. We claim who we want in this life.” Just as I’d claimed her.

  She sighed, the fight seeming to have been stolen from her with my easy acceptance of her assertion. Like I’d have argued. From what I knew of Mrs. Linden, my woman and Scottie would never have made it without her help. For that, Enid would have my undying thanks—she’d kept Phoebe safe until I could.

  She rubbed her forehead against my shirt, and asked, “Are faculty and students allowed to date?”

  Tensing, I queried, “Do you want the truth?”

  “Of course.” Then, she sighed. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. Oh.” I cleared my throat. “Down low until the end of the semester?”

  She hummed. “Finals are soon anyway.”

  I kissed her temple once more. “That they are. And don’t expect to get any help with the answers,” I teased, where once I’d have been cutting. “Kisses will get you nowhere.”

  That had her laughing. “That’s a shame, but I guess I’ll just have to keep kissing you anyway.”

  “Damn straight,” I growled, squeezing her tightly.

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “Let’s go home.”

  And fuck, if those weren’t the best words I’d heard all year.

  ❖

  “Nicholas?”

  I twisted around in my seat and stared at her in the hall. “What is it?”

  She licked her lips. “Aren’t you going to bed soon?”

  “I have papers to grade.” I wasn’t even lying. For once. I grimaced. “Things got a little derailed this evening.”

  We’d made it back from the hospital with no issue, and the sitter had relinquished Scottie’s care back to us with a smile and a ‘no worries’ for the short notice. Scottie, because he was a sensitive little monster, had apparently sensed something was wrong because he’d clung to Phoebe all night.

  I could hardly blame the kid.

  At least he had a reason to want to be glued to her side.

  For me, I’d just look fucking weird.

  Still, I hadn’t complained when she’d ended up having to take him to bed early and go down with him until he rested. I’d just gotten on with my work because I always had plenty to do.

  I’d even graded one of her papers, and though it was strange reading through it without the bitterness of before, and the desperate longing that had entwined every single move I made around her, I realized how unfair I’d been in the past.

  Her voice was clear, pure. Shy, just as she was, yet strong too. It was a beautiful representation of the woman herself, and the more I read, the more I wanted to read her other work.

  She was due to get her short story to me this year. It was an evil assignment that I always gave my students. A thirty to fifty-thousand-word novella on a topic that meant something to them. I got everything. From solarpunk dreams of utopia, to philosophical rewrites of Romeo and Juliet.

  I’d been blind, thus far, to her talent. And while I might sound biased again, this time with the joy of her having accepted me, scars and all, I wasn’t.

  It was to my shame that I’d hidden from her abilities.

  Christ, that I’d hidden from her period.

  Well, I was done hiding.

  She stood there, with the hall light illuminating her gentle curves in her over-washed tee. With her legs bared and her body ripe, I felt everything in me harden in the face of her softness.

  My fingers dug into the leather armrests as the desire to make her mine overwhelmed me.

  Voice low and gruff with my emotions, I grated out, “Come here.”

  Her eyes rounded, and her tits bounced with the sharp throb of excitement. She scurried over to me, walking on her tiptoes in a way that reminded me of a dancer, and within seconds, she was in front of me. Without even asking, she slid to her knees and stared up at me from between them.

  After she licked her lips, she whispered, “Nicholas?”

  I hummed as I stared into her eyes, and though she was in control of this situation, I knew she wasn’t aware of that.

  And I wasn’t about to tell her.

  Leaning back in my desk chair, I felt like a pasha looking over his servant girl for the night.

  Except, I didn’t want any other servant girl. None except her.

  Drumming my fingers against the armrest, I replied, “No, Phoebe.” Her brow puckered in surprise at my words. “Spread your legs.”

  Her eyes clenched close as she obeyed, but I knew she didn’t want to. Knew she was thinking of what she’d said earlier, of how she needed more from me than this.

  “How wet are you?” I asked, my jaw like granite as I looked at the slick folds of her sex.

  “Very,” she admitted, slipping her fingers across her pussy, the breathiness of her words getting to me like nothing else.

  I leaned forward. “Let me taste your fingers.”

  At that, her eyes flared open, and I saw the hope deep in those beautiful crystalline eyes. Her hand shook as she lifted it to me and the delicate digits traced over my mouth, shaping my lips before I let my ton
gue peep out so I could savor her flavor.

  Fuck, she was like honey and spice. Those deep, intense notes made me want to feast on her, to fucking savage her with the depth of my need.

  And I could now, couldn’t I?

  She wanted that side of me.

  Even if she didn’t really know what she was getting herself into, she wanted that.

  All of me.

  A shudder ripped through me as I pushed myself off the chair and down onto my knees. The second I was there, she made a move to kiss me, but I carefully cupped her shoulders and ground out, “No. On your back.”

  She whimpered but complied, and I couldn’t stop myself from shaping her legs with my hands before spreading them wide. I dropped down into a low crouch, and like a starving beast, I ate her sopping cunt.

  Her flavor exploded on my tongue, and I let it intoxicate me with all that she was. This beautiful, delicious woman who belonged to me.

  Me.

  Mine.

  I growled, loving her sharp squeal as the sensation made her throb, then I sucked on her clit as I shoved two fingers deep inside her pussy like I’d been wanting to do since forever.

  She softened around me like a silken glove, and I gritted my teeth as I curved my fingers upward, raking down against the tender inner walls. A grunt escaped her, and then her hands sank into my hair, her nails digging into my scalp as she let me know her pleasure.

  When her legs came up to cup my head, I grinned into her slick flesh, loving how fucking juicy she was with arousal for me. I sucked down on her clit in silent thanks, then sucked harder when she rocked her hips, arching her pelvis to get closer to me. As though even a scant hairsbreadth was just too fucking much.

  And I concurred.

  Any space between us at all was way too much in my opinion.

  Fucking her with my fingers, I scissored them apart a few times. My cock wanted in her so goddamn badly, but I knew I was big and from the feel of her, she wasn’t. Spreading her was a joy, though, and going down on her was the fulfillment of a lot of fantasies.