Ryan laughed at the expression on my face, the look of anticipation in my eyes. His eyes glinted as he stood up and held his hand out to me. He smiled at me, love and caring obvious in his eyes. “Ready for round 2, kitten?”
I moved away from him, hastily rummaging in a kitchen drawer. I found what I was looking for – my wooden cooking spoon. I was looking forward to the feel of that spoon on my ass. I grinned, danced over to Ryan, and handed the spoon to him. “Oh yes, Ryan,” I said, love, laughter and lust mixed together in my voice, “I’m definitely ready for round 2.”
Epilogue
I hummed to myself softly as I slid on the bra and panties laid out on the bed, and gazed in the mirror. Ryan had put them there earlier in the evening. “Wear them tonight,” he had asked, his eyes twinkling. I had smiled and nodded.
Now, as I eyed my reflection, I came to the conclusion that I should send Ryan lingerie shopping more often. Not only had he got the size perfect, but the pieces he’d picked out were stunning. The open black lace of the bra revealed just enough of the nipples underneath to be enticing. I gazed at my pussy intently; entranced by the way it covered, yet revealed what lay behind it.
It had been the most amazing four years. The day after Ryan had shown up at my door, asking to date me, he had called a real estate agent to start the process of renting out his Paris apartment. “But you love Paris,” I had protested.
“Long-distance relationships are hard, Maya, especially when I want to touch you all the time,” he had replied, stroking my cheek softly. “And, I’m lucky; I can write anywhere. Besides, I went to college in Berkeley, I’m looking forward to rediscovering the Bay area.”
I hadn’t known that. There would be so many discoveries on this journey.
Of course, we’d moved in together. I wanted to touch him all the time too. That had been enlightening as well. Ryan tended to be grouchy if the writing wasn’t going well, which, thankfully, was rarely. He was social as well, more social than me, feeling the need to interact with people after a day of writing. “I write about people,” he had pointed out, when I’d complained one day about going out after a long, hard day at work. We figured it all out with the minimal of fuss. I think we both knew how lucky we were in our relationship; we worked at it, but we also reveled in it, and were grateful for it.
I certainly was grateful; I’d somehow ended up dating a guy I’d dreamed about all through my teenage years; and the reality of it was better and richer than I could have ever imagined.
Work proceeded at a steady pace. Paul thrust more and more responsibility on me, responsibility I relished. Finally, one evening, about two years back, Ivar had called me into his office.
Ivar, Marco and Paul were seated at the conference table there. “Sit down, Maya,” Ivar had gestured, pointing to a chair at the table. I had gulped. It was always intimidating to be in a meeting with the CEO of your company, the COO and the CFO. Even if two of them were close family.
But it had all turned out well. I’d been doing well, making great progress. But they thought it was time I interrupted my work for a year or two to go to business school. “Start the application process,” Ivar had ordered. “The company will pay, of course, as long as you come back and work for us for two years after school.” It was the standard offer, made to all employees with potential to rise through the company.
We went back to Paris, of course. The business school there was among the best in the world; and if I kept working at Martinez, Inc., I would benefit from the international connections I made there. We reclaimed Ryan’s apartment, reassembled the playroom, and my life became a beautiful whirl of classes, beers with friends, and sessions in the playroom.
He really is the perfect boyfriend, I thought to myself, my lips twitching. Of course, all my friends in Paris had drooled over Ryan. I was finally getting used to it; realizing that he paid absolutely no attention to anyone else other than me. I had chosen well.
Tonight, we were throwing a party to celebrate my graduation, and to toast us on our impending move back to San Francisco. The entire family was gathered in Paris, even my grandparents. A few of our friends would be there as well, my friends from school, and Ryan’s friends - Gayla, and the rest of them.
I sighed a little. I would miss Paris. It was always going to be a magical city for me.
The sound of a throat clearing, and Ryan was leaning at the door of the bedroom. He was fully dressed, and looked gorgeous in his grey suit. Ryan hated wearing suits, but he looked so very good in them. Maybe he’ll lay me over a desk after the party, and spank me hard, I fantasized.
“What do you think?” I asked him, twirling to give him a 360-view.
Ryan gulped visibly. “Evil temptress,” he growled. “We don’t have time for sex now, Maya, there’s about a million party guests descending on us in about ten minutes.” His eyes were smouldering though, and his gaze never left my body. After four years. Like I said, I was unbearably lucky.
“A quickie then?” I cajoled. The need in his eyes had awakened a corresponding need in mine. My nipples perked underneath the bra, my pussy moistened under my panties. I bit my lip as the tendrils of lust curled around my body.
“Maya.” His voice was harsh. I looked at him in surprise.
He looked a tiny bit nervous, as he came into the room. “I wanted to ask you something, before everyone got here.”
“Sure,” I said easily, reaching for my dress, sliding it over my head, reaching behind myself to zip myself up.
His hands reached up, he stilled my arms. “Kitten. Pay attention.” There was a slight edge to his voice, and I stopped what I was doing instantly. I looked at him, inquiringly.
“I’m a pretty private person, Maya, so this won’t be flowery, or public, or on the scoreboard of an arena.” His hand reached into his pocket, he pulled out a small, square box, flipped it open. A ring was twinkling there; a ring set in diamonds and sapphires, reminding me yet again of the ocean waves next to us the first time we made love.
My eyes flew up to his face, shocked. After Patricia, I didn’t think he’d ever take this step again.
His lips twitched a little, but his words were serious, as he drew me into his arms. “Maya,” he said, into my shoulder. “I love you, I adore you. Every day, more and more. You bring joy and laughter into my life, and I find that I can’t imagine the idea of my life without you in it.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Of course, I will,” I replied, laughing. Then I reached out and pulled Ryan’s mouth onto mine. “And I don’t care what you say; I still think we have time for a quickie.”
He started laughing too. “Silly kitten,” his voice chided softly, but there was a world of love in it.
I know I said it a lot, but I was, indeed, the luckiest person in the world.
End Notes
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed reading Teaching Maya as much as I enjoyed writing about Maya and Ryan.
If you’d like to know when my next book comes out, please visit my website to sign up for my new release email alerts. I hope you’ll also leave a review with your thoughts on this book – I can’t wait to hear what you think of it!
I’d also like to share a special extended preview of another book of mine – The Professor’s Pet. Read on!
Happy reading!
Tara Crescent
http://www.taracrescent.com
The Professor’s Pet
Text copyright © 2014 Tara Crescent
***The perfect blend of bondage, dominance, submission and love ***
Have you ever been dangerously attracted to your professor?
Jake Ballard. He is smug and mocking, but his body is the stuff of epic fantasy. Now, through an unfortunate twist of fate, he holds my smut-filled Kindle in his hands.
I have a decision to make. Can Professor Ballard be my instructor in this world of bondage, dominance, and submission? And, eight weeks later, when my class is at an end, can I walk away from
Jake?
Read on for an extended preview from The Professor’s Pet…
Chapter 1
Emily:
Five years of class, teaching and research. Two solid months of writing my dissertation. Sixty minutes of cross-examination from my committee. Fifteen minutes of nervous waiting outside the room as they debated whether I’d done enough work to earn my PhD. And then, a few seconds of pure exhilaration as I learned I had indeed done enough to graduate.
I was finally done.
I thought I’d be ecstatic, but I was just weary. The happiness would come later; right now though, the adrenaline had drained from my body, and I just wanted a nap.
There was a Starbucks in my school building; I headed to it for a caffeine pickup. I had my Kindle and more than my fair share of bodice rippers; I was going to hang out and read in the lounge for a few hours, and then head home. Normally, we would have gone out for drinks to celebrate, but John, my advisor’s other PhD candidate was defending his dissertation tomorrow, and we’d just agreed that we’d all go out for a combined celebration tomorrow night.
“A tall café latte, please, with skim milk,” I said as I wandered up to the counter.
“Large coffee, please, room for milk,” I heard a deep voice say. I looked up through my eyelashes, and gulped. Professor Jake Ballard. He taught Pure Mathematics, and was hotter than sin. Black hair; blue eyes; the lean strength of a long distance runner. I had seen him in the gym once; he’d just finished a game of basketball with some students. He’d been drenched with sweat; he’d taken his t-shirt off to towel down, and umm. The Abs of Steel people should have been begging him to endorse their products. I’d stayed in the shadows and shamelessly gawked, and I’d touched myself frantically in the bathroom stall after. His body was the stuff of epic fantasy.
It wasn’t just me. Every single woman who saw him had a thing for him. His class actually had an equal number of women and men in it; and given that he taught Pure Math, that was entirely because of how good-looking he was. God knows I’d taken his class many years ago for the same reason.
He looked around, bored. He nodded when he saw me, smiled politely.
“Dr. McNamara. I hear congratulations are in order.”
I turned into a blithering idiot every time I saw Jake; this time was no exception. I blushed deep red, and mumbled my thanks, tongue-tied. Great.
The girl arrived with my coffee, and I started scrambling for change; juggling my backpack, my Kindle, and my smartphone, resting my Kindle on the counter as I tried to find some change to pay for my coffee. I could see the girl’s well-concealed irritation; could sense Professor Ballard rolling his eyes. His coffee arrived; he handed the girl at the counter his credit card.
“Put both of our coffees on this, please,” he drawled.
“Umm, I have change somewhere,” I said, red-faced.
“I’m sure you do, Dr. McNamara. I’m just as sure that the line behind you would prefer that you find your cash before you get to the counter next time.” He nodded to me, took his coffee, and left.
I looked at his retreating back, profoundly irritated. Superior jackass.
***
Deep breath, Emily, don’t let him get to you, I said to myself. I wasn’t going to let Professor Ballard take today away from me. I had a few hours of uninterrupted reading time, and I was totally looking forward to it.
Right before the bulk of the writing had started, I had downloaded Anne Rice’s The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. I’d been saving it as a treat, and I reached for my Kindle eagerly, anxious to lose myself in a world of erotic fantasy.
Tipping Point - Malcom Gladwell. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond. A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson. What the heck? I scrolled through the books, wondering what had happened to my books. A creeping dread hit the back of my neck as my mind slowly put the pieces together, and I scrolled back to the Home page.
Jake Ballard’s Kindle. I must have grabbed the wrong one when I was doing my crazy hunt for coffee change.
I was deeply, utterly fucked.
***
I would have given my first born child to just be able to melt away right then. But no, I had Professor Ballard’s Kindle in my hand, and I reluctantly made my way to his office to give it back to him, to get mine back.
His door was closed. I took a deep breath. Come on, Emily, you can do this, I muttered to myself, trying to give myself a pep talk. He probably wouldn’t have even had time to look at the Kindle in front of him; he must have had a class to prepare for, or some kind of brilliant research to do, or something. Anything except explore the contents of my smut-filled Kindle.
I lifted up my hand and knocked.
“Come in,” his voice called out. It sounded amused.
I pushed open the door. He was leaning against his desk, coffee in his left hand, my Kindle in his right.
I winced inwardly. He’d seen the contents. I’d just need to brazen through this; I didn’t have anything to apologize for.
“I’m sorry, Professor Ballard, I must have grabbed the wrong Kindle at the Starbucks,” I said, holding out his Kindle in my hand. “Here’s yours.”
He eyed me with mocking eyes, but didn’t say anything; his fingers flipped through my Kindle. Finally, after many moments of silence, he looked up. “Interesting reading material, Dr. McNamara,” he said. “But very predictable.”
“Excuse me?” I said in anger, before I could think. The instant I spoke, I regretted it. Why was I letting him get to me? I just needed to grab my Kindle and go.
“Predictable. You’ve undoubtedly convinced yourself that being spanked isn’t at odds with your feminist ideals. And then, you’ve asked your politically correct boyfriends to spank you, but then you control every bit of that interaction; telling them where to hit you and how hard and how much. Like I said, predictable, submissive posturing.”
White hot anger flew through me at his speech. He’d hit too close to the mark, and I wasn’t going to stand for this. “You don’t know anything about me,” I said tightly.
He raised a mocking eyebrow. “Really? Then if I told you to kneel right now, you’d actually do it, rather than give me a hundred excuses about open office doors?”
My blood was still boiling. I was not going to let him dismiss me like this; his contempt and boredom stung. I got to my knees; spreading my legs apart, placing my palms on my thighs, and met his eyes.
“What next, Professor Ballard?”
He moved to stand in front of me, dangerously close; his crotch almost at my mouth. I didn’t flinch, though it was a struggle not to; didn’t pull back. I just stayed exactly where I was; focusing on the hardening cock near my mouth; tried not to think about the open office door; the way it would look if someone passing by glanced inside.
A minute passed; I stayed where I was. My emotions were changing. I’d been angry, and nervous about the open door. As the seconds ticked by though, all of that receded. What remained was a simple thought. I was kneeling because Jake told me to. That was it. Nothing else mattered. Not the open door and the risk of being discovered; not even the seeping wetness in my pussy, the hardening tips of my nipples.
Finally, Jake moved back and laughed. “9pm tonight. My house. Be there.” He paused, looked me up and down. I was dressed for my dissertation; black slacks and a button-down shirt. “Wear something sexier than this,” he said dryly.
He wrote something down on a piece of paper, put it on his desk, along with my Kindle. And then, he strode past me as if I was not there at all, and left, shutting the door behind him.
***
I have a superpower, and it’s a useful one. I am the consummate asshole detector. I’m famous for this; none of my friends will seriously date someone unless they’ve passed the Emily McNamara asshole screening process.
So, as I look at the piece of paper Jake Ballard has left on his desk, with his address and phone number scribbled on it, I applied my asshole radar to Jake.
/> Magic 8-ball, I muttered to myself, Is Jake Ballard an asshole?
Signs point to yes, I replied, and laughed.
***
8pm, and I still hadn’t decided if I was going.
The smart, sensible Emily McNamara would have thrown the piece of paper with his address and phone number on it away, taken a long shower to try to cool off the raging hormones, and gone to bed. She would have read something smutty on her Kindle, and masturbated, and then gone to sleep.
She would not have been shaving her pussy to please a man who looked at her with mocking eyes and told her to kneel.
She would not have rubbed lotion into her freshly shaven mound, while fantasizing about what he might do to her.
She would not have wriggled a red thong that covered next to nothing over her hips, and she would have definitely not added a red lace bra, and finally, a red dress that clung to every single curve of her body.
On autopilot, I did all those things, got into a cab, and headed over to Jake’s.
***
9pm precisely. He could not accuse me of being late. I rang the doorbell and waited. I was strangely not nervous. I had no reason to trust Jake Ballard, but I also knew no serious harm would befall me; Jake had tenure and world-recognition; he wasn’t about to throw it all away on impulse.
The scars would be emotional, not physical. Tonight, I would either confirm that I was indeed submissive; willing to do anything the right man commanded me to do. Or I would find out that, as he’d accused me, I was playing at submissive posturing. I wasn’t sure what I was going to discover about myself tonight, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to discover anything about myself.
He opened the door. He had changed into a plain black t-shirt and faded jeans. The black brought out the colour in his eyes; a vivid, startling blue, as blue as the sea and as wild.
He looked at me. “Here’s how tonight’s going to work, Emily,” he said, his voice level. “I won’t draw blood. Any mark I leave on you will fade in a couple of days. And I’ll give you a safeword you can invoke, if it all gets too much.”
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