Getting Dirty

by Mia Storm

  But I don’t think that would be enough. And if he finds out I’m still in high school…

  I’ve been at this university for seven years.

  He’s not twenty-two. If my math is right, which I can’t guarantee based on my current state of mind, he’s at least twenty-four.

  Guilt cramps my insides and I breathe into my toes to flush it out. I should just walk away. That’s clearly what he wants me to do.

  I take another deep breath, then collect myself and turn the corner into the open area between the shelves and the resource desk. My heart skips when I see Caiden behind the counter. Across from him with his back to me is my tweed clad professor. Caiden’s eyes lock on mine over Professor Duncan’s shoulder. In them, I see everything I’m feeling: desire, despair. But where I’m feeling doubt, what I see in his gaze is determination. His mind is made up.

  Whatever we were starting is over.

  His gaze turns back to Professor Duncan and I go to the table and gather my things. I cross the room and shuffle down the stairs without looking back.

  Chapter 4

  Caiden

  My hand hesitates with the envelope perched at the lip of the mailbox. I pull it back and stare at the address, wondering for the thousandth time why I do this.

  Especially this month.

  It’s Mom’s mortgage or my rent. I don’t have enough student loan money to cover both. Hopefully my landlord’s on another binge. That might give me until my next work-study check comes on the tenth before he realizes I’m late.

  My loving mother kicked me out of the house for good five years ago, on Christmas day, in the middle of my sophomore year at Sierra. Said she couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore. Maybe it was because I’m Dad’s spitting image. More likely, she blamed me for the train wreck her life had become. I guess, in a backdoor sort of way, what happened was my fault.

  When my younger brother, Chris, stood up for me, she threw him out too. There were a few crazy weeks where my thirteen-year-old brother and I lived in my car. I tried to get ahold of Dad for help, but by that time he was months behind on Chris’s child support and no one knew where his mid-life crisis had carried him. Once school started again in January, I’d drop Chris off at the junior high early and he’d shower and eat breakfast there before class. I withdrew from classes, moved out of the dorms, and used my student loan to get us a cheap hotel room and keep us fed.

  But I knew the money was going to run out. And living in limbo wasn’t helping either of us.

  So I went home when Chris was at school one day and had it out with Mom. I told her she needed to pull her shit together because Chris still needed somewhere to live. She told me I was a useless piece of shit. I told her Chris wasn’t. She finally agreed and I dropped him back at home that night.

  He thought I chose school over him. Hated me for a long time for that.

  I found my fleabag apartment that summer and started funneling what I was saving on the dorms to him so he’d have decent clothes and whatever. He still crashed at my place all through high school when things got bad at home. He just graduated in May and officially moved in here when he started JC in the fall.

  Which means I don’t need to pay Mom’s mortgage anymore. Chris doesn’t need her. I should give that money to him so he doesn’t have to accept so many student loans.

  I hate the thought of him getting buried under them the way I have.

  I run my fingers over the envelope. Even if Mom knew I’ve been covering the mortgage since the foreclosure notice came four years ago, she wouldn’t appreciate it. She’d probably say I was doing it out of guilt.

  Who knows? Maybe I am. Whatever the reason, the thought of her losing the home I grew up in sits worse with me than finding a way to keep her there.

  The car behind me honks. I lift my eyes to the rearview and honk back, then shove the envelope in the slot and peal away from the curb.

  When I reach campus, I go straight to the Student Wellness building and change in the locker room. Jones is stretching against the wall when I get to the kickboxing mats.

  “You’re late.”

  I shrug as I pull on my gloves. “It happens.”

  “Watched Fight Night this weekend,” he says with a grin as he tugs on a glove and ties it. “Learned some new moves. Prepare to be dazzled.”

  “Should have brought my sunglasses.”

  I finish tying my gloves and press in my mouth guard as I take my spot on the mat. When Jones is done fussing with his gear, he joins me.

  I strike out with a right hook followed by a knee to the hip and take him to the mat.

  “Holy hell, Brenner,” he grumbles through his mouth guard. “I thought we were warming up. What the fuck crawled up your ass?”

  “You name it,” I say, hooking an elbow into his and hauling him up.

  “Duncan?”

  “Among other things.” Like a tight little undergrad who’s still featured in my dreams every night.

  He comes at me with an uppercut that I deflect before landing one of my own. I jam my knee into his ribs and follow it with a jab to the gut.

  He doubles over and backs away, spitting out his mouth guard and glaring up at me. “It’s that tight piece of ass from the library, isn’t it?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what who I’m talking about,” he says, popping in the guard. He brings a knee up, connecting with my ribs. “You ran me off for a reason.”

  I dodge to the left as his fist comes at my face. “You know I can’t go there.”

  “Which explains all this pent up, high-velocity angst.”

  I pummel him with another barrage of uppercuts and send him to the floor with a kick to his side. Because the prick is right. I’m frustration personified, blindly annihilating anything in my path. Unfortunately for him, he’s in my path at the moment. So I picture his face when he was getting ready to make his move on Blaire, then duck and punch, sidestep and kick.

  Because one second I’ve got myself convinced that I can follow through—that we only have to keep it hidden for four months. And the second after that I’m asking myself: What the fuck am I doing?

  So far the only answer I’ve come up with is “fucking my future straight to hell.”

  But, Christ. This girl stood on stage a week ago and blew my mind. I can’t stop thinking about the power of her poem. She owned it—her love of sex and her hate of the double standard. She put it all right out there without reservation.

  She’s got to be the bravest fucking woman I’ve ever met.

  And she wants to get dirty.

  I shake the thought out of my head as Jones comes at me with a right hook. She’s going to have to get dirty with someone other than me, because we can’t happen.

  Part of me was satisfied that she’d gotten my message when she didn’t come to the library after class on Wednesday. A bigger part of me was in agony, wanting to run to the lit building to catch at least a glimpse of her walking to her car. But that part can’t have what it wants. Too much is at risk.

  When Jones lifts his hands an hour later and breathes, “No más,” I shower and head over to the lit building. The elevator takes a day to come after I punch the button, so I finally give up and climb the stairs to the third floor two at a time. I try Dr. Duncan’s office, but it’s locked. Probably at lunch. I turn up the hall toward the bank of faculty mailboxes to check if he left anything in my box that needs handling. There’s nothing but a note from him reminding me the next chapter of my dissertation is due a week from today.

  Fuck. I haven’t even started pulling my thoughts together yet.

  Usually after a workout I feel more focused, but right now, everything inside me is a mass of chaos—a thousand pin balls ricocheting off every surface. Instead of dissipating, all that kinetic energy is escalating to critical mass.

  I’m going to fucking blow apart at the seams.

  “You look more wound up than I am. And that’s say
ing something.”

  I turn at the familiar voice and find Hannah standing behind me. Her long blond hair is up in a high ponytail and she’s dressed professionally, in a teal silk blouse and a black pencil skirt. Her heels bring her to my six foot one. “You look good. Presentation this morning?”

  She nods and lifts a hand to rub her shoulder under the strap of her bag. “Just finished my proposal meeting with the dissertation board.”

  “Great. How’d it go?”

  “They signed off on it this time, so thank fucking God.”

  I shove Dr. Duncan’s note in my pocket and hike my messenger bag higher on my shoulder. “I was heading over to the library for my shift, but I’ve got a few minutes if you want to get some lunch or whatever.”

  A smile tugs at her mouth and one blond eyebrow arches. “I’m too jacked up to eat right now, but I’d be definitely be up for ‘whatever.’”

  My eyes take a long drink of her body. This might be exactly what I need. “Yeah. I could do that.”

  She turns up the hall and I follow her to her faculty advisor’s office. She slips the key in the lock and opens the door. “Dr. Garret’s in class until two.”

  She leaves the light off as I step in behind her and she locks the door. She unbuttons her blouse. It falls to the floor in a teal puddle at her feet as she reaches behind her for the clasp of her bra.

  It takes me a minute to catch up. I tug off my shirt and toss it on the arm of the wingchair next to Dr. Garret’s desk. I toe off my Vans and socks, and by the time I’m shucking my jeans down my legs, she’s already down to a nude lace thong and her heels. She reaches into her bag for a condom, then takes my hand and tows me to Dr. Garret’s side of the desk. She slips her panties down her legs and slides her ass onto the desk, then pulls me between her knees and tugs my boxer briefs over my erection. I watch as she sheathes my cock in latex.

  Then I ram it into her.

  She leans back onto her hands and rolls her neck in a circle, unwinding some of the tension there. “I needed this so bad.”

  Me too. I need a distraction from the incredibly fuckable but very off-limits undergrad giving me the worst case of blue balls I’ve ever had.

  I grasp Hannah’s hips and pull her right to the edge of the desk, then drive into her over and over. My thumb searches out her clit and I work it with our rhythm.

  “Fuck, yes,” she groans, closing her eyes.

  For the next several minutes, there’s grunting and gasping and the slapping of skin. When she arches up and opens her mouth in a silent prayer, I let myself go, knowing she’s got what she needed.

  “You know, most men aren’t as attentive as you to a woman’s needs,” she says as I’m tugging off the condom. “You’re the only guy I’ve ever been with who waits to be sure I have mine first.”

  “It’s only fair,” I say, wrapping it in tissue and burying it under papers in Dr. Garret’s trash.

  She blows out a derisive laugh. “I wish they all saw it that way.”

  I tug up my boxers. “I’ve never seen it any other way.”

  I was a late bloomer, I suppose. I lost my virginity first semester of my freshman year in college. Veronica was a twenty-one-year-old senior sociology major. And she was a nymphomaniac.

  We met on the track at the student fitness center on a Tuesday afternoon. By Tuesday night, I was in her bed and never got out until the following Monday morning. Unbeknownst to my parents, I moved into her apartment the following week and my dorm roommate never saw me again until the day I came to collect the rest of my crap at the end of the school year.

  I’m convinced I had more sex that year than most guys do in a lifetime. We fucked like rabbits—five or six times a day. Every day. But Veronica had one rule—sex etiquette, she called it: The guy isn’t done until the girl comes. She taught me more about female anatomy than I ever learned in human sexuality freshman year. She taught me exactly what to do with my tongue and my fingers and my cock to make it good for the girl.

  I think I might have fallen a little in love with Veronica that year. I was certainly infatuated with her. We kept in touch for a few months after she graduated, but she moved to Manhattan for bigger and better things and that was that.

  I’ve had enough opportunity since Veronica to keep my skills sharp, but I’ve never had a serious relationship since. Not that I’m not looking for The One. I think deep down, everyone is. But so far, no one’s hit the mark. I think it’s just one of those things. I’ll know her when I see her. Not like love at first sight. I don’t really believe in that. But I keep telling myself that when I find her, there’ll be something about her that’s different. Something that I can’t get anywhere else. Something about her will speak to me in a way no one else ever has.

  Hannah and I finish dressing and slip out of Dr. Garret’s office. I watch her walk away with her heels dangling from her fingers, nearly six feet of instant relief.

  We don’t do this very often—only four or five times in the two years we’ve been in the program together—but there are times a guy just needs a fuckbuddy.

  ∞

  It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen Blaire and I finally feel in control for the first time since she crashed into my life like a speeding comet. I just needed to work off some of the tension. I’m thinking with the right head now. I can maintain appropriate boundaries.

  This is where my head is until Blaire appears at the top of the stairs. And that’s the instant I know I was dead wrong.

  She’s in black leggings and a snug white long-sleeved top with a deep V neckline.

  And no fucking bra. Christ, don’t they sell underwear in her town?

  I’m momentarily breathless, and totally helpless to take my eyes off her.

  She watches me watching her as she saunters toward me and leans on the counter. “I was hoping you’d have time to work through some Byron with me.”

  My brain scrambles, synapses firing at random. “I’m pretty busy,” I stammer. “Got another chapter of my dissertation due to Dr. Duncan on Friday, so…”

  “What’s it on?” she asks, leaning against the counter.

  I’m finally able to breathe and I take a second to do that before answering. “It’s actually pretty dry. Don’t think you’d find it all that interesting.”

  “Because I’m too stupid to grasp your lofty literary concepts?” she says, a scowl clouding her flawless features.

  I lean onto the counter between us and shake my head. “I sincerely doubt there’s anything you’re too stupid to grasp, Blaire.”

  “So?” she says with an inquisitive tip of her head. “Lay it on me.”

  I take a deep breath. “It’s not a mistake Dr. Duncan sent you to me when you decided to do your project on Byron’s Don Juan. My dissertation is a comparative study of several different international translations in the era it was written and the social impact they had in those regions.”

  “Social impact?” she asks, arching her eyebrows.

  “When Byron wrote the first two cantos of Don Juan, it was criticized and nearly banned in certain languages for its ‘immoral content.’ It wasn’t until the third canto published that it began to catch on.” I lift my eyes to her. “You’ve read the first two cantos.”

  She nods. “Donna Julia, who’s twenty-three and married, seduces a sixteen-year-old Don Juan.”

  I pin my eyes to her face, because, if left to their own devices, they’d be devouring her body. Her clothes hug every contour and leave little to the imagination. “That was pretty risky thinking for the early 1800s.”

  “But not so risky now,” she says, leaning closer, her fingertips overlapping mine.

  “But still not socially acceptable, either,” I counter, stepping back and leaning against the desk behind me in an attempt to create some much needed space between me and my temptation.

  “So your dissertation and my project dovetail,” she says. “You’re studying the social impact of Don Juan’s sexual conquests, and I’m stud
ying his conflict because of them. If there was no social stigma to having sex, he’d have nothing to feel conflicted about, so they tie directly together.”

  I have no answer, because in a lot of ways, she’s right.

  “If you follow that to its logical conclusion,” she continues, “all our sexual hang ups stem from socially dictated morals that may not even apply in any given situation. Sex isn’t dirty. It’s just that some societies have brainwashed generations to believe that, to keep their second graders from masturbating in class.”

  A smile tugs at my mouth. “I think your poem spoke very nicely to that,” I say, unable to help myself.

  She smiles back, and there’s something decidedly suggestive in it. “I’ve got more where that came from, any time you’re ready for that private reading.”

  I hang my head between my shoulders and breathe. Once. Twice. Three times. Finally the buzz in my groin fades. Blaire’s mind comes at things from a totally different starting point, and she obviously doesn’t pull any punches in her poetry. I have a sudden burning need to hear her poems—to hear that mind at work. To know every intimate detail.

  “After the end of the semester,” I say without looking up, “I’m all yours.”

  When I hear Dr. Duncan’s signature throat clear, my head snaps up, and he’s standing across the counter with a folder in his hands. He looks at me over the top of his wire rim glasses, strands of his gray comb-over falling onto his forehead. I glance past him and find Blaire sliding into a seat at her regular table.

  “These are pop essays I had the students write in class tonight,” he says, handing the folder to me. “There’s no rush grading them, but if you can get them back to me by the end of the week, that would be most appreciated.”

  I take the folder and try to read his expression. What did he hear? “No problem.”

  “How’s that chapter coming? Any new insights?”