by Haley Pierce
She’s not accusing me. Not yet. I shrug. “Yeah, I know,” I say lightly. “Weird, huh?”
I shift my eyes to her face for a heartbeat. Her expression is a stone dam, ready to crumble into all-out rage. I suck in a breath and head toward the staircase. “Better get to bed. I have an early—“
She throws an arm across the stairwell, blocking me. The force of her movement sends the wine sloshing, and some of it splatters on my sweater. Her voice is low and controlled. “Don’t. Fuck. With. Me.”
Her eyes are glazed. Of course, she only curses when she’s drunk. I catch my breath and swallow. “What?” I start. “Mom, what are you—“
Without warning, she throws the full wine glass across the room, and it shatters against the snow-white wall. It’s not something that should shock me, since my mom has always been into throwing things in her rage, but it does. I jump to attention, standing spike-straight, as she watches the rivulets of red wine spilling down its surface like blood.
Before I can realize her attention is back on me, the blow comes, driving such white-hot pain in my jaw that I’m stunned speechless. I waver on my feet but grab the staircase railing, so I don’t fall.
Clutching my cheek, I look up at her. She’s standing there, hand raised, ready to do it again.
I cringe.
We’d been doing so good. She’d only laid a hand on me once, years ago, when I’d spilled grape juice on her new white sofa. But I guess since then, I’d always behaved. I’ve always been so good, knowing in the back of my head that this could happen.
I wait for the next lash, but it doesn’t come. Instead, she strides away from me, saying, “I’ll have Hobson check your car. Good night.”
Cain
I don’t see Addison until Wednesday.
I’m practically giddy for class to start, which is why I get there early. By then, I’m satisfied that I’ve given her enough time to mull over the scene she’d witnessed. If I’m right about her, then it’s been marinating in her head ever since, and she’s been thinking about me as obsessively as I’ve been thinking about her.
The meeting with Anna had started as shittily as I’d thought. Emil was ready to pull the plug, and I asked if there was anything I could do. Anna played the hardass for a while, saying that no, we’d done everything possible and it was time to call it a day. But then I reached over, ran my hand up her thigh, and asked if she could ask for another extension.
She agreed, of course. She was so agreeable that she couldn’t even wait to get to my apartment.
Fine by me. I fucked her on the hood of her BMW, punishing her, pushing all my rage into her, feeling just about as shitty a person as I was an author.
And then I saw Addison.
Like an angel from above. Except this time, she was crouching in the shadows, watching us. Watching me.
She had her hand in those short shorts, too, getting off on it. Turns out, Sweet Addison is a dirty, dirty girl.
And just like that, I knew we would happen.
I can’t deny it, now. I’m in too deep, now. I’m a fucking sorry excuse for a professor, because I have to have her, consequences be damned.
I arrive to the classroom fifteen minutes early, and as I expect, Addison is there. She’s not wearing the farmgirl outfit anymore, but damned if she doesn’t look just as amazing in jeans and a tight camisole that defines the outlines of her nipples. When I come in, she looks at me and frowns.
That wasn’t the look I was expecting. In fact, part of me was hoping to get her in the corner of the classroom and wrap those long limbs around my body. Instead, I coolly walk to the desk and drop my briefcase on it. “Afternoon, McBride,” I say dismissively. “How was your weekend?”
Forehead wrinkled in deep concentration, she gnaws on her lip again. God, have mercy.
Before she stands, I know what the trouble is. When she stands and steps close to my desk, I anticipate her next words. “Dr, Hill, I—“
I hold up my hands. “If you want to forget that night, I will be happy to. I think neither of us can say we were at our best.”
She exhales. Her face is as red as the sunset. “Oh. Yes. Yes, thank you. I’m sorry.”
“What did I say about being sorry?”
“Right.” She lets out a giggle and reaches into her notebook. She starts to hand it to me, but then thinks better of it and holds it to her chest. “Er. I’m working on a new poem. I’m hoping it’s better.”
“Would you like me to read it?”
She shakes her head. “Not until I’m done with it. It’s not ready.”
“All right. I think today’s lesson will benefit you immensely. It’s about stream of consciousness writing. Have you ever tried that?”
She shakes her head.
“Well, it’s about letting loose. Freeing your inhibitions,” I say to her, noticing the blush comes back full force. Though the deal was to forget that night, I’m never going to. And I’m damned sure going to make it as hard as possible for her to. “Have you ever?”
Her brows knit. “Dr. Hill, I . . .” She trails off.
“It’s okay, McBride,” I coax her. “You don’t have to be afraid of it.”
She nods, understanding. Her voice is barely a whisper. “I want to try.”
She leans into me, and I can see down her shirt, to those full tits again. If I could see inside her mind, maybe I would understand why her words sometimes say yes, while her body says no, and vice versa.
She’s unsure, timid. It’s such a fucking turn-on, but I’m not into working to change a woman’s mind, especially when I can lose my job over it. I need her to come to me, all in, one-hundred percent. “Do you?” I ask, studying her.
I place a finger on her bare forearm, unable to miss the goosebumps that spread out from that point, covering every inch of her milky flesh.
But she doesn’t pull away.
That’s all the signal I need.
She simply looks down at my finger on her arm, and nods slowly. “Please,” she whispers, her eyes shifting to mine. Begging me, again. “Show me.”
I gather up the courage to put my finger under her chin and lift her mouth so I can finally taste those sweet lips of hers. When I do, I notice it in the bright fluorescent light. It’s covered by a thin layer of make-up, but it’s there. The yellowing remains of a bruise. I gently touch it. “What happened here?” I murmur.
She winces and I can feel her body tremble. “I . . .“
I hear footsteps in the corridor outside. I step away from her as a couple of students walk inside the room. I go back to the desk and pull out my lesson plan, noting their obliviousness with a good deal of relief.
Close call.
When my eyes shift to Addison, her nose is buried in her notebook. Shit. My cock is hard, and I still haven’t tasted her yet. This is going to be the longest period in god’s creation.
I manage to struggle through it, though. I give the students some examples of stream-of consciousness and let them experiment with it for the rest of the time. My cock is stiff the entire time, so I bury myself under my desk. But every time I sneak a look at Addison, she’s looking away from me. Cold, aloof. How she manages to turn off her emotions so quickly, I’ll never know, but her attitude turns me on even more.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Addison is second-guessing her decision to be with me, probably like she second-guesses everything in her life. She doesn’t understand that freeing one’s inhibitions isn’t a shameful thing, that her, being in that parking lot, watching me . . . well, it was fucking beautiful.
But I can’t tell that to her, now.
I think about the bruise. There’s something she’s hiding. I find myself itching to reach inside her, to peel back the petals of this beautiful flower. Maybe she’s not as innocent as she appears. Perhaps she knows darkness, as well. Perhaps there is a writer within her, after all.
It doesn’t surprise me when the period ends and she’s first to leave the class. But the
re’s actual physical pain in the fact that she doesn’t even give me a second glance as she does.
Addison
I pull over to the side of the road and jam the heels of my hands against the steering wheel.
Oh, no.
I couldn’t count on Hobson to verify my alibi. Hobson, who is not only a world-class chauffer, he’s also an excellent auto mechanic. He took one look at my car and certified that it’s in tip-top condition. But obviously, that didn’t save me from the giant nail in the middle of the McBride Applied Science Building parking lot. I’d seen it the split second before I ran over it, too late. I knew I was in trouble when my Jeep started listing to the left, and a second later, I heard the unmistakable thump-thump-thump underneath me.
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my phone. 6:58. My mother was expecting me home at seven, because we have a dinner appointment at a swanky restaurant in the city with Saul Eisenblatt, a big shot lawyer she’s been dating. Supposedly it’s serious, and now she wants to introduce me to him. She’d bought me a new dress, told me to “make a fuss”.
I dial her number, but it goes right to voicemail.
Shit. I look around helplessly, finding my wallet and trying to locate my Triple A card. The flat tire is no excuse. If I’d been smart, I would’ve left hours ago to get home and get myself ready. But I’d gotten busy working on the poem for class, trying to impress Dr. Hill, and I’d lost track of time.
Besides, nothing short of my death will be good enough to give me a pass for this. I’d only been ten minutes late last time, and look where that got me. She sees through my lies. But I obviously couldn’t tell the truth, which was that I was ten minutes late because I’d been diddling in the parking lot while watching my professor have sex.
The following day, my mother had apologized, in her way. She’d said she’d had a hard day. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still angry at me.
She knows I lied to her.
It doesn’t matter what I do. I’m always in the wrong, I think, stroking my cheek. The bruise is all but gone, but I wince at the memory. If I’m responsible for missing her date with Saul . . .
I throw open the door to the Jeep and grab my purse, preparing to walk the two miles. No, sprint the two miles. As I step into the road, a black sedan pulls up behind me.
I take a deep breath when he steps out. Dr. Hill.
I shiver, remembering how he’d touched me in class. It was just a simple touch on my forearm, but it had given me head-to-toe goosebumps. I’d almost lost myself in him, gone past the point of no return. He’d almost kissed me. And then he saw the bruise. When he mentioned it, as much as I wanted to forget, I couldn’t stop thinking of my mother. Of how disappointed she’d be.
I stopped it then and I have to stop it now. My mother worked too hard to carve a path for me, and anything like this is like taking a dangerous detour I might never return from.
I don’t know. At this point, it doesn’t feel like she wants the best for me anymore.
She hit me. How is that good?
“What’s the trouble?” he says, sauntering toward me. He’s not wearing his jacket. Now, he’s in a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and jeans. The sight of him nearly renders me breathless. In my silence, he fills in the answer. “Flat tire, huh?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, just goes to the back of my car, looking for the spare.
“Wait,” I say. “Forget the car. My driver can come and get it. Can you take me home?”
“Your . . .?” He raises an eyebrow. “All right, McBride.”
I lock up my car and scurry to the passenger side before he can make the move to open the door for me. He can sense my worry because he quickens his pace. When he slides into the sedan next to me, he wastes no time starting up and pulling onto the road. “Well?” he says.
I sigh. He’s wondering why I’m behaving so oddly. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
“Well, for this to work, I need to know where you live,” he says with a cool glance toward the passenger seat. “Unless you’d like to sleep in my bed tonight. Which I’m not particularly averse to, by the way.”
I blink. “What?”
“Nothing inappropriate, McBride,” he says. “If someone is hurting you, you can always come to me. I—“
“No.” I cut him off loudly before he can say more. Before he can think of me as some poor, abused wreck of a girl. I mean, how presumptuous can a person be? It’s just one little bruise. I don’t know why it irks me, but I’d rather him see me as a sex object than that. “I’m fine. I’m at 16 Starling Way. You’ve probably seen it before. It’s the president’s mansion, outside the gates.”
He seems surprised by my asserting myself. He nods. “Oh. You live there?”
“I do.” I lift my chin up high. “Also, for your information, no one hit me. I walked into a door.”
“Ah.” He nods. I think he’s buying it. “And why are you nervous, then? Do you have somewhere to be?”
“Yes. But also,” I blurt, having no idea where this is headed. I want so badly to take the microscope off me and put it on him that I say the first thing I can think of. “Men like you. Men who will have sex with women in public places with no regard for who might be seeing them . . . they skeeve me out.”
He starts to laugh. “I thought we were going to forget that?”
“Well, I can’t,” I mutter, crossing my arms defensively and settling deep into the bucket seat. “Who was that woman, anyway? Your wife? Girlfriend?”
I expect him not to answer; after all, he’s my teacher, and that’s getting personal. He shakes his head. “No one.” After a moment’s thought, he adds, surprising me, “My literary agent. I sold a book to St. Martin’s Press and we were having a meeting over that.”
“Your literary agent?” I repeat, incredulous. “So what was that in the parking lot? Negotiating a contract?”
He’s laughing bitterly. “In a manner of speaking. It’s . . . complicated.” He upshifts, chewing on the inside of his cheek, and some of the anger I’d seen on his face that night returns. It slowly subsides when he says, “Enough about me. What I want to know is, who tied you down?”
I look at him. “What?”
“What I’m saying is, you could’ve left at any time. So, my question to you is, why didn’t you?”
I can’t answer.
His voice is low and cool. “Did you enjoy it, McBride?”
I hold my breath. Yes. Oh, fuck, yes. Suddenly, I’ve forgotten just why I was in such a rush to get home. I want to stay in this car with him, forever. I don’t know what it is about him, but he doesn’t just turn me on.
He makes me feel safe.
I try to put conviction in my shake of the head, but it doesn’t happen. He knows, anyway. It was dark that night, but he saw the enjoyment all over my face.
“You did, didn’t you?”
I stop trying to shake my head and nod, just barely.
My heart thuds in my chest. I’m barely aware of the fact that he’s stopping the car, still a mile from my house. He pulls along the wooded side of the road, just outside the gates of the college. Then he turns and looks at me. “Have you ever been fucked like that, Addison?”
I can’t look back at him. I stare straight ahead, tense, at the dashboard, feeling the weight of his eyes on me. The real question is, have I been fucked at all? The answer: no. I’m afraid if I say that, though, I’ll scare him into seeing just how naïve I am.
I give a little shake of my head. We’re sitting alone in the dark, the only light available the intermittent headlights of passing cars, slashing through the cabin. Now I’m sure my heart is going to beat clear out of my chest.
His next words are ones I’m anticipating. “Do you want to be?”
I’m glad it’s dark because he can’t see the way I’m trembling. I look at him and nod.
He shakes his head. “Say it.”
I open my mouth and the word comes out so easily. “Yes.�
��
“Yes, who?”
“Yes, Dr. Hill.”
“Cain,” he murmurs. “When we’re alone, you can call me Cain.”
“Yes, Cain.”
Without any hesitation, he reaches a rough hand behind my neck, drawing my face to his. “I’m going to lose my job over this,” he says before his lips meet mine.
But I’ve known since I met him that teaching wasn’t his thing. I could see it by the way his shoulders slumped every time he entered the classroom. Maybe he doesn’t even know it, but I can tell. And I know we’re too close to turn back now.
His lips are surprisingly velvet and soft against mine. In that small movement, it’s like everything that was once off-limits to me is now there for me to explore.
I’d always wanted to touch his stubbly jaw, so I place a hand there, savoring the warmth of his skin. His lips part, and his tongue explores the edges of my mouth before I open my mouth and take him in. God, it’s amazing. He’s amazing. For so long, I’d been afraid I wouldn’t know what to do, but I’m surprised at how instinctual it all is, how my tongue knows just how to meld with his, how my hands find the right place.
Maybe he’s just that good a teacher.
His hands trail down my shoulders, and I feel them flirting with the eyelet lace straps of my camisole. I’ve imagined being bared to him so many times over the past weeks, and now, my breath hitches and my chest heaves as I feel him nudging the straps lower. I gasp as we break the kiss and his open mouth trails down my jaw line. He buries his face in my neck and molds a hand to my breast. His breath is ragged on my skin, his voice a growl. “Goddamn, you’re sweet.”
I look at the patterns of headlights slashing their way across his back as he continues to move his tongue magically against my skin. I can feel him straining to be closer to me, but even though the sedan’s cabin is roomy, the steering wheel and center console are in the way. When he pulls away from me, his eyes are wild with desire. He looks over the seat. “Let’s get in the back.”
I nod, willing to agree to anything he asks of me. Before I can locate the door handle, though, I stop.