by Linnea May
I could look at her forever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JACKSON
More than a month has passed and Miss Harlington acts as if our little encounter never took place. I’m beginning to regret just letting her go like that. I could have risked more, I usually do. If it weren’t for that turn our conversation had taken, I definitely would have gotten a taste of her.
Screw the rules, screw the trouble this could put me in. The faculty may agree that students are off limits, but I’m not really a part of them. I’m just a visitor from another planet - and I prefer the rules I live by.
But she has to play along. I didn’t get anything from her these past few weeks, except for shy looks from afar. She participated in class, but only when I posed questions on factual knowledge. Our only interaction was when I called her up to tell me something that a search engine or an encyclopedia could have told me just as well. There was absolutely no personal communication between us.
I hate that. She might be closing up on me before we even started.
When I didn’t find her in her usual seat last week, I feared that she might have dropped my class altogether. I couldn’t start my class until I found her sitting in a row at the far back, looking at me with the same attentive face as always and hunching her shoulders while casting me a smile. Apologizing.
But why was she sitting back there? Is she trying to send me a message? Why distance herself from me even more than she already did before?
I hate not knowing what’s going through that pretty head of hers. She might not be thinking about our conversation at all, or she might be scared, confused, mad even. I want to know what she’s thinking, if I hit the nail right on the head when I assumed that she’s not really in this with all her heart. She may seem like the ordinary scholarly girl, the good and diligent student who thrives for the one dimensional success that comes with good grades, but even after the few exchanges I’ve had with her, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is the real her. Her voice is monotone and robotic when she talks about the path that’s been laid out for her. She never says “I want”, she just says “I do”.
Never have I seen anyone react to my words as she did. Where’s that arrogance and confidence she displayed during our first conversation? Her resistance to my unconventional approach has vanished far too quickly.
And it has been replaced by this disturbing silence. I’d much rather fight with her and let her spit arrogant malice at me instead of not engaging with her at all. How in the hell am I supposed to get my way with her if she’s not even within reach?
She still has the sweater I made her wear after her blouse got drenched and transparent from the heavy rain. That thunderstorm provided the perfect opportunity to be alone with her and test her - and I didn’t take the chance! I got too distracted with my role as her teacher and adviser, and now this chance might have passed forever.
At least this week she’s back in her old seat. Third row, slightly to the left from my point of view. I take position in front of my class and regard her with the usual welcome look, relieved to find her closer this time, if only physically.
But there’s something else about her. She looks radiant. She is wearing her hair up and unless I’m very much mistaken, her makeup is heavier today than I’ve seen it before. Her eyes look bigger, enhanced with black eyeliner and her cheeks look less pale, but have more of a pink tone to them.
I absentmindedly hand out the quiz I have prepared for today.
“Thirty minutes!” I yell into the auditorium. “It’s just a little pop quiz to see if you guys have been listening to me at all so far.”
A giggly murmur travels through the hall as I pace back to my position up front.
“Don’t stress about it,” I add. “It’s not going to be graded - but try to not come across like an idiot, okay?”
I sit on the edge of the desk, crossing my arms in front of my chest while I watch the quiz being distributed among the students.
“Time starts when everybody has their test,” I say, demonstratively looking at my Rolex.
She could have met someone.
That awful thought suddenly appears in my mind and sends a rush of fury through my veins. What if she has a boyfriend? Maybe that’s why she is keeping her distance from me. It could be her way discreet way of putting me in my place. While I didn’t go all out in my office with her, I clearly made it obvious that there is something there, an attraction. I showed her what I have to offer - she just didn’t bite.
Fuck. The idea of her being taken away from me by some college boy drives me wild with rage. This doesn’t happen to me. Not anymore, that is.
I’m clenching my teeth, suppressing the urge to look at her, sitting there with her cute makeup and the new hairdo, fancying herself up for someone else while pushing me away.
She was supposed to become mine, if only to break her sassy little spine.
Fuck. I need to see her crawl in front of me, beg for me. Now, this might never happen.
The longer I think about it, the more sense it makes for her to have another guy in her life. She may have been dating someone all along, after all - I never asked. Officially, it never mattered. I’m just her damn teacher, a guest lecturer with nothing more than a quick appearance in this girl’s life.
I end class right after the quiz, but not because I don’t know what to do with the students. I had a few things prepared for after the quiz, but with my mind running wild with thoughts about what - or who - is keeping Miss Harlington away from me, I just can’t stand to be in the same room as her for much longer. At least not today.
I know my fury will subside and I will find a way to deal with this - most likely by fucking the tits off of one of my girls. I haven’t seen any of them since I started this position. Teaching, next to my usual responsibilities kept me busy enough.
Besides, I thought I’d be having a lot more fun right here, with little Miss Harlington.
Now that that’s not going to happen I’ll have to leave my frustration in another woman’s bed. Charlotte maybe. She’s willing and kinky enough for my tastes, and she never complains, about anything.
I spent the usual amount of time chit-chatting with a few students after class. The group of people who come up to me to bombard me with questions has grown smaller with every week. Today, only three of them gather around me, and while I’m talking to them, I notice that Miss Harlington is waiting at her seat as well. She’s still busy packing her things, but her overly slow movements suggest that she’s in no hurry to leave class and wants to have a word with me.
By the time all the other students have left, she slowly gets up from her seat and approaches me.
“What can I do for you, Miss Harlington?” I ask without looking directly at her, as I put on my jacket.
When she doesn’t reply right away, I turn to search her face. She looks up at me through black framed eyes, her thick lashes flickering and a taste of hurt on her gaze.
“I thought about what you said,” she says in a soft voice.
“I said a lot of things,” I retort. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes. A behavior that deserves a thorough spanking.
“The homework you gave me,” she clarifies. “When we were in your office.”
“Mhm,” I utter. “What about it?”
“I wonder if we could talk about it,” she says. Her voice is so different than it was the first time she approached me. It’s weak, shy, almost as if she has been beaten.
My eyes search hers, trying to see behind her words. So, she came back to me. But does she want to have a career prep talk, or does she show interest in something else as well?
“You want to talk?” I ask, not losing her eyes for one second.
Her painted lashes start flickering more than before. She’s turning into that trapped butterfly again, a clear sign that she’s nervous. I may not know a lot about her, but I know this much: Her lashes are like a na
tural EKG recording. They reflect her heart beat.
Let’s see.
“I don’t have time right now,” I say, securing the buttons of my coat. “But later today, if that would work for you?”
She nods. “My last class ends at 6pm.”
“So, you’ll be on campus, then?”
“Yes.”
“We should meet somewhere nearby then,” I suggest. “How about we-”
“How about your office?” She asks before I can finish my sentence.
Now she’s the one who locks me in place with her intense gaze. Her eyelashes are still fluttering madly, but I can tell that she’s trying very hard to keep it cool.
“I mean,” she adds. “If you’re around as well, that is.”
“I’ll be around,” I say. “I’ll be going through the quizzes this afternoon.”
She nods. “Okay, good. I just thought it would make sense, because…”
Because we’d be alone and this is the only place you can think of that doesn’t seem too inappropriate to meet up with me in private?
“I still have your sweater,” she finishes her sentence. “And this way, you could put it right back where it belongs.”
I wouldn’t care if she kept that damn sweater. In fact, I like the idea of her wearing it even when I’m not around. The thought of her wrapped in my clothes arouses me to no end.
“Sure,” I say nonchalantly. “You can come by after your class.”
“Good.” She smiles at me and turns around.
I watch her walk away in her black pleated skirt, swinging her small hips in an awkwardly seductive fashion, fully aware that my eyes are on her. I didn’t know college girls still wore those.
So fucking delicious.
She knocks at my door at precisely 6:15pm and waits for me to call her in. I don’t reply to her first knock, but wait to see if she’ll open the door or wait to hear my command.
She waits, then knocks again a few moments later.
“Come in!”
She scurries through the door and closes it behind herself.
Not much has changed about her looks from this morning. Her eyes are still framed with thickly painted lashes and a thin line of eyeliner on her upper eyelid, her cheeks blushing in a light pink, and her hair up in a lose bun.
However, two things catch my eyes. She’s wearing the same white blouse she was wearing the day we escaped from the thunderstorm. It goes well with the black pleated skirt she already wore this morning and makes her look like a school girl even more. Is she doing this on purpose? Does she think I have some kind of fetish for school girls? Because I don’t.
However, I don’t mind her appearance either.
The second thing that’s different from this morning is the fact that she’s wearing lipstick. I’ve never seen her wear lipstick before. It looks strangely misplaced on her innocent face.
“You look pretty,” I tell her without giving her more than a quick glance. It’s just to let her know that I noticed. “Do you have a date after this? New boyfriend?”
The horrified face she makes is answer enough. She shakes her head vigorously.
“No!” She exclaims. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
She spits out the words as if the thought of having a boyfriend was absolutely absurd. It’s endearing.
No boyfriend then. So another man was not the reason she kept her distance from me for the past few weeks.
And now she’s here. No boyfriend. With her lips dyed red and her blue eyes framed with a little too much black paint.
I beckon her to have a seat across the other side of the table, and she follows my gesture like an obedient little puppy.
“So, you said you wanted to talk about our homework?” I ask.
She nods, placing her hands in her lap and sitting unnaturally upright as she looks at me.
“Yes,” she replies. “I have to admit that you struck quite a nerve with what you were saying back then.”
“What exactly?” I probe. “Enlighten me, Miss Harlington.”
“Well, you pointed out that I’m not really following my passion and-”
“I didn’t point it out,” I interrupt her. “You pretty much told me.”
She sighs. Again. I will remember that.
“Whatever,” she continues. “What matters is that you’re right. I’m not in this with my heart and I haven’t really thought about what I really want to do in my life for a very long time. I just leveled up, as you put it.”
She pauses and exchanges a look with me. Anticipatory and testing. She is scared of a reaction that isn’t coming.
“I’m about to finish my master’s degree, and I was planning to follow up with a PhD,” she continues.
“I know that.”
“Yes, but what you don’t know is that I’ve decided against doing that now,” she says. “I think there’s something else out there that would make me happier.”
I lean back and cross my legs, throwing her an attentive look. “And have you figured out what that something else might be?”
She inhales audibly and relaxes her shoulders on the exhale. Her deep breath almost sounds like a moan, surprisingly erotic.
“Not exactly,” she whispers. “The thing is… I have ideas. Ideas for little things that solve everyday problems in life. Solutions that you can carry with you.”
“Like smartphones.”
She nods eagerly. “Yes! Smartphones! Apps!”
“Everyone wants to do apps these days,” I argue.
“Maybe,” she says. “But there’s a reason why everyone wants to do them. Because they’re what people are asking for. We use our phones more and more for every little thing in life. Apps are so widely used, it’s no surprise that everyone wants to hop on that market.”
“I’ll give you that,” I agree.
The sparkle in her eyes is undeniable. She shifts around in the chair, displaying a very different picture than the tensed up creature I encountered on my first day here.
“Also, the people who want to make apps are always the same,” she continues. “They’re programmers. Unlike me, they know how to actually build an app, but they live in a specific environment that serves them with a particular input, and they, you know…”
“They’re geeks,” I complete her sentence. “Trust me, I know. I’m one of them.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she says, as if she had to console me.
I glare at her. “Of course it’s not.”
She sucks in air and blushes, her eyes widening. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“Let me tell you something,” I say. “What you’re saying doesn’t sound stupid to me.”
“Well, thanks,” she interjects in a snappy tone.
“Is there anything more specific about your idea you could tell me about right now?” I want to know.
She lowers her eyes and starts chewing her lower lip. Her eyelashes resume their frantic flickering.
“Not really I just-”
“Then I don’t want to hear about it,” I interrupt. “You’ve taken enough Econ classes to know how to work out a good business plan. And you’re a student in my class, which is all about entrepreneurship and coming up with your own successful start-up. You have enough tools for now to present me with a well thought out business plan for one of your ideas. And we’ll see where we can go from there.”
She raises her eyes up to mine, wide blue marbles looking at me with dainty bewilderment.
“What do you mean by th-”
“Just do what I told you to do,” I hiss.
She furls her eyebrows, but doesn’t immediately talk back.
“Okay,” she murmurs.
I examine her for a few moments, watching as her eyelashes calm down and she stops fiddling with the giant black ring on her finger. Her shoulders drop, but her head remains high, her eyes nervously traveling between me, the desk and her lap.
This is the perfect moment to find out.
“Why did you want to meet me here?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
LANA
His powerful gaze is on me, watching me closer than anyone has ever watched me before. The light gray shirt he is wearing today tightens around his muscular arms when he leans forward, placing his elbows on the desk. He interlace his hands and locks me in place with his fierce eyes.
“What? I just… I just told you why I-”
“That’s not what I mean,” he interrupts, His voice is calm, but domineering. “Why did you want to meet in here?”
We stare at each other and I hope to God that he can’t see the heat rushing to my cheeks. But of course he can. I’m so pale, the slightest hint of embarrassment - just as the smallest drop of alcohol - paints my cheeks in a telltale pink color that is obvious to anyone with functioning eyes.
“Convenience,” I lie. “We’re both on campus and-”
“There are plenty of coffee places around here,” he says. “We could have gone to the one you suggested the last time we talked. Is it because you don’t want to be seen with me in public?”
I huff. “What? No! Absolutely not. Why would I… I mean, there’s no reason why I wouldn’t-”
“Exactly, there isn’t,” he says, interrupting me once again. “That’s why I’m wondering. Is it because you wanted to be alone with me?”
Oh, God.
Seriously. What did I expect to happen? I asked for this. The suggestion to meet in his office just poured out of me when he asked where we should meet. I thought it would be inconspicuous, an innocent way of asking to be alone with him.
I wanted his input on my thoughts - but I also wanted to see where our conversation would go if we were confined in his small office again. Just the two of us.
I want to see where this is going. But I don’t dare to be honest about my curiosity.
“Let’s do it this way,” he continues, still keeping me in a tight grip with just his eyes. “I’ll throw out a few of the presumptions I’m having about your intentions here, and you can tell me whether I’m right or wrong by nodding or shaking your head.”
I gulp. God, he’s good.