Fall in Love

by Anthology

  Professor Wallace’s eyes were studying her intently.

  She cleared her throat, anxious to fill the uncomfortable silence with noise. “I, um, I see what you mean.”

  He nodded slowly and she wondered if he’d question her comment.

  “Close your eyes again,” he instructed. She complied, aware that the previous silence of the room was now filled with the unbearable loudness of her pounding heart. “Describe your family’s restaurant. Don’t tell me what you see, Keira. That’s already in the paper. Tell me the rest. Tell me why this place is so special.”

  Thankful he hadn’t questioned her observation about his desk, she envisioned the pub. “My family lives above the restaurant. I’m one of seven children so I suppose you can imagine it’s pretty crowded. My mother was the cook before she died and on special holidays, when the restaurant was closed, she’d go downstairs to the big kitchen to prepare our meals and we’d eat at the tables in the big dining room. Even though the restaurant was basically home, my mother always made it feel like we’d gone out somewhere special to eat.”

  She paused for a moment, smiling as she recalled the extra effort her mother expended to ensure the holidays were always perfect for her children. The tablecloths, the candlelight, the grape juice served in fancy wineglasses that they all used to make toasts and laugh and pretend they were grown-ups.

  Professor Wallace’s next question brought her back to the present. “I imagine the restaurant must have smelled lovely.”

  She started to open her eyes to respond to his question but she realized that, without sight, there was a security, a safety in speaking her mind that didn’t exist when she could see his face. If she was looking at him, she would fail to concentrate on her subject and instead spend too much time trying to figure out what he was thinking of her recollections. She kept her eyes firmly shut.

  “The smells were incredible, warm and sweet. I know Christmas can’t really have a smell, but in my mind, it does. Cinnamon, pine, fresh-baked bread.”

  “And your mother?” he asked.

  Keira smiled. “She had a smell too. Sugar cookies. My mother smelled like sugar cookies.” The memory, the brief burst of happiness at recalling her mother’s scent, turned quickly to the piercing sadness that had resided in her heart for nine years.

  “What about the sounds in the restaurant?” he asked.

  She sensed he hoped to return her to the joy of the scene, but it was gone. She opened her eyes and looked at him as she spoke.

  “My mother sang as she cooked. She had the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. Well, except for Teagan, my sister—she has my mother’s talent for singing.”

  “Look at your paper, Keira.”

  She glanced down at the page and briefly read her staid descriptions of the tables, chairs, bar. She’d spent nearly an entire paragraph describing the color and texture of the walls.

  He tapped his finger on the paper. “The place on that paper doesn’t seem very special to me. The place you just described sounds like one of the nicest places on earth. Write about that place.”

  She looked up and nodded. “I understand.”

  He grinned and, for the first time, she returned it. “There were two other assignments,” he picked up her stack of papers and flipped through it, “that would benefit from that same sort of description. Engage all your senses and rewrite these three papers. You can turn them in tomorrow morning when we meet again. Nine o’clock still okay?” He handed her the assignments and she mentally tried to figure out how in her busy schedule she was going to revise three assignments by tomorrow.

  “Nine is fine.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said, and, dismissed, she turned to leave.

  As the door closed behind her, Will sank down into his leather chair and tried to understand the grip this young woman had on him. He’d never been attracted to a student before, yet from the first moment she’d stepped foot in his class, Keira Collins had shaken his unwavering sense of self down to a pile of rubble. She’d destroyed his willpower and was systematically, unwittingly breaking down every standard, every principle he’d built his career upon.

  Clasping his hands together, he wondered how in the hell he’d manage to keep his hands off her these next two weeks.

  He’d been a damn fool to invite her to his office last night, and then outright insanity had claimed him as he’d extended the offer to work with her on her writing—alone, every morning. He was tempting fate in the worst possible way. He was a teacher and he could not—would not—seduce a student. The fact she was older and far more mature than his usual pupils shouldn’t make a difference.

  But Keira was different, very different. And in ways he suspected she didn’t even realize herself.

  He prided himself on his ability to keep his intensely personal life just that—personal. No doubt his colleagues at the college would be shocked to learn of his lifestyle off campus. A dominant lover, he worked damn hard to make sure the lines between his professional and personal life were kept clean, clear and distinct.

  Keira was a true danger. He was walking a tightrope without a net and every step closer to her threatened to send him crashing to earth. He never approached women sexually outside his set of acquaintances because he knew there was no way someone untutored, unfamiliar with the practices of D/s could handle him in the bedroom. He confined his relationships to women who craved bondage, a strong hand, submission. He wasn’t about to initiate a novice into that lifestyle.

  Leaning his head back against his leather office chair, he closed his eyes and saw Keira’s lovely face in his mind’s eye. In his world she would be considered an innocent. Regardless of her past sexual experiences—and he suspected even those were limited—she wouldn’t understand his need to tie her up, spank her, control her.

  Or would she? Her constant blushes, her reluctance to return his gaze—always keeping her eyes averted—screamed of a submissive nature. Most telling had been her comment about his desk. Had she imagined herself leaning over it, her cheek pressed against the cool surface? The image of seeing her in such a position sent a surge of blood to his already full cock as he played the scene out in his mind.

  He would command her to remove her pants—dammit, he hated jeans, and yet on her, the denim clung to her soft curves in such a way that made his fingers twitch at the thought of peeling the material off her.

  Once she was bare from the waist down, he’d gently push her forward over his desk…

  She gasped at the feeling of the cool wood against her delicate cheek.

  “Do you want me?” he asked.

  “God, yes,” she hissed.

  “I’m going to take you, Keira. Fuck you. Make you mine.”

  She moaned softly at his words, her palms pressing tightly against the desk. As he slowly entered her tight pussy, he slapped her lovely ass, surprised by her response. Pushing toward him, she silently begged for more as he bent over her back, covering her slight frame with his larger body. “I’m going to fuck you hard and you’re going to come for me—several times. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Say it out loud, Keira. Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to fuck me hard,” she whispered. “Spank me.”

  Resting his head on her shoulder, he tried to process her request.

  She would accept his spanking, his powerful thrusts, and he couldn’t wait to introduce her to even more. How would she respond to bondage? He pushed his cock into her tight sheath.

  “Yes,” she whimpered as he began to thrust inside her faster, harder. The sound of his thighs pounding against hers as loud as—

  The knocking on his office door recalled him to the present.

  “Professor Wallace?”

  Shit, he’d been a minute away from actually coming in his pants like a fifteen-year-old boy—from an inappropriate daydream about a student. He was in worse shape than he realized. He moved forward until the lower half of his bod
y was concealed beneath his large desk.

  “Yes,” he called out.

  Jennifer Smythe entered. “I was hoping I could talk to you about my courses for next semester.”

  He nodded, working overtime to resume his calm, cool advisor demeanor, forcing the fantasy of fucking Keira Collins out of his mind.

  “Of course, Jennifer. Please come in. Have a seat.”

  It was going to be a damn long day. Hell, it was going to be a long two weeks.

  Chapter Three

  “Keira, why don’t you call it a night? You’ve been working your ass off the past couple of weeks and you look like dog shit.”

  “Thanks, Tris. Great compliment.”

  Tristan flashed his typical annoying brother smirk then poured a glass of merlot, setting it on the bar before the blonde who’d planted herself right under his nose earlier in the evening. The woman was working overtime to catch her brother’s attention and, for some reason, he wasn’t taking the bait. Keira had begun to wonder if Tristan wasn’t interested in someone else. In the past, he’d been the ultimate womanizer, never passing up the chance to charm the pants off a lady, but lately she’d noticed he kept to himself. She sighed. Just one more thing she hadn’t had time to think about since struggling through this semester’s courses.

  For the past two weeks she’d been living on virtually no sleep. Working at the restaurant, studying for finals, revising her English papers and fantasizing about Professor Wallace had sucked up every available second of her life. Her family had taken a backseat and the idea that she was letting too many things slide in regards to them was bugging the hell out of her.

  In addition to Tristan’s sudden disinterest in women, Sean’s graduation from high school was coming up in a month and she’d yet to begin plans for a celebration. Her father was still working too hard and she wasn’t even sure he was taking the medication the doctor had prescribed. Teagan had a nasty cold, which had curtailed her singing and put her out of sorts. Riley was going through some sort of bizarre Hell’s Kitchen phase, pissing off all the kitchen assistants and causing them to quit, which was driving Ewan insane as he was in charge of hiring replacements.

  The Collins siblings were heading toward a major blowup and Keira felt responsible for the heated tension hovering over the pub.

  In the past, she’d been the counselor, the voice of reason, the calming influence. Since her decision to go to college, the past two years had cranked the treadmill of her life up to top speed and she felt helpless as she watched all the people she cared about getting tossed off the track.

  “Earth to Keira.” Tristan waved a hand in front of her face. “It’s Thursday night and the place is dead. Joyce and I can take care of things. Go get some sleep.”

  She shrugged, aware that sleep wasn’t something she seemed capable of anymore. She’d walked out of Professor Wallace’s classroom for the last time yesterday and all she could hope was that eventually her intense fantasies about the man would die down. Until then, she seemed doomed to restless sleep that left her body aching and needy in ways she couldn’t begin to understand or attempt to explain to her brother.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Tristan asked someone who had walked up to the bar.

  “I was hoping perhaps this lovely woman could wait on me. Good evening, Keira.”

  She turned slowly, surprised to find the man tormenting her dreams standing behind her.

  “Professor Wallace.”

  For two weeks, she’d reported to his office every morning at nine. During their sessions, he’d challenged her to express her feelings, her emotions in her writing. Used to playing her cards rather close to her chest, she’d struggled at first to reveal so many personal thoughts. As more time passed though, she’d found their sessions almost therapeutic—a fact that would probably annoy him to discover—as she talked about her concerns for her family, her difficulties dealing with her mother’s death and her decision to pursue a college degree. With each session, she’d found her infatuation for the man growing and solidifying.

  Why is he here?

  Her mind raced over the possibility that perhaps her interest in him hadn’t been one-sided. There had been just a few moments in his office when she’d thought his attention toward her had been more than that of pupil and teacher. He’d never made any improper advances, never said anything untoward, but sometimes she would catch a look on his face or he’d say something in a tone that made her think, made her hope that he liked her too.

  Dear God, please let that be true.

  “You’re no longer my student, Keira. I think it would be perfectly fine for you to call me by my first name now. It’s Will.”

  Her lips twitched. “William Wallace?”

  He chuckled and acknowledged her joke. “Neither of my parents finished high school. Unfortunately, I think they must have dropped out just prior to any mention of Scottish history. My mother’s father’s name was William and—for better or worse—I’m his namesake.

  “Well, it’s a very prestigious name. Let’s hope you meet with a better end,” she teased.

  “Amen to that. I have to say the name was never much of a problem until Mel Gibson decided to make the movie Braveheart. It’s been kind of downhill since then.”

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Tristan repeated, his tone a bit less friendly this time.

  Keira glanced back at her brother, surprised to find him still hovering.

  “I’d like a Guinness,” Will replied.

  “Um, Professor Wallace…I mean, Will. This is my brother Tristan. Tristan, this is my creative writing teacher from the college.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Will extended his hand to shake her brother’s. Tristan returned the gesture but Keira could see her younger sibling assessing the man’s worth. She fought against rolling her eyes. At least Tristan’s twin, Killian, was serving with the army in Iraq or she’d be dealing with identical bulldogs. She’d spent far too much of her life watching her brothers visually dissect and scare away potential dates. It seemed that in the eyes of her brothers, no man would ever be good enough for her. Tris was the worst; he seemed to assume all men wanted one thing and one thing only.

  If he noticed Tristan’s intense study, Will ignored it and turned back toward her. “I was hoping perhaps you could join me for a celebratory drink. Toast the end of the semester with me.”

  She nodded, taking off her apron. “As luck would have it, my shift just ended. I’ll have a Guinness too, Tris.”

  Her brother narrowed his eyes but poured the two beers, placing them on the bar. Keira grinned at his attempts to keep her close and decided to throw a wrench into Tristan’s plans. “Why don’t we grab a table?” she suggested.

  Will picked up the beers and led her away from the bar. She started toward one of the tables in the center of the room, but Will steered her instead to the corner booth. The idea of being in such a dark, isolated corner with him sent needy shivers of unease down her spine.

  She’d resisted making a fool of herself in his office, managing to avoid flirting with him and—God forbid—making an outright play for him. She suspected now that he was no longer her teacher and they were on more even ground, it would be next to impossible to hide her undeniable attraction.

  Placing the drinks on the table, he gestured for her to sit first. It was a circular booth and she’d expected him to sit down from the opposite side. When he followed her into the booth, she tried to ignore the fact that he’d planted himself right next to her, sitting far too close for her tenuous willpower. His thigh brushed against hers as he reached for the beers, handing her one of the glasses.

  “To the end of another successful school year,” he said, clinking his glass against hers.

  She smiled and took a sip. “Do you have any big plans for the summer?” she asked.

  “Actually, I’m going to have a little bit longer than the summer off,” he replied. “I’ve requested and been approved to take a sabbatical next y
ear. I’ve been approached about writing a textbook on creative writing.”

  “That’s wonderful,” she said. “God knows you certainly have a talent for teaching the subject. Look at how much you helped me improve.”

  He took another sip of beer before setting the glass down in front of him. “Yes, but I’m afraid in many ways, you are the exception rather than the rule.”

  “How so?”

  “You, my lovely woman, have a desire to learn, to improve. English isn’t even your major and yet you attended every class determined to glean every bit of knowledge and skill I could offer. My success with other students, not unlike your Roy Decker, was considerably less.”

  “God, please don’t ever mention that name to me again. Don’t get me wrong. He was a likeable guy, but if I had to read one more paper about him getting wasted or laid, I think I would have thrown myself off a bridge.”

  Will laughed and she soaked in the sound, aware that she hadn’t heard it before. Though he was very free with his smiles, she’d never seen him in the midst of a full-blown laugh. Her heart melted a bit at the sight. He was simply breathtaking.

  “I decided several years ago that it’s nearly impossible to teach students who don’t want to learn. That doesn’t mean I don’t try, but it’s hard for me to stress the importance of writing to nineteen-year-old boys just getting their first taste of true freedom. Sadly, alcohol and girls win nearly every time.”

  “Nearly every time?” she asked with a grin.

  “Okay, you got me. Alcohol and sex win every time. It’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed our morning sessions together. You genuinely wanted to learn and I found your enthusiasm and willingness to go the extra mile quite intoxicating.”

  She acknowledged his compliment with a shy nod, picking up her beer, thinking perhaps a bit of intoxication would make it easier to sit beside him without thinking very naughty thoughts. His gaze sharpened on her face and she wondered again if he could read her mind.