by Tessa Bailey
Ben snagged her bottom lip between his teeth and tugged. “Fuck, the way you come is so goddamn hot.”
“You’re not supposed to talk that way.” He ground his erection against her belly, eliciting a whimper from her lips. “You’re an English professor.”
“Yeah?” He spun her toward the wall, pressing her cheek against the cool surface. Cool air on her backside told her he’d lifted up her dress. “Well, your English professor isn’t supposed to fuck you, either, but that’s exactly what’s going to happen here.” A heavy pause. “Unless you tell me no. You should really tell me no, Honey. In a minute, babe . . . I don’t know if I’ll be able to hear anything but the sound of me slipping in and out of you.”
The visual nearly made her go limp. She could tell by the stilted way he spoke, by the hardness pressing insistently against her naked bottom, that he didn’t want her to say no. Nor did she want to. Her belly was already tightening with the thrilling thought of taking him inside her. Feeling all that desire for her in one place. Listening to his harsh pants as he drove deeper.
Honey reached behind her back and worked his belt buckle with frantic fingers. “I want you so bad, Ben. Don’t stop. Please.”
He pushed his hardness into her hands, rubbing himself there. “Oh, thank Christ.”
She heard the crinkle of a condom wrapper seconds before she freed the leather from his belt and undid the button of his pants. He took over then, drawing down his zipper and rolling the condom onto his erection. Honey braced her hands against the wall and angled her hips for him, biting her lip so she wouldn’t beg out loud for him to hurry.
His lips moved on her shoulder, hot and wet. At the same time, the thick head of his arousal nudged between her legs, stealing an uneven moan from both of them. “You’re slippery as hell, but I can eat you again, Honey. Just say the word.”
“Inside me. Just get inside me.”
BEN RAMMED HIMSELF home.
And then he pushed further and harder because he couldn’t get close enough. Couldn’t get inside this girl enough. She was up on her toes, possibly had already left the ground, and all he could think was more, more, give me more. Had anyone ever felt this fucking good? Honey squirmed around on his cock, whimpering and clawing at the wall, no idea that every movement she made was driving him toward some unknown brink he’d never been aware existed.
He needed to touch all of her. Every inch. His hands moved on their own, untying the string at the back of her neck and peeling her dress down to expose her breasts. God, he wished he hadn’t turned her around, because he couldn’t see them, but he could touch. At least he could touch. Still unable to move inside her without the fear of ending this perfect feeling too soon, he smoothed his hands up her sides and cupped her sweet, pointed tits in his hands. He had all of her in his arms now, surrounding his body, and the possessive instinct she’d been culling inside him went off like a cannon shot.
His body took over, but so did his mouth. His mind. Lust tunneled through his veins, lighting fires as it went that only burned brighter when her body moved with his in devastating precision. Like they’d been designed for one another and no one else.
No one else. “You wanted me to think you’d left with him, didn’t you?”
Her palm squeaked on the wall. “M-maybe,” she gasped.
“It worked,” he growled into the crook of her neck. “It worked, didn’t it, you brat?”
“What about you?” There was cutting anger in her tone, but it was ruined by the way she worked her hips in tight, tempting circles. “Who was that woman?”
Ben almost laughed out loud, but pleasure blocked anything else from the forefront of his mind. How could she question him when he was breaking every single one of his rules? Taking her like a crazed animal in his place of work? “Do you know what I thought about during the reading, Honey?”
“What?”
Her head fell to the side, giving him room to suck and lick at her neck. “I thought that if we were sitting in the back row, I would have made you sit on my lap. With my dick inside you.” He drove into her tightness, again and again. So wet. So damn wet. Fuck yes. The rhythm was perfect. Steady enough to give her time to come, fast enough to satisfy this urgency she made him feel. “No one would know except us. Unless you moved, even just once. Because then you’d have to keep moving. We’d need it. And we’d have to fuck right there in front of everyone.”
“Faster.” Her pussy tightened up and shook a little in a way that made his hands turn to fists. “Oh, God. I need more. I need fast.”
Ben wrapped an arm around her hips to angle her away from the wall, edging her ass higher in his lap. She liked that. No, she fucking loved it. Her breath shuddered out like hot little gusts of air. She clenched around his cock as if in warning that she’d go off soon. Go on, babe. Go on. There was no slowing down now. He could only thrust into her rough and fast, demanding she keep up. His balls were drawn up so tight they hurt, product of his denying himself, pretending he didn’t need this girl, when it was becoming obvious with each passing second that he required her. He reached between her legs, groaning at the friction of them joining, the feel of her taking him. His middle finger found her clit, flicking it once, twice, just to tease, before rubbing it nice and hard. Like he knew she needed.
“Come on, babe. I’m right behind you.”
“Ben.”
Sweet fucking hell.
No one came like Honey. She bent forward with her hands braced on the wall, practically giving him a vertical lap dance as her body trembled. Legs spread, hips grinding on his hard dick while she moaned his name. As if she needed to feel every damn part of what their bodies had produced. He’d never get over seeing it. Especially not at that moment, when release clamored in his stomach, successfully finding an outlet right between her gorgeous thighs. Thighs he couldn’t help but stroke and grip as he came. And God, he came hard. It stormed through him like a Category 5 hurricane, wrecking everything in its path. He opened his eyes to see that he’d hauled Honey back against him, crushing her to his chest as he’d borne the brunt of what she’d done to him. What they’d done to each other.
It was embarrassing to admit even to himself that his legs felt a little weak. Honey might weigh next to nothing, but his chest was full, and the air felt so close that he knew he had to sit down. He just wasn’t willing to let her go in order to accomplish it. Forcing his brain to work with marginal success, he took the two steps to the chair behind them. A chair in which a professional educator, some faceless colleague of his, sat every day. Ben sunk into it, stunned to realize it felt almost as amazing to have her boneless on his lap as it did to be buried inside of her. Her head lolled against his shoulder as she continued to take in huge gulps of breath. Which didn’t suck. Knowing he’d winded this beautiful, intelligent girl to the point of exhaustion. This beautiful, intelligent girl whose tits were still on full display, light glancing off her still-pointed nipples. And shit, he was hard as steel again. This behavior was really out of line for an English professor. He should resign.
“Again? Already?” She tipped her head back and laughed a laugh that reminded him of marshmallows and moonbeams. Not that he’d ever seen a moonbeam in his life. “Give me a few minutes to touch down on terra firma before you get firma again.”
A laugh boomed out of him, so unexpected he had the urge to look over his shoulder and see if someone else had delivered it. Nope, it was him. He was sitting in a classroom with a student in his lap. A student he’d just given it to the dirty way. Somehow, at the moment, though, he honestly couldn’t find the will within himself to care. Not when it was just them, no harsh fluorescent lighting or lesson plans burning a hole in his bag. This girl who’d dug herself into his gut was smiling up at him like they were two rascally high school students who’d just made out beneath the bleachers, and he wanted to go there. He wanted to let her take him there for a while.
“Whose idea was it to name you Honey?”
She si
ghed. Not in an irritated way, but in the way someone sighs when they’ve just taken a sip of hot chocolate or seen a picture of a newborn deer. “My mom. She’s a whimsical sort.” She picked up one of his hands and threaded their fingers together. “She and my daddy tried for five years to have a baby, but it wasn’t happening. She even went to see a fancy doctor up in Lexington, but nothing worked. One night, she went to the diner for dinner and put some honey in her tea.” Her slender shoulder shook with laughter. “There’s a censored version to what happens afterward, the one I grew up with. But when I turned eighteen, we split a bottle of cheap red wine and she told me the real dirt. My mother swears up, down, and sideways that as soon as that honey hit her belly, she went home to my father and made a baby. Me.”
Ben let his hand hover over her hair a moment, then gave in to the urge to stroke it. Felt like silk. No. Way better than silk. He just had no name for what that better thing might be. “So she named you that, even knowing you’d probably have to tell the story behind your name constantly.”
Her lips curved into an even wider smile. “Where I come from, a good story is a gift.”
“You must be buried in gifts, then.”
She looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
Feeling a little uncomfortable, he tried to sit up straighter, but she shook her head and he stilled. “Your papers.” He cleared his throat, and it echoed in the empty classroom. “I’ve read the classics ten times over, I’ve studied and written enough words to drown us both, but I bet I’ve never held anyone’s attention the way your papers hold mine.”
“You’re lying.” She shook her head at him, sobering when she saw his expression. “Really?”
“I think you’ve figured out by now I’m not the joking type.”
“True.” She fused her lips with the hollow of his throat, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Just then, it felt like it was. “Why did you become a professor, Ben?”
Oh fuck, he liked hearing her say his name. In the heat of the moment, it had been potent, but now it made his limbs feel heavy. Like he could finally relax. “I love words. On the page. Knowing someone felt them and immortalized them.” He swallowed a knot in his throat. “And sometimes it’s easiest to do the thing least expected. Instead of trying to get close as possible to what is expected.” God, he sounded like a jackass. This was definitely twenty-first-century pillow talk at its finest. “Never mind.”
“No. Not never mind.” She slid her hand into his hair and tugged comfortingly. “Mind.”
Ben’s lips tugged. “Forget what I said about your talent with words.”
She yanked his hair and his cock swelled underneath her ass. He’d never been turned on by such a thing before, but it appeared tonight was a night for firsts. Had he actually begged her to pull his hair a few minutes ago? Honey looked up at him in a way he recognized from having her sit in the front row of his classroom. It unwittingly spoke volumes. See anything you like, Professor?
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
His body responded to her husky question appropriately. No. Severely. Get a handle on yourself, man. “Yes, we should go. We don’t want to be sitting here when a janitor walks in.”
“Or worse,” she added before sneaking a look up at him from under her eyelids. “Would you . . . I mean, do you want to come over to my place? We don’t have to go inside. Even though Louis is probably there watching reruns of Arrested Development. There’s a roof . . .”
Immediately, his mind began forming excuses. Reasons why he couldn’t go home with her. There were too many to count, really. Except he wanted, very badly, to go sit on a rooftop with Honey and listen to her talk. Watch her smile. And yes, fuck her as many times as possible before the sun came up. She was most definitely still in his system, more than before. So much more. He could go to the roof and no one would ever know. Nobody could stop him.
Honey trailed her lips over his jaw to kiss his ear. “Stop thinking so hard about it.”
Holy shit, he was going to do it. “All right, I’ll—”
His cell phone went off in his pocket, loud and mood-ruining. Son of a bitch. Honey sighed and hopped off his lap to fix her clothes, covering her breasts by tying the halter back behind her neck. It was quite possibly the most depressing thing he’d ever seen.
Until he looked at his phone and saw the name Tracy. His mother. When he let it ring too long, it rolled over to voice mail, but a text message popped up instead. At your place. Need to crash.
His neck started to burn, nausea rolling in his stomach. He could feel Honey looking at him curiously, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to kneel in front of her and wrap his arms around her waist. Feel her fingers in his hair again. Get a nice, long pull of her cinnamon-and-sugar scent. But he couldn’t. He had to go. Based on the resignation in her big eyes, she already knew. She just didn’t know why, and he could see every possibility ping-ponging in her head. Another girl. The guys wanting to drag him out for a beer. Why wouldn’t he go? He’d already gotten what he wanted. That’s what she thought. He could see it clearly on her beautiful face.
She smiled tightly and started to move around him. “Maybe next time.”
He should let her go. Had no business spending time on her roof in the first place. But his hand shot out and gripped her elbow before he gave the command. “It’s my mother. She’s at my place . . . visiting . . . and I have to go let her in.” Remembering what he had stuffed in his jacket, he bent down to retrieve the discarded garment and slipped her Lolita assignment out of his inside pocket. “I graded your extra-credit assignment.” When she quirked a brow but didn’t take the paper he offered, Ben felt a flash of self-loathing. “I just realized this is an awkward time to bring up extra credit, considering the inexcusable thing I said to you last time and the fact that we just . . . you know. It’s just that I enjoyed your work so much, and I—”
Honey’s light, sparkling laugh shut him up. With a shake of her head, she clasped the sides of his face. “How can you throw me against a wall and say all manner of filthy things to me one minute and turn back into the befuddled professor the next?”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Were they really filthy, these things?”
“All manner of filthy.” She slipped the paper out of his hand and replaced it with her silky blue panties. He had to remind himself to breathe. “Go let your mama in, Ben. But think about me later on.”
He yanked her close on a groan, taking her mouth in a hard kiss. God, he wanted her again. The desk was right behind her. He could just—
Honey broke away with a chuckle. “Good night . . .” Halfway to the door, she turned around and winked at him. “ . . . Professor.”
Chapter 9
HONEY STOPPED JUST outside the door to her apartment, keys pausing in midair before they reached the lock. Her plan had been to escape to her bedroom to unfold the Lolita assignment before her roommates got hold of her. She’d never been accomplished at keeping her feelings from her face. She could hear Abby and Roxy on the other side of the door, shouting at whatever reality TV program they were watching, and she knew they would take one look at her and know something was up. So she would take a minute for herself first. One minute more where tonight was hers. Her secret.
Smiling to herself, she took the folded assignment out of her purse and savored the anticipation of unfolding it, flattening it against the apartment door to smooth the creases. Another A grade. Approval from the man she was seeing shouldn’t, should not, make her hot, but it did. She could hear him whispering it in her ear. Amazing job, babe. You get an A. A tiny moan sailed past her lips, thighs clenching together. Oh God, the feminist in her was stomping her foot and shaking her head—totally justified—but hey, this was her minute to savor the secret. She consoled herself with the fact that she deserved the A. Had worked hard on the paper. Anyone would have given her an A . . . but it seemed to mean more coming from Ben.
She flipped to
the final page and did a little dance. Just below the note she’d written to him detailing the contents of her backpack, Ben had left one of his own.
The things I carry (it’s only fair). . .
A guitar pick I caught at a Springsteen concert. A gym lock I’ve forgotten the combination for, but I’m determined to remember. My father’s rookie card. An eyeglass repair kit. Numerous red pens. Numerous. Wrapped together in a blue rubber band. Postcards from my mother. A book of New York Times crossword puzzles for my morning train ride. A backup wristwatch in case mine stops ticking. Lesson plans. House keys. Butterscotches. Band-Aids (an important recent addition, in case of falling students).
Aren’t you curious what the letter from your mother says? Professor Dawson.
Honey smashed the assignment to her chest, as if she were the lead in a romantic comedy and the director had just yelled, Emote, emote, emote. It couldn’t be helped. Her knees wanted to give way so she could fall to the floor and roll around with Ben’s note in her arms. The brief times they had spent together thus far had been stolen snippets, but through this note, she wondered if maybe he wanted her to know him better. Even if she had even more questions as a result. Where was his father now? Why did his mother travel so much? And, heck. He’d bought Band-Aids for her.
Wiping the cheeseball expression off her face, Honey tucked the assignment back into her purse and unlocked the apartment door. Abby sat on the arm of the couch, a bowl of popcorn balanced on her knees. She waved a fist full of popcorn at Honey, greeting her around a mouthful. Roxy sat on the opposite end with her legs in Louis’s lap, both of them nursing bottles of Sam Adams. Clearly Roxy being cast as “Tina, the wacky next-door neighbor” in a new television pilot starring Neil Patrick Harris didn’t mean she was changing her habits anytime soon. Honey kind of loved that.