by Alexis Anne
There was lots of murmuring and the energy of the room seemed to jump even higher. It was addictive to watch.
“See you all on Monday!” She dismissed the class.
I moved out of the way of the door and waited for the main rush of students to dissipate before I slipped inside. There was a small line on either side of her. A couple of the boys (men? Young men?) who definitely had a crush on Esme. They never took their eyes off her. I understood their infatuation and I didn’t completely hate them for it. Esme was beautiful and smart and engaging up there under the lecture hall lights.
By the time she’d answered most of their questions I’d worked my way down to the front row and taken a seat directly in front of her. I waited for her to look up but she didn’t. Her students were her world right now and so I enjoyed the opportunity to learn this side of her.
In jeans and with her dark hair down in waves she looked impossibly young. Like she should be one of the students, not the professor. The other detail that really stood out? She never stopped smiling. Not completely. The corner of her lips and eyes remained tilted slightly upward.
This was Esme’s world, not football or dinner parties or the Brown mansion. She may have been born there, but it wasn’t where she thrived.
Then the last student left and we were alone.
“How long have you been sitting there?” she asked as she gathered her stuff together.
“Long enough to know you’re a great professor.”
“Compliments will get you everywhere. You get an A, Leo.”
“What I really want is a key. Everyone was very excited about those.”
She slung a bag over her shoulder. “I’ll give you a key. To my panties.”
I pretended to be shocked. “Dr. Brown!”
She sauntered up to my seat and gave me her fuck-me-eyes. “You gotta work for those A’s”
I grabbed her by the hips and spun her into my lap. “Oh, I’ll work for my grades, Dr. Brown.” Then I trailed kisses down the sensitive skin behind her ear until she quivered.
“Leo,” she sighed.
“Esme.” I gently bit the skin just above her collar. “Let me take you to dinner.” She’d been cooking almost every night, not that I minded. Her food was amazing.
“It’s still early.”
I bit her again, this time a little harder. “Then we’ll have plenty of time after for me to earn my A.”
She moaned softly.
“Come on professor. Let me feed you.”
Over Dos Equis at our favorite Mexican restaurant I learned exactly what these magical keys were about.
“So at the beginning of the semester everyone is given a set of clues. Basic elements of real civilizations.”
“Elements?” I added extra salt to the chips and dove into the spicier of the salsas.
“Things like population size, type of political structure, technical capabilities, family structures. They don’t know when or where these cultures lived. From there they spend the first half of the semester building their ideal culture from these elements. It’s all at their discretion. During class each week I give them real scenarios that they debate.”
“What kinds of scenarios?” It was fascinating how animated she became when she talked about work.
Her eyes were so bright, her cheeks flushed, and that smile . . . it was amazing. Her hands moved through the air as she spoke almost as if they had a life of their own. “Today, for instance, I chose two students. Kyle’s society is very large and cohesive but Martin’s society, which is much smaller, was invading. They had to debate what events would take place and what the effects would be. They document everything and before class next week they’re turning in the data.”
“And the key?”
She sat back as our waiter delivered our burritos. “Their imaginary cultures are all based on the elements of a real culture. On Monday they’ll get that information. It’s their key to the clues I gave them at the beginning of the semester. We’ll spend the rest of the semester analyzing what they got right and wrong, where their personal biases influenced their thought processes, and learning how to approach research in the future knowing all of this.”
I sliced through the massive tortilla. “That sounds like a life lesson a lot of students could use, not just anthropology students.”
“You would be correct. It’s why I have such a large class. There are anthro, sociology, psychology, and most of the hard sciences, in there. My class is recommended for anyone going into research.”
I wondered if she knew how much happier she was now than when I first met her. “You’ve found your calling. You’re radiant, Esme, and so very good at teaching.”
“I like teaching but my research is really what drives me. Can I have some of your beans?” She paused with her fork an inch from my plate.
I pulled it away. “You were just going to take them, weren’t you?”
“No!”
“You were. You think that’s the kind of boyfriend I am? A food sharer?”
She laughed and it was a light, intoxicating sound. “If you let me taste your . . . food . . . I’ll let you taste . . . me.”
If there was an award for fastest and most inconvenient erection, I would have just won it. Hands down.
I moved my plate across the table. “Oh trust me, Dr. Brown, I was going to have dessert whether you wanted my beans or not.”
She took a generous scoop with her fork and made a sexy show of tasting the food and then slowly placing the fork in her mouth. It was sexiest beans had ever been or ever would be.
“When did dinner turn into foreplay?” she murmured.
“When I got the hots for teacher.”
She laughed again. “Oh, I see.”
Sometimes my brain doesn’t consult with my mouth. Instead it simply says what I’m thinking. These incidents typically take place when I’m excited or aroused. Seeing as I was both excited by Esme’s laugh and aroused by . . . everything about her . . . it shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did when I blurted out this next part.
“Your smile is everything and I want to hear you laugh every day. What do I have to do to make Edmund leave you alone?”
She froze, then very carefully placed her fork on her plate, wiped her lips with her napkin, and then folded her hands in her lap.
“Shit. Esme, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not here.” At dinner. When we were having a great time. Two seconds ago we were flirting and about to rush home for what I was absolutely sure would have been some pretty amazing sex.
Instead she had her eyes trained down on the table and the air between us was as cold as ice.
“No,” she finally said, “you shouldn’t have said that. Not here. Not when you know we’re being watched.”
I grimaced because she was right. I knew exactly where the private investigators were sitting and that the agents didn’t even bother with food. They sat at the bar nursing seltzers and shooting glares our direction. I’d gotten used to their constant presence. Sometimes they even followed me to work instead of Esme. I had fallen into the trap of complacency.
“But that’s not why—” She huffed, ran her hand through her hair, slumped back in the booth. “That’s not why I’m frustrated.”
I leaned forward hoping she’d let me hold her hand. She didn’t. “Why are you frustrated?”
“You have a hero complex, Leo. You think I need to be rescued and that you’re the man to do it. I know this is at least partially my fault. My father gets to me and I crack. You’ve seen me crack and I think it’s given you the impression I’m the victim here, but I’m not. Not really. Yes I’m stuck and no matter what I do I seem to be destined to pay for my mistakes, but I’m fine, Leo. I’m good. I promise.”
“If you’re good then why do you crack? Why do you look so sad everywhere but at work? Why,” I leaned forward, dropped my voice, hoped I wasn’t about to get myself strangled for being the stupidest man who ever lived, “why do you
need me?”
Her eyes flared. The fire in them was the other end of the passion I usually loved coming from her. She shook her head and looked up at the ceiling. “You should be in my class. That way I could give you a key.”
“A key to what?” Her secrets? Her past? I’d take anything at this point.
“Me! You stupid man.” She buried her face in her hands for a few moments, then let them drop away, meeting my eyes. “Stop looking at me as the victim. Choose a different point of view.”
If she wasn’t the victim then what did that make her? The villain? I tried to picture Esme as the bad guy (girl) but I couldn’t. Nothing about it added up. Besides, she had little to nothing to do with her father’s business these days.
She leaned forward, the frustration gone from her voice. Instead she sounded . . . proud. “Just because I don’t enjoy the role I chose doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly where I want to be.”
I tried to follow along. “Where you want to be?”
“We’ve all got biases. We all see the world the way we were trained to see it. We follow patterns we learned as children, we accept limits because we don’t know any different. We expect people to fill the roles we give them.” She ran her index finger back and forth over her lower lip. “I don’t ever want that for us, Leo. I want you to see all of me.”
“I want that too.” This time she let me take her hand.
“So I’m telling you I’m not the victim. Just you.”
Just me.
Not her father or brother, or the agents or the investigators. To all of them she was weak, reluctant, uncooperative. When in reality she was the opposite. Their blinders gave her freedom, access to her father’s house and business, information on where things stood with the investigation.
She was playing all of them.
“Information,” she said, answering the question I hadn’t asked yet.
“Why?”
Her gaze dropped to our hands. “I really wish I could’ve stayed away from you.”
“I’m glad you couldn’t.” I tugged her hands, waited for her eyes to meet mine. “I’m not the victim here, either. I might not like everything that happens but there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be.”
“You think you’ll still feel that way in the end?”
I brought her hand to my lips. “Yes, Esme. Even in the end.”
Chapter 19
Normally I loved visiting New York. Seth Butler, my Mantas left fielder, was quickly making me hate it. We were only in town for two days while he shot a shaving commercial, underwear ad, and did a series of interviews. It was supposed to be a lot of standing around and eating at great restaurants. Instead I was bailing him out of a colossally stupid fuckup.
Claudia—the vapid movie star he’d been dating for the last few months—was shooting a movie in the city so they planned to see each other. I’d actually come to enjoy Claudia’s company after spending several more games with her and realizing she wasn’t actually a self-important snob. That was the act she put on to go with her image. In reality she was a very smart, if not slightly angry, woman.
Claudia wasn’t the problem. Nope. It was Shannon. Who’s Shannon you might be asking? Well, I had the same question when Seth called me from the photo shoot frantic that I intercept Claudia and keep her busy for an hour.
Shannon, it turns out, was also dating Seth. Her R&B career was taking off and the two of them had been on a few dates. (When he had time to date all these women I had no idea.) She’d wound up in the city to meet with her producer and surprised Seth at the shoot.
So now Seth was dealing with Shannon while I treated Claudia to lunch under the guise that the shoot was in the middle of some chaos and we didn’t need to be there yet. It wasn’t the first time I’d juggled lovers for my clients and it wouldn’t be the last, but for some reason this pissed me off. I didn’t know if it was because I’d started to like Claudia and didn’t think she deserved to be treated this way, or if it was because I was disappointed in Seth. Don’t get me wrong; Seth wasn’t a saint. Far from it. He was young and selfish and riding a World Series Championship high. But he’d never been an asshole.
Right now he was crossing the asshole line and that made me angry.
Angry for Claudia and Shannon. Angry for the man I expected Seth to be. Angry for women everywhere. Everyone—man or woman—should have the right to be vulnerable and fulfill their physical need for intimacy. Right now Seth was violating all of the things I held dear.
“You’re very moody today.” Claudia popped a French fry in her mouth and cocked an eyebrow.
“That’s because I’m angry and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Why are you angry?” Then she frowned. “That is, if you’re comfortable talking to me about whatever it is.”
See? Underneath the prima donna movie star act she was a well-spoken and kind person. I considered what to say. It wasn’t like I could come right out and say, “Seth is with another woman right now and I’m pissed off that he’s lying to you both.”
So instead I said, “I’m trying to figure out how to tell someone they need to get their act together. But in a way that will get through to them.”
“Ah, good luck with that. Unfortunately most people hear criticism and immediately stop listening. They go on defense.”
Which was exactly why I didn’t know how to deal with Seth. He was a good guy who was going down a bad path. I’d seen it so many times before. Money and fame made people feel invincible. I wanted better for Seth.
“Let’s not talk about my troubles.” I pushed my food away and smiled at Claudia, hoping she’d indulge me. “What’s up with you and Butler?”
Her smile disappeared almost immediately and she sat back. “I’m not sure. Why?”
If I wasn’t mistaken, Claudia had feelings for Seth she was attempting to hide. “In the beginning this was good publicity for you both . . . but it’s been months and you’re still together. I was just wondering if maybe there was more than good optics at play.”
She fidgeted, rearranged her silverware, didn’t make eye contact. “I can see why the two of you get along so well.”
“Oh?” She was right, of course. Well, until this week.
“You’re very similar. Or I’m just that bad of an actress. You both saw right through my image.”
It’s seductive to be seen for who you really are. I knew that intimately now. The way Esme understood me, accepted me for who I was, faults and all, was a huge part of why I’d fallen so hard for her.
“You’re a very good actress, Claudia. I think you enjoy our company and that’s why it’s hard to keep up the act. You want to be you.”
“You might be right,” she said very quietly. “I enjoy spending time with Seth. I would enjoy continuing to spend more time with him if I thought that was what he wanted.” She met my gaze. “But I don’t believe that’s the case. I’m not the kind of woman who can open her morning news and see the man she’s dating in the headlines with other women. The longer I’m in the industry the less I’m willing to put up with the crap. The last thing I want is for it to trickle into my personal life too.”
And that’s why I was so angry. Claudia deserved honesty. Seth was about to lose her because he couldn’t be honest with himself, let alone anyone else.
“That’s understandable. Have you talked to him about this?”
She huffed a laugh. “Yep. He changed the subject.” Then she shrugged and sighed. “I know this is the end for us. I hope you won’t judge me for waiting until tomorrow to tell him. I just want one more day.”
If someone had told me that in three months time Claudia Siolo’s confession would rip my heart out and put it on a spike I would have laughed. But that’s what happens when you get to know someone—you learn everyone is putting on an act of some kind, and that act is there to protect us from a world that is always trying to attack us. The people we let behind our walls are few and if we choose wrong, they have the sole
power to hurt us.
“Trust me, I understand how you feel Claudia. I don’t judge you at all. I’m living day to day too.”
“You are?” She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Do tell.”
Because I wanted Claudia to hear that there were men in the world who cared, who were in her shoes, waiting and hoping the person they cared for could get past their walls, I told her about Esme. I never mentioned her name or any specific details, just our general situation and how I felt towards her.
“It’s scary to love someone who’s been hurt that much,” she murmured. “They’re always in survival mode and you never know if that instinct will cause them to hurt you too.”
She was right of course. Every day I was scared of losing Esme. “It’s worth it. All these years I’ve been restless. I felt like I had a purpose but no matter how hard I tried I never felt fulfilled or like I’d accomplished anything. I was always ready to spring into action. I don’t feel that way anymore. I feel peaceful for the first time in my life, like I’ve found my reason. So she can hurt me. I know that if she does it’s because she’s reacting on instinct. That she has no choice. I’ll be the person she can hurt, who will never hurt her back. I’ll take it all . . . as long as I get one more day.”
The only thing I wanted when I got back from New York was to bury my dick inside Esme and stay there. Talking to Claudia fucked with my head and I just wanted to be home.
I walked into our bedroom and found Esme reading a book in bed. I threw down my luggage and tugged off my tie. “Naked. Now.”
Her eyebrows jumped.
“I said,” I rounded the bed and threw back the covers. “Naked. Now.”
“Should I expect you to return from all business trips as a caveman?”
I considered this possibility and decided I liked it. “Yes.” She made me insane in every possible way. Jealous, needy, horny. It was time to stop fighting it. Nothing about us had ever made sense and trying to make heads or tails of it now was pointless. “One, when I see you I want to be in you. Period. I can’t see straight and I can’t think.” My physical reaction had been immediate and reckless from the moment we met. It didn’t seem to be slowing. “Two, when we’re apart that need multiplies by the day.”