Rogue Desire: A Romance Anthology (The Rogue Series)

by Adriana Anders

  “Screw kissing. Every time I look at you, I wanna fuck.”

  The words were strange. Every time? How many times had Pink Bandanna looked at him as they’d evaded abuse and arrest? But the adrenaline and the danger—every sensation ramped up to a thousand—ignited a rocket of lust in Kaz’s balls that slammed into his dick with a rush of lust and need.

  “Mmm, love how hard you are for me,” the stranger rasped into his ear, pulling Kaz closer with strong, hard hands until Kaz knew his own hard-on had to be noticed. “Wish you could fuck me right here.”

  Before Kaz could gasp out an excuse—as if he needed to make excuses for not yanking the stranger’s pants down and bending him over the bike on a public street—he had his fingers dug deep into the back of the blue-eyed man’s black cargo pants, knuckles slipping against the quick-dry fabric with hissing rustles. Muscle flexed under the palms of his hands, the curve of warm flesh setting his skin on fire.

  Their mutual assault rocked him back on his heels and into the borrowed bike, which threatened to tip behind him. Kaz widened his stance and shifted his weight until they were stable again, the masked stranger straddling his thigh, grinding against him and moaning into his mouth.

  “Oh, holy shit. Yeah. Just like that,” the guy grunted as Kaz let his hand roam in the back of his pants, fingers sliding on the sweat riding the groove between the man’s ass cheeks. “Fuck. Yes. You’re so fucking hot.”

  Before he could stop himself, Kaz hitched the stranger’s crotch higher and tighter against his and shoved his hand deeper. Heat and sweat and the pressure of muscles clenching around his finger. He couldn’t see shit, with the shoved-up bandanna in his face, and he hoped to hell no one walked around the corner, but nothing fucking mattered except pushing the body against his further, higher, until it broke. Lust slammed him flat even as he braced himself harder and pressed the tip of his finger, dry, inside.

  With a sharp cry, the stranger stiffened and jerked in his arms, groaning deep in his chest, fingers digging into Kaz’s shoulders, hot breath soaking his neck. The sound of his climax almost brought Kaz to the brink too, his dick aching in his pants, making him want to push the stranger to his knees, his hands to Kaz’s zipper, to beg or command or tease his way into some immediate reciprocation, regardless of how risky it had been to let this happen on the street to start with.

  The laid-back bloop bloop of a police cruiser casually making itself known as it passed a crowd of pedestrians at the far end of the block jerked Kaz back to his senses in a hurry.

  Time to get this guy away from him. Far away. An “Officer, I swear I never saw anyone wearing a pink bandanna mask” distance.

  Harsh breaths rasped in his ear, the stranger’s sweaty forehead resting heavily on his shoulder. A hot, wet tongue licked a stripe up his neck before lips vibrated against his skin.

  “Gimme a second to recover and I’ll—”

  He shook his head. He didn’t want to know how that sentence ended.

  Liar.

  “I gotta go. Don’t want to miss my ride home,” he said, keeping it vague. The guy had just gotten off on Kaz’s thigh. Saying, Pretty sure you’ve got a date with a holding cell before your day’s done and I don’t want anything to do with that, and speeding away would be a dick move. Plus, he was gonna need a minute before he sped anywhere, or else sitting was going to be painful. The ride back to Maryland with a hard-on was going to be awesome.

  “You sure?” the guy asked, lifting his head so his bandanna mask fell into place again, covering that delicious mouth. The corners of his eyes crinkled, eyeliner even more smeared than before. “Gotta be a bathroom around here somewhere and I’d go to my knees for you in a hot second.”

  Kaz swallowed, hard. Inhaled sharply through his nose and tried to let the breath out without groaning. He shook his head. He’d already risked enough, driving this guy around DC when there could be a warrant out for his arrest or something. The network back home needed him. He couldn’t afford to get caught in some white guy’s rebellion against his helicopter parents.

  “Okay. Your loss.” The words were upbeat though, and the guy rubbed a thumb across Kaz’s bottom lip before stepping away and jogging off. When he was twenty yards away, he turned his head and shouted over his shoulder. “See you around, teach!”

  Caught with his hand half-raised to wave, like a fucking fool, Kaz froze in shock.

  Teach?

  A quick scan through his memories, clouded with horny humping though they might be, assured him he hadn’t mentioned what he did at any point during their nightmare ride.

  During any of the riding, he thought, remembering the strong grip of the stranger’s thighs around his own as he’d ground himself to orgasm.

  The only people in all of DC who knew Kaz was a teaching assistant were scheduled to meet him in three hours at the bus for the overnight drive back to campus, which meant . . .

  “Kill me now,” he muttered to himself and climbed back on the bike.

  He’d just fucked around with one of his students.

  CHAPTER 4

  T he entire hour Kaz stood in the motor coach doorway, greeting returning students and pressing the volume button on his phone to add them to the click counter app he’d downloaded, he was braced for the inevitable. He hadn’t even been able to enjoy saying goodbye to Jesse after scarfing down the sandwich they’d brought him when it was time for him to return the motorcycle.

  All he could think about was what was going to happen when he saw. . .

  “Hey, teach,” the guy with sweaty dark hair plastered to his forehead—like he’d been running away from fascists all day—bounded up the steps with way too much energy, throwing a wink at Kaz as he brushed by, one skinny tattooed arm in a wide-necked, short sleeve pink T-shirt brushing against Kaz’s chest in a way that had to be deliberate.

  He might have changed shirts and taken off the bandanna, but Kaz recognized those black cargo pants and that red backpack. And the bruise that bloomed at the base of his neck.

  Those are my teeth marks in his skin. His dick woke up in his pants at the thought.

  Hell, he recognized that puffy bottom lip too, the one that always looked like someone had been sucking on it, one hundred percent sure he knew what it felt like under his own.

  Willis McTavish.

  Kaz had pegged McTavish as a brat from day one of the semester, always sliding into class sixty seconds after Professor Grayson started and slouching deep in one of the way back seats. He’d been prepared for shitty writing and possible plagiarism with the kid’s first paper, but had been surprised to find there was a brain behind the sullen attitude, guyliner, and black nail polish. He’d nudged Grayson to focus a little of his laser-like attention on the back row after that, and spent half his classroom time keeping one ear cocked for that flat Midwest accent.

  A tug at his sleeve brought his attention back to the bus. Will was blocking traffic in the aisle, waiting for Kaz to look at him.

  “Want me to save you a seat?” Will asked with a grin that made Kaz grit his teeth.

  Will had been wearing a mask. Kaz hadn’t. Obviously Will had known exactly who Kaz was, and had . . . done what he’d done anyway. And had deliberately kept himself masked because he’d known Kaz wouldn’t have kissed him or humped him or helped Will get off if Kaz had known who he was.

  Hell, he’d made it perfectly clear when Will had tried to turn his first office hours visit at the beginning of the semester into a coffee date that students were off limits for Kaz as a TA.

  “No, thanks,” he said, ever polite, willing him to keep moving down the aisle as if the sheer force of Kaz’s brain waves could push Will’s combat boots into motion.

  “Too bad.” And then Will licked his lips and Kaz tried to shoot lasers out of his eyeballs, but nothing happened except Will laughed and found a seat halfway to the back of the bus.

  He was so fucked.

  Less than an hour after their scheduled departure time, all of the stud
ents—well, almost all of them—were back on the bus. They were missing three girls he vaguely remembered being dressed as suffragettes. But the girls had texted him they’d decided to stay in DC for the weekend and take the Megabus home, so that was all right.

  He gave the driver the thumbs up and pushed his way past crowded rows to the back of the bus, where he’d left a jacket stretched across the rearmost two seats on one side of the aisle, claiming teacher’s privilege on the ride down and the return trip. Because no way had he planned on sitting next to an undergrad jonesing for a better grade by sucking up to the TA for three hundred seventy-five miles. He meant to pull out his laptop and start grading papers, but exhaustion and sun and the stress of the day caught up with him in one massive wave of sleepiness as he pulled on his headphones and turned on his favorite playlist on low.

  Tipping his head against the window as the driver fired up the rumbling engine, Kaz promised himself he wouldn’t fall asleep. He’d just rest his eyes for a little bit. . .

  Five minutes into the return trip to Massachusetts, someone sat down next to him and Kaz didn’t even need to open his eyes to know who it was.

  “What are you listening to?”

  He didn’t bother answering. Just passed his headphones over, knowing the teasing he was about to receive.

  Will slipped them on, and anticipatory smile on his lips. Then his eyebrows climbed halfway up his forehead. “Country Roads? You teach books from all over the world and you’re listening to John Denver?”

  Kaz just shrugged. The Americans he’d met going to expat schools around the world at the whim of his parents’ foreign service assignments had introduced him to an odd collection of American influences. An ambassador’s son had taught him the difference between Texas and Carolina barbecue, the importance of Marshmallow Fluff to a happy childhood, and when the Super Bowl and the NBA finals took place. Kaz had arrived in the States for his first year of college completely familiar with grunge and every song John Denver and Jimmy Buffett had recorded, but knowing more Middle Eastern hip-hop artists than American ones.

  He’d grown tired of Jimmy Buffett, would never turn his back on Nirvana, and still thought Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads was one of the prettiest songs ever written in any of the six languages he spoke with varying degrees of fluency.

  None of which needed to be explained to the guy sitting next to him.

  “I didn’t get a chance to say thanks for saving my ass back there in the alley,” Will said, handing back his headphones. Kaz could feel him settling into the seat, wiggling himself in as if getting comfy for the long haul.

  “No thanks necessary,” he muttered, even though it was rude not to accept thanks. Not that Will couldn’t have thanked him earlier, but Kaz didn’t figure it was productive to extend the conversation by point that out.

  A finger poked his thigh. Kaz pulled his legs closer to the windows. Don’t touch me.

  “Yeah, they are,” Will said, and his insistence pushed at Kaz, making him open his eyes and sit up straight until he met Will’s gaze.

  “I can’t believe you called them little-dicked Nazis,” he said, surprising himself. He didn’t know why he couldn’t stop harping on the phrase. Maybe because it was the kind of thing he couldn’t ever picture himself calling anyone.

  “Yeah, not the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” Will admitted, slouching even further in his seat and letting his legs fall apart until his left thigh pressed against Kaz’s. His voice stayed casual, as if he hadn’t noticed. “Plus, I’m totally rocking a regular, average-sized dick myself, so it’s not like I’m in any position to make fun.”

  Kaz did his best not to picture it. Impossible now that he had the first detail of description. That only made him want to know more.

  “Stop talking about your dick,” he muttered, which, as sentences went, was pretty high on the fucking list of Things Not to Say to Your Students.

  “I’ve always been a fan of regular-size dicks myself,” Will said unhelpfully, because he was clearly determined to make sure Kaz burned in hell for all eternity. “Easier to deep throat ‘em, you know what I mean? I’m not a big fan of choking, as much as that kind of thing is all the rage in porn, I guess.”

  “I swear I will get up and move if you don’t stop,” Kaz growled, but Will just pressed his knees against the seat back in front of him as if to say have fun climbing over me to get out of the row. When Kaz tried to picture himself doing just that, “accidentally” kneeing Will in the balls on his way out, the picture kept turning into one of those very porn shots with him crouched over Will’s lap and fucking himself on this corn-fed Iowa boy’s cock, average size or not.

  Will just scraped his body with a heavy-lidded stare and radiated I dare you.

  “Fuck.” No matter what happened next—and Kaz was starting to sense he had a terrible grasp of the possibilities when it came to what Willis McTavish might do—he was screwed. Before things could get any worse, he dug his phone out of his pocket and started writing an email.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Telling Grayson I can’t grade your assignments anymore,” he said sharply, putting the finishing touch on his brief message.

  “Holy shit. You told him I—” Will’s head jerked back.

  The satisfaction that burned in Kaz’s blood at having finally made Will think for one second, instead of blindly acting on impulse or anger, didn’t make up for the embarrassment of the message he was sending, but it helped.

  He wasn’t enough of an asshole to let Will believe he’d actually told Grayson about the dry humping and the fingering and the way Will’s breath had been as hot as flames on Kaz’s neck.

  “No. I just told him I’d been involved in a less than professional conflict with some fascist rioters, defending you, and on the off chance that I end up talking to the police about it, I probably shouldn’t be on record as grading any more of your papers.”

  “Jesus. Thank god.” Some of the tension left Will’s spine and he huffed out a laugh while miming wiping sweat off his forehead. “Don’t think I could go back to class if he knew I’d rubbed one out on your thigh behind the Supreme Court.”

  Kaz’s stomach clenched at the words, need roaring back to life at the memory of Will’s hard cock pressed against him through layers of nylon and denim as he moaned into Kaz’s mouth and Kaz dug his fingers into the firm flesh of Will’s ass, holding him bruisingly tight as Will ground against him.

  The happy humming sound Will made as he turned in his seat, tugging one knee up, until he was curled up on his side, facing Kaz, was all the warning Kaz got.

  “So, if you’re not grading me anymore, does that mean we can hook up now?” he asked, reaching out and scritching his fingernails against the grain of of Kaz’s jeans until the denim fucking vibrated. “Because I’ve got a mental list of things I want to do with you that’s gonna take weeks to get through, although I bet we can make a dent before dawn.”

  “No.” His dick jerked in his pants. No. Keep saying that.

  Will’s mouth curved in a cartoon frown. He pulled his hand back. “If you say so. Too bad.”

  Damn it. Kids knowing about consent was such a pain in the ass, Kaz told himself sarcastically. Really took the wind out of his I don’t know how that happened, I didn’t mean it to bad decision-making sails.

  “Why do you even want this?

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been crushing on you since the first day of class. You were so clearly not interested in any of our bullshit. Plus, you’re hot.”

  Kaz’s frustration spilled out him like ink on a white sheet. “You’re so irresponsible. Do you have any idea how dangerous the crap you’re involved with is?”

  “Do you have any idea what’s at stake?” Will demanded, sitting up straight now and pushing his chin out. “This is for real. They’re taking over our country by gaming the rules with voter suppression and PAC money. We can’t just sit back and take it.”

  Kaz clenched his jaw and
kept his mouth shut, secrets pressing at his teeth. This was exactly why he shouldn’t have anything to do with this kid. Will thought everything was a fucking game, brawling in the streets with other angry white boys. He had no idea what was really at stake.

  Sighing, Kaz made his brain and his mouth release their mental grip on this argument. As much as it killed him not to debate a position out to its clear cut intellectual domination, winning arguments in a dark and sleepy-student-filled bus wasn’t the point. Protecting the most vulnerable members of his community was, and hotheaded undergrads with newly-awakened passion for politics weren’t a part of the plan.

  When he got up to go to the bathroom, he half expected Will to block his way, but Will just pulled his knees to the side, giving Kaz as much room to get by as possible.

  When Kaz cleared his throat, requesting access to his seat again, Will looked up at him in surprise.

  “Didn’t think you’d come back.”

  There was no good reply to that. Kaz hadn’t thought he’d come back either. Wasn’t sure why he’d returned to the window seat in the back row, cut off from the rest of the bus of sleeping undergrads by Will’s still-heated stare. As much as it killed him to admit it, he was drawn to the fierce, blunt undergrad with the blue eyes and dyed black hair and tattoos peeking out from under his clothes. He’d never particularly gone for the goth rock star look before, but something about it was tugging his chain, hard, now.

  “You’re okay,” he said as he pushed past Will’s knees, conscious of his ass in Will’s face. “Your friends however. . .”

  “Friends?”

  “I assume you weren’t out picking fights with Nazis all by yourself?” Kaz raised an eyebrow until Will blushed and looked down for moment. “Besides,” he drawled, “It’s no fun wearing a mask without a crowd, right?”

  “Yeah, I know they can take it too far sometimes. They can be kind of dicks—”

  “Kind of?”

  “About some things, I was going to say,” Will finished pointedly. “I don’t really know them that well. I hooked up with them on an app. But hey, at least they’re doing something.”