by Shelia Grace
“You’re welcome,” he said in a way that brought me hurtling back to reality.
“Oh my god.”
“Really, feel free to call me Ryan.”
Ignoring him, I swung around and looked for horror movie guy. Gone.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, turning back to Ryan Matthews.
“Apart from saving your ass, you mean?”
I gave him a sharp look, but I was having trouble slowing my breathing—mostly because of the kiss, which just happened to be my first ever.
Chapter 2
Ryan
I looked down at the freshman from Robertson’s intro Calculus class. Her cheeks were flushed, her pupils were dilated, and her small, pink lips were still parted. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to reach around, grab that round little ass, and haul her up against me all over again. But the rational side of my brain kicked in just in time for me to avoid being a bigger asshole than the guy who had followed her here.
“Where’d he go?” she asked, her eyes darting around.
“Your stalker? Took off when he saw me. I can call campus security so you can file a report if you want.”
She groaned.
“Seriously? The first guy to even look at me twice just had to be the creepy asshat from my—”
My eyes narrowed.
“Whoa. Back up. You knew that douchebag?”
And next up: first guy to look at her twice? Was she out of her goddamned mind? Then, to confirm my suspicions, she started talking to herself.
“Fucken Brit! Why do I keep letting her kick me out of the room? I should have gone back and told her that I was bringing a guy back. Right! Like she’d believe that! Little Alex, who’s never been kissed—”
Before I could respond to her soliloquy, she suddenly went completely still like she had just realized that I was still standing right in front of her. Nice. I had to get a fucking hard-on for the freshman who had never even made out with a guy. What the hell was wrong with my dick? I wondered caustically. Couldn’t my manhood fucking sense the practically under-aged danger standing in front of me? She looked up at me with those wide green eyes, and finally it occurred to me that she was crying and shaking.
I should have been comforting her, but all I could think about was biting her lower lip. I wanted to hear that sound again—that tiny whimper as I slid my tongue into her mouth. My cock throbbed out a rhythm of fuck-her-now, which I ignored—painfully— as I reached for my phone and dialed the campus cops.
“Do you know that prick’s name?” I asked as I cast her a sidelong glance, mostly to make sure she hadn’t clued in to the fact that my dick was practically trying to jump out of my pants.
“Um … Justin something, I think,” she mumbled, looking dazed.
I tried to focus on what she was saying instead of watching the rise and fall of the small, firm pair of tits in front of me. My pre-frontal cortex was telling me not to reach out and run my finger along the underside of those round—fuck! A bored voice came on the line identifying herself as campus police, thus saving me from making a complete ass of myself.
“Yeah, my name is Ryan Matthews. I’m at Shorenberger Library with a girl who was just attacked by her classmate.”
The woman asked to speak to “the victim,” and I held out the phone.
“Yes?” Alex squeaked. “No, I’m all right. I was on the third floor, and I saw him get off the elevator. Then, when I tried to leave, he grabbed my arm. Then my TA showed up, and the guy ran. … No, I don’t know his full name. He’s in my Creative Writing class with Professor Salinas. Oh, okay.”
She handed me the phone, and the woman asked if I could bring her over to their headquarters for a statement. I should have been lamenting the fact that my Thursday night was being hijacked by some girl who had been dumb enough to go up to the third floor of the library right before closing to wait for the fucking Big Bad Wolf to show up. Instead, I found myself actually looking forward to this next part. Taking her hand, which was soft and cold, I began leading her toward the stairs.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To file a police report.”
“Fuck. But that guy’s going to know I filed a report.”
I smiled crookedly.
“You have a fucken foul mouth. And that’s the whole point. You file a report, and then no more stalker.”
“Right! I’m not a moron. They’ll tell him not to do that again, and then send him on his way. He’ll be sitting there glaring at me when I show up in class on Monday.”
I led her to the edge of campus where my bike was parked. When she saw the motorcycle, she stopped. I turned back, enjoying the look of shock on her face.
“Come on,” I urged.
She shook her head.
“That’s yours?”
“No, I thought I’d steal it to get us to the other side of campus.”
She smirked at me, but when I produced the spare helmet, her eyes went round again.
“My mom would fucking kill me if I got on a bike.”
I smiled.
“I’ve been riding since I was seventeen. You’re in perfectly good hands.”
“Are you sure you’re a math TA?” she asked. Then her eyes narrowed. “Wait! Since you were seventeen? How the fuck old are you now?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Oh my god,” she gasped with a twinge of horror.
“Ancient, I know. And how old might you be, little one?”
She paused, and for one terrible second I thought maybe she was some fifteen-year-old genius who had gained early entrance. Anything but that.
“Eighteen.”
I exhaled. I had never been happier to hear the word eighteen in my life. Because all my brain interpreted was legal. I walked over to her, grabbed her hand, pulled her over to the bike, and strapped on the helmet before she could argue. Then I got on and reached for her, pulling her behind me until her legs were firmly straddling mine.
The second I eased away from the curb, she gripped my waist like she was going to be catapulted into space if she let go. I should have felt guilty for imagining taking her back to my place. Hell, I did feel guilty. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about stripping those tight jeans from her legs. I took a corner a little fast and heard her squeak over the bike’s engine. The pressure of her hands only inches from my cock was doing nothing for rational thought.
By the time I pulled up to the modular building that served as the headquarters for campus police, I had to pry her hands from my waist. I had to admit it: the Ducati had its perks. Getting off the bike, I pulled her down and slid the helmet from her head. Alex Reed stared up at me wide-eyed and silent. Her long hair—in the dark I couldn’t tell if it was red or brown—was a little wild.
“I can’t believe I just did that!” she laughed, her green eyes flashing. “Un-fucking-real!”
I smiled, amused by her newfound lack of inhibition.
“You like the bike now?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t have a death wish.”
“And I do?”
“You ride a motorcycle.”
“Logical correlation there.”
“It is!”
When I gestured toward the ramp that led into the modular, she frowned.
“Oh! Sorry!” She blushed. “I mean, thanks for the ride. I guess I’ll see you in class next Tuesday.”
I smirked and shook my head.
“You think I’m going to leave you alone here?”
“It’s campus police. I think I’ll be all right.”
Shaking my head again, I reached out and took her hand, pulling her up the ramp.
“Don’t you have something better to be doing on a Thursday night than escorting a freshman around campus?”
“Wait until you get to graduate school, and that will answer your question.”
I opened the door and waited for her to walk ahead of me. She turned back, laughing.
The woman at the desk looked up.
“Are you the ones who called in?”
When I nodded, she thumped a clipboard down on the counter.
“Fill these out, and then an officer will go over your statement before you sign it.”
Turning around, I watched as Alex’s face turned sheet-white again. Grabbing the clipboard, I pointed to the plastic chairs in the corner and sat down next to her as she began filling out the forms. In an attempt to look purposeful, I pulled out the assignments I had shoved into my backpack before following her stalker to the library. A second later, she looked up and winced.
“Oh shit! Don’t grade mine right now! You’ll hate me! I suck at math.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“What’s your major?”
“English and French.”
“And you’re taking Calculus—why?”
She exhaled and tapped the pen on the clipboard.
“It’s a long, embarrassing, stupid story.”
“Long, embarrassing, and stupid. I think I need to hear it.”
She shook her head and then went back to the forms in her lap.
“And you think I’ll hate you because you’re not a math savant?”
“Well, yeah. My Trig teacher hated me. Teachers always have a hard-on for the students who get it without them actually having to teach.”
I smiled and leaned forward reflexively, trying to conceal my very real hard-on for her that just wouldn’t die.
“Harsh.”
“So true, though,” she laughed.
A few minutes later, the middle-aged woman behind the counter stood up and directed Alex to one of the back rooms.
“Is it okay if my TA comes with me?” she asked.
Her TA. Goddamn. This girl thought of me as her fucking elder, and all I could think of was fucking her.
“That’s fine,” the woman responded with zero interest.
The rest of the process took way too long. When the officer asked me what had happened, I added what I could, leaving out the part about wanting to fuck a nearly under-aged student. I couldn’t help noticing that by the time he informed us we could leave, Alex Reed looked even more out of it than when we had walked in.
“Are you taking this young lady back to her dorm?” the officer asked me.
I nodded as I steered her out of the room.
“I’ve never had to do that before,” Alex muttered blankly.
“File a police report? Why would you? You’re only eighteen.”
“Only eighteen? You make it sound like I’m in freaking kindergarten!”
We walked back to the front where the bike was parked, and I could tell her enthusiasm for two-wheeled transportation had worn off. Without a word, I pulled the helmet over her head and tightened the strap before putting on my own. Then I flipped up the visor.
“Which dorm?”
“Mercer.”
I pulled her on behind me, and she gripped my waist in the same cock-raising way as earlier. With her breasts pressed firmly against my back, I had to wonder if she had any idea that she was making me completely insane. By the time I pulled up in front of Mercer Hall, I had to unglue her hands from my waist. Still, I wasn’t deluded enough to think she was turned on. More likely traumatized.
“Thanks,” she whispered like most of the energy had drained out of her.
She couldn’t have been more than five-four, which meant that at six-five, I towered over her. I watched as she started ransacking her backpack for the student ID card that would get her into the building, and when she finally found it, she smiled weakly in my direction and started walking away.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
When I caught up with her, she looked up at me expectantly.
“As your TA, I’m not going to feel right unless I make sure you get into your room safely,” I said priggishly.
“Oh.”
She looked bemused, nearly disappointed, like she had been expecting something else. Taking the backpack out of her hand, I started walking. When we reached the glass door, I saw a group of half a dozen guys sitting in the lounge by the pool table. Alex slid her ID in the card reader, and I opened the door, watching as she glanced over at the guys across the room.
“Hey, sweet cheeks,” one of them called.
She blushed bright red and started hurrying toward the stairs. I stopped and took a few steps toward the boys, who fell silent immediately. Yeah, that’s right, you silly little freshman pukes. Shut the fuck up. I looked down and saw an ID card on the cement floor. Reaching down to pick it up, I studied the details.
Alexis Reed. DOB 08/19. ID# 83-555-4632
Fantastic. This girl had barely turned eighteen before matriculating at this fine institution. Of course, the first girl to have caught my attention since Gretchen had to be a freshman. And not just a freshman, but a barely-eighteen-year-old freshman. I resisted the urge to slap my forehead as I followed her up the stairs.
“You dropped this.”
She turned and looked down at the ID.
“Oh shit! Thanks!”
“Friends of yours?” I asked, gesturing down the stairs.
“Those guys? Hell no. Second floor Neanderthals,” she mumbled.
She swung open the door at the third floor landing and growled.
“Fucken Brit!”
Brit … Brit. Oh shit. The girl wearing two inches of makeup who had handed me a sheet of paper—not her homework assignment—with her number on it.
“That was your roommate?” I laughed in surprise.
“Yeah. She’s the university’s idea of a sick joke.”
Alex pointed at the door just off the landing where there was a sock hanging off the knob.
“And the sock means what exactly?” I asked.
“What do you think, Sherlock?”
I laughed again.
“Wow. I didn’t think kids still did that.”
“What? Have sex?”
I smirked.
“You have a smart mouth.”
“Yeah? Well I’m gonna end up sleeping on the couch in the lounge again.”
I looked into the lounge at the end of the hall and grimaced.
“Again? You’ve slept there before?”
“Where else? Julie’s roommate won’t be okay with me crashing there, and I’m sure Rachel’s gone for the night … so what am I going to do? Wake up the freaking RA and tell her to interrupt Brit mid-coitus? Like Brit doesn’t already hate her goody-goody roommate—”
Grabbing her arm, I began propelling her toward the stairs.
“Hey!” she yelped. “Where are we going?”
“My place.”
She stopped walking, her eyes widening.
“I can’t go to your apartment!”
“Well, I can’t leave you to sleep on a couch in a public lounge with those jackals downstairs.”
“Jackals?”
“Your buddies from the second floor? Remember?”
She blinked in fear and started walking again.
“What? Did you forget about them?”
“I-I don’t know.”
When we got to the ground floor, I reached over and put my arm around her shoulders.
“What are you doing?” she hissed in a panic.
“I’m making the jackass brigade think twice about fucking with you.”
When we reached the glass doors, I turned back and gave them my best don’t-fuck-with-me look, developed from years of working beside the man who had proudly managed my parents’ vineyard for the past two decades. He was the one you really didn’t want to fuck with, and he had taught me never to back down and to always look like I was ready to bring it.
If these punks wanted to try something, they’d be the ones in for a fucking surprise. Years spent lifting barrels and crates of wine meant I could knock their baby-fat asses back to grade school if they wanted to start shit. N
one of them moved.
By the time we reached my bike, Alex Reed was chewing her lip in a way that made me think of our kiss from earlier. Envisioning the shocked look on her face, I laughed.
“What?” she asked as I reached forward to pull the helmet over her head.
“I was just thinking about the look on your face when I kissed you.”
Chapter 3
Alex
I opened my mouth to say something, but he was already slipping the helmet over my head. Besides, I couldn’t think of anything non-stupid to say. He wasn’t wrong. I had almost died when he leaned down and kissed me. The fact that my first kiss had been with the TA of the Calculus class that I was failing miserably was … weird. Fucking weird. And earth shattering. And something I totally shouldn’t have been thinking about.
When he got on the bike and offered his hand, I reached out and let him pull me on behind him. What other choice did I have? My roommate was fucking someone in our room—probably in my bed. Shudder. Julie would have let me stay over—if her roommate wasn’t such an icy bitch. And Rachel was—I was sure—drunk off her ass by now. Rachel was my former best friend from high school. She had come here in the fall, too, but unlike me, she had been crushed to have to go to a public school when she had really wanted to go to some East Coast private school that she hadn’t gotten into. I was fine with a public school. Plus, it was paid for. Mom’s stipulations had been: get into a public school, we’ll pay, and then say thank-you to your stepfather every fucking chance you get.
Okay, so Mom hadn’t said fucking, but the message was still the same. And hell, I was thrilled for the free ride. Of course, I was going to work my ass off during summers to pay for all the extras. I just hadn’t thought about needing cash for a motel in case my new roommate decided to lock me out of our room on a regular basis.
I couldn’t tell where Ryan was taking me, mostly because I was afraid to even move my head as the bike weaved around corners. Mom would fucking kill me if she knew I was on a bike. Being within ten feet of a motorcycle was, in her words, a cardinal sin. The bike slowed, and I turned and saw a street sign. C Street. We were in the residential area not far from campus. I had passed it a couple of times on the bus going into town with Rachel last quarter. When Ryan pulled into a driveway and got off the bike, I took his hand again and stepped unsteadily off the bike.