“Hello,” the professor said. His voice was deep and booming, with just an echo of a twang somewhere beneath the growl. But, he spoke very monotone and sounded just as bored as the students looked; well, at least they had been bored before Johnathan barged in late and made everything interesting. “And who might you be?”
The reality of the situation set in, and Johnathan swallowed hard, aware of all the eyes on him. “My, um, my name is…My name is Johnathan Kellerby, Professor.”
“I think you most of all will find our deviation into expectations the most interesting, Mr. Kellerby.” Professor Devan’s eyes darkened, narrowing dangerously. Johnathan swallowed again and nervously licked his lips. “Do not be late to my class ever again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Professor,” he squeaked. “I’m sorry, Professor.”
The professor snorted, obviously not believing him. “We will see. Now, if you will, please take a seat. We’re wasting time here.”
Johnathan nodded, so nervous that he almost couldn’t seem to stop bobbing his head as he scurried past the podium and mounted the steps slightly up the stadium seating. He took a seat as far back as he could, his ears burning with embarrassment. The professor just stared gruffly at him until he was sitting, and that gaze felt like it could puncture right through him.
Then it was like he didn’t exist, and Professor Devan ignored him for the whole rest of the class as he talked on the course schedule and exams, and what would be covered. Luckily, there were no more jokes about Johnathan and the whole thing seemed to have been forgotten by the time class was over. That was great, because he couldn’t wait to leave. Grabbing up his notebook, Johnathan stood up with the rest of the other students and prepared to follow them out.
“Hold on a moment, Mr. Kellerby.”
Shoot.
He turned and looked reluctantly back at the professor, who was lounging in his desk chair with his feet up on top of it. “Professor?”
“Come here.”
It was a command, short and sharp. There was no point in arguing with it, so Johnathan walked back towards the rear of the room while listening to the others laugh at him as they all filed out until he was the only one left.
“So, you are my new assistant?”
“Huh? Your assistant?”
“That would be correct.” Professor Devan stared at him, his eyes cold and distinctly unamused. He seemed bored to even be having this conversation. “You were aware of this, weren’t you?”
“I, I was, but…”
Johnathan stopped himself before he could dig himself a hole. To earn that extra credit he needed to graduate on time, he had volunteered to be taken on as a research assistant. Since there were many teachers currently working on their papers, he had no idea who he would be handed off to. And now he did.
Great, he thought miserably. What a great first impression I’ve made. Damn.
“Good. Now that we’re straight on all that, we will be having our first meeting tonight at 6 p.m. sharp. You will be presentable and no longer smelling like a brewery. Are we clear?”
“Yes,” he said meekly, and turned to go. And then he stopped. “What time is it?”
Professor Devan glanced at his computer screen before reading off the top, and Johnathan couldn’t help but to moan to himself. His schedule was jam-packed and this short conversation had already eaten up any spare time he might have had. Now that he was a little more awake, he was starting to feel incredible hungry. “Just great,” he muttered to himself and made for the door.
Just before he stepped out into the hallway, he felt a powerful hand wrap around his wrist. It was so sudden and so strong that it stopped him in his tracks and he had to bite his lip to keep from yelping. Not because of the surprise, but because he knew it was the professor touching him and the contact was making his hand…tingle.
What’s going on? he thought, turning back and looking up. Until now, he hadn’t quite realized how tall the professor was. Or how wide. He looked like a linebacker, with the slick confidence of a surfer dude and the looks of a well-groomed wild beast.
“Here,” Professor Devan said in his low, uninterested growl. He slipped something into Johnathan’s hand, and then curled his fingers to make Johnathan close his own hand around the whatever-it-was. But then, he didn’t let go. Johnathan couldn’t even think of pulling away. He couldn’t think of anything at all. His hand was tingling, the professor’s touch lingering, seeming to demand something from him that he didn’t understand quite yet. Sparks seemed to shoot through his blood, up and down his arm, all the way to his shoulder and then back down to his crushed fingertips.
And still the professor only held him in place and now their eyes met. The hold on his fingers would have been painfully firm if not for the tingling, and Johnathan couldn’t have cared less. He felt…alive.
And then suddenly he was standing in the hallway with the door shutting behind him, banished from the room by a forceful nudge.
Johnathan looked down at his tingling hand and opened it to find a protein bar in his palm. Had the professor known he was hungry somehow? He was dumbfounded, shaking a little as he remembered the intensity of having his hand held. And by a man no less! A man, who for some reason gave him feelings he hadn’t even known existed.
Shaking his head and unwrapping his “breakfast” Johnathan found himself torn. His stomach was fluttering with nerves about being a research assistant for someone he’d clearly irked, but he was also irked right back. The professor really didn’t need to embarrass him like that if they were just going to talk after class was over.
None of this really made sense, and the weird nervous feeling in his stomach just wouldn’t go away and he couldn’t figure out why.
Chapter Two
After several more long classes, finally the day was over. Johnathan couldn’t help but to breathe a sigh of relief when finally the bell rang and he could grab up his stuff and leave. He was really starting to feel gross after not showering or anything in the morning and he couldn’t wait to get back to the frat house and get cleaned up.
He hurried back, scurrying and very aware that everyone was giving him a wide berth. They thought he was weird, and he knew he was weird. As a senior, he was supposed to know by now when to get drunk and when not to, but here he was wandering around out in the open, clearly still affected by the party. He shouldn’t have drank at all, or else he should have just stayed home like all the other dudes and pretended to be sick.
“Why can’t I be responsible for once in my life?” he moaned to himself as yet another person went out of their way to stay away from him. He could smell himself, and he really did reek like a brewery. And he’d been like this all day. Just awful.
He couldn’t have been gladder about getting back to the frat house, and it wasn’t just so he could clean up. Ever since he touched hands with the professor, there was this weird feeling inside him that he needed solitude and quiet to figure out. He felt tingly and nervous, like he did when talking to girls or standing up in front of the glass. It was weird, and he’d never felt that way around another man before, whether they were his age or older.
Shaking his head, he headed inside and went down the hall to get to the staircase.
“Hey, Johnny!”
Johnathan stopped and looked back, his hand on the railing. It was Mitch, his best friend and roommate. “Hey, man,” he said. “How you feeling?”
Mitch let out a little groan and rubbed the back of his head. He was a junior with an eye on the NFL, but despite his younger age he towered over Johnathan and was even more built than the professor seemed to be.
It was with some effort that Johnathan stopped himself from thinking like that. What was he doing, anyway? Comparing men and their bodies? That wasn’t something a guy did.
“My head is seriously killing me,” he admitted. “I skipped out on the first whole day and everything. You think anything important happened?”
“Probably not. It’s usua
lly just all talk about exams and what you’ll need and shit. I bet you didn’t miss anything important. You heading up?”
“Yeah, man.”
They mounted the staircase together and started to climb up. Jonathan stayed quiet for a little bit but in the end he couldn’t help but to think that maybe discussing these weird thoughts with his friend wasn’t a bad idea.
“I wish I’d stayed home, too. I was late to my first class and the professor is a nightmare.”
“What’d he do?” Mitch asked dutifully, as they reached the top of the stairs.
“It was that new guy. Devan whatever.”
Mitch brightened. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. The chicks say he’s a total babe magnet.”
Johnathan had to laugh a little at the pleased expression on his friend’s face. Mitch wasn’t incredibly book smart on the best days, and he had even less practical knowledge, but he was a good, earnest guy. He was one of the only real friends Johnathan ever had since he was a kid. There was something innocent about him, an eagerness for life that was actually pretty refreshing. He could get annoying though, but sometimes it was almost cute.
I can see how girls would like you, Mitch, Johnathan thought. But that guy? No way. And then he stopped in his tracks. Did I just think another guy is cute?
Mitch looked back at him oddly. “Dude, why’d you stop?”
“Sorry,” he said, and started walking again. “Anyway, uh…what do you think girls like about him? He seemed really boring to me.” Boring, and aloof, and very icy.
Mitch shrugged as they got to their room and he barged in through the door first. Johnathan followed, very relieved to see that drunk girl was gone. “Man, I just don’t know. I only know what they say. Something about him being dreamy, I guess. Reminds them of Indiana Jones, maybe?”
Johnathan flopped on their couch. “But that’s Archeology, not Anthropology.”
Mitch shrugged again. “Girls are weird. They’re all about image and stuff. I don’t really care about all that junk, anyway.”
“Well, Indiana Jones was at least nice to his students. This guy is a real jerk, making fun of me like that.” Johnathan scowled. “Although, he did know I was hungry and gave me something to eat so maybe he’s just uptight or whatever, but that doesn’t give him the right to be boring.”
Mitch laughed and picked up the remote to start flipping through the channels on their beat-up old TV. “He gave you something to eat?”
“Yeah, a protein bar.”
“Hey, maybe he likes you!” Mitch seemed delighted with his conclusion and waved the remote around in the air. “He’s got a crush on you. Like a little kid pushing a girl around and throwing rocks at her and stuff. Maybe he’s got love at first sight!”
“No!” Johnathan practically shouted. “No way! I bet he’s married and shit, too. Got 2.5 kids and a minivan and all that crap. Hell, I’d be a bored jerk, too.”
Mitch held up his hands, palm out. “Calm down, bro, okay? I was just joking with you. No reason to get all weird on me.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, and they lapsed into a silence that the TV attempted to fill with overly loud commercials. His heart was beating a little faster than he felt it should, and he couldn’t figure out why, but the idea that the professor might have been flirting with him…It was way too absurd to be true, and he wasn’t sure why it had bothered him like that in the first place.
Then, he looked over at the clock on the wall and sighed. “Oh, yeah. I also forgot. I signed up for that extra credit program, right? Turns out I’m going to be Professor Asshole’s research assistant and we’re supposed to have a meeting later on.”
Mitch said nothing, although he did wiggle his eyebrows suggestively. Johnathan scowled and him and went to get some clothes so he could take a shower. Part of him considered not cleaning up just to spite the man but he couldn’t do that to himself. And he couldn’t let this jerk get him down, so he headed for the showers anyway.
Once he was in there and scrubbing the smell of alcohol off his body, he closed his eyes and tried to think. The water pounding down around him was warm, surrounding him with impenetrable white noise. This was always one of his best places to think, so he turned to face the problem head on: maybe the professor really did have some kind of crush on him. That meant he was gay, or at least bi.
And Johnathan was straight. Right? Right.
Only, deep down in his heart, he was no longer really sure about that. College was the time when people questioned this stuff but he’d never needed to find an answer until right now.
I’m just being dumb, he scolded himself, and moved on to washing his hair. But still, he couldn’t forget the tingle in his hand, the fluttering in his stomach. Girls made him feel like that too, but it wasn’t the same as this.
Frustrated that he was going nowhere, he stepped out of the shower and turned off the water. It was almost time to leave, so he hurried through the last part of getting dressed and ready to go. Once he was dressed and had his hair all fixed up properly, he looked in the mirror and felt a little better.
Looking back at him was an undoubtedly straight guy. A little skinny but good-looking. Not much to attract the ladies but he’d find someone, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be some gross married professor.
“I’ll show him just how professional I can be,” he grumbled, and headed out.
Chapter Three
Professor Devan was not married, or at least he didn’t wear a wedding ring. Johnathan could tell that because the man was gesturing around, waving one hand in the air while he talked to the person in the office with him.
He hesitated just outside the office doorway where he was supposed to meet the professor, very aware that it was probably in his best interest not to interrupt this. The other person inside the office was Dr. Brown, head of the Anthropology department.
“I can’t believe you aren’t done with that paper yet!” Dr. Brown shouted, slamming his hands down on the desk. Johnathan jumped and flinched, and then looked around worriedly to see if anyone had seen that. Nothing. Good. “You started it months ago, Devan. Where is it?”
Professor Devan just gazed up at the angry department head with a cool gaze, heavy eyes half-closed. His calmness was almost mesmerizing. “These things take time, Richard,” he replied smoothly. “Perfection takes time.”
Dr. Brown snorted and straightened up. “That is not an excuse. Perfection comes as a result of hard, honest work. Not laziness and sitting around all day like this. Have you moved at all today? Have you even looked at the paper today? It needs done!”
Devan tossed his hand in the air again, and Johnathan suddenly realized what the gesture was. He was taking all the complaints thrown at him and literally tossing them away. How could one person be such a jerk, while still being so perfectly calm and unruffled? It was unthinkable. Yet, despite himself, Johnathan was a little impressed. He really was like a surfer dude, so unruffled while he took on whatever the world had for him. That was damn impressive, if that was actually it.
Maybe I was wrong about him?
“You know as well as I do that there’s a certain blindness that comes with reviewing a text too often. It has to be given room to grow and breathe.”
Dr. Brown snorted and shook his head, but straightened up and prepared to leave. “Hippie crap. You sound like a student trying to give me an excuse on why you don’t have your homework done. Room to grow and breathe… Just get it done!”
“Yes, Doctor,” Devan replied calmly. “Was there anything else you needed from me?”
Dr. Brown didn’t answer, as he was already storming out of the office. Johnathan leapt back and turned away, trying to look like he had just arrived and wasn’t listening in on the whole conversation.
“Hey, you! Boy! What do you think you’re doing? Snooping around, huh?”
Johnathan turned back around and looked up into the eyes of the department head, trying not to tremble. Geez, he’d thought Professor Devan was intimi
dating but this guy was strict, sharp angles where Devan was sedate and mellow. He wore an unfriendly scowl.
“Calm down, Richard.”
And suddenly, Devan was there, pushing his way past the department head to stand protectively in front of his research assistant. He was practically bristling, and Johnathan shrank back even further. Those muscles weren’t just for show! They were bulging, sharp outlines clearly defined on his back. His shoulders rippled with power.
“This is my new research assistant,” Devan went on to explain. His voice was as calm as ever, but Johnathan couldn’t get over the illusion that he was growling, a threat in the back of his throat. “He was probably waiting out here for you to finish yapping at me. As you can see from his presence, we were just about to get to work on the paper, but we can’t do that until you leave.”
“Hmph,” Dr. Brown snorted, but he couldn’t argue with the scene before him. “Fine. Boy,” he said, addressing Johnathan, “you had best get the professor in gear if he knows what’s best for him.
“Um,” was all Johnathan could manage in reply. Both he and Professor Devan watched the department head slowly strolling away, and he let out a relieved sigh. “Uh, thank you. Really. For, for coming to my rescue like that.”
Professor Devan turned around, and it was all Johnathan could do to keep from leaping away again. He had magically melted back away from that imposing anger, to his mellow old self, but Johnathan had never been so close to him and looking directly at him before. His eyelids were heavy, giving him a sleepy, sexy look that he bet all the girls went wild for.
His stomach gave a little tingling burn, signaling that maybe it wasn’t just girls who found the professor attractive.
I’m straight, he told himself uselessly.
“It was no big deal,” Professor Devan said, his deep voice rumbling. “He had bad timing is all. Means well, I’m sure. I’m a bit embarrassed though that you had to see that.”
Omega Wanted: Bad Boy Mpreg Romance Page 58