“Why do you need so much?” he asked, baffled. What kind of research paper was this?
But whatever the reason was, it seemed to light some sort of fire in Devan’s soul. Though the man was already unusually animated, now he seemed practically evangelical in the way he raised both his hands and began to gesture as he spoke. It was far more personality than he ever showed up in front of the classroom. “You see, my paper focuses on changing perception and the way that research changes due to expected results and the limitations placed on finds by the government. I wish to illustrate that change through the passing decades to finally arrive here in this year, where things are far more strict than ever before, yet the wealth of information is larger than ever. It will be a massive construct and quite a great deal of work. I am lucky that I will have such a dedicated assistant here with me.”
His tone actually seemed to warm up to Johnathan, who cast a shy look at the smiling professor. He was starting to understand that the older man was many-faceted, able to play an abundance of different parts when he desired it. And hearing him talk on this subject, Johnathan had the startling realization that his professor was not boring, he was bored.
I can relate, he thought, and for the second time he felt as if this man might actually be likable somewhere down deep beneath all these layers. Whoever the real Devan was, that was who Johnathan was interested in.
“I’ll do the best I can,” he said, and actually meant it.
“Very good!” Devan said, and then moved his hand from one of the stacks of paper to Johnathan’s head, patting him. The gesture was surprising and not entirely wanted, yet Johnathan leaned in to it, very glad that he’d washed his hair. Powerful fingers slid from his hair down to the back of his neck, and then squeezed his shoulder in what could only be described as a possessive manner. A shiver went through Johnathan’s body, and he swallowed hard, hoping against hope that it wasn’t too obvious how much he liked that. He just had to relax and let what happened happen.
Then, Devan moved away and the moment was broken. Grabbing some papers from one of the many stacks on the desk, he offered a stapled list to his assistant. “I have taken a liberty of preparing an outline for you on the subjects and discussion points I am most interested in. You will take half the desk, and I shall take the other half. You will read each and every word of each text very thoroughly. If a passage or section seems to correlate with a point on the outline, you will mark down the name of the book, page number, passage, and your reasoning. We will do this until we have read through everything here. Is that understood?”
Johnathan nodded along to the whole entire spiel but inwardly, he was cringing. This was a whole heck of a lot for them to do.
Devan seemed to notice his reluctance. “Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “This is the first and largest step. Of course it’s going to be the hardest, but I promise you that it will be worth it in the end.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
They both pulled up seats after that, and then there was nothing to do but get reading. Figuring that the individually-written papers would be more personable and easier to read that the huge textbooks, Johnathan knew it was probably in his best interest to get those out of the way first. It would give him something to look forward to, so he reached out and picked one up.
It was older than he would have thought, and the cover tore right off in his hand.
Devan glanced over at him and raised his eyebrows.
“I’m, I’m sorry!”
For a moment, he sensed a deep anger boiling just beneath the professor’s surface. His mouth tightened and his hand clenched, crumpling the paper he held. Then, it relaxed. “It’s fine. It was a stuffy old book anyway.”
Feeling sorely that he’d disappointed the man just as he was starting to earn his approval, Johnathan vowed to be more careful. However, it seemed like everything he did only served to irk the professor more and more.
“Would you breathe a little quieter?” he snapped. “You’re reading, not fucking.”
Johnathan stared at him, eyes widening. “Sir?”
“Breathe slower and deeper. You’ll last longer.”
What…are we still talking about the books? That didn’t really sound like it. Once more, he resolved to take more care in what he was doing.
However, the reprieve didn’t last very long. “Could you flip those pages a little more quietly?”
“Sorry, sir.”
And again, a few more minutes later: “Quit flinging dust everywhere! And look at your handwriting there. How am I supposed to read that?”
Johnathan growled under his breath. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“’The best you can’ is the reason that you are my research assistant in the first place. You must try harder, John!”
“Lay off me,” he muttered. “I was dumb, okay? I’ve always been dumb. I’m not good at anything.”
“You are very good at getting under my skin, John.”
Suddenly, a hot and heavy hand landed on his thigh and caressed him. It was only just above his knee, but he gasped and pulled back a little. That hand didn’t let go however, and he felt snared. Cornered. Preyed upon and possessed.
His loins stirred again, and he swallowed very hard. “I’ll…I’ll keep trying. I’ll impress you.”
“Hmm,” was all that Devan said, and he took his hand away. The hand didn’t always stay away, however. Johnathan tried his hardest to keep focused on the task at hand, as minutes slowly became hours, but it was impossible to read and absorb anything properly when he was so tense. At any moment, Devan could touch him again and he wanted to be ready for it, to catch and savor it.
And periodically, that hand reached out to caress him. Or Devan would stretch and rub their legs together. Each time, the contact was slightly new and Johnathan was trembling by the time the first hour passed. How much more of this could he take before he gave in entirely and begged for the aloof professor to quit teasing him and just do something already?
However, slowly, the touches became fewer and farther between as Devan dropped further into his research. Johnathan relaxed but it was still hard to work. He kept getting distracted by watching the professor buried in his work, eyelashes long and startlingly beautiful for such a huge man. His face was the picture of concentration, intelligence written on the furrow in his brow and in the way he scrawled information in neat shorthand across a piece of notebook paper.
And slowly, time passed and the day went on.
At first sitting around wasn’t so bad, but by the eighth consecutive hour on his butt, Johnathan was numb from the waist down. His feet had gone past tingling and were deep asleep, and his legs were so detached from the rest of him that he knew he’d fall over if he tried to stand up.
His groans as he kept shifting position must have finally reached Devan. Dropping his pencil, the professor suddenly reared back in his chair and threw his hands high above his head in a powerful stretch that nearly made his chiseled abs burst through his shirt. “Time for a break,” he said.
Johnathan groaned again and wiggled his shoulders, feeling his spine pop around. “Are, are you sure? Slaves don’t get breaks.”
Devan suddenly put his hands back down and stared hard at his assistant. “Are you volunteering to be my slave, John?”
Johnathan sputtered, shocked.
“It could certainly be arranged.”
“I…but…what? Are you…you, can’t be talking about…”
Is he asking if I want to be his sex slave? Holy shit.
He looked down, heart beating rapidly, unsure if he wanted to stay or run. “I, I like to party but…I’ve never…I mean…I’m still a virgin.”
“A virgin in what regard?” Devan rumbled.
And now the professor was asking if he’d ever…done that before. It was more than Johnathan could take. He didn’t know what else to say. “I’m straight.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am!”
B
ut Devan shook his head, and privately he knew he agreed. “You are not straight. Look at you. I would bet you’ve never really wanted a girl your whole life. Look at your hair. I can hear it in the way you talk. And you don’t think I haven’t watched you when you walk away from me? Whether you know it or not, you are.” Another of those dazzling grin spread across his face. “You’re a little twink, Johnathan. A little virgin twink. And that’s just perfect.”
He blushed, and then gasped as Devan suddenly stood, leaned his full height over him, and then kissed him. The kiss was deep and commanding, but not rough; Johnathan could tell that Devan wanted it to be rough, and he could barely keep from trembling.
After what felt like an eternity, Devan finally pulled away, leaving the taste of himself on Johnathan’s lips. “I want you. I want to own you, John. I want to make you mine and show me how wrong you’ve been about yourself.”
“Yes,” he breathed, breathless. Uncontrolled.
“You’ll have to give up that party life of yours though, I’m afraid. It wouldn’t do for you to be drunk when I need you.”
Knowing that this was truly what he wanted, that he was more than ready to try this, Johnathan nodded. “I’m, I’m all yours.”
Chapter Six
Monday morning, Johnathan was an utter wreck. He kept expecting Devan to call or text him at any second but nothing ever came of it and the man acted like he didn’t even exist during class. What made it worse was that he definitely didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. All of the guys at the frat just made gay jokes and made fun of any gay guys they knew, so he obviously wasn’t going to get any kind of a warm welcome for coming out to them.
It wasn’t like it even really mattered, though. Lots of guys were still getting over their hangovers from the party, which meant no one was talking at all about anything.
He groaned and put his head in his hands, elbows on the desk. He’d taken home a giant stack of papers and textbooks home with him because a research assistant was a research assistant no matter whether or not they were sitting in the office with their boss. His outline was full of scribbles that were as neat as he could make them, wanting so badly to impress the professor when he handed these in. The professor who said he wanted him, who was going to do things to him that no one had ever done before…and who hadn’t even tried to follow up on it yet.
“Maybe he got nervous,” Johnathan sighed softly, rubbing his forehead. A stress headache was forming behind his eyes and he kneaded at it as he thought about that possibility. Maybe Devan had gotten caught up in things and feelings, but realized it was inappropriate to have sex with his students. But in that case, the least he could have done was let Johnathan know so that he didn’t just keep waiting on something that was never going to come.
“What’d you say, Johnny?”
Johnathan suddenly caught his breath, abruptly realizing that he was not, and had never been, alone in his room. The desk was in the living room and even though he’d been caught up in a whirlwind of his own thoughts and feelings, and the scratching of his pen and the fluttering of paper served to cut out most other sounds, there was still someone else in the living room with him. Mitch, watching a football game with a bowl of chips at his side and grease stains on the couch where he wiped his fingers off.
“It’s nothing,” he managed, his chest tight.
Mitch reached for the remote and muted the TV, turning his sweet brown puppydog eyes towards Johnathan. He hated that. That meant that big, bumbling Mitch with the sensitivity of a turtle was about to get serious with him and that was never an easy thing to go through.
“Seriously man, what’d you say? You’ve been so out of it lately. We’re bros, right?”
Despite himself, Johnathan gave a little bit of a smile. “Absolutely. We’re bros, man. Until you go off to the NFL and forget all the little people.”
“Never!” Mitch exclaimed, startling him. “Ain’t never going to happen, Johnny. You and me, we’re good for life. Okay? And since I’m your bro, you gotta tell me when stuff bothers you. Like, you seem happy right now but also like you’re unhappy. You know what I mean?”
“I’m a little bit nervous,” Johnathan admitted, feeling like he at least owed his friend that much.
“Is it that professor dude?”
He pulled in a sharp breath and dropped the paper he’d been holding onto the carpet. “How did you know that?”
Mitch shrugged his heavy shoulders, patting the remote against his thigh in a steady rhythm that made Johnathan realize that he was also nervous for some reason. “It’s the only thing that’s changed recently, so that’s gotta be it. Is he bothering you? You need backup?”
He was touched, both by the sensitivity of the statement and also by Mitch’s sudden astute observation. “Thanks, man. But it’s really okay. He just makes me nervous.”
“How?”
Shit.
He hadn’t really prepared a backup reason so he was left floundering, his throat working as he struggled to find something to say that wouldn’t give away the secret slowly blooming inside his heart. “It’s…just…that I, I’m not used to being around guys like that.”
Mitch sat up very straight, and his open face went suddenly still and mask-like. “Like what?” he asked, his voice very low.
And he knew he was trapped. Trapped, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but tell the truth to his best friend in the entire world. If there was anyone who was going to accept him, it was the guy sitting right across the room. “Guys who...make me feel things,” he said, whispering the words that grew fainter and fainter with each syllable until he could barely hear himself.
And suddenly there was no weight pushing on his chest, no heaviness resting there now that he’d freed himself with the truth. Mitch, however, looked stricken and somehow upset.
“Like…You like him? Him?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Well, that was a lie. And he’d already come so far… “Yeah, I like him. I like him a lot and I think he likes me and I want to…”
Mitch almost reeled back, but not with horror or disgust. Johnathan had absolutely no idea what that look was on his face because he’d never seen his friend look like that before, but it seemed somewhere in the realm of…disappointment?
“Johnny, he’s so old!”
“He’s not that old! Geez! He’s in his thirties, Mitch. And…and no offense, it’s my decision, isn’t it? I want to try.”
His friend looked like he was about to say something else but just then, Johnathan felt a buzzing at his hip and automatically went to check his phone. And there was Devan’s number, floating on the screen beside a blurry profile picture that Johnathan had snuck during class a few days ago.
“Sorry, Mitch,” he said hurriedly. “I have to reply to this.”
Mitch narrowed his eyes. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
“Well….yeah.”
He expected more conversation to follow but all Mitch did was shake his head and turn back towards the TV. “Just be careful.”
Quickly, Johnathan read the text with his friend’s warning already tossed aside. “Meet me at Ben’s Pizzeria in an hour. Wear a wife beater and the tightest shorts you own. No underwear. Nothing else. Come.”
Excitement leapt up in his throat but it almost immediately plummeted again as he realized that he didn’t own a wife beater. Tight shorts, yes. But a wife beater? He wasn’t the kind of muscly guy who could pull that off, really. Still, if that was what Devan wanted, he had to get one.
“Your boyfriend break up with you or something?” Mitch said, trying to sound taunting but he only seemed disappointed again.
“He’s not my boyfriend! And no. He just asked me to meet him now.”
“I guess you better get going, then.”
“I will!” he declared, and then stood up. There wasn’t enough time to go shopping, so he took a deep breath and took the plunge. “Mitch, do you have a, a wife beater lying around somewhere?”
A shor
t ten minutes later, and he was ready. And ridiculous. Mitch’s hung off him like a hand-me-down, with the neck hole dipping down so far that his nipples were almost showing. The arm holes were equally huge, showing off a great deal of his side and ribs. At least the shorts showed off his bulge, but he didn’t feel like that was going to be enough to make up for the rest of his ridiculousness.
Mitch made absolutely no comment, his expression a little tight. Johnathan didn’t have the time to pay attention to him and he hurried out of the room, hoping against hope that as little people saw him as possible on his journey to the bus stop and beyond. He wiggled around in his seat, tapping his shoes on the floor of the bus impatiently as it kept stopping along the way. His stomach was a mess of nerves and he was half-tempted to just leap out the window and start running to the restaurant but that was a stupid idea
Finally, the bus pulled up to the nearest street and he ran down the aisle and leapt down the steps to the sidewalk. A slight chill from a nearby fountain raised goosebumps on his exposed skin as he hurried past, following the nearby sign to reach the restaurant nearby.
He was surprised when he saw it, slowing down a little bit to take in the sight in all its glory. The name was boring and cheap but the building was grand painted with fresh reds and greens. The parking lot was huge, and a greeter at the door was taking names.
Reservation-only? Wow. And I’m dressed…like this.
Looking around he didn’t see Devan anywhere. He just had to hope this wasn’t some sort of cruel prank, so he took a deep breath, straightened his back, and marched right across the parking lot.
A pair of women waiting nearby gawked at him, and he heard giggles and rapid murmuring, but he only held his head up higher –so high that if it went any further, he’d fall over backwards- and went right up to the greeter.
The man peered skeptically at him from beneath bushy eyebrows, fiddling with one perfectly-pointed end of his moustache while staring at Johnathan. “Can I help you with anything?” he said.
Omega Wanted: Bad Boy Mpreg Romance Page 60