Eden rolled her eyes, then hopped up on the bar stool next to mine. “Yeah, well, you treat me like a little kid,” she complained. “So, don’t be surprised when I act like one.” She paused and bit her lip. “I don’t get you, you know,” she continued. “It’s like, one minute you’re so nice to me. And then you pull back and you’re just like, icy-cold. What the hell?”
I stared at her. Had I really been coming across that way, so hot and cold?
Like I had been doing nothing but playing with her emotions on purpose?
“That’s not at all what I’ve been trying to do,” I said.
Eden flushed, and I realized that I’d sounded testy.
“Look,” I told her. “It’s about boundaries. You understand that, don’t you?”
She pressed her lips together and I sensed a torrent of words was about to flow from that soft little mouth of hers.
“It doesn’t seem so hard for my other professors,” she said. “We’re friends. Or maybe not friends – but they’re at least nice to me outside of class. They don’t act like I have the plague or something.”
“I don’t act that way,” I told her.
Eden didn’t look convinced, and I sighed.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” I told her. “I always feel that I’m trying to walk this tightrope of professional boundaries while still managing to instruct you and your classmates the way I want to. I want you all to connect with me and with the material – which you must, or else you wouldn’t have chosen to major in English.”
Eden frowned. She bit her lip and swallowed.
“But we can’t be friends,” I told her. “It’s not right.” You’re a child, I thought as I stared at her. A very, very sexy child with a woman’s body.
Eden glanced over her shoulder – if her friends missed her, they weren’t showing it. They’d settled down into the chairs, spilling onto each other and laughing.
“They’re not really my friends, either,” Eden said, as if she was reading my mind. The bartender appeared and before I could stop her, Eden ordered a beer and asked to have it put on my tab.
“Then why are you hanging out with them?”
Eden snorted. “You wouldn’t get it,” she told me flatly. Her beer arrived and she took a sip, foam coating her upper lip.
How I longed to lean in close and lick it off, to pull her into my arms and explain the truth – that I could never be her friend, that I could never open up to her and get to know her because I wanted her so desperately that I would have done anything to have her.
“Try me,” I said.
“You probably don’t know what it’s like to be so unpopular,” Eden said in that same flat, toneless voice. “My entire life, everyone’s treated me like an outcast. I mean, except for Petra.” She flushed. “She’s my best friend and my roommate – we were randomly assigned to each other when we were freshmen, but we got really close and stayed that way. She’s like, the only person who gets me. But now, things are different. It’s—” She clamped her lips together.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s different now?”
Eden flushed deeply. The red splotches on her cheeks just made her even more desirable and I suppressed a groan of lust. God, how lovely she was – I could have pulled her over my lap and spanked her for being so cute and sexy and fuckable.
“I guess because we’re graduating soon,” she said. “It’s like, we’ve become two totally different people.”
I nodded. “This might not make you feel better, but I don’t really talk to anyone from undergrad anymore.”
Eden frowned. Her forehead creased with worry. “That doesn’t help,” she said. “How the hell do adults make friends, anyway?”
I pressed my lips together. “I guess through work.”
She laughed shortly. “Are you friends with any of the other professors?”
“No,” I admitted. “But that’s because I work so hard.”
“And they don’t?” Eden asked skeptically. When I didn’t reply, she gave me a smug, satisfied look and reached for her beer, taking another long sip.
“I thought so,” she said. “You’re just a loner, aren’t you?”
But not by choice, I thought. Or at least, not because I want to. Don’t you understand how difficult my life is?
“Not really,” I lied again. Lying to Eden didn’t feel great – and it didn’t come nearly as easily as it should have, considering the wide gulf that lay between us. I should have been able to speak to her flippantly, like I was her superior.
But alarmingly, I was starting to realize that talking to Eden just made me feel like I was actually opening up to someone.
It was almost a frightening thought.
“So,” Eden said. She finished her beer and held up her hand for the bartender to get her a refill. Before I could stop her, she ordered a flight.
“So?”
She tossed her head. “I have to be honest. I don’t like The Waves.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
Eden laughed. “It’s like, so pretentious,” she said. “To the Lighthouse is way better. That one really got me.”
“To the Lighthouse is far more literal,” I replied.
Eden sniffed. “So, I’m dumb because I prefer it?”
I shook my head. “You’re not dumb,” I said honestly. “And you know that.”
Eden looked at me, and I had to stop myself from falling into the twin pools of her huge brown eyes.
“What am I, then?” She asked softly, and for a moment it seemed like we were talking about.
“You’re ... unfettered,” I told her.
Eden swallowed. She flushed again and reached for her beer. When I saw her wobble slightly on the stool, I realized that she was getting tipsy.
Hell, I was getting tipsy, too.
Tipsy enough not to stop this – tipsy enough to just relax and enjoy my time with Eden. It was wrong. It was a sin, and I had to put an immediate halt to it.
I didn’t, though. Talking to her felt too good. It felt like reconnecting with an old friend that I hadn’t seen for years.
And it didn’t hurt that she was stunning gorgeous and sexy. Whenever she leaned in close or threw her head back to laugh, I caught a whiff of her floral perfume. It was innocent and delicate, and it made me wonder what she wore to bed.
If she wore anything to bed, or just her soft skin and curves. My cock began to throb and harden as I pictured Eden, naked save for a pair of flimsy panties, rolling around. The material would bunch around her pussy lips and she’d sigh in her sleep and tug it free, absentmindedly rubbing her hand over her clit.
Jesus fucking Christ, she was stunning.
“Professor Marks?” The worried note in Eden’s voice brought me crashing down to Earth once again and I clenched my jaw. Had she seen it on my face, the way I wanted her? The way I wanted to tear her clothes off and dive into her soft, curvy body. The way I wanted to cup her face in mine and kiss her until little pink lips were chapped and raw.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I was spacing.”
Eden’s eyes were wide with fear and my heart lurched to the side. Yes – no doubt, she’d seen it in my face. She was going to call me a pervert and spread gossip around campus and ruin my reputation and it was all my fault because I’d been so fucking stupid and—
“They left,” she said, nearly squealing in panic. “The people I came with, I just looked up and they’re gone!”
Cool relief washed over me and I sighed.
“What?” I asked dumbly. “What did you say?”
“My ride,” Eden said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I rode with them, I don’t have a car, I don’t have a way to get back home.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What about Uber?” I asked.
Eden flushed. “Those rides are really expensive,” she mumbled, glancing down at her phone. I saw that she already had the app open, which made me feel like a complete asshole.
I didn’t know what to say
.
“Um, could you give me a ride home?” Eden asked. “You could actually just drop me off on campus, or whatever. I live pretty close to there.”
I sighed. “Eden, this isn’t a good idea,” I told her, and I could feel the barrier rising between us once again. That elicited a strange blend of feelings in me – I knew that I should be relieved, but I felt almost sad.
Jesus, that was pathetic. I was clearly in need of deep connection.
But it wasn’t going to be with Eden Cooper, a student.
No.
“I know,” Eden said. Her big brown eyes were pleading with me. “But like, I really don’t have that much in my bank account right now, and I don’t get paid from the bookstore until the end of the month, and like, that has to go towards rent and bills and stuff, and—”
“Fine,” I said shortly. “I’ll drive you home, okay?”
Eden nodded. She looked guilty, which perhaps should have made me feel better.
It wasn’t like she planned this, I told myself as I paid the tab for us. Eden followed me out to my car, practically trotting after me.
“This is your car?”
I nodded.
She smiled, and I felt a twinge of annoyance. It was almost too cute, the way she vacillated from talking like an adult to acting like a kid.
“What?” I asked. “What’s so amusing?”
“It’s nothing,” Eden said, covering her mouth with one hand so I wouldn’t see that she was still smiling.
We got into my car and I had to resist the urge to reach over her and buckle her seatbelt for her. She was tipsy and giggling and her whole body was shaking with the force of her laughter.
“Eden,” I said slowly. “Out with it. Tell me.”
“It’s just ...” She trailed off and looked at me, blinking. “You’re this big, bad professor who has bumper stickers all over the back of his car.”
I groaned as I down-shifted and pulled out of the parking lot. “I’ve had this car since I was in grad school,” I replied. “That’s all.”
“You just ... seem so much like the plain, no statement kind of guy, that’s all,” Eden said.
I didn’t say anything, just drove on. The sun had set and the air was dark and cold – even my little car was taking longer than usual to warm up. But the air between Eden and myself was electric, and I could feel her next to me.
“Where do you live?”
Eden gulped. “I told you, campus is fine,” she said.
“It’s dark out, and cold,” I told her sternly. I wouldn’t have admitted it to her, but I felt so protective of her in that moment – like she was something precious, something special.
Something in desperate need of caring.
“I can walk, I do it all the time,” Eden said. She laughed. “Sometimes I walk to campus in the middle of the night, just to work in the library. Is that ridiculous? I don’t miss living in the dorms, but I kind of miss the sense of community, you know?”
“You’re free to do that on your own time,” I informed her. “But I’m taking you home.”
Eden bit her lip. Then, she gave me an address of an apartment complex not far from campus. The car trip seemed to take no time at all and just like that, I was pulling into the complex and slowing down.
“Um, thanks,” Eden said. She put her hand on the door and turned to look at me. In the semi-darkness, I could see her profile – cheek, lip, nose, all adorable.
“You’re welcome,” I said, feeling oddly formal.
And just like that, before I could even think about what was happening, my mouth was on hers.
11
Eden – Sunday
I couldn’t believe it – Professor Marks had leaned forward and tangled his hand in my hair and now we were kissing. He tasted like spice and beer and musk and I moaned as his tongue slid into my mouth and tasted me, licked me, sucked me. A flurry of intense, exciting feelings tore through my body and I moaned softly as my heart thudded faster in my chest and my pussy began to tingle and throb.
I leaned closer and wrapped my arms around him, twisting until our bodies were pressed together. He was strong and muscular beneath his sweater and shirt and he groaned with apparent lust as the kiss grew messier and deeper. His hands were running all over my body, touching me, cupping me, squeezing my ass as they roamed and explored. It felt so good that I never wanted it to end, never wanted it to stop. When Professor Marks pulled away, I was gasping and panting for breath.
“Eden, get out,” he said in a hoarse voice.
“We should talk about this,” I replied quickly. “You could come up, I don’t think Petra is home, and—”
“Out!” Professor Marks practically shouted at me. His harsh words were like a slap in the face and I felt tears sting my eyes as I fumbled with the handle of the door and climbed out of his car. He drove away quickly, tires screeching as he pulled out of the parking lot before I was even fully on my feet.
My heart was still thudding and if it hadn’t been for the lingering taste of his mouth in mine, I would have imagined that I’d dreamed the whole thing.
How had it happened? Our passionate kiss had taken me by such surprise that I couldn’t even remember who had made the first move. Had I leaned in and kissed him?
Or had he taken me?
Did he want me, as I suspected he did?
And if he did, why had he been so cold and mean after we’d broken apart?
My stomach flip-flopped with anxiety as I walked into my building and climbed the stairs to my apartment. Thankfully, Petra wasn’t home – the living room was cold and dark – and I quietly walked down the hall and into the bathroom where I turned on the shower, as hot as it would go.
Thoughts swam in my head. I wanted him, so much – our conversation at the brewery had only proven the intense chemistry between us. And even though his words had told me to go, to leave, to get away from him, his body and mouth and hands had said otherwise.
I just hoped that soon, I’d have an answer about the fate of our relationship.
Just thinking about the word was enough to bring a smile to my face and make me blush.
Our relationship, I thought as I shed my clothes and climbed in the shower, under the hot spray. We may not be together. But we’re something.
The next day, I didn’t go to class. I stayed at home all day, in bed, and told Petra that I was sick. When Tuesday, time for my next class with Professor Marks, rolled around I felt like skipping. But Petra stood in the doorway and tapped her wrist.
“It’s way too early in the semester to be getting senioritis, kid,” she said, rolling her eyes like she was my older sister or mother instead of my best friend.
“I don’t feel well,” I said in a small voice. I hadn’t told her about what had happened in Professor Marks’s car after he’d driven me home from the brewery. There was no way I could tell her, and thankfully she hadn’t pressed. Petra and her boyfriend, Evan, were back on, and all she could talk about was his hands and his dick and the way he knew how to go down on her like a pro.
I had the feeling that normally, talk like that would have annoyed me. It didn’t annoy me now, though – it just made me glad that she had something to focus on that wasn’t me and my absurd, silly little crush on Professor Marks.
It was more than a crush, though, and the kiss had proven that.
“Well, tough shit,” Petra chirped. “Get up – the best way to shake it off is to pretend like everything is fine.”
I eyed her, but she wasn’t budging.
“Come on,” Petra added. “Let’s go – you don’t want to miss your class with Professor Dreamboat, right?”
I blushed hotly.
“Hey,” she said, completely misinterpreting my look. “It’s not my fault that you have a crush on him.” Petra paused and raised an eyebrow at me. “When you get over him, I’ll call him by his real name.”
I got dressed in jeans and a big sweater with a t-shirt underneath, and we started the walk to
campus. The day was warmer than the previous weekend had been – the snow was melting and there was a hint of green in the dead grass below our feet – and it made me think that maybe, just maybe, spring was on the way. The whole walk to Oakbrook, Petra chatted about Evan and their weekend plans and all the things they were going to do after graduation.
The word graduation was enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. What would happen?
Would I ever see Professor Marks again, or would that be it for us?
Would he find a new student to dote on?
Going to class and getting away from Petra was almost a relief. We parted at the Liberal Arts building and I made my way up the stairs, where most of the class was already sitting.
Professor Marks didn’t look up when I walked in, and I blushed hotly as I took my seat. I couldn’t look at him without thinking of our hot, steamy kiss ... and how I wanted more of him, as soon as possible.
It was torture, watching him stand at the front of the room and lecture us. He was everything I wanted – everything I’d ever wanted, since I was a little kid who had first heard of love – and I couldn’t have him, but he was right in front of me, so close that I could reach out and touch him.
The only good thing about the morning was how quickly it passed. On the way out of the classroom, one of the other girls paused in front of me. She reached out and stroked Professor Marks’s arm, making him jump.
“Sorry,” she said coyly. “You had some fluff on your sleeve.”
Professor Marks merely gave her a look, then left the room. I watched him walk down the hall to the English suite and my stomach churned anxiously. I had a few minutes before my tech seminar and after taking a deep breath, I raced after him.
“Professor Marks!” I called, right before he went into his office. When he turned to face me, his expression was stony and impassive.
“Yes, Ms. Cooper?”
“I ... I, um, wanted to ask you something,” I said anxiously.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Yes?”
“Why ...” I trailed off. “Um, why did you go into academia, anyway? Instead of like, writing or publishing or something?”
The Temptation: A Professor Student Romance (Forbidden First Times Book 6) Page 7