by Peyton Banks
“We’ll just be talking. Who cares if someone walks in on us?”
“I care. I haven’t been alone with you since that first night. I just want some privacy is all.”
It sounded plausible, but somehow I still didn’t quite believe it. That might have been because he delivered the entire thing with a sexy smile, which suggested that talking was the last thing on his mind, and his hard-on was still clearly visible beneath his pants. He obviously had more than just speaking on his mind.
I realized too late that I’d allowed my eyes to linger on his crotch for far longer than was polite, and when I heard Luke chuckle sexily, I knew that fact hadn’t escaped his notice.
“So you just want to talk, huh?” He moved his hand down and grabbed his junk, pulling his pants taut so that the outline of his dick was even more obvious.
“Because from where I’m standing, you look like talking is the last thing on your mind.” It was ironic how his words echoed my thoughts about him.
I watched rooted to the spot as he undid his zipper and pulled out his dick. I’d kind of forgotten how pretty it was, but was reminded as I tore my eyes away to meet his. Again I found him waiting to meet my gaze.
“Tell me you don’t want me, that you don’t want this.” He glanced down at his package as he pumped his hand back and forth. “And I’ll put it away, and forget we ever met. Oh, and don’t lie. Tell me the truth.”
“It’s not about what I want. I never denied wanting you, but as grown-ups we can’t always have what we want. We have to compromise and make sacrifices. You’ll understand better when you’re older and have seen more of the world.”
I didn’t miss the throb of his temple before he spoke.
“Woman, don’t patronize me. I might be younger than you, but I’m not some green-as-clover kid. I know plenty about sacrifice. More than I care to know, in fact.” He tucked himself back into his boxer briefs and pulled up the zipper sharply.
I was both relieved and bereft at the same time.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, but the fact is that what we want isn’t in question. If I didn’t want you, I wouldn’t have slept with you in the first place. The issue is that this was only ever supposed to be a one-night thing, and now that I know you’re my student, it shouldn’t even have been that, and it definitely can’t be anything more.”
“See, here’s the thing. I may be young, and to your mind, inexperienced, but I can tell you one thing I’ve learned since I’ve been performing, and that’s body language. When we’re on stage, we’ve got to know how to read the room, so that we can give the crowd what they want. Get that wrong, and it can ruin an entire gig. So right now, I’m hearing what you’re saying loud and clear, but I’m also hearing all the shit you’re not saying. Not with words, anyway.”
He began walking toward me slowly, and it was everything I could do not to back away from him. Not that I wanted to, but I sure as hell needed to, for both our sakes.
“You don’t believe what you’re saying any more than I do. You want to believe it and you really want me to believe it, but that’s not the same as feeling it in here.” He stopped too close in front of me, and as he spoke the last word of the sentence, placed his hand over my heart.
Wow. He officially had more emotional intelligence than a college professor fifteen years his senior. Doug had been as much use as a chocolate toaster oven when it came to the big issues, or even the small ones, in our relationship, and had seemed completely incapable of understanding where I was coming from most of the time. Only a nanosecond into knowing me and Luke was already scoring goals. He was a smart ki—man. Not that I was really in a position to criticize others in that regard. He might have been the younger of the two of us, but he seemed more in touch with or in control of his emotions at that point than I was. Go figure.
I placed my hands on top of on my chest, interlocking our fingers. We both stared at our entwined hands for a long, lingering moment. I thought about the contrasts: my long, delicate tawny fingers, one with the marks left by my wedding and engagement rings still faintly visible, despite me not having worn them for coming up to two years. His strong, powerful musician’s fingers—the overworked tools of his trade.
17
Luke
I knew I had her caught like a butterfly in a net, but like a cat toying with his prey, I let her think for a moment that there was a chance she could get away unscathed.
I lifted our joined hands and kissed each one of her knuckles agonizingly slowly. Then I lowered my forehead so that it was resting against hers before angling my head slightly to the side, leaning forward a little farther and aligning my mouth with her ear.
“Fighting this is like trying tackle a wildfire with a watering can. The closer you get to those flames, the more likely you are to get burned.”
The hitch in her breath sent a current directly to my dick—as if it needed to be any harder—and I was done with the cat-and-mouse games. I stepped forward, walking Natalie backward until her calves hit the edge of the worn couch. I pulled on the bottom of her almost-sheer blouse, yanking it from the waistband of her fitted work skirt.
Her sexy academic look was hot AF, but I’d also love to have seen her in her casual weekend clothes, hair down instead of pulled back neatly. Or dressed in nothing but a butt-skimming shirt of mine, hair wild after a day spent messing it up in bed. Or better still, buck-naked, hair splayed on the pillow.
She obliged me by undoing the buttons of her shirt and letting the smooth fabric slip down her body to the floor. Then she pre-empted my next move by stepping out of her skirt, totally taking me by surprise by the fact that she was wearing stockings and suspenders, but other than that was totally commando. Holy shit.
Just when I thought she couldn’t get any sexier, she totally kicked up the temperature a thousand degrees. She was hot as sin, and it was going to take all my willpower not to just throw manners and niceties to the wolves and fuck her raw. Instead, I gently released the clasp of her bra, freeing her glorious tits. No way I wanted her to take off the stockings though—that was the sexiest shit I’d ever seen. I pulled in a few calming gulps of air and concentrated on not being a Neanderthal. I wasn’t Arlo, after all.
“Now you.” She quirked her eyebrow my way, indicating my still full-clothed body.
She didn’t need to tell me twice—I was naked faster that you could say “I really want to get laid,” then gently supported her as she lowered herself down onto the couch. Her ass was barely on the seat before I was nudging her knees open, spreading her legs wide with my own.
I took a moment to appreciate what a lucky bastard I was—I actually couldn’t believe my good fortune—all the while keeping our eyes firmly locked together. I wanted her to read my feelings, to know that I wasn’t about to walk away just because she told me to, not while her words said one thing but her body and mind were clearly saying another.
I took her hand and guided it where I wanted it to go, enjoying the catch in her breath and pleasure on her face as I tore my eyes away from hers to watch her finger herself. She arched her spine, tipping her head backward as the excitement ramped up. She wasn’t alone. I took hold of my dick again, pumping it a few times, then squeezing at the tip to pull things back a little. I repeated this over and over while I watched her pleasure herself first with one finger, then with two.
Just when I was wondering how much more edging I could take without losing the battle, Natalie spoke.
“I’m close, but I don’t want to come this way.”
I would happily have watched her come all over her own hand—the sight and smell of her arousal alone had been almost enough to send me over the edge—but I knew that coming inside her would be like nothing else, so I was happy to pull back before we went past the point of no return. I reached down to retrieve my pants from the floor and pulled a condom from my wallet, rolling it on quickly.
Natalie drew her legs toward her chest, and I shuddered in anticipation of how deep it would be at that a
ngle. I lined myself up with her entrance and gave her an exploratory nudge. She acknowledged my action by tilting her butt farther in my direction and widening her legs a little. I pushed harder and slipped inside her, almost passing out from the pleasure.
Though I didn’t think it was possible, it was better than the first time. Maybe because this time what we were doing held the promise of something more, or because I’d thought I was never going to see her again. Whatever it was, I could barely withstand the waves of arousal and euphoria washing over me.
We kept eye contact throughout, a silent conversation passing between the two of us like a game of ping-pong. No. Actually it was more like a push-me, pull-you—an unspoken tussle between the two of us—me pushing, her pulling away. Back and forth, back and forth.
Just as I was on the brink of coming and could feel that Natalie was too, she dropped the bombshell, her voice breathy and hoarse.
“This can’t happen again, Luke. I mean it.”
I tried to hold back, but I was too far gone. Instead, I slammed into her once, twice, and came on the third, yelling fuck at the top of lungs, and taking her over the edge with me.
18
Natalie
I’d meant what I said, and to my credit I stuck to it. Despite having to see Luke in my classes several times per week and occasionally grade his papers. Despite the fact that he’d somehow managed to obtain my phone number—but wouldn’t tell me how or from whom, because “I never reveal my sources.” Despite getting off to thoughts of him—replays of our time together, or dirty, dirty shit from the depths of my imagination—almost every night. Despite actually really kind of missing him. Despite more than once responding to his lewd messages when I knew I should just delete and block.
Messages like the ones he sent me one chilly Fall morning, as I prepared myself in the few minutes before class started.
* * *
LUKE: You know I’ll take you any which way I can get you, but I have to admit that the sexy lecturer thing does it for me, so bad.
LUKE: I don’t know if it’s the tight skirts or the sheer blouses, but no matter how interesting your classes are, I spend the whole time with the boner from hell, reminiscing about how good you felt wrapped around my dick, and how much I’d like to fuck you right on the desk, maybe even with the whole class watching. LMAO.
* * *
OMG. My face flushed immediately on reading his words. Hell, my whole body flushed, especially the parts below the waistband of my skirt. I was glad I kept an emergency change of clothes in my office—I was going to need fresh panties when the class was over.
I had no idea why I’d looked at the phone when it pinged, in the first place. I should have just ignored it.
Who was I kidding? I’d known full well that it was going to be a message from Luke, and I’d responded anyway, because I’d come to enjoy our X-rated banter. It was stupid of me, but somehow sexting back and forth with a guy his age made me feel youthful and desirable and powerful—something I didn’t experience very often, and certainly hadn’t felt since I’d heard that my douche of an ex-husband had traded me in for a younger model. What a fucking cliché, but two could play at that game. I wasn’t afraid to admit to myself, or to Nala when she pressed me on the issue, that Luke’s unrelenting interest in me was a huge ego boost.
What I hadn’t told her, but wasn’t too stupid to see for myself, was that I also enjoyed the thrill of the chase—or in this case, the illicit nature of our interactions. Apart from the obvious fact that Luke was cute AF, fucked like a champion, and seemed to be as into me as I was him, the whole “we shouldn’t be doing this, but we can’t not” aspect of our thing added something extra that heated my blood every time.
I switched my phone off and did what I always did when I received one of Luke’s messages in class, or while walking the halls. I ignored it and him. Apart from the flush—over which I had no control, but which, with my golden-brown skin, I hoped wasn’t obvious to most—I showed no reaction. I was also careful to show as much, or as little interest in Luke as in every other student. I figured ignoring him completely would be almost as much of giveaway to anyone watching—not that I thought anyone was—as lavishing him with attention. I did neither.
If we passed in the halls, I acknowledged his presence as often as seemed natural. Sometimes I would be seemingly engrossed in conversation with another member of staff or student, or in my own world and fail to glance his way. Other times I’d meet his eyes with a curt nod. Yet other times, I’d gift him with a tight smile. Likewise in class, if he raised his hand to ask or answer a question, I’d acknowledge him and answer just as much as I would anyone else.
It had been a long and crazy day, starting off with a staff meeting at eight a.m. and finishing with a full evening of lectures, with a seminar over lunch, just to ensure I never had a moment to myself.
I’d barely had a chance to sit down all day, and when I finally collapsed at my desk, I had the time and energy to take a quick glance at my inbox to check that there weren’t any impending disasters, and do a quick tidy of the papers scattered on top of my desk. If there was one thing I hated, it was to start the day with a messy workspace. Tidy office, tidy mind as the saying kind of went.
In shuffling things around into some semblance of order, I focused on a pile of papers and envelopes that I’d grabbed from the mailbox on the way out that morning—though it seemed like a hundred and fifty years earlier—but hadn’t had time to look at during the day. I sifted through quickly, setting aside the majority of it to go into the recycling bin on my way out of the building. It was mostly the usual crap—takeaway flyers, generic letters to “the resident”—basically, junk disguised as addressed mail, plus a few expected bills. I opened the second-to-last envelope absentmindedly, ready to toss it into the recycling pile also.
I glanced down at it and almost had a panic attack when I realized what it was. My final divorce papers. Though we’d been legally separated and in the “process” of divorcing for the best part of two years, Doug had been a complete dick about the process, refusing to sign the final paperwork for this spurious reason or that, even though it was an uncontested divorce, that he’d brought about.
I obviously needed to check my mailbox more often—I so rarely received snail mail that I would forget for weeks on end to even bother—as the last letter turned out to be from my lawyer, informing me that I’d be receiving the final court paperwork in five to seven days. It had obviously been sitting in my mailbox for quite some time.
Welp, I was in real shock. I sucked in huge gulps of air, trying to fill my lungs enough to inhale and exhale smoothly, but it didn’t seem to help. My breathing continued to come in rough jagged bursts. I wasn’t sure if I was having a panic attack or a heart attack or if my heart was finally actually breaking, but I knew it hurt like hell. I silently berated myself for still being so affected by anything that douchebag Douglas did. After all, I’d been the one to actually instigate the formal divorce proceedings, and I’d had a long time to sit with and get over the emotional wounds he’d inflicted on me.
Still it was clear from my reaction that I wasn’t done grieving. Refusing to break down in the office, and craving a bucket of wine and twenty pounds of quality chocolate, I pulled myself together as best I could and headed down to the parking lot. I just wanted to get home as soon as possible.
However, once in the safety of the confines of my car, my brain had other ideas, and I lost my battle with the tears I’d been gulping back since I’d opened the letter from the court. Through my tear-clouded vision, I noted that the lot was thankfully almost deserted, so I was free to dissolve into a blubbering mess for a moment, without disgracing myself in front of my colleagues.
I turned the radio up loud and let it all hang out, complete with snot and hiccups. After I didn’t know how long, fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe, I was nearing the end of my bawling stamina when a sharp rap on the window almost gave me a heart attack for real.
Luke
Natalie wound down the window, while rapidly wiping her nose on the back of her hand. Sexy.
“Jesus Christ, Luke, you scared the living crap out of me. What the fuck are you doing here? Are stalking me, or some shit?”
Her anger and indigence were mismatched with her watery-red rimmed eyes, tear-streaked face, and running nose.
“Hey. Um…no, not stalking. Just pissing my brother off by skipping rehearsal to catch a late lecture. I’m doing a few optional classes to pick up extra credits. I was heading back to my car when I saw yours with the light on.” I often took a short cut through the staff car park, kidding myself that it wasn’t in the hope that I might run into Natalie, and I never had, until that night.
“You okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine. Just heading home.”
She was clearly very far from fine, so I wasn’t sure why I’d even asked the question, let alone why she’d bothered to lie in response.
She fired up the engine and made like she was about to start driving away.
“Whoa!” I bent down so that my face was almost level with hers, looking through the window.
“You’re not going to tell me what’s wrong?”
She blinked rapidly, looking at me as though she had no idea who I even was.
“Why would I? It’s none of your business.”
She was right, it wasn’t, but I really wanted it to be. So fucking bad.
“I guess not. Although, the way I figure it, anything that’s bothering a friend of mine is one hundred percent my business.”
“But that’s just the thing.” She drew a ragged breath before continuing. “I’m not your friend. I’m your lecturer, and you’re my student. Period.”