by Peyton Banks
“Okay, so what’s your list?”
“You really want to know?”
“Sure I do.”
She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. I lay even stiller than I was before, counting the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. I was glad she was breathing—however heavily. That made one of us.
“My concern is that if this thing blows up, I’ll come off much worse than you. Not only do I have way more to lose, in terms of my career and my professional standing, but being a woman, my reputation in general would suffer if something like this were to get out, sexist though that is. The whole teacher-student thing is still so taboo, even though we’re both grown adults and we were… We knew each other before I was your lecturer.” She paused closing her eyes momentarily before speaking again.
“As the male in this scenario, and a rock star in the making, this would probably help your reputation in equal measure to the amount it would damage mine. In a nutshell, there are basically no repercussions for you, whereas I could lose everything.”
I searched her face, still unsure which way her thoughts were taking her.
“So?”
“So if we’re going to do this, it’s a huge leap of faith and a major act of trust for me. I’m putting my career, my reputation, my livelihood, and my professional and personal dignity in your hands.”
“If?”
“Yes, if. I’m going to need your word that you can do what I ask. One hundred percent of the time.”
“Okay, so ask.”
“Well, basically, we need to carry on as things were before, minus the sexting. That means almost no contact on college grounds including the parking lot, above and beyond the usual student-teacher interaction. No coming to my office without an appointment, no approaching my car late at night. We will come and go from the campus according to our separate schedules, never together, or in any way co-ordinated.
“Sometimes I might say hi or bye in the halls as I would to any other student, others I will walk on past without acknowledging your presence, just like anyone else. Likewise in class—I might call on you if you have a question, or vice versa, but no more or less than I would anybody. As for assignments, I’m sure you know by now I’m a hardass—no extra favors of any kind.”
“Not even sexual ones?”
“Don’t be a smartass. You know those are the only kind I can offer.” She grinned and my heart performed an Olympic-gold-winning gymnastics routine in my chest. “No extensions, no discussing papers or questions outside of the formal channels, no preferential grades. Nada.”
“Okay, well you know you can count on me to do all that—I’m already doing it.”
“Apart from the sexting and lurking outside my car, yeah, you are “
“Okay, yeah, apart from that.”
“But that’s not all, and here’s where it gets real hard. We can’t really do any of the shit together that most couples take for granted.”
“Wait. You want us to be celibate?” I laughed, trying to lighten the mood a little. Natalie looked at me as though I’d just taken a dump in her sandwich.
“We can’t be seen together in public, so no movies, no meals out. The picnic in the park was a risky one-off, but I figured it being the middle of a working day, and a little way away from the college, it would be okay, just this once. But we won’t be able to do it or anything like it again. I know this is a big city, but the reality is that it’s more like a bunch of small towns shoved together, and like any small town, we’re never far from someone we know, either personally, or by a few degrees of separation, so we can’t risk it. It might seem romantic now, but we’ll probably get sick of these four walls fairly early on.”
“Okay I can do all that.”
“I’m not done. Outside of your closest friends and relatives—basically the guys in the band, and your brothers—you can’t tell anyone about us. Not even a peep. There was a phrase during World War II: ‘loose lips sink ships’—basically meaning that telling other people secrets leads to disaster. And it’s so fucking true. People are just pathologically incapable of keeping their mouths shut. Whether it’s bragging rights, jealousy, or the stress of holding in other people’s shit, if you tell one person you may as well tell everyone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people are assholes for the sake of it, but the fact is that it’s been scientifically proven that we can’t easily keep secrets, so the fewer people you tell, the less risk there is.”
22
Natalie
“Okay.”
“Just like that, okay?
“Yeah, just like that.”
“You don’t have anything to say?”
“Oh, I have plenty, but is there anything I say that would change your mind about any of what you just laid down?
“No”
“Exactly. So my answer is okay. If that’s what it takes to be with you, then okay. I’m in.”
“You’re not just saying that, then are going to fuck it all up on the first day?”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that, and refer you to the fact that I’ve already been doing most of that shit for weeks, anyway. You said you trust me, so trust.”
“Okay. I do, and I will.” I both loved and hated his smarts—there was no arguing with that logic.
It wasn’t the achingly pompous intellectual bullshit I’d gotten from Doug, who had the biggest superiority complex of just about anybody on the planet. With Luke it was more street smarts, or common sense, though he was also clearly rocking a decent IQ. He’d told me that his father had died when he was fifteen, and even before that, his mother was raising him and his three brothers single-handedly, while working full-time. I guessed that would make someone sharp and pragmatic the way he was.
He really was the polar opposite of Doug, who could recite every word Chaucer ever wrote in the original Middle English, but who had more than once filled our diesel car with unleaded fuel, and hadn’t even realized his mistake until he’d tried to drive away from the gas station, pretty much ruining the engine as a result. He was intelligent, but didn’t have a practical bone in his middle-aged professor body. That was another way they were totally different. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that Luke’s perfectly toned young body wasn’t a huge turn on for me. It really was.
“My turn.” He grinned impishly.
“Your turn for what?”
“This is a negotiation, isn’t it? We’re making a deal, right?”
“Yeah…” I spoke slowly, drawing the word out, while my brain raced ahead trying to pre-empt what he was about to say.
“Well, then it’s only fair that I get to lay down my terms of the deal, just like you have.” Much to my disappointment, I came up blank. I was just going to have to wait for his bombshell.
* * *
“Okay…so?”
“So my terms are a lot simpler than yours. I guess that’s because I’m a simple kind of a guy.”
That was the biggest pile of bull crap I’d heard since Douglas had told me that I’d driven him to cheat on me, so I knew I was about to be sucker-punched. Luke was one of those people who liked to play down his intellect.
Actually, he played down every aspect of himself, including it would seem, his musical talent. His identical twin brother Arlo was the front man, lead singer, lead guitarist and main songwriter for their band—which I could tell was on the precipice of making big waves in the music world, and beyond. However, the more time I spent with Luke, the more I suspected that he was as good, if not better at those things than his arrogant, difficult, and supremely confident twin. Yet he hung back and let Arlo take center stage—figuratively and literally—and bask in the glory that went with that.
“And there are a lot less of them. Actually, come to think of it, there’s just one.”
“Huh?” I’d been reduced to a monosyllabic bag of nerves, and he hadn’t even dropped the curveball I knew was coming, yet.
“I have just one condition. I want you to s
top fighting.”
“What?”
“Stop fighting. Me, us, what I’m feeling, what you’re feeling, where this thing between us is headed. Just stop fighting it.”
“I’m not—”
“Really? Are you about to sit there and deny you’ve been fighting this from day one? You lied to me about your name and profession, for Christ’s sake. That’s how hard you were battling against it from the get-go. You felt the instant connection we had, and your instinct was to run for the hills. The fact was that unless I’d hired a private dick, or just happened to be enrolled in your classes, we would never have seen each other again after that night, which was clearly your intention. If that’s not fighting it, I don’t know what is.”
“I just…”
“It’s okay. I’m not attacking you. You were protecting yourself, and still are, and I get that. You’ve been through a lot over the last few years—it’s only natural that you would be cautious about the next person you let get close to you. Then I come along, and honestly if I were you, I would have been running in the opposite direction at first, also. The age thing, the Mrs. Robinson thing, the musician thing. It’s a lot, and not in a good way. I get that.” He paused, looking into the middle distance, a far-away look in his eye.
“Let’s face it, this shit’s complicated. I mean, it’s not Natural Born Killers complicated. But it’s definitely not Roman Holiday, all sunshine and lollipops.” I didn’t think the fact that he dropped film references almost as much as I did would ever get old.
“My dad used to fish back in the day, mostly before us boys were born. But he loved to tell us stories of his adventures out to sea: the monsters he’d caught, and the battles he’d had to reel them in. To this day I don’t know how many of what he told us was true and how much was just to entertain four bored boys on rainy days or sick days in bed. But anyway, one thing he used to tell us that stuck me was: ‘If ever you get caught in a riptide, don’t fight it. It might be a wild and scary ride, and you might struggle to keep your head above water, but if you try to swim against its flow, away from where it wants to take you, you’ll exhaust yourself drown.’”
I knew then where he got his smarts from, and wondered if his father had ever even been fishing, or if he just used the fishing tales to subtly pass on life lessons to his kids. Either way, he’d definitely given his son a gift in that advice.
“You’ve just got to go with it and ride that wave. It might seem like all’s lost at times, but just remember that it may get worse before it gets better, but if you surrender yourself to the process and just let it do its thing in the end, it will always bring you back to shore: battered, bruised, and terrified out of your mind, but alive and in one piece. Stop fighting and let’s just see where the tide takes us” I was prepared to overlook the fact that Luke had likened being involved with me to being taken out by a powerful wave, and just go with the analogy.
I nodded slowly, turning onto my side to face him properly. Luke followed suit. I reached up and stroked his cheek before lowering my lips to his, kissing him gently. How could I even have tried to fight the inevitable pull toward him?
I drew back from the kiss, holding his gaze, and spoke quietly, suddenly sure of what I needed to do.
“You’re absolutely right. Life’s too short to fight what’s in our heart. I’ve followed my head before, and look where that got me. It nearly fucking broke me. I’ve wanted this from the start. Before all the complications, and restrictions. Before all the stress and worry. I’m ready to follow that instinct instead of creating lists of reasons to swim against the tide. I want you, and this, and I’m finally done fighting.”
Luke said nothing for the longest time, before lifting his hand to my face and stroking my cheek with his index finger.
“Thank you.” His voice was hardly audible, barely above a whisper.
“What for?”
“For being willing to take a chance. For going with your heart and your gut, and not letting the possible constraints hold you back. Actually, hold us back.”
He slayed me. As he gazed at me with eyes ablaze with admiration, gratitude, and an emotion I didn’t dare name yet, I leant over to kiss him. When my lips met his I could hardly remember why I’d been fighting in the first place.
Epilogue
One year later
Natalie
I rolled onto my side, watching Luke as he slept, taking in his chiseled features and long lavish eyelashes as they fluttered gently against his high cheekbones. I’d missed him, and it felt good to have him back in my bed, but gazing across the bed at him, I wasn’t sure what the future held for us. It had been a big year for him, and in some ways for us.
Just back from a five-month world tour, Luke looked and seemed different. More mature and worldly. Not that he had been immature and naïve before that—he was by nature the opposite of those things. Still, the exposure to new things, places and people had clearly agreed with him, and I had no complaints about the man who had returned to me. Luke 2.0 was a keeper.
I snickered quietly at my goofy thoughts, but the sound was loud enough to wake Luke. He stirred immediately, eyelids fluttering open. He seemed confused at first—maybe as result of waking up in a different bed, in a different hotel, in a different city for months on end. But his gaze quickly met mine, and a sloppily sexy smile of recognition spread across his face. Fuck he was cute, even groggy with much-needed sleep.
“Hey.”
“Hey rock star.”
“Don’t call me that.” His lush eyebrows knitted together in consternation at the nickname.
“Why not? Newsflash: you just came back from playing to thousands of screaming fans in packed arenas around the globe. If that doesn’t make you a rock star, I don’t know what the hell will.”
“Yeah, well when I’m home and with you, I wanna let it all hang out and just be Luke. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I had an amazing time on the road, but a lot of what goes with it is literal crazy fucking bullshit. It gets old real fast, you know?”
I didn’t, but I nodded just the same. If nothing else, I could feel the difference in his manner between last night when we’d reunited, and this morning. Of course, a good night’s sleep made a big difference to a person’s overall vibe and demeanor, and from what Luke had told me, there hadn’t been many full nights in bed on the road, especially when changing time zones were a factor. The jet lag alone stole hours of sleep, even when he was bone tired.
More than just being well rested, it was as though a whole lot of tension had drained from him overnight as he slept. When he’d stalked into the apartment the night before, apart from being a sexy sight for sore eyes, my overwhelming thought was how tightly wound he seemed. He was like a powder keg ready to blow.
With a few notable exceptions—like the moment before he left for the tour, when I’d told him I was okay with him sleeping with other people while he was on the road, because “what goes on tour, stays on tour,” right?—he was the a pretty laid back guy. He’d lost his shit at that suggestion until I managed to talk him down from the ledge, and explain that I wanted him to have the best possible experience for his best tour. I wasn’t telling him to sleep around. I was telling him to go with his gut if that was what he wanted.
Other than that time, he generally tended to leave the angry alpha routine to Arlo, and honestly, Arlo had more than enough to cover both of them, and several other people.
Yesterday had been different. He’d had zero chill when after barely saying hello, he scooped me into his arms and walked me backward to the wall, kissing me ferociously as he went. He was the furthest thing from relaxed when he shoved his knee between my legs, widening them so as to be able to better grind his erection against my sweet spot.
I wouldn’t have described him as laid back when he’d pulled at my clothes, indicating the need for me to rid myself of them while he divested himself of his own. Similarly, his vibe was far less than cool when he’d tightened one hand
around my neck, squeezing hard enough to send waves of pleasure ricocheting around my body, but not hard enough to hurt.
Nothing about his demeanor was easygoing as he used one hand to pull my leg so that it was bent around his waist, and moved the other hand down to delve inside me.
When he spoke, his tone was anything other than casual.
“Fuck. You have no idea how much I’ve missed this. Shit, Nat.”
Except I did have an idea. In fact, I had every kind of idea. I’d missed him too. A lot. And while I’d been relieved that him dropping out of his course to tour the world had meant that we were free to be together like a regular couple, without having to watch our backs, and without the constant fear that I might lose my job; the relief had been tinged with regret that I wouldn’t be seeing him for the best part of six months.
Despite having given him carte blanche to enjoy the full on the road “experience,” the truth was I didn’t even let my mind wander for a moment to the reality of what that might mean. The less I knew about the endless possibilities that may have presented themselves to him, the better.
When he’d looked down at me long and hard, allowing me to read the naked emotion in his intense jade stare he was the antithesis calm and collected. He was intense and impatient. The look of hunger in his eyes tore through me, heating my blood, igniting my soul, and setting my already smoldering libido on fire.
When I handed him the condom I’d slipped into my pocked on the way to let greet him at the door, he was anything other than serene. He sheathed himself impatiently, wasting no time or energy in getting the job done.
“I want you so bad, I’m fighting the urge to go all cave man, and give it to you rough and ready.”
I stared him down, as serious as I’d ever been.
“Why fight it? I can take it. But more importantly, I want it.
As he pushed into me, feverish with desire, his breath came in short staccato beats, punctuating the hair close to my ear. I was similarly impatient, meeting him thrust for deep thrust. My orgasm built quickly, as I’d known it would, and as we sped toward release we were rampant and wild.