The Hookup Equation: A Loveless Brothers Novel

by Noir, Roxie

  Me: I’ve always felt good about you, that’s the problem.

  Thalia: Don’t be willfully obtuse.

  Me: Yeah, I do.

  I stand from my chair, crack my knuckles on the desk, and stretch. I take a deep breath.

  We made it. We didn’t get caught.

  Even though we’re still a semester away from being able to admit we’re dating, I feel better already because even though I know that I never treated her any differently than my other students when it came to class, it still felt awful to know I was doing something that wrong.

  I spent most of yesterday and today figuring out what to do tomorrow, to celebrate the end of finals and the fact that she’s no longer my student. I’ve considered art shows in Richmond, hikes in the mountains, and several different alleged haunted houses and abandoned sanitariums. There’s something called Foamhenge. There’s an amusement park called DinosaurLand, which has lots of statues of dinosaurs.

  I finally settled on taking her to Luray Caverns, because it’s cool, interesting, and no one there is going to have any idea who we are. We can hold hands and display affection publicly, and we’ll just be some couple who wanted to come look at stalagmites, not a dirty old professor taking advantage of an innocent student.

  That’s what I hate the most about this situation, why I’m relieved that she’s not my student any more. I know that what we have is real and true and deep, but the simple facts of it feel so shameful: professor, student; older, younger.

  I hate that I’m supposed to be ashamed of falling for the most fascinating person I’ve ever met. I hate that I can’t even brag to my brothers about how great she is.

  I take my glasses off and rub my eyes with the heels of my hands, then will myself to get back to the last of the paperwork. I don’t usually stay late in my office, but I’m hoping to have this all done so I can go to Sprucevale on Monday and spend Christmas week with my family.

  I got Rusty a skateboard. Daniel’s gonna pass out, but she’ll love it.

  One last time, I glance through the window, but Thalia’s gone. All the more reason to finish this dumb request form and go home.

  I’ve just signed it and am double-checking all the boxes one last time when there’s a knock on my slightly-open door.

  “Yeah?” I call, hoping it’s not someone with more paperwork.

  “Do you have a minute?” Thalia’s voice says, and my head jolts up. “I know your office hours are over.”

  “Miss Lopez, come in,” I say, taking a stack of papers and straightening them against my desk. “Did you have a question about the final?”

  She enters, bag slung over one shoulder, her winter coat open, my scarf around her neck. She’s been wearing it lately. I like that she wears it.

  “No questions,” she says, then glances out the door and raises one eyebrow at me. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

  I nod, and she closes the door. I stand and twist the vertical blinds shut over the window behind my desk, because even though campus is pretty empty no one needs to see us together in my office, after hours, when the semester’s finished.

  “Me too,” I say, walking around the desk and leaning against the other side.

  Thalia puts her bag on one chair and shrugs her coat off. Underneath it she’s wearing an above-the-knee skirt over tights, and despite everything, the slight glimpse of her thighs pings something in my reptilian brain.

  Maybe it’s my amygdala. My hippopotamus? Thalia knows, I don’t.

  “I’m officially done with my semester several hours early,” she says, grinning, her hands on her hips. “I saw you were still here and figured I’d come say hi before I meet Margaret and Victoria for beers at the Rail.”

  “Congrats,” I say, also grinning. “And no using the men’s bathroom while you’re there.”

  “Why?” she asks, laughing. “You’re afraid that I’ll meet another handsome, charming math professor?”

  “That could be your move,” I tease. “Lock yourself into a bathroom, play the damsel in distress, next thing you know some poor hapless sucker is so besotted with you that he takes to the botanic garden that very night.”

  Thalia glances around quickly, like she’s double-checking that we haven’t overlooked a brand-new window in my office, then steps forward and puts her feet between mine, her arms resting on my chest.

  “Okay, one, I’m not a damsel,” she says. “Two, you’re not exactly a poor hapless sucker —"

  I grab her ass and give it a quick squeeze. Thalia yelps, then giggles.

  “Shh,” I admonish. “People are going to think I’m hurting you. With math.”

  “Sometimes math hurts,” she says.

  “You mean hurts so good.”

  “Do I?”

  “You do,” I say, grinning at her. “When dispatched correctly, mathematics can be very erotic.”

  “And I assume that you know how to dispatch math erotically?”

  “Of course.”

  “Go on.”

  I give her ass another good squeeze, pressing her a little harder against me, and she laughs again. We’re both in goofy moods, feeling a little punch-drunk from the semester, and she wriggles slightly against me.

  “You can’t get out of a discussion by grabbing my ass,” she says.

  “I bet I can,” I say, and do it again.

  “It’s not working.”

  I’ve still got her ass firmly in both hands, and I give it a little jiggle.

  “Yes, it is,” I counter. “We’re not discussing erotic math any more, and I’ve got my hands full of the best ass on campus.”

  I’m also starting to get hard. I should never have grabbed her ass. I knew what would happen, and we’re in my office, on campus, not to mention she’s about to go get drinks with her friends.

  “Well, the best ass just came by to say hi, give you a quick kiss, and ask what you’re doing later tonight,” she teases, looking up at me.

  I release her ass and cup it gently, instead. It’s a nice ass. I like touching it.

  “You, I presume,” I say. “When you show up at my door drunkenly demanding a good time.”

  “Is that a request?” she says, and now she’s got her hands on the desk on either side of me and she cocks her hips and she grinds against me a little as she does, and it doesn’t help my erection situation.

  “That you drunkenly demand a good time? You don’t have to be drunk,” I tease back. “I’m happy to give you a good time whenever you demand one.”

  “I’d noticed,” she says, a half-smirk on her upturned face.

  “Sorry,” I say, grinning. “Should I be saving that for your demands later tonight?”

  “Thank you,” she says, sweetly, and tilts her face up to mine for a kiss.

  I kiss her quickly, not quite chastely but close enough, and a thrill goes through me. I shouldn’t be kissing this girl at all and I definitely shouldn’t be kissing her here, in my office, where a colleague could theoretically knock on my door at any moment.

  Thalia pulls away for a second, still leaning against me, perched on her toes, my hands still cupping her ass, and her eyes search mine like she’s thinking of something.

  Then she kisses me again, and this time I lean into it. I know I shouldn’t but I open my mouth, dart my tongue along her lower lip, feel her open to me as she pushes against me a little harder, her ass still in my hands.

  By the time we part I’m hard as a rock, and we both know it. Thalia’s slightly flushed, her eyelids slightly heavy, and I know for a fact that she’s wet as all hell right now.

  Half of me wishes she hadn’t come by to say hello.

  The other half wants to push her skirt up, her tights down, and make her come before she meets her friends for drinks.

  “I should go before I land you in hot water,” she says. “Just because I’m not technically your student any more doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to start getting it on in your office.”

  “It’s a very bad idea,�
� I agree, and I finally take my hands off her ass, take hers, give them each a quick kiss.

  “Tonight?” she says, with that half-smile and head-cock I’ve come to dream about.

  I intend to say of course, tonight, I can’t wait.

  What I actually hear myself say is, “The door does lock.”

  She turns her head, looks at the door, like she’s confirming this information, then looks back at me.

  “And if someone hears suspicious noises and knocks on it?” she asks.

  “We’ll pretend no one’s here,” I say, still leaning against the desk, letting myself cup her ass in my hands again. “What are they gonna do, knock down the door?”

  Her lips quirk and move in that way that I know means she’s thinking about it. I force myself to remain calm as the blood pounds through my veins, mildly worried that my cock is going to burst through my pants at any moment at the thought of Thalia bent over the desk where I graded her homework.

  “I’m trying to keep you out of trouble, you know,” she murmurs, teasing.

  “And I’m trying desperately to get into it,” I say, one eyebrow raised.

  Then I lean in, kiss her slowly, deeply.

  When I pull away, my lips still brushing hers, I murmur, “Tell me you’re not wet thinking about getting bent over my desk and fucked.”

  Thalia smiles and leans into me, her belly against my hard cock, her fingers gently hooked under the waistband of my pants.

  “All the way from erotic mathematics to this?” she teases.

  “You’re right, it wasn’t math,” I concede, and Thalia stands on her toes again, pushing herself up until her lips are against my ear.

  “I was such a good girl until I met you, Professor Loveless,” she murmurs, and pulls away.

  She crosses the room. Locks the door. Double-checks that it’s actually locked, surveys the blinds, then flips off the overhead lights leaving nothing but my desk lamp on.

  “Someone outside might be able to see shapes through the blinds,” she explains, coming back.

  “Smart,” I say, and gather her in my arms again. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  She presses herself against me, rolling her hips along my hard cock, fingers through my belt loops.

  “I thought it was my great ass,” she teases.

  I grab it again, obviously.

  “The ass doesn’t hurt,” I say, and we kiss. I slide my hands down her hips, grab the fabric of her skirt, and pull it up until I can reach underneath, along the smooth surface of her tights, and between her legs from behind.

  Thalia makes a noise that I’ve learned by heart and she presses forward, into me, asking for more as her fingers find the button on my pants, quickly pull it apart, grab the zipper and pull.

  If there’s a greater anticipation in life than the feeling of Thalia’s hand pressing against my cock as she undoes my zipper, tooth by tooth, I’ve never found it. I growl and grab her ass again, hiking her skirt up higher, this time pushing my hand between her legs from the front, though she may as well be a Barbie doll with these tights on. I can’t feel a damn thing.

  Then she sighs and a tiny oh escapes her mouth while it’s still on mine, and I know I’ve found her clit so I circle that spot slowly, gently, as my zipper reaches the bottom and Thalia grabs my cock through my boxers.

  This time we groan together, and then she laughs and I bite her lower lip and she squeezes me a little harder, lightens her grip and strokes me gently with the fabric still between us, the friction thrilling.

  I grab her hips again, her ass, slide my hands up her body. I slide them down. As I do she moves her hand inside my boxers and grasps me hard, stroking me from tip to root and back. I groan into her mouth, grab her ass one more time, and she smiles.

  Finally, I give up searching for a way into her tights.

  “Get these off,” I growl. “Now.”

  She pulls back, cocks a smile, looks up at me in a way that’s half sultry and half teasing.

  “Yes, Professor,” she says, and reaches way up under her skirt, past her waist, and pulls her tights down, shimmying her hips from side to side as she does.

  I make a note of this, for later use, and the moment her tights are past her thighs I grab her again, pull her in, hook my thumbs under her panties and pull them off until they’re tangled with her tights.

  She strokes my cock again and I kiss her hard, fast. I slide my fingers between her legs and find her soaking wet.

  “I love being right,” I murmur. “I’d ask if you’re ready but I’ve already got my answer.”

  “I just really like desks,” she teases, and I give her one more kiss then step around her, pushing her against my desk, one hand on her hips and the other already between her legs again, strumming her clit, fingertips nudging between her slick folds at her tight entrance.

  She braces herself, arches her back. I can hear her inhale sharply, hips moving back as my fingers tease at her, asking me to enter.

  Then, finally, a thought occurs to me.

  “Shit,” I hiss, just as Thalia flexes backward again, taking me to the first knuckle.

  “Inside pocket of my bag, all the way to the left,” she says without missing a beat.

  I pull away for a moment, open her bag. Find the pocket on the inside, rummage through one side. Just pens. I rummage through the other, hoping, praying.

  After a long moment where I find nothing but more pens and a few stray tampons in their wrappers, my fingers search out that square, shiny foil packet that I’ve come to know and love.

  Thalia’s watching me, still bent over and arched, grinning like her plan’s come together and in two steps I’m behind her again, the condom held tightly in one hand, my cock nestled between the perfect globes of her ass as I kiss the back of her neck.

  “You planned this,” I say, my voice low, raspy.

  “I swear I didn’t,” she says, looking at me over her shoulder.

  “I should have known better than to think you wanted to come say hi,” I tease her, my lips still on her neck.

  “That’s been there since the night we made out in the library,” she says, laughing and arching against me at the same time and fuck she feels good. “I figured that sooner or later we were going to do this somewhere stupid, so we should at least be safe about it.”

  It’s no wonder that I’m so desperately in love with this girl. She’s perfect.

  I tear the condom open with my teeth, roll it down my cock while she watches me over her shoulder. When I’m done I slide my hand into her hair, move it from the back of her neck, and give her a long, slow kiss.

  While I kiss her I tease her with my cock, sliding it between her lips, rubbing the tip against her clit, letting her push fruitlessly back against me while her breathing goes ragged.

  Then, when I can’t take it any more, I find her tight entrance with the tip of my cock, look down, and take her with one long, slow thrust.

  Thalia groans softly as I enter her, clenches around me as I watch my cock disappear inside her, holding my breath as I sink into her tightness until she’s taken every millimeter and I’m hilted, feeling her squeeze me like a fist.

  Then I wait a moment, listening to her breathe, letting her adjust while I hold onto her hips, and after a few seconds she pushes back against me, asking for more.

  I give her more. I do it slowly at first, pulling myself nearly all the way out before sinking in again, making sure I hit every single nerve center inside her. I do it carefully, adjusting the angle with every stroke until her moans are nonstop. I give myself to her and I look down and I watch myself fuck her because in the most pure, primal way I love watching my cock disappear inside her.

  But I can’t be careful for long, and Thalia doesn’t need me to be. She moans and she whimpers and she whispers my name, bent over my desk.

  She whispers oh that feels good and I fuck her a little harder, slide my hands under her shirt, and she glances over her shoulder, eyes heavy-lidd
ed, lips parted.

  “Does it?” I growl, driving hard, deep, listening to the noise she makes. “Does it feel good to get bent over my desk and fucked?”

  “Yes,” she says, half moan and half whisper.

  “Does it feel good to make me lose my damn mind?” I ask, bending closer to her ear.

  “Yes,” she whimpers, her breathing sharp, erratic. “Don’t stop, Caleb.”

  She’s about to come.

  “Please don’t stop,” she gasps. “Don’t stop.”

  She doesn’t always beg me not to stop but when she does it’s her tell, a surefire sign that she’s close, ready to explode.

  I drive deep, hard, and she tells me again, again and I wrap an arm around her, hook it over her shoulder, pull her back against me as hard as I can.

  “Does it feel good to be my bad girl, Thalia?” I whisper.

  “Yes,” she gasps, and then she comes.

  There’s nothing like it in the whole world: the way she clenches around my length, the way she moans and whispers and says oh fuck, Caleb and pushes back against me. The way she loses control and lets go. The way she grabs my hand and presses my knuckles to her mouth, she way she practically collapses onto my desk.

  I don’t stand a chance and I come hard, too, right after she finishes. I bury my face in her shoulder and my cock deep inside her, holding her tight against me and I growl her name into her ear while the aftershocks are still moving through her body and she’s still rocking back and forth against me.

  Finally, we stop. I’ve got my arms wrapped around her and we stand here, braced against my desk, towering over the paperwork that I didn’t quite get finished earlier, my office spooky in the low light of the single desk lamp.

  “We should probably never do that again,” she murmurs.

  I grin, then kiss her on the cheek.

  “Probably not, but you liked it.”

  “True,” she admits, leaning back against me, laughing softly. “True.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Thalia

  I’m ten minutes late to the Rail, and they’re already suspicious the moment I walk in the door. I can tell. I get a beer at the bar and slide into the round booth next to Victoria, and even though she, Margaret, and Harper all try to act like they don’t notice I’m late, they do.