Blackmailing My Dad's Best Friend

by S. E. Law

  Thank goodness there aren’t many people around this morning. It’s Thursday, three days after I got a B on my English paper, but it’s only a little after eight. Most students are smart and don’t have classes this early. It’s annoying that Professor Boynton’s office hours are so freaking early. I don’t have class until ten on Thursdays, but I couldn’t sleep in because Professor Boynton only holds office hours from eight until nine on Thursdays. If I want to meet with him, it has to be now. And I didn’t want to risk coming later and finding a line of students at the door. I’m embarrassed enough without an audience watching me.

  I hesitantly open the door to the English building. I only have one English class this semester because I’m getting my general education requirements out of the way, but I’ll be spending most of my junior and senior years in this building. It’s best I get used to it now.

  I know Professor Boynton’s office is on the second floor, so I find the nearest stairs and climb them. The hallway is deserted, but a few classrooms have noise coming from inside them. I feel bad for anyone with eight a.m. classes. That will never be me – if I can avoid it.

  Of course, the door I enter is on the opposite side of the building from where I need to be. I make it to the end of the hall and turn right. The numbers are getting larger, which is what I need them to do. Then they stop. Ugh! Am I ever going to make it to his office?

  Maybe the universe is telling me not to go. I should turn around and run while I still can.

  As I’m contemplating my escape, I spot a smaller hallway that bisects the building. That must be where the faculty offices are.

  I stop again at the mouth of the hallway. My heart is beating erratically. This is ridiculous. Why am I here, dressed like this?

  I want to kill Jessica. I feel like she picked out this short skirt and revealing top as a joke. She probably expected me to run into a bunch of people and then never want to show my face on campus again.

  Luckily for me, I’ve only seen two people total on my trip from my dorm to the English building. Jessica is going to be so disappointed.

  My phone pings with a text. Go to office hours, Mari!

  I look around. There’s no way Jessica could know I haven’t gone into his office yet. She’s not here. It must just be a lucky guess on her part.

  I don’t want to, I respond.

  Do it anyway. You look hot. This is a good plan. Go!

  I tuck my phone into my bag, right next to the paper I’m supposed to be discussing with my professor. Ugh. I want to turn tail and run, but I can’t. Jessica’s motives may be off, but she’s smarter than she looks. If she thinks going to office hours will help, I trust her.

  Gripping my purse tightly against my side, I take a few steps and reach Professor Boynton’s office.

  There. That wasn’t so hard.

  The office has a plain, wooden door with a frosted glass pane in the center. Professor John Boynton is written on a plaque next to the door. At least I know I’m in the right place.

  I lift my hand to knock when a sound inside gives me pause. It almost sounds like…moaning? Surely that can’t be what I’m hearing. Why would there be moaning coming from my professor’s office?

  Low grunts escape through the thick wooden door. I can make out figures through the glass but no details because of the frost.

  I take a few steps back from the door. I’m in the right place, but is this a bad time? Should I leave and come back later? I don’t want to interrupt whatever is happening in there…

  I pull my phone from my purse and double-check Professor Boynton’s office hours. It’s right on his University webpage. Monday five to six p.m.; Thursday eight to nine a.m. Please make an appointment outside of these hours.

  I check the time again. It’s only a quarter past eight. I’m within the time frame, so I have every right to be at Professor Boynton’s office right now. I could leave, but if I do, I’ll never come back. If I’m going to do this, it has to be right now.

  Stepping forward again, I tentatively lift my knuckles and tap against the cool glass.

  The sounds behind the door stop immediately. I hear a rustling sound, and then the door opens.

  “Ms. Maple!” Professor Boynton exclaims, surprising me. I had no idea he knew my name because our class is pretty big. This is why I could never be a professor. I have a hard enough time remembering the names of my family members, let alone those of the hundred or so students who attend a lecture.

  “Hi, Professor. Sorry if I’m interrupting something…”

  Professor Boynton looks flushed, but that doesn’t take away from how damn hot the man looks.

  I noticed his looks the first time I walked into the lecture hall. It was my second class of the day, and I was feeling overwhelmed. Luckily, I knew I had Jessica in my English class. Her calming presence was all that had kept me from bursting into tears.

  She and I sat next to each other near the middle of the small lecture hall. Students filed in around us, but there was no sign of our professor. The time for class to start came and went. Still, no professor.

  After five minutes, I was starting to worry we were in the wrong place. I don’t know what the probability of a hundred students ending up in the wrong classroom is, but it didn’t seem likely. Still, my anxiety had started to take over. Jessica did her best to stop my freak out.

  Luckily, seven minutes after class was supposed to start, in walked our professor. He was the most attractive man I had ever seen. Then, just like now, I had to force my jaw closed. I’m pretty sure I started drooling.

  I swipe at my face to make sure the drooling isn’t happening now. On the first day, Professor Boynton was dressed professionally in a button-up with a tie. He wore black slacks that were tight enough to make my mouth water. He tucks to the left.

  Today, he’s dressed more casually. He’s still wearing a button-up shirt, but there’s no tie, and the top couple of buttons are undone. His shirt is a bit wrinkled, like he put it on in a rush. For pants, he’s wearing jeans instead of formal slacks. They, too, are wrinkled.

  Professor Boynton’s dark black hair is a mess, too. It looks like he ran his fingers through it a few times before I got here. I loved how it looked on that first day of class, perfectly coifed and professional. However, today’s messy locks send a shiver down my spine too. I want to be the one to run my fingers through that hair…

  Immediately, I force that thought from my mind. I should not be thinking sexual thoughts about my professor! It doesn’t matter how attractive he is; my mind should be on the paper in my purse, not his appearance. Though it is peculiar that he’s so un-put together. I wonder what caused it…

  I’m not going to call him out on his disheveled look, though. It’s not my place to comment on my professor’s appearance.

  On the flip side, he at least seems to appreciate my look for today. Professor Boynton’s piercing blue eyes rake up and down my body. At least I’m not the only one staring! It makes me feel better knowing he’s looking at me the way I was looking at him.

  “You’re not interrupting anything,” he finally replies. How much time has passed? It feels like I’ve been standing in front of this door for at least six hours. In reality, only a couple of minutes have passed.

  “Oh. Good,” I manage. I didn’t realize how intimidating it would be to stand before Professor Boynton with no one else around. I want to push him through the door and…

  Before that bad thought can come to fruition, the door pushes itself open more.

  No, not itself. A head peeks out from behind the door.

  “Well, hello there, Ms. Maple! It’s good to see you.”

  I open my mouth, but no words come out. It was hard enough to speak coherently while standing in front of one hot guy. Now, there’s a second one in the mix!

  My English class has a TA. He didn’t start until the second week of classes, which was honestly for the best. If he had walked in that first day, I might have had a heart attack.

&
nbsp; Mark Kingham, the TA, could be a male model. It’s crazy to me that both our professor and our teaching assistant are hot enough for the runway. What are they feeding people in this part of New York? We certainly don’t have these kinds of guys in Queens, that’s for sure.

  Seeing Mark and Professor Boynton next to each other reminds me why some girls in class have a group text about them. No one can believe that we got so lucky with not just one, but two attractive men teaching the class. Having them as teachers makes it hard to pay attention to the lecture, that’s for sure.

  Maybe that’s why I did so poorly on the paper. I’ll admit, I spend more time staring at the two hot men than paying attention to what they’re saying. I should work on that.

  But that’s easier said than done. In fact, I’m not doing a good job at it right now.

  How long have I been standing here? Crap, I did it again. They’re both going to think I’m insane!

  “Hi, Mr. Kingham,” I greet him belatedly.

  “It’s nice to see you. What brings you by?”

  “I wanted to talk about my Scarlet Letter paper.”

  Professor Boynton nods. “I thought I might see you. Why don’t you come in, and all three of us can discuss it?”

  All three of us? Is that how office hours normally work? I thought it would just be the professor and me.

  Then again, the way my thoughts have been wandering and the way his eyes are fixed on my low-cut shirt, it’s probably for the best that we have a chaperone.

  As the professor and Mark step aside, I take in Mark’s appearance in more detail. At first, I was so distracted by his dark eyes and shiny hair that I didn’t notice his clothes are as rumpled as Professor Boynton’s.

  What the hell is going on?

  “You haven’t come to office hours before, Ms. Maple,” Professor Boynton points out. “Why not?”

  “Honestly, I haven’t gotten a B before.”

  Professor Boynton laughs. “That’s a good enough reason, I suppose. I suspected you might come after I handed back the work this week.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, like you said, you’ve never gotten a B before.”

  I pull the paper from my bag. I’ve read it over a hundred times since I got it back, and I still have no idea why I earned such a terrible grade. It’s been driving Jessica mad. I’m sure that’s part of why she wanted to make sure I came to office hours today. If nothing else, it’ll give me the closure I need to move on.

  “I thought it was a good paper…”

  Professor Boynton nods. “It is a good paper, Ms. Maple.”

  “Call me Mari, please,” I interrupt. “I hate my last name.”

  “But it’s so delicious!” Professor Boynton responds. There’s a heat behind his eyes that causes my cheeks to flush. Is he talking about my last name or about something else?

  Obviously, just my last name. He wouldn’t make a dirty comment to a student, especially not with his TA present. Would he?

  “It’s a weird last name,” I try to explain. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re talking to a guy with the last name Boynton. I get it. Mari it is. You can call me John.”

  “I don’t know about that…”

  “Please. Office hours are informal. John is just fine.”

  “And like I’ve said a hundred times in class, please just call me Mark. I hate being called Mr. Kingham. It makes me feel a lot older than I am.”

  “You’re not old at all!”

  Mark chuckles. “I’ve got a few years on you.”

  That may be true, but he doesn’t look it. Mark could easily pass for a fellow student. He claims to be thirty, but no one believes that for a minute. I’d say maybe twenty-five. I guarantee he gets carded whenever he enters a bar or tries to buy alcohol.

  Must be nice to age so well. I take after my mother. My curly brown hair is forgettable, just like my brown eyes. At least I have curves. My boobs and my butt are my best features. I’m glad the outfit Jessica picked out for me accentuates those two parts of my body and hides the extra fat on my stomach.

  I may feel ridiculous, but according to the gaze of the two guys looking at me right now, I look damn good. I’ll have to thank Jessica for the outfit.

  “Anyway,” John continues, pulling my attention from my looks, “why don’t we discuss this paper? Like I said, it’s good.”

  “Then why did I get a B?”

  “Because it’s well-written, but it’s unfocused. Your idea could be stronger; you didn’t develop it far enough.”

  “What do you mean? I spent hours revising it to tighten my thesis.”

  “It needed to be tighter. You use ‘choice’ in a generic way. You don’t get specific enough about the choices Hester makes. Are you talking about her choice to get married in the first place? Her choice to see someone else when her husband is missing? Her lack of choice in wearing the letter?”

  I slink down in my seat. Everything the professor is saying makes perfect sense. I did use generic terms to talk about the choices Hester made. Part of the problem is that I was talking about choices in general, not necessarily connecting it back to the book.

  That explains why I got a B.

  “Can I rewrite it?” I ask, leaning forward. Ideas are already flowing through my mind. A new thesis takes form. I steal a pen from John’s desk to write it down.

  He puts a hand over mine. “Whoa, there. Take it easy. I see you going a million miles a minute right now.”

  “I am. I want to write an A paper. I know this book like the back of my hand…”

  “That much was clear from the quiz last week, Mari. You aced it. I know you understand the book.”

  “Then let me rewrite my paper! I can prove I’m good enough…”

  “A B is not a bad grade. In fact, if you keep up the good work you’ve shown me thus far, you’ll probably finish the class with an A.”

  “I’d have a higher A if you let me do this paper again.”

  “I can’t do that, Mari. I’m sorry, but you read the syllabus. No do-overs.”

  “Please, John…”

  He gives me a sad, sympathetic look. I fall back in the seat once again. This meeting had been going so well. Why did it have to take a turn for the worse? Can’t John help me out just this one time?

  “You’re a talented writer, Mari,” Mark says. “You’ll do better on the next paper.”

  “I want to do better on this one,” I pout.

  John laughs. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you, but if I give you the option to redo the paper, I’ll have to give that option to every student in class. And I don’t have the time to grade that many papers again.”

  “I understand, I do. I just wish it were different…”

  “Me, too,” John says. His hand finds mine again and squeezes. The gesture is so intimate that it sends butterflies soaring in my stomach. I want to pull away, but I don’t want to at the same time.

  I like the contact.

  I also like the attention he’s giving me. Mark, too. They’re both looking at me like they want to talk about something other than a paper.

  I try to focus on anything but their intense gazes, but it’s impossible. The room feels like it’s a thousand degrees.

  I slide my chair back, ready to make my escape, but John keeps his hold on my hand.

  “We’re not done here yet,” he says, his voice a low rumble.

  My chair stays where it is. If John says we’re not done, we’re not done. I’m happy to stay as long as he wants, as long as he keeps looking at me like I’m a snack and he’s starving.

  To be continued …

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  Sneak Peek: Sugar and Spice

  Jane

  Shy romance author Jane gets an idea when she meets Kade, a handsome male model: hiring him to be her pretend boyfriend. But what happens when the sparks are real?

  It’s an odd thing – to be a romance writer with no real romanti
c experience. But here I am, a twenty-five year-old wallflower finding success in writing steamy erotic romance novels. I have an active imagination that is fueled by reading quality erotica and watching a dirty video online every so often, so I’m not completely ignorant as to what happens between the sheets. Given that I’m doing relatively well in the world of erotic literature, I’d venture to say that my readers enjoy what I imagine. The super-hot, crazy billionaire with an alpha-male personality is always romance gold. Heck, I’d like to meet someone like that myself one day.

  But over the years, I’ve learned that readers are often quite curious about the authors they read. If they like you, then they’ll eat up your biography and buy every one of your books. But if they found out that Jane Morgan, erotic romance writer, is an inexperienced virgin … well, that would be very interesting, to say the least.

  Which is why I’m a little nervous to be at this romance convention in Vegas. It’s going to be filled with hard-core readers who know exactly what they’re talking about.

  “How do you find inspiration?” or “Is there someone that gives you ideas for scenes?” are questions that I know I’ll be fielding at this convention, but I can’t exactly tell them that I’ve never so much as seen a man’s rod in person, let alone deep throat it. I’ve thought about making up a boyfriend – he’s absolutely gorgeous in my mind – and telling the convention goers that he’s the source of my inspiration. But what if it goes wrong? And if I’m being honest, I find it hard to believe a truly handsome man would go for a thick and curvy girl like myself. Not many men go for the plump body that I sport because it’s a far cry from the stick thin figures gracing the covers of magazines.

  Sure, I’ve come a long way from the lonely student that wrote steamy fiction in her spare time, or even from the dead-tired waitress that stayed up well into the night crafting filthy scenes from the depths of her mind, but the potential questions really make me nervous. What if readers ask detailed questions about my experiences in bed? What will I say?