Chapter 6 Dante
DANTE
Idropped my head into my hands. I’d really fucked that up. I didn’t have to be such an asshole to Alex, did I? The cut on his face had to hurt like hell.
But he could have finished the paper for the original deadline.
Did he really think he could just fuck off and then come plead his case?
What had happened to him? I was in the fucking mafia, and I rarely came in looking that bad.
Had he hurt himself when he was drunk or high?
Did he really have to party on a school night?
So now we’re Mr. Prude who doesn’t believe in partying or drinking?
Fuck, even my conscience thought I was an ass. I wasn’t typically so cold, not at this job, anyway, but Alex got under my skin. I was partly angry with him because I didn’t want him throwing his life away.
I picked up his paper and studied it. He deserved a zero. Those were the rules.
Is that what you’d give any other student?
I’d done it before.
When they brought you a paper copy with fresh stitches on their face?
Dammit. I started reading and got drawn in. Alex was an excellent writer. When I finished, I realized he had written the most coherent, well-organized, and properly researched essay in the class. He was fucking brilliant, and he was throwing it away. He needed better friends and better focus.
I gave him an eighty-five for lateness and tossed the paper into my basket.
Then I looked up his number and sent him a text letting him know I’d reconsidered.
It nearly killed me to break my own rules, but he’d looked truly hurt, emotionally, not just physically.
When he turned around and left my office, there had been tears in his eyes.
I never meant to be the kind of professor who made students cry. I hurt enough people in my other life.
I asked Alex to come back before my office hours ended.
I even checked his schedule to make sure he didn’t have class.
But when the time came for me to head to a meeting with the department chair, Alex still hadn’t shown up.
I texted him again and sent him an email giving him the same information I had in the text.
It was probably foolish of me to think someone his age was going to pay attention to a text from an unknown number, even if they were hoping not to get a fucking zero in my class.
Alex still hadn’t responded or shown up when I was ready to close everything down for the day and head home.
I had a special bottle of wine at home and the ingredients to make pasta alla norma, my mother’s favorite dish.
I’d been too little to really appreciate it when she’d passed away—how many twelve-year-old boys were thrilled to eat eggplant? —but now I absolutely loved it.
As I walked home, I kept thinking about Alex. My gut told me something was wrong. Alex would have come to office hours if he were all right.
I tried to ignore my instincts. Maybe he didn’t have his phone with him. No, that was absurd. Maybe he just wasn’t paying any attention to it. But he’d been devastated, and he would want to come back. If for no other reason than to savor the fact that he’d gotten me to break my own policy.
I pulled out my phone and texted him again. I’d like to set a meeting with you tomorrow since you didn’t show up today.
When I reached home and there was still no reply, the sense that something was wrong grew stronger. What was I supposed to do? Track him down at his frat house? How the hell was that going to look?
He was already flirting outrageously with me in class. I didn’t need that kind of scandal, and I was sure he didn’t either.
I let myself in the front door, set all my things down, and headed to the kitchen. I realized there were no more tomatoes on the windowsill, so I needed to pick some more from the vine in my backyard. I walked across the deck and down the three steps to the small backyard, then froze.
There was a man lying face down in the yard. I took another step, my mind rejecting what I was seeing. It wasn’t just any man; it was Alex.
My heart skipped a beat as I raced to him. Dear God, please don’t let him be dead. The smell of alcohol wafted off him, and I told myself he was just drunk. What the hell was he doing here?
I pressed my fingers to his neck and felt a rapid pulse. He stirred, then coughed and raised up on his hands and knees.
“Oh shit,” he said, and then he vomited as though he were expelling everything that had ever been in his body.
“I don’t feel good,” he said when he finished and slumped back over.
No shit. “What the fuck are you doing here, Alex? And why are you drunk at six o’clock on a Monday?”
“Not just drunk… Drugged. Somebody… drugged me. Thought you’d… help.”
His breathing was shallow and rough, and he was so fucking pale. The cut on his cheek stood out against his white cheeks, looking even worse.
“What do you mean, drugged you? Like roofied?”
“Don’t know. Just don’t feel right.”
“Shit.” I bent down and managed to lift him into my arms. “Don’t you dare puke on my suit.”
He laughed, which made me worry a little less, but he lost consciousness again while I carried him inside. I laid him on the couch and called his name. He didn’t respond. Against my better judgment, I laid a hand against the uninjured side of his face. “Alex, are you with me? Come on, wake up.”
He opened his eyes and stared up at me. His pupils dilated, and his tongue crept out and moistened his lips. I needed to stand up, to move back. He wasn’t going to die. He just needed a little time to recover before I sent him home. But I couldn’t move. I was trapped there by his gaze.
This was ridiculous. He was too young. I was his professor. I should never have brought him into my house, but the way he looked at me, with uncertainty and heat, went straight to my cock.
“Thank you, Professor.”
“You’re welcome.”
He started to sit up, but I pushed him back down. “Just lie there. I don’t want you passing out again.”
“The room is spinning.”
“Yeah, I bet it is. What the hell were you doing in my yard?”
He looked around the room. “I was in your yard?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember? I just brought you inside.” Maybe he had been drugged.
“No. I… I was in my room, and then…”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
He frowned. “You said you brought me inside.”
“I wasn’t going to let you die on my lawn. How would that look?”
He tilted his head like he was considering it. “Not good?”
“Exactly. I brought you inside out of self-preservation.”
He paused to consider my words again. “No, I think you’re my friend.”
Was I?
Fuck yes. And you want to be more. You want to teach him some lessons. Make him do exactly what you ask.
“Dr. Theriot?”
Shit. I had to answer him. “You may as well call me Dante while we’re here.”
“Dante. I like that.”
And I liked hearing him say it. “Do you really think you were drugged?”
“Yeah. I must’ve been.”
I frowned and pressed my fingers against the pulse point in his wrist. He sucked in a breath, and I forced myself not to look at him as I counted the beats.
His pulse was still a little high, but not outrageously so.
His skin was cold and clammy though, and I didn’t like it.
No one should be cold after lying outside in this heat.
“Do you think you can drink some water without throwing up?”
“Maybe. I feel a little better now.”
“All right. Stay right there. Do not try to get up. I don’t need you passing out and hitting your head on something.”
He frowned and pressed his fingers against his forehead. “I think I hit my head last night. I haven’t really been thinking right all day.”
“I don’t think you’ve been thinking right all semester, and apparently, neither have I.” I muttered the last part under my breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
I added a packet of electrolyte powder to his water, stirred it up, and brought it to him.
He took a sip and smiled. “At least it’s not fucking watermelon.”
“Not a fan?”
“I like actual watermelon, but not watermelon-flavored things. That’s the only kind of electrolyte powder my roommate drinks. I don’t even like how it smells.”
Now I was imagining him eating a big piece of watermelon, biting in and letting the juice run down his chin, down his chest. I’d enjoy cleaning him up with my tongue. Holy fuck. I had to get myself under control. “Explain what happened. Start with last night.”
Alex frowned. “It’s complicated, and you don’t want to know. It’s pretty stupid.”
“If someone drugged you, I assure you I want to know.”
His eyes lit up. “You’re worried about me?”
“Would you be lying here on my couch if I wasn’t?”
“I’ll be all right. It was probably just a stupid prank.”
Anger burned through me. I didn’t want him dismissing this. “Drugging someone is not a prank. You could’ve died.”
“I guess so, but I’m okay.”
Thank God.
“There’s this guy in my frat who has some beef with me. It’s—fuck—our families have beef, and Jesus, who knows how far back it goes.”
“You’re in a good old-fashioned feud with this boy?”
He smiled. “I mean, we’re not the Hatfields and McCoys or anything. It’s just my dad bought a company that Randall’s dad wanted, and he’s treated me like shit ever since we started pledging last year. Now he thinks I’m interested in the girl he’s interested in. I’m not, by the way.”
I smiled. “No, I wouldn’t expect you were.”
Color came back to his cheeks, and he looked away. “I’m not interested in girls. There, I said it out loud.”
“You’ve never said that before?”
“No.”
“Have you ever…” What was I doing? He was my student.
“Fucked a guy? No. I’ve sucked guys off and stuff, but not, like, anal.”
“Right.” I could not think about that. “Why does he think you like her?” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. I didn’t care about fucking frat-house gossip, but if someone drugged Alex, I would make sure they never tried such a thing again.
“He was pressuring her. She wasn’t interested, and I helped her get away from him. I told him to stay away from her, and he can’t imagine that I would truly be concerned for her welfare.”
If I hadn’t already hated Randall, I did now. “It sounds like this guy needs to be put in his place.”
Alex smiled. “I did knock him out this morning.”
“Alexander.”
“Yeah, I know, but he came for me first.”
“What happened?”
“Somebody told him they saw me with her. And, like, yeah—I ran into her in the cafeteria, so we sat together. He got wasted tonight, and he came back at me with a broken bottle. Another guy pulled him away, and I punched him.”
I couldn’t be upset with him defending himself. I wanted to end Randall.
“And then?”
He shrugged. “I had a med student friend fix it. It’s fine.”
“A med student? Why didn’t you go to the ER?”
“My uncle works there.”
I frowned, not liking that reasoning at all. “Is it going to scar?”
“Do you care?”
“I care that you are taking care of yourself. I care about all my students taking care of themselves.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I hope not. I’ll be in a lot of trouble if it does.”
“What do you mean, trouble?”
“My uncle wants me to have this perfect image, and he thinks I have the kind of face and charm to run for office like my grandfather.”
I’d made the assumption that Alex was a spoiled brat who thought he could drink and party his way through school, but he had as much difficult shit going on in his life as I did.
At least I had a family who cared and supported me.
Now I not only wanted Alex in my bed, but I wanted to take care of him too.