Chapter 18
Monday afternoon I rushed from my last lecture of the day to Professor Quinn’s office.
I’d quickly gone from intimidated by him to ceaselessly charmed, in an unhealthily wanton way.
Despite the fact that he was nearly old enough to be my father, I couldn’t get enough of my time with him.
It made me furiously eager to race to him whenever I had the chance.
To my chagrin, he’d dropped me off at my car on campus with a brief goodbye.
The invitation to follow me home and join me for the rest of the night had lingered on my tongue, but the cage of my teeth kept it barred, and the offer soured.
Instead, I’d gone home alone with ripped tights and a pulsing, satisfied core.
My head had thumped on the steering wheel, listening to the crunch of tires on gravel as he peeled away.
Perhaps it was for the best in the long term he didn’t linger. The gap in our ages wasn’t the only thing that made our trysts illicit. I shouldn’t have been dallying with my professor at all. But I’d succumbed twice now, and couldn’t seem to control my desires where he was concerned.
Being my personal addiction suited him quite well.
In my excitement, I crashed through the office door. Professor Quinn was already there, standing behind his desk and holding a folio. Ocean eyes rolled up quickly, assessing me standing frozen in the doorway.
Eyes that were framed.
Glasses.
He was wearing glasses.
And they shouldn’t have made him more attractive. But fuck did they.
Professor Luther Quinn already carried an air of sophistication. He had that sensual, aristocratic aura patented, easily flaunting the tempting professor image.
The little dark curl laying on his forehead drew my eyes from the glasses, and that was how I noticed his brow flick upward.
“Miss Ashcroft?” he drawled.
“Glasses,” I sputtered back.
Eloquence, I hardly knew thee.
His lips twitched.
I hurried to my usual seat before his expression morphed into a full smirk at my expense. That didn’t stop my overactive anxiety from controlling my tongue. “It’s just that—I mean—I didn’t know you wore glasses. It was surprising.”
I dumped my bag onto the seat facing his desk before looking up.
When I chanced a glance at him, he was already folding the spectacles and tucking them into the front pocket of his coat hanging over the back of his chair.
His hands moved so precisely, so methodically.
My eyes helplessly followed those dexterous fingers before roaming up his forearms. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow, revealing the mouthwatering sight of flexing tendons.
“Not always.” The sound of his voice snapped me out of my daze. I met his stare, flushing bright red at his pleased expression. “Just for reading.”
“Ah, right.” I went about collecting where I left off the last time I was there, pretending I hadn’t been checking him out. It didn’t help that the memory of bouncing on his cock wouldn’t stop harassing me as if his presence triggered the most erotic impulses I had.
Down, Ophelia. If my thoughts continued running rampant, I was likely to fling myself across the desk and start humping his leg.
The evening passed like any other. I relaxed into my seat, grading quiz papers and intermittently referencing the professor’s grading rubric.
We exchanged sporadic glances over the work spread between us, sharing fleeting moments of charged silence.
Every second of attention from the tempest in those ocean eyes threatened to drench me in the vicious downpour of his awareness.
“Is something the matter?” he asked.
I faltered for a second. “N-no. Everything’s fine,” I lied.
Professor Quinn tipped his head to the side, regarding me with unabashed interest. Like he was looking at a puzzle he wished to solve.
“Then what are you thinking about?”
“You.” The answer bolted from my lips.
He arched a brow in silent question.
“What made you want to become a professor?” I blurted.
His expression melted, and he turned his head. Those stormy eyes seemed to land on the wall of books to my right. Seconds passed, long enough for me to begin regretting the question. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked. Or maybe he thought I didn’t have any right to know more about him despite the sex.
“Unfinished business.” He shrugged. It was a consolation more than an actual answer.
A clue that told me something but not nearly enough about him.
Even as I considered his answer, nothing about it made sense to me.
I was out of the loop with respect to his personal life and his past. Aside from the orgasms, we were nothing and no one to each other.
A scoff breached me.
That caught his attention.
“Careful with the Mystery Man routine, or I’ll start to think you’re interesting.”
The professor’s grin cut wider.
“I have it on good authority that I’m plenty interesting.” His eyes trailed across my face before landing on my lips.
Arousal swooped low in my stomach.
I went for a coy smile and rolled my eyes. “Whoever gave you that impression forgot to check your ego first.”
He mock-frowned.
“What’s wrong with my ego?”
I pushed out a drawn-out sigh, tapping a finger on my chin as if really considering it. “Hmm. The size of it.”
Professor Quinn’s eyes instantly darkened. Only then did I realize we’d been flirting the whole time. A pulse tingled across my skin as palpable as lightning in a storm.
His smile morphed, growing wider and turning feral. He shifted in his seat, leaning back and spreading his legs further under the desk in a purposeful move to draw my gaze lower.
“I’ve never had any complaints about the size yet.”
“And here comes your famous arrogance.” I sighed with feigned annoyance.
“Is it arrogance or earned pride?”
For a split second I stared incredulously at him. What an unbelievable man.
“Coming from the man who boasts about failing more students than he passes…” I sucked my teeth and cocked my head. A tinkling laugh escaped me, and a dimple appeared in his cheek that I hadn’t seen before. Something I preened at, having earned that display of amusement from his usually stoic face.
He was sitting there across the desk, staring right back as if he were equally fixated on me. And he smirked, making me think I’d walked into a trap.
“Well,” the low timber of his voice curled through my blood, “that’s interesting coming from the brat who needs more lessons.”
A scoff leapt from my lips. “Oh, that’s debatable.”
“Really?” He raised a single dark brow. My heart flipped. “Come here, then.”
My breath hitched in my throat, suffocating me. I stiffened, then gulped, shaking as I slowly rose from the chair. It was one of those times when I didn’t feel as though I had control of myself. My body, my movement, my will, all strings in his hands like a puppet with its master.
Coming around the corner of the desk, I stopped beside his chair.
My eyes dropped to his large, masculine hand on his thigh and the leg muscle flexing in his dark trousers.
At the sight of his lap I faltered, remembering what it felt like to sit there and ride him. Was he going to ask me to take a seat?
Anticipation thrummed through me.
His opposite hand drummed fingers on the edge of the desk. Then he lifted said hand to his chin and stroked the short beard enhancing his jaw, eyeing me carefully. The professor lowered his voice. “Come here, Miss Ashcroft. These papers have yet to be graded.”
My heart pounded at the base of my throat, and my skin tingled as I neared.
He scooted his chair back to accommodate me. His brows rose toward his hairline, and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I stood between him and his desk, shivering down to the bone from the pressure of his presence searing into me.
“Now turn,” he commanded.
I glared at him as powerfully as I could.
A sparkle lit in his vibrant blue eyes.
Then they darkened.
The silence lasted maybe seconds. Or it could have been minutes, hours, years. It stretched for an eternity, straining my nerves. It took all the strength in my body not to roll my eyes and stomp my foot.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.” The warning slithered down my spine and triggered a submissive streak in me I’d rather pretend didn’t exist. But there were those strings again, and he was pulling, pulling, pulling.
I turned.
Facing away from Professor Quinn suddenly made me jittery. I could palpably feel his gaze raking down the back of my cream cashmere sweater to where it was tucked into my tan skirt. My legs heated as he glared at the tights hiding my skin from his full, probing perusal.
“Bend over.” His words sent a wanton rush through me. “Get to work.”
“Y-yes, sir.” I bent at the waist, skin flushing with the knowledge that my skirt had ridden up enough to show off the curves of my ass hugged by the tights.
His focus pierced all the way into my core. I tried not to shift, but he chuckled. Such a low, dark sound growling through his chest, I couldn’t help wriggling.
All my life I’d never thought of myself as much of a brat. But there was something Professor Quinn brought out of me. And this—bent over his desk on display while scribbling corrections of other students’ work—it was a punishment of sorts. This was his lesson.
All the words blurred together on the pages beneath me.
There was a red pen in my hand, and I couldn’t even recall where it had come from or when I’d picked it up.
I was scribbling edits and marking out clear mistakes, all while trying to subtly look over my shoulder at him.
If he could feel me silently begging for more of his attention, he didn’t react.
Instead, he remained sitting in his chair behind me, watching my skirt rise higher and higher with each impatient wriggle of my hips, knees shifting to silence the oppressive throbbing where I ached to be touched.
Sadistic bastard.