Chapter 3
Three
Cooper
I glance at my sheet without seeing it fully on Tuesday morning, making a face at the lunacy of meeting all one-hundred students in my class in such a small span of time.
It honestly helps me get to know them, figure out who is going to become a problem in my class, and who will probably fail it completely.
This is going to take up entirely too much time, and it’s making me grouchy.
“Do you need me to make sure you don’t eat your next student?” Brooke teases me gently. She looks a little worried about the fate of whoever is about to come in, and it makes me realize I need to shift my mood. I do these check-ins to gain rapport with my students, not make them run away screaming.
These are also mostly freshmen since it’s American History I, so I don’t want to terrify them completely. Taking a breath, I struggle to soften my face.
“No, I should be fine,” I tell her gently. “I may need you after my last student today.”
It’s a warning that my amenable appearance may be tattered and strained by the time I see my last student. It’s my first day doing this, and I’m already worried about my patience.
“Of course, Sir,” Brooke says easily with a nod, opening the door to accept the first student before she leaves to do whatever it is she does during the day.
I’m not particularly close with her outside of how tight her pussy is and how long I can deny her an orgasm.
The hours crawl by as I meet students until there’s no one waiting in the hallway. Surprised, I glance at the time on my computer to see that it’s only two in the afternoon.
Grabbing my sheet, I check to see who is missing their time slot. The day was completely packed without any openings.
Chewing the inside of my lip as I move down the list, I stare uncomprehendingly at the sheet for a moment. This can’t be right.
Nina Sterling.
Growling at my step-daughter’s name on my roster, I don’t know whether I should be happy she’s at the same university as I am or angry. Her mother shattered me, but Nina has always been very different from Vivian.
Grabbing my phone, I dial the number she has on the roster, surprised it’s a Minneapolis area code. It rings several times before a breathless voice picks up.
“ Hello?”
“Do you have a penchant for standing up your teachers, Nina?” I ask her. There’s a feral note in my voice, making me wince. It’s not like I’ve never had a student miss their one on one meeting with me, but I’m irrationally angry and disappointed now that I know who the student is.
“ No, no, Sir, I don’t ,” she says rapidly. She has to know who I am, though my cock inappropriately twitches as she says the word ‘Sir’.
“Did you forget that you had an appointment with me then?” I ask her.
“ No,” she says so softly I can barely hear her. “ I’m running late, and I’m on my way if you can wait? I got… held up. ”
I wonder what could be keeping her from this meeting, and I scowl at the phone. I don’t completely believe that she is running late. I think she was planning to stand me up.
“You have fifteen minutes,” I growl, hanging up. Shaking my head at the reality that I’m going to see my step-daughter for the first time in years, I look out the window as the snow falls.
Ethan complained that someone was parked out on the street again this morning, and I hope whoever it is is there tomorrow so that I can lay into them.
I need a good way to use all of this annoyed energy I have pent up in some way other than Brooke’s wet hole. I’m definitely going to be fucking her roughly before I leave the office tonight. I may even choke her until she passes out before I come. Fuck yeah.
A soft knock on the door pulls me out of my erotic thoughts, making me turn with a raised brow. A girl with pink and nearly white-blonde hair stands before me with eyes that still haunt me. I saw her in class and never recognized her. Damn, she looks all grown up.
Nina is wearing a thick hooded sweatshirt, jeans with holes in them with tights underneath, and her hair is pulled up into a messy bun. She also smells like honeysuckle. I have really vivid memories of eating the flower’s trumpet as a kid, and now all I can think of is eating her cunt.
Fuck, why does she smell so good? If I can smell her from the door, this is going to be a very uncomfortable experience for me. My pants are tight, and everything is telling me that she’s mine.
What is wrong with me? I’m a grown man. I need to remember that.
“This is how you come to a meeting?” I ask in shock. Her hair appears clean at least, but there’s shadows of sleeplessness under her eyes.
“It’s really cold out and I haven’t gotten used to it,” she says softly, staring at my desk. I don’t like that she won’t look at me. It was always harder for Nina to lie to me when I could see her blue-green eyes.
“It’s snowing a bit earlier than usual,” I confirm. “You’re not in Georgia anymore.”
I meant to tease her, but her body stiffens as she nods. Leaning forward, I frown, wondering what I’m missing.
“Come in then and close the door. We’re already behind schedule. You can tell me why you’re late to start with.”
Closing the door behind her, she walks to the chair, but remains standing.
“I just felt like it would be a little awkward to see you, Cooper,” Nina says softly. “Things weren’t the best the last time I saw you.”
I may have called her mother a gold digging whore. Wincing as I remember that day, I tap the desk.
“Sit down please,” I tell her instead.
Continuing to stand, she chews on her lip.
“Can’t we, I don’t know, skip this? I’m passing this class with flying colors, we can just pretend not to know each other.” Nina shrugs.
Guilt floods my body as I stare at her. I left and didn’t look back after Vivian served me with divorce papers, and now I really want to change that.
“No, we can’t skip this,” I say softly. “Come on, Nina. It’s just a few minutes. Can’t you give me that?”
Her hands fist for a moment before she releases them, and she moves to sit down.
“You can have whatever you want,” she says dismissively. Damn, I guess I deserve that.
Nina sounds so much like her mother at that moment, it’s hard for me to see anything else. Pulling in a breath, I try to think of something to ask, instead of the dark vitriol that sits on the end of my tongue. She doesn’t deserve any of that.
“What made you decide to come here for school?” I ask her, pretending to take notes.
I need to try to seem less judgmental or imposing.
Nina is tall and now that she’s sitting, I can see that she has curves.
I shouldn’t be staring at her from underneath my lashes, but I’m curious to see how she’s changed.
I never would have picked her out off the street.
I’m also no longer her step-father, so what does it matter?
“The University of Lyons will open doors for me, it’ll give me a great education, and it’s far away from Mom,” she says.
I think the last part surprised her as much as it did me, because she flinches. I know there were a lot of things she wasn’t fond of doing with her mother, and they were fighting more often by the time we divorced, but I didn’t think she would run from Vivian.
“What’s your major?” I ask inanely. Dumb, so dumb. I’m going to press her for harder questions, so I may as well ask the easy ones first.
“I’m a business major with a teaching minor to fall back on in case I can’t find a job right away,” Nina explains confidently. My brow furrows as she says this, because I don’t really see why she’d need to worry about finding a job right away.
“I’m sure Vivian will be more than happy to help with anything you need once you get out of college,” I say pointedly. Nina flushes with embarrassment and a bit of anger, and it annoys me.
What am I missing here?
“So it appears you’re doing well in my class, you have perfect attendance and Dr. Adams noted here that you’re a joy to be around,” I continue.
He said nothing of the sort, but Nina seems like one of those students that would be. “What extracurriculars are you in currently?”
Forehead pinching as I keep her off balance, Nina rattles off some of the networking clubs that she’s in. Most of them are in the fields she wants to work in, and one is a club that caters toward volunteering in the community. It seems like a lot .
“It sounds like you’re keeping yourself busy,” I murmur. “What are you doing during your downtime?”
“Sleeping,” she laughs, almost exasperatedly. I don’t tend to frustrate women, so this is new territory. On the other hand, it intrigues me. Most college students are partying, especially the freshmen.
“Did I say something funny?” I ask, pretending to be confused. I watch as her fingers twitch, and she very much looks like she can’t wait to get out of here. Nina also refuses to look at me. “My eyes are up here, Nina. It’s rude not to meet the eyes of the person who is speaking to you.”
Taking a breath, she slowly looks up at me, and I can see she’s upset. These questions shouldn’t be this hard, yet she appears to be seconds away from crying.
“Now tell me what’s wrong?” I attempt to coax her. “You never had any problems telling me what was on your mind before.”
“A lot has changed since then, and I’m not that girl anymore,” she sighs. “I was late earlier because I had to take a work call about a shift change. I was arguing with my boss.”
“Why are you working along with this schedule?” I ask her.
“I don’t know, so I can live?” Nina scoffs. “If we’re quite done, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be asking me so many personal questions. Either change to something within your purview, or I’m leaving.”
Her tone is biting, her blue-green eyes struggling to become the same glacial color that her mother’s would turn when she’s done with a conversation, but it doesn’t quite feel the same.
“Very cute,” I mutter. “Apparently your mother is turning you into her clone. Look, it’s none of my business, but do you really want to be like her?”