11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
T he summons to Xander’s office didn’t come as a surprise.
The previous evening, after we went back to the apartment, Connor beelined to his room and slammed the door behind him. He hadn’t come back out for dinner, and the next morning, a quickly scrawled note for me lay on the kitchen counter.
Tuesday -
Dean’s office as soon as you wake up.
You can take care of yourself.
C
My palms itched with nerves as I made my way to the administrative wing, preparing myself for whatever lecture, guilt trip, or manipulation Xander had waiting.
I’d barely stepped inside his office when he leaned back in his chair and said, “I hear you’re considering dropping out, Tuesday.”
I scoffed, folding my arms. “Connor makes an excellent spy. Have you considered he’s wasting his talents here at Whispering Ivy and would be better suited for the CIA?”
“Are you?” he asked, completely ignoring what I’d said. “Considering dropping out?”
“I’m thinking about it, yeah.”
I had no idea what to expect from him.
He nodded slowly, his electric gaze thoughtful. He steepled his fingers, tilted his head. “You’re doing well here, you know. Your professors are all very impressed. Grades, attendance, class engagement—you’re excelling across the board.”
Pride swelled within me, only to be smothered by the overwhelming mix of other emotions churning in my stomach.
I lifted my shoulders in a tiny shrug. “It’s not like it was in the cards for me to get my degree from Whispering Ivy.”
“There are scholarships,” he said. “You showed up too late to apply this semester, but some of them are quite generous, if you’re interested.”
I almost laughed. “Right. Because getting a scholarship would solve all my problems.”
Xander’s brow furrowed, his blue eyes fixed on mine. “Hmmm. Don’t you think you owe it to your mother to stay?”
I blinked hard, the question throwing me off balance. “What?”
“You said she supported your decision to come here. Don’t you think she’ll be ecstatic if you could graduate from Whispering Ivy? You mentioned Yale or Harvard as options, but those are far more expensive than Whispering Ivy, and far more competitive. Odds that you’d get any financial assistance at either of those institutions…”
I tuned him out. Mom would never be ecstatic about anything again, and I didn’t think her sending me here had a damn thing to do with my education. She’d left me this place, this puzzle, these expectations with no clear direction.
I bit my lip, thinking of the stack of unpaid bills, the final notices stacked high on the kitchen counter in our rental, the fridge that usually didn’t have much more than a mostly empty bottle of generic-brand ketchup in it, all the years when we barely scraped by. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how my mom even came up with the money to send me here in the first place. We didn’t exactly have a secret stash of cash lying around…except she did.
Silence settled between Xander and me, tense and heavy, until finally, he leaned forward, the chair creaking as he folded his hands on his desk.
“Look,” he said, his voice low. “This place isn’t always easy. But I think you should stick it out for the rest of the semester.”
“You didn’t even want me here.”
“Well, now I want you to see the potential in yourself that I already see. I think your mother sees it, too. That’s all.”
My mother. The woman he’d referred to as a goddamn whore on the day I showed up here. The woman he’d compared me to.
He cleared his throat and sat back, rubbing his neatly trimmed beard. “Is there anything I can do to make you reconsider, even temporarily?”
His gaze softened, flooding me with an unsettling warmth.
“Maybe we can set up a couple of meetings each week,” he suggested, his voice dropping even lower, more intimate. “Just you and me. I’d like to make sure you’re being taken care of…personally.”
God, I was so sick of all the hot and cold, the back and forth, the up and down, the emotional whiplash of this fucking place.
The tugging sensation in my mind, the same feeling I’d had last time I’d been in here, came over me again. I swiftly ignored it.
“Did you buy me the clothes and wigs?” I blurted.
Xander frowned. “I did. Were they to your liking?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“That outfit in particular looks very nice on you. Bet it would look very nice on the floor of my bedroom, too.”
My pulse jumped. Was I hearing things? He’d said it so nonchalant, so offhand, like he was saying he bet pepperoni would go well on a pizza.
He must have sensed my surprise because he smiled, warm and teasing. “It’s just a thought.” He leaned back slightly, his gaze never wavering from mine. “If you’re open to it.”
“Well, actually,” I said with a teasing smile of my own. “If you want me in your bed, Dean Bennett, we could work something out. If I could come live with you, I’d stay at Whispering Ivy.”
That would sure solve a lot of my problems. My moving into the guys’ apartment had messed up whatever twisted thing Kade had going on with Malcolm. He wanted me out, hence why he’d attacked me in the library. I was sure it was him. Moving in with Xander—
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. But a visit now and again, on the other hand…if we’re discrete…” The warmth in his eyes morphed into an inferno.
My pussy clenched as he stood and moved around the desk until he stood close enough that I could smell his musky sandalwood scent. He studied my face, searching, his expression gentler than I’d ever seen it.
Without moving, without breathing, I melted into him.
“Tuesday…” He reached up, fingers grazing the side of my face, the edge of his thumb brushing over my cheek lightly, almost reverently, as if he were handling something delicate. “I want you here.”
The words held a weight I couldn’t quite identify, a promise that felt…personal.
His thumb lingered, his fingers tracing a slow path along my jaw, and then his hand moved down to wrap around my neck with a lighter touch than Malcolm, but wholly possessive. He leaned down, his lips skimming over my skin, sending a shockwave all the way down to my toes.
“Dean Bennett…” I whispered, but I had no idea what I planned to say next.
All my thoughts, all my senses, swirled around him.
He dipped lower, his lips, soft and warm, on the exposed swell of my breasts, sending a wave of heat radiating out from where he touched. I moaned and arched toward him.
“You can stay with me tonight,” he murmured against my chest, his voice low and husky. “Just…trust me.”
Trust. The word broke the spell, a knife to my gut. Trust wasn’t something I could afford.
Don’t trust anyone. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t trust anyone.
“Tell me…about…”
That’s as far as I got.
His lips found mine, soft and searching. His hands moved down my body, his fingers sliding over the curve of my hips, his touch firm and dominating. His lips grew wilder, more impatient, as his tongue tangled with mine.
I couldn’t bring myself to push him away.
He broke the kiss and dropped to his knees, pushing my thighs apart wider and wider until the scent of my arousal wafted up. He grazed his hand underneath my skirt and pressed his fingers against my damp panties, eliciting a gasp from me.
I brought my hands to his broad shoulders to help anchor myself to this reality. I certainly didn’t want to be anywhere else.
He slipped one finger beneath the elastic, gifting me with the slightest touch between my folds before withdrawing. He lifted his glistening finger to his mouth and sucked it into his mouth.
“You taste so good,” he groaned.
The molten heat in his eyes sped my heartbeat even faster.
He skimmed his hands up my skirt and hooked his fingers in my panties. “Let’s get you out of these, shall we?”
I nodded, and he slid my panties down slowly, inch by inch. Then he pressed open-mouthed kisses to my lower stomach as he unbuttoned my skirt. I threw back my head and moaned as the fabric slipped down to my feet. He palmed my ass and nudged me backward some, towards the edge of the chair, the same one I’d gotten myself off in.
I sank into it, my whole body pulsing with need. Even though I couldn’t see anything, it felt like our own purple haze surrounded us, like the twins and the professor, cranking our lust to maddening levels.
Xander knelt in front of me and slid his hands under my ass as he dipped his head and teased kisses up my thigh. “My god, you are so beautiful.”
His tongue flicked out, tasting my opening before flattening against me with a long, languid lick up to my clit.
I cried out and clung to the armrests, bucking my hips against his mouth. How many times had I fantasized about this? Woke up in a sweat with my fingers buried between my legs and his name on my lips?
He pulled away, and I cried out again, this time out of sheer misery.
Raising his head, his eyes smoldering, he rasped out, “Put your legs over my shoulders.”
Yeesssssssssssss, Daddy.
As soon as I repositioned myself, my knees hooked over his shoulders, my calves resting against his back, he grabbed me firmly by the hips, his fingers digging in, and jerked me closer.
“Much better,” he said, his voice gravelly. Then he lowered his head again, his gaze holding mine as his lips connected with my clit in a featherlight kiss. “You’re so fucking wet, Miss Dare.”
I whimpered. No fantasy could’ve prepared me for his breath against my skin, the sensation of his beard scratching my inner thighs, his tongue fucking me.
My breath caught, and I sank back, my body arching under his touch. His fingers traced slow circles along my quivering thighs, teasing, building that ache inside me while his mouth worked me, practiced and precise, slow and torturous.
Nothing in my life had ever, ever felt so divine.
“Oh, goddamn, Dean Bennett,” I breathed, my chest heaving with each word.
He glanced up with a smirk. “In situations like this, you can call me Xander.”
“I will definitely be calling you Dean Bennett.” I grabbed a handful of his hair and pushed his head back down.
Fuuuuuck, he felt so good.
You’re being used , a little voice whispered inside my head.
But fuck if I cared. If being used eventually led to this man’s cock buried in my pussy, use me, and use me again. After that, fucking use me again.
One of his fingers slipped inside me, and the feral sound that erupted from my throat echoed between the walls. The thought of Ms. Tissdale hearing me almost made me giggle. But then he was sucking and licking and fingerfucking me, and my entire body began to twitch. Waves of pleasure rolled through me, each one more intense than the last, bringing me higher.
But then, just as I was about to reach that dizzying peak, a strange, unexplainable feeling crept over me, a shadow of doubt laced with something deeper, something heavy, constricting, tightening with each second. It felt almost…wrong. Not in a moral way, but…
As I tried to pull back, tried to think clearly, the thought slipped away, leaving nothing but the heat and the hunger consuming me.
“Come for me, Geulia,” he said.
That was all it took for me to unravel. I orgasmed so hard that the world dropped out from beneath my feet.
***
“G eulia?” a voice called from far away.
My lips felt strange. Was I…smiling?
I opened my eyes, blinking against the sun streaming through the windows. I glanced around. This wasn’t my room. It had multiple windows and a closed door, with posh, expensive-looking furniture and artwork hanging on the walls.
Panic grabbed my heart, its talons sinking in. Where the fuck was I?
“Geulia, are you all right?”
The bed I lay in shifted, and Xander came into view. He smiled as he sat on the edge of the mattress, his button-up white shirt undone at the collar and his sleeves rolled up his thick forearms. He brushed the stray hairs of my wig off my forehead.
Oh. I was dreaming. Right?
“Where am I?” I whispered.
He ran a hand over his bearded chin. “You’re in my bed.”
My heart pounded in my chest as images of Xander kneeling in front of me, of his mouth on me, of his tongue inside me, flooded my brain.
Wait…was I not dreaming?
Holy shit, if we fucked and I didn’t remember, I would fling myself off the top of the library.
“Did we fuck?” I blurted.
He chuckled. “It didn’t go quite that far.”
I pulled myself into a sitting position. I wore a white T-shirt, too big for me, and nothing else. “I don’t remember getting changed. I don’t remember…coming here. Why did I come here?”
He licked his bottom lip, a conflicted expression in his shockingly blue eyes. “You fainted in my office. I gave you oral sex, and after you orgasmed…”
I blinked. Rapidly. “Are you telling me you made me come so hard I fucking blacked out?”
He chuckled. “I was deeply worried about you, so I carried you in here. You woke, briefly, but… I felt it best that you stay with me last night so I could keep an eye on you.”
Something didn’t feel right, but me being me, my dominant thought was: Well, I’m wide awake now, so how about getting some hands on me, too, along with your eyes?
“How…” I looked around the decadent room once again. “How did you get me here without anyone seeing us?”
He pointed to the door. “Leads straight to my office.”
Of fucking course it did. After all, this was Whispering Ivy, where trapdoors existed in the library and where bathroom “holes” in some apartments led to bustling hallways filled with students.
“Anyway, I didn’t think you would mind my undressing you and putting you in something a bit more comfortable before I put you to bed.”
His thoughtfulness pinched my heart. “Well, you’ve already seen everything, so no, I don’t mind.”
With a smile, he jerked his thumb towards a burgundy velvet couch on the side of the room. “I slept there, just so you’re aware.”
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped. “No post cunnilingus cuddles?”
He stood. Too abruptly. Shoved his hands into his pants pockets.
“I was teasing,” I said in a rush. “I know you’re not going to, like, be my boyfriend or anything. You’re the dean of the college.”
Why did that make me sound so…immature? It was the truth.
He nodded once, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
I bit my lip, trying to remember why I’d come to his office in the first place. It was like a fog divided my memories, between getting my pussy eaten by the hot dean and…whatever came immediately before that. I remembered standing outside the library talking to Connor…about… What was it? I couldn’t recall. I couldn’t remember anything until Xander’s mouth sucked my soul out through my clit.
My pussy clenched at the thought.
“So…why was I in your office again?” I asked.
“You came by to check the lost and found for your phone and just popped in to say hi.” A wicked smile played on his lips. “But then things…escalated.”
I would say so, but when had I ever “popped in to say hi?” That wasn’t my style. No, I must’ve had a reason for coming here, but what the fuck was it?
Perhaps more importantly, he now knew about my missing phone.
“Was my phone there? At the lost and found?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, but if someone turns it in, we’ll certainly let you know.”
“So…are you going to kick me out now? Since I don’t have any dirt on you?”
The talons of my panic grew sharper, piercing every chamber of my heart.
I couldn’t leave Whispering Ivy. I couldn’t .
He studied me, his eyes quizzical. Then the corner of his mouth quirked up. “Though you used…let’s say unconventional methods to be admitted into the college, had you gone through the proper channels to apply, the results would’ve been the same. You would’ve gotten in. Your recommendation letters were glowing, and your transcripts stellar, if a little light on extracurriculars.”
“Well, my favorite extracurriculars aren’t ones I could list on my application.”
His lips twitched. I wondered if he could still taste me on them.
“At any rate, let’s put that unsavory initial reunion behind us. We both behaved rather badly, didn’t we?”
Mmm, but I wanted to continue to behave badly with Xander. My pussy was wide awake now, on its third or fourth cup of coffee, so the thought of behaving badly with him, especially without the blackmail and cruel barbs, got me all hot and bothered yet again.
“Geulia?” he prompted with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh. Yes.” I nodded briskly.
“Good girl.” He stepped toward me, running his hand over the back of my head, making me wish I wasn’t wearing my wig so I could feel his fingertips in my hair.
I beamed at him. I so wanted to be his good girl who did very bad things with him.
He turned and crossed to his dresser mirror while he put on his tie, unrolled his sleeves, and adjusted the cuff links on his shirt.
His eyes met mine in the mirror. “You’re all right?”
I nodded. “Just peachy. So…any chance we can meet in your office again sometime?”
“I think the odds are very much in your favor.” His delicious smile slicked my inner thighs. “But for now, we need to get you dressed and on your way before Ms. Tissdale arrives for the day, and I need to get to work.”
Groaning, I climbed out of his bed and pulled the shirt over my head. Now nude, I walked past him to where I’d spotted my clothes neatly folded on a chair.
“Dear gods,” he murmured.
I turned around to face him, to see the volcanic heat in his eyes while he clutched the edge of his dresser. I held his gaze as I dressed as seductively as I could, even popping my underwear’s elastic against my ass and squeezing my tits together while I put on my bra.
He heaved a tortured breath and palmed his cock through his dress pants. “Geulia…”
“Which finger did you have inside me?” I asked, closing the distance between us.
He held up his left hand, folding the fingers down one by one, until the middle and index remained lifted. I took his hand in mine, kissing those fingertips, licking them. Then I took them in my mouth, sucking, swirling my tongue around them, just as I’d done to his cock.
Reaching down, I caressed the giant bulge in his pants. He ground himself into my hand with a throaty groan.
But then I released his fingers from my mouth and withdrew my hand from his hard cock.
“Don’t want to be late to class,” I told him with a sweet smile.
Because as much as I wanted to drag him to the bed and ride him like the world’s sexiest unicorn…I’m not stupid.
I didn’t really know what had changed his mind, but I believed Xander now wanted me to stay here.
So for me to get my way at this college, I needed to leave him wanting to impale me with that horn of his even more than I wanted him to.