Chapter 13
GRADY
T he second Lina disappeared into the bathroom, the air between us shifted. All the pretense, all the careful distance I’d been maintaining—it evaporated like smoke. Cece was looking at me like she wanted to devour me, and fuck, I wanted to let her.
“You’re killing me,” I said under my breath, leaning forward across the small table.
“Good,” she whispered back, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “You started this when you invited me for drinks.”
“I invited both of you.”
“Bullshit. You invited me . She just happened to be standing there.” Cece’s voice was low, husky, and it went straight to my cock.
She wasn’t wrong. There had most definitely been an ulterior motive.
I’d practically dared her to show up, and now I was paying the price.
My jeans were getting tighter by the second, and all I could think about was how her lips had felt against mine, how perfectly she’d fit against me on that couch.
“This is a bad idea,” I said.
“Yep. Sure is.”
“Want another drink?” I asked.
“I do.”
“I’m gonna have to wave the bartender over. I can’t stand up.”
“Why not?” She asked the question with sweetness in her voice as she batted those long eyelashes.
I grumbled under my breath and turned to look at the woman tending bar. I held up my finger, gestured to the table to indicate what we wanted, and gave a thumbs-up.
“I think I’m a little buzzed.” Lina giggled as she took her seat. She had only had one drink, so I doubted she was feeling anything.
The server brought our second round over.
Lina’s eyes lit up. “Ah, you’re so sweet!”
She reached across the table again, this time placing her hand directly on top of mine. Her palm was clammy and her grip was desperate. I pulled my hand away and wrapped it around my beer bottle instead.
“So, Professor Stone, do you have a girlfriend?” Lina asked.
If I did, I doubted my girlfriend would be happy with you pawing at me.
Cece’s eyebrows shot up, and she took a long pull from her beer, watching me with a question in her eyes.
Her lips wrapped around the opening in a way that made my brain short circuit.
She would have absolutely gone down on me if we’d been in my office an extra five minutes.
Seeing her lips around that damn bottle was making my cock jump.
“That’s not really appropriate, Lina,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Oh, come on, we’re just having drinks. We’re friends now, right?” She giggled again, that high-pitched sound grating against my nerves. “I bet you have women throwing themselves at you all the time. I mean, look at you.”
Cece looked like she was going to bite off the top of the bottle and use it as a weapon. Jealousy? I flashed Cece a look.
“I bet you’re the kind of professor who gives extra credit,” Lina purred, fingers trailing along the condensation of her glass. Her second mimosa wasn’t even half-empty, but she was acting like she had twenty. Slurring slightly, leaning in too close, strategically tilting her chest toward me.
I kept my hands flat on the table and didn’t flinch. “I don’t offer extra credit. I give the grade you earn.”
“Ooh, so stern,” she said with a mock shiver. “Bet you’re like that in all areas of life. That alpha thing. Dominating.”
Cece choked on her beer.
I turned to her automatically, ready to thump her back or give her my Heimlich-certified arms, but she waved me off, eyes watering as she fought back a laugh. “Sorry. Just went down wrong.” The look she gave me wasn’t sorry. It was full of wicked delight.
She was clearly still pissed I stopped things from going too far. But she had to understand why. She was my TA. We couldn’t cross that line. I couldn’t have her. Not officially. Not publicly. Not even privately, without risking everything I’d built.
And yet I kept looking at her like a starving man at a buffet with his jaw wired shut.
Dressed in a fitted blouse and tight jeans, she was elegance and quiet fire.
She didn’t need to try. She didn’t laugh like a fake little wind-up toy or flash her cleavage like a tactical maneuver.
Cece just existed in my orbit and made it impossible to breathe.
I could take her hand and lead her into my office for round two and I knew she’d let me.
Let. That was a joke. She’d throw me on the couch and have her way with me. A flashback rocked through me and I let out a breath.
“You okay, Professor Stone?” she asked, her voice all casual innocence.
“No,” I muttered into my beer. “I’m in hell.”
She laughed and Lina blinked at us, clearly missing the thread.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could sit there. Every time Lina leaned in to whisper something dumb, I wanted to ask Felix to bring a bucket of ice water and just dump it over my own head. Or her head.
“I’ve always liked messing around with old things,” Lina said.
I cocked an eyebrow. It wasn’t hard to miss what she was saying, but I wasn’t exactly old. Older, but not old.
“Yeah?” Cece asked casually.
“Oh yeah.” Lina giggled, completely oblivious to the tension crackling between Cece and me. “I just love getting my hands on something that’s been around the block, you know? Something with experience.” She looked directly at me when she said it, batting her eyelashes.
Cece’s jaw tightened. “How fascinating. I prefer things that still have some life left in them. All that vigor and stamina.” Her eyes locked on mine. “Youth has its advantages.”
Now it was my turn to choke on my beer. These two were going to be the death of me.
“I think experience beats enthusiasm every time,” Lina countered, leaning so far forward I was genuinely concerned she might fall out of her chair. Or her shirt. “A man who knows what he’s doing is so much better than some fumbling college boy.”
“Who says you can’t have both?” Cece asked sweetly. “Someone experienced enough to know what they’re doing, but young enough to do it all night long.”
I was barely keeping my composure. Because while Lina thought she was playing sexy co-ed, what really did me in was Cece, just sitting there wrapping her lips around that damn bottle. She didn’t know what she was doing to me. Except she did. Oh, she did.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’ve got to hit the office for a bit,” I said, standing too fast. “Paperwork, schedule updates. You two are welcome to hang out, though. Drinks are on me tonight.”
Lina looked up at me, popping her lip out and doing her best to offer a sexy pout. “You’re leaving? But the night’s just getting started.”
“I’ve got a long day tomorrow.” I looked at Cece. “Enjoy your evening.”
She didn’t say anything. Just tilted her head and watched me walk away. I could feel her eyes tracking me like a heat-seeking missile. I ducked into the bar’s back hallway and let myself into the office, closing the door behind me and locking it.
For a full ten seconds, I stood there in the dark, breathing like I’d just run a mile.
“Fuck me,” I groaned.
I was losing my damn mind over her.
There was a knock at the door. My first thought was Cece.
She’d followed me into the office. And I didn’t have the strength to reject her.
I didn’t want to reject her. The door cracked open and Felix came in, holding a cup of coffee.
“Figured you could use something to sober you up,” he said, smirking.
“I’m good.”
“You’re lying,” he said, handing me the cup anyway. “You okay?”
“Nope.” I took a sip of the coffee and leaned against the desk. “Those girls out there... the blonde one, Lina?—”
“Oh, I saw. If that table hadn’t been in the way, she would have mounted you right there in front of God and everybody.”
“Pretending to be drunk, too. She’s not. She’s playing some kind of game.”
“She’s a student?”
“One of my TAs. Sort of shoved into the role by her mother. Big donor. Board member. The usual political crap.”
Felix whistled. “That’s a live grenade right there.”
“I know. I’m handling her like a Sumerian cuneiform tablet.”
Felix gave me a look. “Delicately?”
“Exactly.”
He chuckled. “What about the other one?”
I hesitated.
“Brown hair, beer drinker, laughs at your jokes?—”
“She’s not the problem.”
“But she is,” Felix guessed.
I didn’t answer.
“Want me to let you know when they leave?” he offered, already turning back toward the door.
“Please.”
Felix stepped out and came back maybe twenty seconds later. “Too late. They’re already gone. Not together, obviously. You could’ve cut the tension between those two with a bone saw. My money was on the busty one. She looked like she could throw down.”
“Do you even know what that means?”
He grinned. “I watch TV. I know all the lingo.”
I needed to go home and take a very long, cold shower. I left the coffee cup on the desk and headed out the back. But when I stepped outside, I saw her.
In the dim glow of the parking lot light, Cece was standing next to her car, hood up, arms crossed, hair pulled back and staring at the car.
I strolled over and stood next to her. “What are we looking at?”
“The biggest piece of shit car on the road.”
“Technically, it’s in a parking lot.”
She shot me a look. “It’s dead either way.”
I could see the problem from where I stood. I had been stranded in jungles and in the middle of nowhere in some pretty sketchy places. I had learned my way around an engine. I leaned forward and jiggled a few things before I found the loose battery cable.
I used the heel of my palm to pound it down and then twisted.
I tightened it and stood back. “Try it now.”
She slid into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the engine sputtered to life. I grimaced at the smell of burning oil and the plume of white smoke exploding from the back of the car.
She looked up at me through the windshield and gave a tiny fist pump. “You’re a hero.”
She stepped out of the car and came around to the front. I slammed the hood down and turned to face her. We were too close. That same electricity buzzed between us again, like it always did, wild and alive and impossible to ignore.
“Thank you,” she said, eyes on mine.
“Any time.”
A beat passed. Two.
She leaned in a little.
So did I.
And then I stopped.
Because if I kissed her now, I wouldn’t stop. I’d pull her into my car, or hers, or back inside the bar and press her up against my office door and forget every single reason we couldn’t do this.
I stepped back. “Goodnight, Cece.”
She blinked, disappointment flashing before she masked it. “Goodnight, Professor Stone.”
I turned and walked away before I could regret it.
Back inside, Felix raised an eyebrow. “I thought you left.”
“Shot,” I said. “Now.”
A cold shower was not going to do it. I needed liquor.