53. Epilogue
I’m not sure why I’m nervous, but I am.
“Relax,” SJ says. “You’re fine. It’s fine.”
I take a deep breath and she puts her hand on my forearm and gives it a squeeze.
“You’re going to be fine, Kiernan.”
It’s the first day of the fall semester. My morning classes have all been bullshit—outlines and a review of the syllabus and bad dad jokes—but SJ has been enjoying herself immensely. Our afternoons look vastly different; she’s on her way to A History of Vampires in Literature, and I’m on my way to Numerical Methods of Partial Differential Equations.
I hover in the doorway, afraid to go in.
She rolls her eyes. “Kiernan, I really don’t know why you’re so nervous. You’re—”
“Kiernan,” he purrs.
That's why I'm nervous…
I close my eyes at the sound of his voice. Why does he always fucking sound like he’s licking me? My brain is flooded with images from this morning—his idea of a first day of school send-off—and my lips part, breath quickening.
SJ clears her throat. “James,” she says drily.
“Sarah-Jean.”
I can picture him nodding curtly as he says her name. He won’t call her SJ—not since she gave him shit for proposing on the floor of a bathroom—and they’ve been circling each other like wolves all summer. I roll my eyes behind my closed eyelids.
SMACK! I yelp and scoot forward, eyes flying open and ass stinging.
“Don’t roll your eyes,” he says.
I stick my tongue out at him and his jaw clenches.
SJ sighs and turns to head down the hall. “Whelp, that’s my cue to leave,” she says. She blows me a kiss. “Don’t forget you’re the smartest one in the room!”
James narrows his eyes at her but she’s already fluffing off and around the corner, attracting the attention of many-a lacrosse player.
“Be nice,” I say to him. “You wanted to impress her, once upon a time. Remember?”
“I’ve never wanted to impress anyone but you, baby,” he murmurs, catching my elbow and steering me into the classroom.
“I want you two to get along.”
“We do.”
“ James .”
“ Kiernan.”
“Just once, could you—”
He spins me around and pushes me against his desk, my body bowing backwards as he grabs a fistful of hair and kisses me—hard—like half a morning apart was too long.
I push him away a little and try to catch my breath. “Stop distracting me from this conversation—”
His hand finds its way between my legs and my hands slacken. He smiles against my mouth and presses his hips into me. I can feel his cock—hard, always hard for me—on my thigh as he grinds the heel of his hand into my pussy, rubbing me through my jeans.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he murmurs.
“It’s not even lunch,” I gasp.
He bites my lip and I yelp, but he’s already kissing it, licking it, soothing it with his mouth.
“Be my TA,” he says. His voice sounds husky, a little bit desperate. “Finish this semester and then be my TA.”
“No.”
“ Yes.”
“ No.”
“I can’t go all day without seeing you. Not anymore. Not after this summer…”
His lips slide to my throat and he starts to suck, gently, softly, his hand grinding harder into me and his hips matching as he rubs his dick against my leg like a horny teenager. My hands slide into his hair and I rub my thumbs over his temples—he’s got a little bit of grey, there—and smile.
“It’s not a good idea, James.”
He sucks a little harder. “Why not?”
My breathing is fast, shallow, my pussy clenching against his hand. “Because you’re a math professor, not a porn director.”
“Maybe they’d actually learn something…” he grumbles.
I tip my head back and laugh and he pauses, his whole body still, as he pulls back and looks at me. He’s staring at me like he’s hungry. He’s staring at me like he’s never seen me before. He’s staring at me like he just won the fucking lottery.
“ Hem hem…”
I jump at the noise but he doesn’t budge, just keeps staring at me. I turn my head and flush at the sight of a student in the doorway, shifting his weight and looking profusely awkward. I slide sideways off the desk, face beet red, and try to remember if I was carrying anything. Did I have a bag? Did I have books?
Students start pouring in and a familiar face in the crowd—Jordan, maybe?—from last semester grins at me.
“Banging the students already Professor?” he says.
James turns to look at him and his grin fades, a little.
“You mean my wife?”
There’s a splattering sound and we all turn to look. Shannon is standing in the doorway, her mandible at risk of detaching from her face her mouth is hanging open so far, with two extra-large Tim Horton’s cups making puddles at her feet.
“You got some on your jeans,” I say coldly as James slides his palm against my lower back and flexes his fingers.
“Go sit baby,” he says, dropping a kiss on the top of my head.
I take a seat a few rows back and watch him watch his students. He looks—as always—unimpressed. But I can feel his gaze on me, always drawn back, hot and heavy and I know I am going to be sore as fuck tonight when he gets home. I clench my thighs, wondering if he’s going to hang me up on the balcony again…
“Everyone turn to page eighteen, please,” he says loudly. The class quiets down and Shannon settles in her chair by the door. He picks up a piece of chalk and starts drawing—
“Sir?” someone asks.
“What.” He doesn’t even turn around. I feel my mouth twitch.
“Um, are we going to cover the syllabus, or…”
He pauses mid-formula, shoulders tense, and turns around slowly. The girl shrinks back in her seat and I wince on her behalf. That fucking look. He could melt concrete.
“Can you read?” he asks pleasantly.
She furrows her brow.
“I assume you can read. I wasn’t aware that needed to be listed as a prerequisite for this class.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. God you’re such a fucking dick, James.
“Yes, I can read…” she says quietly.
“Good. Because my lesson plan doesn’t include reading things out loud for you, ” he says, voice like razors.
The guy—Jordan—bravely sticks up his hand. James narrows his eyes but Jordan just shrugs.
“Listen, I don’t feel like being eviscerated in public or anything, but the bookstore was sold out of the supplementary material on the reading list. Do you have an electronic version, so I can make sure I’ve read it before we cover it next week?”
My mouth twitches again. James will like this guy. He’s already read the syllabus and knows next week’s lesson plan.
“E-mail my TA. She can provide you with—”
I pull my copy out of my bag and hand it to him. “Here,” I say.
James and Jordan both frown, and I flush a little at the feeling of 100 people staring at the back of my head.
“You don’t need it?” Jordan asks, taking it from my hand.
I shrug.
“Thanks…” he says.
“Oh come on,” the other girl whines. “You’re going to pretend you don’t need the textbook just because you’re fucking the teacher?”
The silence is deafening.
I stare at him— my husband— his hackles up and a pheremonal warning quite literally oozing out of him to smother anyone who could have ever questioned my right to be here. Tall, handsome, the meanest and kindest person I’ve ever met. The man who golfs with my dad on Sundays even though he hates golf. Who pretends he doesn’t like SJ but quietly respects how territorial she is, and secretly feels guilty about stealing me away in the night and denying her Maid of Honour status. Who wakes me up at four a.m. to fill every hole I have with cum and eat it out of all of them. Who doesn’t like when the sheets are fresh, because they don’t smell like me.
“She doesn’t need the textbook because she spent the summer drafting it,” he says in a falsely pleasant voice. The room is so tense you could slice it like pie and serve it with ice cream. He looks at me, his face softening for a moment, and then he turns his face back to her—hard and cold, again. “ She wrote it.”
I smile and bite my lip.
“Co-wrote.”