Chapter 8
Eight
Lucas
G rading papers can be a mind-numbing activity. Hence why I prenumb myself with two to three glasses of Macallan 18 before getting started.
It’s a pathetic way to spend a Friday night, but until something more stimulating comes along, this is my life.
After the third glass, I consider calling someone to stave off the loneliness. There’s a beautiful ethics professor that has flirted with me once or twice and probably isn’t opposed to booty calls. Maybe I should text her.
There’s some light jazz playing in the living room as I pick up my phone and scroll for Dr. Laura Hanson’s phone number.
God, when was the last time I got laid? It’s been too long. No wonder I’ve been so tense lately.
As I find Laura’s number, I pause, hovering my thumb over the button to call her. Suddenly, I’m thinking about my visit to Sadie’s house this morning, and the corner of my mouth lifts in a smirk.
I’ve never once considered myself a Dom or kinky at all. I wouldn’t dare ask a woman to do anything like that, but it does make me wonder…
With the right partner, it might be fun.
I wonder if Laura would submit to me. Would she crawl on the floor for me? Let me control her?
I doubt it. And she wouldn’t argue back either. Not in a defiantly hot and bratty way.
And this is how I know I’m drunk. Because suddenly, I’m imagining one of my students and that smart mouth of hers. The way Sadie argues with me sets my body on fire. Almost like she wants to be punished.
I’d love to punish her. I’d put her over my knee. Spank the shit out of her ass until she promises to be good—even though we both know she’ll mouth off again just to get me riled up. I’d love to fold her over this table and wrinkle up these essays as I fuck her.
Yep. I’m drunk.
It’s so depraved, but I’m about to pull my cock out and run through the entire fantasy in my head when a banging at my door stops me. My first thought is that it must be Isaac, so I shove away my dirty thoughts, and my cock quickly deflates.
When I reach the front door, I pull it open to find the object of my fantasies standing on my doormat, and I blink in surprise.
“How does it feel to have people show up unannounced at your house?” she asks, hands on her hips.
I gaze down at her in confusion as I glance around the street behind her. “How did you find out where I lived?”
“Same way you found out where I live,” she snaps back. Then, to my surprise, she shoves open the door to my house and lets herself in. I’m too dumbfounded to argue.
“Wait,” I say as I slam the door and turn to find her standing in my living room. “I found your address on the student registry.”
“Oh,” she replies, turning toward me with a tilt to her head. “I just asked Sage for your address.”
“And she gave it to you?” I say with an astonished laugh.
“Yeah, well…using the school registry to show up to a st udent’s house uninvited probably isn’t allowed either, so we’re even.” She plants her hands back on her hips and gives me a quirky, crooked smirk.
It makes me smile, but I try to hide it. I’m supposed to be stern and commanding with her, but when she looks so goddamn cute, she makes it hard.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks with a notch in her brow. “Are you drunk?”
I nod toward the table where the bottle is sitting open amid a sea of ungraded papers and a stack of red pens.
“Oh,” she replies with a nod. “Wish I could join you, but…you know…” She waves toward her stomach.
Passing her by, I head to my kitchen and retrieve a bottle of water for her instead. “So, what are you doing here?” I ask, trying not to think about the fantasy running through my head just a few minutes ago. “Let me guess,” I say as I pass her the water. “You’re here to accept my offer.”
She rolls her eyes as she takes the bottle. “You wish.”
I do.
“The truth is,” she adds after taking a swig, “I need someone to talk to. Someone who won’t be blindly supportive of everything I do. Someone who will tell me like it is and be brutally honest, maybe even to a fault.”
“At your service,” I say with a drunk smirk as I grab my glass and lead her to my living room. The vinyl has reached the end of the A-side, so I lift the case and turn it to the B-side. Resetting the needle, I wait until the soft music emanates from the speakers before closing the case and finding my seat in the soft brown leather chair.
She’s folded up on my couch, one leg tucked beneath her as she hugs the other knee to her chest. My eyes land on the blue paint on her toenails, her sandals discarded across the floor of my house. She’s wearing a pair of ripped denim shorts, and the way she’s sitting exposes her entire thigh all the way up, and it’s incredibly distracting .
“Go ahead,” I say after taking a sip of my whiskey.
Sadie is chewing the inside of her lip as she stares at me, clearly feeling uneasy. I watch as she takes a long, deep breath, wincing before blurting out, “I’m going to keep this baby.”
This statement doesn’t really elicit anything from me emotionally. To be honest, I sort of assumed she’d keep it. I don’t know why. And it doesn’t matter either way.
“Say something,” she snaps at me, and I blink a few times before reacting.
“What would you like me to say, Miss Green?”
She throws her hands up in exasperation. “Tell me I’m being irresponsible and that I have no place trying to raise a child when I’m such a mess myself. Tell me it’s the wrong choice. Just tell me the responsible thing to do would be to get an abortion and get my own life together before bringing another life into the world.”
My brows pinch inward as I stare at her and try to formulate my answer.
“You think that’s what I should say?” I ask.
“Yes. I think that’s what you want to say.”
“That’s not what I want to say,” I argue.
“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it? And I asked you to be brutally honest.”
I set my glass on the coffee table and lean forward. Taking off my glasses, I rub at the bridge of my nose, before putting them back on and looking at her. “Miss Green, do you want to keep the baby?”
I watch the subtle movement of her throat as she swallows. “Yes. But…”
“No buts. You’ll figure the rest out. If that’s what you want, then that’s the right answer.”
She stares at me for a moment, a wrinkle forming between her eyes. Then, she lets out a loud, guttural noise.
“Ugh!” she cries, slapping her hands over her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“That is not helpful, and I thought you, of all people, would tell me that I need to be smart about this and do the responsible thing.”
I pick up my glass and take another sip. “Sorry, Miss Green, but I’m not in the business of telling women what to do with their bodies.”
“But I thought…” she argues.
As our gazes meet, I let my eyes roll as I stand up. “Not like that .”
I can understand the irony of that statement since we literally had a conversation this morning about how I may or may not be the kind of guy who does, in fact, like to tell women what to do with their bodies. I am a bit of a control freak—I can admit it.
And while it’s not inherently sexual, I can see how fun it would be.
But that is not what I’m talking about with Sadie, and she knows it.
Avoiding that topic of conversation again, I disappear into the hallway and flip the light on in the guest bedroom.
“Come here, Miss Green,” I call in a low, commanding tone.
I hear her rise from the couch and make her way down the hall. As she appears in the doorway behind me, I turn around to find her arms crossed and her eyes scanning the cozy space.
“I never said I was moving in here,” she states defiantly.
“I know you didn’t, but I’m showing you anyway.”
“And what about when the baby comes?” she asks, looking up at me with her brows raised.
“I’ll be gone by then. I’ve applied to a program in England. I leave in the spring and I’ll be gone for a year. You can rent this house and have it to yourself. Or move out by then. Doesn’t matter to me, but what I’m offering you is more than a room, Miss Green. You understand? By the time the baby comes, you’ll have your finances in order. You’ll have graduated and you won’t feel like you do now—like a mess.”
Her curious gaze lingers on my face, and before long, it starts to burn .
“Who lived here before?” she asks softly, those warm, green eyes still focused on me.
I clear my throat. “No one.”
When she doesn’t look away, I get the feeling that she doesn’t believe me. But Sadie is too closely tied to my family for me to be honest about this. I can’t tell her that Isaac has been quasi living with me because she could pass that information on to Sage, who would then tell her husband, Adam.
And the last thing I need is a fired-up Adam on my case.
If she can see through my lie, she isn’t arguing about it. Instead, she takes a deep breath and lets out a heavy sigh.
“Fine.”
My head spins toward her in surprise. I have to quickly train my expression not to come off as too eager or excited.
“But—” she snaps, holding up a finger. “We need boundaries. I want your help, but you can’t really control every aspect of my life. I’d smother you in your sleep if you tried that.”
“That’s fair,” I reply, leaning against the opposite side of the doorframe with my arms crossed. “But you have to be open to this. I’m doing it for your own good.”
“I’m open to it,” she says with a shrug. “I am a strong, independent woman.”
“I know you are.”
“And even though I don’t need a Dom or a man, I’m not going to lie…I need help.”
“I want to help,” I reply gently.
“I still don’t understand why.” The corner of her mouth lifts in a smirk, creating dimples in her cheeks and making the splatter of freckles across her nose shine in the room’s overhead light.
Lifting my shoulders in a shrug, I say, “I don’t either. Maybe it’s just goodwill and benevolence.”
A loud cackle flies from her mouth. “Ha! More like a God complex and arrogance.”
I fight a smile as I nod. “Maybe.”
As she steps into the room, surveying the queen-size bed and letting her hand glide over the bedspread, she looks back at me with a warning. “Please don’t make me regret this, Dr. Goode.”
My eyes float downward to the way her ass fills those ripped denim shorts. Those filthy fantasies of mine from earlier harken back to my mind.
Stop it . I can’t be entertaining these thoughts if she’s going to stay here.
As I back out the room, I coldly reply, “Then, don’t disappoint me, Miss Green.”