4. Finn
4
FINN
“ N ow, I want you to really think about what the writer is trying to tell you here. This isn’t the curtains are red so the character is angry . This goes much deeper. The language used to really paint a picture of how our character feels in this house is what’s important here.”
Holding the book aloft, leather balanced against my fingertips, I pace back and forth across the stage.
“So, can anyone pick out an example for me?”
A sea of faces stares back at me, most of them void of any enthusiastic thought or comprehension—the pain of a Monday morning lecture after a wild weekend of students going crazy. A few hands dot up around the lecture hall as I remove my glasses, so I use the glasses leg to indicate to the person closest.
“Aria.”
“Well…” The petite redhead in the front row straightens up and spreads one hand down the pages. “Here, when he says he doesn’t want to touch the banister because he thinks he’ll leave a smudge. We’ve never been told that he’s a dirty character, so it implies that he believes his very presence in this place is enough to dirty the banister.”
So, some have been listening. “That’s an astute observation.” Returning my glasses to my face, I shoot her a warm smile and then look at the rest of the class. “Does anyone else want to build on what Aria is saying?”
“It’s about wealth,” comes a voice from a few rows up. Scanning the crowd, I spot Mike in the third row.
“Expand?”
“Well, the house he’s in is clearly rich beyond belief, right? And we know he’s poor as dirt. So it’s playing into the dirty poor, clean rich, but it’s not directly stated because it’s his own feelings that create that line.” Mike sticks out his chin slightly. “This house is so beautiful and fancy that it makes him aware that he’s wearing a four-dollar shirt and his shoes were on sale. Completely different worlds.”
“Interesting.” I nod just once.
“Is that correct?” Mike lifts a brow.
“There’s no right or wrong answer here,” I say, pausing my pacing. “It’s all about interpretation. After all, if you’re someone who shares a house like the one we’re reading about, you might think differently. You might be more sympathetic toward our main character rather than irate toward the rich, nameless people we’ve yet to meet.”
Mike rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t help me pass an exam.”
“Not with that attitude.” With a light smirk, I resume my pacing. “It’s important to note that this kind of subtlety is everywhere, not just in fiction. Think about the most recent news article you’ve read. There’s bias there, even if it’s subtle. Words are the most powerful thing in the world. They can make us laugh or cry, can anger us, or leave us feeling so incredibly hopeless. Or?—”
Suddenly, the door to the lecture hall stumbles open and in runs Emma Pierce, thirty minutes late for my class.
Emma Pierce.
It’s the umpteenth time I’ve seen her over these past months, yet she takes my breath away every single time. Her beautiful, curvaceous body is hidden away under a yellow sundress adorned with flowers. A matching golden streak mingles amongst her dark hair, and when she shoots me a smile, the apples of her cheeks are so rosy that I ache to bite them.
“Sorry!” She stumbles over herself, wrestling with her bag and pushing a few short strands of hair away from her forehead. “I slept in. I’m so sorry!”
With barely a glance at me, Emma hurries up the steps and throws herself into her usual seat next to her friend, Ana.
She utterly captures my attention for seconds that stretch for a lifetime.
Every morning, I wake up with the same promise. I have to keep my distance from her. First and foremost, she’s a student. The trouble I would get into is barely even worth thinking about. And second, I’m certain that if I gave in to her insistent flirting and her cheeky smiles, I would be addicted. She’s beautiful and bright, with a laugh so loud that it brings me joy to hear it in the halls. When she flirts with me, it takes all my strength not to grab her and kiss her so deeply that our chests crush and our lungs scream for air.
Air I would deny myself just so I could taste her a little longer.
And each day, my resolve weakens a little more.
“Or?” Aria prompts from the front row. I clear my throat and avert my gaze from Emma.
“Or words can make us feel like we are drowning. They can evoke so much passion that we find ourselves craving the love and attention of someone who exists only in our mind.”
“Like porn?” calls out a male voice from the back of the hall. A ripple of laughter follows, moving through the students and I can’t hide my own smile.
“You laugh,” I say, pacing back to my desk. “But you’re on the right track. Written stimuli can be almost as powerful as physical touch. It might not compare to the real thing, but it’s another example of emotive language. Especially when words take on a double meaning.”
Flipping through the book, I face the class and find the page I need. Then I lift my eyes and lock onto Emma who looks right back at me.
“Emma, could you read the beginning of Chapter 37?”
Emma’s head tilts down and she flips through her book, leading the wave of paper rustling as the class follows suit. It’s a daring request. I’m pushing a boundary here and I know it, but I am a weak man. I know I cannot have her, no matter how much I crave her but that doesn’t mean I need to deny myself just a drop.
“I want to fuck her,” Emma reads aloud. “I want to tear that dress from her body and send her pearls scattering across the table like the remnants of my sanity. She captivates me. Makes me a prisoner within my own mind. I can’t breathe when she’s in the same room as me, and I can’t do anything about it. So I dream about it instead. Of tearing her clothes from her body and displaying her beauty just for me. I want to watch her pretty red lips stretch around my cock, want to see the tears in her eyes as she chokes, want to hear the simplest beg pass her lips as I fuck her pussy with all my might.”
Those with a more immature take on life burst into giggles and laughter. Emma, however, slowly lifts her eyes to meet mine and doesn’t look away. Her attention holds me in place, and I suspect I may have taken a step that I can’t retract. Listening to the filth pour from her pretty, plush lips creates a pool of warmth down in my gut.
“Thank you, Emma.” It takes every ounce of self-control to keep my voice from wavering. “Can anyone tell me why I picked that passage?”
“Because you’re horny?” calls a voice. Laughter ripples around the room and I match it, keeping most of my attention on Emma.
“Ah, you’ve caught me,” I joke. “But no. That passage is clear. Our main character wants to fuck the woman he is in love with. She’s consuming his every thought, haunting his steps by how much he desires her. But if I were to go outside right now and yell the word fuck , would anyone think I was talking about sex?”
The class turns into bobbleheads. “No.”
“Exactly. Because we know that fuck is a swear. But it can also mean sex. In the same way that words can make us feel things, the context of usage is also crucial.”
The rest of the lecture goes pretty smoothly, but underneath the smiles and laughs I give while encouraging my students, I know I’ve taken a step down a dangerous path. Having Emma read out that passage was for my own pleasure and nothing else. A moment of weakness in the face of the woman I desire. Watching her talk so much filth while looking so utterly beautiful five rows away turned me on.
I shouldn’t give in to her, but I can’t help it. It’s a losing battle and I’m a drowning man. Maybe it’s the sundress or the fact that when I started class today and she was absent, all I felt was crushing disappointment. Her arrival was exhilarating and I lost my senses.
My infatuation has no limits.
Class ends, and as the students file past me, saying their goodbyes, my attention remains on one woman.
“Emma.”
Her eyes snap to me immediately, landing on me with the force of a physical touch, and it’s lucky I’m already seated at my desk.
“Yes?”
I motion her over with one hand. Emma frowns lightly, then she turns to her friend and says something I can’t hear. Ana nods and continues out of the class while Emma approaches my desk with her usual bright, sunny smile.
“What’s up?”
“I wanted to check in with you and see if you still needed help with your assignment?”
Emma lifts a brow, and the way she cocks her hip as she stands before me accentuates the deep curve of her backside and swell of her breasts. My mouth runs dry even as I keep my attention fixed on her eyes.
“Why do you think I need help?” Her voice has a humorous lilt, and as we stare at one another, her lower lip slowly curls in past her teeth.
“You’re not one to struggle in class,” I assure her. “So I wouldn’t normally follow up on this, but I am aware that this course doesn’t hold much passion for you.”
“I like it,” Emma says quickly. “I like the course and the class. But…sure, it can be stuffy sometimes.”
“Stuffy?” I lift one brow, and Emma laughs her wonderfully loud laugh.
“You know what I mean. It’s not my immediate passion, no. But there are some aspects that I love .” Her eyes glitter, finally breaking eye contact. I watch as her attention drifts down me and an unexpected flush of warmth prickles across my chest and shoulders.
“Perhaps I need more books like that passage earlier,” I say softly.
Reel it in, Finn .
“Maybe.” Emma lifts one shoulder while adjusting her bag strap. “But either way, I don’t need help anymore.”
My brows pull south slightly. I’d been under the impression that her request for help last week had simply been an attempt to get closer to me, given how obvious her flirting has been. Yet, she stands here now with a completely different attitude.
Maybe that’s for the best, given how torturous it would be to tutor her one-on-one.
“Are you sure?”
“Yep!” Her lips pop softly around the P. “Don’t worry, I found someone else to service me.” With a bright smile, Emma turns away and strides away from my desk.
Someone else ?
Who else out there would deserve her?
Silence falls, and an unexpectedly sharp, bitter pang of jealousy lances through my chest.
There can’t be someone else, can there?