22. Nathan
twenty-two
I might as well just sleepat school tonight. By the time I sort through my to-do list, it would be fruitless to drive home and attempt it.
There was a board meeting tonight, keeping me here until late. Typically, I’d loathe the monthly requirement, but tonight, I was grateful for the distraction.
I cannot evict Claire Benson from my mind, and I don’t know if I even want to.
After the text message she sent—the one I left without a response—I can’t manage to put my ducks in a row.
I want her. It seems like she wants me. But there are too many variables.
She’s younger than me—younger than Cal—for starters. It doesn’t detract from the fact that she’s a grown adult, and more mature than some of my colleagues.
She also works in my building. In my rule-follower eyes, it would be an abuse of authority. I don’t want her to feel like she’s being forced to be with me. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I’m up to my neck in job responsibilities that are being piled on me like lopsided Jenga blocks by a supervisor who doesn’t want them himself, my older subordinates are refusing to follow curriculum, I’m trying my best to find my footing…
And yet, all I can focus on is the message preview of the text I’ve left unread on my phone since six o’clock this morning.
Claire Benson
It’s a good thing you didn’t get rid of that makeup. I noticed a mark?—
I can’t bring myself to see if there’s more to the message. Mostly because in my heart, I want her too badly. I want her like she’d been in my office, spread out on my desk and panting. But even more? Even worse, it seems, I want the woman who has been getting me to open up with no more than the simple bat of her eyelashes and the sunshine in her smile. I’m getting too dangerously close to wanting to know her better, to letting her see every single piece of me, and I know how this will all end.
Which is exactly why I’ve been avoiding her. I’ve purposely been hiding in my office with the door shut. I even skipped out on the meeting planned with Lucy and Claire for an update on the mentorship program.
I’m a coward.
And, unfortunately for me, Claire has decided today to call me on it.
She doesn’t even knock. Then again, it is after school hours and after activities hours. For all intents and purposes, the only people in this building are myself and the night janitor. Or so I thought.
Claire comes in like a hurricane, powerful and angry, but calm in the center. It is the eye of her storm that frightens me the most. The parts of her that can remain calm in her chaos.
“So you are here.”
She doesn’t ask. She observes. The door to my office snicks shut, and she crosses her arms, her manicure biting little indents into the sleeve of her chunky sweater.
My back straightens, and I discreetly lift a pen from my desktop for something to do with my hands.
Since when do I fidget?
“Yes.”
“‘Yes?’ That’s all I get?”
I clear my throat. “You made an observation. I simply?—”
“No offense, Nathan, but cut the crap.”
My spine tingles and my face heats. In the same moment, she steels herself. I know that I’m about to get the law laid down, which is ironic. I’m typically on her end of things. What I’m even more anxious for is the slight breath I see her take. The one that tells me she’s nervous. Not about approaching me like this, not about calling me on my bull. She’s nervous because…
“You’ve been avoiding me. You didn’t answer my text. We were supposed to have a meeting about Rocco, and you told Lucy that you’d just meet with her after to go over our notes—and I get that I don’t actually work here, but I do for the time being.
“Is it because of what happened in my car? Because if it is, I get it. It was over the line and unprofessional, and maybe there was some part of me that thought you actually felt something too, which is why I sent that text, but I’m clearly misreading things, so?—”
“Stop.”
I can’t take it anymore. She freezes, startling with an intake of breath.
“Just. Stop. Claire. I’m not…”
I can’t lie to her when I am very clearly avoiding her.
With the pile of paperwork and bills on my desk as the constant reminder for why I can’t have her, there isn’t room for temptation.
She didn’t take the avoidance as a sign. She came in here and called me on my bull, and somehow, she’s got me caving to her every whim.
“I have been avoiding you.” It’s a ten-ton weight off my chest to simply tell her instead of keeping it all bottled up inside, just like every conversation we’ve had has done to me. I stumble over the fact that she’s the only person I’ve been able to do this with in far too long, and how freeing that is. Her face crumbles just the slightest, and it takes everything in me not to reach out to her yet. “But not because I don’t want you.”
My voice registers on the Richter scale with the last part of that admission, the freeing feeling sprouting wings around my chest. My gaze ticks up to take her in, and there’s a wheel of technicolor emotions slowly spinning over her features.
Relief swims in the softness of her skin. Denial heats the apples of her cheeks, now past the typical cotton candy pink, spilling its way into scarlet. But it’s the hunger in the darkness of her eyes that both cinches my heart and makes my slacks tight against the zipper. The way she slowly trails the tip of her tongue over her lips pushes me to continue spilling my guts.
“I have been avoiding you because I cannot stand not having you.”
That particular confession rattles the foundation beneath our feet. Erupts in my chest like a volcano. Makes my words come out like raspy concrete. Her gaze flares, and when her fall-themed manicure digs into the leather arm of the chair she’s standing beside, I know she feels it too.
“I can’t help it, though.” I chuckle darkly. “Now that I’ve had a taste? Just the sight of you has me imagining things I shouldn’t.”
I can’t even pretend to miss the indent of her teeth as she bites her plump bottom lip, or the raspy sound in the back of her throat that I hope is the suppression of a moan. But at the same time…
“But we can’t, Claire. You know that as much as I do. You’re an employee of this school. You’re ten years younger than I am.” Her lids flutter, and the way her cheeks start to melt back into pink tells me that our bashful dilemma is now taking over. “I know how much you hate being told what you can and can’t have…”
My thighs widen in my chair and I bow my head, clasping my hands between my spread legs. I’m washed in the shame of this whole situation. Cooped up in my office at the scene of our last crime with a beautiful woman that I absolutely cannot even think of having.
“What if I…I think I’d like that. Being told what to do. If it came from you.”
My entire body stiffens, from my toes, straight up through my cock as both it and I sit up straight. My gaze narrows, my head dipping as I do my best to understand what it is she’s saying to me.
I ask her with my eyes, in fear of the words that will come out of my mouth. She answers by lifting her chin slightly, the challenge and the want competing for dominance as her teeth press into her bottom lip again.
“You’ve been thinking about me since then, too?” she asks, a husky tone painting that dangerous question.
We shouldn’t be having this conversation. In my office, no less. But it’s after hours, the building is otherwise empty, and somehow, that gives me permission.
“Since before then,” I admit, not even sure why. “Every second of every day, Claire. I can’t get you out of my head and it’s maddening.”
It comes out tortured, because I can’t stand it, but also because I can finally tell her, can finally let her know how twisted this all is. It feels good to get it off my chest. Maybe now, she’ll see how terrible of a man I am and leave me alone to?—
“Tell me.”
Her breathiness makes my cock stir.
“Tell me… what you think about.”
I grip the arms of my chair.
“You’re treading on dangerous territory.”
She steps forward, edging around my desk. My cock thickens behind my zipper.
“Maybe I want to,” she says. “Maybe I’ve been thinking about you an insane amount too. Maybe I’ve been tracing the marks your lips left, hoping they’d stay there longer. Maybe I’m dying to find out if my thoughts are the same as yours.”
Her index finger trails along the edge of my desk before she’s fully standing in front of me.
“Maybe I just want to know that I’m not alone.”
I press my toe over the line.
I scoot my chair out from beneath the desk so she can see the evidence of what five minutes in my office talking about what we can’t have has done to me.
She gasps. And not only that, but that sweet sound and the parting of her lips lets that trapped moan escape. It tastes faintly of the last time I had her, but there’s a twinge of desperation. My cock had pressed to her for only a fraction of a moment before we’d been interrupted, and this sounds like her wanting to pick up right where we left off.
“Did I do that?”
She steps between my parted legs, and grips onto the arms of my chair, our hands meeting in a flame that will surely burn the cheap rubber.
“Mhm,” I manage, sliding my hand over the top of hers, squeezing just enough to test the waters, just enough for her to gasp, for her lips to part, and for her to start sinking to the floor between my legs. “You sure did, sweetheart.”
She drops to her knees and my vision goes black before I bully it into clarity so I can imprint this image into forever. Her wide eyes stay trained on my distended zipper, her breath now close enough that I can feel the shallow warmth over my cock. She blinks up at me in this wide eyed innocence that makes me want to stop right here and gather her into my arms instead. But then, her grip slips from the arms of the chair. When her manicure dents my khaki thighs, I catch a groan in my throat.
“I want to be good for you, Nathan,” she pleads. “Tell me how.”
My next words come out thick.
“Why don’t you be a good girl and suck what you did?”
She bats her lashes and licks her lips and I’m about to bust my load before she’s even started.
Every sound is amplified. The clanking of my belt buckle as she unlatches it, rips the leather through the loops, and lets it fall aimlessly to the floor. Her nails clinking against the button of my slacks. The low zip. Her breath stuttering as it catches on my dick. Our mingled breaths, struggling to take in air as I sit up to help her tug my pants and briefs down beneath my ass so she can finally take me all the way out.
The moan that doesn’t so much escape as it does rip free when Claire finally, finally touches me. She runs the backs of those maroon nails up and down the length of my shaft and I grunt, squeezing the arms of my chair before the beast in me has to grip her bicep instead. She blinks up at me again, licks those lips again, and I can’t help myself.
My hand looks like a bear paw over the back of hers, but the moment I wrap both of us around my length, it makes it that much hotter.
“I know you asked me to, but I really don’t think I should tell you how often I think about you.”
I squeeze the back of her hand at the base and pull up. Her chest hitches in a shallow breath.
“Please. I want to know.”
I wonder for a moment if the end of that sentence was supposed to be that someone wants me. Instead, I simply indulge her.
“I can’t stop, Claire. I’ve had you…” She squeezes the tip, then lets me, lets me, glide us back down to the base. “Everywhere. In every way. You shouldn’t…”
“You’re so big, Nathan. Holy shit,” she moans, moans, and then lathes her tongue over the tip of me. Keeping her eyes on mine. I’ve either struck gold, or I’m in another one of my fever dreams, and at this point I don’t care. “Keep going. Tell me, Nathan.”
My breathing picks up, and I grip the back of her head with my other hand to keep her right where she is.
“You’ve been wrapped up in my sheets, all spread out for me. I eat your sweet pussy until your thighs can’t stop shaking.”
This earns me another lick.
“I’ve had you up on your knees with my handprint on that sweet ass of yours.”
She clenches her thighs, and I scoot forward, sending the full head past her lips, where I hold her.
“You’ve been on your knees for me so many times, it should be a crime. I should be kissing your bruises for what I’ve done to you.”
At this, she scoots forward, her tongue darting further down my shaft, past our hands that she moves out of the way, and I swallow as I wonder if I’ve met my match.
Because when I hold her head in place and stutter out a sigh, I can feel the vibrations of her little whine on my dick. When I tell her more, about how I’ve worshipped her tits and used toys and played her like a fiddle, she edges closer to me. And when I tell her, “You can take it, sweetheart,” and fist the back of her head, her thighs press together, her lashes batting up at me like she’ll meet me toe to toe. I lick my lips and send up a silent prayer in thanks.
“Use your hand for the rest if you can’t. Been picturing these cute little manicures wrapped around my cock every night this week. Let me see it come to life.”
She moans around my cock, opens her throat, and takes me deep. And she does it all without taking her eyes from mine. I might love control in the bedroom a little more than most, but the way that Claire is simultaneously giving me what I’ve asked for while her hands are very much still on the wheel? It very well might be the death of me.
She strokes what she can’t reach with her mouth, exactly as I’ve told her to do, those little noises massaging my shaft just as well as her mouth is doing. I give her more of me, lifting my hips off the back of the chair, but the angle is wrong. She gags a little, and I’m about to slip out of that sweet mouth and pull her into my lap when my girl—my girl? Where the hell did that come from?—grunts, and lifts up higher onto her knees.
I moan, tilting my head back against the headrest so I can still see her. I fist her hair and tug her off me, but she whines in protest, her hand still pumping in that tight grip I just showed her.
“That hand is so good. You’re such a quick learner.”
Her cheeks flame at the praise, and I want to keep going, but she says, “I can take more, Nathan. Let me.”
Her head dips, her tongue seeking me, but I tug her again, testing the roughness that, just as I hoped, makes her thighs press together.
“Not here. Not now. I need you in my bed for that.”
It slips out before I can stop it, but if anything, she doubles down. Digs her nails into my thigh. Squeezes me tighter as she bends over my lap, despite my protests, and takes more of me even deeper into her throat. Praises slur from my lips as I hold her head in place.
“Fuck, sweet Claire,” I groan, massaging her head. “Such a good girl. Such a bad mouth.”
Her wicked grin precedes the moment her lips wrap around one of my balls, and I momentarily die and take a trip to heaven.
My hand wanders from her bicep down to the V-neck of her shirt. Her nipples are trying to cut through, and the moment I pinch one of them, she makes a strangled sound that vibrates my balls deliciously.
“No,” she pants, her mouth falling away, her body leaning against my legs for purchase. “This is for you.”
Except, she presses her breast right back into my hand, squeezing my shaft in the process.
“Trust me, sweetheart, this is for me.”
I slip my fingers beneath the collar of her shirt and her bra, almost finishing all over the both of us at the feel of her skin, her pert nipple, her panting breaths over my cock.
“Wanna… fuck, I want to make you feel good. I want to be so good for you, Nathan.”
She peers up at me with shiny, pouty lips, and I can’t say no. Instead, I cup her face with both hands and guide my cock back into her mouth, letting my heavy balls relax as I give into the finish line up ahead.
It doesn’t take long. She’s doing something wicked with her tongue to the underside of my head, and her grip is tight. My balls cinch up, and I grip her hair, gently tugging to pull her away.
“Gonna come, Claire,” I grunt. She doesn’t let up. Doesn’t waver in the slightest. Instead, she digs her manicure into my thighs, blinks up at me, relaxes her throat, and swallows.
“Oh God?—”
It’s white lightning to my cock. I grip her hair, her head, the hand that’s wrapped around my base, and explode into her willing throat, painting her in it. She keeps licking, keeps gently sucking, and I have to physically remove her. When she does, she’s wet and shiny with me, wearing a pleased, dazed look that I want to see forever.
“Such a good girl,” I manage. She purrs, purrs like a kitten, and I swear my heart stutters before growing a few sizes in my chest. It’s the next move that makes me consider dragging her away to a deserted island for the foreseeable future.
She presses the most chaste kiss to the middle of my shaft before tugging on my pants that are twisted above my knees. I can’t not obey her. She pulls them up the rest of the way, tucks me back into my pants, and zips me back into shape.
I thought I was spent, but that simple move, that care? I could pound her into next week, then snuggle her into the next month.
That is the image that scares me.
And yet…
She stands. Worry suddenly painting her in shades of cotton candy, in the now nervous bite of her bottom lip as she straightens the shirt that I dismantled and moves to grab her bag.
“I should… That… I?—”
“Wait.”
The insistent need to keep her in my sight, my arms, pounds on my temple like a jackhammer.
I stand. My words have shocked her into place, and I need to keep her here before she runs out with some excuse about how this was a mistake.
The only mistake would be letting her go.
I make it to her in two strides, cupping her cheek with one hand and her back with the other. Her tiny fists press against my chest, and I’m ready to back away if that’s what she wants. But they flatten. Squeeze the front of my perfectly pressed shirt. I decide in that moment that if anyone gets to put a wrinkle in my life, it will be Claire Benson and Claire Benson alone.
I want to kiss her. But kissing seems too intimate for this moment—despite what we just did. Instead, I press my forehead to hers and tilt her chin up, hoping that the swimming in my eyes can speak for me.
“I don’t want to let you go quite yet.” I breathe easier when she lets me keep holding her like this, feeling a knot inside my chest loosen that hasn’t been roused for decades. “I hated how we left things on Halloween. I don’t like that our meetings keep ending like this. I don’t want our time together to feel cheapened.”
I wonder, by the immediate shine in her eyes, if she’s going to break down. Her skin flushes to my favorite shade of pink, and a quick breath of disbelief precedes the upturn of her lips.
She’s grateful.
She swallows, then smooths her hands over my chest. The touch is like a balm to my soul. When she leans in and kisses my chest, my knees weaken.
“Thank you for making that more clear. I do have to go, but can we maybe revisit this another day?”
I nod at her sweet smile, the sunshine to my otherwise cloudy disposition. An unfamiliar inferno spreads in my chest. Despite the way she’d just gotten on her knees for me, another need overcomes me.
Make her feel wanted like this as often as I can.
I can’t sit and ponder on that. Right now, I can only press my lips to her temple and wonder how far into the deep end I’ll be able to sink before the ocean of Claire Benson swallows me whole.