Chapter 27
GRADY
I sat alone at my desk, the late-afternoon light highlighting the dust in the air.
I was used to the dust. I kind of thrived in it.
I didn’t spend a lot of time in my small office and couldn’t see the need to regularly clean the place.
It was slightly chaotic. I didn’t have all the neat and tidy bookshelves like other professors.
I had a few trinkets from digs I had been on, but nothing of real value.
I had quizzes to grade from all of my classes.
I had them in neat stacks to keep them sorted.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t getting very far.
My mind kept drifting, pulled back to Cece and the way she’d looked at me when I told her she couldn’t go on the dive trip.
That fire in her eyes and the anger that practically bubbled out of her.
It was hot. Sexy as hell. It had taken everything in me not to pull her into my arms and tell her I was an idiot.
But I couldn’t. I was an idiot, but that didn’t change the fact that I’d made the right call.
I rubbed my temples, trying to shake off the image of her storming away from The Library, her red hair catching the sunlight like a flame.
She was so damn stubborn, so determined to prove she could handle anything.
And I suspected she could, but that didn’t mean I was wrong for wanting to protect her. Did it?
I forced myself to check the quiz, using my red pen to write a note in the margin. Cece had more diving experience in her pinky finger than most of my students had in their entire bodies. She didn’t need me to protect her from a storm. She needed me to trust her.
The quizzes should have been easy to grade. Mostly multiple choice, but the essay questions were where things got tricky. I couldn’t seem to focus on what I was reading. They could be writing about what shoes to wear with a skirt and I wouldn’t know the difference.
“Dammit,” I muttered.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the way she’d felt in my arms, the way her body had responded to mine.
The memory of her skin against mine, the sound of her moans, the way she’d looked at me with those fiery blue eyes—it was all burned into my brain.
I could still feel the heat of her. And then there was the way she’d tasted, like salt and sweetness, like something I could never get enough of.
My cock jumped, practically pounding against the underside of my desk.
I shifted in my chair, trying to focus on the quiz in front of me, but it was no use. Sexy images kept flashing through my mind. There was no stopping the slide show of her on my kitchen counter. Her on the couch. Me between her thighs in the locker room.
I sighed, running a hand through my hair. I knew I’d screwed up. I’d thrown out all my rules and made a mess of things. But damn if I could bring myself to regret it. Not when it had felt so right. Not when she had felt so right.
Don’t fuck Cece. Don’t fuck Cece.
I picked up the next quiz. This was a job for my TAs.
They should be grading the quizzes. It was simple enough work, but I was being a big fat coward.
I couldn’t face Cece. And I didn’t want to deal with Lina.
So, instead of using the assistants as they were intended, I was hiding and doing the tedious job myself.
A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts, which might just be a good thing, considering I was stuck in a Cece spiral.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Lina walked in, and it wasn’t a good thing at all.
She smiled. “Hi, what are you up to?”
“Working,” I answered.
I didn’t mean to sound annoyed, but I was. Lina was the kind of person that found your last nerve and played it like a banjo. I didn’t know if it was intentional, but it felt like it.
“I can help with that,” she said. “Those are the quizzes from the other day, right?”
I didn’t miss the fact she was dressed like she was going out to the club.
Did she actually walk around campus like that?
Sit in some boring lecture with her hair done and her boobs practically falling out of her shirt.
Her hair was perfectly styled, and her shirt was cut low enough to leave little to the imagination.
She flashed me a bright smile and I was grateful it was all she flashed at me.
“Don’t you have class?” I asked.
“Nope.” She perched on the edge of my desk, crossing her legs in a way that was probably meant to be alluring but just made me want to roll my eyes.
“Then sure, I could use some help getting through this,” I said, handing her a stack of quizzes. “Start with these.”
She took them with a smile, but instead of getting to work, she started flipping through them like they were some kind of gossip magazine. “So, what’s new with you?”
I sighed inwardly. “Not much. Just trying to get these graded.”
She grabbed one of the pens and moved to sit in the chair on the other side of my desk. “You know, you should come out with us sometime. We’re going to The Library tonight. It’ll be fun.”
“I’m busy,” I said curtly, focusing on the quiz in front of me. I didn’t want anything beyond a professional relationship with Lina, and unlike with Cece, I actually meant it.
She got quiet, which was not normal. I glanced up to find Lina still flipping through the quizzes, not actually reading them. She was twirling a pen between her fingers and giving me that look—the one that said she was more interested in getting me naked on the desk than actually grading anything.
“I was thinking maybe we could be dive buddies,” she cooed, her voice taking on that breathy quality that some women thought was sexy. To me, it sounded like she needed an inhaler. “You know, for safety.”
I looked up at her properly this time, noting the way she was batting her eyelashes. “Lina, you should probably focus on grading those. We’ll handle the dive logistics when we get out there.”
“Oh, right.” She picked up a quiz but immediately set it down again. “It’s just that I find your work so fascinating. The way you talk about uncovering history—it’s like poetry.”
Poetry. Yeah, right. I’d heard lines like that before, usually from undergrads who thought flattery would get them better grades or special attention. It might work on some professors, but it just made me feel old and tired.
“The quizzes,” I said again, tapping my pen against my desk. “Multiple choice answers are straightforward. For the essay questions, look for key terms—stratigraphy, context, dating methods. If they mention at least two of those, they get the point.”
She leaned forward, giving me a very good view of the cleavage she wanted the world to see. “Tell me about your work in Guatemala.”
I clenched my jaw and kept my eyes on the paper in front of me. “I’ve spent a lot of years out there as a guest of the local university,” I said, monotone, then flipped to the next quiz.
She nodded. “You know, some professors just teach during class and never get into the real work. But you’re different.”
“Yep.” I didn’t look up. I kept grading.
Lina giggled. “I think it’s adorable how passionate you get about stratigraphy.”
I suppressed a sigh. “Thank you.”
The woman couldn’t be more obvious about what she wanted from me.
And she was very pretty. But there was no spark.
I didn’t have to hold myself back because I had zero interest. There was no temptation.
She was basically a child. Granted, she was basically the same age as Cece, but Lina couldn’t be more different.
There wasn’t even a glimmer of interest.
Even if she wasn’t a student or my TA, she wasn’t my type at all.
Maybe it was because she had a childish air about her.
She acted like all of this was a great big game to her and nothing really mattered.
If she messed up, her mother would take care of whatever happened.
They had enough money that the rules didn’t really apply to them.
Lina didn’t give a shit about working hard and getting a good recommendation.
That was the fundamental difference between her and Cece.
Cece had skin in the game. Real consequences.
A daughter depending on her to succeed. Every decision she made mattered because failure wasn’t just about her.
There was a weight to Cece’s ambition that Lina would never understand.
It was attractive. I recognized the drive in her because I felt the same way.
“Professor Stone?” Lina’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Did you hear what I said?”
I looked up to find her staring at me expectantly, her pen still twirling between her fingers. She hadn’t graded a single question.
“No, sorry. What was it?”
She flashed a smile. “I was asking if you wanted to grab dinner after we finish these. I know this great little place that serves amazing seafood.”
I set down my pen and leaned back in my chair. “Lina, I need you to focus on the grading. That’s what you’re here for.”
Her smile faltered slightly, but she recovered quickly. “Of course. I just thought?—”
“The quizzes,” I said firmly.
She finally started actually reading the first quiz. I heard her sigh and looked up. She had pulled her top down even lower. Worse, her nipples were pebbled beneath the thin fabric. Whatever game she was playing at wasn’t working.
Rarely was I ever disinterested in a fine pair of tits, but hers held no allure at all. I wanted to tell her to cover herself up and make better life decisions.
She caught me looking. Her eyes held mine, challenging me. I looked at her with no emotion because she made me feel nothing but annoyance. “Focus on the grading.”
I supposed it was a good thing it was Lina in my office and not Cece. Because if Cece was the one in here flashing cleavage and giving me those “fuck me” eyes, the quizzes would be on the floor and I would be balls deep inside her.
Five minutes later, Lina was digging in her bag. I glanced up and saw her putting on lip gloss slowly. She dragged the gloss around and around. It was probably meant to be an erotic show. She capped the gloss and looked at me with heat and invitation in her eyes.
“Want me to start the next batch?” she asked softly. “I’m yours to do with as you please. Whatever you need, just ask.”
She wasn’t exactly stealthy about her offer. I had a feeling she was about two seconds from getting naked and stretching out on my desk. But Lina wasn’t the first student to flirt with me, and with her, I had no trouble brushing her off.
“No thank you,” I said. “I appreciate your help, but I think I’m just going to take the rest of these home.”
She pouted. I was so damn tired of her fucking pout. It truly was like dealing with a petulant child. “But I’m your TA,” she whined. “I’m here to help you. Anything you want.”
“Much appreciated but I’ve got this.”
Lina’s pout deepened, her bottom lip jutting out like a child who’d been denied candy. She stood up from the chair and walked around my desk, positioning herself directly in front of me with her chest practically touching my nose. If I moved, one of those nipples could take out my eye.
“Professor Stone,” she said, her voice dropping to what she probably thought was a sultry whisper. “I think you’re working too hard. You need someone to help you relax.”
Her perfume was overwhelming—some cloying floral scent that made my sinuses ache. I could see the thick layer of makeup caked around her eyes, the way her push-up bra was doing most of the work her boobs claimed credit for.
“Lina,” I said firmly, not moving from my chair but making my voice cold as winter. “Step back.”
Instead, she moved closer, practically straddling my lap. “Come on,” she breathed. “I see how you look at me in class. I know you want this.”
That was rich. I looked at her the same way I looked at every other student—with professional detachment and mild irritation when they weren’t paying attention. But clearly, she’d interpreted my basic human decency as romantic interest.
“I’m going to say this once,” I said, my voice low and dangerous. “You’re my TA. And you need to stop this immediately.”
She looked at me like she thought I was playing hard to get, but she must have finally registered the anger and disgust on my face. She made an angry noise and that flirty look turned acidic. Then she grabbed her bag and stomped out.
“Good fucking riddance.” I didn’t stick around to see if she would come back.