Chapter 4

4

Gavin

It’s the first day of the new semester and my mind should be on the lecture ahead. I’ll be meeting a fresh crop of students today. Normally I would be at least mildly optimistic that perhaps there might be a brilliant photographic eye among them. But as I collect my new class roster from the main office, slide it into my leather briefcase and trudge toward the photography wing, I can’t even muster the smallest bit of interest.

Every day of the last week has been a fucking struggle.

Ever since the second I walked back into the room in the brothel and Alana was nowhere to be found, a vise has been cranking tighter and tighter around my skull. No amount of money or bargaining could get her information out of Estelle. Part of me knows the madam made the right decision denying me any info, too, because I blew into her office like a goddamn hurricane, threatening to rip the place down with my bare hands if Alana wasn’t presented to me immediately. It was little wonder she didn’t want to offer up a young girl to a violent, visibly obsessed man. For all Estelle knew, Alana had run away from me for a good reason.

Had she?

I’ve replayed the night over and over in my head. Every time, my actions seem a little more salacious. A little more depraved. Especially when I remember the spot of blood in the center of the comforter, how her innocence felt giving way for my cock.

I fucked a virgin. Hard. I made the whole affair dirty and forbidden, when it should have been perfect for her. She probably did run, you monster.

Of course she pretended to love what you did to her. She was being paid.

I stop outside my classroom and lean up against the wall, massaging the bridge of my nose, not wanting to enter until I’m the cool, collected professor I’ve always been. Somehow I’ve got to get through this day, and the next, and the next, not knowing where Alana has gone. If she’s traumatized. Or equally bad—in trouble. I never stopped to ask her why she needed the money, did I? For all I know, she was running away from an abusive home or…

God, I can’t stomach the possibilities.

My heart is pounding out of my chest now and I breathe to slow it down.

Today is the interview in front of the board of directors. They’ll vote on whether or not to induct me and they’ll definitely decline my membership if I’m a headcase. After receiving my tenure last year, this was the next step in my plan. It’s what I’ve been working toward since I accepted this position at the university. A board member is respected among their peers. They have greater influence on how each department is funded. Once I’m voted in, I plan on turning the photography program into one of the most respected in the country.

Every goal I’ve ever set in my life has been professional.

Raised by a university president and a philosophy professor, I was taught to expect greatness from myself in the form of academic achievements.

I have to overcome the fact that none of it seems important now. Without her.

That makes me crazy, right? I’ve been working toward my professional goals my whole life. I knew Alana for one hour. And yet, I can barely gather enough enthusiasm to push open the door of the lecture hall and walk inside.

Conversation goes silent among the stadium-style seating, letting me know my reputation as a no-nonsense bastard has preceded me. Good. I’m not in the mood for any bullshit today. The sharp ache in the center of my chest hints that I never will be again.

Most of my lessons will be done in the field or in the darkroom, but I’ll spend a week lecturing on the basics of photography, citing work from some of the giants in my field. So I drop my leather briefcase down on the desk, front and center of the lecture hall, snapping it open to remove my notes and the slides I’ll project overhead.

It’s the sharpest intake of breath that causes me to glance up. I know that sound. As slight as it is in the giant room, it sinks claws into my gut and twists.

It’s the sound Alana made when I popped her cherry.

My cock is already stiffening at the memory, at the potential of her being near, when I look up and find her staring back at me.

My little girl is sitting in the front row. Of my fucking lecture hall.

Her mouth has fallen open, her cheeks are bright pink. She’s staring back at me in shock…but there’s relief there, too, in her different colored eyes.

If there weren’t a hundred other eyes glued to my every movement, I might have slumped over the desk with my own relief. She’s there. She’s fucking there—alive, healthy, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. In a loose floral skirt and white halter top, I could eat her alive. Her lithe legs are crossed, allowing the skirt to fall away and reveal the smooth length of her outer thigh. Her tits are round and high in the neckline of her top, hair in a loose ponytail. Effortlessly stunning and young. My God, she’s so fucking young. It was obvious in the brothel, but seeing her among my students really brings it home.

My instincts are roaring for me to go scoop her up, carry her down the hall to my office and fuck her blind. To demand to know if I hurt her. To demand to know where the hell she has been. Mine. Mine. I need her now.

With my two worlds colliding, however, it all comes rushing back to me. What we did on that bed, the things I said to her, the taboo game we played. How my hunger was supposed to remain a secret. Far away from my professional life. Never to touch it, never to even breathe on it. Now the person I paid to call me Daddy while I railed her is sitting in the front row of my classroom. Alana is my student.

Someone in the lecture hall clears their throat uncomfortably and I realize I’ve been staring at Alana for a solid minute, trying to make sense of her being there. Have I already given myself away? What the hell am I going to do about this?

Oh I know what I’d love to do. Keep Alana.

Find out everything about her, get inside her head, get her even further inside of mine and never come up for air. When I returned to the room of the brothel, that’s exactly what I planned to do. Learn all about her situation and figure out how to make us work, despite the age gap. Despite the fact that she knows about my hunger. I was willing to throw caution to the wind because after having her, I couldn’t imagine not having her forever.

Now that I know she’s my student?

None of that is possible.

I swallow hard and drag my attention off Alana, beginning my lecture in a hoarse voice. My cock is at full mast, so I spend the lesson behind the podium, powerless to keep my gaze from returning to her, drinking her beauty in over and over again. Throughout the sixty-minute class, she never loses that slightly dazed expression, though I notice her attempting to take notes in a sensible, spiral notebook. And damn it all, as if I need any further reason to be turned on…my balls grow heavy at the sight of it. Alana looking up at me and getting her lesson. Listening like a good girl. Wanting Daddy’s approval.

You are a bad man.

That truth is never more evident than when I dismiss class and make the sharp request for Alana to meet me in my office. I sense some of the students splitting surprised looks between us as they pack up their bags, but I ignore them, putting away my slides. I snap my briefcase shut, making eye contact with Alana over the top of it, and we walk out of the classroom together. We’re several inches apart, but she might as well have her fucking legs wrapped around me for the reaction my dick is having.

I’ve never been attracted to a student. Not even a passing interest.

Their work is how I tell them apart.

But when I unlock my office door and step back, allowing Alana to precede me inside, the way she clutches the textbooks to her chest, her ponytail swaying gently, innocently, makes me so hot I have to adjust my erection, a low groan building in my throat. I watch goosebumps rise on her neck. Her eyes lose focus.

I ram the door closed and turn the lock.

The textbook slips out of her fingers and I’m all over her before the book hits the floor.

I pick her up by the ass, pinning her to the door, my hips finding their way between her thighs, bouncing her roughly. “I told you not to move,” I growl against her mouth. “I told you to stay in in that fucking room, little girl.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she sobs, her cool palms molding to the sides of my face. “My friend had an emergency and I couldn’t wait for you. Estelle wouldn’t give me any information. But I tried to get it. I promise.”

Christ, it never even occurred that Alana might be looking for me. The fact that she tried makes my tongue feel thick. “Even if she’d given you my number, I gave her false information. I didn’t want…”

She rubs her forehead against mine, purring in her throat, as if she’s missed me. Yearned for me. Fuck. I’m insane for this girl. “You didn’t want what?”

“Any part of that night…being used against me. I wanted to be anonymous.”

Alana winces adorably. “Whoops.”

“Princess,” I groan into a kiss, stroking my tongue as deep as I can get it, feeling her pussy soften and heat against my bulge. One yank of my zipper and I could be back in paradise. Back inside my girl. “Please tell me you didn’t need that money for tuition.”

“I don’t regret it,” she whispers, sipping at my bottom lip. “I’ll never regret it. I’m just so glad we found each other.”

Dread starts to shade my happiness, but I ignore it. I want to ignore it as long as I can. How am I supposed to tell her that being together could ruin me? I’m her professor. In charge of her grade. Board members are required to be above reproach—and fucking a student is the exact opposite. Jesus, I can’t believe this is happening. She’s my dream come true, but reality could keep us apart. “You’re a photography major,” I say gruffly, wanting to hold on to this moment as long as possible. “What do you like to shoot?”

“Silly things,” she whispers, her eyes sparkling. “My favorite picture I ever took was a drunk bridesmaid at my cousin’s wedding. She danced the entire cha cha slide with her dress stuck in her pantyhose. I want my pictures to make people laugh.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I murmur, planting a kiss on her bare shoulder. “You brought up saggy balls before you even told me your name.”

Her giggle warms me head to toe. “You can’t say I didn’t make an impression.”

“God, yes, you did.” The smile slowly bleeds from my face, a rupture taking place deep inside of me. “Alana, relationships between professors and students—”

“Oh come on,” she breaks in with a sad laugh, her voice wavering. “Can’t we pretend rules don’t exist just a little bit longer?”

That will teach me to underestimate this girl. When we walked into my office, she already knew this was coming. On top of being beautiful, intelligent and funny as hell, she’s astute. I can’t really be expected to let her go, can I? “I’m afraid we can’t pretend much longer,” I say, the tick of the wall clock echoing loudly in my ears. “I’m on my way to an interview for the university board of directors. I’ve been working toward this for years and it comes down to today’s vote.” I look her in the eye and I can see she’s already braced herself. “There is no official rule here against a professor dating his student. But the board would never allow it from a member. Especially…God, Alana, you’re a freshman. Eighteen.”

“Isn’t that one of the things you love about me, Daddy?” she whispers against my ear, her thighs cinching tighter around my hips.

The room spins around me. I can feel the throb of my cock in my stomach, my fingertips. I want to bang her against this door, to hell with the rules. But I can’t. “Play fair, Alana.”

“Sorry,” she breathes, a sheen glazing her eyes. “It’s out of my system now.”

Our lips graze and we both moan at the lightning contact. “Is it?”

“It has to be, right?” No longer looking at me, she drops her legs from around my lower body and wiggles out from between me and the door. “Look…” Breathing heavily, she stoops down and picks up her textbook, holding it in front of herself like a shield. “The last thing I want to do is hurt your career, Gavin. Especially considering you’re the reason I get to be here.”

“Don’t say that,” I rasp, loathing the distance she’s put between us.

“It’s true.”

She shrugs jerkily—and I can see I’ve lost her. I had her when we walked in here, but I’ve lost her now. Despite her astuteness, she followed me into my office with hope. That I would know how to make a relationship between us work. But I’ve let her down, haven’t I? The failure of it almost chokes me. In that moment, I’m desperate to take back everything I said. About the board of directors. About the rules. None of it seems to matter when that trust I won from Alana is gone from her eyes. Evaporated like it was never there.

It’s been a long-standing goal of mine to be on the board of directors. They will never vote me in if I—a thirty-three-year-old man—presume to date this fresh-faced teenager. But while my career makes me happy, have I ever been happier than when I’m with Alana?

Have I ever been more myself?

Oh Jesus, I’ve fucked up. I took too long to make the right decision.

And now I’ve lost her trust. An aching void exists where it used to be.

“Alana—”

“I’ll never tell anyone. I swear.” She smiles bravely, but it wobbles. “It never happened.”

The hell it didn’t.

To my utter horror, the tears are beginning to spill from her eyes and she lunges for the door, her face stained red. I catch the door as she opens it, intending to follow, then drag her back into my office and apologize until I run out of breath, but one of my colleagues is standing in my doorway, his fist raised to knock. “Oh.” He glances at Alana suspiciously, then over to me. “I was just coming to collect you for the interview. The board is ready.”

“Excuse me,” Alana mutters, ducking past the man. “Thanks for the advice, professor.”

Professor?

Fuck that.

“Alana,” I push through my teeth, panic gnawing at my bones. “Wait.”

But when I wheel around my colleague, she’s being greeted by a group of students, some of whom I recognize from my lecture. They must have met her at orientation because they clearly and understandably already love her, one of them throwing up their hands as if to say there you are!

It does not escape my notice that boys belong to this group. They look my Alana over appreciatively, lust tightening the skin around their mouths and I want to commit murder.

Cold-blooded fucking murder.

Mine.

As the group leads Alana away, she turns to look at me and time stops.

It’s like she’s saying goodbye officially to what we have and it’s the knockout blow. I’m flat on my back in the center of the ring, the referee screaming at me to get back up.

And I do.

I regain my feet and let Alana know with my eyes that there will be another round.

Goodbyes don’t exist for us.