Chapter 6

6

Alana

My nine-year-old self was right. Boys are idiots.

I sit on the windowsill of the rented house and watch Landen and his buddies attempt to form a cheerleading pyramid in the middle of the living room. They actually spent time moving furniture out of the way and are allowing people to film the drunken antics, while they loudly ponder how many hits the video will get on the web.

I’m mostly pissed that I wasted Ripley’s dress on this messy keg party, although the beer in my hand is cold and I got into an hour-long discussion about serial killers with one of the girls from class, which is what I call a pretty successful evening. I’m not going to lie, though, I’ve been thinking of Gavin this whole time. What would he think of my dress? If he were here, would he laugh with me at the pyramid makers?

What did he mean when he said he would be watching me?

A tickle forms at the back of my neck.

I turn and look out the window behind me, but I can’t see anything except the moon and the outline of trees around the house.

Wait…what is that?

I turn fully and peer up at the house next door. There is a weather vane on top of it. The kind with arrows pointing in four directions and a chicken in the middle. Something dangles from one of the arrow tips, though, and my photographer intuition prods me to get a closer look. Picking up my bag, I set down my mostly empty beer and trek through the kitchen on my way to the side exit that leads into the yard.

On my way, I smile at one of the girls from class. “Popping outside for some air.”

She gives me a thumbs up, then knocks back a shot of something pink.

I’m sure she won’t regret that in the morning.

The clean, fall air feels amazing on my skin after being trapped with a mélange of cloying cologne and perfume scents inside. I breathe in deeply and slide the camera out of my bag, pondering a walk up the block. Landen lives in an eclectic neighborhood and on the Uber ride over, I saw a couple of kitschy gardens that might yield some fun shots. But first, I want to find out what’s hanging from that weather vane.

I move to the fence for a better angle, but not even the moon is providing enough light to tell me what flops in the breeze. I should just go back inside or take my walk and stop obsessing over this, but when it comes to photography, I can be a little stubborn about capturing things that interest me. So before I can talk myself out of it, I sling the camera around my neck and toss a leg over the fence, straddling it for a second. Then I carefully gain my feet, balancing on the top of the narrow barrier.

Peering across the neighboring yard to the roof, I see that the object whipping around in the wind is a bra. A red polka dot bra tangled up in a weather vane. Imagining scenarios in which it could have gotten there, I giggle and raise my camera, engaging the night settings. I’ve just snapped the photo when the side door bangs open, slamming into the side of the house—and a jolt of surprise causes me to lose my balance.

My shout of surprise is cut off when I hit the ground.

The impact is so jarring, I don’t feel the slicing pain on my shin right away.

In fact, I don’t notice that I’ve landed on a rock and opened up a gash until several people are surrounding me, asking me if I’m alright.

“I…I…” Humiliation wells up in my throat, but I swallow it down with determination and smile through the worsening sting in my leg. “I got the shot?”

There’s a short pause before laughter rings out. But it doesn’t make me feel better. Tears begin to well in my eyes. Nothing feels familiar. I’m bleeding in the backyard of this unfamiliar place and everyone is drunk. And I think the fall might have knocked some of my heartache loose, because I’m suddenly so sad and lonely, I want to curl into a ball.

“Out of the way.”

The brisk voice brings my head up.

No, it can’t be.

Gavin?

Around me, the crowd parts and there he is, looking righteously pissed off. Gorgeously agitated in a hunter green, long-sleeved shirt that has been shoved up to his elbows. And dark jeans that wrap around his thick thighs, highlighting the flexing musculature as he bears down on me. “What the fuck were you thinking?” Gavin growls, scooping me up off the ground with no effort whatsoever. He looks like he’s going to launch into a lecture, but he does a double-take when he spies my leg wound. “Dammit, Alana.”

Oh God.

Oh no, I’m crying.

I almost never do, but he’s here. Before he stomped onto the scene, I was scared and overwhelmed, but I’m not now. I’m safe as houses. And the relief sends tears winding down my cheeks and definitely ruining my makeup, but I don’t care. I lean my head against his shoulder and listen to him sigh, feel his arms tighten around me.

“Someone hand me her camera,” he barks.

One of the girls places my bag in my lap, gently placing the camera on top and I slump when I see the lens is cracked. Gavin carries me through a sea of shocked faces, speculation being whispered in our wake.

Is that Professor Dennison?

Are they, like, together or something?

Thankfully, we turn at the front of the house and those suspicious faces disappear from view. We don’t stop until we’ve reached a low, black Jaguar and Gavin jerks open the back passenger seat door. He settles me carefully on the smooth leather seat.

“This is your car?” I ask, turning to put my things on the seat behind me.

“Yes,” he answers tightly, reaching beneath the seat and pulling out a first-aid kid, dropping it to the asphalt with a clatter and throwing it open.

“It’s expensive.” I think about how much money he dropped on my virginity. “You’re rich, aren’t you?”

“Very.”

“From being a professor?”

“Not just.” He rips open an alcohol swab packet with his teeth and uses it to clean my cut, wincing when I suck in a breath. “I made some smart investments with an inheritance I received after graduating college. This is really not the time to talk about it.”

“I’m trying to distract you from being angry at me,” I murmur, wanting desperately to reach out and brush the dark hair off his forehead.

“It isn’t working, Alana.”

“Maybe I’m angry, too. You obviously followed me.”

“Does it really make you angry?” Gavin pauses in the act of dabbing antiseptic on my wound. “Or did you come here tonight simply to find out if I’d follow you?”

Gavin is right. I did, didn’t I?

He told me he’d be watching…and the little girl inside me wanted to be a challenge.

And he came through. He didn’t let me down. He’s kneeling in front of me in the middle of the night, his hands purposeful as they fix my injury.

It doesn’t mean he wants to be with me, but it’s something.

The reality check shoots my heart into my throat and the heat is back behind my eyes, pushing, demanding to be let out. Gavin looks up in time to watch my lip tremble, a single tear coursing down my cheek. The irritation fades from his eyes and he moves, lifting me from the seat and taking my place, settling me down sideways on his lap and tucking my head beneath his chin. “Shhh, princess.” He rubs a continuous circle onto my back, his lips in my hair—and he rocks me, side to side in a lulling motion. “I’m here now. I’ve got you.”

I sniff. “It was a hard fall. I think I mostly scared myself.”

“Rest assured, you scared me, too.” A shudder courses through him. “I had to lock myself in the car to keep myself from kidnapping you from this never-ending party. It hurt to look at you. So beautiful, surrounded by…them. I looked away for one second and you weren’t inside anymore. You were already falling when I walked around the side of the house.” He kisses my temple fiercely. “Christ, Alana, I couldn’t get to you in time.”

“I’m okay,” I say, turning in his lap, so I can kiss his chin. “I’m better now that you’re here.” I kiss a path to his mouth and brush my lips there. “I miss you.”

His shaft rises beneath my backside, hard and insistent. “Saying I miss you would be inadequate. Every second without you is poison.”

My heart sings, pounding wildly in my chest. So this is what it’s going to be. We’ll have a relationship in secret. Resolutely, I ignore the ripple of disappointment and focus on the way he’s watching me so ferociously, as if he’s imagining how he’ll take me as soon as we’re alone. “They all saw you pick me up,” I murmur, stroking his bristled jaw. “Are you going to get in trouble?”

His smirk tells me he finds that idea amusing. “No. I’m not.” He turns slightly and lays me down on the seat, moving my camera to the foot well so I can rest my head on my bag. “You don’t worry about a single thing ever again.” The spacious backseat allows him to kneel on the opposite seat between my legs and my hips are already writhing on the seat when he lifts the hem of my skirt, dragging it up to my waist. Eyes flaring with hunger, his tongue perches in the corner of his mouth. “Do you need Daddy to heal this, too, little girl?”

I nod shyly, knowing exactly what he sees. My too-small, white satin thong, stretched over my mound. I’ve never been more grateful it shrunk in the wash. “Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”

Gavin dips his head and exhales against the damp material. Then without warning, he shoves his face against my pulsing sex and inhales deeply, a growl stirring in his chest. His hands scoop beneath my buttocks, finding the back waistband and dragging the thong down my legs, tossing it into the front seat. Without taking his starved gaze off of my bare flesh, he smacks off the overhead light and drops his panting mouth on top of my clit, badgering it with his tongue, those huge hands pressing my thighs open.

“Fuck,” he mutters, rolling his forehead side to side on my belly. “You taste like fucking sugar. I can’t believe I’ve only creampied this perfect little pussy once.”

He snarls into the next lick, rubbing the flat of his tongue through the length of my folds, slowly, so slowly, teasing my entrance with savoring revolutions of his tongue, before placing suctioning kisses on his way back to my clit. “Please don’t stop,” I sob, clutching at his hair. “Please keep going.”

The pressure gathering in my tummy is so intense, I’m barely aware of my surroundings, but when my eyes open, I’m surprised to find someone looking down at me from outside the car. Landen? Yes. He’s watching in open-mouthed shock as Gavin licks me between my legs and he’s leaning so close, his breath is fogging up the glass.

I pull on Gavin’s hair to inform him we have an audience, but he only lifts his head, makes eye contact with Landen and spears his tongue into my sex, flexing it against my inner walls, his thumb finding my clit and stroking it firmly.

My back arches off the seat, my thighs wrapping around Gavin’s head. There’s no one but us, nothing else matters, the relief is so close. So close.

It’s obvious that my dark professor isn’t stopping no matter who is watching, maybe he’s even enjoying pleasuring me in front of the boy he claims is interested in doing the same. His tongue slides in and out of me, in and out, until I’m shaking violently on the seat, pumping my sex in time with his strokes, rubbing myself shamelessly on his mouth.

Above me, the glass fogs with another breath.

“Oh please, oh please, oh please! Daddy!”

My body strains into another arch and Gavin finally, blessedly, begins licking my clit again, his middle finger replacing his tongue in my clenching channel. I look down my heaving body and lock eyes with pure sin, pure obsession, and the orgasm crests over me, traveling at warp speed through my body, head to toe, concentrating my middle, squeezing my muscles until all I can do is scream and thrash my way through it.

Finally, I slump onto the seat, my hair stuck to my damp neck, limbs sprawled in four directions, my heavy breaths loud in the car’s interior. Gavin gives my sated sex a final, lingering kiss, then replaces my skirt, smoothing the material over my lap.

I glance up to find we’re alone now and when I seek out Gavin again, he’s climbing out of the car. “Wait,” I murmur, pushing up onto an elbow—and collapsing onto my back again without delay. “What about y-you?”

Sleep is making my eyelids heavy and I think I lose consciousness for a few seconds, because the next thing I hear is Gavin’s car starting. Then, “I won’t make love to you again until you’ve given me the trust back, Alana. That’s a promise.”

Trust…promise…

Exhaustion overwhelms me and I pass out, no idea where we’re going, but secure in the fact that Gavin will make everything okay.

That turns out to be the understatement of the year. Maybe the century.