Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Trent

I saw the name on the door, recognized it immediately, and stopped walking to cock my head. The sounds from inside the classroom hit a second later.

"This is the third paper you've turned in late this semester. I told you this was coming should it happen again. I'm glad you're accepting your punishment like a good girl."

The voice, also familiar, had me stepping back, looking past the ajar door to see a woman in a dove-gray pencil skirt and crisp white shirt. Her auburn hair was pulled into a fancy bun, instead of being down like she'd always used to wear it. The strands shone in the stark lighting as she opened the doors of the oak armoire in the corner of her classroom.

A student, my newest one actually―though they were all new to me―awaited the professor's choice of implement, her hands fidgeting at her front.

Smoothing my beard, I took a few steps back. I shouldn't be watching the private moment, but I found it hard to tear myself away. Not from the naughty pupil, but the woman wielding the paddle. I knew her, and well. Well enough to know the feel of her soft lips and to have had a date with her. One that ended rather abruptly and resulted in her leaving her job at the university we both worked for.

Maureen Stahlbaum. Five-foot-four, in her early forties, with gray eyes the color of a storm cloud, Maureen was a woman I'd once wanted so badly it hurt. During that first date, I was so enamored, I was sure she would have owned a key to my apartment and my heart before the month was up.

But that's not what happened. And what did was burned into my mind like a bull was branded.

As Maureen swung the paddle and painted a red mark across the young woman's ass, I had to fight my urge to barge in, grab the wicked-looking thing from her hand, and paddle her ass raw. But no matter the validity of my reason, I'd be booted from the Ranch. You couldn't just blister a colleague's ass raw without her consent and even then, even if she were into it, it wasn't appropriate or acceptable to do so in the classrooms of the university while she was disciplining a student.

Even if she were into it. My mind rewound, landing on those words. She wasn't into BDSM. At least that's what I'd assumed when she'd gone to the bathroom looking shell-shocked―and subsequently didn't return―after I'd brought it up on our date.

She'd been gone nearly half an hour when I was ready to bust down the door with concern because she hadn't returned. It took another ten minutes before our waitress would even check on her and when she returned alone, I almost didn't believe she'd even gone. Then the poor woman awkwardly told me that the bathroom had been empty and the window left wide open.

"She snuck out the window?"

The waitress shrugged, looking horrified, but also suspicious like I might be some sort of pervert. Jesus, it was a damn embarrassment, especially because it was my favorite restaurant, and I hadn't been able to show my face there again since.

I'd given a generous tip, apologized, and left immediately.

And here she was. At Rawhide Ranch, the best damn BDSM club in all of Montana, if not the fucking country. And she was topping a damn student.

A loud thwack echoed, the loudest of all I'm guessing, since it yanked me out of my reverie and reminded me I was watching someone's discipline session. Remorseful, I turned my head away, but not before noticing an extremely well-paddled bottom and shoulders shaking from repentant sobs.

Maureen Stahlbaum knew how to wield a paddle. Is that why she'd disappeared? She was a Domme? But that didn't make sense. If she were, wouldn't she have come out and told me after I admitted I was one? Dominants weren't usually shy with others of the same proclivity.

Narrowing my eyes, I scratched my beard. Was she a submissive taking on a disciplinary role for the sake of her job? Discipline was in the job description. Or maybe she was a switch? And still none of those things made sense. If she was into the lifestyle in any role, she would have told me, wouldn't she? There was no reason not to. So why had she run from me?

Maybe she hadn't known it at the time. Maybe I'd opened her mind. I rolled my eyes at myself. How arrogant do you have to be to put such value on yourself to think such a thing? We had one date—half of a date really.

I shifted on my feet. By the evidence in my trousers, I still had a thing for Professor Stahlbaum, even if I couldn't fit her into a category yet. And even though every fiber of my being knew better and was telling me to run, far, far away, I needed to know.

It was at that moment, as I glanced up to see the quietly sobbing Mira being soothed in Maureen's arms, that Professor Stahlbaum's stormy gray gaze collided with mine.

I cocked a brow, and in a flash, just as a submissive's would, her eyes dipped low. Only they didn't stay that way. Before ten seconds had ticked by, her eyes were back on mine, and the storm in them had turned to a hurricane.

Curious. So incredibly curious.