17. Grady

"The department really needs to get its act together," Marina groused. "Ever since Loy was brought on, it's been a mess."

I murmured an agreement, my gaze straying across the quad to a trio of guys walking toward the social sciences building. The air was crisp but warm enough for the shorts Cameron was wearing along with a long-sleeved henley. The brilliant sunlight turned the blond of his hair to a molten white gold. The guys walking with him were dressed similarly, and the taller blond, Nate, reached behind Cameron to smack the ass of a dark-haired guy on the other side of him, who smirked before making the eyes-on-you gesture and peeling off to head toward the engineering building. Cameron and Nate laughed, his teeth flashing, smile achingly big and bright. Christ, I missed that smile aimed my way, missed how he'd lean against the booth at the cafe, coffeepot half-forgotten in his hands as we chattered.

The restless night I'd spent tossing and turning was already catching up to me. Levi Barkin jostled my elbow, sending a small splash of steaming coffee through the hole in the top, the sting yanking me from my daze.

"So what do you think?" Barkin asked, and I scrambled to put together the conversation I'd absorbed but hadn't been paying attention to. I sucked the drip of coffee from my thumb. "I think someone should speak up, sure. But probably better for one of the longer tenures if we can get one on board. Marina and I are too new to go making waves."

She nodded an agreement, and I ticked my head toward the building Cameron had disappeared into. "I've gotta run to class. Regroup and discuss more later?"

It was harderthan one would think to avoid looking at a specific section of the lecture hall. I managed, barely, and wasn't sure whether I was imagining the sensation of Cameron's stare boring into me or not. Even if it was, I was the one giving the lecture, after all. Still, I'd stumbled a couple of times and could only blame the low simmer of heat in my gut and the cloying reveries of him that had consumed me last night.

I was almost certain I spent more time watching the clock than the students, just to keep from straying to Cameron too often. After ending the lecture ten minutes early, I picked up the stack of essays that had been due the previous week. "Remember that your grade will also be posted on the online portal. Any questions, you know the drill: I've got office hours until 5:30 today. Come up when you hear your name called. Once you've got your essay, you're free to leave."

Despite the lurid message I'd received the night before, when Cameron approached to receive his essay, his "thanks" as I handed it to him was as casually polite as the rest of my students. Before I could consider saying more, he was striding out the door.

I watched him go with a frown, and once I was done handing out the essays and back in my office, I picked up my phone, opened our text thread, and sent him a message I had no idea whether he would respond to or ignore.

Grady:I'd like to speak to you. Could you come to my office around 6?

We needed to talk, needed to establish some sort of truce.

At 5:40, I began packing up my stuff for the day. I'd had three football players in who were dissatisfied with their grades, one weeper who'd wanted to know if there would be opportunities for extra credit and instantly perked up when I said it was likely, one trust-fund type who wanted to debate semantics over some of the comments left on his essay, and one student whose purpose in my office I'd not been able to definitively discern. I wanted a glass of whiskey, a comfy chair, and a book.

No, there were other things I wanted more, but I couldn't have them.

I slid my laptop into my bag and sank back into my desk chair, kneading the spot between my eyebrows.

At 6:00 on the dot, a soft knock sounded on my door, and I bolted upright. "Come in."

Cameron entered, shutting the door behind him and lingering there like he had the last time.

"Your essay was fantastic. Much improved." It was a soft opening. One I was sure he could see through, but his lips twisted in a polite smile.

"Thanks."

I cleared my throat and gestured toward the chairs. "Make yourself comfortable."

Cameron approached my desk, letting his backpack slide from his shoulder to the floor, then fiddled with the wood lip of my desk, drawing my gaze to twitch of his thumb back and forth over it.

"You can sit."

He glanced over his shoulder before shrugging. "I'm good here. I haven't seen you at the cafe lately. Was my service that bad last time, or are you avoiding me?"

"Your service—" I started. Goddamn the way his lips twitched at the corners. "Is impeccable. I thought maybe it was best to avoid any reminders of that fact for a while, especially after last night."

"But now here I am in your office again."

"Yes." I laced my fingers over my belt and dragged my attention away from the patterns he was tracing lightly over the surface of my desk. "I thought perhaps we should talk again, establish some sort of?—"

"Are you interested in that guy? The other professor you were with last night?" Cameron peered at me from beneath his lashes, and behind the guarded expression, I caught a glimpse of vulnerability.

"Professor Lingen. And no, I'm not remotely interested. I made that clear to him." I wondered if Cameron was aware I could see the way the tension at his shoulders eased.

"Did you like the video I sent you?" His gaze moved over me, as if searching my expression for the truth behind the lie trying to form on my lips.

"It certainly made an impression." I tried for diplomatic, but Cameron's smirk said he had other ideas.

"Did you jerk off to it?"

"I don't think I should answer that." From where I sat across the desk, I could just make out the bulge of his cock against his jeans, see his pulse hammering visibly at the side of his throat. I remembered the way it had felt under my touch, and suddenly, I knew, despite my best intentions, we were not going to be talking things out.

Being reckless wasn't something I'd ever been in my life. I'd studied hard, been polite, played sports, made good grades, been a faithful husband, and built a solid academic career path that I'd followed to the letter. The few times I'd veered off course, fear and uncertainty had wrapped around my chest like a vise. I waited for its familiar grip as Cameron held me in the thrall of his blue eyes, this delightfully quirky human who'd made me come as easily as he'd made me smile, and who most certainly didn't belong in my office or anywhere else in my life.

But it never came.

"Go lock the door." I slid my chair back from my desk. "Then come here."

I was charged with anticipation and desire as Cam retraced his steps to flip the lock on the door and then approached me slowly.

"This is one of my favorite fantasies," he breathed out.

"A shoebox office in a university?" I arched a brow.

"Yeah. Professor and student." The unnecessary clarification, the way he said it with both finality and hesitancy, put fire in my veins that surged through my balls. Cameron stopped in front of me, gaze dipping to the fly of my trousers. When he licked his lips, I couldn't help but imagine them painted with my cum. "Have you ever had that fantasy?"

I'd not entertained anything like that since my own days in college, and there were a million reasons why I'd never let myself go down that path. Every one of them disintegrated as I looked up at him. "Not until you," I said, admitting the truth. "Is this the part where you tell me you're disappointed in your essay grade and want to know if there's anything you can do to make up for it?"

He nodded solemnly. "Mm-hmm. So is there?"

"You could try working a bit harder next time." He'd made an A-plus, and had earned it fairly, but who was counting at this point?

Cameron's tone turned wry. "Gosh, I wish I'd thought of that, Professor. But maybe there's some sort of…extra credit I could do?" The way his teeth clamped onto his lower lip made my dick throb.

"Perhaps." Drawing in a slow breath, I gave myself over to temptation, running the backs of my knuckles up the inseam of his jeans to feel the firm press of muscle beneath.

I spread my legs wider and grasped Cameron by the thighs, pulling him closer.

He gazed down at me with half-lidded eyes. "Did you want to do this the last time I was in your office?"

"I did." Alone in my bed in the dark, that meeting had played out much differently in my mind.

"What was going to happen after that?"

"When you asked me what I wanted?"

He nodded, Adam's apple bobbing visibly when I ran my thumb along the crotch of his jeans, dipping low enough to feel the heat of his balls.

"I wanted you to suck my cock," I admitted, and god, I'd thought the anonymity of the bathroom stalls had been hot, but being able to see his face as I spoke, how my words and touch affected him, was light-years better than every fantasy that had been playing in my head over the past few weeks.

"Is that what you want now?" He lowered to his knees slowly, keeping his eyes on my face as his breath ghosted over my lap. "For me to suck you off, let you pummel the back of my throat until I choke?"

"What about what you wanted that day?" I barely checked a groan as his fingertips coasted up my thighs and over the front of my fly. Even the light contact sent a pleasurable tingle through me, and I arched into his touch.

"I wanted to suck your cock." His lips tipped up in a grin. "I wanted you to want it as badly as I did, wanted you to bend me over your desk and fuck me until I couldn't catch my breath."

I studied his face, the feverish hunger in his eyes, wondering if mine reflected the same. "Unzip me and pull out my cock," I told him, leaning back in the chair. "Get it wet, suck it until I can't stand it anymore."

The heat in Cameron's eyes flared bright as his eager fingers reached for my belt buckle. The sound of it clinking open registered as loud in the quiet room. He moved with deliberate slowness, making sure I felt every inch of my zipper's retreat as he lowered it, while I gritted my teeth against the shudder that raced along my spine.

Those slender fingers wrapped around my erection, pulling it free from the confines of my trousers. Cameron's breath hitched as he took in the sight of my stiff cock already leaking precum. A jolt of electricity zapped through my balls as he flicked his tongue out, tracing the shape of my crown before taking me into his mouth.

His lips and tongue working down my shaft drew a moan from deep within my chest, and I reveled in the sight of him on his knees before me, the way his eyes flicked up to meet mine with a look of pure satisfaction as he let my cock slip free, wet and wanting.

"Like that?" His voice was husky with arousal, lips a glossy temptation as he went back for more, sucking my tip.

"Deeper." The effort of forming a coherent sentence was seared away under the heat of his tongue, and I ran my fingers through the soft strands of his hair, grasping the roots. He enveloped me again, setting the world around me into a dizzying spin in my periphery. When Cameron groaned, the reverberations transmitted down my shaft and into my balls. "Like that. God yes, just like that." The words slipped from me in a broken gasp as he continued his delicious torment until we were moving in unison, my grip on his hair keeping the pace while I thrust into the back of his throat.

When he sputtered, I slowed, letting him take a breath, then pushed inside him again until I was too close to the edge. Tugging him by his hair, I stalled him before I lost control.

"Stand up and unzip."

Cameron complied quickly, unbuttoning his jeans and unzipping his fly, his movements shaky but eager. He shoved both pants and boxers down to his ankles, flushed cock bobbing in the air, pink and mouthwatering. I dragged a finger down the stiff length and reveled at the harsh intake of air that simple movement elicited.

"You've got a beautiful cock." The compliment came out unbidden and unexpected, but it was true.

"I do?" The pleased appreciation in Cameron's voice pinged something deep inside me that didn't belong within the parameters of this role-play. I tamped it down and issued a gruff "Turn around and put your hands on the desk."

I managed to keep my poise and hold back a soft sigh as Cameron spun around, exposing the bare, muscular globes of his ass, paler than the rest of him. Keeping my movements as slow and deliberate as he had, I traced the length of his hamstrings, splaying my fingers over the hard, round cheeks, dragging a knuckle up his crease. It'd been so goddamned long since I touched a man this way. With intent, with genuine interest, with desire that burned me from the inside out. "I want to taste you before I fuck you."

"Oh shit," he whispered. "I mean, yes, please. Whatever you want, Professor."

Those words shouldn't have held me in a thrall me the way they did, and before every ounce of training and logic I possessed came crashing through the throb of anticipatory pleasure simmering inside me, I knelt behind him and spread his cheeks, finding the tight, pink ring of his entrance.

I'd fantasized about licking that smooth skin, exploring it with my tongue, stretching it with my fingers, feeling it tense around my cock.

Cameron moaned when I traced my finger around his rim, his body jerking and quivering.

"You like that?"

"F-f-fuck yes," he stuttered.

I did it again, this time applying enough pressure that he clenched reflexively, and the tremor that went through him was so strong it felt like a jolt to my cock. I gripped his hip with one hand, keeping him open to me with the other as I flicked my tongue out to taste him, groaning at the way his legs shook. A soft moan followed as I let my tongue drift up and down his crack, finding his pucker on the downstroke and sweeping over it.

And then, rubbing my thumb over the slick muscle, I asked, "Ready for more?"