Chapter Two

Chelsea

It was five minutes to five, and I was fifteen steps from Professor Andrew Deacon’s office.

Some stupid part of me thought I could smell him from here, not only that, I imagined I could hear his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing.

My own heart was skittering along at ninety miles an hour. I’d been inside his office before, but never alone. There’d always been a few of us called in for additional information about our criminology course.

I shoved my hand into my top and hoisted up first my left and then my right breast. Might as well have some of my best assets on show. Perhaps I’d even tempt him to let go of that fierce self-control he had—goddamn, it was like a fucking steel fist.

And he was using self-control not to kiss me, ravage me, fuck me wildly, I was sure of it. A girl knows these things about a man. The way a look lingers and personal space is invaded. And do men think women can’t feel the heat of their stare, heck, my ass was on fire earlier when I’d strutted away from him in the lecture theater. I’d bet good money my wriggling sashay had given the professor a raging boner.

I took a deep breath and walked up to his office door. His name was neatly written on a brass plaque next to it. I knocked twice.

A knot formed in my stomach, and I pressed my thighs together, a tug of anticipation attacking my pussy.

“Come in.”

Stepping inside, I paused for a moment. He’d removed his jacket, and it was slung over the back of the wide chair he was seated in. His stylishly creased gray linen shirt was undone by three buttons, showing a hint of body hair and the tip of a tattoo I’d never been able to study. The sleeves were rolled up to reveal wide, strong, tendon-rich forearms.

I shut the door and resisted the urge to lean back on it. My spine and knees were a little weak. The man was drop-dead gorgeous, and he seemed to fill more than just his physical space. The room was him. It smelled of him, his essence was everywhere—intelligence, strength, passion, bravery—and I wanted to bask in it, bathe in it, and let it seep into every pore in my body.

“Ah good, you’re here.” He steepled his hands on the desk and let his gaze slip from my face to my chest. A line appeared between his eyebrows, and he cleared his throat. “Let’s see it.”

“See it?” I took a step closer and thrust my chest a little farther forward

He raised his eyebrows. “Your notebook, Chelsea, for your research thesis. Let’s see it.”

“Ah yes, that.” I slapped the file down on his desk beside a picture of a pretty young woman.

He didn’t pick my notes up, instead he watched me.

“Girlfriend?” I asked, thinking he really did have a taste for younger women.

“Sister.” A tendon flexed in his jawline.

“She’s beautiful.”

“I know.” He nodded at the chair opposite. “Sit.”

“I’d rather stand.” I turned and went to the window. A cat had caught a bird and was batting it with its paw, teasing it, toying with it as feathers flew.

I reached up and tugged out the scrunchie that was holding my hair high. My curls fell over my shoulders and down my back, and I secured the scrunchie on my left wrist.

“Give me fucking strength,” he muttered.

“Pardon?” I turned around. Had I heard him right?

He snatched up my file. “Luck,” he said, spinning his chair away from me in a fast, jerky movement. “You can’t rely on luck to get this right, Chelsea.”

“I know.” I walked up to the edge of the desk and peered over his shoulder.

He flipped open the pile of papers.

“I never rely on luck for anything,” I said.

He didn’t answer and read my notes.

“I didn’t think you had time to do this today?” I butted my legs against his solid desk and found it was the right height to hit my pussy. I pressed a little more, enjoying the heated dampness that was growing.

“Turns out my evening plans are much later than expected.” He continued reading.

“Oh, I see.” What plans? God, it was eating me up not knowing. In fact, I had to know. “Are you—?”

He held up a finger, silencing me.

I stood stock-still, my pulse loud in my ears, my aching pussy trembling as I remembered my earlier orgasm while watching him lecture. If I thought I could get away with it now, watching him read and standing so close to him, I would grind against the desk and eke out a quick one.

“You need to increase the sample size or explain why you are using such a small group.” He flipped the page again.

“Okay.”

After a few minutes he spoke once more. “And you’ll need to add clear definitions into a glossary.”

“I can do that.”

He turned his chair and handed the file back to me.

“But do you think it’s okay?” I asked. “Passable?” I pulled back from the desk, my belly clenching and my skin tingling.

“It has legs, sure, it just needs to be perfectly presented.”

I flicked my hair over my shoulders and nodded. “I appreciate your help and advice, Professor.”

He stood and set his hands on his hips. His brown leather belt had a snake’s head for a buckle. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said. “Help and advice.”

I cocked my head. “Do you enjoy your job?”

“Sure.” A tendon flexed in his jaw, and once again he looked at my tits. It was blatant this time, he wasn’t even hiding his study of me. “I like it. A lot.”

I sent a quick prayer heavenward that my nipples were hard and poking through my bra. “I was wondering, now that I’m a postgraduate, if I could call you Andrew, or is that too forward?”

“I get the feeling you’re in the habit of being forward.”

“Don’t ask, don’t get.” I half shrugged and bit on my bottom lip.

“And daddy gives you everything you ask for, so I guess it’s learned behavior?”

I frowned. My father was the last person I wanted to talk about when my body was primed for a decent fucking or at least a conversation to get myself off to later. “Andrew,” I said, setting back my shoulders. “My father may be rich, but he has never bought me a certificate or qualification. I can do that for myself. I have a damn good brain, amongst other things.” My cheeks were flushing, they always did when the family fortunes were brought up. It was all well and good having money, but money couldn’t bring people you loved back from the dead.

“So you’re going with Andrew now?” He raised his left eyebrow.

“Do you have a problem with that? We’re both adults, consenting adults.” I let my gaze dip down his body, to his groin, ogling him the way he had my chest, then I turned to the window again.

The cat was trotting away, its limp prey captured in its mouth.

“We are consenting adults,” he said from suddenly very close behind me. “That is a truth.”

“I prefer to deal in truths.”

“So do I. It’s the foundation for everything.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” An excited swarm of butterflies attacked my belly. This was a new type of conversation between us.

“So tell me one?” he said, his voice low, almost a murmur. “Tell me a truth, right here, right now.”

I could feel his breaths beside my ear. If I leaned back my shoulders would hit his broad chest. Oh, how I longed to feel that, to be so close to him, but I didn’t move. There was a spell wrapped around us, and I had no intention of breaking it. Not when it was something I’d longed for during so many lonely nights.

“What kind of truth?” I managed.

“Tell me,” he murmured, “what you were really doing at my lecture this morning?”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly narrow. I’d just told him I didn’t lie. That I believed in truth. And truth meant a lot to my professor, I’d learned that about him for certain.

“What do you think I was doing?” I asked, my voice breathy and the rest of the world fading away.

“Apart from listening to a lecture you could have stood up and taken in my place because you are perfectly qualified to,” he said softly. “I think you were touching yourself.”

My breath hitched. Fuck. He had me.

“Imagine you are in a court of law, Chelsea, the truth is required, no, the truth is vital to the next thing that happens.”

The next thing that happens? Was he talking about a courtroom or here and now in his office? “Is there a law against that? Against a person touching themselves?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Well, you weren’t indecently exposing yourself, so I guess you’re clear of any crime there.”

I didn’t speak, my vision had blurred a little, my brain was a riot of emotions and my clit swelling. I hoped my arousal wouldn’t trickle down my thigh. I was still pantyless.

“Though it wasn’t a victimless crime,” he said, his fingertips moving a strand of hair from my collarbone and back over my shoulder. “Was it, Chelsea?”

“Victim? There was no victim.”

“Of course there was, you had someone you were thinking about, didn’t you, while you jerked yourself off?”

I spun to him, my chest brushing his. To my surprise he didn’t step away, but then nothing about this exchange was predictable.

“There was someone making your pussy wet,” he said, his face so close to mine our noses were almost touching, “Someone making your nipples hard and stealing all of your dirty thoughts. Be honest now.”

“Yes,” I managed. “There was.”

“A guy on your course?”

I shook my head.

“Some bloke you’ve got a crush on?” His lips flattened as though he really didn’t like the idea of that.

“No.” God, my heart, it was going so fast I feared for its survival.

“So who? Who is he, or is it a she?”

I could see every whisker on his upper lip, and there was a miniscule freckle beneath his right eye I hadn’t noticed before, like a tiny tear. “Not a she.”

He nodded. “So what guy do you think of when you touch yourself, Chelsea, tell me?” He nipped my chin between his thumb and forefinger, his flesh warm on mine and also a little rough. “I need to know.”

* * * *

Andrew

Damn it, the woman was beautiful, and my entire body actually hurt with the desire to claim her. To hear her cry out my name and spasm in ecstasy beneath me.

“You.” Chelsea’s eyes flashed.

It was the word I longed to hear spilling from her seductive pink lips.

“You, Professor…it’s you I think of, every time. Every single time I touch myself your face is all I see.”

She’d said the last sentence so slowly it was impossible not to let every word sink deep into my psyche.

I gritted my teeth as I was flooded with the urge to rip off her clothes and fuck her hard right there on my green leather desk.

“And how long has this been the case?” I managed.

“Why do you want to know?” Her eyes were brimming with lust and her breaths were shallow.

I knew she wouldn’t object to anything I decided to do. She was hot and ready for it. I locked my knees, stiffened my spine. I had to stay in control even though every fiber of my body was telling me to throw caution to the wind and fuck a student. Pound into her sweet body in a frenzied release of passion that would blow both of our minds.

“I suppose for about two years now.” She shrugged.

“Two years?” I nodded slowly; my erection was becoming painful. “That’s a long time.” I shifted from one foot to the other; it didn’t help.

She smiled as though she knew about my discomfort. Hell, of course she did, she’d dragged her attention down my body, settling it on the wedge of flesh straining within the confines of my pants. There’d been no hiding.

“The thing is, Professor,” she said and touched my wrist, the one that was lifted between us

I was still pinching her delicate chin.

“Have you ever thought of me when you’ve jerked off?”

“That’s hardly an appropriate question for a student to ask her professor.”

“This entire conversation is rapidly become inappropriate, don’t you think?”

She turned her face, and I dropped my hand back to my side. Her profile was beautiful. Almost pixie-like with her delicate freckled nose and angular jawline. Her bottom lip was fuller than the top, and her eyes the palest blue that somehow made her even more delicate.

That’s right, she was delicate. This pretty young woman with sassy backchat would never cope with my particular brand of fucking. I’d break her. She’d snap, she’d be scarred for life. What the hell was I thinking? I was too rough and ready and badass for her.

Which of course she didn’t know. In her eyes I was an esteemed professor, suit-wearing, law-abiding, a fine upstanding citizen who paid his taxes. She’d created a version of me in her mind that was so far from the truth it might as well have been on another planet.

“You should go,” I said, reaching for her file of papers.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Go?”

“I’ve reviewed your thesis proposal, what else did you think was going to happen?”

Once again, she dropped her gaze to my groin, folding her arms as she did so and shifting her glorious tits upward. “I didn’t think anything else would happen, but it has.”

“How do you mean?” I shoved the file at her. I needed to cover some of that temptation up.

She stared at it for a moment, her lips pouted, and then took it and held it to her chest.

“Nothing else has happened?” she snapped. “Unless you questioning me about my self-pleasuring habits doesn’t count.”

“I only asked if what I suspected was true.”

She suddenly stepped up close. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes narrowed. “Yes, and you made me answer truthfully. I was completely honest, bare-bone honest with you.”

I didn’t reply. God, she was even hotter when she was frustrated and horny. I could practically feel the waves of anger crashing from her, and each one carried a hefty dose of lust with it.

Just the way each wave of need was crashing through me.

But I had to put a halt to this. It couldn’t happen no matter how much I wanted it. She might be a spoiled little rich girl, but I would wreck her for every other man she’d ever date…the man she’d go on to marry. And that just wasn’t fair on any poor sucker.

“And you, Professor.” She jabbed her finger close to my face.

I thought she was going to stab the end of my nose.

“You gave me absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Sweet fuck all in return.”

I chuckled. “I’ll give you something.”

“What? Tell me.”

I paused then, “Whatever you think this is, I’m the worst decision you’ll ever make.”

“So it’s my decision.” Her eyebrows twitched. “My decision to make? Good or bad?”

“No.” I laughed. “No, it really fucking isn’t.”

I swear she stomped her foot before huffing and marching to the door. She slammed it behind herself with enough force for a framed certificate to fall off its wall hook and smash on the floor.

I guess that served me right for bringing her into my office and not giving her what she wanted.