Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Iris

I’m in the front row of my political science class, head bowed forward so I can create a little world of my own inside the safety of my hair. It shields me from the rest of the class and stops me from getting too overwhelmed by the sheer number of people surrounding me. If I think about it too much, my stomach will pitch and I won’t be able to concentrate on a single word the professor is saying. Although this morning, it’s difficult to concentrate no matter what, isn’t it?

What happened last night?

Humiliation is a rotating ball of fire in my belly. I can’t believe…so many things.

Where do I start?

One, after doing some Googling while waiting for class to start, I found out how weird it is to orgasm so quickly—and without any stimulation between my legs. I’m a freak. A total freak. The star of the football team breathed on me and I basically acted like I was possessed.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, I fell asleep.

He brought me home for sex, obviously. He’s a virile athlete and he was erect—I felt it—and I was too exhausted from being touched, from the rush of exhilaration and pleasure, to even keep my eyes open. God, he must have been disappointed. He brought home a dud. A dud given to bouts of narcolepsy.

My face is crawling with fire ants. I sink lower into my seat. Tug down my skirt to cover my knees, because I can tell they’re pink, as well. I’m flushed everywhere. Not only from the memory of him looking at my breasts. Licking them. No, the memory of him holding me as I slept is enough to make me achy and restless. I’ve never been held before. Not like that. Not so tightly, every inch of me fitted to hard male muscle. Not to mention that big, stiff part of him that was wedged between my butt cheeks when I woke up.

Did he really want to put it inside of me?

Like, all of it?

I’m ripped from my ongoing worries when everyone around me breaks into hoots and whistles and applause. What’s going on?

I glance up and find my political science professor looking reluctantly amused, his gaze fastened to the entrance. Carefully, I push aside some of my hair so I can figure out what is causing the commotion.

My breath is swiped clean out of my lungs when I see Teddy leaning against the wall, just inside the door of my lecture hall. Arms crossed, stance cocky. He looks like the cover of those Sports Illustrated magazines I see sometimes at the drugstore. Everyone is going wild, pounding their desks and chanting his name, reciting some football cheer I’ve never heard. He salutes the admiring crowd and they go absolutely wild. Girls are screaming and fanning themselves. A group of guys are trying to start a wave. But Teddy…

His attention is zeroed in on me.

I attempt to breathe, but I can’t. My nipples bead inside my big, loose button-down shirt—a hand-me-down from one of the smaller priests at the monastery. Fists pound the desks behind me, matching the rapid beats of my heart.

Oh God.

What if he’s here to make fun of me? To all of these people?

I’m the girl who he carried across campus last night, completely comatose. He brought me home expecting something and I slept like the dead, instead of giving it to him. On top of that, I had the nerve to leave him a note. Hope I see you later. He probably thinks I’m pitiful. Pathetic. He—

“Mr. Xavier,” calls the professor, signaling for the class to quiet down. “To what do we owe the honor of your illustrious presence?”

He wets his bottom lip, those eyes never leaving me once. “Just here to pick up my girl,” he explains in that deep, rich voice. “We have plans.”

Every head in the lecture hall swivels in my direction, whispers and full-on cries of denial rising up around me. In the matter of a split second, I’m the center of attention. People are speculating on my name, they’re judging my attire and asking where I came from. I sink lower into my chair, my chin buried in my chest. This has to be a nightmare. This can’t be real. He’s definitely joking about me being his girl. He probably already wheeled the suitcase back to my dorm and washed his sheets clean of my scent.

A brand new pair of black Nike running shoes appear in front of me.

The lecture hall is dead silent now.

“Ready to go, honey?”

There goes the whispering again.

“Uh, Mr. Xavier,” ventures my professor. “We’re in the middle of a lecture…”

Teddy ignores the man, holding his hand out to me. When I say that my body gravitates toward him like the ocean to the shore, it’s no exaggeration. Especially when I finally look up through my curtains of hair and his intensity sinks into me, hot and deep, and my pulse becomes cannon fire in my ears. My savior. It’s what my heart and body and mind, maybe even my soul, insisted on calling him last night. I’m right back there now, getting lost in the burn of his light brown eyes, the blatant hunger etched into every line of his handsome face.

“Iris,” he says.

I’m standing before I realize what I’m doing, my small hand locked inside his much larger one. He picks up my books in the opposite hand and guides me out of the classroom to a renewed chorus of hoots and whistles. My face burns at the attention and I have the impulse to bury my face in his shoulder. As if Teddy can read my mind, he hauls me into his side, using his body to shield me from attention. But it’s too late for that, isn’t it? I’ve just walked out of class twenty minutes early with the campus hero. Farewell anonymity.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, once we’re in the empty hallway. “Is s-something wrong?”

“Yes,” he says without missing a beat, that square jaw grinding. “You left my bed, honey. That’s a huge problem.”

My back is flattened against the wall, his hard body pressing me there. Tight.

The books he’s holding are dropped to the ground and he moans, dipping his hips and rocking them into mine, a long, shaky male exhale releasing into my neck.

“Woke up so motherfucking hard for you, Iris,” he groans. “God.”

More heat blasts my cheeks. “I know. I know…you probably…I didn’t mean to disappoint you like that. I—”

His gaze pins me sharply. “Disappoint me?”

“Well I went home with you and that’s kind of an, um…unspoken understanding that we’re going t-to have…to have…”

He’s nodding. “That we’re going to fuck.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “And then I passed out like an idiot after…after giving you the impression we would do…more. I bet that’s never happened to you before.”

“We’re never going to talk about what I did before you. That shit doesn’t matter.” Suddenly, he looks nervous, his throat muscles shifting in a pattern. “Does it? You don’t think less of me because I…” Regret is visibly eating him alive. “I didn’t know you were out there, in the world. But now I do. Now the thought of anyone but you makes me sick.”

I don’t have a chance to answer him—or marvel over the fact that he doesn’t seem the least bit disappointed, at least not in anyone but himself—because he’s picking me up and carrying me across the hall to another room. A lecture hall. This one is empty.

Teddy kicks the door shut behind us, carries me to the front of the room and settles me on the professor’s desk. Then he plants his hands on either side of me, bracing himself, breathing hard. Erratically. “Teddy—”

“Punch me in the face.”

“What?”

“Punch me. Hard. Make me suffer for what I did before you.”

“No! No.” I launch myself off the desk, wrapping my arms around his neck. Holding tight. He makes a hoarse animal sound and crushes me to his body, breathing hard into my neck. “I don’t want to hit you. I’m not upset. You don’t have any obligation to me—”

“Yes, I fucking do,” he growls. “What aren’t you understanding? I brought you home last night to live with me. You are my girlfriend now. You…” He sort of deflates, stumbling forward with me, my butt hitting the surface of the desk again, and then he’s gathering me close, so close, his hips making a home between my splayed thighs. “The second I saw you sitting in there, so sweet in the front row, the anger went away. You take it all away. I will die to be obligated to you. Do you get what I’m saying?”

How can I not?

He’s holding nothing back.

This is…happening. It’s real. But of course I’m having a hard time understanding why. Why this modern-day god wants me. Needs me. I’m meek where he’s demanding. I’m small while he’s huge. I’m private while he’s public. It shouldn’t make sense and yet, it’s there. I feel the inescapable nature of this relationship, too. This inevitability between us. The gravity. My body is clamoring, pulse pounding, heart in my throat. His mouth on my neck is tightening my womanhood and I’m gasping, yanking him toward me, too, desperate to feel as much of him as possible. What is this? Obsession?

“You get it now. You get it.”

“Yes.” My mouth is open against his cheek. I’m dazed, barely aware of where we are. Our surroundings. What day it is. “Yes, I get it.”

A shudder goes through him. “You’re going to tell me every single thing about you. All right? Everything. Every like and dislike. Everything that scares you or makes you happy. I want to know about them.” He jerks me to the edge of the desk. “But right now, I need to make you come. Can’t concentrate. Not until you’re sitting in a puddle on this desk.”

“A p-puddle?”

“Fuck yes.” He’s slowly pushing the skirt up my thighs. “I know you’re a virgin, honey. There’s a lot I’ll be showing and explaining to you. But number one, number goddamn one, is that your pussy makes a mess when I’m around. A creamy little mess.”

His palms on my bare thighs make me tremble. Head falling back, I send a whimper of his name toward the high ceiling. “T-Teddy.”

“I’m here. I’m right here.” He leaves the hem of my skirt where it barely hides my panties. And then his hands slide back down my thighs to clutch my knees, gently easing them open. Leaning back to peer between my legs and letting out a rocky exhale over what he sees. What panties did I wear today? Gray cotton? “All it takes is my skin on yours, huh? And you’re drenched. I love that and I hate it. Love it because you’re responding to me, getting ready for pleasure. But I hate knowing how bad you’ve needed touching. Years of it. My girl. Suffering.” His eyes darken. “That makes me a little insane, you know that?”

From somewhere inside me comes a wave of bravery. Confidence. Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at me like I’m his last meal. Whatever the reason, I lean back on the desk and inch my legs open a little wider. “M-maybe you should make up for l-lost time.”

He puffs a breath, looking momentarily dazed before the lust sweeps in and he drops to his knees, his tongue snaking out to wet that chiseled lower lip. “Christ. Did you just innocently ask me to lick your pussy, honey?” He bites the inside of my knee with a snarl. “That was so fucking hot. I’m never going to be the same. I might…fuck. I might come in my pants—hold on.”

His huge body shakes for several moments, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

Is he really…could he really climax so easily?

And what he said…about licking…is that real?

I should have done a lot more Googling this morning.

“I-I…no. I didn’t even know you could put your mouth there.” His head lifts, eyes pinning me to the desk, my skin swamped with heat once again. Flushed is my new default. “I just thought you would want to put your…your…”

“My cock?”

Fire ants. Everywhere. “There. Yes.”

“So that thing you did, opening your legs wider to show me your drenched little cunt, was an invitation to fuck you?”

“Isn’t that what men and women do together?”

“I’m tempted to say yes. The answer is yes. But you’re a virgin, Iris. You’re my girlfriend and it would hurt this way.” He blows out a sudden breath, looking almost dizzy. “And if you think it makes me insane to think of you lonely without so much as a hug for years, you don’t want to know what happens in my brain when I think of you hurt. I could commit murder.”

“You’d never hurt me,” I say, with absolute conviction, my heart wedging painfully into my throat, my flesh throbbing, aching for his touch. There. Where no one has ever touched me, but instinctively I understand that he owns it. He owns me there. Right or wrong, it’s fact.

“No. No. I’d never hurt you.” He kisses his way up my inner thighs, right and left, his fingers twisting in the sides of my panties and tugging down, encouraging me without words to lift my hips and let them come off. Let my…my boyfriend shed my panties. “Iris,” he rasps, seemingly in awe of what he has uncovered.

“Yes?”

“Your pussy…”

I hold my breath and wait.

“I just finished telling you I’d never hurt you, but…” His warm breath travels over my soaked womanhood and that alone is almost enough to push me to the edge. “But honey, I might. I might hurt it sometimes. Just a little. There’s no way I’ll be able to keep from…” The rest is gritted through his teeth. “Christ, I’m going to pound that sweet fucking thing.”

My thighs try to shoot together from the sheer force of my orgasm. The hands I’m using to prop myself up slide sideways and I almost fall, but manage to catch myself on my elbows while the monstrous pleasure undulates through me, ripping the breath out of my lungs and constricting those low intimate muscles. And the pulsing, the pulsing, it won’t stop. “Teddy!”

“Jesus Christ.” He grips my hips, presses my legs open with his broad shoulders and buries his mouth against my spasming flesh. “You’re a miracle. My miracle.” His tongue parts my sex in one long savoring drag. “Sweet. Sweet girl, Iris. Come for your man. However you want, whenever you want. As long as I’m here to lick it up.”

“Oh my…oh my…” I whimper, my fingers finding purchase in his hair. Holding him closer. Scooting to the very, very edge of the desk and writhing, lifting, so I can feel more of his tongue. I’m blind. I’m shaking. I can’t believe how good it feels. God oh God oh God. “Teddy. More.”

His licks turn frantic.

Desperate.

He uses his fingers to spread me open and he flattens that tongue against me again, again, again, making me gasp and sweat and sob, another powder keg of sensations preparing to detonate inside of me. And this time, I know how incredible it will be. I trust Teddy is there to catch me, so I race toward it, screaming behind my teeth when he tucks his tongue just inside of me and rotates the tip quickly, quickly, waking up nerve endings I didn’t even know existed.

“I want to fuck you,” he grates against my femininity. Lapping, lapping.

“Yes,” I gasp. “Please.” Any way to feel closer to him. My boyfriend. My savior.

“No, you can’t. You can’t.” He seems to be arguing with himself. Then to me, he says, “I’m saving such a fat nut for you, honey. It’s going to look like someone spilled a gallon of milk on this virgin pussy when I finally get into it.”

With that, he closes his lips around this place, this spot he’s been licking that feels so incredible and he gives it a raspberry, suctioning lightly, and my back arches involuntarily, another, more powerful tidal wave of pleasure pulling me down into a whirlpool of blind sensation, my sex tightening and releasing, releasing wetness, my secret muscles screaming with relief and shock. “Teddy,” I whine, voice jagged, high pitched, fingers yanking on the ends of his hair while lust makes me its prisoner. And then I finally collapse, limp on the desk, once again boneless in his presence, just like last night.

He wraps me in his powerful arms, picks me up and sits down in the professor’s chair, rocking me in his lap. I feel his hardness beneath my bottom and I want to ease that pain. I don’t know how I’m so positive there is pain involved. Maybe it’s the rigidity of his muscles or the way he’s still breathing hard. But I want to be his antidote. My gut, my soul, my mind are telling me he’s my responsibility. I’m his and he’s mine.

Somewhere in the room, there is something buzzing. A phone?

Teddy seems to know who is calling and why, because he sighs into my hair. “It’s probably my coach. I’m late for practice.”

I nod, starting to sit up.

He pulls me back into his embrace, tighter than before. “No.”

“No?”

“No leaving me. No sneaking out of our bed in the morning. Just no.” He kisses a path from my shoulder blade up to my ear. “I’ve never felt anything like this, didn’t even know I could, so try and be patient with me. I’m possessive as fuck over you. I know what it means to be abusive, Iris, and Jesus, everything I want from you fits that bill.”

Concern sweeps into my chest, battling with joy. I don’t understand these conflicting emotions. What is wrong with me? How is this happening so fast? Yesterday the most important part of my life was an education. Now he’s blocking out the sun. Demanding every ounce of my attention. “What do you want from me…that’s abusive?”

“For one, I just interrupted your class and carried you out of there without permission. Did it last night, too. I’m controlling you. I’m taking up all of your air and I…like it. Love it. I want to be the center of your universe because you’re the center of mine.” He breaks off, shuddering. “Goddammit, I need to fuck you so bad. I want that cherry dripping down my cock. My thoughts are sick when you’re so innocent. Young, too. Eighteen.”

“You’re only four years older than me, right?” I breathe, threading my fingers through his hair. Driven to comfort him, even as he details his “abusive” behavior. The fact that he doesn’t want to stop. Warning me that it will escalate. Why is excitement fluttering in every cell of my body? I need to get control of this. Of myself and him, before this gets carried away. “You can’t take me out of classes anymore, Teddy. You have to let me learn.”

Soulful eyes lift to mine, perturbed and slightly dangerous. “There are men in your classes, Iris.” His chest rises and falls faster. “Sitting close enough to smell you. I can’t stand it.” Thoughts churn behind his light brown gaze. “I’ll let you go to classes if I can spray you in my cologne in the mornings. And you wear my jacket. All day, no taking it off.”

My mouth drops open. “It’s going to be like wearing a tent.”

He grins. “Exactly.”

I huff a breath, looking down at my oversized shirt. “I guess it won’t be that different from what I usually wear.”

“I love the way you dress.” He presses his tongue to the base of my neck, right on top of the pulse. “I love every damn thing about you, honey. Tonight at home, I’ll kiss every single one.” When his phone begins buzzing again, he curses, thinks for a second. “Yup. You’re coming to practice with me.”

“What?” I blink, trying to scramble off his lap, but he easily keeps hold of me. He stands up and urges my legs around his waist, gaze darkening when I continue to struggle. It takes me several seconds to realize I’m wiggling all over his erection. “I have to go back to class.”

“You’re a genius. You’ll catch up in no time.” He coaxes me into a kiss, giving me a pleading look that I have to admit is extremely persuasive. Is this beautiful man really my boyfriend now? “Come watch me play football? I need you where I can see you. Still haven’t recovered from waking up alone. Still waiting for an apology for that, by the way.”

“Keep waiting,” I tease him.

He rolls his hips, groaning. “Honey, believe me. If I can wait until tonight for this tight pussy, I can wait for an apology.” His hands find my bottom beneath my skirt, kneading each bun with relish. “And I can think of a lot of ways to get it out of you.”

Playfulness comes naturally with him, I find. A side of me I’ve never been able to explore. “Maybe I can negotiate your cologne rule in the same ways.”

“That is non-negotiable, honey.” He narrows his eyes at me, a smile playing around his beautiful mouth. “But I want to hear more about your tactics.”

I purse my lips, trying not to look as shy as I feel. “I’ll need some time with Google first.”

“Fuck Google.” He grips my bottom hard, walks me toward the door. “I’m your search engine, honey, and I run all night.” Before I can respond to that boast, he bites my neck. “You stay where I can see you during practice, understand?”

I should probably kick him. Or say no, at the very least. But I’d be lying to myself if I pretended his possessiveness didn’t excite me. If I pretended it didn’t feel right and inevitable. If I pretended it didn’t make need course through me like a wild river.

“Yes, Teddy,” I murmur, laying my head on his shoulder and letting him carry me away.