Read with BonusRead with Bonus

4

Cathy

His hand cups my nape. His thumb strokes the sensitive skin just below my ear and I shiver, an involuntary shudder that courses down my body. He’s doing the very thing he’s accusing someone else of doing, but unlike with Chris, this attention is not unwanted. I could tell him no at any time and he would stop. He would listen and act. I’m not scared. I feel…safe.

Excited.

Aroused.

Part of my higher mind still works. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be in his arms. I should be out the door and halfway down the corridor, but my professor threads his hand through my hair and tips up my chin. His gaze snags on my lips and moves back to my eyes. The intensity in his dark depths is my undoing. I can’t move. Can’t think. My stupid feet remain where they are.

I don’t know how one short conversation has changed so many things. He asks me to tell him to stop when it’s the last thing I want.

He can’t know anything about Chris, but he looked close enough to know something.

It’s that look. That understanding that holds me in place. That…caring.

He sees through the walls I’ve spent years constructing as though they’re nothing but cling wrap.

He sees me.

And that’s dangerous because it makes me want things I shouldn’t want and can never have.

His reaction isn’t what I expect. Nor is the pleading in his tone when he asks for my…what? For my forgiveness?

For my permission.

The answer is yes.

His shirt is open, revealing a patch of tantalizing tanned skin. His masculine scent rises from his body and infuses into my bloodstream. His thumb strokes my cheek so softly. Gently. There’s a slight tremor in his thumb as he smears my tear track away.

I lean forward and press my lips to the base of his throat where his heart visibly ticks and something clicks and eases inside me.

So right.

So wrong.

He’s my professor. I shouldn’t lust after him. Shouldn’t feel the way I do. Definitely shouldn’t be kissing him in his office, but I can’t stop. Not when I inhale and my lungs fill with his intoxicating masculine scent.

“I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me.” His tone is contrite yet full of yearning. I should tell him he has nothing to beg forgiveness for, but when his gaze flares hot and his hand curves around my nape I stop thinking.

I act.

I rise on my toes, our breaths mixing. I close my eyes, fall into the sweet grip of nerves and desire. His hands on me tremble when I lean in.

“You should leave. We can pretend this never happened.” His warm breath coasts over my face, offering an out I don’t want. I should be saying this to him. He doesn’t know who I am. To him, I’m a penniless, nameless student and when he finds out the truth, he’ll never be the same.

Because one thing I can count on is that things always change when the truth comes out.

Yet I want this. Want him. Want to know what it’s like to kiss a man who can truly see past the money. Before my name tarnishes everything.

I need to know.

I’ll never have this opportunity again.

Once in a lifetime chance.

I slowly reach up to curl and tighten my fingers in the front of his shirt. “We can still pretend this never happened.”

I glance up and fall into his liquid dark gaze and everything in my head evaporates as though it never existed.

“We shouldn’t.” The pain in his voice is my undoing.

“I know.” We’re both adults and I want to forget he’s a professor and I’m a student. For this moment I just need to be a woman, desired for being me.

His fingers firm on my hip. His other arm slowly bands around me and he holds me in place. He angles his head and takes my mouth, his tongue tracing my lips. I open for him, not able to stay distant. Not able to resist the temptation of the thing I want most in the world.

His mouth covers mine in a shockingly gentle way that sends goose bumps racing down my arms. His free hand rests on the small of my back, holding me against his body. I should pull away, but I don’t. I can’t.

A sigh ripples through me. Sparks flare. So right. So wrong.

This.

Jonathan’s kiss is a revelation and a seduction and a dissolution of self and morals. It’s soft and demanding. His tongue swipes my bottom lip. Teasing. A jolt of energy ricochets through me and I make a small, breathless sound in the back of my throat.

The only thing that matters is this kiss. This moment. His fingers curl around the nape of my neck and he angles my head to take control. Confirming he has years of experience, far more than my one and only time that ended in disaster. Heat unfurls deep in my belly and my muscles soften. Tension I’m so used to feeling falls away.

Everything I want and have never had is contained in this kiss.

What Chris and I shared was nothing like this.

Nothing.

His kiss didn’t leave me aching for more.

I’m not the same woman as I was moments before. Now I know what a real kiss is like. One touch and I’m done. I’m shattered for anything less.

Our lips move together, slow and languid, as if he has all the time in the world to get to know me through this connection. He cups my cheek, both hands fisting in my hair.

And I let him.

His hold tightens. I can’t move. I can’t think. I can’t believe that I’m here in his arms. Kissing him. He slots my body against his. A rush of heat builds low inside me, burning bright and hot, as if it will consume me.

“Cathy.” Jonathan’s breath ghosts across my cheek before he leans down to claim my lips again.

His thumb moves to the back of my neck to hold me captive for the perfect fit. His lips are soft, yet hard and unyielding. I open and give, and he accepts. He glides into my mouth, tasting, teasing. Desperate. I’m lost in the sweetest, most sensuous enticement I’ve ever experienced.

I need this. Need him.

I’m spinning out of control in the best possible way and it’s all because of him. He nips my bottom lip and sucks it into his mouth. My fingers curl around his neck. I anchor my fingers in his hair and his body vibrates. He groans and tips my head the other way. His teeth scrape my neck, and an electric shiver races to the base of my spine before spiraling through my core. He pulls my lower lip again, then sucks on it, and a soft moan leaves my throat. I lean into his touch, unable to help myself.

I want this moment to go on forever. I never want to stop feeling this way. But the inevitable is here. This kiss is never-to-be-repeated. This kiss is a once in a lifetime, and right now it’s beautiful, as pure and as perfect as I ever thought it would be.

Maybe even more.

His mouth slows and gentles and his fingers smooth over my shoulder when I tremble. I break the kiss, needing to take a breath. To peer into his eyes, so dark, his pupils so blown they consume the irises. He’s as affected as I am. Can’t be helped. Can’t be taken back. I will commit this moment to memory to relive in technicolor for the rest of my life.

The reality is this moment was a mirage. Not only because I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. Or that I’ll never risk entering another relationship. But in all the time I’ve lusted after Professor Jonathan Black, I’ve never seen him with another woman and that reality smashes over my head. He’s squeaky clean. The type of clean that’s carefully cultivated. The clean that screams “Career Professor” and if anyone caught on to this, it would mean the end of everything he’s worked for.

God. What am I doing? How can I be so selfish?

I open my eyes, press both palms to his chest and push away. “We should stop.” The words are strangled. My entire body throbs for this kiss that had to stop.

Jonathan steps away, the air instantly cooling my body. He runs his fingers through his hair, making wayward curls stand out everywhere. The devastation in his eyes kicks my gut. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have. If…if you want to press charges, I won’t stop you.”

I pick up my bag where it dropped on the floor and slide out from between the cage of his body and the desk. “Please be assured I won’t press charges.”

His gaze is bleak as he stares at me. There’s a war behind his eyes that makes my stomach roll. I’ve overstepped a clear line in the sand. “Can we talk?”

My lips twist as the boulders turn and tumble inside me, weighing me down, heavier and heavier. He can never find out who I truly am because that will change the way he looks at me forever. “You don’t have to worry, Professor. As we’ve established, I have no one to tell anyway.”

I mentally remind myself to change my business analytics class. It will be a special kind of torture to sit in a lecture room knowing I can’t have him. Not now I know what it feels like to be kissed by someone who wants me. Not because of my money. Or my name. Or for what I can do for them.

I want more with him, and that’s the danger. Anything I hide can be used against me.

He looks as destroyed as I feel. If he’s nervous not knowing what I’ll do, he doesn’t need to be. We both have as much to lose as each other.

I jump when a knock sounds at his office door. “Professor? It’s Doug Spencer. Your 3pm appointment? Hello? Anyone there?”

The lips I can’t get enough of silently form my name. A question. A plea. I don’t want to know.

I can’t know.

For both our sakes.

I turn without looking at his face again and push through the door, startling the student waiting outside. I recognize him from my business analytics class. I mutter a hasty apology and rush past him, through the outer administrative rooms, down the stairs and out the building exit that swings closed behind me with a finality that makes me shudder.

Previous Chapter
Next Chapter