Maybe that was for the best.
Yeah, right.
I walked back to my car with a cloud following me, pissed at myself for not just grabbing her, pulling her back and telling her she wasn’t walking away from that. Or hell, throwing her over my shoulder and taking her home like that. I shook my head as I started the engine, rolling my eyes at myself for pining over a random girl like some heartsick teenager.
I pulled out from the lot behind Rory’s, swinging back onto Lake Drive past the bar scenes. I drove slow, past the groups of smokers outside one bar, past some wasted looking couple making out against the wall of another, with the guy’s hand slipping up her skirt.
Part of me wanted to roll down the window and tell them to make good fucking choices before I rolled my eyes at myself. Jesus fuck, I was turning into an old man already. Not to mention a hypocrite considering what I’d just done with a girl I’d known for ten whole minutes back at Rory’s.
I was just about to pull a u-turn and head home to call it a night, when I saw it. This couple was different, even if they too were pressed against a wall. I slowed, my eyes narrowing as I saw the girl twisting in his arms. He held on, and my jaw tightened. They twisted again, and this time, when the neon light from the bar sign fell across her face, something froze inside of me.
Her. My mystery girl from the bar. Her mask was still on, but I’d have known those lips fucking anywhere. God, she was pretty even from that distance. I glared at her in the guy’s hands, and I told myself to just fucking leave it, when suddenly, one of his hand came back and slapped her right across her cheek, sending her reeling to her knees.
Oh, FUCK that.
My car screeched as I roared to a stop half up on the curb. I lunged from the driver's seat the second I killed the engine, and before I could even ask myself what the fuck the plan was, I was on the kid. I barreled into him like a fucking truck, grunting as I knocked him to the ground, wound back, and slung my fist across his jaw. He screamed like a little bitch, his mask falling off and his arms flailing at me as I saw red and punched him twice more in the face.
I blinked, pausing for one second, and suddenly, my gut dropped.
Aww hell.
He was covering his face with his hands, but fuck, I knew the kid. Matt-something. He was in my sophomore Principles of Economics lecture — some asshole who basically slept in the back row and who was probably going to squeak by with a D+ or some shit. Bottom line though, I’d just knocked the fuck out of a student.
I jump to my feet, and I was whirling away from him when I suddenly came face to face with her.
…And my heart just stopped. She wasn’t pretty, she was gorgeous. And young. And so innocent looking. And…
Oh shit.
And I knew her. Not from the bathroom ten minutes before, I fucking knew her. The realization hit me like a bat to the head, and I could feel my heart skip and drop through my gut.
Cora Hartley. She’d been in my freshman Survey of Finance class last year, and she was in my Ethics of Business lecture this year. Drop-dead beautiful, smart, ball-achingly innocent, and nineteen years old. I’d never once creeped on a student, but this girl? Shit, with her, I knew the rules were out the window. Cora Hartley pushed every single one of my buttons. And here I was face to face with her, our eyes locked, with both of us knowing one thing: ten minutes before, she’d been coming for me as I fucked her hard against a bar bathroom door.
“Oh God,” she whispered breathlessly, one hand touching her lips and those big blue eyes wide as she just stared at me. “Oh my God, you’re—”
“Are you okay?” I growled, stooping low to look her in the eye. Shit, she was so much smaller than me, and as I leaned into her, I got a whiff of that damn shampoo or pheromones again — whatever it was turning me to fucking putty right there.
…And I was hooked.
“What?” she breathed. Her eyes slowly went wide with recognition as she looked into mine under the brim of my hat. “Oh my God, you’re—”
“Are you alright?” I growled deeply, gently reaching up and pulling her hand away from her cheek. The fucker had left a red mark, that was for sure, but she didn’t look too bad.
Her soft tongue darted out, wetting her lips as she swallowed thickly and nodded, her big blue eyes still glued to me in shock.
“Yes,” she said softly, her voice so achingly sweet.
“Hey, asshole!” The douchebag was standing behind me. “Get your fucking hands off my girl—”
I whirled, wordless and seeing red as I slammed him back into the brick wall behind him and sunk my fist into his stomach. He groaned pitifully, doubling over around my fist as I leaned in close to his ear, making sure he couldn’t see my face.
“If I ever see you again,” my voice rasped out, full of venom and fire. “You’d be wise to run the other direction.”
“Fuck—”
I punched him in the gut again, shutting him the fuck up.
“And if I hear about you laying a hand on a woman again?” I ground my teeth. “Then you might want to leave the country, because I will bury you.”
He trembled, nodding his head quickly.
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”
I whirled away, pulling the mask that I’d let drop around my neck up, hiding my face. I moved right towards her, grabbing her hand and holding on tight as I started to pull her after me.
Bad idea. What the fuck are you doing? BAD idea!
But I wasn’t listening to the rational voice inside, I was listening to the blood roaring through my veins. I was listening to the way her hand in mine sent a jolt of something so real and so wrong right through me, making my heart swell in my chest and my cock throb between my thighs. Stopping an assault was one thing, but hitting a student was another thing entirely.
Oh, right, and fucking one in a bar bathroom, and making her come on my cock, and then filling her sweet young pussy with every single drop of my seed? Yeah, we can go ahead and file that one under bad idea. But when that student was my student, and fucking beautiful, and nineteen years old, and entirely responsible for the thick erection pulsing in my jeans as I pulled her towards my car?
Yeah, that was another thing entirely. That’s was what you’d call a nuclear level bad fucking idea.
But I didn’t care. I couldn’t care — not about the ethics, or the morals, or anything. Because once her hand was in mine, and once I felt those small fingers lace into mine and felt the thud of heat roar through me, nothing else mattered.
“Where are we going?” she gasped quietly as I opened the side door and helped her in. I leaned over her, buckling her seatbelt as she blinked, still in shock as she looked into my eyes.
“Home, Cora,” I growled quietly. “I’m taking you home.”
3
Cora
Every part of me tingled and buzzed as the car roared away from the bar. I swallowed thickly, a million questions tumbling through my head but not a single word coming to my lips. My eyes darted around the car, to the road, to my knees, to his face — briefly — before I looked away. It felt like I’d just taken a quad-shot of espresso or something, the way my whole body buzzed restlessly and antsy.
I turned to him silently, trembling as he turned — those sharp blue eyes of his blazing right into me in the darkness of the car.
I slept with my professor.
No, “slept with” was putting it mildly. I’d flat out thrown myself at the man, let him pull me into a bar bathroom, and had the single hottest sex experience of my life as he fucked me against the door.
My lip caught between my teeth, and I tried to swallow back the heat from my face as his fierce gaze burned into me.
“Are you okay? Besides that asshole hitting you?”
I nodded quietly. “Yeah, I— I think so.” I glanced down at my fingers, twisting anxiously in my lap. “Thank you, Profess—”
“Stop, no,” he growled, his hands tightening on the wheel of the car and his eyes bla
zing as they stared at the road. He shook his head, his brow furrowing. “Don’t…” He sighed, his jaw clenching. “Don’t call me that. Not after…” His brow tightened. “Just call me Nolan.”
“Thank you, Nolan.”
We sat in silence for a minute as we drove, both of us clearly realizing the full weight of what’d just happened back at the bar.
“Look, can I drive you back to your dorm or something?” he finally said.
I frowned, looking down at my lap again.
“I— I don’t live in the dorms.”
I don’t live anywhere.
To say I’d come to college on a budget was being generous. Really, I’d come to college broke as a joke. What’d helped was that since I was twelve, I’d grown up in the town next door, living with my Grams after my parents had passed. So, I’d never had to pay to live in the dorms, which was great. Even better, my Grams was awesome, and as a surprise graduation present before I started my freshman year at college, she’d gotten a guy from her church to renovate the tiny little apartment above the garage, all for me.
“You’re in college now, hon! You need your space!”
And as much as I loved her, having my own space had been great, especially when I’d been juggling a full course load, late night studying, and a part time job at the campus coffee shop. It was a great arrangement for my freshman year at college, but then, right before sophomore year started, the whole thing came crashing down.
My Grams was a proud woman, and part of that had been never letting me or really anyone know how sick she was. Losing her — yeah, that’d been hard. I’d loved growing up with her, and on top of that, she was the last of my family after my parents, which meant I was alone then. From there though, it’d just gotten worse.
Besides hiding her illness, Grams had also hidden then massive debt she still owed on the house. When she passed, the bank swooped in, and very suddenly, I didn’t just find myself without a family, I found myself homeless.
It’d been two months since I’d had to leave Grams’s house, and I was reaching the end of my lifeline. I’d juggled staying with a few friends at their dorms for a few weeks. I’d spent the odd weekend with my good friend Kenzie, who lived off campus in that huge house. But then, her situation was….complicated. And by complicated, I mean she lived with two boyfriends — two much older, stupidly good looking guys who adored her. I wasn’t put off by it — far from it. What they had was something special and loving and amazing.
But, maybe I’d inherited more of my Grams’s stubbornness and pride than I thought. I knew she’d have let me move in forever if I asked, but I couldn’t. And so I never asked. Actually, I’d kind of hidden how dire my living situation was from her and any of the other friends I’d stayed with. I’d even spent a night or two in the backseat of my beat up old SUV parked in the school parking lot.
Eventually, for whatever stupid reason, it’d been Matt, who I’d dated briefly the year before, that I’d gone back to. I mean, the guy was a total prick, and the relationship had been over almost before it began. I have no idea why the hell I turned to him as my last option once I was running out of friends to lie to and places to stay, but I had. And that’s where I’d been the last week.
But, don’t go thinking Matt was being this noble, chivalrous guy “letting me” stay at his apartment off campus. Yeah, no. Since the first night I’d come over with my backpack and pathetically small suitcase, he’d made it pretty clear that he’d be needing a certain something in return for his “kindness.”
Barf.
Also, I had zero intentions of being the kind of girl who sleeps with someone for a place to live. Ick. And certainly not with Matt. I’d played excuses for the last week — that I was sick, that I was on my period — but that night, at the bar he’d made me come to, it’d come to a head.
It was Matt — drunk, aggressive, and trying to drag me to the bathroom to screw me Matt — who I’d been running from when I’d gone crashing right into the gorgeous, tall stranger with the haunting blue eyes through his mask, and the arms made out of steel that’d wrapped around me. The beautiful stranger who’d taken my breath away, swept me off my feet, and made me lose my freaking mind.
I’d never acted like that before — not once. I’d never been so insanely impulsive that I’d just gone and kissed a stranger, let alone what happened after. But whatever it was about him, I’d lost my damn mind. Maybe it was that when I fell into him and his arms went around me, I’d felt safer than I’d ever felt before. Maybe it was because the feel of his body against mine and his hands on me lit a fire inside of me I’d never felt before.
Maybe it was because I was running scared, and he was there to save me.
The kiss had been one thing, but when he’d scooped me into his arms and pulled me away like that, I knew it was everything I wanted — escape, release, and something wild. A gorgeous stranger to take me away from all the shit in my life, if even just for a little while.
…And now, it turned out, that gorgeous stranger was my gorgeous professor.
I’d run out of the bar right afterwards and run smack into Matt, who was even more wasted than when I’d run from him before. And that’s where we’d been when Professor Jameson — Nolan — had stepped in.
I turned and glanced at him in the dim light from the dashboard, and felt a shiver tease through me. God he was gorgeous. Seriously, seriously gorgeous. Dark hair, bright blue eyes, this perpetual five o’clock scruff, and the man was built. I mean, he was in his mid-thirties, and the guy was in perfect shape. Big, broad shoulders, the kind of big arms that make girls lose their ability to think, and a great ass.
Professor Jameson was the kind of teacher that every single girl in the class had an enormous crush on, and lusted after — myself included. I’d been drooling over my stern, take-no-shit economics professor since freshman year, and here I was at two o’clock in the morning in his car, driving into the night.
…And fifteen minutes before, he’d been fucking my brains out against a bathroom door.
“I— I don’t live in the dorms.”
Nolan nodded, his face white. Okay, I got it. I got that he was probably a little bit freaked out about what we’d just done. I mean, if it got out, I might get in trouble, but he’d be fucked.
“Alright, so where’s your apartment?”
I was silent as I looked away.
“Cora.”
I closed my eyes, my cheeks blushing with embarrassment. “I, uh…”
I felt the car slow to a stop.
“Where do you live, sweetheart?”
The change from cold to warm in his voice broke through the walls I was trying to put up. I shook my head, my eyes still closed as I tried my hardest not to cry.
“Could you just drive me to the student parking lot back at school? That’s where my car is parked.”
“Cora, I’m happy to take you home, just tell me where—”
“That is my home, okay?”
The words just blurted out, and suddenly, the tears came too. I looked away, wiping at my face, when suddenly, his arms were around me. I turned on instinct or something, burying my face in his chest and letting the tears I’d been holding back for weeks just come out. Nolan held me tight, his big, strong hands stroking my back softly.
“Hey, I’m here,” he murmured into my hair. “I gotcha, Cora.”
We stayed like that a minute, just sitting in the darkness of the idling car as he held me close and let me cry until I was done.
“I was kind of staying with Matt, but—”
“But you’re sure as fuck not going back there,” he growled, pulling back to look me hard in the eyes. I nodded, sniffling and biting my lip.
“And you’re not going to sleep in your damn car.”
“It’s really fine,” I mumbled.
“It’s really not.”
His eyes narrowed, flickering, before he nodded.
“Okay, you’re coming home with me.”
; Something flip-flopped inside of me, and for the first time in I don’t even remember how long, I felt the spark of something warm in my heart.
“Profes— Nolan, you don’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, well, I am.”
“Look, if this is about…” I blushed, looking down. “If this is about what happened, I’m not gonna tell—”
“We’ll talk about that later,” he said, his voice edged and dark.
I scowled. “You don’t have to baby me, and you don’t have to take care of me, okay?” I snapped. “I’m really—”
“Fine? Okay? Sleeping in your car in a fucking parking lot?” He narrowed his eyes at me as he shook his head. “I don’t think so. And I don’t live far.”
He turned, putting the car back into drive and pulling onto the road. But that spark of heat I’d felt never went away. In fact, it grew, and expanded, and slowly melted through me. I turned again, feeling my heart skipping a beat and jumping up into my throat as I snuck another glance at my professor. Twice my age, gorgeous, sexy as hell, and taking me home.
“Uh, I should probably mention something else, actually.”
I turned to see him frowning in the dim light of the car.
“You’re not my only houseguest.”
“Sit tight, I’ll get you something to sleep in.”
He disappeared down the dark hallway, opening a door at the end that I guessed was his room. I turned back to glance over the amazing room I was going to be sleeping in. A huge, four-post and absolutely cozy looking bed stood against one wall, and big french doors opened to a balcony. I’d literally never slept in a room that nice.
“You’re going to be swimming in these, but, they’ll be comfortable.”
I turned back at his voice, smiling as he handed me a pair of short, men’s running shorts and a basketball jersey.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. My heart pounded, my emotions were swirling through me, and I almost felt like I was going to cry again, like a total spaz.
“You’re safe here.” Nolan’s deep baritone voice rolled over me like a warm blanket as he moved close, rubbing my arm again. “We’ll figure this shit out in the morning.” His brow furrowed. “We’ll figure a couple things out in the morning, actually,” he growled, his grip tightening on me for a second. “But for now, sleep, Cora. Just sleep.”