of bad grades. The lectures would be my battles, their questions my opponents. The assignments would be… would be…
Holy shit.
I stopped halfway through my introduction, having already written my name on the board. As always, I allowed my eyes to scan the rows. To visually absorb and take in the faces of the students I didn’t know, but whose names I would hopefully, by the end of the semester, be able to recite by memory.
All except the one I already knew.
Just… just WOW.
In the third row, two seats away from the right-hand aisle, Brett stared back at me with his piercing blue eyes. He had his laptop already open. A pencil twirled slowly between two thick fingers, one side of his mouth already curled into a wolfish grin.
I faltered in the middle of my opening speech, a well-rehearsed yet concise group of paragraphs outlining what we’d be going over for the next few months. I didn’t realize my heart had begun racing until I finished the last line. I was already perspiring beneath my sweater. The big lecture hall seemed abruptly smaller than it had before.
Figures. Doesn’t it?
Of all the students in all the classes, somehow I’d gotten him. And yet in the back of my mind, for some odd reason, I wasn’t at all surprised.
Karma?
Had he mentioned which school he attended? I honestly didn’t remember. Only that his studies coincided with mine, and he was still working on his masters.
A cosmic joke?
I let out a short laugh under my breath, and Brett caught it. I could tell by the way his smirk widened, just a tiny bit more.
Stop looking at him!
For the rest of the class I made a conscious effort not to look his way, which of course was impossible. I found myself wholly distracted by him. I paced back and forth across the front end of the hall, going through the motions of my first lecture. I did my best to keep on track, intentionally trying not to make eye contact while handing out the small stack of printed materials I’d prepped for the class.
And of course, that didn’t work either.
I kept checking the time and pulling at the collar of my grey turtleneck sweater. After what seemed like a thousand years, I reached the end of my lecture. I let the students go five minutes early, watching as they slowly filed out of the hall.
All of them of course, except Brett.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
It was all I could think of to say as he approached the lectern. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he rubbed at his stubbled chin.
“Hey teach,” he smiled merrily.
“Did you know?”
Brett shook his head slowly back and forth. “I mean, I suspected I might see you. After all, Senan told me this is where you—”
“Why didn’t you tell me you attended class here!” I asked, my heart still racing. Grinning broadly, my lover looked back at me and shrugged his big collegiate shoulders.
“You never asked.”
Thirty
CHASTITY
Brett moved closer, then closer still, until his body was less than a foot from mine. The scent of him reached my nostrils, and instinctively my body remembered it. Reacted to it…
“Not here.”
I turned and fled through a door behind the lectern, into a hallway leading to a series of smaller rooms. They were reserved for professors who wanted to prep early for class, or stay late to help students. Right now, thankfully, they were empty.
“Listen, I—”
We weren’t in the room two seconds before Brett already had me pinned to a wall. I gasped as he swept me up in his arms, crushing me against his hard, rippled body. His lips easily found mine, and before I knew it we were kissing like star-crossed lovers.
Oh my GOD…
Alarm bells flashed through my head. I was in a scary place — a dangerous place — where someone could walk in on us at any moment. A teacher, kissing her student. And that’s just for starters.
“Brett…”
I could barely utter the word between deep, soulful kisses. And it wasn’t just him, either. It was me, kissing him back. Clutching the back of his head with one eager hand, while whimpering softly into his churning, searching mouth.
“We can’t,” I gasped again. “Not here.”
Not here.
Those words again. They weren’t denial, they were postponement. They told the story of ‘yes’, but under different circumstances, in a different place.
They also made me wet between the legs.
I kissed him some more, enjoying the weight of his body pressed tightly against mine. We’d picked up