Page 23 of Misadventures with a Professor
“Dad said you were working with grant money.”
“Oh yes, the grant.” He gives a shrug that conveys something close to discomfort, and I watch curiously, as I’ve never seen him truly uncomfortable before—only annoyed. “Money is not a concern,” he says, and he actually looks embarrassed by this. Maybe it was an exceptionally large grant and he feels strange about accepting it? Who knows.
“Okay, then,” I say, standing up. “Shall we get started?”
An imperious look. “You shall get started. I shall work.”
“Yes, Professor.” I say it perhaps too mockingly, earning myself a glare, and I scuttle over to the far corner of the room and get to work before he scolds me again.
It becomes clear that Oliver’s system, if that word can even be used, has been to stack the most promising texts closest to his desk and the least promising in the corners and along the far wall. I work steadily through the morning, building up a light sweat as I shift through stacks of material, trying to get a handle on what I’ll need to know to build a comprehensive database for Oliver.
Several times I peek up over my work to watch him at his desk, unable to stop myself from staring at the chiseled jaw flexing in concentration and the long eyelashes sweeping against his cheeks as he studies his papers and types on his laptop.
It should be illegal for a man to be that handsome and English. It just isn’t fair.
I suspect he doesn’t want to be bothered, so around lunchtime I wander into his kitchen and make us simple sandwiches, bringing his plate back and wordlessly setting it at the edge of his desk. He reaches for the food automatically, eyes pinned to his laptop screen, and it isn’t until he’s finished his sandwich that he seems to realize he’s eaten it at all.
“Thank you,” he says after a minute, and I notice that his voice has thawed the tiniest bit. Not much. But a bit. I’m already back to work, and I look up to see him staring at me with an expression I can’t decipher.
“You’re welcome, Professor,” I say, and he grunts in response. I take it as progress and fight a smile as I lean ba
ck down to my stacks of books.
The day passes much the same as this. I finally get my laptop from my room and start on the database. Oliver sighs a lot at the frequent tapping of my keyboard, but when I offer to go work in the kitchen, he merely scowls and mutters, “Stay.”
So I stay.
Around six, I bring up the subject of dinner and ask if he’d like me to make it. He seems to fight some inner war with himself. “I’ll order takeaway,” he says, which is how we end up eating delicious Indian food at the kitchen table with his cat complaining loudly at our feet.
“How did the writing go today?” I ask innocently enough, and he stabs at his butter chicken with a fierce frown.
“You should know better than to ask any writer that question.”
“So it went well?”
He directs the frown at me. “You’re teasing me.” He says it incredulously, as if no one has ever dared do it before. In fact, I’m suddenly quite certain no one ever has dared to tease him before this. He’s very un-teasable, with that haughty face and icy gaze. But I’m feeling energetic and playful from my own productive day, and it’s so very hard not to provoke him when he makes such handsome provoked faces.
“I won’t tease you any more if it hurts your feelings,” I poke.
He glares at me. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings.”
“You seem a little hurt.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“In fact, I think I need to make it up to you,” I banter back. “Maybe you can make me write an essay on my bad behavior.”
His pupils dilate at the same instant that my own words filter back through my mind, along with their subtext. Which is punishment.
Which of course makes me think of the night we were together, which of course makes me want to be bent over that strong knee again. And with the way Oliver’s fingers are clenched around his fork, I wonder if he’s wanting the same thing.
“Excuse me,” he says abruptly, standing up and setting his dishes by the sink. He leaves to go to his study, and I hear the door close firmly behind him. The message is clear.
Do not follow.
Feeling a little flushed from my body’s immediate response to the idea of punishment from Oliver, I clean up after dinner and go upstairs. I mean to read for a while or maybe watch a movie on my tablet, but by the time I shower and get in bed, I’m more worked up than ever. I make sure my door is locked, and then I quietly climb into bed. I reach into my panties and let my mind fill with everything Oliver—his ferocious hands and his wicked mouth and his cock so heavy and so thick with wanting me.
It doesn’t take long, the climax, because it’s been building all day. All day like a slow fire inside me, and at the first touch of my hand, my body is already quivering and tense, ready to snap like a rubber band. The orgasm is fast and furious and ultimately unsatisfying, and when I come down from it, I come down with an itchy feeling of disappointment.
