Page 52 of Bad Professor

Good lord, don’t get me started on his ass, either. “Do you work out or something?” I ask, trying to be casual but sounding like I’m fangirling worse than my daughters. I pull a block of cheese and the bread out of the fridge.

“Not really.” Without a word, Dexter starts pulling open drawers to find the knives. He also finds the cutting board without asking.

I like seeing him move around the kitchen like he’s been here before.

“So you just look like that naturally?”

He gives me a rueful grin. “I play basketball at least once a week, plus I’m in a soccer league. Nick’s a baseball player, so there’s an unspoken competition that me and Max—both not professional athletes—will try to look as good as we can. It’s never as good as Nick.” He looks down at himself. “But it’s not bad.”

“Not bad,” I echo.

“Mainly, I look like this because I’m lucky to have a fast metabolism, plus I forget to eat a lot,” Dexter continues.

This creates worry in the mother in me. “How can you forget to eat? That’s not a good thing, regardless of that it gives you nice lines on your stomach.”

He pats his abs with a grin. “You like my stomach, do you?”

“What are you doing that you forget to eat?” I ask instead of rising to his unspoken invitation to touch his stomach. At least I think it was an invitation. And as much as I would love to touch Dexter, it’s clear that will lead to something, and after what he said, I need to feed him.

Although he’s doing more of the work. “I lose track of time,” he admits as he carefully cuts slices from the block of cheddar. “Reading, obviously, since I’m an English prof. I watch a lot of movies. But the main thing is because I’m playing video games.”

“You’re a gamer. I’ve always pictured English professors as slightly stuck up and wearing a lot of tweed.”

“I have no tweed. Or jackets with patches on the elbow.”

“I think you’d look good in tweed.” When he puts the knife down, I give in to the urge to run my hand along his stomach. “And out of tweed.”

Dexter stops me before my fingers can slip under the waistband of his jeans by taking my hand and kissing my palm.

My stomach flips at his touch.

“We need butter,” Dexter says, pressing his lips against my knuckles.

“Why?” I demand, with a note of concern in my voice.

“For the grilled cheese.” He meets my gaze. “Why do you think?”

“I thought maybe you… I didn’t know, maybe…” I stammer.

His eyes dance. “Thought I was getting a bit kinky, did you?”

I pull my hand away. “No!”

He laughs and starts laying out the bread for the sandwiches. “Mayo, too, please.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.” He looks up. “You do trust me, don’t you?”

Is trust this easy? I was with a man for almost twenty years who cheated on me. That did more damage to my ability to trust than anything else. Am I supposed to blindly trust Dexter just because we had sex?

But isn’t that what sex is? Intimacy—the ultimate form of trust. A person gives themselves to another, showing vulnerability. There are so many ways to hurt your partner, physically and emotionally, but you have to trust them not to take advantage.

“I do,” I say slowly.

Dexter frowns. “You don’t sound so sure. Is this because of the divorce?”

I shake my head as I pull out the frying pan. “I don’t want to spoil this by talking about Carlos. What video games do you play?”

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