Page 16 of Masters of Play

Having the Carson twins was always going to be my graduation gift to myself. A one-time-only gift. Definitely one for the books.

Alan allowed my tendril of hair to unravel from his finger. "Probably not."

I perked up at that.

"My brother's in love with you, so he'll likely pursue you until he has that bomb-ass pussy on lockdown."

I looked back to the room where I'd left Owen. It should freak me out that he wanted more. I hadn't had a boyfriend… well, I'd never actually had a boyfriend. A string of lovers. But I'd never been monogamous.

Could I be?

Did I want to be?

The thought of Owen Carson and that lovely bulge in his pants just a finger crook away was an enticing thought. It left me feeling warm and secure. Just like when he'd tie me up tight or wrap me up in a blanket and make me come. A girl could get used to that.

I turned back to Alan. "But not you?" I asked.

"Nope, I just want to fuck you." There was a tick in his jaw as he said the words. "My brother and I have been sharing since the womb. If you're with him, he'll let me play with you. And by play, I mean I'll edge you so far that you will see stars when I finally let you come."

I snorted and then turned on my heel. I had to put some distance between us before I took him up on that offer. "You'll want me so bad, your dick will be weeping before you're even halfway inside me."

"Finish your paper and we'll see who comes first."

Right. My paper. That put a damper on things. It also put another wobble in what would've been an epic strut as I walked out the door. Damn Professor Sinead and his quantitative demands.

Chapter Ten

I went home with the intention of taking a cold shower after my night with Professor Sin and the Carson twins. However, it soon became apparent that standing in the porcelain under a spray of ice-cold droplets wouldn't be necessary. The very thought of wrangling statistics cooled my ardor faster than I could reach for the cold knob over the tub basin.

Instead, I slipped into a pair of rainbow-colored sweats with a unicorn on the butt. I dug deep in my hall closet, where I’d stored all the notes from classes over the years. I had to reach way, way, way in the back before I came to my old notes from Professor Sinead's Quantitative Methodology in Behavioral Sciences class.

I'd written most of those notes in black ink. It was rare for me to write anything in black ink. All of my notebooks were an array of the rainbow with notes and my thoughts on the lecture color coordinated by day of the week, section from the text as opposed to the lecture from the professor. But I hadn't understood anything in that class. Not from the text or the teacher or the online YouTube videos where some young math geek tried to make the math fun and failed miserably. Hence the black ink.

It was the first time I'd faked my way through anything, be it in the bedroom or in the classroom. And he knew. Professor Sinead knew that I hadn't grasped the concepts he was trying to explain. I could tell he knew by the snide comments he left on my papers and worksheets.

Were you even paying attention during my lecture, Ms. Prince?

Did you read the assigned material, Ms. Prince?

You're better than this, Ms. Prince.

He was wrong. I wasn't better than this. Even after listening to him instead of staring at him during his lectures, even after reading each chapter twice, sometimes three times, the material just made very little sense to me.

I'd had no issues with math in school. It was when math was correlated to people and their emotions or actions that I became lost. I had never believed that human beings could be reduced to numbers. There were too many shades of gray.

Unfortunately, it looked like I would have to do that if I wanted to pass this class. If I wanted to successfully defend my dissertation. If I wanted to get fucked in the way I needed to by the Carson twins.

I slid my old notes away from me. For the first time since that stupid quantitative class, I felt like I was spinning. During Professor Sinead's class was when I came back to the scene on a more regular basis. I'd get so riled up fussing with numbers that I needed to be tied up later that night in order to regain my focus and equilibrium for the next day.

My hand hovered over my cell phone. The pull to call Owen was so strong. I knew he could make me relax, maybe even help me see my way through this data set just by tying me up in tight little knots.

As soon as I thought it, I knew my thinking was wrong. Owen wasn't the man I needed. So I pulled my big girl panties on. And by big girl panties, I mean I pulled on a lace black thong under a short skirt and headed out.

I pulled up to the campus early the next morning. Professor Sinead was an early riser. He liked to get in to class at least two hours before his first lecture. I knew that because I had often passed him on my way out from a late night studying in the library.

Sure enough, the man himself was behind his desk taking a sip of his coffee when I darkened his doorstep. If he was surprised to see me, he didn't show it.

"You were... right," I said.

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