Page 53 of Taming His Teacher

“Okay, Zach.” Just like that, the name I was called for the first fourteen years of my life is transformed from something I hate to hear because it means I’m back in Shamokin where everything is dark and shitty and hopeless to a ray of fucking sunshine because it’s dropping from her lips in her sweet, compliant voice.Okay, Zach.

I clear my throat before I rub her arm.Limits, Shepherd, limits.Before I do anything else, I have to get a sense of her limits. “So what have we got here?”

Chapter 17

Shep

It’s an open weekend and the guys who didn’t leave campus have been herded into the student center by the faculty who drew the short straws. Lucky for us, we both got the night off. It’s not often we have the dorm to ourselves, but tonight’s my lucky night. Hopefully when it’s over, Erin’s going to feel it’s been one of hers.

I’ve spent about an hour stripping her slowly, torturously, one button at a time between touching the skin I’ve bared, studying it, memorizing it and savoring it. I’ll only see her naked for the first time once and I want to remember revealing every inch of her. Of course, the process has been slowed by kissing. A lot of kissing.

It wasn’t technically our first kiss. That happened four years and a lifetime ago. So much has changed since then. Erin’s not married, I haven’t been her student for years, we’re sitting on her comfortable couch instead of crouched on the floor. You’d think all that would make it easier. But instead, the deliberateness made it more awkward. I’ve kissed girls before, but never like this. Never with intent. Never with this desperate, achy, beaten-off-with-a-stick desire. God, I wanted her. I’ve had my mouth on one part of her or another for the better part of an hour and I want her still. More. I’ll never get enough.

But putting my mouth to hers… My heart had pounded as I leaned closer, threaded my fingers through the silky hair at the nape of her neck, held and twisted it to remind her, remind myself. I’d hesitated, inches from her sweetly eager face, emotion rioting in my chest while I begged the universe to please let this be good, for both of us. She’d tilted her head and raised her chin, laid her small hand on my shoulder. When she’d leaned forward, tipped, I closed the gap.

It wasn’t fireworks so much as stillness. My heart was still beating hard, my thoughts fraught and running wild. But with the touch of her, the answering softness, the slight part of her lips begging me to take more of her, give more of myself over…

I don’t get a lot of peace. Something always needs taking care of, looking after. My students, my teams, my brother. That’s how I like it. Working, earning, proving. But for a few seconds, I’d been granted serenity in the form of Erin in my arms, trusting me, wanting me, kissing me.

For my whole life, I’ve tried to do the right thing. I’ve tried to be what people have needed me to be, taken up responsibility or offered help where I could. But until then, there had been something missing. I’m familiar with duty, loyalty, but when I kissed Erin, it wasn’t because of those things. My fidelity to her is flavored differently, with an added zeal that turns those virtues into something more complete. Devotion. The heat of her, the welcoming wet invitation. It had felt like love.

Now she’s sitting in my lap wearing a pair of light blue lace panties and nothing else. I’ve been running my hands all over her, wherever I want because she’s mine, all mine. I cup a full breast and strum a thumb across her nipple, fascinated by how it gathers and hardens under my touch. When I keep at it, her hips shift in a squirm that doesn’t need translation, but I ask anyway. I want her to get in the habit of talking to me. It’s so hard for the poor little thing and I won’t deny I get off on her embarrassment.

“Do you like that, lamb?”

“Yes, Zach.”

“What do you like?”

She blinks mournful brown eyes up to mine and you’d think I told her that her favorite sweater got ruined at the dry cleaner’s. “Go on. Tell me what you like, or I’ll stop.”

I pause to emphasize my threat and her brow furrows. “Please don’t, Zach.”

“Then you’ll tell me.”

“I…” She swallows hard and huffs out a breath.Come on, Erin.

“You can do it. I want to hear you.”

“I…” She heaves a huge sigh. A laugh bubbles up inside of me, but I swallow it. She’d be mortified. She just needs to be handled right through this. I tighten my hold on her and up the intensity of the strokes across her nipple, tight and hard as a cherry stone against the pad of my thumb. God, I want that in my mouth, against my tongue, between my teeth. Not yet.Rein it in, Shepherd. She needs you.

Some of the tension leeches from her body under the increased sensations, and she makes a tiny mewling in the back of her throat. Maybe if I tease her hard enough she’ll forget to be embarrassed and spill. But my little lamb is wound pretty tight. I don’t want her to snap.

“Why are you so afraid to talk about this, Erin? Hasn’t anyone ever asked you what you liked?”

“No.”

The way her eyes dart away and she curls her body up tighter, making herself smaller, makes me wonder if this isn’t a sex thing. Maybe no one’s ever asked her what she wants so she’s afraid to ask, to say it out loud. Why bother if no one’s going to listen to you? I know she has, but mostly she lets it slip by in a swiftly moving stream of what everyone else wants, what everyone else thinks she should be.

That stops here. With me.

“I’m asking you. And I’m ordering you to tell me.”

She looks up again, her eyes gone wide and her face flushed.

“Ordering me to?”

“Yes.”

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