Page 15 of The Associate

He chuckles. The motherfucker chuckles. My annoyance with this whole ‘babysitter’ thing is amusing to him.

Although seeing him being demoted to my babysitter is just way too perfect.

I just roll my eyes at him, climb out of the car and start walking towards the old building. “Oh, come on!” he calls out from behind me. “I can’t help that I like the fire and sarcasm you have in you.”

I can feel his eyes on my back. Just to add a little flavour, I start swinging my hips. He can’t resist watching me, considering how much he’d been eye-fucking me earlier.

I push through the doors into the hallway and hear Mason let out a long whistle behind me. “Impressive,” he whispers.

It isn’t much, but the old 1900’s style building, or what is left of it, is still something to behold. The columns that line the hallway are made from the same timber as the doors. A marble-tiled floor leads down to each room.

My class is in room thirteen. I glance down at my watch. Eleven twenty nine, I am right on time.

I walk into the classroom and take my seat towards the back of the room. Mason sits at the desk next to me, watching as I pull my notebook and textbooks out of my bag.

“Ok, students, please open up your Criminology textbooks to page fifty-eight.” The professor turns around to write on the whiteboard. “We are going to look at criminal procedures today.”

“Really?” Mason leans over, whispering. “This is your subject of choice?” He sounds a little surprised, but the light chuckle shows it is more amusement than anything.

“Yes, now shut up,” I angrily whisper back. “I am trying to pay attention.”

He lets out a deep, loud sigh. Loud enough to get the professor’s attention. “Am I boring you, Sir?” The professor taps his foot on the ground, glaring daggers at Mason.

“Nope.” He shakes his head, waving his hand at the whiteboard. “You can continue.”

I glare at him before turning my attention back to the lecture. I just have to tune him out for the next hour and a half.

* * *

The rest of the class is relatively painless with only a few interruptions from Mason. He is constantly leaning back in his chair, and I am almost certain he fell asleep for a brief moment. I got some piercing stares from my professor, who is clearly not impressed that Mason is there with me. All I can do is mouth‘I’m sorry’and hope that it is enough. It seems to satiate him because he turns back to the whiteboard and continues making notes.

The professor asks me to stay back after class so that he can speak with me one on one, but Mason pushes himself into that one, shaking his head. “No can do, prof.” The professor just grumbles under his breath. I swear, if looks could kill, he would have killed Mason ten times over by now.

Gathering my books and stuffing them in my bag, I walk out the door, trying to get to the parking lot as quickly as possible. Mason catches up to me with ease, but in a quick motion, mostly due to my not paying attention, a random guy bumps into my shoulder, knocking me down.

Before I can even get up off the ground, Mason has him pinned against the wall, pure rage crossing his features.

Not caring that everything I have on me now is scattered across the floor, I get up as quickly as I can. Everyone is staring at Mason. If he can get any angrier, I’m sure there will be steam blowing out of his ears. I know there are threats, but this poor guy pinned against the wall is not one of those threats. I have never seen him before.

His eyes are wide, scared out of his mind. I take a deep breath in and exhale my frustration. “Mason!” I yell. His head turns to face me without releasing any pressure off the other guy. “Let him go!”

“No can do,” is all he responds.

“For fuck’s sake Mason Hawthorne!” I move in closer to him, wrapping my hand around his other arm, yanking him back towards me. “Let him go, now!”

Mason blinks at me. “But–”

“No, no buts,” I cut him off. “People bumping into others at a college campus is normal, and if you can’t tell already,” I wave my hand around the people running around us “people run late to their classes and don’t focus on anyone in front of them. Shit happens and I’m pretty sure you have scared the shit out of this guy with your macho act.”

I glance over to the guy who bumped into me, still standing frozen against the wall. “Get out of here before he changes his mind.” I don’t have to say anything more before he hurriedly collects his things and runs down the hallway to his classroom.

I kneel down to pick up all my stuff that’s still on the floor. Thankfully, the other guy’s bag stayed intact and everything inside it stayed where it should. Mason, acting like the caveman he is, just stands there watching me.

His focus is on scanning the hall, making sure that no one is going to get me. I can tell him to calm down and that I am fine, but that won’t do any good. Once he is in protector mode there is nothing I can do to shake him off or lose him for that matter. I will be having more words with my father when I arrive back home though. The guard dog hovering is still something that I need to get used to; not even Mia is this clingy.

I need proof that he is not the monster I saw walking out last night and that I can put my trust in him but he is going about it in all the wrong ways. If I had friends in college he would have scared them off with his brooding bad boy act, or turned them on with the brooding bad boy act. Women are strange like that. As much as I hate this macho man act he is pulling, I am a little turned on.

I guess I am one of those weird women.

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