Page 18 of Fall From Grace
“You’ll what? What will you do to me, Wren? Tell me. I’m so goddamned curious.”
She exhales a hard breath and rolls her eyes. “You swear a lot.”
“I do. Hope that’s not a fucking problem.” Lower, I add, “Although my dirty mouth wasn’t a problem for you last week. From what I remember, you enjoyed my mouth quite a bit.” I need to stop myself; the more I think about her and the sounds she made while I went down on her, the more my cock tingles with the need to have the girl again.
“Oh, my God,” she hisses, practically seething. Too bad her anger isn’t impressive; it only makes me grin harder. “Can you not bring it up every two seconds? Jeez. I thought a guy like you would’ve moved on already. Don’t you have a different girl every night or something?”
In my rockstar days, sure. Now… things are different. Boring, some might say, and up until very recently, I thought things would never be fun again.
“Maybe, maybe not.” I shrug. “Maybe I’m looking to change—”
She laughs at that, although it’s a dry, mirthless laugh, which tells me she doesn’t believe me in the slightest. “Right. Because all playboys change. I’m not stupid. What happened was a… a hookup, and nothing more. That’s all I wanted, and I know for a fact that’s all you want, too, so I don’t know why you’re acting like you—you—” Wren has the hardest time figuring out how to finish that sentence.
Unfortunately for her, I know exactly how to finish it: “Want to do it again? Or, should I say, doyouagain?”
She huffs and turns her face away, staring at the whiteboard in front of us with an expression that says she’s finished with this conversation. And that’s fine. I’ll stop—if only because class is about to start. But she and I are going to see each other at least every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for an hour every time. Hell no, I won’t be skipping this class, not when I have her to look forward to.
I’m not one to chase something I’ve already tasted, but… for some reason, I can’t help but want to try her out again. I blame that damned look she gave me at the club.
That look. That fucking look still burns in my mind. I don’t know why it has such a hold on me.
I better be careful. If she gives me a look like that again, she might just kill me.
Chapter Nine – Wren
I literally can’t believe this. What was supposed to be nothing more than a hookup is now sitting right beside me, invading my personal space… and he’s going to do it three days a week. Of course, somehow, since we were both going for the same book in the campus bookstore, it was a possibility that we’d share a class, but a lot of intro classes use the same textbooks, so I didn’t think…
I just didn’t think. I didn’t think enough, which isn’t something I can normally say about myself.
After I stumble on my words and he finishes with “Want to do it again? Or, should I say, doyouagain,” I abruptly turn my face away from him. The longer I stare into his green eyes, the more I remember that night at the club and what happened after.
Not something I should be thinking about here. Or, you know, ever.
I stare hard at the clock on the wall, watching as the seconds tick by. I’ve never wished for a class to be over before, let alone a class that hasn’t even begun yet, but that’s exactly what I do right then: I will time to leap ahead just so I can get away from the guy beside me.
From Logan. The guy I slept with. The jerk who acted like he was grateful he didn’t know me. Now look at him. Look at how the tables have turned—I don’t know why they turned, but they definitely turned.
Maybe showing my disinterest is only making him want me. That’s weird, but I can’t pretend to know what goes on in a guy’s head.
The door to the auditorium opens, and someone hurries down the steps—the professor. Everyone quiets when theyrealize it’s him, and as he heads to the podium and sets his bag down, he talks loudly: “Sorry I’m late—” He pauses as he checks the clock. “—wait, no, scratch that. I’m exactly on time.” The second hand of the clock hits, the official start of class.
The professor grins as he grips the edge of the podium. “I’m Professor Scott. You can call me that or Professor or even just Reese. Whatever you’re comfortable with.” As he surveys the room, he spots me, and just like that, time stops, and he grins harder.
Professor Scott is the good-looking guy I rammed into while I was fleeing the student union, the guy who made a joke about Professor Scott being a stickler for the rules.
His gaze lingers on me for a few seconds before he surveys the rest of the room. “Today’s going to be an easy day. We have the syllabus to go through, and then I’d like for us to take our first test.”
I assume many of the students around me exchange looks; I’m pretty sure I hear a few of them groan, including Logan beside me. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s against tests; I bet the jerk is going to try to cheat off me every chance he gets.
But Professor Scott is unfazed. “I know, I know. A test, already? Am I crazy?” He pauses. “Maybe a little, but the good thing here is as long as you complete it, you’ll get full credit. That can’t be said about any other test you’ll take in here, so keep that in mind. First thing’s first, though: the syllabus.”
I watch as he goes to his bag and pulls out a stack of stapled papers. He gives the entire stack to the student sitting on the far right of the class with the instruction to take one and pass it along. It’s a good five minutes until everyone has a syllabus in their hands, and I try not to stare at him too much.
I mean, I have eyes, as does everyone else in the room. I can’t be the only one who thinks he’s drop dead gorgeous, way too easy on the eyes to be a professor. I wonder if he’s an actualprofessor or if he’s a graduate student or something. I know graduates teach a lot of the lower-level classes.
We go through the syllabus page by page. It’s like every professor thinks we can’t read them for ourselves… although, to be fair, they’re probably right. I think I’m an outlier when it comes to paying attention and actually putting in the work for classes.
“Now, I know I’m going to get groans for this, but there will be a group project that’ll be worth thirty percent of your final grade,” Professor Scott goes on, pacing the length of the room. I catch myself looking at him a bit too much, and I do my best to stare hard at the syllabus instead. “Part of that project is going to be a presentation to the class. We aren’t there yet, but it’s going to happen, so be prepared.”
