Page 58 of Playing By Their Rules

“Are you on the menu?” Chance asks, a playful leer on his face. His dark eyes and the faint wrinkles at the corners make him look both dangerous and friendly at the same time. The man’s a walking juxtaposition and I am here for it.

I wink. “Well, sirs, it depends on whether you can afford me.”

Chance leans back, looks me up and down. “I probably can’t afford you, little waitress, but it’s not going to stop me from trying. Tell me, do you have a boyfriend?”

“Well, yes, I do.” I am loving this little in-public role-play, like we’re meeting for the first time again.

Ethan sits forward. His usually bright blue eyes are dark with depraved dominance. “If you say his name is Mikey, angel, I will take you over my lap and spank your ass right here in this restaurant.”

I laugh. “I have two boyfriends. Neither of them is named…that name.” I don’t want to say it because I got spanked hard last time I did. Then again, I do enjoy those spankings. “Maybe they aren’t my boyfriends, though. It depends if they want to call themselves my boyfriends, I mean.”

We’ve kind of said it, but we never talked about it.

“We do,” Chance says, our game forgotten as he drops the leer and gives me a sincere look. “That’s what we came to tell you about.”

“You want to talk to me about being my boyfriends?”

“Yes,” Ethan says. “Officially. We spoke with the head of the Ethics department. We can date you, but we can’t teach you and date you. So, we’re not teaching your sections anymore.”

My brain feels like it’s short-circuiting. “You quit?”

“No, baby girl,” Chance says. “We’re just reassigning new professors to the courses you’re taking.”

“They let you do that? Without any punishment or recourse or whatever it is they do?”

“Yep.” Ethan nods.

I narrow my eyes at him. “That doesn’t sound right.”

Sighing, he says, “We don’t get paid for the courses we dropped, but it’s a hit we can afford. So it doesn’t feel like a real consequence. Everyone gets what they want—another professor is eager to get paid for two more classes that are filled with capable TAs who do most of the grunt work, anyway. And we get you, Maisie. If you’ll have us.”

“You know I will,” I say.

He nods, satisfied, and Chance grins.

I take their order, serve their drinks and food. I linger by their table whenever I’m not busy with someone else, which is often because it’s such a slow evening.

Eventually, they have to leave to help a couple of their grad students prepare for their thesis defenses. It’s probably for the best, so I don’t completely ignore my other tables.

They stand up and I give each of them a hug.

“We’ll see you soon, sweetheart,” Chance whispers in my ear. “Are you off work tomorrow night?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. We’ll take you out on a date.”

“I’d like that, Daddy,” I whisper back.

He grins and asks, “How do you feel about wearing that schoolgirl outfit to the movies? You can run into your teachers there and we can share some popcorn.”

A jolt of pleasure settles between my legs and I clench my thighs. That night, when I’d played the innocent student, was unforgettable. “I’d love to do that.”

“Perfect.” Ethan gives me an approving smile. “Goodbye, angel.”

For the rest of my shift, I barely register Caitlyn’s gentle teasing or the curious looks of my other coworkers. All I can think about is when I’ll see Chance and Ethan again. More teacher-student role-playing? Yes-freaking-please.

Mina isn’t home when I get there, so I go straight to my room and open my closet door. I want to get everything ready to go for tomorrow night. I think my skirt is clean, but if I need to do laundry, I have to start that now.

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