“Please do not interrupt.”
Tessa closed her lips, eyeing him from under her lashes.
He fiddled with his glasses, adjusting them slightly on his nose. He started to circle around the chair, looking down at her. It was like a predator circling his…
No. It was like a curator looking at a newly acquired piece of art. An archaeologist examining an artifact. He was looking at her as if she were unique and special. Treasured.
He stopped in front of her then dropped to a crouch. “I might not have an ex-soldier’s instincts to take command, to give orders, but I have something better.”
“And what’s that?” Tessa asked, happy that she managed the question in an even tone and not filled with the breathless anticipation she felt. This wasn’t going how she’d thought it would, how her other scenes had gone.
It didn’t feel like a scene at all.
“Curiosity. I like to learn. To study.” Dropping to one knee, he wrapped his hand around her ankle, sliding his fingers under the fabric of the loose pajama pants she was wearing. “And then I take that knowledge and I apply it. I develop theories.” His hand pushed her pant leg up to her knee, exposing her lower leg. “I test those theories. I seek out evidence to support them.” He ran his fingertips up her calf, then gently teased the skin at the back of her knee.
All he’d done was touch her leg and her whole body was on fire with need. She could feel her pussy getting wet and soft and wanting. She usually needed time to get ready. It was one of the reasons D/s had been good for her. D/s had taught her that whatever she needed to make sex good was all right. That she could go at her pace and expect her partner to be okay with it. D/s had taught her to take sex seriously, to be thoughtful.
She didn’t want to think with this man. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t have to.
“You have a theory about me?” She tried to make the words flippant, but they didn’t come out that way.
David kneaded her calf muscle for a moment, then stood. When he held out his hand, she took it, responding to the unspoken command and letting him pull her to her feet.
“I do.”
Was that all she was getting? “What’s your theory?”
“If I tell you it will skew my study,” he said almost absently since he was staring down at her like he was trying to memorize her face.
“You’re going to study me?” She wasn’t sure she would be able to handle all that intensity focused her way. When David was fascinated with a subject, it held all of his attention. What would it be like to have this gorgeous, smart man give her every bit of his focus?
“Yes. I am.” He reached out and put two fingers under her chin, tilting her head up and forcing her to look into his eyes. “You want that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” The word was almost a plea. She was so turned on that each breath felt heavy and wet with need.
“Do you think that’s an appropriate way to address me?” The question was asked on a soft tone, but there was steel beneath it.
“You want me to call you ‘Sir’?”
“While that would be appropriate, what we have is special, so I think we’ll use a different, special, term.”
She winced, briefly pulled out of the moment because the word special was too close to home. She was afraid what was happening between them was special, and that scared her. “David, I told you. This is just sex. Maybe we shouldn’t be so…”
“Professor,” he said, ignoring her outburst. “You will call me Professor when you’re submitting.”
“Professor.” She’d been sort of hoping he’d make her call him “Master Hawthorne.” She was more than willing. But then she’d called a lot of tops Master this or that. She’d never called one Professor and never would in the future. Even if she never touched him again, David would always be her professor.
“You called me professor as a joke before. Tonight the word is going to have a different meaning.” David once more touched her chin, but this time he slid his curled fingers back, grazing the sensitive skin below her ear. Then his hand slid under her hair, around the back of her neck, sending a shiver of anticipation down her spine.
“But before we go any further, there’s something we need to do,” David said.
They should talk about limits, safe words. If they weren’t simply going to go at it hard, they should—
“Something I’ve needed to do since the first night I met you,” he murmured.
David closed the distance between them and sealed his lips over hers. Tessa’s eyes widened before fluttering closed. His kiss was sure and strong but not forceful. When his tongue touched the seam of her lips, it was a request not a command, and she yielded to him, opening her mouth to let his tongue sweep inside. She tasted him as he tasted her, and the arousal he’d kindled to life in her both flared hotter and burned deeper, touching parts of her soul that a simple kiss shouldn’t be able to reach.
The first time they’d kissed, she’d made the move. It had been good, but this was something more. This felt like a beginning.
David broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against hers for a moment. His breath washed over her face as he sighed.
“That…that was just for us,” he said as he straightened.
She met his eyes and realized this was going to be everything she’d feared. She wasn’t going to get what she wanted—a quick and easy getaway from feelings she didn’t want. She was going to fall for this man, and her heart would break when she forced herself to leave him.
But she couldn’t stop. She would take the pleasure and she would take the heartache.
His hand on the back of her neck had turned soft, his fingers sliding into her hair in a massaging caress while he kissed her. But now they clamped down once again, a firm, controlling hold that brought her right back to the kink moment that amazing kiss had interrupted.
“You’re to call me Professor. And from now on, any time you hear anyone call me professor, you’re going to remember everything I’m about to do to you.” His fingers tightened, and he jerked her forward.
She fell into him, his chest hard against her breasts, their faces so close that he could have easily kissed her again. He didn’t. Instead, she felt the puff of air from his next word.
His next order.
“Strip.”
Tessa looked up into David’s eyes. What she saw there made her want to submit. What she saw there made her want to forget her gloomy-fucking-Gus philosophy of life and try with this man. Made her want to hope that maybe this time it would be right. This time it would be forever.
She dropped her gaze to his chin and reached for the waistband of her PJ pants. He kept ahold of her, that unequivocally dominant grip on the back of her neck as she wiggled out of her pants.
She hadn’t bothered with underwear. She’d hadn’t seen the point since some part of her had known exactly how this would end—with her naked and in his arms.
Still holding her close, David dropped his free hand to her hip, fingers tracing a slow, circular pattern up her waist until they slipped under her fitted cotton T-shirt.
“I’m going to release you and then you’re going to finish taking off your clothes. Once you’re naked, go stand by the post at the corner of the bed. Do you have any issues with being tied up? Any restrictions you want me to honor?”