All in one day, I gave my student an unwarranted blowjob and was attacked by the rugby coach. This school year is off to a killer start.
I haven’t reported Coach Prescott, which even I have to admit goes against everything I’ve ever believed. Truth is one of my pillars, if not the single pillar by which I live my life. Uncover the truth. Shed light on it, and right now, I want to shed light all over that mother fucker and the truth of what he’s really capable of.
But Cullen was at my house. On a Sunday night, in my bedroom. If I reveal the truth about Eric, then Cullen will be pulled into the spotlight again, and that’s the last thing I need to do. I don’t even know if he plans on doing anything else about it, but I can’t deny I get a warm flutter of something like adoration when I remember the fiery rage in his eyes when he pulled Eric off me. Or maybe it’s more like pride.
By some miracle, I manage to make it through the rest of class, feeling Cullen’s eyes on me throughout the hour, trying my hardest not to glance up at him, remembering how his naked ass looked in my bedroom after his shower. Or how his cock tasted in my mouth, the heady scent of him, and the pure, unadulterated arousal I felt when he came from the pleasure I gave him.
After giving the students their assignments, I call class early, letting them go to get started. Naturally about a handful of them linger to ask me questions or start their excuses early. The assignment isn’t even due yet and they’re already giving me stories about broken laptops and long work hours. Once I send the last kid away, my eyes lock with Cullen’s who is still sitting in his seat, reclining with his legs wide and staring down at his phone.
“Don’t you have another class?” I ask.
“Not for a couple hours. You?” There’s a curious rise in his tone.
I stop, in the process of loading my laptop into my work satchel. “Oh, you mean you don’t know my schedule already?”
“Not yet, but you should give it to me.”
“And what if I don’t?”
He stands up, hiking the strap of his backpack higher up on his shoulder. “You know exactly what will happen, Everly.”
Feeling exasperated, I let out a heavy sigh that shakes me down to my bones. When I turn around, he’s standing right in front of me. So close I can smell the soap on his skin. The citrusy spice scent of whatever it is he uses, body spray or cologne I don’t even know, but it’s intoxicating.
He takes another step closer, and I feel myself getting lightheaded. We can’t do this. I can’t do this.
I can’t want him the way I do, without strings or emotions. Raw and primal and full of hate, and I get the feeling he wants it the same way. It’s a dangerous line we’re walking on, one I’ve already crossed, and I really can’t afford to toe it again, but I’m feeling reckless. Like I want to break every single rule just to see what will happen. Just to feel something, even if it’s despair, loss, or fear. I need a hit of life, and Cullen is that hit.
The air between us is electric, charged with something I can’t put a name on.
He reaches out and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear, and I quickly flinch away. “Are you okay?” he whispers, his voice low and serious. It takes me a moment before I realize he’s referring to what happened last night with his coach.
“I’m fine,” I reply dryly.
“You’re not going to report him?”
I bite my lip, hating that Eric Prescott, the sleazy, entitled, disgusting, cheating asshole is clouding this thing between Cullen and me. He’s making it hard for me to define what I’m feeling when I know I should be angry at Cullen, afraid of him or even hate him, but all I can think about is the way he protected me. My emotions are so muddled.
“Thanks to you, I’m fine. I’m not going to report him because reporting him would mean bringing you into it. I figure we have enough on him; he can’t say anything about us.”
The moment the word us comes out of my mouth, my spine stiffens. I can’t believe I just said that. There is no us. Cullen and I are not an us.
I don’t miss the spark in his eye and the way his head tilts when the word passes through my lips.
“Oh, no one will find out about us,” he says, taking another step closer. My eyes dance toward the door, which is closed, but not locked. There isn’t another lecture in here for the next hour, but still, anyone could walk in at any time.
My ass hits my desk as he crowds me, dropping his backpack to the floor.
As he brings his face closer, his eyes stay laser focused on mine. “Let’s just be out with it already, Everly.”
“Out with what?” I say in a breathy exhale.
“You and I both know what this is, what we want.”
One more step and he’s pressed against me, his hips pressing firm to my belly as he glares down at me with hunger in his eyes.
“And what is that?”
His mouth hovers over my neck, and I feel his breath warm against my skin. Inside, my heart is pounding. My brain has stopped working altogether, so that not one single rational thought comes out. It’s thinking about how he smells, how he feels, how bad I want to touch him.
“Hate sex. Revenge fuck. Angsty, depraved, and dirty as sin.”
My mouth goes dry, and I can’t respond.
“That’s what would have happened last night, wouldn’t it? If that asshole hadn’t shown up. And do you really want his hands to be the last ones that touched your body? Let me erase every memory of him.”
When his lips touch my neck, I shudder. Arousal warms my belly as I try to focus. There was some reason why I shouldn’t do this. I distantly remember there being a reason I’m not supposed to do this.
But his lips are soft on my skin until they’re not. Without warning, he sucks hard on my neck, his mouth cruel and rough, making me gasp, heat skating its way across every square inch of my body.
“Let me fuck you, Everly.”
My eyes close tightly as he growls those words that send me flying into some other consciousness. Then I feel his hand on my inner thigh, pressed between my legs as he inches his fingers upward, lifting my skirt as he does. My body both welcomes and rejects it as a flutter of nervous excitement is left in the wake of his touch.
“Cullen,” I whisper, but just like in the car yesterday, trying to pretend I don’t want this is futile. It’s a poor attempt to sound convincing.
“Do you want to say no? Do you want to fight me off, but let me take it anyway? Not like that asshole yesterday. But if you fight me, Everly, I’ll know you really want it.”
“We can’t,” I say in a gasp. I should stop this. I know somewhere in the back of my mind I’m the older, more mature person in this scenario, and it’s up to me to draw a hard line here, but my brain has no real control over my body.
In a violent and abrupt motion, he lifts me onto the desk, spreading my legs and shoving his body hard against mine. “I want it rough,” he growls. “I want to fuck you with all of the hate I feel for you. Do you understand?”
A sound like a whimper escapes my body as he devours me, pressing himself so hard against me it hurts. And I suddenly make out the bulge in his jeans.
“Not here,” I reply, realizing I didn’t say no. I didn’t say no at all.