I rushed out the door, locking the place up and leaving the things I’d collected in there except for the watches and the cash, both of which burned a hole in my bag.
Scottie was with my mom, so, as had always been my intention, I left directly for class and caught my bus just in time.
Was it stupid crossing Brooklyn with the Rolexes on my person? Yes. But how the hell would I get them to the pawnbrokers if I didn’t take them in?
Thankfully, I made it to campus without much issue, and as I slunk into Professor Maclean’s classroom for my one and only lecture of the day, I sat in my usual seat—right at the top and at the back. It never worked though. He always looked at me, and today’s class was no different.
In fact, he stared at me more.
And with each glance? A startling concoction of terror and nerves danced around my insides like the most delicate of butterflies.
Would he make me do what I’d done two days ago?
Touch myself in front of him?
Or would he ask me to touch him?
Was it wrong that I almost wished he would? Because then I’d have something to accuse him of. As it was, getting people to believe a sexual assault accusation was nearly impossible. But when adding that a hot professor had asked me to get off on his desk? I knew I’d be laughed at if I even tried to implicate him.
Mortification ate up any of my lingering nerves before it was quickly replaced with trepidation. I gnawed on my bottom lip throughout most of the class, and was relieved when we hit the final fifteen minutes without him looking my way more than twice.
Of course, I was stupid for relaxing, and should have known he’d never have been so generous.
“Ms. Whitehouse, what, in your opinion, are the value of journals and diaries to the writing process?”
When his eyes were on me, that lip of his curled up in a sneer, everything inside me just shut down in misery.
I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t even form words.
When he cocked a brow, and there were noiseless titters around me at my ongoing silence, I trembled in my seat.
Was I such a pushover that this man could make the ground beneath me quake just by raising an eyebrow?
I hated him at that moment.
He could have turned the question over to someone else, could have let me off, but he didn’t. He held my stare like it was some kind of standoff in a Spaghetti Western, and just when it shifted into beyond awkward territory, I managed to whisper, “Journals can be an autobiographical tool, a self-efficacy or a goal-keeping tool, but also, a means of writing development. It’s a way of expressing oneself through one’s own voice, with, I suppose, the hope that, down the line, it will help convey a character’s personality better.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I imagined he was looking at the people close to me, wondering if they’d prompted me on what to say.
But I was alone. No one sat before, behind, or to my right, and at my left was the damn wall.
When he dipped his chin and murmured, “Ms. Whitehouse is correct. Sylvia Plath’s journals are famous as they catalog the battles she had with her mental health, which were also chronicled in her literary works. John Cheever also used his journals to…”
As he moved on with the class, taking the focus away from me, I still felt as though I was under his spotlight, still burned as hotly as though his attention, and the rest of the class’, was on me.
With a sigh when he wrapped up the lecture, I waited, as I had Wednesday, for the hall to empty. When it did, I got to my feet and began the descent to the desk where he was closing up his attaché case.
Today, he wore a pair of jeans that cupped every inch of his lower half like a glove. They were a dark navy and his shirt, in a similar color, was spotted with random bright white dots. The dark navy contrasted well with the dark brown sports coat he wore, and the fabric was strange—coarse, somehow. Inviting touch so as to experience the texture against one’s fingertips.
When he caught me staring at him, he cocked a brow at me. “It’s rude to stare.”
My mouth tightened. “I’m sorry,” I replied, not meaning it.
He sensed it and grunted, then slipped his attaché case under his arm, and muttered, “Follow me.”
Once again, I followed him out of the brightly lit hall and into the corridor. The dim lights put his back into shadow, but as the light hit from the outside wall, which was lined with windows, I got a delicious glimpse of his ass.
Not that I should be thinking of his ass.
The man was repugnant.
Mean.
A bully who had set his sights on me.
But I wasn’t blind. No matter the character, the specimen of maleness was beyond beautiful. He had the kind of looks that belonged in a classic portrait, and I could well imagine one of the greats, Da Vinci or Michelangelo, studying his masculine perfection and capturing it for the idolatry of future generations.
My thoughts were fanciful, but I was a fanciful person.
With my feet buried firmly six feet under, I was rational to my core, so beyond grounded it was a joke. But in my secret self, where I could aim high, dream of being anything I wanted, I wished to be a writer. Wished to be anything other than practical and sensible. It was why—how hideous was this irony? —I’d signed up for Creative Writing.
When we made it into his office, I stood just inside the closed door, hoping he only wanted to verbally mock me… and how hideous was that?
Before I could ponder my fate, he took a seat in his chair, and as he rocked back, he stated, “You should wear dresses more often.” Before I could jolt in surprise at the compliment, he patted the desk. “Make yourself come.”
Disbelief filtered through me.
What the hell was his game here?
I stared at him for so long, his nostrils flared with agitation. It reminded me of a bull who’d been pissed off by that floating piece of red fabric a suicidal matador would wave in front of the massive beasts.
Taking that as indicative of his temper, I whispered, “Why?”
“This again?” he ground out. “You may have time for negotiations, but I don’t. If you want me to stay silent, hop on the desk and make yourself come like a good little slut.”
My eyes flared wide. “I’m not a slut.”
He sneered, “You’re not good and neither are you little.”
Hurt had me quivering where I stood. “Why do you want me to do this when you hate me so much?”
“As I told you Wednesday, I don’t hate you.” Those brown eyes of his would have given me frostbite if I’d been standing closer to him. “And I’m doing this because I can make you do anything I want. Now, get on the fucking desk and make yourself come,” he growled, and he punctuated the statement by slamming his hands on the desk. The sound had me jerking in place and I scurried forward, not wanting to agitate him further.
My meekness irked me, but the sensation of being trapped was too overwhelming for my own good.
Before I hit his desk, I put on the brakes. Though I knew he was on the brink of growling out another command, he settled back in his chair as I pulled up the skirt of my dress and shimmied out of my panties.
The white fabric lay like a puddle of innocence on the floor, a state of being I was discarding by attending to his whims. But I shoved the strange thought aside as I clambered onto the desk in front of him, because if I carried on thinking things like that, I’d never get off. And I was on a deadline. I’d start work soon. Cleaning at Crow, followed by two shifts behind the bar, and I wanted to go to the pawnbroker first.