He wasn’t wrong, and yet, I didn’t know if I could stay here much longer.
“Why did you bring me here?” I whispered, staring down at Scottie’s hands that were tearing into a piece of bread.
“Because you needed to eat.” He gritted his teeth, then slipped a hand into his pocket. When he retrieved a piece of paper, I stared at it and frowned at the words.
“What is it?”
“A friend of mine is looking for someone to transcribe her notes.” He cleared his throat. “She works through this site. Maybe you could build up a clientele so you could work from home.”
Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that.
I stared at the paper, then back up at him. “Thank you,” I whispered.
His mouth twisted in that way I recognized, but although I expected some cutting remark, he merely answered, “You’re welcome.”
And because of that, I didn’t try to leave again.
❖
I gulped when Professor Maclean had me stand up in class.
I hated when he did this.
Since when was Creative Writing the equivalent of Amateur Dramatics?
When I clambered down the stairs to the base of the auditorium where he loomed over his desk, looking like Pluto reborn with the command he had of the platform, four of us all stood there, awkward as fuck. It was a stunning contrast to his confidence, and made me all the more aware of the man’s power.
I was ninety-nine percent sure that he did this to make us miserable, and because I was getting to know him, even if it was obliquely, I figured I wasn’t wrong.
Though his face was always stern and expressionless, his eyes held a wicked intent that reminded me of those moments after I came when his eyes would catch mine and I’d be left gasping like a fish speared on a hook. Great imagery there, but yeah. He looked like sin incarnate, and I looked like a dying fish.
Yup, sounded about right.
What made this worse, of course, was the text I’d received this morning.
Maclean: Remember, no panties. Wear the vibe.
No ‘good morning,’ just an orgasm as a threat. Go me.
“I want you to think about the importance of italics and why overusing them can be irritating,” he stated, his voice toneless as he intruded my thoughts, but hell, I was sure he was messing with us.
Mostly because I knew I used a lot of italics in my work.
Was this his way of getting back at me?
When I looked at the piece we were reading, I frowned at it. It was by ‘unknown,’ which didn’t put me at ease as I scanned through the text that was littered with italics.
“Ms. Whitehouse, I think you should start, followed by Mr. Hudson as Jericho, Ms. Lewis as Holly, and Mr. Markham as Johnson.”
Was it just me? Was I the only one who heard the croon in his voice when he said my name? That dangerous purr that put me on edge? He didn’t caress the others’ names, only mine, and fuck, it made me feel alight with the way he put extra emphasis on mine.
Some days, he did this. Made me feel like I was the only person in his world.
Then others, I felt like the nobody I was to him. The non-entity that a person like me was to someone of his stature—because I didn’t give a damn what anyone said. Professor Maclean was more than just a professor. He had money. It was evident in every move he made, every syllable he uttered, and in the things he wore.
He reeked of it.
Nervously, I swallowed and when I tried to speak and failed, I cleared my throat, knowing full well that he’d never let me get out of this, and of course, the second I opened my mouth, he did it.
The bastard.
He turned on the vibrator.
I wanted to glower at him. Wanted to kill him with the death rays that were attached to my eyes, but I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
Which left me with a huge problem.
The setting was on one of the highest, and my body was already pumped from the way he’d been using it off and on in class.
He didn’t do it often, but occasionally, I’d get the command in a text before class, and I knew to prepare myself for the misery.
I hated that he was sporadic with it. Some days, when he texted me, he wouldn’t use it. Others, he’d overuse it. Leaving me totally hanging, unsure of his intentions. Of course, that was exactly what he got a kick out of.
My uncertainty.
My inability to plan what he was doing.
Bastard.
Sure, he’d been nicer since Mrs. Linden’s funeral, but nice and Professor Maclean weren’t words that went together often.
“The truth is, Jane deserves to die.” The words were pretty strong for an opening line, and the use of two italics definitely made it weirder when I said them aloud.
“Nobody deserves to die, Jericho,” the guy next to me said.
“Everybody does something in their lives that is worthy of the final punishment.”
I winced at how many damn italics there were and how, in the running of the dialogue, it sounded even funkier.
But of course, that wasn’t the whole reason for my wincing and flinching. I wasn’t sure what song he set the vibrator to, but the heavy bass killed me. In fact, nope, that was too simple a word. It didn’t just kill me, it annihilated me. Blasted my nerve endings like an atomic bomb, making it impossible to stand upright, to focus on the text in front of me.
When it was my turn, my voice was reed thin as I stated, “I think you shouldn’t be talking about such matters. It isn’t a servant’s place to do so.”
The spotlight shifted off me, and for a second, I was relieved. Grateful. The vibrations died, lessened for a moment, then of course, just as I began to hope he didn’t want me to orgasm in front of the entire class, the vibe turned onto the highest setting.
My shoulders dropped, my chin lifted, and I knew my eyes sparkled as I stared at him.
Right at him.
Our gazes clashed, held, and my jaw firmed as I tried not to moan, tried not to shudder with the power of the sensations coursing through me.
Only staring at him, letting him hold me, visually, throughout that got me through, and yeah, I knew that was messed up considering he was the one tormenting me.
My body began to tremble, shaking from the inside out as the pleasure he’d forced on me made itself known.
“Ms. Whitehouse? Is everything okay?” he asked, frowning at me, back in the role of professor and not my tormentor.
My throat was tight as I whispered, “Stage fright.”
He hummed. “Just a few more lines to go.”
I read my part, quickly scanned what I missed because he was bastard enough to ask us about the text, especially when I missed it thanks to him, and I realized he’d planned for me to come when there was a chunk of the dialogue where I wasn’t required to speak.
Ugh.
Why did he do that?
Just when I could call him a bastard, he did something kind of nice.
Although, was that really nice? Wouldn’t it have been nicer if he didn’t text me before class and ask me to insert a fucking vibrator so he could torment me with it, while I was in a lesson where he was supposed to teach me something for the crazy fees I paid to study at this Ivy League joint?
He was blurring the lines again.
Confusing me.
Making me want something I shouldn’t want.