Hot Dirty Love (Copperline #5) (8 page)

“I’m not here for very long,” she replied with a gentle shake of her head. “I need to focus on school. On finishing. Not on friends. Not right now. I don’t need friends.”

“Everyone needs friends, Rain.”

“I don’t. Not here. Not when I’m just going to leave in a few months.”

“Rain—”

“Justin,” she sighed with a hint of exasperation.

The sound of my name whispered from her lips reminded me of the other time I’d heard her say it. That night with Cole as we made our way to the bedroom. I felt a fresh surge of hot blood rush straight to my cock.

Her voice dropped to become barely audible. “In class, it’s like there’s a window… or a screen. You’re on the other side. Untouchable. Seeing you outside of class yesterday, though… it was just weird. It was…”

Knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop myself, I stepped a hair closer.

Her voice trailed off with a faint tremble of her lips. A shiver I wanted to taste. My dick ached with the thought of it all.

For a tense moment, we just kind of stared at each other.

“I don’t fuck students,” I finally muttered. My mantra, said with quiet emphasis, mostly to remind myself.

“I don’t fuck professors,” she replied, echoing my tone. Echoing my desire and fragile resolve.

I closed my eyes. I tried to force the overwhelming need to touch her from my fingertips. Yet all I wanted to do was to grab her and kiss her. To devour her.

A quick movement sounded in my ears, and I opened my eyes to see her hurrying away. She didn’t look back. Not even a peek. I knew that because I couldn’t tear my eyes away until long after she’d disappeared.

Friday night. Gig night at the Copperline. The euphoria of jamming with the guys brought a sweet nostalgia. The fans out in the crowd, blowing me lipstick kisses and flashing suggestive smiles. I could almost convince myself that it was like the good old days.

Except for one table where four chicks sat.

Denny’s wife Felicity, Cody’s wife Ilsa, Drew’s wife Raven, and even our friend Brannon’s very pregnant wife-to-be-someday Sophie. Four living, breathing reminders that those days were long gone. It didn’t matter how super hot they were. Even Sophie was hot, somehow, pregnant as fuck and looking like she might go into labor any second.

My buddies were so fucking gone, taking the life I had relished with them.

Bastards
.

I spotted Laura waiting tables across the room. In the past, I’d always been a little careful with her. She was a great lay, but she had the tendency to get a little clingy after sex. I sensed that she was angling for the security she thought a man might bring her.

Yet maybe that’s what I needed.

Just maybe, if she felt some attachment to me, it could drive me to feel some back. It might trigger some sense of responsibility. It was a shitty thing to do because failing would only hurt someone who was only looking for love, even if she wasn’t exactly going about it quite the right way.

I did it anyway. Knowing full well I was a dickhead and a lost cause, I pulled her up the short stairwell by the stage during our break. Just out of sight of the boisterous crowd, I gave it a go and even allowed her to lean against me for a few minutes after. I tried to let her fulfill her own need for a human connection.

True to form, though, the asshole manwhore in me won out. I pulled away, ignoring the sad dejected expression that crossed her face. I lightly smiled through my guilt and said “
thanks
” as though she’d just served me a beer.

I was my father’s son.

“I didn’t realize you were a local celebrity.”

After Monday’s lecture, everyone had left the room. Everyone except Rain who remained in her seat until it was just the two of us.

That alone made me edgy.

But her words truly stopped me short. The Mofos’ notoriety at the Copperline was something I tried to keep away from the academic side of my life. It wasn’t like nobody at Tech knew, but I didn’t talk about it here. I didn’t even mention the Copperline here. I kept that duality separate.

There, I could be my true self, free from the rules of polite—or even decent—society.

Here, I had to be formal. Professional. Professor Badass, but a professor nonetheless. Here, I was on a different stage.

I walked over to her table, standing right before it. Her gaze stayed focused on her notes, on the little leafy vine she was doodling along the edge of her page.

So girly.

Which reminded me that she was a girl.

A really hot girl.

And a really hot fuck.

Dammit
.
I don’t fuck students
.

“I don’t really talk about my band here,” I cautiously murmured.

“I can see why. It gives you the freedom to misbehave.”

Something pulled at my gut, a quick pang of remorse in all the ways I was trying to forget she existed.

But, the way she said that made me also feel just a touch busted. Like she somehow knew… and she didn’t like it.

Without thinking it through, I responded more defensively than I should have.

“I seem to recall that we met in the midst of me misbehaving. You were, too, actually.”

At that reminder, said so quietly under my breath, her eyes lifted to meet mine. Dark and rebellious, laced with the knowledge that she was flirting with danger a bit just by staying after.

I should have walked away. I knew it with every fiber of my being. This discussion was taking a perilous turn.

Yet, I couldn’t. Especially once she looked at me.

Her eyes conveyed so much. Passion. Apprehension. Fierce envy. And something that made my balls draw up tight.

“You definitely have quite the following, though,” she softly remarked. “Lots of… admirers.”

“We have a few loyal supporters,” I nodded cautiously.

She laughed, a low, dicey sound. “More like raging groupies,” she murmured.

I felt a catch in my throat. “You were at the Copperline.”

“Just for a bit on Friday, but enough. I got to see you in action. On-stage… and just off.”

A flare of discontent trickled through her gaze that carried something reckless. Right then, I knew without a doubt she had seen me fucking Laura in the stairwell.

I crouched down, resting my arms on the table across from her. My voice was almost a whisper. I didn’t even want the walls to hear this. “You almost seem pissed about it.”

For a long moment, we just looked at each other. She finally dropped her gaze, and sighed as she closed her notebook and tucked it in her pack. Just before she stood, she swallowed, looking back at me dead-on.

“I don’t understand it,” she carefully began, so quietly I could barely hear her even as close as we were. “This feeling is not something I’m remotely familiar with, but I think I’m…
jealous
.”

Her words echoed through my thoughts all afternoon. Into the evening. Into my dreams.

She had said it almost in wonder. Like she couldn’t believe it herself. Like it was completely foreign.

I don’t understand it… I think I’m jealous…

Whispered with sheer bewilderment.

After her confession, she quietly rose and left the classroom leaving me stunned in her wake.

Aside from the occasional awkward moment in class, I had thought it was just me. The tension and the fierce yearning was solely due to my preoccupation with her because I
couldn’t have
her. She was off limits, so it wasn’t just that I wanted to fuck her. I did want to fuck her.
Holy hell
, I wanted to fuck her really,
really
badly. Granted, I wasn’t exactly picky when I came to places to stick my cock. I just never really wanted someone I couldn’t have.

But that little glimpse into her mind—that little confession—sorta caught me off guard. Her admission told me she was jealous of other chicks I slept with. That she thought about me. That she wanted me. That she
liked
me.

Which forced me to be honest with myself and admit that I actually liked
her
, too.

Fucking cheesy, I know.

It was just that she’d been so at ease with Felicity, Ilsa, and Raven at yoga that day, at least up until she saw me standing there. Almost like she fit so well in the group. Like she belonged.

And, even though it was total juvenile, prepubescent, junior high crush type shit, I actually kinda liked seeing her light and warm smile. Thinking back over the weeks of class that faded into one another, I realized I liked seeing the glint in her eye if I subtly teased her. Or the totally fake dirty look she’d shoot me as she tried not to show her amusement.

I tried not to focus on the way she chewed tenderly on her straw. Thinking about those soft lips and the sweet swipe of her tongue was murder on my balls.

And there was the way she’d finally get tired of her classmates randomly chancing guesses to a question I’d asked. She’d murmur the correct answer, almost under her breath. I was so tuned into her, though, that I’d hear it every time.

“Very good, Miss Hartmann,” I’d say in an attempt to stay professional.

“Thank you, Professor,” she’d quietly respond likewise.

Yet it gave me a raging boner every time.
Fucking hell
, I was getting a stiffy just thinking about it.

As I had done day after day from the start of the semester, I pushed it all to the back of my mind. I packed up the rest of my things and headed to Ophir, refusing to give those thoughts any credence. I didn’t want to think of her any differently than my other students.

But I did.

Oh, fuck yes,
I did.