The Professor (4 page)

I climbed the stairs to my second floor apartment, and let myself in just as an email alert toned on my laptop. I set down my basket and checked the message. 

O
h this is rich
.

I stared at the email so long that the energy saver kicked on and I could see the broad smile on my face reflected in the darkness of the laptop screen. Oh yes, they could trust me to make the most of this opportunity, they could trust me to give him a very warm welcome indeed. The Professor didn't realize it, but I was going to end up a student of his after all, even if for only one day. When Dr. Thomas Grayson showed up to class tomorrow he was going to be in for a big surprise. I took my laundry basket to the bedroom and flung open my closet with glee. I needed to find the perfect outfit for tomorrow's afternoon class. Something that oozed "fresh torturous hell" of the sexy variety. Yes, that ought to do it.

Notes:
Game on Professor. You're going down.

H
aving
a sister that wears the same size as you and is a mega-talented burgeoning fashion designer, is a blessing most of the time. Tonight, however, I was cursing my overstuffed closet. I was spoiled for choice, locked in analysis paralysis, and after about five minutes staring at my closet I knew I needed some advice from the expert herself.

"What's up, Chuck?" I grinned when Charlotte's face popped up on the laptop screen.

"Janie!" she squealed, and waved frantically at the camera, making me chuckle.

"Good to see you too, Charlie. Listen I need some serious help. I'm trying to seduce someone and he's resisting my considerable charms."

"Inconceivable!"

I laughed. "Not at all I'm afraid. It's a little..." I rolled my eyes, "er, complicated right now, and he's trying to hold out on me until things are less complicated."

"And you want to make that impossible?"

"Definitely."

"All right, aim me at the closet," she said. "I need to see what we're working with."

"Gotcha." I turned the camera around and planted myself in front of it. "I await your orders oh wise one," I said.

"Well what's the scenario? Location, time, the exact reaction you are trying to provoke. I mean I need some more information here," said Charlie.

"School, tomorrow afternoon, mind-numbing uncontrollable lust."

"Okay, what's the victim profile?"

"English, a little older, likes tea, smoking hot."

"Mmm sounds yummy, go on."

"He's super smart, wavy brown hair, the most incredible blue eyes, and a buttoned-up stuffy exterior that hides a molten hot core of raging alpha sex god."

"Wow - me likey. Where did you find this guy?" she asked.

"He's um...he's a professor." I cringed waiting for her to yell at me. Instead Charlie ran her hands over her face and sighed heavily, then laughed.

"Well, that explains a lot. No wonder he's resisting. What did Mom say about this?"

"Mom? I haven't talked to Mom about this."

"Well you should! That's a dangerous liaison. She'll set you straight, talk you out of it..." Charlie trailed off. "No maybe not. Actually, she'd probably say..."

"Go for it." We both said the words at the same time, and then laughed.

 "I don't know Janie. This just spells trouble. Maybe you should leave the poor guy alone." Charlie frowned at me.

"No, that's not an option sis. Listen. It's inevitable..." I told her everything. The first meeting at the pool, our flirtations on campus, and the loophole in the University code of conduct. Then I told her about tonight's rendezvous at the Laundromat, the Professor's words, and his promise to "fuck me hard and slow," but only after I graduate.

"Damn," said Charlie, fanning herself. "Holy shit. He has no idea what he's done. Yeah he shouldn't have said that."

"No, no he should not have," I agreed.

"You just don't challenge a Claremont woman like that. Poor man. I almost feel sorry for him."

"Yeah, almost," I smirked. "So....you'll help?"

"Well, of course. I mean, he must be destroyed." Charlie slid a pair of glasses on her nose and began pulling her long wavy red hair up in bun. "Let's get to work."

An hour later I had the perfect outfit.

"You're a genius Charlie."

"Oh stop, don't - don't stop," Charlie teased.

"I owe you, babe."

"Yes, yes you do," she smiled. "Well I'm off to bed. Call me later. I want the whole story in excruciating, juicy detail."

"You got it sis."

F
riday 2
:40 PM.
Room 128 in the English building.

I was twenty minutes early for my Women in Fiction class. I was wearing the genius ensemble that Charlie had picked out and I wanted to get to class before everyone else so I could be sure to snag a prime seat down in front, directly in the Professor's line of sight. And what a sight I was. My dark hair was long, curled and flowing loose, my eye makeup was smoky, bringing out the greens in my irises and I'd slicked my lips with a brand new lip gloss, a color that was halfway between peach and watermelon. Under my red wool coat, I wore a semi-sheer long-sleeved sweater dress. It was fitted and the color of thick cream, it draped over my body like a second skin, stopping mid-thigh. I wore a pair of dark brown button up Victorian inspired boots, and a lacy sash belt cinched in my waist. The coat served to temporarily hide my secret weapon, and what I considered, my best asset. I'd told Charlie we were shooting to kill and she'd taken me at my word. As a result, per her suggestion, I was going full commando under that dress.

The neckline showed off my cleavage, plunging deeply. It hugged the firm mounds of my breasts, emphasizing their size. In case my freely bouncing titties weren't enough to provoke some heat from the Professor, the elaborate openwork design certainly should. Without the coat, my rosy pink nipples were just barely visible under the ornate knit pattern that clung to my bust-line. Overall the whole look was dead sexy, feminine and romantic, and I agreed with Charlie that it was exactly the sort of thing that should get an English Professor's blood pumping.

When I walked into the classroom, however, it appeared that someone else had already raised his blood, and not in a good way. The Professor was standing in front of the desk, his back to me, growling into his phone.

"No. Absolutely not. It's out of the question and I'm astonished you would even ask," he said, his voice low and cold. "That was a gift from my parents and I hardly think it's--" he turned, and stopped talking when he saw me. He wore tight tailored grey slacks, and a black suit jacket over a fitted blue dress shirt that caught the color of his eyes. They glowed, impossibly blue behind those sexy rimmed glasses.

"I can't talk now, I'll call you later," he said and hung up. Slipping the phone into his jacket pocket, he folded his arms across his chest and glared at me, the muscle in his jaw ticking with irritation.

"Jane Trouble Rascal Claremont nee Danger," he huffed, and ran both hands over his forehead and into his hair, disrupting the thick brown waves. "Why am I not surprised to see you here?"

"Nice to see you too, Professor." I smiled at him as I walked to the seats at the front of the classroom, set down my bag and began unbuttoning my coat.

"Tell me Jane are you a Wizard? Because I cannot go anywhere it seems, on this campus without you—"

I took off my coat and threw it on the chair next to me.

"Turning up..." he trailed off, his shoulders slumping as he leaned against the edge of the desk behind him for support. "Oh you...you are..." he breathed.

"Yes?" I asked sweetly.

"Calamitous," he answered, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his pants, his eyes traveled frantically over my body, landing, finally, exactly where I wanted them to.

I walked towards him, a slow sashay that sent all my fun bits jiggling softly for his gaze. "So now I'm also Calamitous?" I asked. "Every time I see you, I gain a name." I stopped in front of him, his eyes were glued to mine now. It was painfully obvious that he was trying very hard not to stare at my chest, and I found his discomfort adorable. "This name you have for me is getting awfully long," I teased, taking another step forward.

"Yes," he jerked up from the edge of the desk and moved around it, to the other side, away from me. "Yes, your name...," he said, his tone was distant, distracted. He reached for a leather case on the desk and removed a folder, flipping through the papers inside.

This wasn't going exactly as I hoped. He was supposed to succumb, to fall rapturously in lust with me the moment he saw me in this spectacular dress. Instead his head was buried in a stack of papers. I usually have no problem reading men. I figure out what they want and give it to them, which in turn gets me what I want. But the Professor was so confusing. Just when I thought I had him taking a step forward, he took two steps back. Literally! At a loss, I fell back on small talk.

"Hey. Who was on the phone?" I asked while he shuffled papers. "It didn't sound good."

"No, it wasn't good. Not remotely good. In fact it was very, very bad." He must not have found whatever he was looking for, because he threw down the stack of papers, and stalked to a door on the near side of the room, exiting to a hallway that led to the offices of the English department. Surprised, I chased after him, and followed when he disappeared through a paneled wood door into an office at the end of the hall.

"Get out," he said curtly, his back was to me and he was rifling through a filing cabinet.

"No," I said simply, dismissing his command. I walked to the desk and perched on the end, taking in the room.

It was an over-decorated mess of Professorial cliché's. The desk was huge and obviously an antique, the windows were covered with brocade curtains, oil paintings of fruit and pastoral landscapes adorned the walls. Two sides of the room were covered with bookcases lined with dusty volumes interspersed with the kind of clever nostalgic knick knacks you find in a Pottery Barn catalog. An enormous grandfather clock stood behind me, its pendulum swinging a lazy path, while the pièce de résistance, a large tarnished antique mirror, stood opposite it, on the other side of the room, perpendicular to the desk. Framed by hand-carved gilt wood, it stood on the floor in a location that, I couldn't help but notice, thanks to my dirty mind, was in fact, the perfect spot for some naughty voyeurism. I could just imagine it, me bent over the desk, the Professor fucking me from behind, watching his face in the mirror as he came inside me.

Was it suddenly hot in here?

"So who was on the phone?" I asked again. I needed to keep him talking, keep him looking, keep him interested.

"None of your business," he grumped. His tone was all business but, he stopped digging for a moment to shrug out of his suit jacket and throw it, without looking, onto the desk chair.

 "Fair enough," I said casually, although I noted the action with triumph and definitely counted it as a mark in my favor.

Ha! He's hot and bothered too! 

He stopped digging through the files for a moment, and rolled up his sleeves, never turning around. For the first time since the pool I could see his arm tattoos, and I remembered how much they'd intrigued me.

"Your tattoos are so unusual," I said. "Any special significance?"

"Not that I'm inclined to share," he snapped.

A tiny trickle of sweat slid down the back of my neck under my hair. I pulled at my dress, trying to create a breeze down the front to cool me off. It worked, too well, the moisture on my skin instantly chilling and pebbling my nipples into hard aching buds.

"How did you decorate your office so quickly?" I asked, changing the subject.

"I didn't," he said slamming the filing cabinet shut. He returned to the desk with a folder in his hand. "This is Professor Sullivan's office. I'm using it while he's on sabbatical."

"Ah. I'm glad this overwrought disaster didn't happen at your hand. Although I do like that mirror." I popped up off the desk and leaned over the surface, ass in the air. "It's placement in the room is very Feng Shui." I wiggled my bottom, hoping the same visual that had been dominating my imagination, might leap into his own. "Don't you think?"

"Stop it."

"Nope," I said casually, popping the p. "What
are
you doing?"

"Checking to see if you're actually enrolled in this class," he said, running his finger down a sheet of paper.

"I am. I wouldn't lie," I replied just as his finger stopped. He'd found my name on the page.

"Damn."

"Ouch. Hurtful." I grimaced and sat on the edge of the desk again.

"I'm sorry," he said. Sighing heavily he set the paper down, next to my thigh.

"Oh, there's the polite Dr. Grayson again. I was kind of hoping we'd gotten past that last night."

"We got past too much last night. At least I did. And that can't happen again."

"What?" I was stunned.

No, no, no, this is NOT how I wanted this to go!

"Nothing really happened," I protested.

"Something almost did," he said, hands in pockets he gazed at me stoically.

"No, we made plans for something. But nothing's actually going on now, not yet..."

"Then what's this?" he said, gesturing to my cleavage.

I looked down and realized that the ornate open design of my dress had caught one of my nipples. There it was, a delicious pink button, peeking through a hole in the knit, just begging to be poked. My tongue flicked to the corner of my mouth and I bit down, trying to stifle my laughter. It was no use. I shot him a sheepish grin, pressed my breasts together with my shoulders and bounced playfully.

"Titties?" I said, arching my eyebrows. "I just thought, I'd keep things interesting. While we wait for my graduation."

"There won't be a graduation. I mean..." he shook his head. "That's not what I mean, of course you'll graduate. I just mean this," he waved his hand between us, "can't happen."

"I…," I fumbled for something to say.

I was supposed to be seducing him, driving him mad with lust so that he'd throw me over the desk and have his wicked way with me right now, graduation date be damned. Instead I was in real danger of scaring him off for good. This didn't sound like two steps back, this sounded like total derailment. A complete reversal of all his promises from last night. How was I blowing this so hard? Where was my legendary guy intuition? Where there fuck was my Lizzy mojo? Stupid, irresistible, enigmatic Professor!

Think, Jane! Think!

"Jane you're incredible, charming, delightful--."

"But," I said, bracing myself.

Here it comes, here comes the blow off. Fuck!

"We don't actually know anything about each other. And what you don't know about me is that this little flirtation..." he said, and I winced at his flippant characterization of our attraction, "is a huge distraction to me, at a time when I cannot afford a misstep. I'm in the midst of negotiating some very complicated and exhausting personal matters. And I just can't, I don't know..." his took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging the space between his eyes.