Love Lessons by Cassie Mint

Seven

Avery

“He what?”

Paige gapes at me from the other end of the sofa, a piece of popcorn hovering halfway to her mouth. Her caramel hair is scraped back in a bun, and she’s still dressed in her leotard and sweatpants.

Leona sits on the rug, her back leaning against the sofa. A sketchpad is balanced on her knees, with charcoal staining the tips of her fingers and forming a streak over one cheek. She snorts.

“Come on, Paige. He kissed her.”

I pace back and forth in front of the TV. A sitcom is paused on the screen, the characters frozen and flickering in place.

“No, he didn’t. Not exactly. I mean, his lips didn’t touch my lips.”

“But?” Leona prods. She’s hiding a smirk as she watches me, eyes sparkling. Leona acts tough, but she’s loves romance just as much as the rest of us.

“But he might as well have.” I sigh, dropping my satchel onto the floorboards. I close my eyes and summon the feelings from the library—every single sensation. Professor Kent plastering me to the bookcase, touching me, rubbing his face in my hair. Speaking with his mouth pressed to my temple, like he couldn’t bear to lean back an inch.

Maybe he didn’t kiss me. But he sure did stake a claim.

“He told me he loves me.” I swirl a finger in the air. I open my eyes and find Paige beaming. “In a roundabout way.”

“That’s the dream,” Leona says flatly, but I ignore her. She’s just worried about me. She’s spent a lot of nights sat up with me lately, rubbing my back as I sniffle about Professor Kent.

“But he won’t be with me.” My shoulders slump as the rest of our encounter crashes back in. The way he tore himself off, gritting his teeth like it hurt. The way he stared at me with hungry eyes, before inhaling sharply and striding away.

“Because of his career?” Paige finally remembers her popcorn, dropping it back in the bowl in her lap.

“No…” I chew on my bottom lip. “I don’t think that’s it. I think he’s—he’s protecting me.”

Leona rolls her eyes. Paige shudders out a huge sigh.

“Oh, wow. That is so romantic.”

I prop my hands on my hips. Stare at the floorboards. “It is romantic. But it has to stop. If he doesn’t want to be with me…” I suck in a painful breath. “Then, okay. That’s one thing. I’ll accept it. But if he does want to be with me, and he’s making my decision for me—”

“He’d better cut it out,” Leona finishes. I point at her.

“Right.”

“We need a plan.” Leona tosses her sketchpad onto the coffee table and rolls her head from side to side. Nerves swell in my belly, fluttering against my insides, but I blow out a hard breath and nod.

She’s right. I need a plan.

A plan to break Professor Kent.

* * *

I wait until his office hours the next day. A whole agonizing day of lectures and classes on campus; of knowing that he’s near and feeling his touch still tingling on my skin, but not going to him.

Not yet.

At 5pm, when my last class ends and his office hours begin, I meet Leona and Paige in the girls’ bathroom in the English building. The door has barely swung shut behind me before they tug me to the sinks, patting at my hair and fussing over my makeup.

We already picked out my outfit last night: a white halter dress and sandals. But now, in the safety of the girls’ bathroom, Leona adds the finishing touches to her master plan.

Paige brushes my hair and fluffs it up until it rests lightly on my shoulders. Leona reaches over and dabs red lipstick on my mouth—bold and bright. Then squirts perfume on my chest.

And I slide a hand up my back and flick my bra open. It’s time to pull out all the stops.

* * *

His door is propped open. I pause on the threshold, watching Professor Kent in his office. He’s sat at the desk, a pair of black-framed glasses balanced on his nose, and a muscle flexes in his jaw as he reads over some poor student’s assignment. He gusts out a low sigh, grabbing a pen and crossing through a whole section with a firm line.

I clear my throat. God, I hope that’s not my paper.

Professor Kent glances over, then does a double take. His eyes widen, and he drops the pen quickly, pushing to his feet.

“Avery. What are you—”

“These are your office hours, right?” He presses his mouth in a line and nods. Here goes nothing. “I have some questions for you.”

Something like disappointment flickers behind his eyes, but the professor waves at the chair opposite his desk. I push off the door, tugging it shut behind me.

“Avery,” he warns as he sits back down. His alarm only grows when he gets a good look at me. My hair; my red lips; my nipples beading against my white dress. He hisses out a breath, falling back in his seat. Professor Kent scrubs a hand over his jaw, staring at me with hard, hungry eyes.

“What did you want to ask me?” he rasps.

I reach the spare chair. Grip it, and tug it to one side.

“I’ll show you,” I whisper.

My summer of self help manuals has been leading to this: the exact moment when I drop to my knees. I crawl under the wood of his desk, shadowed but spacious, as Professor Kent curses darkly above me. He shoves his chair back, spreading his thighs to make room.

I crawl between those legs, resting my palms on his tense muscles.

“Avery.” He stares down at me from above the desk, white-faced, his chest heaving. “We can’t do this.” But even as he says it, he winds his fingers through my hair. Cradles my head like I’m something precious.

I glance pointedly at the hard line straining against his pants.

“If we want to, we can.”

He chokes out a laugh. He’s so tense, his thighs are practically vibrating. I bite my lip, waiting until he meets my eyes.

“Please.” I dart my tongue out to wet my lip. Professor Kent groans. “Please, professor. I want to taste you.”

“Fuck.” He runs the pad of one thumb over my red lip. Pushes it inside my mouth, sucking in a ragged breath as I suckle at him, humming. Heat tingles under my skin, my core pulsing under my dress, and I wiggle my hips from side to side, so worked up I need to move.

He’s so close. So solid and manly. His thumb is large in my mouth, and his manhood would be so much larger. His scent is everywhere, surrounding me, and I’m tucked down here in the shadows like his dirty little secret.

I love it.

“Avery.” He sounds broken already. Power surges through me, heady and delicious, as he pumps his thumb back and forth on my tongue. “God, sweetheart. That dress. Those lips. You look…”

I pull off his thumb with a pop. Tilt my head.

“I look?”

He says it quietly. Confesses it, just for me.

“Like one of my daydreams.”

That’s all I need to hear. He wants me, wants this too, and to demonstrate, he helps me get his pants open. I reach in, biting my lip, and have to stifle a moan when I finally get my hand around him.

He’s scorching hot. Rock hard, the skin like satin. With a bead of moisture crowning the tip. I swirl a fingertip through that bead, spreading the moisture around, and he tips his head back with a groan.

God. The sounds he makes—they’re so deep and rumbling, they might shake apart the furniture.

“Professor Kent—”

“Ellis,” he interrupts. A rueful smile tugs his mouth, and he strokes my cheekbone. “Call me Ellis.”

“Ellis.”I looked up his name ages ago. When I first sat in his class last year and blinked up at him like a thunderbolt had hit me. But I’d somehow never dreamed that I could call him that.

I love it. His name slips out of me like a sigh.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit. I squeeze his hard length gently, running my hand up and down. “You might have to teach me a bit longer, professor.”

“Fuck.” He shakes his head, dazed. “Fuck. I’m going to hell.”

I sit back on my heels, heart sinking. “Do you want to stop?”

“No.” The growl tears out of him, thrilling me back to life. I push back onto my knees and squeeze him again. “God, no. I’m going to feel your pretty mouth. Start now, sweetheart. Taste the tip.”

He slips back into his role of teacher easily. And pleasure crackles through my veins as he takes charge, always so steady and sure. He’s as firm as ever, his words commanding, and I pant and squeeze my thighs together as I do what he says.

He tastes good. Salty and subtle. I moan and suck him into my mouth without being told. Ellis curses and tightens his grip in my hair, guiding me up and down beneath the desk.

“That’s it.” I bob my head, my lips stretching around him. “That’s right, sweetheart. Swallow me down. Taste it. It’s all yours.” I hum, the vibration soaking through his skin, and he hisses between his teeth. Rocks his hips up to meet me, his desk chair creaking.

Yes.I may be on my knees, may have my mouth on him, but I’ve never felt so powerful. Never felt so certain and in control. I was made to do this—to draw these sounds from this man, and to feel his hands on me in turn.

Muffled footsteps by the door. That’s our only warning. Ellis pushes his chair beneath the desk, hiding his lap, and I scramble to tuck my feet under.

The office door swings open. An older woman’s voice floats through the room, asking Ellis about his class schedule.

I hold my breath, heart slamming in my throat. I don’t dare move. Don’t dare creak the floorboards. From here to the doorway, I’m hidden by the desk. But if she steps inside…

Ellis answers, polite and unruffled.

I bite my lip, suddenly desperate to laugh. And to do the most wicked thing I can think of. I take his length in my hand, still hard and flushed angry red, and slide it back into my mouth.

Ellis’ breath catches. See, he’s not so unflappable, is he? And when he keeps chatting with the woman, his voice is ever so slightly strained. I smile around his cock, bobbing my head slowly. Sucking him quietly; savoring every lick and taste. One of his knees is pressed close to me, and I rub my beaded nipple on his leg through the fabric of my dress.

The woman says something.

“Thanks, Elaine,” Ellis grits out. And when his office door clicks shut, footsteps moving away down the corridor, he curses roughly and pushes his chair back. I crawl after him eagerly, my mouth still on his cock, dipping my head with every nudge of his hand. He guides me faster and faster, his hand gripped in my hair, and the extra roughness makes my body sing.

“Shit. You liked that, didn’t you? Sweet little exhibitionist. Did you want her to catch you under there, with your lips around my cock and your pussy soaking through the back of your dress?”

I hum and nod, taking him deeper, and he curses one more time before gritting out, “Avery. Going to come.”

That’s my warning. I know that much. My cue to pull away if I don’t want to swallow. But I do want to—I want all of him. Every last drop.

So I crowd closer, taking him so deep that my nose touches his stomach.

“Avery.”I’ll never get tired of him saying my name like that. Like a prayer. Like something holy. “Sweetheart. Fuck.” He comes long and hard, his hips thrusting off his chair. And when I finally sit back on my heels, wiping my hand over my mouth, I don’t have time to catch my breath before he’s bundling me out from under the desk.

He scoops me up off the floorboards, sets me on the desk, and tears my panties down my legs.

“Yes?” He pauses with my thighs pushed wide apart. He’s got such a crazed glint in his eye, I think he’d go mad if I said no.

I wet my lip, suddenly shy. “Yes, please, professor.”

Ellis groans as he drops to his knees. Buries his face between my thighs and eats at me like a starving man. I’m already wound so tight from squirming under the desk, and feeling his tongue plunge inside my entrance, feeling his teeth scrape over my clit—

I fall apart.

I come with a wail, my thighs locked around his neck, and he doesn’t stop for a second. Doesn’t ease off until I slump over his papers, boneless.

And when we finally both get back up, clumsy with pleasure, he laughs, the sound bright, and kisses my mouth. So sweet, so tender, but claiming, too. That’s Professor Kent all over: soft hands and nipping teeth.

Ten minutes later, I jump when I let myself out of his office and find someone waiting in the corridor. It’s the guy who sat next to me on the first day of class. Who kept staring at me instead of taking notes. A knot tightens in my stomach, nerves skittering over my skin, but he doesn’t smile knowingly. Doesn’t make any hint that he heard us. Just tips his chin and says, “Hey.”

“Hi.” I hurry away, thanking my lucky stars.

That was super close.