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Chapter 6
CELIA
“Celia, there is a black car parked outside and I believe they’re waiting for you,” my landlord Annalisa, asked as she peeked nervously out the window.
I couldn’t help laughing; Annalisa was suspicious of anyone and anything. I wasn’t sure if it was because she’d never had a border before and thought she had to act like a parent too. I didn’t need a babysitter but it was sweet that she cared—either that or she was just nosy. “My date sent it.”
Emery had texted me earlier to tell me that he was running late and that he’d send a car service to pick me up. I’d told him I could just take the subway, but he was adamant about picking me up. Maybe it was because he understood I was on the run from Joplin, or maybe it was only self-preservation so that he wouldn’t get fired if someone snapped a freshman sneaking into his place.
When the car pulled up in front of a towering brownstone, I was sure we’d arrived to the wrong place. This looked like a faculty club or a library extension, not a private residence. This elegant but austere building screamed professor and didn’t even peep boxer or Little Burgundy alum. Emery told me he’d grown up dirt poor; there was no way a place like this would be in reach of people like us. I knew that university professors did okay, but they weren’t exactly rolling in dough.
“Are you sure this is the right address?” I asked the driver.
“It’s the address that Mr. Lawson gave me, miss.”
I got out of the car and smiled when I saw Emery waiting at the open door for me. He looked every bit the dashing professor, even in a white t-shirt and blue jeans. Instead of his auditorium slicked back, his hair fell loosely around his ears, a lone curl coming forward onto his stern brow.
“I thought you were at work today?”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the house and closed the door right behind me.
Lawson pushed me up against the wall, his body pressed to mine while he tore my face to pieces with his searching eyes. I felt both alive and self-conscious under his fierce gaze and I lowered my eyes.
He lifted my chin before placing a searing kiss on my lips, sending me from shy and demure straight into the stratosphere.
“Hello to you, Professor Lawson.”
“Hello, Beautiful. Boxer. Baddass. Warrior. Joplin Defector,” I kissed the words I didn’t want to hear off of his lips. He grabbed my biceps and squeezed, somehow thrilled by my developed muscles, then he held my hand as we walked up the stairs to a massive hallway.
“Whoa, this palace is something else. I feel like I’m in Harry Potter. I thought professors made peanuts compared to the privatized sector. Isn’t it supposed to be like a sacrifice to dedicate your knowledge and hard work to the university? Forgive my bluntness, but this house doesn’t make it look like you’re all that hard up for money.”
“Astute observation, Celia. I’m tenured, and I have quite a number of research grants, in addition to books in the field I’ve both written and contributed to. I do the lecture circuit for conferences. I have other sources of income, too.”
“Like beating ass in the ring?”
He grabbed me then and slammed me up against a glass doored floor to ceiling built-in bookshelf that was packed with volumes of hardbound books on nearly every subject imaginable.
“It takes one to know one,” he said as he kissed me, pulled my lower lip into his mouth. I couldn’t resist thrusting my hands into his perfectly tousled hair and tugging it with my fingers. He groaned into our frenzied kiss and the rumble that came from deep in his chest seemed to reverberate right between my legs.
Then the professor cupped my sex. I tipped my head back and let it rattle the glass pane in the book cabinet door. I wanted to be taken against a shelf of physics and astronomy books, by the teacher who’d already seen to my needs more than any other adult in my life. I didn’t think that it was wrong or an abuse of power for him to seduce me, but I knew others would and we’d have to hide this attraction before anyone found out the wrong way.
I wouldn’t always be his student, but I did want to always be his lover.
This time, I captured his mouth with my own, it was my bite that roused the low growl that roared out of him as he dragged me down the hall and through a sparse but stunning bedroom. He pushed open a set of French doors that led to a veranda and the afternoon sunlight streamed onto the small balcony there. Bookended by potted plants, a small table set with a drink in a pitcher and tall Collins glasses next to a wooden board with cheeses, grapes, figs and some thinly sliced cured meats.
