Tempting (The Tempting #1) Page 4

  I shrugged aside the unwelcome thoughts as I grabbed my messenger bag and took the steps from my fourth floor walk-up to the street.

  The apartment would be a royal pain in the ass in the winter, when the steps were covered in ice and the railing too frozen to hold comfortably. But it was mine: all mine. No annoying roommates to accuse of stealing my clothes or to argue with over groceries. Sure, I was broke most of the time and my fridge was so empty that nothing ever had the opportunity to go moldy. These were the things people took for granted: that they had so much food that some of it grew mold from being uneaten.

  With the change I’d scrounged up in my couch cushions, I splurged on a coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts on my way to the T, relishing in its commercialism and honesty, something that the college cafe snubbed its nose at. They could keep their French Vanilla and Pumpkin Spice fraps with extra pumps of garbage and a swirled mess of heart attack whipped cream; give me a black coffee with a hint of burnt beans and I was happy.

  When I arrived on campus, I was ten minutes early for class. It was kind of my thing, being early. Early for class, for interviews, for meetings. Years of having a father who was late for everything important, or worse—absent, had conditioned me to prove myself accountable.

  I slid into the seat I’d occupied on Monday, placing my books and pen just so, as the classroom started filling up. The guy who’d sat next to me Monday resumed his place beside me and I leaned my body away just enough to make it clear that I was in no way interested in engaging in conversation.

  When the door opened and Nathan walked in, it was as if my body responded to static electricity, all the hair standing up on end.

  It wasn’t fair that I’d put so much effort into how I looked and he put what was obviously very little and still looked good enough to eat.

  He wore dark gray slacks with a midnight blue dress shirt tucked in. The belt was black and his shoes were a dark gray and his hair—his fucking hair—looked as if he’d just been thoroughly mauled.

  He didn’t look at me, not once. Not as he meticulously placed his books and folders and pens on his desk, straightening all of them. Not as he looked around the room and asked discussion questions on our assignment that week. Not even as I’d shrugged off the leather jacket, exposing more of the fishnet tank, crossing my legs in the process.

  Not once, for the entire class.

  I was baffled. I didn’t know what game he was playing. Was he ignoring me on purpose, hoping to get a rise out of me? If so, he’d succeeded. Was he completely uninterested in me? Whatever self-conscious thoughts I’d had earlier, I knew he wasn’t uninterested. I’d seen his arousal plain as day, tenting the front of his pants on Monday.

  After class, Nathan had packed up his things and walked directly out the door, not hesitating even a second. As I roughly shoved my own books into my bag, the student next to me leaned over, giving me a hearty dose of aftershave to inhale, and said, “You going to the party this weekend?”

  I glanced over at him, taking in his features for the first time. Short blonde hair, beady black eyes, and sweat forming tiny trails of wet along his face. “No,” I answered, not caring to find out which party he was referring to.

  Hours later, as I sat at my desk and stared at my computer screen, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Nathan was ignoring me on purpose. But why? Did he think it would lessen my attraction to him? Given my history, it should have. I was used to being wanted. And Nathan didn’t seem to want me.

  I told myself it wasn’t a big deal, that I could always revisit the bar we’d met at the Friday before and catch someone new. But I didn’t want someone new. I wanted him.

  I knew, even as I typed it, that it was a really, really bad idea. But because I couldn’t come up with the exact reasons why it was a bad idea, I composed the email anyway.

  From: Adele Morello

  Date: Friday, September 18, 2015 08:13 PM

  Subject: Friday

  To: Nathaniel Easton

  As I sit here, at home, on a Friday night, with nothing to do … I’m thinking…

  Have you reconsidered my request for extra credit?

  Sincerely,

  Adele Morello

  • • •

  I ran my finger over my lips, feeling pleased with myself, and waited for his response.

  Except, it didn’t come. Not right away, at least, as his reply the Saturday before had. I waited a full twenty minutes, feeling increasingly crazy, when I decided to fix a bowl of cereal for dinner. I carried the laptop to the kitchen and set it down on the tiny bistro set near the dishwasher. The building I lived in was old enough that it couldn’t be called modern by any stretch of the imagination. The dishwasher was portable, and needed to be rolled across the kitchen to be manually screwed into the faucet whenever I wanted to run it.

  But because I was the clichéd broke college student, I only had two sets of dishes and used the dishwasher for storage more than actual cleaning. As I poured the cereal, I peeked over my shoulder at the computer and saw a popup notice.

  I barely restrained the swear word that curved my lips as I saw the No Internet notice at the bottom. The shitty part about living on your own was that you had to, you know, pay your own bills. I couldn’t afford internet on top of everything else, so I borrowed the signal from the neighbor next door, but the signal couldn’t be reached past my bedroom, which was why I frequented the library and cafe when I needed consistent internet.

  With my cereal in tow and my laptop in my other hand, I returned to my bedroom and opened the laptop up, popping the spoon in my mouth as my computer reconnected and refreshed my email.

  Just as I was loading up my second spoonful of Frosted Flakes, a message came into my inbox.

  From: Nathaniel Easton

  Date: Friday, September 18, 2015 08:54 PM

  Subject: Re: Friday

  To: Adele Morello

  Miss Morello,

  I thought I made myself clear in my earlier communications with you. The answer is no.

  Regards,

  Nathaniel Easton, EdD

  Professor - Creative Writing

  • • •

  Dick. My eyes narrowed, not missing his double meaning.

  I mulled his email over while I attempted to study and fill out a packet for my chemistry labs. But my cereal grew mushy and warm, completely forgotten in my annoyance with Nathan’s response. I wasn’t one to normally chase a man, but I wanted to understand his complete reluctance to engage in any further entanglements with me.

  What I found most puzzling was that his objections hadn’t seemed to be because we had a student-teacher relationship. There was something else. Something else had driven him to the point of insanity that night, the way he slapped my ass and yanked my hair; it wasn’t my so-called magical pussy that drove his demons to the surface. The thought made me smile, but no—I knew there was something more, under his suits and his very expensive glasses, something he didn’t want me to see.

  I knew, thanks to my colorful history with men, that if he was merely immune to my persuasions he wouldn’t ignore me, as he’d been doing ever since Monday. If there was nothing there, he would meet me head on, eyes clear of interest. But since he did everything in his power to avoid my gaze in class, I knew he didn’t want me to see how he looked at me.

  Finally, around midnight, I’d decided I was ready to respond to his email. But I wasn’t going to reply from my student account. Instead, I logged into the email account I used only for Craigslist ads, one that didn’t have my real name attached.

  After pulling off my sweatshirt, I took a photo that didn’t include my face. And then I attached it to an email and sent it to Nathan.

  Chapter Eight

  “Nathaniel, are you ignoring me?”

  Yes. The word almost slipped out of my mouth, but I lifted my eyes from the papers on my desk and gave my father as apologetic of a smile as I could muster.

  “Of course not, sir. What can I do for you?”
Always sir, never father, definitely not dad. All too informal and grating on the sensibilities of Richard Easton.

  He sat in the chair across from my desk, propping his ankle on the opposite knee. The way he looked at me, with eyes the exact same shade of blue as mine, it was like he could barely even stand to lower himself enough to spend time in my office. My small, cramped office with no sweeping view of the quad, quite unlike his.

  “You didn’t answer my email.”

  “Which email?” I asked on a sigh, tossing the pen in my hand onto the desk, officially giving up on the short story I was grading. Not that my father respected written words of the fiction variety. Honestly, the fact that he and I shared biology never ceased to amaze me.

  He brushed a nonexistent speck off the dark wool of his pant leg and then glanced up at me, like he hadn’t broached this subject. “Oh, it was details for the scholarship dinner in a few weeks. Obviously, it would be best if the entire family could be present when they acknowledge the recipient for this year.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Could you send it to me again?”

  “I’ve already sent it to you once. Obviously you just didn’t see it. Maybe you could check again before I go through the hassle of finding it.”

  I stared across at him, holding his steady gaze in the battle of wills that was as familiar to us as breathing. And as he did every time, he won. I pulled my cell out from the top drawer and tapped on the email icon.

  “It’s not here, sir.”

  “Check your junk folder then, your phone probably filters me out because it can sense how little you care to hear anything I have to say.”

  Probably. I wanted to say it. But I didn’t. Scrolling through spam from the last couple days, I saw his name. I was about to click open the message when another email right below his snagged my attention.

  From: Alice Carroll

  Date: Saturday, September 19, 2015 12:19 AM

  Subject:

  To: Nathaniel Easton

  My bruises are fading, but my memory is everlasting. I’d like to be bruised again.

  The way you debased me, made me feel like what we were doing was forbidden. You punished me for a crime I wasn’t aware I’d committed. I want to be punished again, by your hand. By … your … cock.

  Please, please, punish me. Hurt me. Take what you need from me, because I need it too.

  Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.

  • • •

  In an embarrassingly unconscious reaction, my heart started pounding in my chest as I skimmed the email again, not caring in the slightest about my father sitting two feet away from me while I read Adele’s words.

  “Well?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I found it,” I all but stammered, ignoring the attachment and clicking back to my father’s email and only giving a cursory glance at the information. “Should be fine.”

  “Should be?”

  “Fucking hell, I said it should be fine, and that’s as much of an answer that you’ll get out of me right now,” I snapped.

  He simply raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips in annoyance, standing from the chair and walking out of my office without another word. The way his eyes had widened at my reaction should have brought me pleasure, because I never snapped at him, but it wasn’t there. No glow of pride at surprising him and robbing him of speech, of getting in the last word.

  Because there was only one reason why I’d even let him get to me, let his condescending bullshit actually get the better of me, and that was Adele. Trying to filter through her words, studying the picture attachment she absolutely should not have been stupid enough to send me, I’d actually lost my temper with my father.

  “Shit,” I whispered, slamming my phone back into the top drawer of my desk so I wouldn’t look again.

  I did well, surprisingly enough, for the rest of the day. Kept my eyes off the email completely until I finally walked through the back door of my house. It was like I managed to evade her pull until I was vulnerable. Which meant the place that she’d catch me at my weakest was at home, in the dark, quiet place where I slept alone.

  Every time the anniversary of Diana’s death passed, I told myself I’d move, start somewhere that wasn’t tangled up in memories of her. But I couldn’t do it. And now, as I pulled a frozen dinner out of the freezer and popped it in the microwave, I had to admit something pathetic to myself.

  Reading that email again, in any room of this house that my wife had once filled with so much love, felt wrong. Like a betrayal. You’d think that would have been enough to stop me, but it wasn’t. And it wasn’t because of the empty, aching darkness that always filled my body when I was home alone. It’s what had driven me to that bar last week. And it’s what made me pull my phone out once I’d cleaned up my dinner dishes and fell backward onto the couch.

  Because there were no other lights on in the room, pulling open her email felt desperate and secretive. No one would see me. She’d have no idea how many times I might run my eyes over her words, the effect they’d have on my flesh and on my brain. Earlier, I hadn’t been able to open the attachment, not with my father standing there and judging every single fucking move I made. I let my thumb hover over the link for a few prolonged seconds, imagining what I might see and never, ever be able to unsee.

  Click.

  “Oh fuck,” I said under my breath, even though I was achingly alone in the room and no one could possibly hear me.

  It was the curve of her breast, taken from a low angle. Her nipple, which I knew was the perfect shade of bronze-hued pink, and the barbell that pierced through it were in the far upper right corner of the photo, just on the edge of being cropped out. But front and center, covering the soft flesh, were four small bruises. Bruises from my teeth, when I’d sucked on her so hard that I thought I might tear the flesh from her body.

  She’d fucking loved it, too. That particular round was when she’d been riding me, and when I’d bitten down on that perfect, bouncing tit, she almost came on the spot, curse words falling from her mouth in one unending stream. I didn’t let her come, of course.

  I pinched my eyes shut, wishing very much that I could pour bleach into my ears if it would only scour my brain of memories of Adele. When I opened them again, the screen of my phone had gone dark. Didn’t matter though, I was hard as fucking nails.

  Keeping the phone tightly gripped in my hand, I used the other one to flip open my belt and slide the leather out of the buckle. I breathed hard for a few seconds, my hand just resting on the button of my pants before I went any further. There was this tiny part of me that was screaming raw in my brain that told me that if I did this, if I took my dick in my own hand and thought about Adele, she had won whatever little sick game we were playing now. The one that had her taunting and teasing me, the one that I was doing a pretty damn good job of resisting so far.

  So far.

  But when she’d sent that fucking picture, she’d known exactly what she was doing. I thought that the sound of my breathing had been loud in the silence of the room, but when I pulled my zipper down, it fucking echoed everywhere, disproportionate to the action itself.

  When I used a tight fist to pull my cock out from my unzipped pants, I hissed in a breath. Not like I was a martyr, but I just didn’t jerk off all the time, maybe a few times a month. But this, this felt so different, because I was picturing her. The impossibly tight squeeze of her pussy when my grip tightened around myself; her high, round breasts against my tongue when I pumped the skin up and down, rolling my palm over the head of my cock. The way the skin of her ass had reddened perfectly from the strikes of my hand, over and over and over.

  After a few minutes, memories barraging me one after the other, I felt that tingle, that unfettered electricity race down my spine. With a low groan, I rode the orgasm out with a loosened grip, finally dropping my head back onto the couch.

  Well. The shirt was probably ruined. I had no intention of ending up like Lewinsky, keeping a mem
ento of my moment of weakness, so I stood from the couch and stripped it off and tossed it into the small waste basket on the other side of the couch that was hidden from view. For a moment I simply stood there in the dark of the family room, hands clasped around back of my neck and my still-opened pants sagging from my hips.

  Surprisingly, I didn’t feel defeat crawling across my skin, just a tugging sadness that I was in this situation in the first place. Maybe in another life, I’d be able to say something back to her. Something witty and sexy and as much of a tease to her as she was to me. What would that be, I wondered, feeling the words crowd into my brain like I’d actually be able to put them down on paper and give them to her.

  I remember every bruise I gave you, remember how your satin skin felt under my hands and tongue and teeth and lips, how tight you were around my cock. Every time you hurt me, broke through the skin on my back with your nails, I remember that look in your eye, that evil glint that told me how much you wanted me to hurt you in return. You wanted to be spanked and bruised and fucked, no softness between us, Add, because we’re not those people.

  That’s what won’t go away in my head, how perfect that felt between us. The hardness, the rawness, the necessary violence.

  How necessary that night was.

  I exhaled a bitter sounding laugh, scrubbing the impromptu verse from my brain, patently ignoring how easily it had come out. Then I walked upstairs to my bedroom that was just as dark as every other room in the house, and went to bed alone.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’ll have the Tom Yum. Probably two bowls.” Leo handed his menu to the waitress. “And bring me two waters, I’ll drink both before you come back.” He flashed her a shining smile.