Beauty and the Professor (A Modern Fairy Tale Duet 1)

His jaw clenched. Hard. “There’s no other Erin.”

“Well, it’s only that, I wondered if…if it was just a passing thought or if it was more…”

He looked alarmed now, and she cursed herself silently. “Erin,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You don’t feel that I was asking you to do any­thing…in­approp­riate, do you? That I would try to make you do something—something you didn’t want? That was never my intention.”

“No!” she exclaimed in dismay. “Of course not. I just meant that, well, if you were interested in me that way, well, I—” She took a deep breath and rushed out, “I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it.”

“You—” He broke off. She noticed detachedly that his hand was gripping the counter so tight his knuckles were white. He swayed forward as if to approach her but then leaned back. “You’re not opposed to it.”

Her cheeks burned at a thousand degrees. “I want you to do what you said.”

“God.” He wasn’t avoiding her eyes anymore. That dark gaze burned into hers. “Are you sure you don’t feel pressured? I would never ever want you to feel that you had to—”

&n

bsp; “No, no. It’s not that, I swear. And the same goes for you, too. If you don’t want to, please don’t feel that you have to, you know, actually do anything with me—”

“If I don’t want to,” he repeated, sounding dazed.

His eyes turned unfocused before they pinned her. He circled her, moving to stand behind her. Awareness raised goosebumps on the back of her neck. Her hair rustled where his face leaned into her hair, as if he were scenting her.

“If I don’t want to,” he said again, almost tasting the words. “How would that work? How would it be possible to not want you? To not dream about you?”

He trailed a finger lightly from the crown of her head, down her hair, along her shoulder and her arm. It was almost a whisper touch, not overtly sexual, but she found the suggestion more erotic than a firm grasp. The past two days of heightened arousal boiled over until she felt saturated with need, heavy and too hot.

“Please,” she whimpered, shocked even as she said it.

Erin had always been too proud, to her detriment. Her circumstances, cleaning houses while her classmates drove their BMWs to class, struggling to pay rent while they used their parents’ black credit cards, ought to bring her down, but she refused to be cowed.

She never begged, not for anything, money, favor, and certainly not sex. Yet here she was wanting—no, needing him, a feeling foreign but very real.

And he seemed to need her right back.

“God, yes,” he breathed against her temple. “I want to touch you.”

“Like before,” she said, her voice wavery. That had only been a dream—something in his imagination that had come alive in hers. A shared fantasy. This would be real.

“Come upstairs.” He held out his hand, and it felt like so much more than an afternoon. It felt like he was promising her pleasure and sweetness and everything her heart desired.

She put her hand in his, her heart squeezing with anticipation and worry.

They passed the bathroom, where the countertops still gleamed from the last time she was here. Reality intruded in heavy stomps—that’s what I’m here to do, to clean his house, not have sex. What would it make her if she got paid for this hour?

It took effort to force the idea away. Regardless of what happened next she wouldn’t accept money for today. And she would take this moment without apology to herself or anyone else. Couldn’t she have this much? Every other minute was for work—to study and make good grades and pay for tuition. This minute would be something else.

He shut the bedroom door, closing them in.

No one else was in the house but the two of them, but it added to the intimacy of the moment, that closed door. This wasn’t a chance encounter, but an illicit meeting. A joining. A decision. She glanced at the bed and swallowed hard.

Blake stepped behind her and buried his face in her hair. Amused, she made a mental note to stock up on this shampoo. Then the heat of his body and his own woodsy scent enveloped her, and she forgot everything else.

His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, then slid down to her breasts. He stroked them, only thin fabric between his hands and her flesh. Her breath caught. The gentle caress dipped to her waist and then beneath her shirt to touch bare skin. She wore yoga clothes when cleaning, comfortable to maneuver in but stretchy enough to allow him access.

He cupped her breasts beneath the elastic, circling and pinching her nipples until they ached. Pausing to draw her shirt and bra up over her head, he returned his hands to her breasts—thank God. Cool air wafted against her sensitive skin, a sharp contrast to his hands. His breath, hot and increasingly labored, blew against her shoulder. What a sight she must have made for him, her breasts bare and flushed.

“So lovely,” he whispered.

He pinched harder, and pure sensation spiked through her core, making her moan. Her hips canted forward in search of friction, rubbing against nothing. In answer to her involuntary plea, he slipped his hand into the waistband of her pants—roaming lower and lower until he reached the curve of her mound, until he found her wet folds.