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

She had one more stop to make before she left campus.

Professor Morris. The name made her flush with sexual heat. Probably because she’d called him that when he went down on her last night.

His position was temporary, but the letters were freshly engraved on the frosted glass of his office door. They must be hopeful he’d stick around beyond the summer semester.

Voices came from inside. Damn. Someone had beat her to him. Ah well, better that way. Then he could spend the rest of his office time with her. Oh, she knew he had a job to do. Amusing Erin Rodriguez wasn’t why the university had begged him to be an adjunct professor. But it was the first week of classes; how many questions could they have?

Someone jostled her in the hallway, and scalding coffee spilled onto her hand.

“Ouch,” she muttered.

A shadow moved in the office, then another. So there were a few students in there, chatting up the new professor to get in his good graces. With a start, she realized that must be exactly how she looked, coming to bribe him with a coffee. A blush heated her cheeks far more than the hot liquid could. If only they knew what she really did for him.

But no one could know.

They had agreed not to tell anyone. More accurately, she had talked him out of disclosing their prior relationship. The position woul

d be toast if the university knew he had a sexual relationship with a student, even if she wasn’t his student. It was an ethical black mark, but no way was she letting him get out of his return to society.

Nor would she allow their relationship to jeopardize her graduation.

One short semester. Only six weeks and they’d both be free. They could have a relationship out in the open. Maybe she would actually move in with him, once she had a job that could pay for her share of the bills. Bliss.

The hallway thinned to the occasional straggler.

Finally the office door opened, and two girls tumbled out, a flurry of tiny tank tops and scrunchies, the kind of adorable, I-just-threw-this-on look that Erin always envied. They barely spared her a glance, but some sense of propriety held her back from rushing inside before the door swung shut. No need to draw attention to her double-fisted coffee routine.

Acting casual, she hitched her backpack on her shoulder and reached for the latch on the door. With her back turned, she heard them speak.

“Did you see his face?” one of them said, giggling.

“I couldn’t stop looking, and not in a good way,” the other replied.

Erin froze. She held the door handle, but she was stunned by their awful words. They weren’t making any effort to be quiet, despite the fact that they’d only made it two feet away. She wasn’t sure if Blake could hear them from inside, but if she opened the door right now, he definitely would.

The first girl sighed. “Yeah, but when he turned around…damn, I didn’t mind looking then. He can write on the blackboard as long as he wants.”

“Mm-hmm,” the other agreed. “That was a fine piece of ass, no doubt. As long as he faces the other direction, I could stare at him all day.”

They continued down the hallway as anger bubbled up inside her. She’d always considered herself a passable feminist; certainly outright objectification or meanness bothered her. But here it was directed at not only a man, but the man she cared about. The man she loved.

Swallowing hard, she pushed inside.

“Hey, Professor. You have a minute?”

Blake looked up from his desk and smiled. “For you, always.”

She looked at him with fresh eyes, trying to imagine him as a professor she’d come to meet, as if she were a regular student instead of his maid. One half of his face was handsome, beautiful even. The other was matted with heavy burn scars from the top of his lip to his temple. His eye was still functional, but the shape didn’t match the other side, giving him a mismatched appearance.

She liked everything about the way he looked. The bravery of his military service, the bravery he showed going out into the world despite how people judged him. How precious it was that he’d lived, that he was with her.

Suffused with sudden emotion, she shoved the coffees onto a cluttered file cabinet and launched her arms around his neck. He caught her with an oomph but soon after tightened his embrace into a hug.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asked, laughing softly.

I’m so proud of you. But she didn’t want to bring it up if he hadn’t heard those girls. He seemed in good spirits. Instead she said, “Missed you.”

“You saw me last night,” he reminded her.