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

Realization sank in his gut. Cold self-disgust settled in his bones. “And then I came onto you like that guy did to your mother,” he finished for her.

“No,” she said, sounding surprised. “And then with you I can’t seem to let my guard down even though I know you’re nothing like him.”

A grim smile twisted his lips. “Not totally different. I was still willing to use my position, my money to hold influence over you. I always knew it was wrong, but hearing about someone else doing it… Fuck. There’s no question.”

He was a bastard. He deserved for someone to kick his ass as surely as he wanted to beat the shit out of this Doug’s dear old dad. And Doug, for being a pussy.

“Blake,” she said, turning to face him. “I was grateful for the job, but it was my choice to show up for work each day. You didn’t come on to me even when I wanted you to. You never pushed me to do anything at all.”

Her sweet brown eyes met his directly, almost aggressively. She never flinched away from his scars, not in the beginning and certainly not now. Instead her expression was one of…tenderness. He hated to ruin it, but he couldn’t lie to her anymore.

“Erin, I put an ad out for a housekeeper on a whim. I figured I might call someone in from time to time, but when I met you, I knew I had to see you again, so I set up a weekly cleaning schedule. Then that wasn’t enough, so I increased it to twice a week. I’m as bad as Doug, doing whatever was necessary to keep you near me.”

“Why?” she whispered, sounding genuinely confused. It broke his heart, that confusion, that despite the strength that attracted him to her, she didn’t know her full worth.

“God, Erin. You’re kind, you’re smart. I knew it from the first day when you gave a mean, scary-looking guy a talking-to. You told me you would clean the house…”

“But you’d have to clean yourself,” she finished.

“It had been a week since I’d showered,” he admitted. “So I went upstairs and felt like a new man. And when I came back into the kitchen, you’d heated up soup for me to eat.”

“All those pizza boxes were disgusting.”

“I was disgusting,” he agreed. Then softer, “Though I think I’ve gotten better.”

A smile played at her lips. “No more forts made out of pizza boxes.”

“You noticed those, huh?”

“Yeah, you were a mess,” she said with fondness. “But you do clean up nice.”

He smiled too, then sobered. “I have no excuse for that, Erin. And I would understand completely if you want to break up with me…in fact objectively I think you should. But if you’d stay with me…God…”

“What?” she whispered.

He racked his brain for the right answer, the perfect gift that would bind her to him. And came up empty. “Nothing,” he said roughly. “I have nothing to offer you. Only myself.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and for a horrible second he thought she meant goodbye. Then she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. After a second of shock and pure relief, he crushed her to him, kissing her as if his life depended on it, because as he felt her hair brush away the ever-present pain in his skin, he did depend on her. He knew only pain, and she was freedom. He felt madness, and with her it was pleasure.

He gathered her to him, reveling in the soft weight and warmth of her in his arms again. She moaned and ground her sweet ass against his erection. He shoved the slinky fabric of her dress up her thigh, savoring smooth skin and the thin slip of her panties pointing downward. His fingers followed the edge, meeting the fleshy outer lips of her sex.

She gasped into his mouth. “Blake.”

“Yes,” he grunted.

And he gave her more, at once lighter and harder, faster and deeper, until neither of them could take it anymore. He found her clit and pinched lightly. She exploded around him, a lovely feminine moan of ecstasy, a soft rush of hot liquid against his knuckles and the tremble of her thighs draped over his own.

He petted her softly as she came back down. His erection pulsed impatiently, straining against his jeans to get near her, but he forced himself to back up, to pull away before he impaled her. He had something to prove to himself if not to her. He could have a thoughtful conversation with her. He could watch a movie all the way through. Everything didn’t always have to devolve into sex.

So when she turned those lust-dazed eyes on him and smiled sexily, he pulled the DVD case out of his jacket and held it up like a goddamned shield.

She blinked. “Phantom of the Opera?”

“You always brought a movie when you came over,” he explained. “Since I was coming over, I wanted to bring something.”

Her look was sweetly reproachful as she connected the characters. “Very subtle.”

“Hey, it was either this or Beauty and the Beast.”