“Cate, talk to me. Please.”
“It’s just . . . that was so dirty.”
“What?” He rolled off me and tucked me into his side, pulling me close, my boobs smashing into his rib cage.
“It’s just I’ve spent the last few years all determined to be some champion of women’s issues, and here I am, no better than some ball baby, coming on your hand and licking it off. I should be disgusted with myself. I’m no better than a two-bit actress who takes her clothes off for one of those porn flicks.” Ashamed, I buried my face in his chest, not wanting him to see my tears.
“Hey.” He lifted my chin with his finger and swiped over the tears with his thumb.
“You’re not some two-bit actress, Cate. You’re an adult, a woman who likes a man, and I like you back. And we’re being intimate with each other. The door is locked and we’re enjoying each other’s bodies in the privacy of my room. That’s healthy, normal, and right.”
He kissed my forehead.
“I think I should go.”
“Listen, I don’t want you to go. We can put our clothes back on and hang out. We don’t have to go any further; I respect what you want.”
“I’m so confused,” I said with more conviction. “I should go.”
“I’m not gonna force you to stay, but I want you to—”
I stood and snatched up my clothes, yanking them on as I averted my face.
“I have to go,” I said again, wallowing in my own self-recrimination.
“Cate, wait. Please?”
Blane rolled off the bed and threw on a pair of sweats he grabbed from the floor. “I understand you’re working through a lot, but don’t leave like this.” He cupped my cheeks and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I like you, so leave like that. Take your time and think about what I said. But—”
“No buts,” I blurted.
“Oh yes, buts.” He lightly tapped my ass. “I’m driving your butt home,” he said, snagging a T-shirt and his keys.
Catie
On Monday, I mentally chastised myself through all my morning classes.
Stupid, fucking girl. How could you fall for the boy, the class man-whore of all the men out there? You’re no better than the same girls you sit in class and despise.
The very class I was sitting in, the one where Professor Stanwick stared me down from behind her readers.
To make matters worse, some other part of my psyche decided to take issue with the browbeating.
But he’s a good guy, gentle and caring. Blane is the first person to see me, touch me, make me feel like a woman.
I dropped my head into my hand and tried to put all my bullshit thoughts out of my mind. Stanwick was going on about something in the news. Today’s lesson was on the guy who started Girls Gone Wild.
“He took advantage of young women,” she said, “some inebriated or under the influence, who wanted to be celebrities. He claims he had their permission, but he’s no better than the guy who hosts the Casting Couch series. In fact, our very own Catie is doing a paper defending the likes of this man. Isn’t that right?”
I lifted my head and shot up in my seat. In an instant, my inner guilt shifted from bemoaning my love life to second-guessing my pig-headed ideas.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, “but to defend him or people like him wasn’t my intention. The paper is exploring the women who get involved and why.”
And I still have to go to my internship. What a shit day.
Stanwick narrowed her eyes on me. “There are so many other avenues for women to make a living for themselves, I can’t for the life of me understand why you would subscribe to defending those women.”
“Those women don’t have the same choices we have. Many of them can’t afford higher education,” I shot back.
“Stand up, Ms. Presto,” Stanwick ordered. “Listen here, missy. This is a top-ten women’s studies program. We don’t support pornography and we certainly don’t defend it. We also don’t stand by our students giving dating advice on the air, or canoodling in the corners with student athletes who do nothing but sexualize women. We especially do not support these antics being splattered all over Twitter.”
Not done tearing me to shreds yet, Stanwick gave me the deathblow. “You are dismissed from this class for the rest of the trimester. You were not as mature as I believed you to be when I allowed you to take this class. You may see the counselor to look into other courses or majors. Perhaps cinematography, with your strong interest in pornography?”
“What? You can’t do that!”
My cheeks burned as my classmates stared at me, enjoying the showdown. Heat seeped to my scalp as a combination of Italian and Cuban anger licked at my belly, but I shoved it down. This was not the time for a temper tantrum. God, Stanwick was being flat-out unreasonable standing there with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
“Yes,” she said smugly. “I can and I just did. Good-bye, Miss Presto.”