“Give me a break, people,” Helene scoffed. “I’m letting you out an hour early with nothing more than a writing assignment that will take you at most thirty minutes if you do your reading. You’re welcome.”
Students stood, jackets were tossed over shoulders, books were slammed shut, and feet shuffled from the room. And I … took as much time as I could closing my book and tucking my pen behind my ear. Once those three seconds had lapsed, I stared at my test on my desk as though deep in thought about something.
Tia eyed me wearily. “Hi,” she said as she slowly passed my desk.
I glanced up. “Hi,” I said quickly, but then I looked back down at my test, ignoring her.
Helene was smiling at students, saying goodbye to others, and occasionally letting her eyes wander to me too. When the door latched behind the last student, I stood up and walked toward her. But as I reached her desk, she turned and walked toward the door. I leaned against the side of her desk, watching her, and when she reached the door, she clicked the lock into place and flipped the light switch off, leaving us in nothing more than the faint hallway light that filtered in through the narrow window on the door. But I could still see her in the dimness, and she was walking back to me.
When she stepped up to me, I parted my legs, waiting to see if she’d step closer. She did. She stepped between my thighs, and I gripped the side of her desk with my hands to stifle my need to touch her. I’d not touched her since the Thursday morning before, and I wanted it. I didn’t care what kind of touch. Just touch, her touch.
“Were you chastising me, Professor Hess?” I asked when she was fully between my thighs and close to me.
“Were you using foul language in my classroom, Mr. Thorson?” she asked right back, and I could see the corner of her lip pulling up.
I leaned forward, letting my forehead touch hers, and her breath tickled my lips.
“I fucking well was,” I responded.
She pulled back and looked at me for a moment. I couldn’t see enough of her expression to know what she was thinking, but I could see the shimmer in the whites of her eyes that picked up the dim light around us, and she was watching me just as closely as I watched her.
And then she kissed me. Again.
Her lips pressed against mine, and I moaned as every nerve in my body came alive. I’d wanted this from the very second it had ended the week before. I returned the kiss harshly, my mouth pushing her head back with the force, but she groaned too, and her body met mine as she sank against me.
Kissing had always been little more than a way to tell a woman I wanted to fuck her—just a step in the progression of sex. But kissing Helene was an entirely different thing, and it took on a life of its own. I wanted sex to follow, of course. I wanted a whole lot of things to follow. But kissing was its own thing with her, and it didn’t need to lead anywhere to be important. Even the sound of our lips smacking was enough to satisfy me, and the taste of her mouth was such an incredible payoff that it required nothing more.
But fuck my body wanted more.
I gripped her cheek, holding her mouth tight to mine as I pulled on one lip and then the other, sucking and then releasing. I was hard, rigid, and straining against the front of my jeans, and the closer her body pressed to mine, the more painful that pressure became. I ran my hand down to her throat as my mouth kissed and sucked and nipped at her lips, and then my hand kept going, needing to touch more of her. I paused, though, when I reached the top of her chest, and as I groaned, I slid my hand back up to grip gently into the sides of her neck.
But I couldn’t seem to control what my hands wanted to do, and I ran them down her sides as she clutched at my face, and then I slipped them past the lower hem of her dress, grazing my palms up the backs of her thighs. Her breath caught in her lungs.
“Oh, God,” she whispered against my mouth.
It was the only thing that stopped me from going farther, and I cursed as I once again pulled my hands away from her skin. I stopped kissing her then, worried what my hands would think they had permission to do if I didn’t. She brought her forehead to mine again, resting it there as we panted against one another’s lips. We stayed that way, breathing heavily, not moving, not even kissing, just cooling down slowly.
“Baby, you know we can’t do this here,” I finally said.
I felt her nod, but she remained quiet.
“Ask me to come home with you,” I whispered.
She leaned back, staring at me in the near darkness. I reached out, brushing her bangs off her forehead.
“Nothing has to happen you’re not ready for. I have no expectations. I just want to be with you.”
But that wasn’t entirely true. There were expectations, because she’d kissed me again. She’d made a decision. She wanted to move forward, and she wanted to do that in a decidedly sexual way. This was going to get complicated.
I was okay with complicated.
Chapter Twenty-One
Helene
Eleven Years Ago