Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(15)

She had been planning on going. Never having been to a poetry reading before, it had sounded interesting. Plus, free lemonade and cookies if it stank to high heaven. But Winker, very obviously, had not been planning on attending. “Well, I—”

“Class is over.” Honey started at Ben’s voice striking out like a whip in between them where they still knelt down on the floor. Both she and Winker looked up at their professor, but he only seemed to be addressing one of them. And it wasn’t her. “You’re free to go.”

WITH AN UNCOMFORTABLE laugh, Johnny Jerk Off lumbered to his feet. “Right, uh . . .” He scratched the back of his neck with one hand, waving the flyer at Honey with the other. “I’ll see you at the reading. Looking forward to it.”

Ben checked the swelling urge to give the guy a dead leg as he strolled past, which would only make the situation infinitely better, wouldn’t it? Not exactly. He shouldn’t even be standing there. Should be halfway to the faculty lounge by now, but he’d been unable to watch the Neanderthal—who, by the way, hadn’t even spelled Hemingway’s name correctly in last week’s writing exercise—ogle and flirt with Honey.

No, not Honey. Ms. Perribow.

The guy had done it for a full hour. Every time Ben’s attention had been drawn toward her, which had happened with startling regularity, Johnny Jerk Off had been casting her an appreciative look. Nodding at her and smiling at his buddies—also abysmal spellers—as if passing on some sort of signal that he’d be making a move. And he had. He’d made a goddamn move on her. It appeared they were both going to the poetry reading organized by Ben’s department. One he’d had no intention of attending. If he wanted to read poetry, he read it to himself. He certainly didn’t need someone reading it to him. But Honey would be there, and so would Johnny Jerk Off. He should be indifferent. Or, at the very least, relieved that she’d set her sights elsewhere. Yet he felt only sharp denial. Undeniable denial. Was that a thing? No no, he thought. She doesn’t date. She sits in my class and looks beautiful and writes papers that drag me under some velvet surface and waits for me to kiss her again, which I won’t. How absurd to think that way. Maybe he was as much of a Neanderthal as Johnny Jerk Off.

He really needed to learn his students’ names at some point.

Ben looked over his shoulder to watch Honey’s admirer saunter from the lecture hall, probably on his way to chug a Monster Energy drink. There was a shift in the air the second Ben and Honey were alone. Their positions—her on her knees, him towering above her—seemed to take on a new, dangerous meaning. A meaning that called his gaze to her parted mouth. Made his cock shift and harden in his pants. Since she was basically eye level with his lap, that definitely wouldn’t work.

He set his satchel down on the closest seat and stooped down to help her collect her things. Those golden eyes widened a little, as if she hadn’t expected him to help. Awesome. She thinks I’m a prick.

No, it was great. It helped his cause for her to think that. Not currently helping his cause? Her pointed nipples, straining against the thin, white material of her tank top. The way her tits swayed and bounced as she bent forward to retrieve what looked like a pair of clean socks. A hint of a smile tried to curve his mouth, but it disappeared with a quickness when they both grabbed for a pencil at the same time, the move bringing their faces close together. Too close. Way too close.

Think of why you have to stay away. “How old are you?” he murmured.

She didn’t seem surprised by the question. No, she seemed too focused on his mouth. I can’t kiss you, babe. I can’t. “I’ll be twenty in ten days,” she husked.

“Jesus.” He ran a hand down his face. “You couldn’t even order a drink in a restaurant.”

“Not legally, no.” She lifted her gaze to his, and he immediately wanted it back on his mouth. “I still do, though. Sometimes.”

“You’re a little rule breaker, aren’t you?”

“It’s been said.”

When she shifted a little, he noticed her blood on the floor beneath her knee. Without thinking, Ben circled her waist with his hands and lifted her onto one of the seats, trying not to growl over the feel of her. The ease with which he could handle her. He operated on instinct, outrage that she’d been injured because some dickhead had left his backpack on the ground. As soon as he realized what he’d done—made contact with her when he absolutely shouldn’t have—he retracted his touch like she’d burned his hands.

But she had to go and make this noise. The second her ass hit the seat, her mouth fell open, and she whimpered. It was the sexiest f*cking thing he’d ever heard in his life, and her body matched it. She writhed on the seat, ever-so-slightly, as if his hands on her waist had set off a chain reaction. As if she felt even a fraction of what he experienced when they were this close. God, his cock ached. It pressed against the fly of his pants, begging him to do bad things. Bad things that would feel really damn good.

He took a deep breath and dragged his composure forward. A glance at her knee told him she only needed the scrape cleaned off, maybe a Band-Aid. Of which he had none. He reached into his bag, took out a napkin from the school cafeteria, and pressed it over the bleeding. Which presented a problem, because now his hand was technically on her leg. And her skirt was technically a little too deliciously short. Short enough that he could see most of the way up her toned thighs. If he ducked his head, he’d be able to see beneath the hem. See her panties. Fuck. He needed to get up and walk away. Needed to leave.