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

Starting today, she would seduce Professor Dawson. Just the thought of it raised goose bumps all over her arms. From the back of the room, he looked like a movie star. Something she watched on a screen from a safe distance. What would he be like up close?

“If you rub your thighs together any harder,” Roxy broke into her thoughts, “this pile of panties is going to turn into a bonfire.”

“Sorry.” Honey pushed some unbrushed blond hair out of her face. “Let’s focus on the matter at hand.”

Abby, their third roommate, breezed into the room. “What are we focusing on?”

“I was focusing. She was fantasizing about tweed.”

“Tweed is still in style, but elbow patches are out,” Abby stated offhandedly, taking a spot on the floor. Of the three of them, Abby was the one gainfully employed in a corporate gig downtown, which explained her tailored black pantsuit at eight in the morning while Honey and Roxy, an aspiring actress, were still in pajamas. “What’s with the panty mountain?”

“I’m beginning the seduction process this morning.”

Roxy rolled her eyes. “Try not to make it sound so sexy, Perribow.”

Honey threw a pair of plaid panties at Roxy. “I’m not you. I can’t just flash a little leg and leave a trail of man-drool in my path.”

“Have you tried?” Roxy asked, looking smug when Honey stumbled over a reply. “Look, you’re not going to flash him your panties in class. That’s not your style. Worry about the top layer first, drag him back to your cave later. Worry about the panties then.”

“I agree.” Abby nodded. “This is premature panty picking.”

“Of course I’m not going to flash him.” Honey shrugged. “I was thinking it might boost my confidence a little if I had something sexy underneath my jeans. Might give me an extra boost so I won’t chicken out.”

Abby gave her a warm, encouraging look. She fished through the pile with one manicured hand and picked out a silky, mint-green thong with lace detail. Still with the tags on. “Wear these. They’re unique and subtly brilliant, just like you. You won’t chicken out.”

“And you’re not wearing jeans,” Roxy added, standing and dragging Honey to her feet. “To my closet, Batgirl. Where you will behold the wonder of humankind’s finest invention.”

Honey shot a nervous look over her shoulder toward an amused Abby. The brunette practically skipped along behind them down the hallway. “What would that invention be?”

“The strapless maxi dress,” Roxy breathed.

BEN DAWSON GATHERED up the papers he’d spent his lunch break grading and tucked them neatly into his leather satchel. A quick check of his wristwatch told him he had seven minutes until his next class started. Since it took exactly three minutes to walk to the lecture hall from the teacher’s break room, he should probably get moving. As far as arriving at class went, there was a sweet spot three minutes before class began that allowed him enough time to gather his thoughts and arrange his lesson plan on the podium, but didn’t leave enough time for the students to engage him in conversation.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like conversation. He just liked to keep his social life and his professional life completely separate. He called it his laundry theory. Talking to students about their weekend plans or the shitty coffee in the cafeteria was the equivalent of throwing a red sock in with a load of whites. It just wasn’t done.

He snapped his bag closed with a definitive click and took a deep breath before leaving the break room. Yes. Separation of his social and professional life was key. The minimal age difference between him and the college sophomores he taught sometimes gave them the false impression that they were his peers. Being a professor at the age of twenty-five made him seem accessible, when, in fact, he wasn’t. He came to class, he lectured, and he went home. If he wanted to grab a beer and talk baseball, he did it with his buddies, Louis and Russell. Not students. Never, ever, students.

Ben taught English because from the moment he’d cracked his first book, words had hummed in his blood. They were something he breathed and slept and lived for. If his students left with an impression of anything, he wanted it to be his lectures, the contents of the assigned reading. Their opinion of him as a person couldn’t be allowed to enter the mix, or it took away from their experience. Conversely, he didn’t form opinions of them. Ever.

Which is why he shouldn’t have read Honey Perribow’s latest essay seven times. Seven.

He didn’t know which of his students happened to be the insightful Ms. Perribow. They were just a sea of faces, none of which he focused on for more than a few seconds now and again. He wouldn’t find out, either. Didn’t want to know what she looked like, because it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.

His reading assignment of The Things They Carried and subsequent essay had been met with the usual moans and gripes. Honestly. The book was a work of art. But his students’ lack of enthusiasm for anything other than a rooftop kegger had carried over into their lackluster essays. Then he’d read Ms. Perribow’s paper and he’d actually spilled his coffee in his haste to turn the pages. Instead of listing the items men carried into war, as was done in the book, she’d written a clever modern spin about what college students carry to class. What they’d chosen to bring from home. What they kept in their book bags and dorm rooms. It was obvious from her nods to the book that she’d not only read it but enjoyed it, too. She’d made him laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard the sound coming from his own mouth.