Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(3)

Ben banished that depressing thought as he entered the lecture hall, where students were flopping down into their seats, clicking pens, finishing up their oh-so-urgent text message conversations. He hooked a thumb into the strap of his bag and lifted it over his head, placing it carefully on the podium. Don’t look up. Don’t try and figure out which one she is. It’s irrelevant.

The problem was, he kind of felt like he knew her after reading the essay. Her voice had drawn him in and locked him up inside of it. More, he felt like she’d been talking directly to him. That simply wouldn’t do.

The big hand on his wristwatch landed on one o’clock. He made sure the edges of his lesson plan were perfectly lined up with the podium and looked up at the class to begin.

And stopped.

Front row. Who was that blonde in the front row? He might not pay any attention to what his students looked like, but Ben was certain he would have remembered her. Yes, he definitely would have remembered a petite little goddess with big golden eyes and shoulders made to be gripped. Oh f*ck, where had that thought come from? Stop looking. Stop looking. But he couldn’t, because her lips parted just slightly, as if she was surprised to find him staring at her. Who wouldn’t stare at her? Okay, as long as he didn’t look any lower than her face—

He looked. There was no stopping his gaze from dipping down to her cleavage. Not enough to be classified as provocative, but enough to be sexy in an I-don’t-even-have-to-try kind of way. Thank God her legs were covered. He wished her legs weren’t covered. What was happening here?

“Lolita.”

When every head in the class came up, Ben realized he’d said the single, horrifying word out loud.

A male student wearing a Rangers hat spoke up. “Lolita?”

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. His neck had grown so hot that he swore it was on fire. Kind of like the rest of him. Thank God he was standing behind the podium, because his dick was hard enough to give someone in the front row a black eye. What was wrong with him? He was acting like he’d never seen a beautiful girl before. This city was packed full of them, just walking around looking like they’d stepped out of a glossy magazine, but this one. Oh, this one. Something about her made him ache everywhere. Innocent looking with a hint of excitement in her eyes, like maybe he was making her just as hot. But that couldn’t be right, because he was wearing the ugliest thrift shop tweed jacket he’d been able to find just to make himself the opposite of hot. Unappealing. Unapproachable. Just their professor.

This—all of this, including his hard-on—had to be dealt with later, though, because his students were still looking at him like he’d sprouted a third eye. Think fast, Ben.

“I, uh . . .” He started to adjust his glasses, but he forced his hand to lay flat on the podium. “I’ve decided to give extra credit for a paper on Lolita. The book, not the movie. Although, if you ever want to watch the movie, I’d recommend the Kubrick version. Not the one with Jeremy Irons.” Oh my God. This is such a massive fail. “Um. Okay, so. Three-thousand-word minimum. Due this time next week. Let’s talk about The Things They Carried.”

“I’d rather talk about Lolita,” baseball cap said, earning a few laughs.

This is what happens. One crack in his armor and suddenly they’re making jokes in his joke-free environment. He tried not to look at the blonde in the front row and failed miserably. When he saw her frown over baseball hat’s comment, he found himself frowning at her. He didn’t like how good it felt to have her on his side. They weren’t on the same side. Teacher. Student. That’s it. That’s how it would stay.

Ben spent the next hour reading passages from the book and giving several different interpretations of what the author wanted the reader to glean about each fictional character based on the items they carried into war. Every once in a while, his gaze would stray to the blonde, and he’d find her watching him steadily from underneath her long eyelashes. Like clockwork, every ten minutes, she would switch the leg she had crossed. Right, left, right, left. Her toes were unpainted. He liked that. Stop looking. Stop.

At two o’clock on the nose, he dismissed the class with the promise to return their graded papers next time. As the students filed out of the class, he briefly wondered which one was Honey, but the blond Lolita captured his attention. She wasn’t leaving like the rest of them. Why wasn’t she leaving? He needed her to leave. His mouth went dry when he realized they were the only two people left in the room. They stared at each other, him behind the podium, her still seated. His cock strained harder and more insistently behind his fly the longer he kept his attention on her, but he couldn’t look away. He should say something, otherwise it would be weird. She’d know how much she affected him. But he didn’t. He could only stare back as she rose to her feet and sauntered toward him, her breasts swaying underneath the dress. No bra. Red. Alert. She’s not wearing a bra. I’m screwed.

She shook her long hair back over her shoulders and he groaned. He f*cking groaned, right out loud. Amusement lit her eyes. Satisfaction. None of the pretense employed by females her age. Only confidence that her girl-next-door looks were hooking him like a half-witted sea bass. And they had. There was more, however. She looked at him as if they already knew each other on some level and this face-to-face meeting was long overdue. Which is exactly how he felt. Jesus. He’d never wanted to f*ck a girl so badly in his entire life, and it was wrong on so many levels. So many. It broke every rule. The school’s rules. More importantly, his own rules. He knew too well what happened when a man gave in to temptation. Knew what the consequences could be. He’d seen it. He’d lived it.