My Professor(65)

I don’t know where he leads me now, but it’s away from the crowd.

I turn another corner and lose sight of him for a second. A door on the right has been left slightly ajar, and I push it open and find myself at the threshold of an elaborate wine room. The floor is paved with bricks and the walls are lined with tall racks. The only overhead lighting comes from the soft glow of a pendant lantern. A long aisle curves to the right, affording ample storage for lots and lots of wine.

Professor Barclay is there, searching among the bottles. He doesn’t look over or acknowledge me as I step inside the room and shut the door.

There’s enough wine here to last someone a lifetime and then some, enough to make a sommelier weep. I stand frozen as Professor Barclay peruses the racks. He’s in no rush, but that’s part of the game. By the time he chooses a dusty bottle with dried red wax dripping down its neck, I’ve grown more than a little restless.

“This is from the Rhône Valley,” he says, his voice slightly echoed in the room. “A French red seems apropos.”

I’m conscious of the red stain on my lips—an exact match for the wax on the wine bottle. He walks to the center of the aisle to retrieve a few glasses and a wine opener from a cocktail table. He twists the cork out of the bottle with ease and pours us each a glass before walking toward me.

Without asking, he exchanges the wine for the drink I just hastily made in the kitchen. I’m aware of his fingers brushing mine, but the touch is gone all too soon.

“This will taste better,” he tells me, before curving around me and walking over to push a heavy wine case in front of the door with his shoe.

Blocked in, suddenly I feel claustrophobic in the dimly lit room.

He looks at me and takes a sip then nods for me to do the same.

I touch the glass to my lips and let the wine fill my mouth. It’s divine, and I know he must register the delight in my expression.

He tips back the rest of his glass and sets it aside on a rack, refocusing his full attention on me. It’s a heady weight to carry, but I try not to let my nerves get the best of me.

“I find myself at a crossroads,” he says, coming toward me. He loops around me, his shoulder brushing mine before he stands at my back and grasps my hand, lifting my glass to my lips and forcing me to drink another sip. “You see, Emelia…you won’t let me play with you at work. You won’t let me take you out on a date…and I’m beginning to doubt if you want this as badly as I do.”

His hand wraps around my neck and he tips my head back until my throat is completely exposed to him. He lifts my glass again, and this time, he has me drink and drink until the last of the wine is gone. A drop slips out of my mouth, and he watches it roll down my chin and drop down onto my chest.

“Do you want to be my pet?”

His pointer finger rests just over my jugular, my pounding pulse the ultimate truth teller.

I suck in a breath when his other hand finds the bottom of my dress and he starts to gather the material. Inch by inch, my legs are exposed. Cool air brushes the tops of my thighs, and then his hand slips between my legs, over the soft silk covering me. He’s found exactly what he wants, evidence of my desire.

The low growl he presses into my hair is enough to make me come undone.

I want him, madly, and now he knows it.

“Should I leave you like this? Let you go home and try to sate yourself?”

His hand peels away from my panties, and I cry out.

He tsks. “Now you speak.”

“Please.”

My word is a low whimper.

The party isn’t so far away. Around the corner, Alexander’s friends are gathered in the living room, reveling.

“What are you doing, Emelia?”

Trying to preserve the last bit of resolve I have.

Hanging on to my last thread of hope.

In fact, actually, I’m crumbling.

“Pretending” is the response I settle on.

And he doesn’t seem annoyed by its vagueness. He understands, it seems, because his hand returns between my legs.

“Do you think it’d be better if we left each other alone? If you and I kept pretending?”

Better?

Worse. So much worse.

I hadn’t thought of it like that. I hadn’t considered the possibility of escaping the inevitability of us.

I grab ahold of his wrist in a viselike grip and guide his hand as he drags it back and forth along the center of my panties. I keep him where I need him, thrilled beyond measure when he rewards me and tugs the material aside, giving me the pleasure of feeling his fingers slowly slide through my wetness, spreading it over me.

My other hand grips the neck of my downturned empty wineglass as Jonathan emits a low rumble of annoyance and suddenly yanks my dress up so it’s bunched around my waist and out of his way completely. I take a half-step to the side with my left foot, giving his hand enough room to return between my thighs. I close my eyes and appreciate the size of it, the way his large palm seems to cover me totally. The heel of his hand rubs against me, eliciting an array of tingles at the precise moment his middle finger dips inside of me. I hold my breath and wait, but he only presses in until his first knuckle, then he slides it out again. I sag in disappointment and he chuckles darkly into my hair, whispering how I’m impatient, ungrateful, greedy. I feed off of his words because I’m starved for them. No one has ever spoken to me this way, called me names like pet and little girl, dared to debase me exactly the way I want to be. Jonathan knows how much I like it even without me having to explicitly tell him. He’s observant in a way I’m not used to. It’s slightly unnerving yet thrilling to be under his microscope. With past relationships, I could never truly be honest, never give name to things I wanted for fear that my partners would lose sight of the person I am outside of the bedroom—or worse, like Owen, openly mock me for them.