To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)(10)

Which was another reason I hated being so aware of her as a woman whenever she was around. While I was imagining how her sweet, plush lips would feel wrapped around my favorite body part, I knew she had nothing but freaking literature on the brain.

“I actually tried, you know,” I said, attempting to focus on her green eyes and not her mouth. “That was probably the best damn paper I ever wrote. And I didn’t cheat like I’m sure half the class did. I read the book, the Cliff Notes, sample essays. I even watched the weird-ass movie. I did all the f*cking work.”

Silently seating herself in the chair opposite the desk from me, Dr. Kavanagh gave me a tight smile. “And yet you completely missed the entire point of the assignment.”

Well, shit, you think? I jerked my hands into the air. “Maybe because I didn’t understand the goddamn point. I mean, what the hell did you want me to say?”

I knew I should’ve toned down the language, but she had me turned inside-out. And I’d only been in her office for two minutes. How this one tiny little person could get me so instantly and completely riled, I didn’t know. But here I was, mad, turned-on, ashamed, alarmed and frankly disturbed by my attraction, while I was equally pissed at her for knowing exactly how much I didn’t deserve to step foot on this campus because I was too freaking stupid.

And, f*ck, had she put on lip gloss or something since I’d seen her this morning in class? Her mouth looked shinier than ever. I caught myself looking at it again and jerked my gaze away. Damn it, bitchy teachers should not have lips like that.

She sighed and interlaced her hands before resting them on top of her desk. “It wasn’t about what I wanted you to say; it was about what you needed to say.”

And there went all my composure. Again.

“What I needed to say?” I surged to my feet and clutched my hair as I began to pace the five feet of room I had in her snug office. “What I needed to say? What the f*ck does that even mean?”

Dr. Kavanagh remained cool and collected, damn her, seated in her chair as she calmly watched me unravel into a hot pile of anxiety. “It means you didn’t do what you were asked to do. I wanted you to make a correlation between a character in the story and yourself. You made no such connection. In fact, you didn’t talk about you at all.”

I snorted. “Maybe I didn’t feel a connection with a bunch of rich-ass idiots from the twenties, whining about lost love while they spread around adultery like it was some kind of candy. How am I supposed to correlate anything when there is nothing to correlate?”

She fell back in her chair and sent me a frustrated frown. “Mr. Gamble…” With another sigh, she shook her head and ran her hands wearily over her face, which unfortunately made me focus on her lips.

God damn, that mouth should not be legal. I could picture it pursed so perfectly around my cock, could almost feel the wet slide of her tongue running up my entire length as she sucked me in deep.

Shit, now I had wood.

Fortunately oblivious to my crude, unwanted thoughts, she stiffened her shoulders, sat forward again and looked me straight in the eye. “Truly talented literature is truly talented for a reason. It always—always—finds a way to reach every person who reads it. It takes a theme about the human condition and makes it its little bitch.”

My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. What the hell? Shaking my head, I blinked. “Did you just say—”

“Yes!” she snapped. “I did. Because it’s true. Take one word about feelings or emotions and you’ll be able to find a theme for it in The Great Gatsby. I promise you.” When I did nothing but gape at her, she arched a curious brow. “You do have emotions, don’t you?”

“I’m having some right now.” And they were totally freaking me out, but f*ck, I really liked watching her perfect, too-pure mouth forming dirty words. It was like some awful, humiliating sickness. I wanted her to do it again.

Say bitch again. Please. Just one more time.

But she didn’t.

“Good.” Her stare was direct. Knowing. “Let me guess. You’re feeling frustration. Anger. Hate.”

“Uh...” I lifted an eyebrow. Close, but not quite.

“That’s perfectly fine. You can use those. Make them bond with someone in this book and tell me all about it.”

As her words sank in, I frowned. Something hot and seeking inside me melted. Defeat. “How?” I asked quietly, feeling like a complete idiot because I still didn’t understand, would probably never understand.

She blinked. “What do you mean how? If you’re really frustrated, mad, and full of hatred for me right now, write about it, explain why, then explain where someone in the story shares these same sentiments and why they experienced them. Make the two one and the same. Bash me all you want on paper, just show me that correlation I want to see, and I will give you a better score.”

I snorted and shook my head. No way. No effing way. “I just don’t get why I have to write about my f*cking feelings?”

She let out a frustrated growl, which only turned me on more. “So I know you understand the story and what happened.”

“Well, I didn’t understand the story. Goddamn it. I told you. I have nothing in common with—”

“Yes, you do!” she roared back, smacking both her palms on top of her desk before pushing to her feet to glare at me. “Everyone on the planet has at least one thing in common with at least one character in that story. Now go prove it!”