To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)(33)

The image he painted should’ve freaked me out. In the backseat with a date was where my darkest nightmares had originated. But hearing Noel describe it, with his hot voice and his engaging blue eyes pinned on me, I only grew more aroused.

Wow. But seriously, wow. That’s definitely what my shoes meant now. For him.

What? No. That’s not what they meant for Noel Gamble. Not at all. But, still. Wow, it kind of was.

God, he had me so confused right now.

How much had I drunk?

Managing to act a lot less scatterbrained than I was feeling, I lifted my chin and murmured, “Hmm. Thanks for the heads-up. I guess it’s a good thing he didn’t show then. I’m not sure I wanted to go quite that far on a first date.” Then I couldn’t help it, I added, “with him,” and the way I looked at him made it clear I might not have been so discerning on a first date with a certain someone else.

“Damn.” His lips parted and cheeks began to look a little flushed. His heavy-lidded gaze traced me and made me ache because he looked almost...tempted.

God, I was in so deep right now. Unfortunately, I loved the sensation of drowning in his presence. I never wanted this moment to end.

***

"Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is." - C. S. Lewis

***

NOEL



My control was slipping. I swear I tried to remain a gentleman, but inappropriate things kept slipping out of my mouth, and then she’d come back with something just as—

Damn. I was almost relieved when I was called away from her because anything I would’ve said to Dr. Aspen Kavanagh next would’ve been an unmistakable, totally inappropriate proposition. Hell, I probably would’ve gotten down on my knees and begged for a piece of her.

Fortunately, The time away cooled me enough to keep my sanity. But I still returned to her as soon as I could.

It was winding down to one thirty and the closer it drew to closing, the more restless I grew. Once the bar shut down, she’d have to go, and our night would be over. I dreaded that.

“I thought you guys didn’t win the national championships this year,” she said an instant before her light fingers grazed my forearm.

A shudder racked me as I felt her caress explode out every pore of my being. She’d barely touched me; I should’ve barely felt it. But I did. I felt it more than the time I’d been sacked during playoffs and had ended up in the hospital with a concussion. Her fingers set off a live, electric current through every nerve ending inside me until I was so hard my dick throbbed in synch with my heartbeat.

We’d never had skin-to-skin contact before, I realized. And I had to say, the first impression of my bare flesh against hers was, shit…intense.

This woman, right here, was dangerous.

Her gaze lifted as she waited for my response, reminding me what had caught her focus in the first place: the stupid-ass tattoo on my forearm.

“That’s the result of pre-celebration…drunk style,” I told her, nodding toward the mark.

Her hand and all those pretty fingernails painted a sexy pink lingered on my skin, right over the tattoo. Shaking her head, she kept petting it. “I don’t understand.”

I sighed deeply…for two reasons. One: Well, f*ck, she was petting me. It felt too good to concentrate on anything else. But two: I hated to confess my stupidity, and that damn tattoo was one of the stupidest things I’d ever done.

“The night before the championship game,” I said, unable to take my gaze off her fingers that seemed attached to my arm. “A bunch of us got rip-roaring drunk, and we all got these to celebrate our win.”

She stared at me a second before finishing, “And…the next day, you lost instead.” When I rolled my eyes and nodded, she threw her head back and laughed.

If it wasn’t for the fact that she was laughing at me, I would’ve been totally captivated by that honest, open sound of amusement. Oh, screw it. I watched, wanting my mouth on that exposed throat.

It took me a second before I could cluck my tongue and shake my head. “Go ahead.” I waved her on as if disgusted even though I began to chuckle lightly with her. “Laugh it up. But next year, when we do win the title for real, I plan to change the last digit on the year and this baby will be a reminder of our accomplishments…not our failures.”

She leaned in, her green eyes lit up like sparkling emeralds. “And if you lose again?”

I wanted to kiss her so bad. Her lips were perfect, practically begging me to dominate them. But I drew in a breath and reined myself in. I decided to answer cutesy instead of serious. So with a grin, I flexed my bicep she was still holding onto. “What? With this golden throwing arm? That’s just not possible.”

She didn’t laugh as I’d planned for her to. No, the delicious, tempting woman sucked in a breath and her touch became bold as she slid her hand up the tight muscle. “Oh, God,” she breathed out the word. “I bet women love to clutch these guns when you push inside them.”

Holy…

My mind blanked out.

Or more accurately, it didn’t blank out at all. It merely lost all reasonable thought as images of every way she could clutch my biceps as I pushed inside her crammed every available space in my synapses. Hell, in some of the images, she didn’t even have to touch my arms. She just had to scream as I made her come.