To Professor, with Love (Forbidden Men #2)(40)

Unlike most of the guys I knew, kissing wasn’t just some pre-show for me to get a girl ready for the big event. Kissing was its own affair. I’d been known to do nothing but kiss a girl all night, until she was the one begging for something else. I could do it until my lips were numb and it was impossible to tell whose tongue was whose.

Finding a girl who kissed just right was like a goldmine. And Aspen Kavanagh was the goldmine of all goldmines. She sighed into my mouth, her body warm and pliable. I buried my fingers into her hair, ruining the tempting way she’d fixed it.

I have no idea how long we kissed, our mouths mating and forging a bond that went far beyond mere physical companionship. But when she found the hem of my shirt and skimmed her fingers up my abdomen, I was more than willing to repay the favor.

“You’re so hard,” she murmured, the awe in her voice killing me.

“And you’re not even touching the hardest part.” I grinned as my lips found her jaw, then worked their way down to her throat while my fingers explored under her shirt.

“Feels so good,” she murmured just as her hand went limp and flopped onto the mattress beside her.

My tongue paused on her pulse as my gaze darted to her fallen hand.

“Aspen?” I glanced up to find her eyes closed and lips parted, her face canted away.

The woman had passed out on me. My body screamed in denial while a far distant part of my brain tried to tell me this was a good thing. But I agreed more with my poor, throbbing body. This sucked.

“Jesus.” Beginning to tremble, I rolled off her and landed on my back. Wiping my hand over my face to cool my heated skin, I blew out a breath before counting to twenty in my head.

Then I craned my face around to check on her. Yep. Still out cold.

This had to be a new low for me. I’d taken advantage of a drunk girl until she’d passed out in my arms. And not just any drunk girl, but the most forbidden one I could ever want.

My dick throbbed in my jeans, pinching painfully as it crowded against the back of my zipper. After readjusting myself, I glanced toward Aspen to check on her again.

Well, at least she looked at peace. For the life of me, I could not get my body to calm down. My hormones continued to rage, and watching her dewy lips part as she breathed did not help.

Twisting my head the other way, I scanned her room for something to divert my attention so I could combat the lust once and for all and be on my way. One of the paperbacks on her nightstand caught my eye. On the cover, a bare-chested, long-haired dude leaned over to hover his face into the plunging neckline of some chick in a big, frilly dress. The title was something about denying a Highlander.

A smile cracked my lips. I bet she didn’t teach about these kinds of novels in her classes. I reached out and flipped the cover around to study it a little more fully. The woman lying next to me was a romance junkie. Strange. I hadn’t been able to detect that during any of the classes she taught. She seemed so clinical and profession when teaching, I never would’ve guessed she had a daydreamer inside her.

Turning back, I studied her passive face as my chest filled with sympathetic pangs. Things started to add up. Her * parents had never taken her to a carnival. They hadn’t given her a proper childhood, but they had probably pushed her in school until she was skipping grades and excelling in education. I couldn’t picture her with a lot of friends if she’d always been the freak genius girl. And if the f*cker who’d hurt her when she was fourteen was any clue as to what her life had been like, she hadn’t felt very loved or protected. She’d probably been alone a lot.

And yet she read romance novels until the corners were frayed and worn. She still hoped for some kind of happily ever after.

She was so much like me it was frankly freaky. We were split between two worlds. She was the frumpy, genius professor hiding romantic hopes and dreams. I was the stud playboy football star working my ass off to save my poor, broke family. What a pair we made. And what an ass I felt like. She wasn’t just some piece of fruit I wanted to sample because she was forbidden. She was a lot deeper than I had ever imagined.

Slowly, I reached out until I barely touched her cheek. She sighed in her sleep and rolled onto her side facing me. When she found my warmth, she snuggled in close. I wound my arms around, hugging her against me, and she ended up with her cheek on my chest and her arm wrapped around my waist.

It was sweet and comfortable and so damn agonizing to lay with her like that, I ended up kicking off my shoes and burrowing in, closing my eyes and burying my face in her hair.

We fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms, and I couldn’t remember a night I slept so soundly.





CHAPTER THIRETEEN




“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, but only saps today of its strength.” - A.J. Cronin



ASPEN



My head felt like it was going to explode.

Rolling toward the heat source that had kept me cozy all night, I curled my legs up, expecting to find something solid and tangible radiating warmth and shelter. But all my fingers found were cold, empty sheets. Wrinkling my forehead, I winced when little axes in my head hacked at the interior of my temples. With a groan, I buried my face further into my pillow to block out the light flooding my room.

Inhaling a new smell, something spicy and masculine, I breathed in deeply, wondering where such a lovely scent had originated and what it was doing on my pillow. Until I remembered...