Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(8)

“What?” Oh wow. Had he moved closer? The body heat he gave off felt like it came from a radiator. Was that his breath on her forehead? She wished she could see in the dark. Wished she could see what he looked like close up. He’d be breathtaking. “How can you say that—‘that must have been some growth spurt’—when you didn’t even see me before the door closed?”

Honey shook a little at the underlying harshness in the question. There was no irritation or suspicion. No, he sounded like she felt. Edgy and breathless. Hungry. “Well, your voice is coming from a good eight inches above my head, so I know you’re tall.” There was a reason this was supposed to be wrong, but she was fast losing the ability to reason. Professor Dawson, Ben, the man she’d been fantasizing about for weeks, was right in front of her. Wanting her. She couldn’t be imagining it, right? Just a little longer. “Maybe I can figure out the rest a different way.”

It sounded like he bit back a groan. “That sounds like a bad idea.”

“Why? Because our friends are dating? Are you worried that—”

“No. It’s because you couldn’t be further from my type.”

“Oh.” Ouch. More than ouch. Honey rubbed the heel of her hand over her chest, trying and failing to ease the epic sting of rejection. Hadn’t seen that one coming. Maybe she should have. He was all smooth Yankee perfection, and she was a country bumpkin in ratty sneakers. Heck, they probably still had mud stains on them from the farm. Ben never looked anything less than put together and polished. In a mere two seconds before the door had closed, he’d summed her up and found her lacking.

Screw. That.

Honey put a lid on her insecurities. They were always there, waiting to pop up like some kind of needy jack-in-the-box toy, but she’d come to this city to shed them. She knew what she’d seen in his eyes this afternoon in the classroom, and he was full of shit. Not his type. This was her seduction, and he had another think coming if he thought a well-delivered lie could knock her off course.

She took a deep breath and eased closer to him. The door rattled, telling her he’d backed up and hit it. Good. He couldn’t go any further. She placed her palms on his chest and felt him shudder. Heard him curse in an almost desperate manner. Memorizing every inch of terrain encountered by her hands, she smoothed them higher, over his shoulders, before dragging her fingertips back down the way she’d come. When they reached his hard abdomen, Ben heaved an exhale and tunneled his hands into her hair. It was so sudden and so fierce that Honey’s knees almost gave out.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Touching you. Feeling what you look like.” It was part lie, part truth. She knew what he looked like, but he kept himself hidden behind tweed and podiums and glasses. Her hands moved on their own, scrubbing over his unyielding stomach while his breath accelerated at the top of her head. Her pulse sounded like a storm in her ears that only increased in volume when he tilted her face up.

“You want to put your hands all over me?” He slipped his mouth over her open one, his breath gliding over her tongue without actually kissing her. “It’s only fair if I do the same. So if that’s what you want, by all means, keep going.”

Honey was reeling from the touch of his mouth. Butterscotch. She’d known that was how he’d taste, yet she hadn’t had a clue. When combined with his unique flavor, he was . . . drugging. He wants to touch me. Wants me to keep going. Yes. Without reservation, her palm dragged over his belt buckle and encountered his hardness. The evidence of how she’d turned him on, the feel of him after weeks of imagining it, had her moaning loudly against his parted mouth.

Ben’s responding groan made the muscles in her belly contract. One of his hands left her hair to cover her grip, tightening until they both squeezed his length. “Fuck. I’ve been so hard all day, babe.”

She felt dazed at hearing her straightlaced professor curse. Admit to a weakness. “Why?”

“So many reasons.” His laughter sounded pained, turning into a hiss of breath as she began to stroke him through his pants. “But it feels like it was all for you. I don’t know how to explain that.”

The beating in her chest expanded, reaching her throat. Her limbs felt heavy but pliant at the same time. Coupled with the darkness, the anonymity, his words emboldened her. I’ve been so hard all day, babe. It feels like it was all for you. She went up on her toes and laid her mouth on his ear. “I’ve been soft for you all day, so I guess we’re even.”

Her back hit the cinder-block wall before she’d completed her sentence. The breath whooshed from her lungs, and Ben swallowed it with his mouth. Time stood suspended as he kissed her. Finally kissed her. And it was nothing like she’d imagined as she’d lain in her bed at night. At all. It wasn’t proper or romantic or precise like everything else he did. No. Professor Dawson kissed like a certified bad boy. His mouth taunted her with gentle bites and teasing licks, before he swooped in and kissed her hard enough to bruise. It was glorious and . . . oh God, it was making her wet and achy. Excruciatingly so. She still held his impressive arousal in her hand, and the harder she gripped him, the more he growled and—

Ben tore his mouth away, and she almost dropped like a stone. Strong hands yanking her skirt up to her waist and settling firmly on her ass anchored her, though, made her fight to keep standing. To see what he would do. “Soft for me,” he breathed against her throat. “Should we find out where?”