Crazy in Love (Lovestruck Series) (4 page)

BOOK: Crazy in Love (Lovestruck Series)
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“How did you know I was here?” he asks her.

“One of the EMT responders called me since I’m still your emergency contact. Why didn’t
you
call me?”

Huh. Maybe she’s his sister? Although they don’t look anything alike. They’re night and day.

“I’m fine,” he says. “You didn’t need to come.”

The woman scoffs. “Of course I needed to. Your parents are hours away so I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Professor Daughton’s gaze locks with my questioning one over her shoulder a moment before the woman notices and spins around to follow his line of sight.

“Who the hell are you?” she asks snidely with a hand on her lean hip.

“Re –” I start to say, but the professor interrupts. “A concerned bystander,” he tells her before giving me a pleading look that I take to mean he wants me to keep my mouth shut.

The woman’s judging gaze rakes up and down my long dress twice before her eyes widen. “She looks like a student. Is she the one you left me for when I wouldn’t play your game, you sick bastard?” she turns to yell at Professor Daughton.

Whoa.

“Trish, how many times do I have to tell you that I never cheated on you, and there was no other woman. Our marriage was sucking the life out of me, and that’s why I wanted the divorce.”

Holy cow! They’re married? Or
were
married?

I’m clearly interrupting a private conversation, so I clutch my purse to my side and ease my way quietly toward the edge of the curtain.

“Reagan, wait,” Professor Daughton calls out. “You don’t have to go. Trish, this conversation is over, and you need to leave. We have attorneys who will handle everything from here on out,” he tells the woman.

“You’re serious?” she asks, throwing in a fake sniffle.

“Ah, yeah. If I wanted you here, I would’ve called you,” he says dismissively to her. I could nearly feel the cold chill of his words.

The woman, Trish, huffs before she squares her shoulders. “I’m pregnant,” she blurts out.

“No, you’re not,” Professor Daughton replies coolly without missing a beat. “And if you really were, you would have to be about seven or eight months along for it to be mine. Since you’re not showing…”

“If you’re fucking her, I
will
find out,” she threatens, pointing a finger at me and instantly dropping the fake pregnancy she just threw out there so randomly.

“I’m not, and even if I were, that’s none of your business anymore,” Professor Daughton replies before she throws a glare at me and then storms out of the room.

What the heck sort of shitstorm have I landed in?

“Sorry you had to hear all…that,” Professor Daughton murmurs after she’s gone.

Although I don’t know her, I wouldn’t put it past the insane woman to stand on the other side of the curtain to eavesdrop.

“Do me a favor, will you?” he asks. “Pull back that curtain.”

Taking a step to the opening, I smile as I yank it back and find the redhead standing just on the other side with her back to us. She mutters something under her breath before she digs through her purse and then flees the emergency room.

“So, you’re married?” I ask the obvious when I resume my place against the cabinet.

“Was,” he replies. “Well, technically still am until the divorce is finalized.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, at a total loss for what else to reply to finding out that.

He chuckles. “Seriously, after meeting her, you’re apologizing that it didn’t work out?”

“Ah, she seems somewhat…difficult,” I admit.

“The woman is a nightmare that I regret ever meeting.”

Dang, that’s harsh. But really, what sort of woman pulls the “I’m pregnant” card to try and get a man back? An evil, lying one apparently.

“She doesn’t want me back. She just doesn’t know what to do without her father or me taking care of her. Kind of sad, really, but I was tired of putting her happiness ahead of my own.”

“I’m –”

“Don’t,” he says with a grin, holding up a palm to prevent me from uttering another apology.  “It’s fine, honestly. I’d rather be single and lonely than stuck one more day living a lie.”

“Oh,” I mutter in response to his bluntness. Just hours ago, this man was a professor I drooled over and thought about naked. Now he’s the guy I almost killed, and I know way too much about his personal life.

Thankfully I’m saved from commenting after all the drama because the doctor comes in to do his exam. I make an escape to the cafeteria’s vending machine, grabbing a Mr. Pibb for Professor Daughton and me since I’ve seen him bring one into the classroom every Tuesday and Thursday this semester. When I peek back into the curtained off room, he spies me and flashes a grin from where he’s now reclined, stretched out on the bed and alone.

“Figured I might as well get comfortable because it looks like I’m gonna be here a while since they’re giving me steroids,” he says, nodding to the IV sticking out of his left arm when I come back in.

“Sorry,” I say to which he immediately responds with, “Stop apologizing, Reagan, or I’ll start docking your final a point for every occasion.”

“Okay,” I agree. “No more apologies. Thirsty?” I ask holding out the soda in offering.

“Hell yes. Thank you,” he says when he takes the bottle from me.

“It should be pineapple free,” I tell him.

“Either way, they’ve now shot me up with enough drugs to combat it,” he jokes before twisting off the top and taking a big swig. His throat works as he swallows, and that does funny things to my girly parts.

Retaking my leaning position on the cabinet, I open my own drink and take a sip.

“You don’t have to stay here,” he says. “I mean, you don’t even have a chair to sit in.”

“It’s fine,” I tell him.

“Here,” he says, sliding his legs over to the side and patting the now empty space on the bed. “If you insist on staying, at least have a seat.”

Since my feet are aching from standing, I take the offering, sitting on the bed with my professor. I’m in bed with my ridiculously hot teacher just inches away. So close I can smell his wonderful minty scent and feel the heat of his legs behind my bottom. Without looking, I know his eyes are silently evaluating me. My heart rate suddenly picks up, galloping away like it’s warning me to do the same before I make a fool of myself and lower my grade even further.


Gage

What the fuck am I doing? Asking her to sit on the bed so that she’s within touching distance may go down as the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Why didn’t I just let her leave when she tried to sneak out during Trish’s attack? Because I selfishly wanted her to stay.

Sure, Reagan stuck around, but it’s obviously only out of concern for her grade. Does she really think I could ever flunk her? I wouldn’t, even if she tanked the research assignment and final exam. Hell, she could be a no show, and I would still pass her. I’ve had a weak spot for her since the moment I spotted her on campus that first Monday afternoon at three p.m. almost a year ago, not that she knows about my stalker tendencies.

I had been sitting on a bench outside of the English building when she came along and flopped down on the grass underneath a tree several feet away from me. No blanket, no concern for whether or not her dress would get dirty. Her face wasn’t buried in a phone like all the other student population. She simply sat down and tilted her face up to the sun with a smile on her face. Beautiful was a poor adjective to describe her at that moment, looking so natural and…real, unlike my wife at the time, who is fake inside and out.

For two hours, I sat there and watched her, waiting for her to rejoin the hustle and bustle of the rest of the world. At most, I thought she would sit there for ten minutes, maybe twenty. Not once did she look at a watch or a phone, not even a book. She was simply meditating I assumed, centering herself or contemplating the universe for all I know. Such a contradiction to the stereotypical young women of the modern world, and I was mesmerized. 

So the next day, I returned to the bench at the same time instead of going home. My classes and office hours were over, but I was curious to see if she would return. I assumed the day before had been a fluke. No young girl would spend hours every day simply…existing. But I was wrong. She sat there in the grass for more than two hours that day and the day after that. On Thursday I had to go home for a dinner party Trish had planned, because I knew she would be livid if I didn’t attend. But on Friday, I lied and told my wife I had papers to grade and needed to stay late. It had been raining on and off, so I spent the day in a gloomy mood as well, certain that I wouldn’t see the flowerchild until the next week.

Grabbing my umbrella, I nevertheless ventured out a few minutes after three p.m. into the downpour and…there she was. Her beautiful, flawless, natural face tilted up to the sky, eyes closed as the droplets poured over her, drenching her mahogany hair and russet colored dress, the same one she’s wearing today, until the fabric molded to her skin, highlighting her full breasts. Occasionally she would wipe the water from her face or run her hands through her hair, and it was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I wanted her so much that it took all of my restraint not to approach her. The gold ring around my finger suddenly felt like it was squeezing the life out of me. There I was, unhappily married and imagining approaching a student for the purpose of climbing on top of her and fucking her in the middle of campus. Clearly, I thought I was losing my mind.

For the next week, I avoided her side of the courtyard and insisted on going to marriage counseling with my wife instead. I knew we had a serious problem if I was stalking a random student and thinking of her every second of the day, and especially every night, instead of the woman I was married to.

Things only went downhill after that, though. I stopped sleeping in the same bed as Trish just so I could have the privacy to jerk off to the girl whose name I didn’t even know. I didn’t want to know it, or I might try to take things further. So I kept my distance, even finding a bench farther away so she wouldn’t see me watching her every single afternoon once I could no longer resist going back to my stalker routine.

Weeks later, Trish told our therapist that we were sleeping in separate beds and that I refused to touch her, so he suggested we try to spice up our sex life by sharing a fantasy with each other. Hers was that she wanted me to spank her. Since she annoyed the fuck out of me pretty much all of the time, it was no chore for me to indulge her. Then, it was my turn. When I asked her to fulfill my fantasy of roleplaying, to wear a sexy schoolgirl outfit while I fucked her, just like the naughty thoughts I’d had in my head for so long about the unknown girl in the courtyard, Trish flipped out and accused me of cheating on her with one of my students. Shortly after that, I told her I wanted a divorce, certain that things were not going to improve. Trish didn’t trust me, and I stopped caring about her. Our marriage was doomed all because I fell in love with a girl whose name I didn’t even know.

But then, in January, the same girl from the courtyard walked into my classroom. I was practically shaking with excitement as I went through the roll call, knowing I was about to actually interact with her for the very first time. She would finally have a name. I should’ve tried to remove her from my class, but when I called her name, Reagan Harper, asking her to tell the class about herself like the students before her, she pushed her hair behind her ear and shyly said that she was finishing up her degree. It was her last semester on campus. Which meant I only had a few more months to see her before she disappeared, moving on with her life while I would keep teaching, sitting in my office or classroom, thinking about her until I would very likely go insane.

Now here we are, on a bed. I had her in my arms earlier today. I held her hand to help her in and out of the ambulance. My life just nearly ended because of a piece of fruit. Yep, my restraint is pretty much non-existent. The only thing holding me back is my career and how it would end if I were caught. See, that’s how far off the deep end I’ve gone because I no longer question whether or not she would reciprocate these feelings swirling inside me. I’m almost certain she would if I made a move. How could she not when I’m completely and utterly crazy in love with her?

Maybe everything earlier today happened for a reason. This could be my chance to finally see if this is more than just a teacher having a crush on a student.

The sound of my phone ringing pulls me back to the present where the tempting student is sitting so close my leg is practically touching her ass.

“Oh, do you want me to hand you your phone?” Reagan asks, unfortunately standing up and putting distance between us. That’s probably best since my control is wearing incredibly thin today for some reason. Maybe it’s the whole near death experience making me want to pull her in my arms and kiss her. Like I could ever stop there once I touched her in such a way.

I have to clear the lust from my voice before I can answer her question. “Sure, it’s in the front pocket of my pants,” I tell her.

Reagan tentatively reaches for the pile of clothes on top of the supply cabinet, like she’s reluctant to touch something so intimate as the pants I was wearing earlier. After she finds the device, she quickly brings it over to me.

BOOK: Crazy in Love (Lovestruck Series)
10.71Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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