Loving Bailey (7 page)

A lusty twinkle sparked in Ashton's gaze,
and he flashed a sexy grin. "Then you've got a little time to
fill?"

A hand sliding down to grope at his ass
emphasized the intent behind the words. "I think so. Did you need
me for something?" He tried for innocent but was afraid he'd only
succeeded in achieving desperate corniness.

"Always," Ashton whispered. "Want to take a
nap?"

Chapter Nine

Straightening his spine until his vertebrae
cracked satisfyingly, Ashton shoved his wooden straight back chair
away from the dilapidated desk. He rubbed his eyes tiredly and
squinted in the dim light to shut down his computer. The screen
went dark and the machine powered off with the irritating whine it
had developed over the last few months.

A broad grin stretched his lips and he
reached for his phone. He was one step closer to kissing this place
good-bye for good. Next semester he'd be operating out of a
well-lit, spacious office with a window facing the quad on a campus
fifteen miles north of the hell this place had turned into.

The text message to Bailey only took a
second to send, and then he began straightening his exam books back
into piles for each section. He topped each stack of blue books
with a small paper clipped bundle of Scantron tests that he'd been
fortunate enough to get scored already.

The only thing he had left to do was
administer the last exam at mid-day tomorrow and then compile all
his scores into the computer for final grades. The end of six years
of Composition 101 hell loomed within his grasp. He'd kind of miss
the office though. The room was small, true, about the size of a
broom closet if he were honest, but it was also well away from the
main traffic avenues of the campus and students who didn't have
appointments seldom interrupted his research. Of course, half the
students with appointments turned up late because they couldn't
find the place, but meeting them in the library or the student
union allowed him to work around that issue.

While Ashton looked forward to teaching
something beyond how to write a persuasive essay, he most
anticipated getting out from under Dennis's thumb. His ex-lover had
made teaching a trial ever since they broke up six years earlier.
Ashton had no doubt that if he stayed at the college with Dennis as
department head, he'd never teach anything but freshman comp unless
he agreed to resume the affair that should never have been more
than the drunken one-night stand that had started the whole thing.
He'd been leery of departmental Christmas parties ever since that
night.

Footsteps in the hallway and a tap on the
door speeded his movements. "Come on in," he called, expecting
Bailey to enter. His boyfriend had worked that day on a
construction site for his father's company. Today was his last job
on the crew. When the two of them returned from their week off,
after Bailey moved into the cottage, Bailey would be assuming a job
as foreman for small projects and taking over two days a week for
his dad in the main office.

The door swung inward and his smile faded
abruptly. Brows drawing together in a frown, he stared at Dennis
Romgarten. "Dennis. What can I do for you?"

Sweat beaded on the older man's brow. "You
didn't return my calls yesterday."

"Yesterday was Sunday. I spent the day with
my boyfriend." He ignored the way Dennis's lips twisted in a sneer.
Even dealing with the unpleasant man wouldn't dim his pleasure in
the prospect of another night spent with Bailey, cooking together,
watching baffling British mysteries on Netflix, making love. "Did
you need something? He's on his way to pick me up now."

"You haven't turned in your grades."

"They aren't due until Friday. I have
another exam to administer tomorrow morning, and then I'll turn my
grades in Wednesday. By Friday," he continued, watching Dennis out
the corner of his eye, "I'll have my office cleared and vacated so
you can move in the next poor sucker who'll be stuck teaching kids
what they should have learned in high school."

"You said you enjoyed teaching this
class."

"I said that because I knew you assigned me
these classes as a petty little revenge."

Dennis stepped into the room, looming tall
and bulky in the cramped space of Ashton's office. "Ash, there's no
call for you to leave. You can teach some of the literature classes
next fall. Old Dominic is retiring. I'll give you his classes and
we can go back to the way things used to be."

What unbelievable gall the man had.
Disbelieving, Ashton rose from his chair and leaned forward,
squaring his jaw. "No, we can't. As I said before, I'm with someone
that I care about very deeply. And I will never work for you
again."

"That kid? I saw him drop you off this
morning. He has a student parking sticker on his car. He's too
young for you. He'll meet someone one day and leave you behind just
as you left me."

The expression on Dennis's face was ugly,
but the idea that Bailey would leave him one day struck too close
to the doubts Ashton had harbored. Hearing his own fears from his
ex made him realize just how dumb those doubts had been. "No, he
won't. He's not like you. He loves me."

"Is that what you think? He's just using
you." Watery blue eyes squinted at Ashton. "He's that student I saw
you with before, isn't he? What do you think your new department
head will think of that, you preying on students?"

"Preying? Hardly." And then and there Ashton
felt all his doubts melt away. "Bailey and I have a loving
committed relationship. There is no abuse of power, no
student-teacher dynamic to consider."

"It's just the same, only you wanted the
dominant role." He leaned forward menacingly. "I'll take the whole
story to the board here and the board at UCLA."

Ashton scoffed. "On what grounds? I don't
work here anymore, and he isn't a student here. Even if he
were—"

"Even if I were, there's nothing in the
handbooks forbidding student-professor relationships."

The way Dennis jerked suddenly upright was
comical. With the muscled mass that was Bailey, young, broad and
strong, vibrant, at his back, the man seemed a lot less
intimidating and… "Pathetic," Ashton murmured aloud to himself. How
had he allowed the memory of this man to tarnish what he had with
Bailey?

Dennis heard his comment though and his face
reddened. "You haven't heard the last of this!"

"For your sake, Dennis," he suggested, "I
rather hope we have."

"I'm going to—"

"You're going to step out of the way so I
can greet my boyfriend properly, then bid us both a good
afternoon?" The coldness of Bailey's voice shocked Ashton. The
usually calm tenor held echoes of Drew Harris's voice from Saturday
afternoon.

Dennis finally deigned to turn and face
Bailey, sputtering, "Young man, I am the head of this department
and…"

He trailed off, eyes widening as he got a
good glimpse of Bailey for the first time. His gulp was audible and
the color leached from his skin even before Bailey offered a work
roughened hand.

"Dr. Romgarten, I've heard a lot about you.
I'm Bailey Harris, recent graduate of the Science and Technology
program." The subtle emphasis on graduate made Ashton smile. The
ceremony wasn't for another week, but Bailey Harris's graduation
status wasn't in doubt. He'd carried a four-point-oh GPA for all
but one semester of his career at the college and had been accepted
with honors into the civil engineering program.

More than what he said though, there was a
confidence, a self-assurance in his manner that made Dennis wither
almost visibly to a sputtering bumbling fool. "I've heard about
you," he muttered, attempting to regain some ground. "You're—"

"I'm in a hurry to say hello to the man I
spent all day dreaming about when I should have been concentrating
on work." Bailey crowded into the room, dwarfing the shelves
crammed with books and towering over Romgarten. He waved to the
door. "I'm sorry. Was I blocking your exit?"

Dennis had no recourse but to leave, and
Ashton burst into laughter as soon as Bailey closed the door behind
the man. His laughter faded as he realized that Bailey was staring
at him, a small frown marring the smooth brow. "What is it?"

"How is that I didn't know anything about
that guy pestering you?"

Ashton embraced Bailey, feeling the tension
fade from his body as he leaned into him. "He's not a big deal.
What was between us has been over for a long time."

"He doesn't seem to think so." Bailey
wrapped an arm around his waist and peered down at him, only
partially mollified.

"I don't care what he thinks. He has nothing
to do with us."

"I think he has a lot to do with us," Bailey
asserted softly.

"Why? Didn't you hear him? He's
preposterous."

"He's a jackass, I'll give you that. But
he's also the reason you've held back from me this past eighteen
months, isn't he?"

He couldn't deny that. "Yeah. When I was
young and stupid, he kind of took advantage of me. I couldn't shake
the feeling that I was doing the same thing to you."

"And now?"

"Now, I know I was wrong, and I'm not the
kind of man who's afraid to admit when he's wrong, Bailey." The
sudden ruddy flush to Bailey's tanned skin, his groan of arousal,
the sudden thickening of his cock against Ashton's body made it
clear his message had been received.

"So you're giving up on waiting?"

"We've waited long enough. I'm not letting
Dennis fucking Romgarten have any more control over how I live my
life."

Chapter Ten

Ashton settled against Bailey, savoring the
hard muscled body that cradled his. He stretched up a fraction and
brought their lips together, delicately brushing his mouth along
the plump curves of Bailey's lips, before capturing first the lower
then the upper lip to suckle softly. Bailey's body hardened against
his; his arms closing in a vise-like grip around Ashton, locking
them together.

To his surprise, Bailey pushed him back
against the desk. Ashton reached behind himself and swept an arm
over the desktop, sending his carefully stacked exams tumbling to
the floor. He'd have to sort them again later, but for now all that
mattered was getting closer to the man in his arms. He hoisted
himself up on the desk and spread his thighs, allowing Bailey to
crowd that much closer to him.

He slid his tongue along the crease of
Bailey's lips, smiling to himself when they parted easily. He
didn't have to coax or tease, Bailey's tongue surged into his
mouth, and they met in a temperature raising duel that made his
heart race. Long minutes passed with just that, bodies crushed,
mouths locked. Ashton's hands clutched tightly at Bailey's back,
Bailey held him, hands curved around the seat of his pants, lifting
him into the pressure of his erection. Subtly he ground against
Ashton, until he was forced to push Bailey away or risk coming too
soon. They broke apart, panting, staring at each other
wide-eyed.

"I…"

"I want you," Ashton interrupted.
Unbelievably, he felt no reluctance whatsoever to break his promise
to himself. Another man, one who'd been cowering in the shadows of
his past had made that promise. "I want to make love to you in
every way known to man and then to maybe invent a few more."

Bailey shuddered. His moist lips parted, but
Ashton covered his mouth before he could speak. Bailey responded as
always with every ounce of passion he possessed, sucking and
licking and nibbling his tongue until Ashton once more broke the
kiss. "Here and now though…I want you to fuck me. Just like you
said yesterday…"

"I can't…Ash, we don't have"—he waved
shaking hands in the air vaguely—"stuff here."

Laughing, Ashton leaned back and fumbled his
desk drawer open. Keeping his eyes locked on Bailey's flushed face,
he dug around in the drawer until he came up with a bottle of hand
lotion. "In my back pocket."

A confused frown drew thick brown brows
together. "What?"

"My wallet. There's a condom behind my
driver's license."

His lover's nostrils flared, a strangled
moan escaped the parted lips. Hard hands squeezed his buttocks, and
Ashton leaned forward to push up Bailey's T-shirt. His hands slid
over smooth skin that still seemed to hold the heat of the sun from
the long hours he'd worked outside that day. Leaning in close,
Ashton sniffed, closing his eyes as his senses were filled with the
scent of sweat, dirt and sun, a faint hint of wood and tar. "Were
you roofing?"

"Uh…Yeah. Sorry, I lost track of time and
rushed over here." Bailey had retrieved the wallet and extracted
the condom. He flipped the packet onto the desk next to the hand
lotion, then tugged the shirt bunched in his armpits up and over
his head.

Ashton took advantage of his raised arms to
scatter wet kisses and sharp little nips across the golden expanse
of skin, ending by nuzzling his nose in the crisp hairs of Bailey's
pit. Bailey threw the shirt aside with a growl, captured Ashton's
head in his hard hands and repositioned them so that his lips were
poised above one taut copper nipple. "Lick me." The gritty command
sent shivers of arousal down Ashton's spine, and he obligingly
opened his mouth to tongue the nub of flesh. A huff of breath
stirred his hair, and Bailey released his grip on Ashton's
head.

His hands massaged Ashton's nape for a few
seconds before roving over his shoulders and down his back to grab
the hem of Ashton's polo shirt. Ashton leaned away and let him
remove the garment, then slid off the desk. "Can you lock that
door?" He unfastened his belt and opened the fly before pushing the
trousers down and kicking them off. The lock clicked, securing
their privacy.

"Are you really sure you want to do this?"
Bailey's husky voice rasped pleasurably over his nerves. "I mean,
just yesterday you said—"