Professor: A First Time Novel (13 page)

He pulls me into lap as he sinks back into his desk chair. “Show me off, huh?”

I feel my face flush. “Well,
yeah
, cause you’re sort of wonderful, you know.”

Liam laughs. “You sure know how to sweet talk a man.”

“I can think of a few other sweet things I can do to this man,” I say breathily, feeling my cheeks blush at even saying something like that.

He laughs though, pulling me into him. “I’ve created a monster.”

I giggle. “Yep!”

He hold my gaze, his eyes searching mine, before he starts to nod. “Alright, fuck it; yeah.”

“Yeah?”

He kisses me. “Yeah, lets go to the mask party.”

“Mask and
toga
party, actually.”

His brows shoot up. “What?”

“Can’t back out now!” I say with a laugh, throwing my arms around him and kissing him fiercely.

Chapter 20

Ellie

January in coastal New England seems like possibly the last time of the year you'd want to throw a toga-themed party, but never-the-less, the festivities are in full swing by the time we get there.
 

The fraternity house is just off campus, and it’s pretty much exactly the place you'd imagine it to be -
 
a little grungy, a little dirty, smelling a lot like beer, and
full
of people.

There’s another flash of apprehension as we move through the front door and into the crowd as people start to to turn and see us, but I force myself to relax. We’re both wearing masks, and Liam’s even wearing a white spandex sports sleeve over his tattooed arm under his toga.
No one
knows who we are.

"So, ready to party?" I grin as I grab Liam’s hand and drag him through the front door.
 

He looks bewildered and a possibly more than a little out of his element amongst the throngs of college-aged kids chugging beer and grinding to hip-hop music, but really, so am I. He squeezes my hand back and shrugs like it’s nothing.

“What, this?" He rolls his eyes dramatically and grins back at me. “I’m going to show these kids how it's done."

I laugh and wrap my arms around him, peppering his cheek with kisses.

We went to a shopping center earlier a few towns over earlier to buy sheets for tonight, and someone had mistaken us for father and daughter. It wasn’t totally unbelievable considering he was more than double my eighteen years, but I was determined that tonight,
no one
would have any illusions as to the nature of our relationship, and they could think whatever they wanted about it.

Besides, it isn’t like it’s going to be
hard
keeping my hands on Liam Martin all night. I mean he’s gorgeous for one, and honestly in probably better shape than half the frat guys cavorting around the place in bedsheets. I grin to myself as we walk in, seeing him already turning heads as we move into the crowd, and I know it isn’t
just
that he’s by far and away the oldest guy in the room. He looks
hot
, and I knew that more than a few of the looks he’s getting from a lot of the girls my age there are much more about checking him out than wondering who he is and why a guy their father's age is at this party. Liam isn’t like all the other shirtless jocks high-fiving each other and crushing beer cans, with their waxed chests and cheesy tribal tattoos. No, Liam is a
man
, complete with hairy chest and
without
cliched tattoos.

As we move into the back room, looking for the keg, a girl I recognized from one of my classes but who’s never spoken to me catches my arm while Liam’s head is turned the other way.

"Oh my
God
, Ellie!” she whispers conspiratorially as she arches her brow and runs her eyes up and down Liam’s muscled back and arms; "Who
is
that?"

I grinned, feeling the warm glow tickle up my whole body; "Oh, my boyfriend." I say it as nonchalantly as possible, but inside I’m practically jumping up and down.

"Oh-
wow.
" The girl gives me a big grin, as if she’s looking at me in a whole new light before she gives Liam one more hungry look and moves off into the crowd, leaving me on cloud nine.

“Ellie!”

I turn as Ally came pushing through the crowd towards us.

"Hey, Ell- Oh!" Ally stumbles over her words as her jaw drops, and she looks quickly between Liam and I with a big grin on her face.

Oh
hi!"
She gives me a quick 'are you fucking kidding me' look before she drags her eyes back to Liam.

"You must be…”

“Matt,” Liam says with a chuckle.

"Well,
Matt
, I'm very glad to meet you! You've got a great girl here you know, and you better be nice to her!" She prods Liam’s bare chest, exposed in the toga, and then falters as she keeps her hand on his hard, chiseled muscles a moment longer than necessary. Anyone else and I might be insanely jealous, but this is Ally after all.

He smiles, winking at me; "I plan on it."

Well,
I think to myself;
at least she didn't say anything totally embara-

“
This
is the total hottie who took your virginity?" I cringe and blush scarlet as Lucy's slightly drunk "whisper" belts out loud enough for people around us to look over with raised brows.

“Ally!”

"Sorry! Sorry!" She brings her hands to her mouth and gives me an over-the-top apologetic look.

I look up at Liam over her shoulder, but he’s grinning and looks more amused than anything else.

Ally in tow, we move through the crowd towards the back room where the keg is apparently being kept. Liam grabs us three cups, but as he reaches for the tap handle, suddenly a sweaty, shirtless frat-looking guy with a backwards baseball hat and a toga half-hanging off his torso butts in front of him.

He turns and gives Liam a cocky once-over; "Brothers get to cut the line, pal." He stops suddenly in his clearly half-drunk state and peers closer at Liam, as if suddenly actually seeing him.

"Hey,
DAD
, who the fuck invited you anyways." He turns and smirks at the two guys who’ve butted the line with him as if he’s just had the line of the century.

"My girlfriend did." Liam says without missing a beat. His voice is even, but I see the muscles in his forearm clench for a moment. He nods towards me, and I feel myself go a little red, even though I’m wearing a mask. The frat guy turns and looks me up and down before turning back to Jake with a smirk on his face.

"Ooooh, it's like
that
, huh?" Suddenly he
pushes
Liam a step back as he laughs and turns back to me; "Hey babe, how about you ditch the old guy and come get some of thi-"

In a flash, Liam has the guy's arm twisted behind his back and suddenly whining as he’s forced to his knees on the floor. The crowd around us suddenly goes a little quiet, and I tense as I see a few other frat guys suddenly start to push their way through.

Liam glances up and seems to see them coming, but his face was is dead even; almost casual. As I watch, with Ally clutching my arm, Liam calmly reaches down and plucks the guy's beer out his other hand. And then, just as the other frat brothers break through the ring around us, Liam grins at them, tilts the cup back, and chugs down every drop of the guy's beer.

I tense, feeling Ally grab my arm even tighter as the circle around us goes quiet. Suddenly, the frat guys around us just start
cheering
.

Wait, what?

Bewildered, Ally and I watch as a bunch of them crowd around Liam, slapping his back, shaking his hand, and even pouring him a fresh beer.

"What the
hell
was that all about?" I ask him as the bros start to disperse back into the crowd and the music starts up again.

Liam, looking more than a little smug, shrugs sheepishly; "I was a jock at college, guys" he grins at Ally and I; "I guess I speak the language."

We crack up before I snag his arm and drag him into the dancing crowd.

Chapter 21

Ellie

Ally apparently knows when to bug off, and goes off on her own as Liam pulls me close and we start to dance.

The whole thing is just surreal. Here I am, the book-nerd, the virgin, the wallflower, at some crazy college frat party dancing with the hot guy. And beyond all that, I’m
loving
it. And while part of me is still hanging on to the whole hangup of this being “wrong”, I can’t help but wonder
why
that is?

So we’re different ages; so
what?
Yes, whats happening between us has an element of scandal to it given our positions as student and teacher, but even as
hot
as it is, it’s not something
dirty
- at least, not in that way. I can’t help how I feel, and this isn’t some “lust” thing where I’m just swept up by the first guy I sleep with and letting myself get carried away with the whole older man fantasy. I mean, I’d had a crush on Liam Martin since school started, before I even knew what that crush really meant. Yeah, I was introducing him to best friend with a
mask
on and a fake name, and when I looked at our relationship or whatever this thing was through that particular lens it seemed a bit tarnished.
 

Beyond that of course was that Liam was my damn college english professor. I had pretty open-minded parents, But I had a pretty hard time picturing them giving the go-ahead on a forty year old man having a romantic relationship with their eighteen year old college freshman daughter.

Liam’s arms move around me then, pulling me close, and I close my eyes and sink back into him as we sway to the music of the party. "Penny for your thoughts?" His voice is deep in my ear, and I grin and turn in his arms.

"Nothing, I'm just-" I look up into his dark, piercing eyes, losing myself for a moment; "I'm just having a wonderful time with you, that's all."

"If there was any way for me to make this normal, baby-”

"I know." I hug him tightly and feel him kiss the top of my head.

"So, what'd you think of Ally?” I pul back and grin up at him, trying to lighten the mood.

Liam rolls his eyes and laughs; "She's- she's
everything
I could have hoped for; she's hilarious, Ellie. Hang on to that one; good friends are rare."

The music kicks up then, and we start to dance more, moving closer and hotter together. Liam’s turning me around and pulling me back into him, and as we move our hips together and grind together with the beats, I suddenly bite my lip as I feel something
hard
poking me from beneath his makeshift toga.

"Penny for
your
thoughts, Professor?” I turn my head and stick my tongue out at him as I push my ass back into his erection.

Liam smiles at me as he leans close; "I was thinking about someone's promise of letting me get a peep under that toga at that sweet little pussy tonight if I played my cards right."

I blush and he kisses my neck; "So,
am
I playing them right?"

"Oh, you're playing them
very
right." I turn and grab his hand; "Should we head back to the your place?” I wink wickedly at him. “Or my dorm?”

I start to pull him towards the door when he stops, pulling me back. "We could also stay
here
,” he says, arching an eyebrow at me suggestively.

I feel a little flutter in my stomach. I’ve never hooked up with anyone at a frat party before; well,
obviously.
I don't even know how that works, actually. I blush then and roll my eyes at myself. Okay, so before Liam, I hadn't ever hooked up with
anyone
;
any
where.

I bite my lip and look up into his eyes, feeling that tingling tug of desire the way I always do around him; "I- I don't know how-"

"I do." He squeezes my arm and grins as starts to pull me towards the stairs; "Follow me."

Okay, I’ve been to about two parties before, briefly, and I’ve always been the one giggling like an immature little prude whenever I saw couples sneaking away upstairs in the middle of one. It just always seemed so cliche, like something out of a movie. But there’s
nothing
cliched about how turned on I am as Liam leads me to the stairs. Besides that, no one really pays us any mind at all; that is, until I suddenly catch Ally staring at me with a big shit-eating grin on her face from the other side of the room. I blush and stick my tongue out at her, before Liam pulls me up the stairs.

*****

I’ve lost my virginity to Liam almost a month before, though somehow, as we step into the dark bedroom upstairs, my heart is pounding like it’s my first time.

But, as the door closes behind us, sealing us back alone away from the crowds and questions, it’s just
us
. And then I feel my nervousness drop away like it'd never even been there. I feel confident then, when it’s just Liam and I. No matter the questions and looks from other people or the multitude of reasons why we can’t - or at least
shouldn't
- be together, up here alone we’re in our own world.

Confidence and desire coursing through me then, I bite my lip and shove him back onto the bed, feeling my pulse jump as I move towards him. I’ve had all of two sips of beer, so I’m drunk or anything. But I feel alive in the way he looks at me like I’m some sort of sexual goddess.

With my eyes locked onto him, I slowly undo the tie at the front of my bed-sheet toga, before letting the whole thing drop to my feet in a white linen puddle.