Professor Cline Revealed (The Professor #1) (7 page)

Emmalynn

I called Victoria the next afternoon while I was on the bus and told her we needed to get together. I was still reeling from my encounter with the professor the day before, and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react or respond.  A part of me said to fuck it all and go with it, but another part was throwing up red flags. What teacher, let alone a professor, would pursue a student? It was creepy and hot all at the same time, which made me feel like I was losing my mind.

I walked into her apartment around six that night, carrying a bag of Chinese take-out. I figured if I was going to barge in on her, I could at least provide dinner.

“Hey!” I yelled from the hall. “You really need to start locking your door when you come home. Any crazy person could just walk in.” I set the bag on the counter and looked over at Victoria who was standing over a baking dish. “V, what are you doing?”

She turned and looked at me. “What? I’m on my period. I need chocolate,” she stated as she licked chocolate batter off a spoon. “Brownies will be done soon. What did you bring?” she asked, bounding over to me.

I smiled. “Chicken lo mein, General Tso’s chicken, and egg rolls.”

“Music to my ears,” she said as she pulled out the containers and grabbed two plates. “So, I’m highly interested in this news you have to tell me, but first, how are you doing?”

She stopped what she was doing and looked at me with concern. You’d never know, but she was overly affectionate and took on the role of mom in our little group. It was annoying at times, but I loved her big heart.

“I’m good, really. I don’t want you to worry about me. I can honestly say I only had one instance where I checked my phone to see if I had gotten a text from him. It hurt, but I’ll get over it. I mean, seriously,
he’s
over it. There’s no reason for me to dwell on it.”

Victoria walked to me and grabbed me in an embrace. “You truly are stronger than you appear, you know that?” she told me as she pulled back with a smile. “Okay, so tell me this news you had to share.” She grabbed her plate full of food and moved out of the way so I could make mine.

I sat at the table with her after I made my plate. I didn’t know where to start, so I just blurted it out. “Mr. Sexy Eyes is my professor.”

Her eyes widened as she stopped chewing. “No freaking way,” she said with a mouth full of food.

I laughed and nodded.

“Holy shit. Seriously? That is unreal. Was it awkward? Man, it had to have been. Oh, my God. Did you tell Becky yet?” she rambled.

I chuckled at all her questions. “No, I haven’t told Becky yet and yes, it was awkward. What made it more awkward was when he called me into his office after class.”

“Oh, my God. Don’t leave me in suspense. Spit it out already!” she ordered, all giddy.

“He called me into his office and propositioned me,” I told her. I bit the inside of my cheek and waited for her to reply as she looked at me with her mouth hanging open.

“Are you serious?” she asked, finally. I nodded. “What exactly did he say?”

I looked down at my food, not being able to hide the grin as I replayed the scene in my head. He was so close to me. If I closed my eyes and thought hard enough, I could still smell him.

“Hello?” she said, annoyed.

I looked up at her and laughed. “Sorry.” I gave her a play-by-play of what happened and she looked at me with her mouth open again, but that time she had food in it. “So you can see why I wanted to talk to someone about it. He’s so… intimidating. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I mean, you’ve seen him. He’s flipping gorgeous, but I don’t want to get into trouble. And he’s trouble with a capital T.”

She finished chewing her food and set her fork down. “He said all of that to you.” I nodded. “Okay, listen to me. If I were in your shoes I’d be freaked out, too. But doing the things in life that are the most forbidden are the most exciting and adventurous. Just look at Eve. She ate the apple, she was adventurous.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “She’s also the reason we have periods,” I deadpanned.

She laughed, “Shit, you’re right. That was a bad metaphor to use. But seriously, do all the women in the world a favor and go to dinner. If he told you not to stress about it then don’t. I’m sure he doesn’t want to get caught, either. I know he’s your professor, but you can’t help who you’re attracted to. And you guys
did
meet before school even started.”

She had a point, but I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do. After I’d left school for the day, I’d told myself I’d just leave the building after class on Wednesday. I wouldn’t stay behind and wait to see when he wanted to meet. Avoiding problems was obviously my thing, but the professor didn’t seem like someone I could avoid.

We ate our food in silence while thoughts ran through my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about him: his unruly, sandy-blonde hair; his scruffy, chiseled chin; and his pouty lips. The way he called me ‘Ms. Blake’ in that deep tone of his was enough to give me chills of excitement.

One dinner. I can always leave after if it isn’t something I want.

“Okay,” I blurted. “You’re right. I
can
do something adventurous, but I just have to be careful about it. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to want anything serious, so I highly doubt it would be an ongoing thing anyway.”

Victoria smiled. “Do you have any idea how jealous Becky is going to be when she finds out?” she asked as she got up from the table. “Hang on, I’m going to call her and tell her to come over.”

I rolled my eyes and laughed. It looked like I would be staying for a while.

~*~

I was a nervous wreck as I got ready the next morning. I felt like I was in high school again, trying to dress nice for the boys to notice me, but I had no idea what to wear. I didn’t want to overdo it, so I went with something comfortable. I put on a thin-strapped, soft pink dress. It scooped low in the front and had buttons in the middle going down to the waistline where there was a string tie to cinch it around my small waist. I figured it would be appropriate for school and for going out to dinner later that night, but only time would tell.

“Are you all right?” Melanie asked as she was getting her coffee.

I looked over at her and smiled. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

She shook her head and shrugged. “You’ve just been tapping your foot since you sat down.” She looked down at my leg then back up at me.

I crossed my legs at the ankle and fixed my dress. I’d talked to her a little bit about Mason—Professor Cline—the previous night, but not in too much detail. I felt bad for not telling her everything, but I honestly didn’t want to be judged. I knew she would think going to dinner with him would be a bad idea, and I really didn’t want to hear it.

“I know I’ve already told you this, but if you need to talk, I’m here.”

I gave her a reassuring smile. “I know, Mel. Everything is good, I promise. I actually feel better now that I’m not there anymore.” I didn’t need to elaborate. She knew I was talking about Tim and everything I said was true. It had only been three days, but I was actually feeling better about myself, not living there anymore. It was like living in that relationship had been suffocating me. I refused to mention that my attraction to Mason had anything to do with why I was handling everything so well. He was the perfect distraction for that part of my life.

“Have you called Mom?”

“No. Not yet,” I answered, scrunching my nose. “I honestly don’t want to make the call. You know how she is. If I call her and tell her and she says I told you so, I swear I will threaten not to come home for the holidays.”

Melanie laughed. “Then you better
not
call and tell her because you know she will.”

I laughed as I stood from the table and grabbed my things. “Thanks, Mel. I really do appreciate it.” I walked over to her and gave her a hug before heading toward the door to go to class.

As I got to school, I went into the building and fast walked to the room. I had ten minutes before class started and I wanted to be in my seat before he came in.

I opened the door and my eyes went straight to his desk. He was already there, looking over some papers. As I shut the door, his eyes turned up to meet mine and goosebumps rose on my arms. I swear if he had super powers my dress would have melted off with his fiery gaze. Biting the inside of my cheek, I made my way to his desk. My face was flaming so bad I could feel the perspiration on my forehead. It would officially be the hardest part of every class, signing that damn attendance sheet.

I looked him over as I approached his desk. He was dressed in another charcoal grey suit and his eyebrows were pinched as if he was concentrating too hard. He was better at avoiding than I was. It was like I couldn’t stop looking at him.

Grabbing the pen, I leaned down to write my name on the attendance sheet. Just as I was done writing, I looked up to see him looking down my dress. His eyes met mine with a smirk, then he averted them to write something on the paper he had in front of him.

This is going to be so much harder than I thought.

I walked away from his desk and made my way to the same seat I had on Monday. I passed by the girl who’d given me the stink-eye and noticed she was giving me dirty looks.

What the fuck?
I turned away and took a deep breath as I sat in my seat. I didn’t need to worry about anyone else except myself. If she didn’t like me, that was her problem.

I started taking my things out of my satchel and glanced up at the clock. We had three minutes to go before he would get up and lock the door. Looking around the room, I noticed it was pretty much full, all except my row, which had a few seats available.
I guess the warning was well received
.

I set up my laptop and opened my notebook when I heard the door open. I looked up to see a cute, shaggy blonde-haired guy dressed in a faded blue t-shirt and jeans with a backpack hanging off of one shoulder. He walked up the steps and made his way down my row, taking the seat one over from me. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before.

I averted my eyes so I didn’t seem like a creeper and busied myself on my laptop when I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I slowly turned toward the guy to see he was looking at me with a smile. I smiled back at him, feeling awkward.

“Hi. Sorry to bother you, but do you have a pen or pencil I can borrow? I left mine in the car.”

I nodded. “Of course.” I picked up my satchel and grabbed one of the ten pens I had in my bag.

I held out my hand and he leaned in and grabbed it. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. My name’s Brian, by the way.”

“I’m Emmalynn, but everyone calls me Emma.”

“Emma. That’s a pretty name.”

I smiled shyly. “Thank you.”

“So, did I miss a lot on Monday?” he asked.

I noticed Mason get up from his desk and head for the door. I looked at the time to see it was eight on the dot. “You weren’t here Monday?” I asked him with a surprised expression. I couldn’t believe someone would miss the first day.

He chuckled lightly. “Yeah, I was sick. I actually couldn’t even get out of bed.” I made a face and he laughed. “Yeah, it was pretty bad.”

“Well, you
did
miss quite a bit. I can email you a copy of the notes I took, if you’d like,” I offered. “But you’ll have to get the syllabus from the professor,” I stated.

He tore a piece of paper from his notebook and wrote something down before sliding it to me. “That would be really great. Thank you,” he replied.

I opened the piece of paper to see he’d written his email address. I smiled at him and nodded as Mason started the lecture.

“Today, I want to start the class by going over a few things I didn’t on Monday,” he began as he took off his jacket and laid it on the desk. “I had a discussion with a second-year student this morning and it brought up some points which you all need to know and understand. I’m not saying any of this to discourage you.” He leaned back on his desk and folded his arms across his chest. “I want all of you to succeed and if you are here, that means you’ve done your research. You know how hard you have to work, but I’m not going to bullshit you. Some of you will have a hard time finding work after you graduate. The industry is flooded, and there are attorneys everywhere,” he stated, looking around the room. “Who in here wants to specialize in criminal defense?”

I raised my hand and looked around the room to see three others doing the same, including the new guy beside me. I lowered my hand and looked at the professor to see him staring directly at me. “In any court room, you need to be aggressive.” He stood up, unfolded his arms and paced the room. “But being a defense attorney, you have to have the balls to go after what you think is right. There are tons of attorneys out there who have no business being in the field because they have no idea what they’re doing. Now, with that being said, I’m going to teach you everything you need to know, but it’s up to you to do that work. My whole reasoning for wanting to become a professor was to make sure there were good, intellectual lawyers out there, but the reality is
you
are the only ones who can make that happen. So, let’s go ahead and get started for the day.”