Teacher's Pets [Unlikely Bedfellows 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

Her conservative attire caused disappointed gazes on some faces, but—she was surprised to see—approval on Beau’s face. She tossed her coat over the back of the office chair behind her desk. The bell rang. All business now, she began lecturing. Soon, lost in the topic of interactions in the inner city as opposed to the suburbs, she strolled from one side of the room to the other.

Twenty minutes into the fifty-five-minute session, she said, “Put away your notes and take out paper and pen.” She waited through groans and whispered comments that surely the bitch wasn’t having another test.
Yes, the bitch is.

“I have just expanded upon your reading assignment from last night. Now, list five influences on urban living, particularly in inner cities, and five that affect the suburbs, and explain why they enhance or restrict interaction. You have thirty minutes. Leave your papers on the desk before you leave and I will return Friday’s graded test.”

There were more moans of displeasure throughout the room, but she paid them no mind. Within ten minutes, people came forward to drop off their work. They would be ones who wouldn’t be back—they had been caught up in her experiment with clothing last week, but they didn’t want an educational experience.

Leah tried to hide her disappointment when Beau Johnson placed his paper on the desk after only fifteen minutes. He couldn’t have done as well as before, not in that short amount of time.

She handed him his test from the day before. “I’m sorry today’s work won’t be as good as last week’s. Your tests have really surprised me.”

He smiled, and the room of students faded to nothing. He was handsome and very well built. She glanced down. He had big hands. She loved for a man to have big hands.

“Don’t count me out yet.” He took the paper she held out to him but didn’t take his eyes off her. Then raising his brows as if in question, he left. She followed him with her eyes. Suddenly, with his exit, the oxygen left the room. She almost gasped for air.

“Dr. Morris?”

Shaken, she turned to face one of the few women in the course. “I’m sorry.” Leah quickly consulted her seating chart, recalling the girl by picturing where she sat in the room. “Janice, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

Leah felt the girl’s gaze while she searched for her previous test.

“That was a great blouse last week. The see-through one.”

“Yes, I knew which blouse you meant. Thanks.”

“Where did you get it, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Years ago, when Leah was a student, she never would have asked a professor anything so personal. But the social change in the last decade had affected more than politics and the war, it had lowered all the barriers across status. Leah didn’t like it or dislike it. The culture change had become a force of nature once it started.

“I don’t mind at all. I found it in a little boutique in Chicago. I’m not sure where you’d find it here.” While the town population expanded greatly during the school sessions, Herrisville, Virginia, was basically built for the spending power of college students, which was to say not high-end shops that carried specialized see-through blouses.

“Oh. That’s too bad. I don’t suppose you would loan it to me sometime…?”

Leah smiled. “I don’t suppose I would. In fact, at this moment, that blouse is well hidden in my closet. I was trying out an experiment last week. I don’t normally dress like that. The tests were the other half of the experiment and they will remain the same.”

“The tests were an experiment, too?” Janice laughed. “In what? A way to reduce the number of students in the class? You succeeded.”

“Well, hang in there, Janice. The people we end up with will make a much better class.”

“We’ll see,” the girl said and left.

Curiosity won out. While waiting for the others to finish, she found Beau Johnson’s paper. He had listed six influencers for inner city interaction and two stressors. His discussion of the influencers on suburban life was thorough and correct. He had earned another one hundred.

How?
She knew he had reacted viscerally to the sexy outfits and seemed to show approval for her conservative dress. But when it came to testing, neither her sexy outfits nor her conservative ones made a difference. No matter what, he maintained his cool. He was inured to whatever feminine wiles she possessed. She could never—
would
never—develop a personal relationship with him, but she liked to think she made an impression on people. The other night she had appreciated his ability to compartmentalize, but she didn’t appreciate his being able to do it to
her
. The thought left her a little depressed.

“Dr. Morris?”

She recognized the voice, though he’d hardly spoken ten words all the previous week. The tingle that ran down her spine told her who had entered the room.
Beau.
“Yes?”

“I hope I’m not stepping too far out of line, but I wanted to come back and say how glad I am that you’re dressed a little more conservatively. I was afraid every day last week you’d be mobbed before you reached your car.”

“I didn’t seem to affect you that way,” she said, a little pouty.

He chuckled. “Were you trying to?”

She turned, but one glance at his handsome face sent warning spears of lust to her pussy. She stared over his shoulder, lest she lose herself in his amazing gray eyes. “Of course not,” she lied.

“So that’s how you often dress for class?”

She said nothing. Breathing became difficult and desire started her juices flowing. Her libido in full swing. She’d be rubbing his leg right now if she were a cat.

“Because if you were trying to distract me so I’d do badly on a test, it won’t work. I’ve spent two tours in ‘Nam. When I have to protect myself, I don’t distract easily.”

“Do you feel the need to protect yourself in my class, Mr. Johnson?”

“Oh, hell, yes, ma’am. I sure do.”

“From what?”

He fingered the collar of her blouse, so close to where the blood pounded at the pulse point in her neck.

“From you, maybe.”

She smiled to herself. “So you are attracted to me? You’re not…say, attracted to men?”

He laughed outright, a full, open laugh. “No, ma’am.” He looked her directly in the eyes, a trait she’d always admired in a man, and smiled, showing his dimples. “I definitely like women.” Then he turned and left.

The aroma of arousal filled her nostrils as she took a deep breath. Student or not, she had to have him or die trying.

* * * *

Beau ran up the mountain trail trying and failing to erase the feel of Leah Morris’s shoulders under his fingers. She was soft and smooth with supple curves, and he wanted to take her clothes off instead of subtly touching the collar of her blouse. But he hadn’t made a move because even in her subdued clothing he felt a strange sense of protectiveness towards her. Why? He didn’t have a fucking clue.

He ducked under a low-hanging branch and stopped at the back door to stretch before going inside the cabin just outside town that Steve’s grandfather owned and was renting them. It was convenient to school but far enough away to be separate from all the college antics. They were far beyond that nonsense.

“Where you been?” Steve Hardin asked. He sat at the kitchen breakfast bar, chemistry books spread around him.

“Running.”

“School only just started and you already have female trouble?”

“What makes you say that?” Beau took a sports drink from the refrigerator and took a healthy swig.

“You never run unless some woman has screwed with your mind.” Steve tapped his pencil on the counter edge.

“It’s not like that.” But he’d like it to be more like that. “It’s my sociology professor. She’s hotter than hot. Well, you know. You saw her last week. I’m having trouble paying attention.”

“Your dick is at attention instead, huh?” Steve laughed. “Why don’t you switch classes? You only need an elective in any of the arts or social sciences to graduate.”

Yeah, why don’t you switch?
But then he remembered that damn see-through blouse and the minishorts from last week. Hell, when he closed his eyes at night he saw orange with white dots clouding his mind. It had taken every bit of strength and determination he had in him last week to pay attention to the lectures. He remembered her strange comment that afternoon about his test scores.

“She’s got something in mind for me.”

Steve widened his eyes and made kissing noises. Beau shook his head and chuckled. “Asshole.”

“You sure you’re not exaggerating? You haven’t had a date since the second week we were home from ‘Nam. And that’s been ten months, two weeks, and five days.”

Beau wiped his forehead with the hem of his tee shirt and sat across from Steve. “I had a date the
third
week we were home. Remember those twins we met visiting my dad in Cleveland?”

Steve’s face took on a lecherous expression. “How could I not? We had a three-day orgy at that no-tell motel.”

Beau sighed. “That was before they told us they only wanted to see how baby-killers fucked.”

Steve shrugged. “Well, they found out. Just like the Goddamn motherfuckers who ran off to Canada and the ones who risked our lives with their riots and protests.”

Beau took another gulp of the orange drink. “Don’t hold back on your opinions, now.”

Steve laughed. “So what else about this broad has your dick in a twist?”

“I don’t know. A feeling I have.” Beau stood and tossed the empty drink bottle in the trash. “I’m going to shower. What are we having for dinner?”

“Spaghetti with my mother’s secret sauce.”

Beau made a lip-smacking noise. “Have I told you lately how happy I am that I made friends with a nice Italian boy whose mama thought he should learn how to cook?”

“You tell me every time I make mom’s sauce, dickhead. Get out of the kitchen. You’re smelling the joint up, and I have studying to do.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Beau said good-naturedly as he walked down the hall, pulling his tee shirt off at the same time.

“Hey!” Steve shouted. “What’s this woman’s name again? I’m gonna look her up in the catalogue.”

“Morris,” Beau called back. “Dr. Leah Morris.”

* * * *

Steve wrinkled his brow.
Leah Morris.
The name sounded familiar.
Leah. Leah.
That was a Jewish name, wasn’t it? Growing up in New Jersey in a strictly Catholic family structure, he’d had little chance of meeting any Jews. It wasn’t until he’d gone to college the first time, in Ohio, that he was exposed to a whole new world.

He’d joined a fraternity and taken up party-living with more than a passion. Beau, one of Steve’s fraternity brothers, had led the way, and Steve became a faithful follower. He still remembered the party at a neighboring sorority house the night he lost his virginity. Sex had been a taboo subject in his New Jersey house, where one practically had to make the sign of the cross while going from room to room because his mother hung crucifixes above every doorway. But in Ohio the sexual revolution had already started. Steve fit right in.

Steve snapped his fingers. “Leah
Morris
!” Jeez, he hadn’t thought of her in years. She’d been a nice girl but a little out of place for the changing 1960s. Mousy, quiet. She’d seemed lonely. He struck up a conversation with her in an English class, just to be nice. Before he knew it, he’d asked her out a couple of times and found he liked her. Really liked her. Once she was comfortable, she talked and laughed and made jokes. She was intelligent and considerate. Steve found something else in Leah he’d never known, a friend who was a girl. He didn’t have to pretend with her. Or perform.

“No way it’s the same person.” Steve picked up his pencil and started reading, making notes in the margin of his text. Somehow, through the maze of mols and reagents, his mind kept returning to the image Beau had described of a half-dressed instructor pacing from one side of the room to the next as she lectured, displaying her body in a flagrant manner. She must be driving the male students crazy. The Leah Morris he’d known never would have acted like that.

“But you’ve changed in those years. Why not her?”

“Who’re you talking to?” Beau asked. Barefoot and wearing faded jeans, his hair glistening with droplets of water, he picked up an apple from a bowl on the counter and bit into it.

“Myself. I was just wondering if it was possible your sexy teacher could be a woman I dated once back at Eastern Ohio.”

“You’re kidding. You knew Leah Morris?”

Steve said, “I knew
a
Leah Morris.”

“No shit. Well, you’ve seen this one. About five nine, blonde, shape like an hourglass.”

As much as he tried, Steve couldn’t bring Leah’s face into his mind’s focus. He vaguely pictured a slight girl with thin brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and glasses. She was smart but no looker. “Don’t think it’s the same person.”

Beau grinned. “Good for me. Too bad for you.”