Professor With Benefits: A Teacher Student Romance (Beta Brothers #3) Read online

  I knew better, though. Still waters, as they say.

  The fact that he and Nina had become inseparable was proof enough that he wasn’t the slap-happy Labrador he pretended to be in impolite company. But I could also tell by his eyes that he knew what it was like to feel pain, and that made me feel drawn to him in a way that I’m sure was a relief for Nina as much as it was for me.

  After all, sucking up to my cousin’s temporary boyfriends had never been my favorite hobby. Then again, something told me Carter wasn’t temporary. If anything, I’d guess he was the opposite. It was hard to imagine someone becoming a fixture in my life faster than he had, anyway, and even harder to imagine someone making Nina happier than he did.

  “That’s them,” he said to Logan, his eyes staying on whatever was outside.

  Logan set the yellow Skittles bottle on his desk and stood up. “I thought you told them to pull around back?”

  Carter shot him a look and squeezed Nina’s shoulder on his way to the door, making something in my stomach flip. I don’t know why. I wasn’t cross-eyed with want for him or anything, and it certainly wasn’t the cutest acknowledgement he’d spared for her tonight, but there was something about it.

  It was so subtle and yet so…everything.

  I mean, I knew what it was like to be wanted, to be desired. I knew what it was like to fuck a stranger, to have a warm mouth between my legs. Yet there was something deliciously unattainable about that shoulder squeeze. I loved how he was clearly about to leave the room for, like, two seconds but still needed to get that touch in. Like he charged himself through her electricity.

  I don’t know. It seemed so…united or something. And definitely more meaningful than a quick fuck or a stolen kiss. Admittedly, though, it did strike me as odd that it would be something so borderline platonic that made me jealous.

  Then again, it wasn’t Carter I was jealous of. It was that feeling of being seen in company, that feeling of not being allowed to feel alone.

  Maybe I longed for it because I had that once. Or perhaps I longed for it because I suspected I’d never have it again. Either way, I found myself wishing it wasn’t so hard to be happy for people who have things you want. Especially when they deserve them the way Nina, for example, deserved Carter’s love and attention.

  “Where are you guys going?” Nina asked as the boys moved for the door.

  “Jungle juice delivery,” Carter said. “We’ll be right back.”

  “Not empty handed, I hope!” I called after them, but I couldn’t tell if they heard.

  “Not sure I love that the jungle juice was made off-site,” Nina mumbled, crossing her tan legs towards me.

  “Yeah,” I joked. “Terrible to not know what’s in it.”

  “Touché,” she said, no doubt realizing the ridiculousness of what she’d said.

  Across the room, Zoey was lounging on Logan’s bed, flipping through a few stapled pages. “Is Logan just an asshole or am I the only schmuck with Friday classes?”

  “I have a two o’clock Friday,” Nina said. “But it’s only a discussion.”

  Zoey groaned and crossed her sunflower boots, so they hung off the side of the bed. “Friday is literally my busiest day.”

  “You’d think you’d know better,” I said. “Now that you’re a big bad sophomore.”

  She scoffed. “Yeah, well, apparently I learned nothing freshman year.”

  “You can always tweak things around the first week,” Nina said. “It’s not like anything’s set in stone.”

  Zoey kept shaking her head at the papers until the abandoned vodka on Logan’s desk caught her eye.

  “There’s nothing you can do about it now,” I said, screwing the cap on the orange bottle and tossing it her way.

  Her eyes popped wide like she was surprised I’d read her mind.

  “Take it from me,” I said, wise old senior owl that I was. “You don’t want to mess with your schedule when you’re more than two drinks deep.”

  Zoey groaned like she couldn’t even remember that many drinks ago.

  I crossed my legs. “Have some jungle juice instead and worry about it tomorrow.”

  She nodded and slouched down against the pillows bunched behind her.

  “And stop looking at Logan’s course schedule.”

  “Yeah,” Nina added. “It’s making everyone feel like shit.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Zoey said, draining the rest of the vodka I tossed her before gasping for breath like she’d been given antifreeze. “I feel great.”

  Nina laughed. “Given up on the cowboy face altogether, I see.”

  All six of our eyes pinged towards the door as it moved, as if a haunted draft were blowing it open slowly. A moment later, a guy with dark stubble and a black leather jacket stepped into Logan’s room, making it feel small and unstylish and too warm all of a sudden.

  “Kellan!” Nina said, jumping up to give him a hug.

  My eyes dropped to the guy’s expensive shoes and crawled upwards, admiring the fit of his dark wash jeans and his jacket, which fit him like a glove.

  His blue eyes bent into crescents as he hugged Nina back, and there was something familiar about them even though I was positive I’d never seen him before.

  Zoey lifted a hand in his direction- as if she’d met him once or twice- and as for me, I don’t think I was drooling, but I wasn’t moving either. I felt too startled by the sudden appearance of this mysterious frat boy and his immaculate McDreamy-style stubble that looked like it was born to tickle my neck or the soft flesh of my inner thighs or…

  “Sadie, this is Kellan,” Nina said as I slid my hoodie off, deciding that male attention was suddenly very high on my list of priorities. “Carter’s older brother.”

  No shit, I thought, smoothing down my little black dress as I stood to shake his hand.

  His eyes fell down my body like I hoped they would, lingering shamelessly on my curves before lifting back to my face again. His gaze was sharp and sober, and everything about his wide stance told me he wasn’t here to try his luck with sorority girls. But somehow, that gave me hope.

  ’Cause I knew I was different.

  And if he liked different, he was going to absolutely love me.

  F O U R

  - Kellan -

  I wasn’t expecting her.

  Something told me she usually stirred that reaction in people, but that didn’t change the fact that I felt speechless the moment she came into view.

  Her dark green eyes were the first thing that struck me. They were almost the color of mud. Moss-covered mud. And they stuck out in the center of her pale face, which was made up of small, delicate features that seemed in stark contrast to how striking her dark hair and dress were. How severe.

  And yet, I recognized her. Or perhaps something in her? I’m not sure.

  All I knew was that the air shifted when she stood up, and I was overwhelmed with this feeling that I was about to meet someone I might want to know.

  It was odd.

  In fact, the only thing that would make it any odder was if she felt it, too.

  I tried to guess when I took her hand, shaking it as we locked eyes, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Only that she was. That she had been. That she was unlikely to stop anytime soon.

  “Nice to meet you,” she said, crossing her pale legs at the ankles in a way that made my stomach clench.

  “Sadie’s my cousin,” Nina said. “I can’t believe you guys haven’t met.”

  “Clearly you and Carter spend too much time thinking about yourselves,” I said, not letting go of Sadie’s soft hand, which was warmer than I was expecting it to be.

  When her grip on my fingers slipped away, my gaze stayed put, though I knew full well I was at risk of making her uncomfortable. But I didn’t care. It was like I’d been flipping channels for months and finally found something I wanted to watch…something I wanted to binge on. Something I wanted to devour.

  “She’s a senior,” Nina added.

  My stomach dropped, and the ground threatened to swallow me up. Had I really been so drawn in by her alluring darkness that I’d forgotten she was probably a student? What the hell was I thinking?

  Nothing, that’s what.

  I wasn’t thinking anything at all except for holy shit who is this smoke-show?

  Fuck.

  “I’m going to get some jungle juice,” Zoey said, swinging her boots off the bed.

  “I’ll come with you,” Nina said, her eyes narrowing as they bounced between me and Sadie like she’d caught us passing notes.

  “What?” Sadie asked. “Why are you making that face?”

  Nina clenched her jaw in my direction one last time and glared at me as if her cousin was a cookie jar I shouldn’t unscrew.

  Fortunately, unscrewing her was furthest thing from my mind. “What?” I asked, daring her to say whatever was weighing down the tip of her tongue.

  Sadie slumped back on the futon when her cousin left the room. “What was that about?”

  “No idea,” I said, taking a seat on the opposite end of the pathetic excuse for a couch.

  “It was like she was trying to warn me there or something.”

  “You’re fine,” I said, stealing a glance at the place where her pale thighs peeked out of her short black dress. “I only suck blood after midnight.”

  Her mossy eyes found the clock by the door. “Oh good,” she said. “I won’t have to wait much longer then.”

  I didn’t know what to make of her reaction. It was so nonchalant, as if she wouldn’t be at all nervous to let me sink my teeth into her delicate neck. And while I’d never fantasized about such a thing before, the thought delighted me.

  “How come I’ve never seen you around?” she asked, studying me.

  I pulled my coat off and leaned back, glad I’d gone with my Smokey the Bear tee instead of something with a collar. “You must not have been looking.”

  She squinted at me but held my gaze.

  “You must like what you see, though. Can’t remember the last time anyone studied me so hard.”

  She blushed and looked away. “You should talk.”

  I hadn’t expected her to blush. She seemed so unflappable. “Yeah, sorry.”

  Her eyes pulled back to mine. “For what?”

  “For staring at you like I’ve never seen a beautiful woman before.”

  Skepticism shrouded her face as she scoffed.

  “What?”

  “I take it you’re not a student?” She angled her body towards me.

  “Not unless you have something you want to teach me.” I flashed my eyebrows at her against my better judgment. But I couldn’t help it. Her reluctance to accept my flattery intrigued me.

  “I’m sure I don’t.”

  “Shame,” I said, suddenly determined not to tell her I was a teacher. After all, I knew I couldn’t pursue her, but was some harmless flirtation too much to ask? After putting in my contacts and hauling myself out here? Was it so wrong that I wanted to spend the night making this pretty girl smile?

  Sure, I might never have a chance to see what she looked like on her knees with my fist tangled in her raven hair, but I could still get off on staring into her mossy eyes and wondering how they’d look filled with lust.

  So what if it was wrong to want her like that, to think of her like that. As long as I didn’t touch her or make her feel anything but good, I was still respecting both our rights…right?

  Except the whole thing felt ridiculous. I mean, I literally just met her.

  I didn’t know anything about her except her name, the fact that she was a senior, and the fact that one look at her made me unravel in a way I didn’t recognize. Hell, for all I knew, she was a dangerous temptress sent by nefarious parties to make my life impossible.

  Which begged the question, what if she was a dangerous temptress? What if she liked the idea that I might bite her neck at midnight and fuck her up against a wall and never call? There was a chance, right?

  It’s not like she was the kind of girl who came here to meet a frat boy she could take home to her parents. Not a chance. She was too dark, too plotting. Too seductive for any of the boys in this house.

  I could tell that just from looking in her dark eyes, which seemed full of pain. Pain I wanted to take away. Kiss away. Fuck away. Pain I feared would haunt my nightmares. Pain that should’ve made me want to run the other way.

  But it didn’t. It made me want to stay. To stay and never leave this dark princess’s side.

  So I did.

  I stayed to help the mysterious woman in black drink the rest of her vodka rainbow.

  And by the time we devoured every last color, I was hooked.

  Not on Skittles vodka, but on Sadie, the girl with the sharp tongue and the earth-colored eyes.

  The girl with the pale skin who looked like she was born to stay in bed.

  The girl I was about to lose my mind over.

  F I V E

  - Sadie -

  Kellan Montgomery.

  It was like he was made for me. Like I was starring in a Katy Perry music video full of hopeful rejects and the camera kept zooming in on the tall guy in the leather jacket with the ice-blue eyes every time he laughed at my jokes.

  At the same time, he was mixing the signals he was sending me with the same abandon that I was mixing different colors of Skittles vodka, and it was starting to piss me off.

  Intellectually, for example, sparks were flying between us. But physically, he seemed determined to keep his distance, even when I was doing everything in my power to encourage him to do otherwise.

  I even parted my knees ever so subtly just to- I don’t know- see if I could plant the seed in his head that there was a cock-sized gap between my legs. I swear it wasn’t as slutty a gesture as it sounds. I didn’t part my legs wide like a guy or anything. It was only slight. An inch or two. So I could keep my leg flush with his on the futon.

  I shouldn’t have bothered, though. Nina was the only one who noticed, and not only did she glare at me so hard it felt like her mom was in the room, but she didn’t stop until my knees came back together. Brat. So what if she was right? It’s not like I was desperate. I just wanted to feel something besides the Skittles vodka that kept threatening to revisit the back of my throat.

  Seriously, though, I was practically leaning on him, and I couldn’t even get him to put his arm around me.

  And then he touched me.

  It was only a small touch, but it made me embarrassingly happy.

  It happened when I leaned forward to set my drink down. He was still reclining back on the futon beside me when, ever so gently, he laid his hand across my lower back and curled his fingertips across the thin fabric of my dress. It was the same place he might touch me if he were to lead me through a door, except his hand lingered there.

  Goddamn poetry.

  Yes, Kellan. I will go through this door with you into a sinful future where we spend the rest of eternity peeling you out of those dark jeans.

  I exhaled, trying not to make a face like his hand was all I could think about.

  When I looked up, Carter was staring at Kellan so hard I thought I’d been dropped into a dramatic scene from Kung Fu Panda.

  Nina elbowed him a second later, snapping him out of it, but Kellan’s hand disappeared, too, leaving me none the wiser and missing his touch. What did everyone know that I didn’t?

  I needed some air.

  I wasn’t normally like this. Just hornier than I thought, I guess. After all, I hadn’t gotten any since two nights ago when I touched myself to the sound of my landlords screwing down the hall. Sort of shameful behavior, I suppose, but it seemed better than getting frustrated in all the ways.

  We all turned towards the knocking sound before a familiar face popped around the door. “Anyone have some papers?” Austin asked, his eyes pinging around Logan’s room. “Sadie.” He lifted his chin in my direction. “Hey.”

  I felt my face go red at the acknowledgement and didn’t say anything. Not that I should be embarrassed. He clearly wasn’t. It wasn’t exactly a mind-blowing night we shared, but maybe it would’ve been if there hadn’t been quite so much Ice House involved.

  “You want to get down on this?” He lifted a joint- and his eyebrows- in my direction.

  The liquor in me nodded.

  Kellan grabbed my hand as I stood up and fixed his eyes on me. Was he seriously asking me to not go? Who the fuck did he think he was?

  I followed Austin into the hallway, not giving a fuck that no one else wanted in. Even better. Zoey was super innocent and just went inside herself when she smoked, and Nina was a special occasion pot smoker. Which was fine, but I doubted my first frat party of senior year was enough of an occasion for her.

  “Kellan,” Austin said, his eyes rising over my shoulder. “You here as a Beta or a narc?”

  I turned around and my eyes climbed up Kellan’s lean torso, wondering if he was as sober and solid on his feet as he seemed or if I was simply swaying a bit more heavily than I had been before tasting the rainbow.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said to Austin before looking at me. There was a resigned disappointment in his eyes that felt confusing and unfair.

  “You didn’t have to come,” I said. “You don’t have to smoke.”

  “Neither do you,” he said, the set of his jaw firm.

  “I want to, though.”

  “I know, Sadie.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat that rose when he said my name. There was a sweetness to his tone, as if he’d already forgiven me for being a drunk asshole with lousy judgment. It was both freeing and infuriating. “I’m not a child, you know.”

  He laughed. “You’ve made it quite clear tonight that you’re a woman.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, a rush of defensiveness storming through my chest.

  He kept his eyes on me, through me. Like I couldn’t hide anywhere under his gaze.