Against the Rules (4 page)

Chapter Six

Kelly could feel the professor’s body tense under his hand, but he couldn’t see his face.

“I want to order dinner,” Ian said. “What do you want to eat?”

“Three guesses.” Kelly shifted closer against the professor’s body. “And the first two don’t count.”

There was a long pause. “Tell me what you want for dinner.” Ian’s voice was calm and measured. “Or I’ll choose for you, and I can’t guarantee you’ll like it.”

Kelly snorted. If there was a restaurant that delivered to campus, he’d eaten their food at least twice. “I don’t care. I’ll put anything in my mouth.”

“Brat.” Ian pinched Kelly’s side hard enough to sting. There was a rustle of fabric as he pulled out his cell phone and dialed without asking any other questions. “I’d like to place a to-go order.” His voice was low and certain. “An order of pad thai and an order of green curry with beef.”

Thai food. Kelly’s stomach rumbled hungrily. Thai was his favorite. “Mild.” He nudged Ian. “And get an order of spring rolls.”

“The pad thai should be hot,” Ian said. “The curry should be extra spicy.”

Asshole. Kelly frowned. “Mild,” he said again, louder this time. There was no response. He struggled to shift position, turning to look Ian in the eye. “Mild.”

Ian covered the telephone receiver with his hand. “I warned you.”

“Yes, and I appreciate the warning, but—”

“I don’t make idle threats. And I don’t break my promises. If I say I’m going to do something, I follow through.”

“Nice lesson, Professor, but if you order it too spicy I won’t be able to eat anything.”

“Fine.” He moved his fingers off the phone. “Better make the pad thai a medium, and throw in an order of spring rolls.”

It wasn’t Kelly’s preferred order, but it would have to do. He settled back onto the narrow bed as Ian finished making the order and arranging the delivery.

Ian hung up and slipped the phone into his pocket. “They said twenty minutes, but I’ve ordered from this place before—”

Kelly snickered. “Yeah, it’ll be forty and the delivery driver will have lipstick on his collar.”

Ian blinked. “You do like Thai food.”

“Sure.” He didn’t mention that he’d babysat for the delivery driver when he was in high school or that the guy’s girlfriend was one of Kelly’s distant relations. A third cousin twice removed? He couldn’t remember. Faith was a nice girl. “If it’s not too spicy.”

Kicking the professor out of his room—or at least off his bed—for playing games with the food had a whole lot of appeal, but Kelly couldn’t bring himself to shift away from Ian’s warmth. How long had it been since someone had held him without asking for anything more?

Even when he’d been with Nick they hadn’t been a touchy-feely couple. Fuck, the last month they’d been together they’d only seen each other for a quickie or a frott in the room Nick had been renting. They were supposed to have been partners, but they were both too wrapped up in their own shit to see their relationship crumbling around them.

Ian’s fingers tangled in his hair. “You’re thinking about something. Tell me.”

It wasn’t a request. Kelly snorted. “You don’t want to know.” The hand flitting through his hair tensed, strong fingers tugging gently against his scalp. He sighed. “I was thinking about Nick.”

“Your ex.” There was a long pause and then Ian’s hand began moving again, long fingers stroking through silky locks. His muscles were loose. His breathing measured. The only sign that he was bothered by Kelly’s words was an added roughness to his deep voice. “You loved him?”

“I think so.” It had been a young love, soft, gleaming and innocent. Then Kelly’s father had died in the car crash and he’d been the only one left to hold his mother’s hand while the cancer ate away at her insides. After that everything had gone cold.

“He broke up with you, and now he lives down the hall?”

“I broke up with him, and he’d already put his money down on the room.”

“And now he’s with someone else,” Ian said calmly. “Do you regret what you did?”

“Fuck no. Nick and I were fun together, but it was never going to last.” Kelly wriggled in his seat. “Breaking up was the right thing to do. What I needed...” Support, warmth, someone who could be there for him twenty-four hours a day and hold his hand while his mother died. Someone who could hold him hard enough to bruise and make him feel when the rest of the world turned to ice. “Nick couldn’t give it to me.”

“And what do you need now?”

Warmth. Food. Skin-to-skin contact. A job after graduation that didn’t mean working for Halston University for the rest of his life.

He squirmed uncomfortably at the thought. President Aldridge’s job offer was a good one—full-time employment, a nice salary, good benefits—but there were too many strings attached. Too many memories of attending university functions as a kid, racing around in a suit and tie while his mother made nice with the dean.

“I’m fine.” Kelly glanced at the alarm clock on his desk. The shower had taken longer than he’d thought. It was a little before eight o’clock—just two hours until he had to be on duty.

“Want to watch something on my laptop?” he suggested. “We could stream a movie.”

“You don’t have homework to do?”

“You going to keep asking me that?”

The professor shrugged. “I’d hate to be a distraction.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if that were the case,” Kelly said. “And I’m not an English major. I’m a creative writing major, so this semester I’m taking a class on children’s fiction and a seminar in book publishing. I finished my senior thesis last week, and I’m just waiting to get my edits back from my advisor. The only thing you’re distracting me from is my sorry ass life—”

“I get the point.” Ian held up his free hand to ward off any further discussion. “I shouldn’t have asked. You clearly have everything under control.”

“Damn straight.” Kelly growled. His calendar was color coded and his assignments always got turned in ahead of time. Except for his nights at Ale Mary’s, he always played by the rules. His entire life was under control. It was structured, ordered. So why did he feel like he was spinning off his orbit? “So, how about that movie?”

After a few minutes’ negotiation they settled on an action thriller and watched things blow up for the rest of the night—only pausing to collect the Thai food from the dewy-eyed delivery guy at the door.

They watched the movie while they ate, adding their own cheesy lines to the action on-screen. Ian had a surprisingly sharp sense of humor and—even better—a warm laugh that bubbled through Kelly like good champagne. It wasn’t kinky or rough, but it was...nice.

Around ten o’clock Ian left for the night. Kelly pulled on long pants and double-checked the contents of his emergency kit—a backpack that included condoms, Band-Aids, a screwdriver and everything else he might need as the residential assistant on duty. His first call came ten minutes later and he had to hustle to get across campus.

One call turned into two, and he spent the next few hours unclogging toilets and letting locked-out undergraduates back into their rooms. He broke up a fight on the quad at midnight before reassuring a nervous sophomore that her boyfriend was an asshole and she really did deserve better.

At two o’clock in the morning he finally fell into bed, completely exhausted, and waited for the nightmares to come. Nothing. Instead, the scent of Ian’s cologne surrounded him, clinging to his sheets like a whore who’d found her first trick of the night. He smelled like well-oiled leather and sex.

Kelly’s libido thrummed excitedly. He reached down to palm his growing erection through his boxers. One stroke, two. He closed his eyes and pictured Ian back in bed with him.

“Lie still.” Firm hands would press him back against the bed, holding him in place as Ian stripped Kelly’s clothes off.

Kelly’s fingers slipped beneath his shorts, stroking himself once, twice. Would Ian give head? God, Kelly hoped so. He let out a small groan as he imagined it was Ian’s hot mouth moving against his erection instead of his hand. In his mind’s eye, he could see deep-hued skin rippling beside his pale flesh.

“Say my name.” Ian wouldn’t give up control for an instant.

“Ian.” Kelly’s hips bucked eagerly. “Please, Ian. Please.”

“That’s right.” Ian’s voice would be warm and rough. “Beg me.”

Kelly grabbed desperately for the lube he kept beside his bed, undoing the cap and squirting some out into his free hand. The bottle fell onto the bed beside him as he reached down to cup his balls and tease his hole. “Beg me,” the voice repeated over and over in his head. “Tell me how much you need it.”

“Please,” Kelly whimpered as his finger edged inside, finding the squishy ball of sensation that made up his prostate. “Give it to me. I need you inside me. I want you. I’ll do anything you want. Please just fuck me.”

Ian would be a fucking tease. Kelly knew it without question. He’d tongue his body, touching him all over, driving him to the edge over and over again without ever letting him find release.

And then—when Kelly couldn’t take it anymore—those firm lips would open and Ian would take him back into his mouth, his high cheeks hollowing out as he sucked Kelly down.

Kelly’s balls tightened and his entire body tensed. When he came it was an eruption that rocked him from the inside as hot liquid spilled across his chest and left him panting.

“Hell.” Kelly let out a low groan, rolling over to find something to clean up with.

That night he slept without the intrusion of nightmares or the assistance of rough sex and alcohol for the first time in almost a year.

It felt damn good.

He wanted more.

Chapter Seven

Ian didn’t have any classes scheduled on campus for Friday, so he usually spent the day grading papers in his apartment. Leave it to the dean to schedule a curriculum meeting in the middle of his “easy” day. Ian frowned as he left the conference room after three hours spent listening to his colleagues put forward their own agendas.

His fingers dipped into his pocket for his cell phone. He checked the screen to see if he’d missed anything while he was locked in departmental purgatory. There was a message from his older brother—probably asking for money, again.

Nothing else.

He should have given his number to Kelly himself. Hell, he should have entered the digits into his phone, but he’d had such a good time the night before he hadn’t thought about it until after he’d gone home and jacked off in the shower.

Slipping on his jacket, he left the economics building and crossed the quad. The one good thing about coming onto campus on Friday was being able to snag lunch on the university’s dime.

He swiped his pass at the cafeteria’s front desk, got a tray and filled his plate with macaroni and cheese, collard greens and fried chicken. Why the cooks thought they could make authentic Southern food in upstate New York was beyond him, but at least it wasn’t Chinese.

He still had nightmares about the cafeteria’s sweet-and-sour chicken.

There was a long table near the front where professors and staff usually sat. The English department had staked their claim near the middle of the table, but Ian found a little space near the far end. He took off his jacket, sat down and dug into the macaroni. Cheese sauce dripped from his fork. He took a bite. It was creamy, peppery and not bad.

“Ian Walter Larkin.” A sharp voice interrupted his thoughts as Marcy Thomas threw herself down in the seat beside him. Her tray rattled. “You’ve been a bad, bad boy.”

“Always.” Ian grinned. He ate some more macaroni. It was actually pretty good. “What did I do this time?”

“It’s what you didn’t do.” The department secretary was a long-legged brunette with curves even a gay man could appreciate, and an overprotective husband who could pass for Thor. “You haven’t said a word about Saturday night. How did things go?”

Saturday night. Ian smiled as he thought about a square jaw, sapphire eyes and a bruised lip begging to be kissed.

“You liked him!” Marcy thumped his arm. “I knew you’d like Charlie. He’s a doll. When are you going to see him next?”

“Charlie?” Ian frowned. It took him a second to link the name to a face, his official date for Saturday night—the man Marcy had been sure was just his type—a timid fellow in a faded blue button-down shirt. “Right.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Charlie and I didn’t exactly hit it off.”

There were plenty of men out there who’d fall for the whole shy, sexy vibe the archivist had given off, but Ian wasn’t one of them. He preferred his men tall, blond and bratty.

Kelly might fight him kicking and screaming every inch of the way, but when he finally had him pinned down against a bed...fuck, it would be worth it.

“You were nice to him, right?” Marcy said. “Charlie just got out of a relationship, and you can be...”

“An asshole?” Professor Sinclair sat down across from him. The tenured professor of economics was a bulky, brutish blowhard. He was a world-class expert on feudal economic systems, but that didn’t help students stay awake in class. His tray was light. He’d eschewed the fried chicken for a plate of greens from the salad bar and a hard-boiled egg.

“New diet?” Ian asked.

“My wife has me on this low-carb thing. She wants me to lose ten pounds by beach season.” Sinclair huffed. “Do you see any beaches around here?”

“I meant rude,” Marcy corrected quickly. “You don’t mean it, but you can come off a little rude.” Her cheeks flushed. Clearly she hadn’t meant to be so blunt. “Students like you anyway. That’s the important part.”

Ian shrugged. “They like anyone who turns their papers back on time and doesn’t read directly from the text.”

Sinclair snorted.

Marcy elbowed the esteemed professor in the side. “So, did you have a good time on Saturday night? Meet someone cute while you were out?”

Cute
wasn’t exactly how Ian would describe Kelly. He’d choose words more like
devastatingly handsome
. If he were feeling poetic then he might call him Prince Charming, perfect with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass.

But definitely not
cute
.

“I met someone at the club,” he finally said when it became clear the secretary wasn’t going to let him blow off the question.

“Do you have anything in common?”

Besides an interest in kinky sex? “Maybe.”

“Will you see him again?”

“Definitely.”

“Good.” With that decided, Marcy started to dig into her lunch. She took a large bite of collard greens and smiled. “I hate to see you alone. You’ve been in town almost two years now. That’s long enough to find a boyfriend—or at least someone to help you get your rocks off. Nights can get awfully cold around here without someone. I don’t want to lose the best tenure candidate our department has just because you want to move back to the city.”

It was nice to know where her loyalties lay. Ian bit his lip to keep from growling as he ate some chicken. The crust crackled and hot juices clung to his fingertips. It really was the best meal the cafeteria had put out in a while.

Across the cafeteria a flash of color caught his eye—Jesse Cole in a mango-colored T-shirt, tucked in between his oversized boyfriend and Kelly.

Ian let out a breath. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he’d seen him, but he’d been thinking about him off and on for most of the day, wondering what he was up to...if he was staying out of trouble...if he was safe.

Sitting with his friends, Kelly looked good. His shoulders were free of tension. His gaze was sharp. His posture was military in its precision. The bruising from the previous Saturday was gone. There was a salad in front of him, but unlike Sinclair he’d taken the time to add in all sorts of brightly colored vegetables.

“Kelly O’Connor.” Marcy’s gaze turned in the same direction. “Tragic story.”

There was a conciliatory nod from everyone in hearing distance. Even Sinclair stopped stabbing at his lettuce.

“The kid’s a fucking rock,” one of the English professors murmured from farther down the table.

“After what happened to his mother...I heard President Aldridge tried to make him take the year off,” Marcy said.

“I heard Aldridge offered him a job,” someone else said.

“The kid deserves it. Kelly’s a fucking machine. Works in the housing department, does all kinds of programming—he arranged the open mic last semester—and still turns in all his work on time.”

“Good work too.” A man in a natty tweed jacket joined the conversation. “He used to write science fiction. Funny stuff, very reminiscent of Douglas Adams, but still popular fiction. I told him he’d be better off working on something more literary. This year it’s been all documentary-style realism. His latest work reminds me of early Steinbeck.”

“Makes sense,” his colleague said. “We tell them to write what they know, and it’s not like there’s been much for him to laugh about recently.”

Kelly’s blond head had turned in their direction. He was too far away to hear what the professors had been saying, but something about the hard set to his jaw and the steely glint in his eyes told Ian that Kelly knew they’d been talking about him and he didn’t like it. The tension was back in his shoulders...and something else. Anger. Hurt. His gaze met Ian’s and their deep blue was storming like the sea in a hurricane.

“Are we really gossiping about an undergrad?” Ian asked. He didn’t know what pissed him off more, the fact that the other professors were talking about Kelly like he wasn’t in the room or the fact that they seemed to know all the details of his situation.

“O’Connor’s not just any student,” Tweed Jacket sniffed. “You remember Janet—”

“Ian’s only been here two years,” Marcy interrupted. “He wasn’t here at the time.” She leaned forward slightly like she was going to let Ian in on some big secret. “You see—”

“Don’t tell me.” Ian’s fork clattered to his plate. He knew the way Kelly tasted, the way he felt pulled tight against his body. He knew the weight of his erection against his hip. If anyone at the table should know Kelly’s story then it should be him, but he didn’t need them to tell him.

It might be useful.
He could use the information to help Kelly. If it was accurate and if hearing it from someone else didn’t do more harm than good. His gut churned as he tried to focus on anything other than the spot where Kelly sat across the hall from him.

Whatever Marcy was talking about, he could wait to find out until Kelly was ready to tell him.

“Can we talk about something else?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” Sinclair agreed heartily. “Let’s go back to talking about your sex life. That’s so much more appropriate for the table...narcissist.”

“You’re just worried your wife likes me better,” Ian said. “I look good on a beach.”

Sinclair gave him the finger. It was no more than he deserved, but at least they’d stopped talking about Kelly. A moment later the entire table was embroiled in a lively conversation about whether it was easier to lose weight on a low-fat or low-carbohydrate diet.

Ian ate some more macaroni and cheese.

Buzz
. Ian’s phone sounded in his pocket. It was probably Andrew—his brother—again.

Buzz.
Buzz.

Fine. He pulled the device out of his back pocket and blinked in surprise. An unknown number had texted him three times in rapid succession.

Thanks for the Thai food last night.

We should do it again.

Unless the hyenas scared you off.

Ian bit back a laugh. Calling his colleagues hyenas wasn’t exactly kind, but it also wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

“Is that him?” Marcy asked. “The guy from the other night.”

“You’re just jealous I have a guy texting me.” Ian’s fingers flew across the phone’s screen.
Next time you should come to my place.

Is it nice?
Kelly responded.

Nice
wasn’t exactly how Ian would put it.
Dreary
was more like it. He was pretty sure there was something evolving in the laundry room. Beige walls and pea-green carpeting wouldn’t have been his first choice for home décor, but the cramped one-bedroom was less than a thirty-minute drive from the university and the rent was almost reasonable.

It’s
private
, he finally responded.
No roommates. No hyenas. Solid walls.

No one to hear me scream your name?

Exactly.
He went hard at the thought.

Prince Charming laid out in his bed, naked, his wrists locked to the headboard, his body writhing in pleasure as Ian opened him for the first time. All his anger—all his pain—gone in a wave of ecstasy. His legs wrapped tight around Ian’s waist. His mouth open as he came, panting, screaming.

It was the same fantasy Ian had jacked off to the night before, and it wasn’t going away any time soon.

What
are
you
doing
tomorrow?
Ian texted quickly.

Why wait? I can meet you outside in two minutes.

Unlike you I have work to do.
Ian frowned as he thought of the stack of to-be-graded papers waiting for him at home.
Anyone
who
can’t
write
an
essay
after
the
first
semester
of
college
should
be
beaten.

With whips and chains?
Across the cafeteria Kelly grinned, his lips turning up in a seductive curve.

Paddles. Heavy ones.

There was a long pause then the phone jumped in his hand.
I got my edits back. I could work on my senior project, if you’d like the company.

It was a bad idea. Ian knew it without even thinking. He needed to concentrate on his work, and Kelly would be one hell of a distraction.

On the other hand, if he was sitting next to Ian there’d be no reason to worry about what he was doing—or who he was doing it with.

The thought made him shift uncomfortably in his black slacks. They weren’t together. He wasn’t Kelly’s boyfriend. He was just a soft place for the man to land—and a hard hand to spank him once he got there. Hell, if Kelly knew about what had gone down in Los Angeles, he wouldn’t even trust him to do that much. He had no real claim on his time or affections. That didn’t stop his hands from dancing across the phone’s screen.
You got a place in mind?

The Bluebird Café in an hour.

See you there.