Out of My League (3 page)

He exhaled, gathering courage, and pushed the door open.

* * * *

The door didn’t squeak as it opened, another way in which this place was different from the real thing. The clear sounds of the wind rustling through the crisp fall leaves and the distant calls of birds came into focus and faded as the door closed them out again.

She stared at the rules she had read and reread, swallowing convulsively to ready herself for however he might begin the scene. Perhaps he would come in angry, spank her first and ask questions later. Maybe he would want to banter a bit, ease into the role of disgruntled student.

His heavy footfalls didn’t shake the floor, but they echoed through the quiet room. When she looked up, her heart stopped. Those smoky gray eyes stared at her, and his full, sensual lips parted in surprise. He stared at her long enough for her to realize that he hadn’t expected to see her there. Then his broad shoulders sagged the slightest amount, and that was all the confirmation she needed.

This joke was too cruel.

Yanking open the drawer, she struggled to maintain her composure. She grabbed her keys and headed to the door, brushing past him as she rounded the corner. He watched her go, his mouth opened, but she didn’t stay to hear what he had to say. Screw her clothes. Good thing she’d left her suitcase in the car. She unlocked her door, using the key because her Malibu predated keyless entry. Just as she reached for the handle to open it up, he lodged his hand against the frame, holding the door closed. She jerked as hard as she could, but it was useless.

“Move, damn it.”

“No. Mia, talk to me.”

A harsh wind whipped against them, battering her with the scent of fabric softener and aftershave mixed with Kaelen’s distinct maleness. She didn’t want to talk to him. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to climb up his solid frame, wrap her legs around his narrow hips, and grind her mound against his cock.

“I did. I told you to move. Damn it.”

His other arm came down on her other side, caging her between his hot body and the coolness of her car. Not one for cold, she gravitated to the heat. When she bumped into his chest, she yelped and whirled around.

“That’s not talking. That’s ordering. You’re not here to give orders. You’re here to take them.” His soft tone didn’t hide the firmness of his authority.

So much heat crept up her neck and suffused her face that she knew she’d passed pink and gone straight to red. Of course he knew the details of her fantasy. How utterly embarrassing. How completely pathetic.

She ducked under his arm and went around to the passenger side. Sliding across the console would get her to the driver’s seat just as well. Except for the fact Kaelen followed her to the other side, it was a solid escape plan.

Wasting no time, he put his hands on the door, caging her once again. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We must both have the same fantasy.”

She closed her eyes and let the sound of his voice wash through her system. Way deep down, she wanted to give in, but her better sense took over. “If you think I’m going to go back in there with you so you can take out all your anger on me, you’re mistaken. I’m not stupid.”

And she desperately didn’t want anyone to find out about this. Not only was he likely mad about his paper, he now had this debacle to lay at her feet. She didn’t think he was the vindictive type, but this was the kind of story that inevitably made the rounds, if only because it was so improbable.

His body trembled. “I’m not angry with you. I’d never do anything to you that you didn’t want. You set down very specific guidelines that I agreed to before Oasis would let me come here.”

Leaning forward, she shrank against the car. “Like hell you’re not mad. I refused to take your paper. You’ll fail the class without it.”

“My desire to turn your little ass pink has nothing to do with your refusal to take my paper. Yeah, it sucks, but it’s between me and Brindley. It doesn't involve you at all.” He moved closer, tightening her cage. Power and strength vibrated from him, and he hadn’t touched her yet. “Please don’t walk away. It’s one day where we both get to live out our deepest fantasy.”

The images and feelings generated by her fantasies paled in comparison to coming this close to being with him. But this fantasy was supposed to include a look-alike she would never have to see again. Though she really didn’t think he had it in him to hurt her, she held fast to her decision. “You can’t have expected to find me here. It’s going to be awkward enough when we get back to school. We don’t have to add fuel to the fire.”

He nestled his forehead against her shoulder. “For fuck’s sake, Mia. When I described the woman I wanted to see here today, I modeled her after you. I did everything but request you by name. You must have done the same thing with me. I thought it was odd how closely your parameters matched me, but now I see why. You want me as much as I want you. God, I'm so glad I won that gift certificate at work and not someone else. It's like it was meant to be.”

Her mind reeled as she processed his declaration. Men like Kaelen didn’t bother with shy, unprepossessing women like her. He commanded attention wherever he went, and she did her damnedest to fade into the background.

She turned around, dislodging his head from her shoulder, and pushed at his chest to move him back. He gave her space, but he held her there with his smoldering gaze.

“You can have any woman you want.”

“I want you.” He didn’t blink, and his steady expression didn’t change.

She bit her lip and shook her head at the implausibility of his statement. “Why? Do you have some kind of weird fantasy about being with an unattractive woman?”

His brow furrowed briefly, the affectation gone before she could figure out what puzzled him. “No. I have a fantasy about bending you over that desk and spanking you until you come. I have a fantasy about ripping off your clothes and hearing you scream my name. I have a fantasy about doing those things with
you
. According to all the paperwork you filled out, you have the same fantasy.”

Mia swallowed. There was no denying the similarities. “How do I know this isn’t about revenge?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. It fanned through his fingers, sticking up in light brown spikes that settled back more or less the way they’d been before. “I set this up more than three months ago, way before you refused to slip my paper in with all the others. There was nothing to avenge.”

As his argument penetrated, she grasped at any excuse to deny herself what she wanted. Her dreams had never come true before, not when they involved relying on another person, and the fact she might get one day with Kaelen scared her as much as it thrilled her. She didn’t know if she had the courage for this. “Now there is.”

“What do you want me to say?” He shoved a hand in his pocket, lifting the fleece to expose the flannel underneath. “Am I pissed that you wouldn’t take my paper? Not really. I would have been shocked if you had. You’re not exactly a rule-breaker. I can respect that. But I didn’t come here to talk about that or think about it. I came here because every time I see you, I have to go home and take a cold shower. I’m here because I need to get you out of my system. Don’t walk away from something you want because you’re afraid of what might happen down the line. I think we can both agree that what happens here stays here.”

Well, she couldn’t argue with his logic. She picked at her nails, clicking one against the other in a sound that annoyed everyone sooner or later. “You promise this stays between us? It could complicate things for both of us back at school.”

Kaelen’s curt nod almost had her reconsidering her decision, but the way he pressed his lips together made her think he was more nervous than anything else.

“I’ll stay.”

Tension drained from his shoulders. “Then get your ass inside, Calloway. This is going to be a lot of fun.”

Chapter Three

Mia rearranged the piles of paper on her desk. She glanced toward the door, but nothing happened. Tapping her fingers on the desk, she figured that she’d only been seated for thirty seconds. Any reasonably thoughtful man would give her a couple minutes to prepare. Frowning, she wondered if Kaelen was a reasonably thoughtful man. She didn’t know all that much about him.

He’d dropped a few hints, but they had been in the context of charming banter. Wanting to rationalize the way he focused on her and nothing else, she had groped for a sociological explanation for his behavior. The things he’d said were likely based in truth, but they could have been embellished or facts omitted to present him in a positive light. After all, most of the time he talked to her, he wanted her to do something for him. Dig through the stack of papers because he’d forgotten to include the last page. Read over a draft to find out if it would pass muster with Brindley. Verify information he could have looked up on the Internet. E-mail a copy of the syllabus.

Exhaling a shaky breath, she picked up the stack of papers again and began sorting through them. Things that looked like e-mails in one pile. Photocopied articles in a second pile. Another list of their agreed-upon rules in a third pile.

The air pressure in the room changed. Vaguely she noted the sharpened sounds of the outdoors. They muted as a sequence of thumps and a click indicated the door was closed and locked.

She willed herself to not look up. It didn’t work. Her gaze rose to meet his, and all the breath left her body. He smiled as he stopped in front of her desk, half of his mouth lifting in a way that sent tingles fluttering to her stomach. “Hey, Mia. How come you’re still here so late?”

Dropping her gaze to the stack of papers still in her hands, she studied the top one. E-mail pile. She put it where it belonged. Her hand shook a little. “I have some things to finish before I leave.”

“Always the good little assistant.”

She lifted her chin, setting her jaw at the jibe. “And what’s wrong with being a good assistant? Some people actually take pride in their work, no matter now menial or unimportant others consider it to be.”

He bent forward and rested his hands on the top of her desk. “That’s a whole lot of attitude for such a cute little thing.”

On a normal day, she would be able to come up with five snappy comebacks to put him in his place. Of course, on a normal day, he would never comment on her attitude or call her a cute little thing.

Pressing her lips together, she decided to change the subject. “I’ll be closing up in a minute, and everybody has left. If you have business with someone, I suggest you leave a note.” She pointed to the other side of the room. “The boxes for each professor are over there.”

Standing tall, he squared his shoulders and unzipped his black fleece jacket. The blue and gray flannel just made his eyes look darker, hotter. Her breath caught. If things kept going this way, she might pass out from lack of oxygen.

He withdrew something from an inner pocket and threw it on the desk. It took only a second for her to recognize the yellow binding on the plastic report cover. She glanced up at Kaelen, but he wasn’t looking at her. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the knob of an armoire.

She took a closer look at the report. The clear cover let her read the first sentence, but Kaelen’s nearness and the imminence of the scene prevented her from concentrating on the meaning of the words.

“Attitude.” His tone had changed to soft and firm. All the times she’d spoken with him, he had been friendly and charming, flirty, even when he wasn’t pleased with her response. “You need to be taught a lesson.”

Surprised at his tone, she lifted her gaze. Her eyes felt impossibly wide, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Her breath came in short pants, and heat flooded between her thighs. She thought about running, but her leaden legs wouldn’t cooperate. “A lesson?”

His dimple showed when he flashed a cocky smile. He leaned over her desk, pausing with his face inches from hers. “Babe, remind me what your safe word is.”

Shock pulled her from the scene. Blood once again flowed through her arteries, bringing a fresh supply of energy to her cells. “Oasis. Didn’t they tell you?”

“Safety. I want you to remember that you have the power to stop this at any time.” His low, confidential tone soothed her senses. She didn’t know how to tell him how much it meant that he took the time to show he cared, that he knew what he was doing.

“Thank you.”

In one powerful motion, he swept everything onto the floor. Her carefully arranged piles ended up in a heap. The lone pencil bounced and rolled, the
ting
echoing in the silent room. “Time for your lesson.”

Her stomach dropped, and her legs worked when her brain told them to kick into action. Leaping up, she turned around and grabbed the handle to the door that was probably the bedroom. It was the only room she hadn’t yet seen.

An arm banded around her waist and lifted her from the ground. Kaelen hauled her back against his hard body. She wiggled and fought, but she got nowhere. She felt like an empty sack in his arms, something easily hoisted and held. Helpless.

As someone who was always in control, Mia struggled with the feeling of helplessness. On one hand, she liked to be in control. On the other hand, she craved having it taken away. She craved being able to trust someone else enough to cede complete authority over her body.

She trusted Kaelen today.

He placed her on the desk, facedown, her breasts flattened against the surface and her hips dangling from the side. Angling her toes down, she barely managed to touch the floor.

Kaelen reached under her sweater and hooked his fingers into the collar of her dress. With one mighty tug, he ripped the loosened seams and pulled the back of her dress away from her body. Stunned, exposed everywhere below her sweater, she failed to move.

“Beautiful. I knew you were hiding something spectacular under all those baggy clothes.” His hand burned hot against her cool flesh. He caressed her thigh and hip, his hand traveling a narrow path. “Curves this luscious are dangerous.”

Mia didn’t consider herself thin or fat. She was unremarkably average. She carried a little extra flesh on her hips and around the middle, enough to encourage her to wear a bathing suit that covered her stomach, but not enough that she felt self-conscious about it. She had other things to feed her insecurities.