Tour Hosted by
Book Blurb & Info
While at an off campus party, an accident lands Ben in a dark, locked closet with a sexy-sounding southern belle...and their chemistry is explosive. But when he discovers that the girl in his arms is the same beautiful student he can’t stop thinking about, he is stunned. Student-teacher relationships are strictly forbidden…yet no matter how hard he tries, Ben can’t stay away from Honey.
And when his attempts to fight their attraction nearly ruin the best thing that ever happened to him, Ben will do anything to prove how much he needs her.
Amazon / Goodreads
Book Excerpt
When choosing the perfect
panties for a seduction, one couldn’t be too selective. Careful consideration had
to be given to the cut, the style, and, most importantly, the almighty color.
Honey Perribow rifled through her underwear drawer from her position on the rug,
picking up and discarding undies with the efficiency required of premed
students the world over. Red silk was a little too on the nose. It didn’t give
the guy any credit. Blue? Hinted at mood swings. Yellow with a strawberry pattern…what
am I, five?
There was no help for her. She
had to call in the big guns. “Roxy!”
Her roommate of one month
propped a hip on the inside of Honey’s door a moment later, biting into a piece
of toast. “Did you lose your indoor voice in that pile of underpants?”
“What color would you wear if
you wanted to seduce your English teacher?”
The toast paused halfway to Roxy’s
mouth. “Aw, shit. Today is the day?”
Honey took a deep breath and
nodded. “I’ve
finally worked up the nerve. No more hiding under my hoodie in the back row.
Professor Dawson is going down to Honey town.”
“How long have you been
waiting to say that?”
“A while. How was my
delivery?”
“Not too shabby.” Roxy shoved
the remainder of the toast in her mouth and plopped down onto the floor, cross-legged,
eyeballing the mountain of panties. In the month since they’d become roommates
in one of the oddest interview processes of all time, they’d formed a
friendship that sometimes seemed as if they were feeling their way in the dark.
Honey could still sense some hesitancy on Roxy’s part to open up completely,
but Roxy’s new boyfriend, Louis, seemed to be unlocking a new part of her.
Considering Roxy had hidden out in her room at the outset, commiserating over
panties was a vast improvement. “All right. So, we know he’s studious. He
teaches Intro to Literary Theory. How does he dress?”
Honey hid her swoon by turning
and pressing her face into the rug. “He has this tweed jacket. It’s like a greenish-brown,
which should be ugly, but it looks so dang amazing
on him. If I got up close, I bet it would smell like honest-to-goodness man
mixed up with old book leather. He keeps candy in the pockets, too. I can’t
tell from the back of the room which kind of candy he always pops into his
mouth, but if I had to guess, I’d say butterscotch. So the jacket might have a
hint of butterscotch smell going on, too.”
“Are you telling me tweed inspired all that?”
“It’s crazy, right? I know it. I can hear myself.” Honey
rolled back over and stared up at the ceiling. In the few weeks since she’d
started courses at Columbia University, Professor Dawson had wiggled his way
under her skin like a splinter from a yellow poplar tree. No one back home in
Bloomfield, Kentucky, would ever have accused her of being shy. In fact, they
would have laughed over the very suggestion. She’d won first prize two years in
a row for mud wrestling a pig at the county fair, after all. Shyness and pig
wrestling simply didn’t add up. But the day she’d walked into the lecture hall,
a mixture of confidence and nerves, and seen Professor Dawson, quietly
gorgeous, in his tweed jacket and black-rimmed glasses,, she’d slunk into the
back row like a scolded basset hound.
Then. Then he’d spoken. Good Lord, she still remembered the shift
of energy in the room. Each and every female student had leaned forward and
propped their chin on their hands. Spellbound. There was no other word for it.
His voice filled the room like sexy fog, rich and nuanced. It held a subtle hint
of New England, not an all-out Boston accent, but occasionally he would drop an
R in a way that made her shiver. It
wasn’t just the sound of his voice, either. His passion about the subject
material came across in every word, every endearing head scratch or thoughtful
chin rub. She’d been more of a science girl in high school. Give her physics or
chemistry any day of the week, but English had become her favorite subject with
enough speed to inflict whiplash.
Since she’d been bitten by the
shyness bug, talking to the object of her nightly fantasies directly
hadn’t been an option. Yet. Oh, and there was that teensy little issue of college professors not being allowed
to fraternize with students. But she’d cross that rickety bridge when she came
to it.
All her life, she’d lived in a
small town where the most exciting thing to happen was a fistfight between two
grannies at the Dairy Queen. She’d purposely applied for universities with
strong premed programs in New York City because she wanted, needed, excitement. Needed to take life by the short and
curlies and tell it who was boss. She loved her parents and her hometown
dearly, but she wanted more. Starting small wasn’t an option, either.
She wanted to start with something so far outside her wheelhouse she needed
binoculars to see it. This was her life, and it was time to live it.
Starting today, she would
seduce Professor Dawson. Just the thought of it raised goose bumps all over her
arms. From the back of the room, he looked like a movie star. Something she
watched on a screen from a safe distance. What would he be like up close?
“If you rub your thighs
together any harder,” Roxy broke into her thoughts, “this pile of panties is
going to turn into a bonfire.”
“Sorry.” Honey pushed some unbrushed blond hair out of her
face. “Let’s
focus on the matter at hand.”
Abby, their third roommate,
breezed into the room. “What are we focusing on?”
“I was focusing. She
was fantasizing about tweed.”
“Tweed is still in style, but
elbow patches are out,” Abby stated offhandedly, taking a spot on the floor. Of
the three of them, Abby was the one gainfully employed in a corporate gig
downtown, which explained her tailored black pantsuit at eight in the morning
while Honey and Roxy, an aspiring actress, were still in pajamas. “What’s with
the panty mountain?”
“I’m beginning the seduction process this morning.”
Roxy rolled her eyes. “Try not to make it sound so sexy, Perribow.”
Honey threw a pair of plaid
panties at Roxy. “I’m
not you. I can’t just flash a little leg and leave a trail of man-drool in my
path.”
“Have you tried?” Roxy asked,
looking smug when Honey stumbled over a reply. “Look, you’re not going to flash
him your panties in class. That’s not your style. Worry about the top layer
first, drag him back to your cave
later. Worry about the panties then.”
“I agree.” Abby nodded. “This
is premature panty picking.”
“Of course I’m not going to
flash him.” Honey shrugged. “I was thinking it might boost my confidence a
little if I had something sexy underneath my jeans. Might give me an extra
boost so I won’t chicken out.”
Abby gave her a warm,
encouraging look. She fished through the pile with one manicured hand and
picked out a silky, mint-green thong with lace detail. Still with the tags on.
“Wear these. They’re unique and subtly brilliant, just like you. You won’t
chicken out.”
“And you’re
not wearing jeans,” Roxy added,
standing and dragging Honey to her feet. “To my closet, Batgirl. Where you will
behold the wonder of humankind’s finest invention.”
Honey shot a nervous look over
her shoulder toward an amused Abby. The brunette practically skipped along
behind them down the hallway. “What would that invention be?”
“The strapless maxi dress,”
Roxy breathed.
Ben Dawson gathered up the
papers he’d spent his lunch break grading and tucked them neatly into his
leather satchel. A quick check of his wristwatch told him he had seven minutes
until his next class started. Since it took exactly three minutes to walk to
the lecture hall from the teacher’s break room, he should probably get moving.
As far as arriving at class went, there was a sweet spot three minutes before
class began that allowed him enough time to gather his thoughts and arrange his
lesson plan on the podium, but didn’t leave enough time for the students to
engage him in conversation.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like
conversation. He just liked to keep his social life and his professional life
completely separate. He called it his laundry theory. Talking to students about
their weekend plans or the shitty coffee in the cafeteria was the equivalent of
throwing a red sock in with a load of whites. It just wasn’t done.
He snapped his bag closed with
a definitive click and took a deep breath before leaving the break room. Yes.
Separation of his social and professional life was key. The minimal age
difference between him and the college sophomores he taught sometimes gave them
the false impression that they were his peers. Being a professor at the age of
twenty-five made him seem accessible, when, in fact, he wasn’t. He came to
class, he lectured, and he went home. If he wanted to grab a beer and talk
baseball, he did it with his buddies, Louis and Russell. Not students. Never, ever, students.
Ben taught English because from
the moment he’d cracked his first book, words had hummed in his blood. They
were something he breathed and slept and lived for. If his students left with
an impression of anything, he wanted it to be his lectures, the contents of the
assigned reading. Their opinion of him as a person couldn’t be allowed to enter
the mix, or it took away from their experience. Conversely, he didn’t form
opinions of them. Ever.
Which is why he shouldn’t have
read Honey Perribow’s latest essay seven times. Seven.
He didn’t know which of his
students happened to be the insightful Ms. Perribow. They were just a sea of
faces, none of which he focused on for more than a few seconds now and again.
He wouldn’t find out, either. Didn’t want to know what she looked like, because
it didn’t matter. It couldn’t
matter.
His reading assignment of The
Things They Carried and subsequent essay had been met with the usual moans
and gripes. Honestly. The book was a work of art. But his students’ lack of
enthusiasm for anything other than a rooftop kegger had carried over into their
lackluster essays. Then he’d read Ms. Perribow’s paper and he’d actually
spilled his coffee in his haste to turn the pages. Instead of listing the items
men carried into war, as was done in the book, she’d written a clever modern
spin about what college students carry to class. What they’d chosen to bring
from home. What they kept in their book bags and dorm rooms. It was obvious
from her nods to the book that she’d not only read it but enjoyed it, too. She’d made him laugh. He couldn’t remember
the last time he’d heard the sound coming from his own mouth.
Ben banished that depressing
thought as he entered the lecture hall, where students were flopping down into
their seats, clicking pens, finishing up their oh-so-urgent text message
conversations. He hooked a thumb into the strap of his bag and lifted it over
his head, placing it carefully on the podium. Don’t look up. Don’t try and figure out which one she is. It’s
irrelevant.
The problem was, he kind of
felt like he knew her after reading the essay. Her voice had drawn him
in and locked him up inside of it. More, he felt like she’d been talking
directly to him.
That simply wouldn’t do.
The big hand on his wristwatch
landed on one o’clock. He made sure the edges of his lesson plan were perfectly
lined up with the podium and looked up at the class to begin.
And stopped.
Front row. Who was that blonde
in the front row? He might not pay any attention to what his students looked
like, but Ben was certain he would have remembered her. Yes, he definitely
would have remembered a petite little goddess with big
golden eyes and shoulders made to be
gripped. Oh fuck, where had that thought come from? Stop
looking. Stop looking. But he couldn’t,
because her lips parted just slightly, as if she was surprised to find him
staring at her. Who wouldn’t stare at her? Okay, as long as he didn’t look any
lower than her face—
He looked. There was no
stopping his gaze from dipping down to her cleavage. Not enough to be
classified as provocative, but enough to be sexy in an I-don’t-even-have-to-try kind of way. Thank God her legs were covered. He wished her legs
weren’t covered. What was happening here?
“Lolita.”
When every head in the class
came up, Ben realized he’d said the single, horrifying word out loud.
A male student wearing a
Rangers hat spoke up. “Lolita?”
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t
be. His neck had grown so hot that he swore it was on fire. Kind of like the
rest of him. Thank God he was standing behind the podium, because his dick was
hard enough to give someone in the front row a black eye. What was wrong with
him? He was acting like he’d never seen a beautiful girl before. This city was
packed full of them, just walking around looking like they’d stepped out of a
glossy magazine, but this one. Oh, this one. Something about her made him ache
everywhere. Innocent looking with a hint of excitement in her eyes, like maybe
he was making her just as hot. But that couldn’t be right, because he was
wearing the ugliest thrift shop tweed jacket he’d been able to find just to
make himself the opposite of hot. Unappealing. Unapproachable. Just their
professor.
This—all of this, including
his hard-on—had to be dealt with later, though, because his students were still
looking at him like he’d sprouted a third eye. Think fast, Ben.
“I,
uh…” He started to adjust his glasses, but he forced his
hand to lay flat on the podium. “I’ve decided to give extra credit for a paper on Lolita. The book, not the movie.
Although, if you ever want to watch the movie, I’d recommend the Kubrick
version. Not the one with Jeremy Irons.” Oh my God. This is such a massive
fail. “Um. Okay, so. Three-thousand-word minimum. Due this time next week.
Let’s talk about The Things They Carried.”
“I’d rather talk about Lolita,” baseball cap said, earning a few laughs.
This is what happens. One
crack in his armor and suddenly they’re making jokes in his joke-free
environment. He tried not to look at the blonde in the front row and failed
miserably. When he saw her frown over baseball hat’s comment, he found himself
frowning at her.
He didn’t like how good it felt to have her on his side. They weren’t on the
same side. Teacher. Student. That’s it. That’s how it would stay.
Ben spent the next hour
reading passages from the book and giving several different interpretations of
what the author wanted the reader to glean about each fictional character based
on the items they carried into war. Every once in a while, his gaze would stray
to the blonde, and he’d find her watching him steadily from underneath her long
eyelashes. Like clockwork, every ten minutes, she would switch the leg she had
crossed. Right, left, right, left. Her toes were unpainted. He liked that. Stop
looking. Stop.
At two o’clock on the nose, he
dismissed the class with the promise to return their graded papers next time.
As the students filed out of the class, he briefly wondered which one was
Honey, but the blond Lolita captured his attention. She wasn’t leaving like the
rest of them. Why wasn’t she leaving? He needed her to leave. His mouth went
dry when he realized they were the only two people left in the room. They
stared at each other, him behind the podium, her still seated. His cock
strained harder and more insistently behind his fly the longer he kept his
attention on her, but he couldn’t look away. He should say something, otherwise
it would be weird. She’d know how much she affected him. But he didn’t. He
could only stare back as she rose to her feet and sauntered toward him, her breasts
swaying underneath the dress. No bra. Red. Alert. She’s not wearing a bra. I’m screwed.
She shook her long hair back
over her shoulders and he groaned. He fucking groaned, right out loud.
Amusement lit her eyes. Satisfaction. None of the pretense employed by females
her age. Only confidence that her girl-next-door looks were hooking him like a
half-witted sea bass. And they had. There was more, however. She looked at him
as if they already knew each other on some level and this face-to-face meeting was
long overdue. Which is exactly how he felt. Jesus. He’d never wanted to fuck a girl so badly in his entire
life, and it was wrong on so many levels. So many. It broke every rule.
The school’s rules. More importantly, his own rules. He knew too well what
happened when a man gave in to temptation. Knew what the consequences could be.
He’d seen it. He’d
lived it.
Her tongue came out to wet her
lips, and he watched it happen in slow motion. Felt the muscles in his abdomen
tighten at the image of her mouth skating down, down, to deal with the turmoil
in his pants. She stopped right at the front of the podium and traced a finger
over his lesson plans. No one had ever touched his lesson plans before, and it
felt intimate. Maybe more intimate than a kiss for someone like him. She opened
her mouth to speak—
“Ben.”
The familiar voice broke
through his red haze of lust. His colleague, Peter, stood at the entrance,
eyeing him strangely. Why? Oh, probably because he was sweating and staring at
a student like he wanted to eat her for lunch. Eat her…fuck. What color panties
was she wearing? He’d give anything to know.
“Hey,
Ben,” Peter said with a little more oomph. “We’ve got that faculty meeting.”
The blonde, looking more than
a little disappointed with their audience, gave him a small smile and walked
away. Just like that. She’d aroused him out of his mind, made him question his
strict rules, then walked away so casually she might be headed to a beach
party. When she passed Peter in the doorway, the fellow teacher looked at her
speculatively, and something ugly reared its head inside of Ben. Don’t look at her. Don’t you fucking look at her, he wanted to shout.
Jesus, man. Reel it back. Repeating those words on a loop, he gathered his
things quickly and joined Peter at the door. At least he had his body under
control now. The icing on this cake of a day would be explaining his peter to
Peter.
“What was that about?” his
often nosy colleague asked him. “That looked…bad.”
Ben scratched his chin. “No
idea what you mean. It was nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing.”
Peter bumped him with his shoulder, and Ben gave him a dark look. He found
Peter irritating on a regular basis, but something about him discussing the
blonde in any capacity was making him twice as unbearable. They were both new
to the faculty, though, and taught the same course. They were required to share
notes and compare lesson plans, which put them in one another’s company pretty
frequently. “Listen, we have to be careful. We don’t have tenure yet. One wrong
move—”
“Stop. I don’t
know what you think you saw, but you need to drop it.”
Peter held up his hands. “Just
looking out for you.”
Ben stayed silent the rest of
the walk to the meeting. He thought of the blonde the entire way.
Author Info
Connect with Tessa Bailey:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tessa-Bailey
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mstessabailey
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6953499.Tessa_Bailey
Website: http://www.tessabailey.com
~Giveaway~
~To Enter~
Please fill out the rafflecopter below
No comments:
Post a Comment