Extracurricular Page 5

  My heartbeat had gone crazy, thundering in my ears so loudly that I missed the knock at the door. Only Landon’s soft curse and the way he hauled me to my feet alerted me of the change in circumstances.

  “Professor?”

  Oh, shit!

  I patted my skirt and ran a hand through my hair as the door to the office opened. One of the teaching assistants from yesterday’s lecture stood in the doorway. Her eyes widened as they jumped back and forth between me and Landon.

  “Ah, Josie, there you are,” Landon said. His voice was rough and raspy, and he sat in his chair. “Adeline was just here for my office hours, but she’s leaving now.”

  I smiled and nodded. There wasn’t anything else I could do. “That’s right. I have history class. I’ll talk to you later, professor.”

  Josie’s eyes narrowed as she watched me approach and pass her into the hallway beyond. Once free, I heaved a sigh of frustration.

  I can’t believe she ruined that moment.

  Hopefully, nothing worse came out of it.

  ~Landon~

  My cock was harder than diamond and big enough that it was impossible to hide while standing. Sitting behind my desk was better, but I’d moved too late—Josie’s eyes flicked from my face to the desk and back as she approached.

  Shit.

  The teaching assistant’s face had blushed to a faint rose, and her lower lip trembled. “I’m sorry for interrupting, professor, but I have the application files for the undergraduate research posting ready to go live on the course website. I wanted to check with you before submitting in case you wanted to look through one more time.”

  That’s what she interrupted for?

  I fumed inside for only a few moments, then cleared my head. I was still turned on, still way too heated over the way Addy had seduced me. Rather than be upset, I should thank Josie for preventing me from making an even bigger mistake than the ones I’d already made.

  “That’s quite all right, Josie. I trust you to put everything together properly. I’ll make the announcement in the next lecture and give the students a week to compose their applications before I read through the entries and make my decision.”

  Josie nodded but didn’t turn to go. “Is everything okay, professor?”

  Except for my aching erection?

  Fighting back another surge of annoyance, I nodded. “Everything’s fine, Josie.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “You know, you’re really cute. Definitely the cutest professor on campus. I was so happy when I found out I was assigned to your section for this course.”

  I blinked, surprised. A question about Addy’s presence in my office would have been unwelcome but expected. This was a complete surprise, and I didn’t know how to respond.

  “Um, Josie…”

  “You know, you’re kind of a legend around campus with the postgrad women. There are so many stories, and they’re all so impressive.” Her eyes fell to where I hid my crotch behind my desk.

  Seriously?

  I’d enjoyed my years in the postgrad ranks, and that included sleeping with several attractive ladies pursuing advanced degrees at Harvard, but I never dreamed it would lead to becoming the subject of gossip.

  “I…” What do I say to that? “I guess I’m flattered?”

  Josie bit her lip. “I’d love to see if all the rumors are true.”

  I didn’t let it show, but inwardly, I shook my head. It was just my luck. I’d had my share of conquests, but this was the second woman to throw herself at me. And thanks to the departmental rules, I wasn’t allowed to sleep with either of them.

  “Look, Josie, you’re a beautiful woman, but Harvard has rules about that kind of thing. Professors cannot sleep with TAs.”

  Josie pouted. “What about with students?”

  I looked at her sharply. What had she assumed had gone on in the office before she came in?

  “Not with students either.”

  An awkward couple of seconds filled the air between us before she shrugged. “Okay, fine. I’ll upload the posting, professor. Thank you.”

  She turned to go.

  “Thank you, Josie.”

  I buried my face in my hands as the door clicked closed behind her.

  Being a professor is harder than I thought it would be, but for all different reasons.

  ~Landon~

  Ugh. Did he actually use the word “like” two times in one sentence?

  I stopped reading the application and flipped it into the trash.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. “There has to be at least one student who’s not a complete moron.”

  I picked up the next application and got only a quarter of the way down the first page before tossing it.

  Maybe I didn’t give them enough time to write a proper essay.

  The requirements for the applications weren’t too onerous. At least, I hadn’t thought so. A generic questionnaire and an original essay on my research and possible applications the student thought it could be useful for seemed simple enough a task. It wasn’t too much to ask of a student who will be helping with that very same research.

  Selecting an undergraduate research assistant was supposed to be a way to find and identify a prodigy, a young mind capable of great things within the field of economics. Instead, every application so far read like it was written by a brain-dead frat boy with no more critical thought than a monkey flinging poop. A few of the applications even smelled like beer.

  At least a monkey knows how to use tools. How did these imbeciles even get into Harvard?

  Rifling through the rest of the applications, I caught the name on the one on the bottom—the one that must have been put into the drop box first.

  Adeline Hudson.

  Part of me wanted to open it and read it right then.

  She probably wrote “fuck me” all over the application.

  Things between us had cooled over the past couple of weeks. She still came to every lecture looking like she had just finished posing for an Instagram photo, impossibly sexy for a woman who still couldn’t legally drink alcohol. Luckily, she hadn’t flashed me again or shown up in my office. Every time Nick arranged something with the three of us, I bailed out at the last minute.

  I kept her application on the bottom of the pile, resolutely fighting the need to read it. As I read the other five remaining, it whispered to me, stealing my concentration.

  Only one of the five had been anywhere close to acceptable, and only barely.

  Perhaps I was expecting too much out of a class of first-year macroeconomics students.

  There was still one application left.

  “Fine. Let’s see what you wrote, Addy.”

  I picked up the application and started reading.

  My jaw fell open and kept dropping lower as I read. Several times, I flipped back to the cover page to double-check that Addy’s name was still there.

  Her essay was a proper dissertation on the potential of technology to disrupt the corporate finance world and included an accurate summation of my published work to date. She even drew a connection between them that I hadn’t considered.

  What the hell? Did she get another student to write this for her?

  It was exactly the type of essay I’d been hoping to see—something that demonstrated advanced levels of data acquisition and analytical thought. I’d expected to see this sort of application, but from one of the male foreign-born students in the class, not the hottie from my hometown.

  Is that sexist? Or racist? Or both?

  She’d followed the instructions and left her contact information on the cover page. I nearly called her number but decided I didn’t want to have this conversation over the phone. Instead, I sent her a simple email to ask if she was on campus and if she had time to meet to discuss her application.

  Within two minutes, I had a reply. Addy was on a break between classes and hanging out with friends in the next building over. She could be right there.

  Befo
re I could over-think it, I sent the message.

  Her knock preceded her head poking through the door. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. Please come in and sit down. On the other side of the desk.”

  She grinned at the subtle reminder of the last time she’d been in the office. With the strut of the supremely confident, she walked to the chair opposite the desk and sat in it. Addy was wearing the most modest clothes I’d seen her in, a simple pair of jeans and t-shirt, but even those couldn’t hide her curves and the studied grace of her body.

  “I’ll come out and say it, Addy. Your application for the research position blew me away.”

  She smiled. “In a good way?”

  “Of course.” There was no way she could think anything else. “I just don’t know how you could have done it. You weren’t even in macroeconomics until the morning before the first lecture, so how could you have read all of my work and been able to write such a comprehensive analysis in such a short period?”

  Addy frowned and tapped her knee. “You’ve been assuming things about me, Landon. Way too many things. There are two different professors teaching macro this term, and I was in the other class. I switched to yours because I thought it would be more fun that way.”

  That caught me by surprise. “You did?”

  “Yes. All through high school, I kept up nearly perfect marks, and thanks to you, I’d always considered going into economics or business. I sure as hell wasn’t going to follow Nick into engineering. I’d read each of your papers as you published them and thought they were brilliant.”

  I was speechless. “But… I had no idea. I mean, you were always a smart kid growing up, but then you got so… hot.”

  Her nostrils flared. “And hot girls can’t be smart? Is that it?”

  “Well, no, of course not.” I was sputtering, suddenly realizing what a big hole I’d dug myself into.

  “Look, Landon, you may bring out the wanton slut in me, but that’s not my identity. It’s not even something I’ve ever experienced before. It was just fun to experiment with, and you made me want it so badly.” There was no hesitation in her voice, as though she’d practiced saying these exact words.

  I took a deep breath and let it out, looking at the sexy and smart woman in front of me whom I’d unfairly discounted even though she was my best friend’s little sister.

  “I owe you an apology, Addy. I underestimated you, and that was awful of me. I won’t lie. Your application was, far and away, the best I’ve seen.”

  Addy tilted her head to the side. “But? I can sense one lurking.”

  “Whatever is between us has to die. I’ll give you the spot if you can swear that you will never try to start anything again. There will already be far too much scrutiny when the youngest professor on campus picks the hottest freshman to help him with his research.”

  She smiled. “You really think I’m the hottest freshman here?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not the point, Addy.”

  “Sorry.” Her smile became a grin. “My academic career is more important than sex. No matter how unbe-fucking-lievable it was. I just got caught up in being naughty. It won’t happen again.”

  I stood and held out my hand. “Then I’m pleased to offer you the position, Addy.”

  “Put me in any position you want, sir.” Addy cut off my reaction with a wave of her hand and a laugh. “Sorry. Last one, I promise.”

  Chapter 5

  ~Adeline~

  “God-fucking-damnit.”

  After a couple of months working closely with Landon, I was used to him swearing under his breath when simulation runs didn’t go the way he expected. Today, he was swearing more than usual.

  “We’ll get it on this next one,” I said, putting more encouragement into my voice than I felt and putting my hand on his arm.

  He stared at the computer screen as if he could melt the offending hardware with the power of his mind. “Shut up, Addy. We’re fucked.”

  I shied away from him, shocked.

  Landon could get moody when things weren’t going his way, but he’d never taken it out on me. Our relationship had grown from one of constant seduction and temptation to the close, cordial relationship between close colleagues.

  It was incredible to have such a close, inside look at the man who still made my heart pound, but it was that much more of a struggle to keep my emotions bottled up.

  His snapped temper sent those emotions flaring, and I took a deep breath to hold back an automatic jibe in response. The project had started well, but the past few weeks had been a disaster, Landon’s computer models churning out nonsensical data more often than useful information. The department had already warned him he had limited time left to right the ship.

  “It’s not that bad,” I said after crunching a few numbers. “The GDP estimates are off, sure, and the trading volume is way lower than we expected, but the target price looks bang on.”

  “Meaningless,” he said. “I need a solid data set for the grant application deadline tomorrow morning, and this is garbage. Half the variables are all over the place.”

  He wasn’t in the mood to be soothed.

  Well, that’s just fine. He can be angry all he wants, but that won’t solve anything.

  I lapsed into silence beside Landon, giving up on trying to cheer him.

  We sat in the research lab used by the economics department. It was a cozy space, just a dozen work stations set up with access to the powerful servers that ran simulations. Over the past two months, I’d spent more time in here with Landon than any other room on campus except for my dorm room. It was the time I looked forward to the most in my day—working so closely with such a brilliant mind contained within such a sexy body.

  “Professor?” A head poked into the room through the lab’s door. It was Josie. “Do you need help with anything? I’ve finished marking the last of the midterms.”

  Landon shook his head. “You’ll just get in the way, Josie. Get out of here.”

  Eyes wide, the teaching assistant retreated, and the door slammed shut behind her.

  “Landon!” I hit his shoulder. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Just because the project is going through a rough patch doesn’t mean that you have the right to be such a big dick to everyone.”

  After an initial rough patch, I’d grown to like Josie. The short blonde was of a similar spirit—intelligent but with a troublemaker’s soul. She’d been rude for the first week or two of my research position, but we bonded over our love of running.

  Before Landon could respond to the berating I gave him, the door opened again, and this time, a scrawny male with long hair stood in the doorway.

  Oh shit. I forgot about Brody.

  The disheveled young man held up a book. “Are you ready to go, Adeline?”

  Landon groaned beside me. “Who the fuck is this, now?”

  Brody stuttered. “Um, sorry, hi, I’m Brody. I was supposed to pick up Adeline for dinner.”

  I opened my mouth to interject, but Landon was too fast. “How about you fuck off, Brody? We have more important things to do than your dinner. Why don’t you come back when your balls drop?”

  The freshman’s mouth worked but no sound came out. Instead, he shot Landon a terrified look and backed out of the lab. If he’d been an animal, his tail would have been between his legs.

  “Landon!” I said, aghast. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  He gritted his teeth and the muscles jumped in his chiseled jaw. “Are you dating that buffoon?”

  His confrontational attitude put my back up, and I crossed my arms. “I can do whatever I want, Landon.”

  As if I could fuck a guy my age after knowing what Landon can do. He’s ruined me for other men.

  Still, I couldn’t tell him that.

  We stared at each other, the silence ticking on in a dangerous showdown. It felt like waiting to see if an alpha predator would strike, frozen in hopes it would pass on by.

&nb
sp; “Fine,” I said, unable to take the staring contest any longer. “Brody is just a friend from class. We were supposed to get food and study tonight. I didn’t know putting together this application would take so long. I guess he came to find me when I didn’t show up at the front of the building. I do have other classes and a life outside of this research.”

  Landon’s breathing had mellowed out and the deadly fire in his eyes dampened. “I’m sorry, Addy. I was out of line. You can obviously do whatever and date whomever you want.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I can’t date the person I want.”

  My heart jumped at my boldness. I’d said it without thinking—neither of us had even mentioned the searing heat between us over the past two months. The intense attraction had never faded, and we never talked about it, but it was there in the loaded looks, the friendly touches.

  Landon looked into my eyes for a few seconds, then turned back to the workstation. He keyed in the initial conditions for the next simulation, refusing to address my words. They lingered on the air, surrounding us.

  For the next several hours, we continued to run simulations and gather the data needed for the grant application, layers of tension woven between us—the stress of needing to get work done and the sensual spark that had reignited. Every time I leaned over Landon to point something out or he touched my elbow to get my attention, my skin was on fire, prickling from the proximity.

  The light faded outside the windows, and my stomach grumbled embarrassingly loudly.

  Landon tore his attention from the screen to look at me. “Was that your stomach?”

  My cheeks flushed. “I think so…”

  He looked at the time and swore again. “Jesus. How did it get so late? And I prevented you from getting your dinner. You must be starving.”

  “I’m not that—” Another growl cut me off.

  My eyes widened, and Landon laughed at my expression. Chagrined but resigned to the situation, I joined him, laughing ruefully.

  “I guess I am pretty hungry.”