Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 99623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Apparently, Sterling's never learned this lesson. "Miss Winters, my desk."
Yes, her name is Summer Winters. I’m completely not surprised.
Summer saunters his way, her hips swaying like a pendulum. He crooks his finger, beckoning her closer.
Something akin to jealousy curls in my gut, but I squash it down. Sterling's free to talk to whomever. He's not mine. Hell, we're hardly even friends. I need to get a grip. Up until this week, he's been a grade-A asshole.
But still, I'm positively green over their nearness. It’s in this moment of weakness that I completely cave. As discreetly as possible, I turn my head into my shoulder, pressing my nose into the fabric of his shirt.
Sterling and Summer keep their tones low and their exchange private, but judging from the frown on her face when she turns around, things didn’t go in her favor.
She stalks back to her desk, snatches up her bag, and then leaves the classroom altogether, slamming the door in her wake.
"Now that that's over, let's talk more about the four components of social perceptions and how they affect human behavior. Observation provides the primary data of social perception. It's a compound of three sources: persons, situations, and behavior."
As he begins to lecture, I force myself to focus on his words and not the delicious all-male scent surrounding me. Eventually, I get in the groove and my pen flies over my page as I write down every word that leaves his mouth.
His ability to give life to the subject matter is a skill none of my other professors seems to possess. I'm not sure if it's his age, or a passion for the topic at hand, but he teaches in a way that makes you want to learn.
Before I know it, everyone around me is packing up to leave.
Sterling calls my name as I slide my laptop into my bag. I glance his way and he crooks his index finger, beckoning me toward him.
I stand from my desk, and bend to retrieve my messenger bag from the floor. As I straighten, I glance over my shoulder at Sterling, only to find his eyes glued to my ass.
I expect him to look away now that he's been caught. But if anything, he grows bolder, dragging his eyes over every square inch of me.
"See something interesting?" I ask, shocking the hell out of myself. Guess his boldness is rubbing off on me.
"Like? Undecided. Want? Abso-fucking-lutely."
"What?"
"Don't play dumb, Emmalyn. You're an attractive woman."
I gulp and then shrug. "So, about that quiz?" A subject change is definitely in order.
He nods toward a sheet of paper on the edge of his desk. "Come and get it."
I can't help but feel his words have a double meaning, one I'm not willing to look any further into. This truce between us is rocky at best, and there's no way I'm about to let something as banal as sexual chemistry dismantle it.
Clearing my throat, I stride toward him, determined to ignore the suggestive look in his eyes and the sensual dip of his voice.
"Thanks again for letting me retake it," I say, regretting the words as soon as I speak them.
Why is it so hard to get things right with him?
Thanking him was pretty much the dumbest thing I could've done. It makes it sound like he's doing me some great favor, by allowing me to retake the quiz, when it's his fault I'm in this predicament to begin with.
A satisfied smile plays on his lips, but I can't decide if it's in response to my slipup or if cocky-asshole is simply his default setting.
I'm betting on the latter.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sterling
Emmalyn reaches and grabs the quiz from the corner of the desk and plops herself ungracefully into the seat directly in front of me.
I watch as she presses her pen to the page, oddly enamored by the way her slim fingers grip the cylinder.
What in the actual fuck is wrong with me?
I'm not enamored by anything about Emmalyn Price.
Except the way she looks in your shirt, my sex-deprived brain taunts. Just think how much better she'd look in only your shirt...
I inhale a slow, deep breath through my nostrils, holding it a beat before exhaling. I need to center myself, to ground myself, to remember the fucking plan.
If only I knew what my damn plan was anymore. When I'm not doubting her culpability, I'm lusting after her like a teenaged boy with his first Victoria's Secret catalog. The fact that I've jacked off more times in the last few weeks to thoughts of her than I have in the last year is next-level fucked.
There's something about her that twists me up, and it's bullshit, because I'm supposed to be twisting her up. Hence the change of plans. But maybe...maybe I need to up the ante.
I told her I'd ruin her, and I meant it. I just have to try harder. To push harder. Eventually, one way or another, she has to break.