L. A. Witt - Rules 1 - Rules of Engagement (22 page)

“Appreciate it,” I said, forcing a smile, not even daring to look at Brandon.

We ran with her for a quarter of a mile or so before we came to the turnoff for her condo. “Well, it was good to see you, Dustin. And nice to meet you, Brandon.”

“See you later, Sharon,” I said. As we continued on without her, I let out a breath.

 

“Is
everyone
trying to pimp you out?” he asked.

“Everyone and their mother,” I said. “All thanks to my mother.” I gestured over my shoulder at the condos, in the direction Sharon had gone. “Every time my mother gives her a sob story about how single and lonely I am, she goes looking for another woman for me.”

Brandon turned his head, barely keeping from breaking his stride. “Wait, she knows your mom?”
I glanced at him. “Yeah. Old family friends. They’ve known me since I was a kid.”

“Think she suspects something?”
My blood ran cold. “Do you?”

He pursed his lips. “Well, I’m guessing she hasn’t seen you taking a morning run with another man before.”

A chill ran through me. “No, she definitely hasn’t.”
“Has she ever seen you running with anyone?”

I swallowed. “Never.” We exchanged uneasy glances. Though my mother would jump on any piece of gossip or suspicion like a cat on a mouse, I convinced myself that Sharon hadn’t seen anything incriminating, so it would be easy to deny that there was anything going on.

“Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t grab your ass or something,” Brandon said.

I laughed. “Do it, and I’ll kick yours.”
He winked at me. “Promise?”
I elbowed him playfully and we finished our jog.

P
UTTING
my foot up on the rear bumper of my car, I adjusted the laces on my boot. I hadn’t worn the damned things since I got out of the Marines, but they were still just as comfortable as I remembered. Blousing the legs of my camouflage utilities was a bit of a challenge, something I had been able to do in my sleep at one point but was a bit clumsy with now. Still, it was worth the extra effort for what I was going to do.

Smirking to myself, I threw a black backpack over my shoulder so that I would blend in with the rest of the college students— particularly those who came from the nearby Army base—and walked into the building.

I wasn’t in full uniform, so I wasn’t worried about getting in trouble for wearing it when I was no longer enlisted. The black Tshirt—skintight, of course—was certainly not a uniform item. A lot of the guys from the base wore camouflage pants and combat boots when they were off base, so to the untrained eye, that’s what I was.

I could barely keep a straight face as I walked into the classroom. It was still early in the quarter, so as far as any of the other students knew, I had missed the first couple of class sessions and was now getting caught up.

Not that it mattered what anyone else thought. I was wearing this for one set of eyes in particular.

I took a seat in the front row, giving me room to stretch my legs out. That was always my preferred place to sit anyway, but for this particular class, it was perfect. I considered sitting off to the side, but decided to hell with it and sat front and center.

I pulled out a spiral notebook I had no intention of filling and a pen I had no intention of using and waited. The other students filed in, taking their seats, chatting amongst themselves. No one seemed to notice me.

No one, that is, until Brandon walked in.

 

And he just happened to be in the middle of taking a swig of water, which he promptly choked on.

 

I bit the end of my pen, digging my teeth in to keep from bursting out laughing.

He coughed, cleared his throat, and, as nonchalantly as possible, went to the podium at the front of the room and arranged his notes. I could tell he was trying not to look at me, or at least trying not to let me see him look at me. Still, his eyes gave him away, flicking towards me in brief, surreptitious glances, his breath catching each time he took stock of every little distraction I’d brought.

Combat boots? Check.
Camouflage pants? Check.

The tightness in his lips made me wonder how many ways he wanted to kill me right then. Or if he was regretting his little personal training session.
That’s right, Brandon. Two can play at this game.

Clearing his throat again, he faced the class. “Looks like everyone is here. I assume everyone read the assigned chapters.” Nods and murmurs. He glanced at me, his eyes narrowed in a glare that no one else in the room likely noticed. I grinned.

As he opened his notes and started the lecture, I had one last little trick up my sleeve. Reaching up as if to scratch my neck, I pulled my dog tags out of my shirt, letting them fall onto my chest, grinning to myself as a visible shudder ran through him. Once he’d recovered from that, I played with them, casually turning them in my fingers, running them along their chain to make that distinctive rattle. I kept it muffled and subtle, just loud enough to fuck with Brandon without disturbing the rest of the class.

His brow furrowed, and he spoke through his teeth, obviously making every effort not to look my direction.

Throughout the lecture, he rested one hand on the podium as he spoke. I watched with barely-contained amusement as his knuckles turned white every time I let my boots squeak against each other or made my dog tags rattle on their chain.

He managed to get through the lecture without stumbling too much, but he was flustered. His reactions were subtle, probably only noticeable to a certain antagonistic bastard in the front row: the occasional clench of his jaw when he accidentally looked my direction, the frustrated click of his tongue when he paused to switch pages on his notes, the way he carefully kept his hips turned towards the blackboard when he wasn’t safely behind the podium.

When I raised my hand to ask a question—because I simply had to fuck with him as much as humanly possible—he probably looked calm, collected, and professional to anyone else. But I didn’t miss the way he wrung his hands, or the way he shot me a look that screamed, “You are
so
dead.”

About three quarters of the way through the lecture, he surreptitiously wiped a bead of sweat off of his forehead, and I allowed myself a smug chuckle.

Mission accomplished.

“Any questions?” Brandon closed his notes. I wondered if anyone else noticed the relieved drop of his shoulders or the impatient shift in his stance. That had probably been the longest lecture of his life. I wondered if he had been this nervous during his dissertation defense.

A girl in the back raised her hand, and Brandon patiently walked her through an aspect of meiosis that she didn’t quite understand. After answering a few more questions, he gathered the rest of his notes and dismissed the class. “Remember that Friday is the deadline to transfer in
or
out.” He looked right at me, lifting an eyebrow, and added through gritted teeth, “I’ll be in my office for the next hour if anyone needs to see me.”
I
KNOCKED
on his office door and pursed my lips to keep from laughing. When he opened the door, he glared at me and nodded for me to come in.

He shut the door and we faced each other in silence. His arms were folded across his chest and his expression icy. I watched him, looking for some hint of humor in his arctic scowl and finding none. Maybe I’d gone too far. Sure, it was turnabout from when he’d shown up at the gym, but he didn’t look happy about it. My gut tightened into a knot.
Shit. Not good
.

Then he snorted and shook his head, laughing. “You jackass.” I chuckled. “Turnabout’s fair play.”

He picked up my dog tags and wrapped the chain around his finger. “When you show up dressed like that—” He suddenly made a fist around the chain and pulled me to him, his lips almost touching mine as he said in a low growl, “I think a more apt description would be
foreplay
.” His kiss almost knocked my knees out from under me, and when his hips brushed mine, he was as hard as I was.

I put my arms around him, steadying myself as well as just wanting to touch him. “Then it had the desired effect.”

 

“What’s that? Making me try to teach a class with a raging hardon?”

 

I laughed, kissing him lightly before I said, “Is that the effect it had?”

 

“Christ, did it ever!”

 

“That explains why you stayed behind the podium for the whole lecture.”

 

He laughed against my mouth, still holding me to him by my dog tags. “You’re evil.”

 

I trailed a finger up the center of his back. “You started it.”

“Yes,” he said with a nod, dipping his head to kiss the underside of my jaw. “I did, didn’t I?”
“So can I come back to class tomorrow?”

“Absolutely
not
.” He laughed, and the sharp hiss of breath across my neck made my skin prickle with goose bumps.

“But what if I want to come back? I enjoyed your lecture. I learned a thing or two.”
“Oh bullshit,” he snorted. “You weren’t thinking of a damned thing besides how to make it harder—” He paused, his cheeks coloring. I snickered. Rolling his eyes, he said, “Besides how to make it
more difficult
for me to concentrate.”

“Okay, so I didn’t learn a damned thing, but I enjoyed your lecture.” I winked. “Why can’t I come back?”

He looked at me and grinned. “Because it was bad enough trying to get through the lecture today,” he said, leaning in to kiss me. “Tomorrow, I’ll be lucky if I can speak at all.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

Putting his hands on my hips, he hooked his thumbs in my belt loops. “Because I’ll be distracted by the memory of all of the things I’m going to do to you tonight.”

“Tonight?” I murmured against his lips. “But that’s a few hours away.”
“I know,” he said, pausing to suck my lower lip between his for a second. “But you have to wait.”

“Your office door has a lock.”

“I have another student—a
real
student—coming in here for an appointment shortly.” He laughed. “And I don’t have tenure, so I’m definitely not going to take any chances of getting caught fucking anyone in my office, student or not.”

“So much for my fantasy about fucking a teacher over his desk.”

He ran his hands up my sides. “Somehow I think that, until recently, anyway, that fantasy involved fucking a teacher over
her
desk.”

“True.” I kissed him, sliding my hand between us and squeezing him gently through his slacks, grinning as he gasped. Letting my lips brush his as I spoke, I whispered, “But that fantasy is so,
so
much hotter now.”

He closed his eyes, exhaling slowly. “Jesus, Dustin….” “What?” I asked.

Pushing his hips against my hand, he said, “You know exactly what.”

 

“Why, Dr. Stewart, am I turning you on?”

 

He held my face in his hands and kissed me. “You are a merciless tease, you know that?”

 

“I learned from the best.”

 

He laughed into my kiss. “Well, as long as you’re my student for today….” Pulling back, he reached into his pocket.

 

I watched him fumble with a set of keys, pulling one off of the ring.

 

“I have an assignment for you.” He pressed the newly freed key into my hand and kissed me again.

 

I looked at the key in my hand, then at him, puzzled.

“Go back to my apartment,” he said, running a finger down the center of my chest and letting it hook on my dog tags. “And wait for me.”

Closing my hand around the key, I asked, “How long will you be?”

A devilish grin curled his lip. “Several inches, as always.” I rolled my eyes and laughed. “You know what I mean.”

“I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.” Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “As you said, Dustin: Turnabout’s fair play.”

Slipping his key into my pocket, I put my hand on his waist and kissed him one last time. “I’ll wait as long as I have to. Something tells me—” I brushed my hand across his hard-on, grinning as he gasped. “I won’t have to wait too long.”

“Tease,” he growled, nudging me towards the door. “Now get out of here before you get me fired.”

 

I laughed and turned to leave.

“One more thing,” he said. I paused, looking over my shoulder and raising an eyebrow. He gestured towards my clothes. “Leave all of that on.”