Teaching Maya (15 page)
He set a steady rhythm going, as the water ran down around us. My moaning increased; my hands clenched as he stroked in and out of me.
“Fuck me,” I begged, my voice high, needy. In response, he pounded harder. His hands moved over my ass; he reached forward and grabbing a nipple in his fingers. I moaned, harder, as he tweaked my nipple, and my body immediately responded to him, and I could feel myself get impossibly wetter.
His fingers moved over my body, and he unerringly found my clitoris. That was all it took for me to orgasm, and I came, hard, all the muscles in my body quivering, as months of unmet need were finally satiated. In the dim background of my mind, I could hear Ryan pull out of me with a groan, and I could feel him spurt on my back as his orgasm overtook him.
“Mmm,” Ryan rumbled, when we could speak again, pulling me once again in his arms. We were still in the shower, the water was cooling off. “Come on kitten,” he said, turning it off. He dried me off, slowly, sensually. My nerves were tingling in arousal by the time he was done.
“
If you keep doing that, I will jump you again,” I warned.
“
Give me a minute or two to recover, kitten,” he grinned at me. “Let’s eat first, I did show up with a box of pizza; I had to bribe the delivery guy to part with it, even after I promised I was heading up to your place.”
I giggled, as I grabbed a t-shirt to wear from my dresser. I watched Ryan try to find his clothing in my bedroom mess.
“Sorry about the mess,” I muttered, leading the way to the living/dining room. “I’ve been a bit out of it the last few days.”
We drew up chairs, demolished pizza for a few minutes in easy silence.
“Ryan.” I finally broached the topic of the article. I wasn’t looking forward to this. I gazed at my hands, afraid to meet his eyes and see anger there. “I’m sorry about the article. I wasn’t careful enough, and I dragged your name into the tabloids. I’m so sorry.” He was such a private person. He could not have been pleased when he read that piece of muck.
He shrugged
an elegant shoulder. “Gayla was thrilled; she said it would help with book sales. Fucking agents.” He said it without rancour. “Shit happens. Don’t worry too much about it.”
“
How are you okay with this?” I asked, quietly.
He shrugged again. His voice was even.
“I’m not thrilled it got published, Maya, but when it happened, I realized the only place I wanted to be was next to you. And then, I called Ivar, who proceeded to give me the biggest talking-to anyone has ever given me in my life.” His voice was amused. “I’m here; we are together. It might not have been the ideal way for us to get together, but hey, it worked.”
I giggled a little. The stupid article had caused me so much grief in the last
three days, as I had beaten myself up about how I’d betrayed Ryan, imagined all kinds of terrible things about his reaction. His calmness about the whole thing surprised me.
“
Besides,” he added, satisfaction in his voice. “The lawsuits are going to hit the damn tabloid next week. They won’t know what hit them; they’ll be scrambling to publish a retraction.”
I laughed.
“If you wanted to be here when you read that article, why did it take you so long?” I couldn’t be angry with him, he was here. But it had been three days. Three days of unending misery and grief.
He looked surprised.
“I had to wait for a break in the schedule, Maya, else my publisher would have killed me. They’ve got me booked for a whole string of book appearances. I’ve been on the road since the middle of January.”
“
Oh,” I said. I felt mortified. I thought he hadn’t cared. “I had to forbid myself from Googling you,” I mumbled. “Do you have to leave soon then?”
“
I have a week off, then I’m back on the road for another two weeks, and I’m done after that.” Ryan frowned. “It’s part of the business, Maya. I don’t enjoy it, but I have to do it.”
“
So I get you all to myself for a week?” I grinned, my voice was speculative. “Hmm. Good to know.”
Ryan laughed at the expression on my face, the look of anticipation in my eyes. His eyes glinted as he stood up and held his hand out to me. He smiled at me, love and caring obvious in his eyes.
“Ready for round 2, kitten?”
I
moved away from him, hastily rummaging in a kitchen drawer. I found what I was looking for – my wooden cooking spoon. I was looking forward to the feel of that spoon on my ass. I grinned, danced over to Ryan, and handed the spoon to him. “Oh yes, Ryan,” I said, love, laughter and lust mixed together in my voice, “I’m definitely ready for round 2.”
I hummed to myself softly as I slid on the bra and panties laid out on the bed, and gazed in the mirror. Ryan had put them there earlier in the evening. “Wear them tonight,” he had asked, his eyes twinkling. I had smiled and nodded.
Now, as I eyed my reflection, I came to the conclusion that I should
send Ryan lingerie shopping more often. Not only had he got the size perfect, but the pieces he’d picked out were stunning. The open black lace of the bra revealed just enough of the nipples underneath to be enticing. I gazed at my pussy intently; entranced by the way it covered, yet revealed what lay behind it.
It had been the most amazing four years. The day after Ryan had shown up at my door, asking to date me, he had called a real estate agent to
start the process of renting out his Paris apartment. “But you love Paris,” I had protested.
“
Long-distance relationships are hard, Maya, especially when I want to touch you all the time,” he had replied, stroking my cheek softly. “And, I’m lucky; I can write anywhere. Besides, I went to college in Berkeley, I’m looking forward to rediscovering the Bay area.”
I hadn’t known that. There would be so many discoveries on this journey.
Of course, we’d moved in together. I wanted to touch him all the time too. That had been enlightening as well. Ryan tended to be grouchy if the writing wasn’t going well, which, thankfully, was rarely. He was social as well, more social than me, feeling the need to interact with people after a day of writing. “I write about people,” he had pointed out, when I’d complained one day about going out after a long, hard day at work. We figured it all out with the minimal of fuss. I think we both knew how lucky we were in our relationship; we worked at it, but we also reveled in it, and were grateful for it.
I certainly was grateful; I’d somehow ended up dating a guy I’d dreamed about all through my teenage years; and the reality of it was better and richer than I could have ever imagined.
Work proceeded at a steady pace. Paul thrust more and more responsibility on me, responsibility I relished. Finally, one evening, about two years back, Ivar had called me into his office.
Ivar, Marco and Paul were seated at the conference table there.
“Sit down, Maya,” Ivar had gestured, pointing to a chair at the table. I had gulped. It was always intimidating to be in a meeting with the CEO of your company, the COO and the CFO. Even if two of them were close family.
But it had all turned out well. I’d been doing
well, making great progress. But they thought it was time I interrupted my work for a year or two to go to business school. “Start the application process,” Ivar had ordered. “The company will pay, of course, as long as you come back and work for us for two years after school.” It was the standard offer, made to all employees with potential to rise through the company.
We went back to Paris, of course. The business school there was among the best in the world; and if I kept working at Martinez, Inc., I would benefit from the international connections I made there.
We reclaimed Ryan’s apartment, reassembled the playroom, and my life became a beautiful whirl of classes, beers with friends, and sessions in the playroom.
He
really is the perfect boyfriend,
I thought to myself, my lips twitching. Of course, all my friends in Paris had drooled over Ryan. I was finally getting used to it; realizing that he paid absolutely no attention to anyone else other than me. I had chosen well.
Tonight, we were throwing a party to celebrate my graduation, and to toast us on our impending move back to San Francisco. The entire family was gathered in Paris, even my grandparents. A few of our friends would be there as well, my friends from school, and Ryan’s friends
- Gayla, and the rest of them.
I sighed a little. I would miss Paris. It was always going to be a magical city for me.
The sound of a throat clearing, and Ryan was
leaning at the door of the bedroom. He was fully dressed, and looked gorgeous in his grey suit. Ryan hated wearing suits, but he looked so very good in them.
Maybe he’ll lay me over a desk after the party, and spank me hard,
I fantasized.
“
What do you think?” I asked him, twirling to give him a 360-view.
Ryan gulped
visibly. “Evil temptress,” he growled. “We don’t have time for sex now, Maya, there’s about a million party guests descending on us in about ten minutes.” His eyes were smouldering though, and his gaze never left my body. After four years. Like I said, I was unbearably lucky.
“
A quickie then?” I cajoled. The need in his eyes had awakened a corresponding need in mine. My nipples perked underneath the bra, my pussy moistened under my panties. I bit my lip as the tendrils of lust curled around my body.
“
Maya.” His voice was harsh. I looked at him in surprise.
He looked a tiny bit nervous, as he came into the room.
“I wanted to ask you something, before everyone got here.”
“
Sure,” I said easily, reaching for my dress, sliding it over my head, reaching behind myself to zip myself up.
His hands reached up, he stilled my arms.
“Kitten. Pay attention.” There was a slight edge to his voice, and I stopped what I was doing instantly. I looked at him, inquiringly.
“
I’m a pretty private person, Maya, so this won’t be flowery, or public, or on the scoreboard of an arena.” His hand reached into his pocket, he pulled out a small, square box, flipped it open. A ring was twinkling there; a ring set in diamonds and sapphires, reminding me yet again of the ocean waves next to us the first time we made love.
My eyes flew up to his face, shocked. After
Patricia, I didn’t think he’d ever take this step again.
His lips twitched a little, but his words were serious, as he drew me into his arms.
“Maya,” he said, into my shoulder. “I love you, I adore you. Every day, more and more. You bring joy and laughter into my life, and I find that I can’t imagine the idea of my life without you in it.”
“
Will you marry me?”
“
Of course, I will,” I replied, laughing. Then I reached out and pulled Ryan’s mouth onto mine. “And I don’t care what you say; I still think we have time for a quickie.”
He started laughing too.
“Silly kitten,” his voice chided softly, but there was a world of love in it.
I know I said it a lot, but I was, indeed, the luckiest person in the world.
End Notes
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed reading Teaching Maya as much as I enjoyed writing about Maya and Ryan.
If you’d like to know when my next book comes out, please visit
my website
to sign up for my
new release email alerts
. I hope you’ll also leave a review with your thoughts on this book – I can’t wait to hear what you think of it!
I’d also like to share a special extended preview of another book of mine –
The Professor’s Pet
. Read on!
Happy reading!
Tara Crescent
http://www.taracrescent.com
Text copyright © 2014 Tara Crescent
***The perfect blend of bondage, dominance, submission and love ***
Have you ever been dangerously attracted to your professor?
Jake Ballard. He is smug and mocking, but his body is the stuff of epic fantasy. Now, through an unfortunate twist of fate, he holds my smut-filled Kindle in his hands.
I have a decision to make. Can Professor Ballard be my instructor in this world of bondage, dominance, and submission? And, eight weeks later, when my class is at an end, can I walk away from Jake?
Read on for an extended preview from The Professor’s Pet…
Chapter 1
Emily:
Five years of class, teaching and research. Two solid months of writing my dissertation. Sixty minutes of cross-examination from my committee. Fifteen minutes of nervous waiting outside the room as they debated whether I’d done enough work to earn my PhD. And then, a few seconds of pure exhilaration as I learned I had indeed done enough to graduate.
I was finally done.
I thought I’d be ecstatic, but I was just weary. The happiness would come later; right now though, the adrenaline had drained from my body, and I just wanted a nap.
There was a Starbucks in my school building; I headed to it for a caffeine pickup. I had my Kindle and more than my fair share of bodice rippers; I was going to hang out and read in the lounge for a few hours, and then head home. Normally, we would have gone out for drinks to celebrate, but John, my advisor’s other PhD candidate was defending his dissertation tomorrow, and we’d just agreed that we’d all go out for a combined celebration tomorrow night.
“A tall café latte, please, with skim milk,” I said as I wandered up to the counter.
“Large coffee, please, room for milk,” I heard a deep voice say. I looked up through my eyelashes, and gulped. Professor Jake Ballard. He taught Pure Mathematics, and was hotter than sin. Black hair; blue eyes; the lean strength of a long distance runner. I had seen him in the gym once; he’d just finished a game of basketball with some students. He’d been drenched with sweat; he’d taken his t-shirt off to towel down, and umm. The Abs of Steel people should have been begging him to endorse their products. I’d stayed in the shadows and shamelessly gawked, and I’d touched myself frantically in the bathroom stall after. His body was the stuff of epic fantasy.
It wasn’t just me. Every single woman who saw him had a thing for him. His class actually had an equal number of women and men in it; and given that he taught Pure Math, that was entirely because of how good-looking he was. God knows I’d taken his class many years ago for the same reason.
He looked around, bored. He nodded when he saw me, smiled politely.
“Dr. McNamara. I hear congratulations are in order.”
I turned into a blithering idiot every time I saw Jake; this time was no exception. I blushed deep red, and mumbled my thanks, tongue-tied. Great.
The girl arrived with my coffee, and I started scrambling for change; juggling my backpack, my Kindle, and my smartphone, resting my Kindle on the counter as I tried to find some change to pay for my coffee. I could see the girl’s well-concealed irritation; could sense Professor Ballard rolling his eyes. His coffee arrived; he handed the girl at the counter his credit card.
“Put both of our coffees on this, please,” he drawled.
“Umm, I have change somewhere,” I said, red-faced.
“I’m sure you do, Dr. McNamara. I’m just as sure that the line behind you would prefer that you find your cash before you get to the counter next time.” He nodded to me, took his coffee, and left.
I looked at his retreating back, profoundly irritated. Superior jackass.
***
Deep breath, Emily, don’t let him get to you,
I said to myself. I wasn’t going to let Professor Ballard take today away from me. I had a few hours of uninterrupted reading time, and I was totally looking forward to it.
Right before the bulk of the writing had started, I had downloaded Anne Rice’s The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. I’d been saving it as a treat, and I reached for my Kindle eagerly, anxious to lose myself in a world of erotic fantasy.
Tipping Point - Malcom Gladwell. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond. A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson. What the heck? I scrolled through the books, wondering what had happened to my books. A creeping dread hit the back of my neck as my mind slowly put the pieces together, and I scrolled back to the Home page.
Jake Ballard’s Kindle. I must have grabbed the wrong one when I was doing my crazy hunt for coffee change.
I was deeply, utterly fucked.
***
I would have given my first born child to just be able to melt away right then. But no, I had Professor Ballard’s Kindle in my hand, and I reluctantly made my way to his office to give it back to him, to get mine back.
His door was closed. I took a deep breath.
Come on, Emily, you can do this,
I muttered to myself, trying to give myself a pep talk. He probably wouldn’t have even had time to look at the Kindle in front of him; he must have had a class to prepare for, or some kind of brilliant research to do, or something. Anything except explore the contents of my smut-filled Kindle.
I lifted up my hand and knocked.
“Come in,” his voice called out. It sounded amused.
I pushed open the door. He was leaning against his desk, coffee in his left hand, my Kindle in his right.
I winced inwardly. He’d seen the contents. I’d just need to brazen through this; I didn’t have anything to apologize for.
“I’m sorry, Professor Ballard, I must have grabbed the wrong Kindle at the Starbucks,” I said, holding out his Kindle in my hand. “Here’s yours.”
He eyed me with mocking eyes, but didn’t say anything; his fingers flipped through my Kindle. Finally, after many moments of silence, he looked up. “Interesting reading material, Dr. McNamara,” he said. “But very predictable.”
“Excuse me?” I said in anger, before I could think. The instant I spoke, I regretted it. Why was I letting him get to me? I just needed to grab my Kindle and go.
“Predictable. You’ve undoubtedly convinced yourself that being spanked isn’t at odds with your feminist ideals. And then, you’ve asked your politically correct boyfriends to spank you, but then you control every bit of that interaction; telling them where to hit you and how hard and how much. Like I said, predictable, submissive posturing.”
White hot anger flew through me at his speech. He’d hit too close to the mark, and I wasn’t going to stand for this. “You don’t know anything about me,” I said tightly.
He raised a mocking eyebrow. “Really? Then if I told you to kneel right now, you’d actually do it, rather than give me a hundred excuses about open office doors?”
My blood was still boiling. I was not going to let him dismiss me like this; his contempt and boredom stung. I got to my knees; spreading my legs apart, placing my palms on my thighs, and met his eyes.
“What next, Professor Ballard?”
He moved to stand in front of me, dangerously close; his crotch almost at my mouth. I didn’t flinch, though it was a struggle not to; didn’t pull back. I just stayed exactly where I was; focusing on the hardening cock near my mouth; tried not to think about the open office door; the way it would look if someone passing by glanced inside.
A minute passed; I stayed where I was. My emotions were changing. I’d been angry, and nervous about the open door. As the seconds ticked by though, all of that receded. What remained was a simple thought. I was kneeling because Jake told me to. That was it. Nothing else mattered. Not the open door and the risk of being discovered; not even the seeping wetness in my pussy, the hardening tips of my nipples.
Finally, Jake moved back and laughed. “9pm tonight. My house. Be there.” He paused, looked me up and down. I was dressed for my dissertation; black slacks and a button-down shirt. “Wear something sexier than this,” he said dryly.
He wrote something down on a piece of paper, put it on his desk, along with my Kindle. And then, he strode past me as if I was not there at all, and left, shutting the door behind him.
***
I have a superpower, and it’s a useful one. I am the consummate asshole detector. I’m famous for this; none of my friends will seriously date someone unless they’ve passed the Emily McNamara asshole screening process.
So, as I look at the piece of paper Jake Ballard has left on his desk, with his address and phone number scribbled on it, I applied my asshole radar to Jake.
Magic 8-ball,
I muttered to myself,
Is Jake Ballard an asshole?
Signs point to yes,
I replied, and laughed.
***
8pm, and I still hadn’t decided if I was going.
The smart, sensible Emily McNamara would have thrown the piece of paper with his address and phone number on it away, taken a long shower to try to cool off the raging hormones, and gone to bed. She would have read something smutty on her Kindle, and masturbated, and then gone to sleep.
She would not have been shaving her pussy to please a man who looked at her with mocking eyes and told her to kneel.
She would not have rubbed lotion into her freshly shaven mound, while fantasizing about what he might do to her.
She would not have wriggled a red thong that covered next to nothing over her hips, and she would have definitely not added a red lace bra, and finally, a red dress that clung to every single curve of her body.
On autopilot, I did all those things, got into a cab, and headed over to Jake’s.
***
9pm precisely. He could not accuse me of being late. I rang the doorbell and waited. I was strangely not nervous. I had no reason to trust Jake Ballard, but I also knew no serious harm would befall me; Jake had tenure and world-recognition; he wasn’t about to throw it all away on impulse.
The scars would be emotional, not physical. Tonight, I would either confirm that I was indeed submissive; willing to do anything the right man commanded me to do. Or I would find out that, as he’d accused me, I was playing at submissive posturing. I wasn’t sure what I was going to discover about myself tonight, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to discover anything about myself.
He opened the door. He had changed into a plain black t-shirt and faded jeans. The black brought out the colour in his eyes; a vivid, startling blue, as blue as the sea and as wild.
He looked at me. “Here’s how tonight’s going to work, Emily,” he said, his voice level. “I won’t draw blood. Any mark I leave on you will fade in a couple of days. And I’ll give you a safeword you can invoke, if it all gets too much.”
He paused, and then continued, his voice implacable. “But if you use your
safeword, we are done, and you leave. This isn’t about your pleasure. It’s about mine. Stay, and you play by my rules.
My nipples had tightened and pebbled as he spoke; erect under my dress. I nodded silently, unable to form words. This is what I’d come for, wasn’t it? An opportunity to walk on the dark side; a way to plumb depths I couldn’t explore with the men I typically dated.
“Walk through the house,” he said. “There’s a screen door in the kitchen, opening out to the back yard. Go outside. Strip. Put your clothes on the patio table. Kneel and wait for me.”
I looked at him in shock. He had neighbours; it was summer, and I could hear the sounds of laughter and talk; smell the aroma of the grill from where I stood in his doorway. It was dusk; the last vestiges of daylight were fading, but there was still light in the air; the sky would not darken fully for another thirty minutes.
He held my gaze, a mocking smile playing on his lips. It was the smile that decided it; he was so smug; he clearly expected me to safeword and run for my life. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Not yet.
I marched through the house; pulled open the screen door and stepped outside. There, I took a quick breath with relief. His backyard was fenced in; nobody would be able to see me. But his neighbours were in their backyard; their laughter and the hiss of their grill were dangerously close; I would definitely be heard out here, if not seen.
It didn’t matter; I had my orders.
I took my clothes off; placed them neatly on the table. It was summer; the day had been humid and hot, but the night air was cool on my body. I knelt on the patio stones, sitting on my haunches, knees spread slightly apart, hands on my thighs, palm up, my eyes lowered. I could feel my arousal grow as I realized how submissive I was being; how much his orders were turning me on.
I finally heard him; I didn’t look up; I kept my eyes lowered. I could feel him look at me, walk around me, rake my naked body with his eyes, and I’d never felt more exposed. His silence was unnerving; the fact that he didn’t touch me rankled.
He flicked a switch, and music filled the night air. Not too loud, but it would provide some white noise to disguise soft moans. Was that reassuring? I wasn’t thinking. I just knelt; waiting for Jake to give me my next order.
“Look at me.” His voice was low and calm.
I obeyed.
