Undisclosed Desire: An Alpha Billionaire Romance: + bonus novel (24 page)

"Give me that," he says, stretching his right hand out for the hanger with my damp blouse.

I give it to him and watch as he turns around and hangs it on a little hook on top of the bookcase, next to his own shirt.

"You should put on a sweater," I say, finally diverting my eyes from his gorgeous physique. "You'll catch a cold."

I try to sound sassy, but my voice doesn't cooperate. Instead my words come out weak and hoarse, breaking at the last word, so that I can't even be sure that he heard me correctly.

He casts me an impish smile as he walks past me, his hand softly touching my shoulder as he beckons me to move aside and make room for him to grab another sweater from the cabinet behind me.

The urge to lean forward and lick along his perfectly smooth skin is crushing. This man is the epitome of sexy, and he knows it.

JACKSON

Seeing her like this is driving me mad. Her soaked blouse emphasizing every little detail of her fragile physique, her hair hanging in wet strands down her face while she tries to maintain composure. Other girls would be complaining, cursing about their makeup and hair being ruined or just unloading a bundle of irrational hateful slurs toward the heavens.

But she hardly acknowledges the rain and the fact that she is completely drenched. She was shivering before I made her change into one of my cashmere sweaters, but she didn't complain that she was freezing or say anything about her physical discomfort at all.

Her strangely dark blue eyes look up at me, filled with questions I won't answer. She knows just as well as I do that there is no reason for us to be here. I'm sure she's living in one of the nearby dorms and it wouldn't have killed her to run over there and change into something of her own, postponing our little chat to another time.

But I didn't want that. This thunderstorm is playing right into my hand, providing an excuse for us to escape to my office instead of a public place. It's dangerous, especially since I haven't locked the door, because I don't want to scare her away with misplaced assumptions. But seeing her wrapped in my sweater now just accelerates the need I have for her to be mine. Her good girl nature, that tense pose she takes every time something unexpected or agitating happens - it lights me on fire like nobody's business. She's made for me. Breaking her into a shivering mess beneath my touch will give me endless satisfaction. I know it.

She doesn't, yet.

I bet she'll tense up when faced with unparalleled pleasure, too. I can't wait to witness her lose that tension orgasm by orgasm.

My cock is twitching against its cage, eager to torment her with bliss. Not yet, I have to remind myself. She might not even let you in. She might not let me do what I want to do to her, despite the look she displayed as she gave my body a once-over with her hungry eyes. She may be mesmerized by the body I have created, they all are. But not all of them are ready to receive what my body has to offer.

"Coffee?" I ask after pulling a sweater over the parts of me she was indulging in a moment before. "I can make you one here, while you warm up."

"One of those instant coffees?" She asks, casting a look over to the cabinet. "Are they any good?"

Now that we're both decent again, she found her way back to her usual snappy self.

I raise an eyebrow at her. "If it's good enough for me, it'll be good enough for you."

She shrugs, trying to look nonchalant, when we both know she isn't. "Alright."

I have a giant thermos bottle conveniently placed next to the cabinet that is always filled with boiling hot water. It's one of the very few assignments I've given my assistant so far. Now that the semester has begun, there's very little for a teaching assistant to do outside of preparing lectures or grading papers, and I have even less for him to do seeing as how I don’t need him to do either. Luckily, it causes him to take his water duty all the more seriously.

"Sit down," I tell her while preparing our coffees.

She obeys immediately, no backtalk, no questions. I place one of the hot cups in front of her and take the other with me as I sit down in the office chair opposite her. The sweater hangs lose around her narrow shoulders, making her look smaller than she is. She reaches for the coffee cup with both hands, the long sleeves protecting her palms as she carefully picks up the cup and lifts it up to her lips.

"So you said there was something that caught your interest," I resume our previous conversation from before we were interrupted by that godsend of a thunderstorm.

She gingerly blows on the surface of the coffee and casts me a quizzical look.

"My book," I clarify. "You said you read it and that there was something particularly interesting to you."

She suggests a nod and sips on her coffee.

"I don't want to be obnoxious or intrusive," she says, clearing her throat.

"You already were," I reply. "Obnoxious, that is."

Her eyebrows furl with anger. "And I apologized for that."

I nod. "Not in a very elegant way, but yes, you did."

She puts the cup back on the table and leans back, crossing her arms in front of her chest as if to protect herself from my potential fury.

"Well, to me it seems that you spend a lot of time talking about failure and justifying your own incapacity," she says. "The book isn't really a memoir, but more of a self-marketing tool to convince the world that - despite your many shortcomings when it comes to education - you're quite a stunner."

"Wow," I retort, chuckling. "Good job not being obnoxious, Miss Harlington."

She gulps and lowers her eyes down into her lap. Her lashes are fluttering like trapped butterflies again. What an endearing way for her to react when she is nervous.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I really hate beating around the bush."

"That's okay," I declare. "It's a refreshing change."

I don't even have to lie to her. Despite the way her eyes consumed me a few minutes earlier, despite the obvious effect I have on her, she still doesn't turn into a gushy admirer, but sticks to an uncomfortable truth. It shouldn't surprise me with a girl like her, but I've never seen this particular feature run free in such an unfettered manner.

"It makes me wonder," she continues. "What's the purpose of the book?"

She lifts her eyes, now latching on to mine with an intense gaze of curiosity.

"Why did you write it?" She adds to her previous question. "Did you even write it yourself?"

I smile at her, incapable of ignoring the satisfaction it gives me to see her wrapped in my clothes. She looks like she's already mine, and I haven't even touched her yet.

Her question is justified. I've been asked before, mainly by journalists, and for them I had a ready-made answer that was only partly true.

"The truth is," I say. "I was idealistic, maybe I still am. I took an unusual road to get to where I am now - and I thought my learning experience could be useful for others out there."

That is the partial truth I kept telling journalists. I never called myself idealistic to them directly, but I made my point clear about wanting to share my knowledge about what I learned going the route I did.

However, I don't believe that anyone will listen. They never do. People have their own idea of what will work in this world and what won't - and there is a widespread consensus that education is the key to anything worth striving for. While that may not be entirely wrong, I find myself arguing for an alternative.

"Really? That's it?" Miss Harlington asks, raising her eyebrows in disbelief. "You did it for the same reason you're teaching here? Because you think you have something to give?"

She doesn't adopt the same arrogant tone I heard the first time she talked to me after class, but the implication of what she's saying is more or less the same. She doubts my ability to teach someone like her anything, just because I'm lacking a degree and thus haven't earned her respect.

Miss Harlington, like many others, lives in a small and simple world - and couldn't be more wrong, especially in regard to what I could teach her.

"I have many things to give, Miss Harlington," I say, deliberately speaking in a soft and seductive voice. My eyes search for hers, locking her in place. When I see her shoulders tensing up, inching toward her ears, I know that my attempt at touching her was successful. She is like a cute little puppy raising its ears for attention.

"Like I said, I still think that-"

"Let me ask you a question," I interrupt her. I lean forward, placing my elbows on the desk that separates us."I'm sure you have a goal in life? Someone you're aiming for, something you want to achieve? Something that caused you to end up here, at an Ivy League school with, I assume, consistently good grades?"

She stares at me, her eyes like drops of blue ink on a light sheet of paper. The rain messed with the little amount of makeup she put on this morning. I'm surprised to see her dark lashes painted at all, but the black mascara is striking now that it has started to dissolve around her eyes. She'd look like this after a good cry, too.

Or after a thorough spanking followed by mind-numbing orgasms.

"Well, yes," she says. "I think I could be a good scholar. Once I'm done with my master's degree, I'll go for a PhD, like my sister."

"Your sister has a PhD?" I genuinely want to know.

She shakes her head. "Not yet, but she's working on it. At this university, actually."

I chuckle, adding a snide undertone when I say: "Your parents must be so proud."

Miss Harlington takes another sip of her coffee and shrugs her shoulders. "I don't know. They 're both professors themselves, they probably expected no less from us."

"No less," I repeat. "Anything else would be less?"

She lowers the cup of coffee and looks at me, eyes wide in surprise. "Yes, of course."

"See," I point out. "And that's where you are wrong. Where your whole family is wrong."

I expect some kind of reaction from her. Indignation, backtalk, outrage. But she just sits there and looks at me, her shoulders tense, her beautiful eyes wide open, her imaginary puppy ears upright with attention. She looks at me as if I just expressed something she has been assuming for years, but never dared to say out loud.

"When I asked you what your goal in life was, you didn't tell me what you want to do, you just told me what you are going to do," I add. "You said you think you might be a good scholar, just like the rest of your family, and you told me what you're going to do next, but you never said that this is what you want to do."

Again, she doesn't say anything. Instead, she starts chewing on her lip, just like she did earlier. Topped with anew fluttering of her black lashes she really looks like a trapped butterfly altogether. Hauntingly beautiful and so fucking vulnerable.

"You're thinking in steps - in your case, degrees," I continue. "You're completing one level after another, a life of graduations and certificates. To me it sounds as if going to school is an end in itself for you, and not a means to an end."

"Becoming a professor is a goal," she interjects. "An end."

"Yes, sure," I say. "So that is what you want? you want to become a professor?"

She continues to chew on her lower lip, so much so that I'm starting to worry she might hurt herself.

"It's not that easy," she mutters. "I mean, getting a tenure-track position is very, very hard. They're so competitive. If I don't get one as soon as possible after completing the PhD, it'll be close to impossible and I'm left with nothing."

"But is it what you
want
?" I ask her.

She shrugs. "Maybe. Why not?"

I shake my head. "It cannot surprise you that this doesn't sound convincing at all to me."

"I don't know," she adds, surprisingly loud. Her eyes wander back to her lap, lashes fluttering as she watches her fingers, playing with the black ceramic ring. "I never really thought about it."

I watch her as she nervously plays with her fingers, her shoulders lowering in defeat and the fluttering of her eyelashes accompanying her active mind working through a sea of thoughts. 

This is a first. I've had confrontations similar to this one, but I never saw anyone crack as quickly as she just did. I almost feel bad for causing this commotion.

"You never dared to look at the options that lie behind the label of less," I formulate. "Because who really wants to be less, am I right?"

She lifts her eyes up to mine, her face is shrouded by an unreadable expression. "I guess so."

"It takes a strong person to confidently stand above such nonsense," I say, reaching for my own cup of coffee.

"Such as you?" She asks, casting me a condescending look.

I nod. "Exactly."

"Success made you arrogant," she states. "It's not a very attractive quality."

I smile at her, unfazed.

"People now come to me for advice," I say. "I've been successful at what I do, because I have a passion for it. I found a path that is different, and probably more difficult, than the ordinary route - and I made it mine. I own this success. I think I have every right to be proud of it."

"Pride is not the same as arrogance," she inserts.

"They're practically twins."

I lean back in my chair, my eyes never leaving hers.

"Do you know what an Angel investor is?"

She shakes her head no.

"People like me," I explain. "People with assets and a good comprehension of the market. Young start-ups not only ask for my advice, the ask for my money, too. We're called Angels, because we serve as a guarantee in making dreams come true."

She furls her eyebrows. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm telling you, because this is the part of my success that I enjoy the most," I explain. "I failed, again and again. I failed at things that didn't matter in the end, but I also failed in things that mattered. And now I've become someone who can help others through those inevitable failures along the way. Because I know what I'm doing - and because I have money."