Late Night Confessions: A Steamy Older Man Younger Woman Romance Page 3

  “God, you’re worse than me on Monday. We need to get some caffeine in you. Do you have class now?”

  Did I? Trying to focus, I looked at my phone. It was almost noon. “I teach at one. I—I should get ready.”

  “Okay,” Tracy said with a frown. “But definitely get some coffee. You didn’t speak up once that entire meeting. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes?” I said, my voice raising unconsciously into a question.

  Now Tracy looked genuinely concerned. She put her hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “Seriously, are you sick? I can take you to the clinic. I don’t have class until two.”

  I shook my head, both in answer and to try to snap myself out of it. I needed to focus—something I’d been unable to do that entire meeting. It was TJ. How was that even possible? “I’m okay. Just… umm… allergies have been kicking my butt today.”

  “Oh, yeah, those are the worst,” Tracy said, releasing my shoulder and gathering up her things. “Is that why you kept your head down the whole meeting? I don’t think you looked at Dr. Jenson once—and trust me, you were missing out. The man is drop dead gorgeous.”

  “I— umm, yes, he’s nice looking.” That was the understatement of the year, but I’d been afraid to look directly at him during the meeting. Mostly, I’d taken quick peeks at him out of the corner of my eye. Because halfway through the meeting, after the shock of seeing him in person had lessened an infinitesimal amount, the big question occurred to me. Had he seen my message this morning? The one with my picture? The one saying that I was still a virgin?

  Gradually, I concluded that he hadn’t. He’d looked at me—and at all of us—throughout the meeting, and he hadn’t shown any signs of recognizing me. He’d been polite but rather distant when we’d all introduced ourselves. I was pretty sure he hadn’t seen my message yet—but he would at some point. And then I’d have to face the overwhelming embarrassment of seeing him after he knew I was MayBee3—or leave the country.

  That latter option was looking better and better. Canada was nice this time of year, wasn’t it? Or Mexico. I loved chimichangas.

  “I still say you kept your eyes on your notebook far more than Dr. Hottie. But don’t worry,” Tracy said, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “I was doing enough looking for both of us. That man is mega-hot.”

  “He’s our advisor,” I protested, the words squeaking past my lips.

  “And I feel very bad for Dr. White, but that’s not to say we can’t learn from this new guy. Anyone who can help us with our teaching and fuel our lurid fantasies is a bonus in my book.”

  “Tracy! He might hear us.”

  “He’s long gone,” she said, standing up and stretching, her long blonde hair hitting her mid-back as she rolled her neck from side to side. I was okay with my brown, wavy locks, but sometimes it did seem like blondes had more fun. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to the TA office and then I’ve gotta get some food.”

  “Okay,” I said, following her out of the room. She continued to talk, mostly about how good-looking Dr. Jenson was. All I could focus on was what I’d said to him. What I’d revealed to him. He was now my advisor, in essence, my new boss, and sometime soon he’d get my message.

  As soon as I was at my desk, I opened the CUNFESHUNZ app on my phone and checked to see if there was any way to delete the message, but there wasn’t. Out of desperation, I even shot a quick e-mail to the website, asking them to unsend my message, but two hours later, after I taught the most disjointed and disorganized class of my life, I got a response from them that it wasn’t possible.

  Which left two options: Moving to Canada or trying to keep him from seeing my message.

  While the former still seemed like the better choice, I mused about the latter. Would it even be possible to somehow stop him from seeing the message? The phone app, once downloaded, didn’t require a password. At least it didn’t on my phone.

  But that was stupid. It’s not like he was going to leave his phone open somewhere for people to go through it—especially not if he frequented places like CUNFESHUNZ or other disreputable sites online. Still, if there was even a chance…

  On my laptop, I looked at the Comparative Literature section website and found his name. His office was on the second floor of the building, unlike the TA office. We shared a cramped office in what used to be an unfinished attic.

  Feeling foolish, I walked down the stairs, my steps growing slower as I reached the second floor. This would never work. There was no way it would work. Yet I had to try. I loved this university. I loved learning. I loved teaching. But I didn’t know how I could continue to do any of those things if every time I looked at my advisor I thought about all the intimate secrets he knew about me. We’d talked about so much that first night. At the time, I’d naively thought it was romantic, to be so open with a man like him. Now it was horrifying.

  As I crept down the hall, I could see one door open on the left. His name plate was on the side of the door. Silently, I stood to one side and peeked in. Dr. Jenson was sitting at a huge desk with a computer at one side. All I could see was his dark, wavy hair because his head was bent as he looked at his phone. His phone.

  I couldn’t move for at least thirty seconds as I stared at him in horror. Was he checking the website? Had he seen my message yet? Finally, my heart started pumping again and I took a small step backwards. But then his deep voice stopped me. “Holy shit.”

  Alarmed, I stared at him, but he was still looking at his phone. I didn’t have much doubt what he was looking at. Slowly, I eased backward, putting a hand on the doorframe to steady myself. But somehow, I jostled the heavy wooden door which moved an inch or two with a low creak.

  Instantly, he looked up, his blue eyes staring into my horrified ones. “Holy shit,” he said again.

  Though I wanted to sink into the floor, I couldn’t look away from his piercing gaze. Even as his eyes trapped me, my mind raced. It wouldn’t be hard. I’d get in my car. Drive north. Cross the border. Except I didn’t have a passport.

  At long last, Dr. Jenson’s gaze softened. His eyes loosened their hold on me, yet I still couldn’t move.

  “Come on in,” he said. “We have a few things to talk about.”

  TJ

  Holy shit.

  Probably a professor at a prestigious university English Department should have a better vocabulary, but that was the phrase that kept springing to mind.

  MayBee3, the charming young woman I’d spent all of Sunday thinking about, was here. At my school. In my department. And she was part of a group of Teaching Assistants I’d just been charged with mentoring. Un-fucking-believable.

  During the meeting, I hadn’t paid much attention to her. That was by design. She’d seemed bashful and shy. Maybe it was male arrogance at play here, but I’d taken that as a sign that she found me attractive. It happened sometimes during the classes I taught. Over the years, I’d encountered any number of shy, inexperienced female students who snuck glances at me when they thought I wasn’t looking, who turned beet red whenever I called on them. Who stammered when they spoke to me. I’d learned it was best to leave them be until they got over their bashfulness.

  So I hadn't spoken directly to her during the meeting, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t noticed her. It would have taken a blind man not to notice her—she was gorgeous. Lovely in every way, from her long, twisting brown locks to her creamy pale skin. Since she’d kept her head down half the meeting, I kept noticing minor details, such as the way her delicate, slender fingers ended with sparkly pink nail polish. It was a girlish thing, but she’d struck me as very young—though now that I knew who she was, I knew she was younger than the others by a year.

  Even though she was hovering in the doorway, looking like she was about to bolt, I couldn’t muster the words to reassure her. She’d shocked the hell out of me several times over the past few days. First with her honest confession at that addictive website. I’d sent her a private message out of idle curiosity. I
hadn’t expected to spend the whole night talking with a bright, charming young woman.

  Then I’d shocked myself by thinking about her so much yesterday. Wondering if she’d really go through with it with her “friend.” What an asshole. Him, not her. True, she hadn’t told me a great deal about him, but I found myself disliking him all the same.

  When I’d checked my phone just now and saw that she’d left a message, my heart had quickened just seeing her screen name. Though I was a literature professor who read all kinds of books, I wasn’t a very romantic guy. Yet my heart literally sped up when I saw that she’d written.

  And then her picture—my hormones responded before my brain kicked in. She was beautiful, her deep brown eyes seeming to peer through the screen into my soul. But then I realized who she was—and that she was standing at the door to the office.

  Un-fucking-believable.

  “Come on in,” I said again, gesturing.

  It looked to be a fifty-fifty chance that she’d take off at full-speed, but after a long moment she took a step inside my office. Progress.

  I raised an eyebrow and watched her as she hesitated. Even in her uncertainty she was beautiful. Now that she wasn’t hunched over at the conference table, I could see that she was fairly tall for a young woman—perhaps five feet eight inches. Since I was well over six feet tall, I appreciated a woman with some height.

  Her arms were slender in the rather shapeless beige sweater she wore, but it couldn’t entirely conceal the generous curves at her chest and her hips. She was gorgeous. How had she gotten to this point without some man capturing her heart and worshipping that luxurious body? Her would-be friends-with-benefits guy was either blind, gay, or a complete ass. I was going with the last one, and I was so fucking glad she hadn’t slept with an idiot like that. Though I’d be pretty idiotic myself if I believed that was the only reason I was glad she’d changed her mind.

  After a taking another few steps in, she paused, looking pointedly at the heavy door to my office. I nodded, and she closed it, making her way over to the chair opposite my desk, where she perched on the edge of the seat, still looking ready to bolt at any moment.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but suddenly realized I wasn’t sure what to say—and that I didn’t know her real name. Her screen name was MayBee3… had there been any names on the list of TAs that were like that? For a moment, I closed my eyes. The sight of her gorgeous form in front of me was not doing much for my powers of concentration. Think… oh yes, one of the names had been Maya—that must be it.

  “So, Maya, is this going to be a problem?”

  She stared down at the smooth surface of my desk so long that I thought she wasn’t going to answer. Finally, in a soft voice, she said, “Probably.”

  Her honesty made me grin, and to my surprise, she gave a brief smile of her own before retreating back to an anxious expression.

  “It doesn’t have to. We had a conversation—a really good one. But no lines were crossed. It’s not like we spent the entire night sexting.”

  She blushed at that, and it occurred to me that some evil corner of my brain may have intended her to. Which was fucked up. She was embarrassed, and I needed to make it better, not worse. But she looked so damn beautiful with that red flush on her face. Plus, it was true. We hadn’t crossed any real lines.

  “But you… know things about me.” Her voice was so soft it barely made its way across the wide desk to reach my ears.

  “Yes, and you know some things about me, too.” That was true. I’d opened up to her about many things that night. I hadn’t talked about my divorce from Sharon in years, yet I’d found myself talking about that and a good deal more intimate things with this inexperienced young woman. She’d been a good listener and had some surprisingly complex insights for a woman who’d never been in a real relationship.

  Real. That’s the word that had gotten me into this mess. If I hadn’t been so determined to prove to her that it was best to wait for something real, we wouldn’t be in this situation. But I had, and I couldn’t regret it—especially not if it had played some part in why she hadn’t gone through with her plans Sunday night.

  “I could drop the class.”

  “What class?” She wasn’t in one of my classes, was she? I was sure I would have remembered if she was.

  “The Freshman Composition class I teach. So that you wouldn’t be my advisor anymore.”

  What? “Don’t you like teaching?”

  “I love it,” she said, no hesitation this time. And for some reason, the shape of her lips when she said the word love burned an image into my brain. She was so beautiful. And I knew from the other night how witty and smart she was. It still didn't make any sense to me that she was a virgin. But it was time to set that issue on the back burner. There were bigger issues at hand.

  “It didn’t happen.”

  “What?” She blinked up at me, looking at me directly for the first time.

  “It never happened. The conversation. The revelations. The… confessions.” I’d almost said intimacy, which probably would have spooked her even more. Yet that night had felt very intimate even though I’d been chatting with a woman I’d never laid eyes on. I didn’t want to deny the power of that night or the connection I’d felt, but it seemed like the only way we could have a working relationship.

  And that was essential. I was an established professional, but she was at the very beginning of her career. Due to the Dr. White’s family crisis, I was now in charge of guiding Maya on her way. And that was more important than anything I may be feeling about her.

  “I met you for the first time at this meeting this afternoon. You and several other promising graduate students. In the future, we will be working together, and you must feel free to come to me for help, support, guidance. So that’s why it’s a damn good thing that we don’t have any prior history. I want you to feel comfortable with me. I want to help you. So, it was great meeting you today for the first time today, Maya.”

  She looked bemused, an expression that was somehow adorable on her delicate features. Since she was looking at me directly, I was able to see for the first time a light smattering of freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. “You too, T—I mean, Dr. Jenson.”

  “Excellent,” I said, and even to myself, I sounded pompous and distant. But that was necessary at the moment. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy working with you in a professional capacity for the rest of the semester.”

  “Yes. A professional capacity,” she said, sounding anything but certain. Then she rose to her feet and I did as well, walking around my desk to see her to the door. I had to fight every impulse in my body not to put my hand on her back as she reached for the door handle, but I resisted, keeping a decent space between us.

  “See you later, Maya.”

  “Yes, Professor,” she said as she squeezed out the partially open door. “See you.”

  And then she was gone, just another colleague whom I would treat professionally and impersonally. At least that’s what my mind said. But my subconscious was busy cataloguing every glimpse of her I’d had today. And my hand still ached to reach out and touch her. To feel the warmth from her body, even if it was just once.

  With a groan, I sank back into my leather desk chair. When Dr. Harper had hit me with this added assignment this morning, I’d known it was going to increase my workload this semester, but I’d taken one for the team. But now that I knew how much this responsibility was going to test me, I was ready to march into her office and refuse. Not that I could. Not that I would. But part of me knew it was the smart thing to do.

  And most of my life had been about doing the smart thing. But something told me it was going to be harder this time.

  Holy shit, indeed.

  Maya

  Oh my God.

  My mind was still repeating that even well into the evening. And the evening after that. It wasn’t until Thursday that I even saw TJ again. I mean Dr. Jenson. Crap, I needed to stop thinking of him that w
ay.

  On Thursdays, we had our second TA meeting of the week, and he’d led the meeting as competently as Dr. White had. If it weren’t for our epic chat over the weekend, I think I’d really like having him as our advisor. It was true he taught literature a lot more than composition, but he was very knowledgeable in both areas.

  Another TA, Chris, had talked about a problem he was having with an arrogant student, a freshman on a football scholarship who thought writing was a waste of time. TJ had given some good advice, and Chris looked more confident as he headed off to class after our meeting. And Tracy had brought up a problem, too, and TJ had talked her through it, guiding her until she came up with something she could try with her students.

  I hadn’t spoken up much during the meeting, but I did manage to look in TJ’s direction more instead of staring at my notebook. The problem was, once I started looking at him, it was hard to stop. He was so damn handsome. In a way, I envied Tracy who seemed content to openly drool over him. Things were more complicated for me because of our marathon chat—but wait, I was supposed to pretend that that had never happened.

  Which was easy for him to say and hard for me to do. Still, I’d tried to be good. I hadn’t checked in at the CUNFESHUNZ site since Monday morning when I sent him my picture. And I’d acted professionally detached at the meetings this week. But when I was alone, I found myself looking at his picture on my phone.

  A lot.

  By Friday evening, I was exhausted but jittery, as if I’d had too much caffeine. I’d turned down Tracy’s offer to go to a party with her. She always asked, but I rarely accepted. I supposed at some point she’d stop asking. Not sure if that was a good thing or bad thing.

  It was only ten-thirty, too early to go to sleep. Besides, my brain wouldn’t shut off. I’d tried watching Netflix. I’d tried reading. But deep down I knew what I wanted to do. Well, besides flee to Canada and then invite TJ up there for a conjugal visit.

  The lure of the CUNFESHUNZ icon on my desktop screen was like a siren song. I wanted to open it so badly… and after another fifteen minutes of internal debate, I did.