Boning Up Read online

  “Open the damn door, Carly.”

  She snapped the chain loose and yanked the door open, then thrust her palm against his chest in a clear don’t-fucking-move-an-inch motion. “I said, take a hike. I’ll study for this test myself.”

  Her hand on his chest did nothing to stop the burning heat in his crotch, but her words did what her hand couldn’t. He wouldn’t force himself on any woman, no matter how much he wanted her. And he wanted this one. Smart-mouthed, annoying, and beautiful with the barely-there shorts practically begging to be ripped off and short tank top revealing a flat, silky belly—this one. Oh yeah, he wanted her all right.

  He couldn’t just walk away without a damn good reason, especially when his desire mirrored the same one burning in her eyes. After last night, it was going to take a lot more than being called an asshole to do that.

  “I’m not going anywhere. You need me.”

  Something flickered in her eyes and her shoulders dropped a fraction. “The professor needs you.”

  Her hand remained on his chest, but the tension in her arm eased as he leaned into her palm. “I don’t give a shit what the professor needs. You need me, and you can’t fool me.”

  “A chimp with a lobotomy could fool you.”

  “What the hell is going on, Carly? I thought you wanted—”

  “And I thought you had bigger opportunities beckoning. Look, last night was good. It was fine. And I got the A. I’ve got that other test tomorrow, but I’ve been studying on my own. You and the professor assume I need you in order to pass it. That I need you—” Her voice cracked before she finished. “I don’t.”

  This was just ridiculous. Not only were they wasting precious time they would need to study, they were squandering moments that could be spent in each other’s arms. The four hours they’d already been apart were quite enough already. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the same woman I woke up naked with this morning? I seem to recall that my help was of considerable use to you today.”

  In more ways than one, he wanted to add. He’d put that color in her cheeks, dammit. Now she was kicking him out?

  Her hand fell away from his chest, and for a moment, he thought she would reply. But she turned, walked inside and closed the door.

  Oh, this isn’t over yet, he thought. Not hearing her reengage the chain, he grabbed the doorknob and followed her. The sight in front of him stopped him from taking another step.

  The place was a mess—books open, notebooks strewn about, pencils and pens and highlighting markers. If he didn’t know better, he could believe a stray wind had swept in here and displaced the entire bookcase.

  Her back to him, she stared down at the floor, her shoulders slumped. “I’m busy. Please leave.”

  The sound of her voice and not the words spoke to him. She was busy all right, but there was a pleading there, a desperation she’d not let him see when he was on the other side of the door.

  But he was on this side now.

  “Carly.”

  She turned to face him, her eyes moist, a black Magic Marker tucked behind her ear. That wasn’t desperation in her eyes, but pain.

  He closed the door, went to her, and pulled her into his arms. She struggled for a moment, then stilled. As he held her firm body against his, the desire that had pulsed through him earlier turned on him, morphing into something fierce and protective.

  “What happened? Has someone hurt you?”

  “Go to the Mayo clinic, why don’t you?” A tear slipped down her cheek as her arms hung limply at her sides. Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “God help me, I don’t even care. I want you.”

  Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her lips softly. “I want you, too. And I’m not going anywhere until we get this test aced. Tell me what the problem is.”

  “You are the problem!” She stared up at him, another tear sliding down her cheek. She angrily wiped it away. “Oh this is crazy. There’s just no way this—”

  She turned and pushed away from him. He released her. “Carly, what the hell is going on here? Talk to me!”

  Boning Up: Chapter 6

  There was no way she was going to tell him the truth—the stupid, pathetic truth. Somewhere in the middle of memorizing the bones of the hand and feet, the bone in her head had ceased to function. Learning about human anatomy had become experiencing its effects firsthand. She gazed through moist eyes at the tall, handsome man in front of her, remembering the firmness of his flesh, the soft touch of his fingers. Somewhere in the dark recesses of the library stacks in the middle of the night, she’d fallen in love with him.

  She blinked away the tears. It was too ridiculous to say aloud, not to mention humiliating to feel. No one fell in love in one night. It was impossible.

  But it was true. She knew it with every pulse of her blood, every breath through her lungs, in every joint down to the marrow of her bones. Humans were not mere flesh and muscle, but living, breathing, feeling souls. And her soul had been taken from her, along with her heart, by the intelligent human anatomy expert before her.

  Now she was standing here humiliating herself by crying like a hurt child. They’d had a deal, and he’d held up his end of the bargain. He was here to finish the job, a job they would both benefit from. But that was all it was to him, and all it should have been to her. Instead, her heart, that most traitorous of all human organs, had a mind of its own.

  She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her leg around his knees, pressing her body against his like second skin. Her kiss silenced any further questions. The remembered heat from last night re-ignited instantly, and as his lips moved over hers, she made herself forget anything beyond whatever time they had left to be together.

  She released her hold on his neck, her hands sliding down his arms as she knelt in front of him. She slowly began to unbuckle his belt. Before he could say a word, his erection sprang free and she had it in her mouth.

  Whatever she felt, did it really matter? After tonight, she’d never see him again. Was there any point at all to divulging her feelings and humiliating herself?

  As she stroked her fingers over his warm flesh, she focused her vision on this moment instead of all the days to come. For the last two hours she’d fumed, raged, cursed him, but now that he stood before her, his glorious taste on her tongue, she ignored everything but his body. Those days were to come. That is then, this is now. He’s going, but he’s not gone yet.

  Closing her eyes, she breathed in the smell of him, sandalwood and man. Her pussy throbbed with the ache to have his wonderful cock inside her. She slid her fingers down his legs and then to the waistband of her shorts. She pulled them along with her panties down her thighs, rocked forward on her knees, and yanked them the rest of the way off.

  “Should we talk about this?” His mumbled words came out in a low breath.

  She looked up at him and smiled. “Do you really want to talk?”

  “No, but what about—”

  Taking his cock into her hand and squeezing it stopped the question mid-sentence. She stood and began to pull him with her.

  “Where are we going?” He wound his hand into her hair and knocked the marker to the floor, then planted a kiss on her mouth so thorough she stumbled. Catching her and lifting her into his arms, he smiled. “Which way?”

  “Back there.” She pointed, then wrapped her arms around his neck and brought his lips back to hers. The taste of his lips, the heat of his body against hers, and the movement down the long hallway toward her bedroom made her dizzy with desire.

  Yes, tomorrow had enough worries of its own. For now, she had him in her arms.

  ***

  “I’d like to talk to you after class,” the professor said as she turned in her final test paper the following morning.

  Today, she mused sadly, it wasn’t as difficult to keep the smile off her face as it had been yesterday. Today she wouldn’t be seeing Brock, not today and probably not ever again. Their tutoring sessions were over, and
as wonderful as they’d been, they were memories, not predecessors, not harbingers of things to come.

  She knew she’d gotten A’s on both tests, even though the professor had only scored yesterday’s exam so far. Today’s test had presented no great challenge to her after the night’s marathon “studying session,” which had lasted well into the early hours of the morning. She fully expected another perfect score. Those two exemplary testing efforts would bring her grade up to passing.

  And Brock would get his recommendation from the professor. Together, they had won the bet, for they had done exactly what Brock had wagered they would do. Everything they’d needed to accomplish, they had carried out. And now, they were done.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “This is my last class today.”

  “Please go back to your seat until everyone leaves.”

  She noticed how he didn’t spare her a look when he spoke and wondered what was on his mind. Probably he thought she’d done something underhanded in order to get the grade she’d gotten on yesterday’s test.

  That must have been why he’d placed her in the back of the classroom, sitting alone, to take today’s test. The bastard thought she’d cheated. Well, it didn’t matter one way or another. She could take that test again in a room alone and get exactly the same perfect score. She knew the biological systems on this test as well as she’d known the morphology of the human skeleton. Brock was nothing if not thorough.

  What did the professor want with her then? Probably he was angry that he wasn’t going to get his choice of teaching assistant next year after all. Probably he was going to insult her one last time before she got away from him for good.

  Well, let him insult her all he wanted. She would have the diploma in her hand by the end of the week, and there was not one single thing he could do about it.

  Sometime later, the final remaining student walked to the front of the class, turned in her test paper and slunk away, obviously not thrilled with the outcome. That was me two days ago, she thought. Before Brock came into my life, that’s exactly how I always walked out of here. No matter what happened now, she knew she could walk out with her head held high.

  She rose from her seat, and the professor looked up, held his palm toward her motioning her to stay where she was, then looked at the stack of papers in front of him. Sifting through them, he pulled out one of the tests and slapped it down on his desk. Dropping into his seat and pulling a red pen from the cup at the corner of the desk, he started reading.

  She sank back into the chair, prepared to wait. She watched him go over the first page of the test, then the second, but as his face became redder and redder, she lost interest. Turning to stare out the window, she felt the corners of her lips curving into a smile. They’d had fun last night. She suppressed a giggle, remembering her final solution to recalling every biological system of the human body. Naming and cataloging the bones had been one thing, and she had to admit that learning those had been one hell of a good time. Studying the biological systems—mastering them in fact—would remind her for years to come how much the right teacher could make a subject fun to learn.

  “Miss Neal, would you come up here?”

  She rose again, picked up her book bag and notebook and started down the long aisle to the front of the class. Whatever this was about, she hoped it would be over quickly. While she had nothing else planned for today, she was considering going home, putting in a very sad movie, and crying for a while. There was no point in it, nothing to be gained, and yet the idea of letting all the emotions inside her flow out sounded like what her human anatomy most needed right now.

  The professor got slowly out of his chair and straightened to his full height. He picked up her test paper, rolled it into a tube, and pointed it at her. “Do you have anything you would like to tell me about these tests?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I mean, for the entire twelve weeks leading up to yesterday and today, you have not known your coccyx from your humerus. Then in two days….” He tossed her paper toward her and it landed on the desk still rolled up tight. “Two perfect grades in two days. You knew nothing whatsoever, and now you are a walking encyclopedia of gross anatomy? I’ll ask you again. Do you have something you’d like to tell me?”

  She shook her head. Then the door opened, and they both turned at the same time to see who’d returned.

  “Mr. Larson. Excellent timing.”

  “Hello, Professor.” Brock smiled at her for a quick instant, then turned back to the professor. “How much has my student prodigy learned in two days?”

  “Interesting question. I was just attempting to discover the answer to that myself. Perhaps you can lend your expertise, for Miss Neal cannot.”

  “What’s the problem, Professor? How many questions did she miss?”

  Professor Harold crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her. “Not a single one.”

  Carly wanted to smile at this. She should be able to take a moment and be proud of her accomplishment. She’d learned an entire semester’s syllabus in two days. Yet, the way Harold was looking at her, she suspected that would only make the situation worse. All she wanted now was to get out of here with her passing grade and some semblance of her dignity intact.

  “What I would like to know,” the professor continued as he turned toward Brock, “is how you managed that? After scoring yesterday’s test, I knew something was amiss. So I placed her in the back of the class, far away from every other student, before handing out this morning’s test. This is not the same test that I gave to your class last year, either. I watched her carefully throughout the exam. I am completely at a loss as to how this was accomplished, and furthermore, I find it impossible that a student who knew almost nothing all summer suddenly knew everything.”

  Brock did not look at her, and as if she needed it shoved in her face again, she realized he was here for one purpose and one purpose only.

  “Are you saying she cheated, Professor?”

  “I am saying she did not cheat, not in any traditional way that I can discern. So I will ask you, Brock. How did you do it?”

  Brock turned to her and smiled then, the warm, funny smile she’d seen quite a few times last night. “I didn’t do it. She did. She studied. Hard. Very hard.”

  “That’s impossible. No one could learn that much in two days.”

  “You are either calling me a liar, sir, or her a cheater. Which is it? Or are you simply a poor loser?”

  “I have lost nothing.” The professor turned to Carly. “Unless you can prove to me that this woman actually learned everything in my textbook in two days, I will fail you regardless of the results of these two exams.”

  She’d opened her mouth to answer him, but Brock stopped her. “You owe this guy no explanation.” He took both of her hands in his and squeezed them. “You studied your ass off and you learned it. You aced both of those tests, and I don’t give a shit what this asshole says, and I’ll tell the dean exactly that.”

  Carly blinked. Had she just heard that correctly? Was he now taking her side over the one man able to give him what he wanted? She couldn’t tell the professor how she’d come to understand the human anatomy in two days. Those two days were something she wanted to hold close inside her heart, because if she examined the anatomy lesson too closely, she would have to admit that it had also broken her heart.

  In any case, she didn’t want to expose Brock and his unusual method of teaching her in front of this buffoon.

  “I won’t tell you how,” Carly said.

  “Well, I will.” Brock grabbed the hem of his shirt and yanked it over his head. Then he held the shirt in a wad inside his fist. “This is how we did it.”

  Carly closed her eyes and heard the audible gasp of Professor Harold. She didn’t have to open them to see what the professor was staring at—the names of organs, medical terms, and sketches indicating their internal placement—all in a rainbow of Magic Marker colors written over his body.r />
  “She learned with me what your shitty textbook never taught either one of us. We learned together what the human body is made of and what it’s used for. Something you’ll probably never know.”

  She felt Brock’s arm around her and opened her eyes.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m still going to recommend you for anything after this circus,” the professor said, his words dripping acid.

  Brock looked into her eyes, his searching hers for something. “The only recommendation I’m interested in at the moment is Carly Neal’s. And the only job I’m interested in would have to be one where I could see her every day. Since she is about to graduate after getting a passing grade from this class, that is something the two of us will have to discuss. We have no further use for you.”

  As he guided her out of the classroom, his arm tight around her waist, she rested her head against his shoulder and smiled. When they stepped out into the morning sunlight, Carly looked up at him and laughed. “Are you going to put your shirt back on?”

  “Why? When I’m just going to have to take it right back off again as soon as we reach your apartment. That is, if you’re interested at all in proving everything I just said to that jerk?”

  She was interested.

  *

  About the author:

  Summer Alan is single and loving it! She moves around all over the United States with her cat, Martini, and has spent the last four years living the life she always dreamed of. Convertibles, dark chocolate and her laptop are her passions along with all of the visuals and experiences life has to offer.

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  Special Bonus Section

  Preview of Hot for Teacher by Liza James

  Interview With Kristin Daniels

  Dean’s Easy Potato Salad Recipe From Kristin Daniels

  New in Print! Object of Desire, a Novel by Calista Fox

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  Preview of Hot for Teacher by Liza James

  If you enjoyed the anatomy lessons in Boning Up, you might also like a story about a teacher who has to learn a lesson the hard way!