She gave him a “How do you like them apples?” look before straightening her skirt and heading for the door.
“Miss Finn?” He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get the words out.
Jen paused, looking back at him.
“I may have misled the class about a quiz so no one would fall asleep. And I’ll expect us to finish this conversation tomorrow in my office at two-thirty. This issue is not resolved.”
She frowned at him, but something sparked back to life in her eyes. “Talk about an understatement.” And then she was quietly opening the door and disappearing from his view.
Declan felt like he’d been hit by a freight train. A slender twenty-six-year-old freight train who tasted like honey and told him off like a trucker.
And she had the most beautiful red hair and blue eyes he’d ever seen.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, to no one in particular.
He pulled out his phone and texted Trick.
We need to talk.
The response was instantaneous.
You liked the dress?
You’re a bastard.
I knew it. Aren’t you still in class?
Showing a movie.
R rated?
Meet me at the bar.
Did you watch porn without me?
No, Declan thought. I was in porn without you.
Meet me at the bar after my last class.
Did you know she’s wearing a butt plug?
Yes.
I’ll meet you at the bar.
Declan slipped the phone back into his pocket and ran his hands over his face. God, he could smell her in his beard. Taste her. He wanted to call Jennifer Finn back into the room and make her come again. He wanted to take her home and have her for dinner. He hadn’t been this obsessed since—well, since the first time he’d been with Trick.
And look how well that turned out.
Trick was the reason he knew he had it in him. This kind of hunger. He wasn’t lying when he warned Jennifer about wanting things too much. When it came to his old lover, he considered himself an addict in the truest sense of the word. The highs, the crash and the long painful withdrawals that came with their now-and-then relationship reminded him to keep the rest of his life simple. No extremes.
What he had with Trick, and what he was already starting to feel for Jennifer Finn was extreme and it wasn’t simple. On an intellectual level he didn’t like what he felt. The possessiveness. The sexual aggression.
With Trick, it at least made more sense. They’d spent hours together talking and studying as Declan helped him prepare for his high school equivalency. They’d bonded over the absence of their parents—Trick had helped him grieve for his mother—and the criminal, negligent elements in their extended families.
Trick made him laugh. He’d been behind bars and Declan had never known a man so comfortable with himself. So at ease in his skin. It was clear after a few sessions that Tristan Dunham did not belong in prison. He was a bit of a troublemaker, but at the bone he was one of the good guys. He’d just had a few bad breaks.
It wasn’t until Trick had knocked on Declan’s door on his first day as a free man that the spark of interest between them had become an all-out conflagration. Trick said he’d seen it in his eyes the minute they met, but Declan had never had a clue what was inside of him. Sometimes it still scared him. The more he wanted something, the harder it would be to lose it.
With Jennifer Finn, his feelings weren’t based on time together or shared history, yet each time she smiled at him or spoke to him, each time he was close enough to touch her, they grew stronger.
And now that he’d had a taste, he knew it would be impossible to resist what Trick wanted. What they all wanted.
If Trick felt it too, Declan didn’t know how he’d waited this long to have her. How he’d touched her and never taken her.
It was one of the things he meant to ask him at the bar.
And then Trick would tell him about the first time he’d met Jennifer, and every graphic detail of what they’d done together until this afternoon.
God, he was messed up.
Chapter Five
“You’re an angel, Jen. A saint to do this for me on your study day.”
Jen smiled up at the grateful Tasha, finishing her task with one final stroke. “Well, I’m caught up on all my assignments and you know I’ll do anything for your lemon tarts. Which is why you brought over a dozen. One for every toe,” she joked.
“Lord, please tell me I haven’t grown two extra toes. I haven’t seen my feet in days.”
Her roommate’s voice drifted from the kitchen to the living room. “A dozen? I’ll gain a hundred pounds.”
Jen smirked. “Only if you eat them all before I’m finished giving the Senator’s wife a pedicure.” She patted Tasha’s foot. “I was teasing. Ten toes and all done. In case you can’t find them later¸ they look gorgeous in fire engine red.”