I closed my eyes briefly. “Why do you think, Mr. Forty-Two Yards?”
His face reddened. It was hard to tell if the color came from anger, shock, humiliation, guilt, embarrassment, or what. Clenching his teeth, he bit out, “I didn’t go to anyone to complain if that’s what you’re implying.”
It really didn’t matter if he had or hadn’t. I’d gotten my warning regardless. Now I had to behave by the Man’s stupid, unfair rules.
But no one said I couldn’t take my anger out on the student I was being forced to pass.
“You know, I find it ironic that you’re the one writing subpar assignments and I’m the one getting a slap on the hand for it.”
If Noel Gamble had feathers, I swear they would’ve ruffled. He looked so affronted I actually wanted to cheer on my ability to piss him off. “Look, I’m not asking for special treatment just because your boss happens to like the way I play ball.”
“And yet you’ll be getting it anyway, despite both our wishes.”
“You know what? Fuck you. You told me to come here if I needed help. So here I am. But you obviously don’t want to help me. So, thanks so much for your worthless time.”
When he turned away, I panicked. Pissing off the dean of the English department during my first semester as a professor would not bode well for my future. I had to soothe Noel Gamble’s ruffled feathers. Now.
Clenching my teeth, I surged to my feet and muttered, “Gamble, sit down.”
“Hell no.” Without pausing, he yanked open the door and lifted a hand to send me a jerky, middle-finger wave of dismissal over his shoulder. “Excuse me for bothering you, Professor.”
Damn it, he and I would both be screwed if he walked out that door.
“Do you want to pass my class or not?”
Finally, he paused and glanced back. When I caught the glint of vulnerability and stubborn pride in his tense expression, I melted. Shit, why’d he have to go and do something human like that? Strong, obstinate people who slipped up and showed a weakness always melted me like sugar in warm water.
“Sit down,” I murmured in a quiet, apologetic voice. Motioning toward the chair, I more calmly added, “Please.”
Jaw knitted hard, he closed his eyes and muttered something unintelligible under his breath before he re-shut the door and slouched low into the chair with a petulant glare. Drumming his fingers impatiently on his jean-clad knee, he lifted an eyebrow, silently saying, Well? Teach me already.
I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this, but I was determined to make Noel Gamble earn the passing grade I was being forced to give him.
CHAPTER THREE
"Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein
~NOEL~
Throat bone dry while the acid in my stomach did somersaults, I stared through narrowed eyes across an eerily clean desk at my English teacher and her delectable mouth, which had driven me crazy since the first day of class when she’d taken her place behind the instructor’s podium.
That skeeved me out more than anything. Nothing about Dr. Kavanagh was my type. I preferred blondes with gorgeous long, flowing hair. My Literature professor kept her dark mass scraped back and hidden away in a tight holy-roller bun secured at the base of her neck.
I was a lover of long lean bodies that liked to show off their impressive curves with fashionable, revealing clothes. Kavanagh was tiny, and probably too rounded for my taste. Or at least I figured she had chub rolls she wanted to hide. Why else would she wear clothes three sizes too large for her?
And I liked confident sensuality in a female, someone who knew she had it and moved as if she wanted every guy in a fifty-mile radius to stop whatever he was doing just to gawk at her whenever she sauntered by. Kavanagh didn’t have a single saunter in her repertoire. She had the sensuality of a nun, and she didn’t seem to like guys at all. Not that I believed she was a dyke as Tenning had suggested. I just viewed her as an anti-sexual being. Genderless. At least, I wanted to.
Which was another reason I hated being so aware of her as a woman whenever she was around. While I was imagining how her sweet, plush lips would feel wrapped around my favorite body part, I knew she had nothing but freaking literature on the brain.
“I actually tried, you know,” I said, attempting to focus on her green eyes and not her mouth. “That was probably the best damn paper I ever wrote. And I didn’t cheat like I’m sure half the class did. I read the book, the Cliff Notes, sample essays. I even watched the weird-ass movie. I did all the fucking work.”
Silently seating herself in the chair opposite the desk from me, Dr. Kavanagh gave me a tight smile. “And yet you completely missed the entire point of the assignment.”
Well, shit, you think? I jerked my hands into the air. “Maybe because I didn’t understand the goddamn point. I mean, what the hell did you want me to say?”
I knew I should’ve toned down the language, but she had me turned inside-out. And I’d only been in her office for two minutes. How this one tiny little person could get me so instantly and completely riled, I didn’t know. But here I was, mad, turned-on, ashamed, alarmed and frankly disturbed by my attraction, while I was equally pissed at her for knowing exactly how much I didn’t deserve to step foot on this campus because I was too freaking stupid.
And, fuck, had she put on lip gloss or something since I’d seen her this morning in class? Her mouth looked shinier than ever. I caught myself looking at it again and jerked my gaze away. Damn it, bitchy teachers shoul