ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR (4 page)

And then he placed her chin in his hand, and kissed her on the lips.

There was a tenderness to his kiss, Shay thought, an almost restraint to it. But more

than that there was a feeling that was coming over her that caused her entire body to move

closer to him, to rub up against him. And when her reaction caused his kiss to deepen, she

knew she was treading on an icy, unfamiliar, but wonderful terrain.

He kept kissing her, kept rubbing her, kept moaning as if he was going to crush her by

the will of his lust alone. His lips moved from her mouth to her face to her neck to her breasts

and he lingered there. Kissing her and sucking her so much, for so long, that she began to feel

impaled by him. She wrapped herself into this powerful man, unsure if she could handle any

heightened intensity.

But she had to, because Matty wasn’t about to let up. He wanted her now with an all-

consuming passion. His penis dangled against her skin and was moving, seemingly of its own

volition, for her womanhood. He had to enter her and he had to enter her now. He grabbed

his wallet off of the nightstand, and quickly put on a condom, his heart hammering with fierce

urgency.

And then he entered her. His massive shaft was so engorged against such a tight entry,

her fresh sweetness, that he could hardly believe how good it felt. And he began to pound her.

He was so outside himself, so filled with lust and desire for this woman that he didn’t at

first realize he had shoved through her hymen with such a force that it made her reek in pain.

He stopped suddenly when he realized it, and looked at her. She was a virgin. This sweet,

precious woman was a virgin!

“You okay?” he asked her, angry with himself for causing her such pain.

But Shay nodded. “I’m fine.”

“I can stop,” he said, although to stop would nearly kill him.

“No,” Shay said. “Don’t stop. It’s a little painful, but I don’t want you to stop.”

And he was thankful because it would have taken everything within him to reverse.

But he slowed his movements, easing in and out, taking care not to add to her discomfort.

And it worked, he was able to get his rhythm and she was able to withstand the onslaught.

Until his control began to break again. He moved in deeper, and the more she took him in, the

further he moved in. And then he was pounding her. Shay held on, and it was painful, but it

was much more than that. It was liberating, too. She felt as if she was climbing a mountain,

and the drudgery of the climb was unrelenting, but she knew, once she got there, once she

reached that summit, it was going to be explosive.

And it was. Her entire body arched into his as the sound of his skin slapping against

hers blasted across the sound of silence in the room and made her feel as hysterical as she felt

when she first saw that spider. Only this hysteria felt joyous, so full of primal, unrestraint

bawdiness, that by the time she arched up for the last time, and took in the fullness of him as

he released into her like an overpowering flood, she clung to him least she fall, foot loose and

fancy free, over that blinding cliff.

The next morning, after a blissful night’s sleep, Matty awoke to find that Shay had dressed,

and was gone.

THREE

Two weeks later

Dr. Alexandria Kanisha Graham was a mentor in name only and Shay always dreaded

going to see her. But when the Dean of Academic Affairs summons you to her office, you

don’t exactly debate the summons.

Shay went to see her. She sat in the small, arch-top chair in front of her big desk and

waited patiently for Dr. Graham to finish her telephone conversation. It was rude for her to

have answered the call in the first place, especially after she had told her secretary to bring

Shay in. But that was Alex Graham. She was a stunningly attractive beauty queen, a dark-

skinned version of Tyra Banks, who thought the sun, moon, stars, and all mankind, revolved

around her.

“Right,” she said when she finally hung up the phone. “Miss Shanita.” She picked up

a file that Shay presumed was a dossier on her. “You know why I called you here.”

Because Alex said it as if it were a fact, not a question, Shay didn’t see the point in

answering. Alex, however, was a master at handling students. A kid like Shay wasn’t about to

handle her. She simply kept reading the file and awaited her response.

“Yes, I know,” Shay finally said. “The scholarship.”

“What about the scholarship?”

Shay wanted to roll her eyes. They both knew the deal, she didn’t understand why she

had to hear the details. “I’m in danger of losing it if my grades don’t pick up.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Alex said, looking at her as if she were looking over a pair of half-

moon glasses. “You aren’t in danger of losing that scholarship. You have already lost that

scholarship.”

Shay was stunned. “Lost it? How could I have lost it? I didn’t fail anything!”

“No, you didn’t fail, Shanita, but you went below a 3.0 last term.”

“But my cumulative GPA is a 3.2, Dr. Graham!”

“That hasn’t anything to do with it. You must maintain a 3.0 or better EVERY

semester for the University to continue the scholarship. Those are the rules.”

“But--”

“No, but, Shanita, those are the rules. The question isn’t whether you’ve lost the

scholarship or not, that’s not up for debate. You’ve lost it. The question is what are you

going to do about it.”

Shay ran the back of her hand over her tired eyes. What in the world could she do

about it? The only reason she was able to afford Franklin in the first place was because of that

scholarship. To have lost it was devastating.

“Well?” Alex asked, almost with glee. She never cared for the likes of Shanita Cooper,

some uncultured female straight off the streets who had no business in an institution of higher

learning the caliber of Franklin. People like her kept the race depressed, ignorant, and behind

everybody else. Far as Alex was concerned she should leave Franklin now and go to work

fulltime at that truck stop diner, or whatever that greasy spoon was. Of course Alex was highly

thought of among administration at Franklin, and she was a master at never revealing her true

feelings.

“What are you going to do, Shanita?” she asked again.

“I don’t know,” Shay said with strain in her face. She always worked so hard, but

always seemed to end up last.

“
I don’t know
doesn’t exactly move the ball forward, now does it?” Alex started but

then was interrupted when her desk intercom buzzed.

“Sorry to disturb you, Dr. Graham,” her secretary said, “but your ten-thirty has arrived,

ma’am.”

Alex smiled. “Thank-you, Fran,” she said. “Send him through.”

Alex stood to her feet. “We’ll talk later,” she said to quickly dismiss Shay. “My ten-

thirty has arrived.”

“But it’s after eleven,” Shay said, standing too. “They’re late.”

“So? He’s one of the school’s most important business partners,” Alex lied. “We see

our business partners whenever they get here.”

“But I need to talk to you. I need to know if there’s something the school can do.”

Alex rolled her eyes. She hated these welfare queens. “It’s not a question of what the

school can do,” she reminded Shay, “it’s all about what you’re going to do. This is your

problem, not the school’s.”

“I understand that, Dr. Graham, I’m not saying this isn’t my problem--”

“You put yourself in this position. Franklin University had nothing to do with it.”

“I didn’t say the school--”

“Matty!” Alex said jovially, her angry face giving way to a smile that could charm birds

from trees. “Come on in!”

Shay heard the name, but was certain it couldn’t be the same person. But when she

picked up her book bag and turned in that direction, and saw that it was indeed the same man,

her heart dropped.

She’d been thinking about him nearly every night since the last time she saw him. He

never returned to the Stop Gap café, which was a big letdown for her initially, then a source of

comfort for her later. Better to not build up false hope in this world.

But now he was standing here, right in front of her, looking fine in his designer suit, his

shades on top of his head, his tough, rugged features reminding her of how he pounded her so,

how he made her feel when he was inside of her. She quickly looked away.

Matty’s heart didn’t drop, but a sudden, powerful sense of longing overcame him as

soon as he saw her pretty, worried face. He knew she attended Franklin, and would be

familiar with the Dean of Academic Affairs, but for some reason he never connected the two.

He always remembered her fondly, not as one of his flings in the few flings he’d had

ever since he and Alex called it quits, but he always remembered her as the one he wanted

again. Maybe even as the one that got away. It was ludicrous, he and Shay had little of

nothing in common, but that was how he often found himself feeling. And when their eyes

met, and he remembered how fantastic she felt inside of him, he, too, diverted his look.

“Come on in, Matty,” Alex said, “we were just wrapping up.”

“I can wait outside,” Matty suggested.

“Nonsense,” Alex insisted, coming from around her desk. “She’s leaving.”

Matty moved further into the office as Shay nervously put the papers that were meant

as evidence of all of her hard work, evidence she now knew Alex didn’t even want to see,

back into her book bag. She looked up just as Matty was looking back at her.

“Hello,” he said.

Shay didn’t say anything. Although he had extended his hand, she never saw it. She

just wanted to leave. According to Dr. Graham he had business with the university. If they

found out she had slept with him, they could consider kicking her out. She’d heard of it

before. Not with a business partner, but once a student was kicked out for carrying on with

one of the professors. It wasn’t the same thing, and Shay knew it wasn’t, but she didn’t put

anything past Alex Graham. And although Dr. Graham was probably no angel herself, she

always acted as if her students had to be above reproach.

That was why Shay couldn’t speak. She simply zipped her book bag and hurried out of

that office. Matty watched her hurry out, a sadness overtaking him, that same sadness he felt

three weeks ago, when he awoke to find her gone.

Alex smiled when she left. “I know,” she said. “She is so rude, I apologize for that.”

“She’s one of yours?” Matty asked, fighting with all he had to suppress those feelings

of longing that came over him when he first saw Shay.

“Yes, unfortunately. You know they make me mentor all of our at-risk kids.”

“Why is she at-risk?”

“Because she came from nothingness. Ran away from home when she was something

like fourteen, slept on the streets basically, pretty much raised herself. I mean the girl has a

GED, okay?”

“I didn’t realize having a GED was a negative thing,” Matty said, disturbed by Alex’s

characterization. “It’s still a high school diploma.”

“Well, whatever. And she has a pretty good head on her shoulders, I’ll give her that.

But she’s a loser in the end. She was on scholarship, but she just lost that, too.”

This concerned Matty. “Lost it?” he asked, still trying with all he had to sound only

mildly interested. “Why did she lose it?”

“Because she didn’t obey the rules.”

For a split second Matty expected her to say that she had allowed some man to take her

virginity and therefore had lost her moral authority, but he quickly realized that couldn’t be it.

“She allowed her grades to dip below a 3.0,” Alex clarified. “But enough about her,”

she said, tossing her slender arms around his neck. “I missed you!”

They kissed a very chaste kiss, considering how they used to kiss. “Why didn’t you

answer my calls?” she asked him.

“I wasn’t in Europe on vacation, Alex,” Matty reminded her, his mind still on that look

of despair he saw in Shay’s expressive eyes. “I was taking care of business.”

“You still could have phoned. A man in love phones his lady. And I am your lady,

aren’t I, Matty?”

She was a smart, sophisticated female who knew the art of seduction better than a

geisha girl. “You know we aren’t together anymore, Alex, let’s not play games here.” He

removed her arms from around his neck.

This angered her. “Then why do you come every time I call?” she asked him with

spite in her voice.

Matty looked at her. He knew he was a chump in her eyes, someone she could use for

laughs, for money, for whatever her heart’s desire. No longer for sex, Matty drew the line