The Professor's Pet (A BDSM Romance Novel) (16 page)

The meetings had gone really well, and both Sanjay and I were in the mood to celebrate. “Drink, Jake?” Sanjay asked me, as we walked towards our cars.

“Sounds good,” I replied. “Where?”

“There’s a new beer place I want to try,” he replied. “It’s getting some excellent reviews, it’s in the Lower Haight.”

I nodded. “I’ll follow you,” I said.

As I drove, I’d debated calling Emily. I didn’t want to derail any of her plans, but if she was free, I very much wanted to hang out with her. One quick drink with Sanjay, and then, losing myself in Emily’s sweetness. That was a captivating thought. Call her when you get to the bar, I told myself. 

Sanjay entered the bar, I followed
him in, looking around the bar for an open spot. It was busy, even for a Thursday night. My eyes swept the crowded room, and then my heart stilled. I saw a familiar head, lush auburn hair that cascaded down a neck that was made for kissing. Emily. She was seated facing me, and she was laughing at something the guy she was with was saying. She reached out in amusement, touched his hand, and with that touch, I felt something break inside of me.

I moved; perhaps that movement alerted her to my presence, because she looked up at that instant, and our eyes met across the busy room. I struggled to keep my gaze expressionless, but I’m not sure I succeeded.

Sanjay was looking at me strangely, then he followed my gaze and saw Emily there with a date. “Ah,” he said. Understanding in his voice.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him, as I turned and walked away. At that moment, I just needed to get as far away from that bar as possible.

***

I got in the car and drove, white-hot anger burning a hole in my heart. I went instinctively towards the ocean; I knew the sound of the waves lapping at the shore would help restore calm.

As I drove, I struggled to replace the anger and the hurt by the icy calmness that was habitual to me. But the ice that formed was thin and cracked, and the truth threatened to spill through. I had warned her about building her walls, but from the pain that I was feeling at the moment, I had not built mine.

I had avoided putting a name on this emotion I was feeling; not wanting to call it for what it was, because to name it would have ended it. I couldn’t be in love with someone who didn’t live in my city. The last time I had allowed that, only pain and betrayal had followed. I would not permit it again.

It was late at night; the beach was deserted. I sat at the edge of the water, ignoring the cold, the chilly winds that blew, and the icy wetness of the waves lapping at my dress shoes. I sat there for the longest time until the anger faded.

I’d been angry with Emily when I’d left the
bar, but even in the heat of that moment, I knew I had no cause to feel this way. Anger, jealousy, possessiveness; those were not emotions I had any sympathy with at the best of times. I had even less sympathy when I knew I had not the slightest grounds to feel this way; I had offered her nothing of substance, and I should have not been surprised when she had decided she wanted more.

For weeks now, I’d been ignoring the look in her eyes when she looked at me. The softness around the edges, the slight hint of pain. Hallmarks of love. She’d either fallen in love with me, or she was on the brink of falling, and I’d been too selfish to end things; too much of a coward to recognize that I felt for her what she felt for me. I took advantage of her submission and her companionship, even though I knew she was falling in love with me, and even though I couldn’t offer her anything of similar value myself.

Yet. I hadn’t told her that I regularly threw several balls in the air, several projects that I’d been juggling, and one of them had the potential to pay off. An idea for a start-up. Sanjay and I had been working on it for months in our spare time. Today and tomorrow’s meetings were with venture capitalists and financiers; we were going to find out if the idea had merit enough for people to throw money at us.

I had stayed silent for two reasons. One, it involved Sanjay, and he was her boss; if everything worked out, he would leave the firm that she worked at. That was Sanjay’s news to break, not mine.

The other reason? The odds were small, and no one deserved to be in limbo, hoping that an idea for a start-up would work out. I wasn’t a complete asshole; I hadn’t told her because thousands of people tried to start companies and failed every day. Nothing might ever come from it. The eight week mark was a clean break.

Enough. I had been selfish for too long. She deserved someone real. This thing between us, this thing that had grown into love, it needed to be killed quickly and cruelly, before I did any further damage to her.

It was late; well past midnight. Sleep wouldn’t come tonight. I had a day filled with important meetings tomorrow, though at the moment, I couldn’t summon energy to care about them. As I drove back to the hotel, all my thoughts were of Emily.

***

Emily:

When I looked up and saw him there, my heart did a little leap of happiness. Then I watched hurt and the pain flicker in his gaze, as he took in my hand touching Andrew’s, and then his expression had become closed, and he turned and walked out of the bar, not giving me a second look.

I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat. I’d screwed up; I had known I shouldn’t have called Andrew, and I’d done it anyway, and now, Jake would never want to see me again. I rose, mumbled something to Andrew, and fled. Only one thought was in my mind.
I needed to talk to Jake.

He wasn’t at the hotel. I let myself in with my key; the people at the reception always kept one for me nowadays; he’d always put me on the guest list so I could come and go.

I paced, nervous, trying to form the words of the conversation that I was wanted to have with him. I wanted more; I cared for him. I had seen the hurt in his eyes at the bar, so he cared too, at least a little. Could we take that caring and form it into something real? Something more permanent than eight weeks?

It felt weird, being in his hotel room fully clothed. I felt wrong, fluttery and nervous, my thoughts a hundred different places all at once. I walked into his bedroom, noticing that he hadn’t unpacked, just tossed his suitcase on his bed.

My hands automatically reached for my clothes; without thinking too hard about it, I got naked, got on my knees, spread them so that my pussy was on display, and waited.

***

I’d waited and waited, and had fallen asleep, half-sitting, half-reclined, using the bed as a backrest. The click of the door awakened me, and I opened my eyes to see Jake looking down at me, entirely expressionless.

“Emily,” he said. His voice was quiet. “I didn’t think I’d find you here.”

“Jake,” I started, “I’m so sorry.”

“Get dressed, Emily,” was all he said. He walked out of the bedroom; I could hear him in the living room, could hear the sounds of the refrigerator door opening, then the distinctive noise of a bottle cap being popped.

I felt close to tears as I obeyed him and dressed; didn’t want to go out and face him. There was no option though, so I went out finally. I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I started again.

“For what?” His voice was curt. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He was closed-off, his walls solidly in place. I gulped, sat on a chair instead of leaning against him on the couch.

“That being said, I think we should stop the instruction now though. You don’t need a final exam, Emily, you submit beautifully. You’ll make some guy very happy. Good luck finding what you are looking for.”

The words were shards of ice piercing my heart.
I wanted to tell him I cared about him, but his voice was so curt, so cold that I was having difficulty forming the words.

“Jake,” I begged. I didn’t know what to say or do; where to look. My eyes were still on my lap, on my tightly interlaced fingers.

“Emily,” he said quietly. “I think you should go.”

“No, please,” I begged, this time with desperation. “Jake, I love you…”

He closed his eyes at that. I could see him struggle for an instant, then finally, he looked at me, and this time, he hadn’t hidden his feelings. There was caring there; there was even love. But his words had heartbreak written all over them.

“I mentioned I cheated on a girl once,” he said bleakly. “Victoria. We had tried to
make a long-distance relationship work.” He took a sip of his beer, his eyes on the bottle, his fingers worrying the edge of the beer label. “I won’t do that again, Emily. Whatever I feel for you, I’m not going to risk the kind of self-loathing I felt after Victoria. I’m not brave enough for that.”

“I’ll call you a cab,” he added.

I looked at him; what more could I say? “That’s okay,” I said. “The front desk can do that for me. And Jake?” My voice was soft. “Thank you for everything.”

The tears were falling freely as I rode the elevator to the lobby.
Magic 8-ball,
I asked myself, desperate for something, clinging frantically onto any strand of hope there was,
is there any hope here for a happy ending?

My reply is no,
the 8-ball replied. I’d seen the truth in his eyes, and even I couldn’t pretend otherwise.

***

It was the week before Christmas; there was festivity everywhere, but only bleakness in my heart. I caught a plane to Santa Fe, where I watched my mother work in her pottery studio. Her hands were strong as she worked on the wheel, and I was reminded of Jake’s hands on my body. Watching my dad carefully study his palette and pick out a colour, I was reminded of Jake’s eyes on me, as he had debated what games we were going to play. Everything and anything reminded me of Jake, and every single time, my heart was slashed open once again.

Time passed. The months went by. Nothing changed; my heart showed no signs of wanting to heal.

I supposed there were other guys, but not really, not in any thing that stirred any kind of feeling in my body. Nice, somewhat nerdy guys just produced an ‘if-only’ pang in me. If only this was what it took. If only I could find myself attracted to these perfectly nice guys; guys that would be there for me.

And then, my heart fought back with a pang. Jake had always been there for me. He hadn’t let me down.

I had tried to put myself in his shoes, many times, since that momentous day. Tried to imagine how it would feel if I’d walked into a restaurant, and seen Jake with his hand holding the hand of another woman. And I knew, that his reaction was only a fraction of what mine would have been. I would have been boiling over with rage; throwing things, yelling accusations; my eyes tearing over as I confronted his betrayal.

Jake was different from me. He ran cold where I ran hot. And all I’d seen in his eyes was that initial flicker of hurt and pain, before the veil had fallen, and his eyes had become expressionless. But I’d seen what I’d seen, and I knew I’d hurt him.

My body knew my betrayal better than my mind did, and it locked itself off. There was no one good-looking enough or dominant enough to unlock the door to my arousal; to try to find the woman underneath. My mind craved the touch of a man, but my body betrayed me.

My body wanted only Jake.

***

“Something’s afoot,” Anna muttered to me as I walked into work Friday morning. I looked up, apathy in every move of mine. I was not looking forward to the weekend; hell, there was nothing I was looking forward to any more. Everything sucked.

Time was supposed to heal all wounds. But so far, four months in, it had done absolutely squat for me.

Everything reminded me of Jake. In my apartment, I sat on my couch, and remembered the way he had licked my pussy at that very spot. I went to a restaurant, any restaurant, and I remembered his penchant for taking me to tiny, hole-in-the-wall discoveries, where the food was so mouth-wateringly good that it would make you weep in gratitude. When I drank a beer, my heart remembered the way I felt leaning against him as we shared a beer after a session. I watched the Superbowl wearing my Niners jersey, with tears pouring down my face as I remembered the way he had spanked me for buying it.

I was a zombie. The first month or so, the tears threatened to overflow tens of times each day. Now, after four months, the tears had abated, but the spark inside had been extinguished.

Andrew had called the day after that fateful evening, wondering if I was okay. I’d avoided his calls for a week, and then I’d called him back. Told him I was in love with someone else. There had been gentleness in his voice as he wished me good luck; a slight something there when he had told me to look him up if I changed my mind. When I hung up, I knew I wouldn’t call him again. Not because of anything he had said or done, but because I would never be able to look at Andrew without seeing the look in Jake’s eyes that night. Or remembering the terrible conversation after.

“What’s going on?” I asked Anna, dragging my mind back to the present, forcing interest in my voice. Anna and I had gone out a couple of times to watch a movie. She was the closest thing to a friend in San Francisco.

“Don’t know,” she said, sounding frustrated. “But Sanjay’s booked a meeting for the entire department at eleven. It’s just called Update. Friday afternoon updates are never a good thing.”