Page 8 of Do It With Me

At this hour, the campus cafe was nearly empty. There were only a few students still lingering, and they were either too desperate for caffeine or too busy pretending to study to notice us.

When we reached the counter, I ordered two coffees and a bear claw, sliding them onto the table between us. She looked at the pastry like she wasn’t sure if it was a bribe or a trap. Those intriguing green eyes darted toward it, then back up at me.

“Sugar helps with late night negotiations,” I said, mindful to keep my eyes on her face instead of her body clad in that striped, navy skirt suit. “It won’t bite you and it’s not poisoned.”

She looked back at me. Ellora. Even her name was different. Unique.

Just like her, it turned out.

I hadn’t expected her to show up tonight looking like professional sex on a stick, but holy hell. A big part of me had wanted to chase all the others out of class and bend her over my desk for a different kind of lesson.

Clearly, she’d taken my advice from the first class to heart. Somehow, she took direction so well while still being fiery and sassy. The way she’d responded every time I’d looked her way had definitely made my pulse spike.

All of it combined? Well, it had been an interesting class for me.

“Right,” she said finally, averting her gaze and tearing off a tiny piece of the pastry but not eating it just yet. Her gaze settled on mine again and I could see that she was curious. She didn’t keep me waiting for it much longer. “Do you do this often, then?”

“Do what?”

“Buy your students coffee after class.”

I shook my head. “In the five years I’ve been teaching here, this is a first. How am I doing so far? Should I have gone with a muffin instead?”

She scoffed quietly, seemingly choking on a dry laugh more than legitimately scoffing. “Well, you certainly seem to know how to build suspense. Are you ever going to tell me what this mysterious business proposal is?”

I took a sip of my coffee, mostly to distract myself from knowing how ridiculous this was going to sound out loud. “I need a date, but not a real one. I don’t need someone who’s actually interested in me. It would simply be an arrangement to attend a function with me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s your business proposal?”

“Trust me, I realize it’s unorthodox, but I need a date to a wedding and you know what they say about desperate times. Well, this is one of those times.”

Her full lips parted as she stared at me, doing the closest thing to a double-take I’d ever personally experienced. “You’re kidding. You want me to go to a wedding with you?”

“I wish I was kidding, but unfortunately, I’m entirely serious.”

“But…” She trailed off, blinking hard and giving her head a quick shake before she finally continued. “Why would you need a business proposal just to get a date?”

I chuckled. “I don’t need to do anything to get a real date. I was planning on flying solo that night, so I RSVP’d for one. That was before I knew my ex-wife was going to be there.”

I exhaled through my nose, the words coming faster now that I’d started. “It’s the wedding of someone I work with a lot. If I skip it now that I know she’s going, he’ll be pissed off and that would damage our relationship, but if I show up alone, Shannon will assume I’m still licking my wounds, and I’d rather not give her that satisfaction.”

“So your solution is to hire a fake girlfriend.” It wasn’t a question as much as a slow-spoken observation, like she was saying it out loud just to wrap her own head around it.

I didn’t blame her, but I also needed her to wrap her head around what it actually was. “Whoa there. I need a fake date. Girlfriend is a little too much commitment for me. It would just be this one night out.”

She leaned back in her chair, dropping the piece of pastry she still hadn’t eaten and crossing her arms. It had the unfortunate consequence of making her cleavage even more prominent. This woman had to be at least ten years younger than me. There was no way I should be thinking about her tits.

“Why me?” she asked, chin rising a little as those green eyes blazed with skepticism and distrust. “If it’s true that you don’t need to do something like this in order to get a date, why not just take someone else? Someone you actually know?”

“Ah, that’s the beauty of this.” I didn’t even hesitate to give it to her straight, needing her to understand exactly what she was getting into. “I’m asking you precisely because we don’t know each other, and what little you do know about me, you don’t like, which means I don’t have to worry about you getting any ideas about this being at all romantic.”

“Wow.” Her mouth fell open, giving me a glimpse of her pink tongue that I truly didn’t need. “You really know how to flatter a girl, don’t you?”

I ignored the jab and kept my tone even. “It also looked like you could use some extra cash, judging by the outfit you wore to the last class.”

Her expression turned to ice, her pretty, delicate features hardening like stone and the light in her eyes going out. Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have said that out loud.

For a long, long moment after, she just stared at me. I sighed. Smooth, Holden. Really smooth.