Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels Page 34

  “No, I shouldn’t have. I really am sorry.” He met my gaze for a second. Then he looked away again. “You’re a beautiful woman, and you shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed or embarrassed because of your body, which is very—” He winced. “And I should probably stop talking.”

  I took a step closer to him. “You think I’m beautiful?”

  He cringed. “Oh, damn it all to hell.”

  “Professor Alexander, I...” I took another step closer. Why was I doing that? It was like the night with the storm again. I kept doing things without understanding why I was doing them, like my body was being controlled by something besides myself.

  “Anyone who looked at you would think you were beautiful. It’s kind of obvious, and—you should probably leave.” He moved closer to me too. He looked into my eyes.

  “Yeah,” I said. He was right. “This situation is probably very inappropriate.”

  “Oh, definitely.” He closed the last of the distance between us.

  Now we were inches apart. I tilted my head back to look up at him. He was close enough to smell again. That cologne. I reached out. I put my hand on his chest. “I’m going to go.”

  His arm went around me, to the small of my back. “Have a good afternoon.”

  “I will.” My voice had gotten breathy.

  He pressed his body against mine. “Goodbye, Miss Moss.” His voice was strained. Ragged.

  “Goodbye.” I slid my hand up his chest, curving it around his neck.

  I don’t know if I moved first or if he did. Maybe we moved at the same time. Whatever the case, we were kissing. Fast, furious, deep kisses.

  I suddenly became aware of all the places we were touching. His hand splayed out on my back, his fingertips brushing the swell of my hips. His other hand at the back of my neck, tangled in my hair. He held me in place, held me close against him. And we were pressed into each other. His thighs were against my thighs. His pelvis against mine. My breasts flattened into his chest.

  And his lips. His tongue.

  The kiss was thorough, complete, probing, and claiming.

  It felt intense and bursting. Professor Carter Alexander was a pretty damned good kisser.

  Abruptly, he thrust me away from him. He stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over one of the gray blocks. “Motherfucking...” He sank both hands into his hair.

  I put my fingertips against my bruised lips. “I...”

  “Go,” he growled at me.

  Right. I fled from the room. What the hell?

  * * *

  “Thank you, um, Teagan?” said Harper Cannon, the senior director of Moon and Moon. I hadn’t been able to find a copy of the play to read it before I’d auditioned, so I’d had to base every choice I’d made on the information in the sides, the excerpts from the play that the director would have us read from in auditions.

  I stood on the stage, which was brightly lit. Harper was up in the audience where there was no light. He was nothing more than shadow.

  It sounded like Harper was done with me. I couldn’t tell whether he’d liked my audition or not. But directors tried hard to be polite during auditions. I kind of thought it was cruel, as if they liked to drag out hope forever. Honestly, if they’d make it clear they didn’t want me at auditions, it would save a lot of heartbreak later when looking at posted cast lists. Maybe they did it because they didn’t want to witness people crushed by not getting the part they wanted.

  I started for the door.

  “Yes, thank you, Miss Moss,” said a voice. Professor Alexander melted out of the shadows.

  Oh, great. I guess I’d known he was going to be here. After all, he’d told us about the auditions. But I’d read for all of the other directors already, and I hadn’t seen him. I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to speak.

  I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss.

  About both the kisses.

  My attempt to smooth things over, to erase the awkwardness between us, had backfired.

  At the sound of his voice, my heart banged against my ribcage, picking up speed.

  “Wait,” said Harper. “I don’t want you to leave. Would you try the other side, please?”

  “The other one?”

  “Yes, there’s a scene between Ella and Kurt?” he said. “Did you pick one up on your way in?”

  “I, uh, only brought in the one I prepared.”

  Professor Alexander stalked over to me, holding out a few pieces of paper that had been stapled together.

  When I took them from him, our fingers brushed. He recoiled, like I’d burned him.

  I looked down at the scene. “I haven’t had a chance to even read this.”

  “That’s okay,” said Harper. “Um, I’ll read Kurt. Ella has the first line?”

  I took a deep breath, trying not to look nervous. Unfortunately, touching Professor Alexander had upset me a little bit. I felt off balance. I read from the script. “I want you out of my house, now.”

  “But it’s cold outside. Please, can’t I stay here, just for the night?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I need you to leave.”

  Professor Alexander stepped forward, sneering. “Oh, please, Miss Moss. That was absolutely horrible.” He looked up at Harper. “I think that’s enough of her?”

  Horrible? Really? I’d never even seen the side before. I had no idea how this woman actually felt about Kurt or who Kurt even was. The other scene had been with the woman’s fiancé. They’d been arguing. It had been easier.

  “No, I want to see more,” said Harper. “Uh, Teagan, let’s start over, but just some background about this scene?”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “So, you’re going to marry Joe, but you keep running into Kurt at night. And you’re attracted to him, but you’re afraid of that attraction.”

  “Honestly, Mr. Cannon,” said Professor Alexander, “doing too much directing during an audition is probably a waste of time.”

  “Sorry, Professor,” said Harper. “I only wanted her to have the background for the scene.”

  “Isn’t preparation her job?”

  Why was he being like that? I glared at the professor.

  Harper shrugged. “Sorry. Show me what you’ve got, Teagan.”

  “Okay,” I said to Harper. “Let me try it again.” I centered myself. Professor Alexander said that genuine emotions were more convincing than pretend ones, huh? I fixed my gaze on him. “I want you out of my house, right now.”

  But when I said it, what I really meant was that I wanted Professor Alexander out of my head and that I wanted not to be distracted by our intimacy, which I didn’t understand and didn’t seem to be able to control. I was afraid of it.

  “But it’s cold outside. Please, can’t I stay here, just for the night?”

  I kept looking at Professor Alexander. I wrapped my arms around my waist. “No, I don’t think so.” I closed my eyes, my voice dropped to a whisper. “I need you to leave.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. I think you need me to stay. I think you won’t admit it to yourself.”

  “When my fiancé finds you here, he’ll...”

  “Are you going to tell him I’m here? I don’t think you’ll do that.”

  I swallowed, and my tone went icy. “You don’t know me very well, do you?”

  “Stop,” said Professor Alexander.

  “What?” said Harper. “I thought that was—”

  “Utterly forced,” said Professor Alexander. “Not even the slightest bit believable. Miss Moss, your performance was stilted and fake, and I saw right through you.”

  What? I’d been feeling that. Really feeling that. I’d been using him for inspiration, like he’d taught me. There was no way that I was stilted or fake. I clenched my jaw.

  “Frankly,” he said, walking over to me and snatching the scene from my hand, “I’m not sure whatever possessed you to think that you had any business trying to be an actress. You might have been the star of your little backwoods
community theater, Miss Moss, but you are at Thornfield College now, and we expect excellence. What you just showed us here... that was pathetic.”

  I took a step backwards. How could he say that to me? As much as I wanted to fight my tears, I could feel them beginning to form in my eyes. I bit down on my lip, hard.

  “Wait,” said Harper. “Professor, I really think you’re overreacting.”

  I couldn’t stop them. I was going to start crying. I ran from the theater before the sobs escaped.

  “Teagan,” called Harper. “Hold on.”

  But I didn’t stop running.

  * * *

  Carter

  “Professor, I hear what you’re saying,” said Melanie Flannigan, one of my directing students, “but I just don’t think it makes any sense.”

  “You don’t?” I said.

  “I don’t either,” said Harper Cannon.

  I glowered at the both of them. We were sitting in the theater after the auditions that night. The house lights were up and the theater was bathed in brilliant light. The other directing students had gone home, but Melanie and Harper were still here, hashing things out with me.

  “Yeah, I kind of think it’s insulting that you don’t think I’m capable of dealing with Teagan Moss in my play,” said Harper.

  “Besides, she’s not even bad,” said Melanie.

  “She’s got talent,” I said. “I never said that she didn’t. But she needs help. She’s a diamond in the rough. She needs a lot of polishing. And I think Miss Flannigan and her play are much more the avenue that Miss Moss needs.”

  “Well, I don’t agree,” said Harper. “I think she’d be amazing as Ella in my play.”

  No, he didn’t. Well, maybe he did. What I meant was that Harper was clearly attracted to Teagan. I could see the way he looked at her. He wanted her in the play because he wanted to fuck her. The fact that she was a good actress was a completely secondary consideration. And I didn’t like the thought of that one bit.

  Even if Harper didn’t have designs on Teagan, his play was a three-person show in which Teagan would be the only female, which meant that she’d have two male co-stars who’d be eagerly trying to get in her pants, both of which she had to kiss on stage.

  No. There was no reason for Teagan to be in Moon and Moon.

  Melanie’s play, If I Had a Heart, was a much better option. It had an all-female cast and a female director. I’d feel much better if Teagan were cast in that play.

  But I had to admit, my reasons didn’t make any sense.

  “You were way too hard on her,” said Melanie. “I mean, you made me cry last year, but you never said I was stilted.”

  “I said what I thought,” I told them. “You both know that I’m honest.” Of course, I wasn’t being honest with them right then. No, right then I was making an idiot of myself. That was what Teagan Moss seemed to do to me. She made me behave in ridiculous ways. I couldn’t control myself when it came to her, and I was going to lose it if I weren’t careful.

  “It’s just that she’s going to make a much better Ella than Jasmine Reese would,” said Harper. “I mean, Jasmine’s good, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something about Teagan that’s very... I don’t know, sensual, I guess.”

  Seriously? I threw him a pointed look. “So, you’re casting her because of her tits and ass.” I was deliberately crass, hoping to embarrass him, get him to drop the whole thing.

  “No,” said Harper, his face turning red.

  “Well,” said Melanie, “the truth is that an audience does come in with certain prejudices, and I think that if I cast Teagan in my play, that I’m going to have to work really hard to get them to sympathize with her.”

  “What?” I said.

  “She is like this sex bomb,” said Melanie.

  “She isn’t,” I said.

  “And the character she would be playing murders her abusive husband. Teagan just doesn’t look, you know, as fragile as Jasmine does. People are going to walk in, and they’re going to look at her body, and they’re going to think the wrong kind of thoughts. But Jasmine, well, she’s more... delicate.”

  “Miss Flannigan, I think you’ve single handedly set the women’s movement back about fifty years with that statement,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, whatever, Professor. I’m not saying it’s a good thing. But I’m a beginning director, and I don’t need to make things harder on myself than they already are.”

  I dragged my hand over my face. What was I getting myself into here?

  “I need someone who looks seductive in my play,” said Harper.

  “And I need someone who looks innocent,” said Melanie.

  “So, we want to switch,” said Harper. “I want to cast Teagan Moss.”

  “I want to cast Jasmine Reese.”

  I sighed. “Well, then I won’t stand in your way.”

  “You won’t? But you’ve been arguing with us about it for forty-five minutes,” said Harper.

  “I’ve made my points, then,” I said. “I’ll allow the two of you to make your own casting decisions.”

  “Really?” said Melanie. “You’re not going to dock our grades because we didn’t listen to you, are you?”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “Well, then, great,” said Harper.

  Except it wasn’t great. It was a very bad sign. I might be losing my mind. I was beginning to feel protective of Teagan Moss.

  No, that wasn’t the word. The word was jealous.

  And why? I had no claim on her.

  Not unless you counted the two times I’d had my hands on her. My lips on her. And they hadn’t meant anything. They’d been spontaneous actions. In both cases, I’d felt as if I’d lost control of myself. As if I were being swept up in something bigger than me. Those instances weren’t part of a courtship. She had no official significance to me.

  But when I watched Harper Cannon’s buggy little greedy eyes drinking her in, I had the urge to start slugging him.

  Which was ridiculous. I had no right. I was supposed to be leaving her alone.

  But I had to admit I didn’t want to do that anymore. Maybe it would have been possible after the first time, but I’d tasted her again, and I wanted more. When she was in the audition earlier, glaring at me as she said those lines, all I could think about was pushing her back onto one of the gray blocks in the studio space, wrapping her long legs around my hips, and kissing her again. Not just her lips. I wanted my mouth all over her alabaster skin. I wanted to tear aside the shirt she’d been wearing, bare her creamy cleavage—

  “... you think, Professor Alexander?”

  “What?” I choked. I hadn’t been paying a bit of attention.

  Melanie drew her eyebrows together. “You okay, Professor? You seem distracted.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m very sorry, Miss Flannigan.”

  * * *

  Teagan

  Nell told me about how last year Professor Alexander had told Melanie Flannigan, who I knew as one of the senior directors, that she didn’t matter. He’d gotten in her face in front of the entire cast and told her that she had some silly idea that she was the focal point of the scene, when she was only there to be window dressing for another actor. Nell said that Melanie had been so upset about it that she’d nearly dropped out of the play.

  “And he never apologized either,” said Nell. “He’s a jerk.”

  She had three or four more stories about things that Professor Alexander had said to other acting students. Apparently, I wasn’t the first one to be reduced to tears by one of his tongue lashings.

  But I had a sneaking sensation that I was the only one who’d kissed him the day before he did it.

  Well. Maybe not. I mean, I didn’t know a thing about him. Maybe he always had secret affairs with students.

  When I brought up the idea, Nell was shocked. “No way. Like I told you, he’s into older women.”

  “But how could you know that?” I said. “Like,
maybe it’s a cover.”

  “Well, last year, people saw him with Dean Surber everywhere, and she’s ancient. They held hands on a couple occasions, so I think it’s safe to say there was something going on. And some people have seen him picking up townies in bars in town. They’re always, you know, older.”

  That didn’t make me feel the least bit better. If he really did like cougars, then what was he doing with me?

  “Why are you asking me this, anyway?” she said. “You don’t have a crush on him or something, do you?”

  “No.” I wasn’t lying either. Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure if I liked him. He was very attractive and kissing him made me feel all fluttery inside. I had dreams about banging him. But he wasn’t exactly a nice person. I didn’t know why I kept kissing him.

  But I wasn’t going to do it ever again. There was no way.

  “You sure?” said Nell. “In my Human Sexuality Across Cultures class, we were talking about the idea that women are attracted to jerks. Because, like, they seem more virile or whatever. It’s all subconscious. Your ovaries think that he’d be a jerk to predators or something and your offspring would have a better chance of surviving.”

  “Eww.”

  “Maybe.” She flopped back on her bed.

  “Neither me nor my ovaries want to have offspring with Professor Alexander, okay? He’s awful, and I hate him.”

  “Okay.” She propped herself up on one elbow, grinning at me. “Maybe you hate him in that way where you want to rip his clothes off, though.” “No,” I said. I was feeling really uncomfortable. Was it that easy to see through me?

  She sighed. “He does have the most intensely blue eyes, though, doesn’t he? It’s too bad that he’s Lucifer from hell, because he’s really fucking pretty.”

  “Kind of,” I said.

  She giggled. “Come on, Teagan, admit it. You know he’s hot.”

  I swallowed, thinking of the way it had felt to have my hand on his chest. He was solid and firm and warm and.... I bit my lip.

  She was still laughing. “See? You do know. And you can’t help it.”

  But I wanted to help it. I did.

  * * *

  I nearly collided with Harper Cannon the next morning as I was coming out of my dorm room. I had an early English class, and I was heading to the dining hall to grab breakfast first.