Savage (9 page)

C
HAPTER
TWO

Adeline

A
bel Lockwood
. He’d been my top pick. Then he walked into the room, and now I was having second thoughts.

Not because he held a certain air of confidence or carried himself like he didn’t know insecurities. Not even because of the expensive suit that hugged his body instead of hanging off it like suits seemed to on other men. Not because he had no issue looking me, a mere stranger for all intents and purposes, straight in the eye. Not because he was a giant compared to me and the thought of what else might be just as giant crossed my mind, making me blush right there in front of him.

No, the reason I was having second thoughts as he slid into the seat across from me, his stare refusing to tame itself, was because I felt that dangerous awareness known as attraction.

In my experience, attraction that cropped up out of nowhere—that instant chemistry that came from one look—was risky. Those kinds of feelings were red flags meant to be handled with extreme caution. On the rare occasion I’d felt them before, the man making my heart malfunction could just as easily have been a serial killer as a humanitarian. Attraction birthed from nothing more than a look couldn’t be trusted, and even though I knew all about Abel Lockwood from the file I’d reviewed, he was still a stranger.

I shouldn’t have these kinds of feelings for the man I was going to help make a father. This situation was complicated enough without harboring some secret crush.

My cheeks flamed again when I thought about how much more awkward crawling into bed with him would be when I felt how I did. Would it be humiliating when he found out? It wasn’t exactly like I could hide my arousal, wet between my legs. Would it be the apex of humiliating if during the actual sex, I wasn’t able to control my body and came with him? It wasn’t exactly like the woman’s orgasm had much to do with the conception process like the man’s did.

Just thinking about how awkward being intimate with a man who could excite me with a look would be was enough to make me move Abel Lockwood to the last pick position.

Mrs. Reynolds had closed the door after she’d left, and Mr. Lockwood’s and my attorney, appointed by Love Child, were pulling files from their briefcases. I was ever aware of Mr. Lockwood’s penetrating stare aimed at me. Typically I’d have challenged him with a stare of my own, but he unsettled me in a way I wasn’t used to. If I locked eyes with him again, I’d blush. If he saw me blush, he’d know.

I couldn’t let him know that though my heart was telling me this was the man I wanted to make a father, my head was warning me against it.

As the attorneys exchanged a few documents, I noticed Mr. Lockwood lean toward me. “I want you to be the mother of my child, Miss Matthews. I’m willing to make you whatever offer you have in mind.”

My heart thudded in my ears at the sound of his voice again. Deep, authoritative, with just the right amount of rumble. It made me think of the way he’d sound and the words he’d say as we created his baby.

I shifted in my seat, realizing I shouldn’t have worn a dress. The wetness saturating my underwear was rubbing onto my inner thighs.

Before I could say anything, his attorney leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Mr. Lockwood waved it off.

“I’m meeting with five other potential fathers this week, Mr. Lockwood. If I feel the same way about wanting to mother your child, I will be sure to let you know.” My voice was surprisingly calm, but I didn’t miss the shadow that crested his expression when I mentioned the other men I’d be meeting with. “And please call me Adeline. This is already formal enough without addressing each other by our last names.”

My lawyer, Julie McDonald, leaned toward me. “Let me handle this for you. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Fine,
Adeline.
” The way he said it made chills spill down my spine. “But you can continue to call me Mr. Lockwood because until you agree to become the mother of my child, I would like to keep things as formal as possible.”

My eyes locked on his. Finally. A rush of anger would do that. “Please, do tell,
Abel,
why you are so certain I’m the perfect candidate to mother your child?”

When Julie leaned in again, I waved her off the way Abel was continuing to do with his attorney.

“Because I know. Because I trust what my gut and my head tell me. They’ve served me well in the past, and I know they’re steering me right here.” Abel clasped his hands in front of him on the table. He had big hands, the kind that looked like they knew what they were doing. I wondered if I’d ever get a chance to find out if they were just as skilled as they looked. “’Please, do tell,’ why are you not yet certain I’ll be the one you choose at the end of all of your interviews?”

My eyebrow lifted. “Because I haven’t met with anyone else besides you.”

“You don’t need to meet with anyone else besides me.”

He had no shortage of confidence, I had to give him that. I wondered if he had the evidence to support it or if it was contrived; like most of the male confidence I’d come across.

“What do you want, Adeline? Tell me. You want my offer doubled? Done.” Abel already had his hand lifted toward his attorney. “You want an alimony package for the rest of your life? You have it. Just name what you want so we can sign the papers, get out of here, and start working on bringing my child into this world.”

Anger hit me—that he would just assume money would make up my mind for me—then I reminded myself that money was a factor in all this. I’d walk away with enough money to take care of my family for years. I’d signed on with Love Child because I believed in what they did, but the hefty sum I’d make doing this was nothing to take lightly.

Leaning forward, I made sure he was looking at me before I spoke. Not that he had stopped looking at me from the moment he entered the room. “None of this is about the money. It’s about finding the right father. If that person happens to only be able to pay a nickel, so be it, but money will not play a deciding factor in who I decide to create a life with. Please make that a point to understand right now, Mr. Lockwood.”

He didn’t say anything at first. He just sat there, his piercing stare fastened on me, a shadow of a smirk playing with his mouth. “Then lucky for you, Miss Matthews, you won’t find anyone else this week, or in this life, who would make a better father than the man sitting across from you right now. The same man who can pay you a hell of a lot more than a nickel for your efforts.”

Okay, so he wasn’t just confident—he was downright cocky. My blood heated. “How can you say that? You don’t know the men I’m planning on meeting. You don’t know the men I could possibly meet during the course of my life.”

“No”—his head shook—“but I do know the man I am. I do know how badly I want this child. I do know how far I will go to make its life happy and safe.” That was when I saw something in his eyes I hadn’t gotten a glimpse of yet. “And I do know you are the woman I want to create that child with. I don’t need to meet any other women through this process or in this life to be certain of that.” He gave me a moment to consider all that he’d said. “So? Are you certain of me yet? Or shall I continue my efforts to make you so?”

I took a minute after that. He let me have it uninterrupted. Both of the attorneys in the room had given up trying to say their piece a while ago. I knew I had all of the time in the world to make my decision, but I didn’t need another moment.

My whole reason for doing this was to give the gift of fatherhood to a deserving man unable to experience that joy any other way. I was looking at that man. Despite my attraction and regardless of the awkwardness that would likely result from it, Abel Lockwood was deserving of the baby we’d create together. Like him, I went with my gut in life, and right now, it was screaming at me that this was the man I’d let fill me with his child.

Abel Lockwood would be the father of the child I’d conceive for Love Child.

Running my hands down my dress, I imagined what my stomach would look like straining through the material. What it would feel like heavy with Abel’s child. After today, I wouldn’t have to wonder for long.

“Why don’t we agree on the terms so we can get the paperwork signed, Mr. Lockwood?”

The breath he was taking came up short. The darkness in his eyes ignited as his fingers curled around the edge of the table almost like he was bracing himself. “Call me Abel.”

This time when he looked at me, I felt as though he were regarding me less with appraisal and more with possession. It made the area between my legs that much more slippery.

“After all, you’re going to be the mother of my child.”

W
ant to read more
? You can read the rest of Abel and Adeline’s story here:
Love Child

C
HAPTER
ONE

Emma

I
’ve been obsessing
over him for months, but right when I thought I had him in my palm, out he flew.

At least that’s how it seems.

It’s Friday, and I’ve been sitting in this same seat all week, listening to him lecture about cellular biology, and he hasn’t once looked my way. Not once. How could he touch me like he did last Saturday, make me feel the things I did, and act like nothing happened when I stepped into the lecture hall on Monday?

Had he been drunk? High? Had he experienced a bout of amnesia? A case of selective memory?

I don’t know for sure, but I’m about to find out. I’ve waited all week, and when I entered the lecture hall today, before any of the other students, I slipped into my front-row seat and waited for him to acknowledge me. But he ignored me. Kept right on tapping on his laptop like everything was normal in his world when mine felt as though it was about to implode.

He is going to give me an answer. An explanation even. A guy can’t just mess with a girl the way he did last weekend and act like nothing happened a few days later.

Especially when that someone is my professor.

Yes, my professor. Yes again, I know what a dirty little cliché it is to have it bad for my professor, but I don’t care. I do have it bad for him. So bad I can’t even think of being with another guy. Never. It’s him or no one for me—that’s how bad my ache runs.

Professor Luke Faraday is a god among men. There is no debate. He is a god. A living, breathing god that walks among us.

Before you go judging me for clearly having daddy issues, let me mention that Dr. Faraday is one of the youngest professors on campus. He’s in his late twenties, so he isn't much older than his students. Most of the other girls want him too, but not in the same way I do. They want the god he is to worship them, to defile their bodies and send them packing. They want the one-night stand, the check in the box beside 'Slept with Hot Professor.'

I want him for another reason. For all of the reasons. To worship him, to offer up the sacrifice of my body, and to get on my knees before him and do his bidding. I want to give him what he deserves—not just for one night but every night.

Yes, I recognize this borders on unhealthy. Yes, I know I’m obsessed. Yes, I realize others have been slapped with restraining orders for less, but I don’t care.

If a person doesn’t obsess and crave and long for the one they want to the point where dying seems better than living if they can’t be together, then fuck that. I don’t want the mediocre alternative.

“Class dismissed.”

Dr. Faraday’s voice rings through the room, pulling me out of my thoughts. No more thinking—time to put those thoughts into action.

I linger in my seat for a minute, waiting for the lecture hall to empty. It takes a while, because it’s a big room with lots of students and half of them are female. The girls are always the last to leave. Like me, they’re hoping he’ll glance up from that damn laptop of his and single them out of the crowd of applicants lining up to fuck him into next week.

But last weekend was the only time I’ve seen that smoky, dark look settle into his expression. When my body had been tangled around his, my mouth toying with his tongue.

The image has me shifting in my seat, making it squeak. The auditorium is one of the older ones on campus, and every chair could probably go through a can of WD-40.

When Dr. Faraday looks up from his laptop, he seems surprised to see me still sitting in my seat in the empty auditorium. Like, genuinely surprised that I’d have anything to talk with him about, because yeah, I do that kind of stuff at clubs with guys all the time. Every weekend. Of course I do.

“What are you doing?” His voice fills the room, rolling over me. “Class is over. Time to move on.” Sparing not another look my way, he gets back to his laptop.

If I ever get close to it, I’m going to chuck that thing across this whole auditorium. Let it try to distract him from me again.

“I want to talk to you about my grade.” My voice doesn’t fill the space like his does, but it comes out stronger than I thought it would. I’ve never had this kind of conversation before. I don’t really have that much experience when it comes to guys, but still, I sound brave. Confident.

Good.

“No, you don’t.” Dr. Faraday closes his laptop and sends an icy stare across the room at me. “You wanted to talk to me about something else.” He comes around the large table in front and leans into it, pinning me to my chair with his stare. “Though talking probably isn’t on your mind if last week is any indication of how you approach life.”

“You’re still mad about that?” I shift in my chair.

His teeth grind together. “Seething.”

The way his words cascade over me makes me shift again. As we were going at each other like crazy in the middle of the club, I might have moaned something along the lines of
Dr. Faraday.
When he realized the stranger who’d just come up to him and forced herself on him was, in fact, a student, that kind of ruined the whole moment.

I guess he’s one of those professors who holds to a moral code of
Thou shalt not fuck thy students
or some shit like that. Morals or not, he’d wanted to. He would have if I’d kept my mouth shut instead of moaning his name when that skilled hand of his wound beneath my dress and went straight for my sweet spot.

His wasn’t the only hand to wander south.

“You liked it.” I make myself look at him as I fire back, “I know you did. I could feel it.”

Just thinking about the way he felt cupped in my hand makes me shift again. The insides of my thighs are slippery from all of the images that have been messing with my head for the past hour.

He crosses his arms, and even though he’s glaring at me like loathing doesn’t hold a match to the way he feels about me, my body fires to life. I run my eyes down him. He might have the brain and career of a nerd, but he possesses the body of a jock and the face of a damn
GQ
model. He’s like no other man anywhere, which means every single woman he passes can’t
not
check him out. It’s a rule of the universe. Pass Luke Faraday on the sidewalk, and you turn your head to get a better view.

When my eyes linger on his crotch, my hand aching remembering the feel of him, I swear he thrusts his hips forward a little. When my eyes jump back to his, my blush creeping up my neck into my face, he gives me a look that makes every nerve in my body stand on end.

“Yes, I did like it, and thank god I didn’t let it go any further than that clothed petting. If we did what you had planned and anyone at the school found out, my ass would be on the line.” His jaw sets again, and his gaze leaves me like he’s too disgusted to look at me another second.

Guilt floods me. Shame forces its way in too. He’s right. What we did could jeopardize his career if anyone found out. What we almost did definitely would have jeopardized his career if anyone found out.

The guilt and shame get me out of my chair, but it’s the embarrassment that sends my ass toward the door.

I’d offered myself to him, and his response was disgust. I’d admitted I wanted him, and his answer was repulsion.

“I’m sorry,” I say as I rush toward the end of the row, dying to run up the stairs and escape and never come into his class again.

What an idiot I was to think he’d ever want me, even if it was just for a quick fuck to relieve a little tension.

The sounds the heels of my Mary Janes make echo through the room as I hurry across the tile, but his voice cuts through the noise. “Oh, it’s too late for sorrys. Much too late for those.”

I brake to a stop when his dark voice comes over me. Chills spill down my spine.

“You should have mentioned you were a student before you pressed your body into mine at the club and taken my tongue into your mouth. You should have told me you were in my class before you held my dick and gave him a taste of your touch.”

Chills of a different kind assault my body. His voice is different. His expression is too. It’s not resolution stringing his words together anymore—it’s something else. I don’t know what, but my instincts fire to life. The instinct that tells a person to run when something dangerous is stalking closer.

I stay where I am.

“I thought you’d know.” My voice is shaky, mirroring the tremors of my body. “That you’d remember my face.”

“I teach four classes, each one filled with over sixty students. I wouldn’t recognize your face if you sat in the front row every day and wore a monkey suit.”

He’s moved behind me so I can’t see him, but his footsteps echo through the room as he moves.

A streak of boldness hits me, and I don’t let it go to waste. “Liar,” I say, nice and slow so it sinks in deep. “You’ve known my name since the first day I walked into your class. You knew who I was when you put your hands on me last weekend, and you know why I’m here now.”

A low chuckle winds around the room. He sounds farther away. “Why are you here now?”

When I glance over my shoulder, I see him climbing the stairs of the auditorium. I’m not sure if he’s trying to leave for the day, escape an obsessed student, or inform campus security I’m harassing him, but I’m not going to stop now. I’ve kept this secret, this desire, to myself for too long. It’s time for him to know. To be burdened with the knowledge of it. What he chooses to do with it is up to him, but I can’t keep it to myself any longer.

Turning around, I straighten. My blouse stretches across my chest, the hem of my skirt lifting as I stand tall. “I’m here to have you finish what you started.”

“Some kissing and groping is not my definition of getting started, and if you think it is, you have no idea the kind of man you’re toying with.” He’s stopped on the stairs, looking down at me with a foreign expression. He looks like he’s in pain. When his eyes settle on my chest, that pained expression amplifies. “And I’m not finishing a damn thing. So if that’s what you’re after, go on the internet and look for discreet delivery. Don’t forget to pick up batteries.”

His words hit me like a slap, but I keep going. Whatever I’m saying, whatever I’m doing . . . it’s getting through to him. He felt something last Saturday. He can deny it all he wants, but he feels something for me now too.

My gaze dips down his body like his is assaulting mine. I instantly notice the bulge pressing beneath his zipper. It would be impossible to miss. The walls of my pussy clench involuntarily, almost like it’s fantasizing about him filling me.

“Your words are saying one thing”—my gaze circles his crotch again before lifting to his eyes—“but your cock’s saying something else.”

His body shudders when the vile word spills from my mouth, but his glare doesn’t dim. “Emma . . .” he warns.

My eyebrow lifts, and I step toward him. “Now who doesn’t know my name?”

I take another step closer. Even though we’re separated by at least twenty feet, the room closes in around us. His expression is dark, his eyes alive, and if he wants to keep fighting this, that’s his right, but I’m going to give him a taste of what he’s missing before I leave.

My fingers work the top button of my blouse free. They lower to the next one and pop that one free. Folding the fabric aside, I make sure he has a good view of exactly what he’s saying no to. His gaze dips to the area I’ve exposed for him. His eyes devour me, making me shift. He apparently has no qualms about fucking me with his eyes.

There he is. There’s the man who backed me against a wall last weekend and ground his body against mine. There’s the man who almost made me come with one light brush through a layer of fabric.

There’s the man I’ve spent months obsessing over, scheming ways to make him mine. With the way he’s looking at me now, I just might be able to make him mine . . . if only for a few stolen, heated moments.

It would be worth it. If that’s all I can have of him, it will be enough.

“Thanks for clarifying everything for me,” I say, making my way toward the door again, testing him. “Putting me in my place.”

I don’t make it two steps before his voice fills the room. “Don’t you take another fucking step away from me.”

This time, the chills that spill down my back are different. No longer derived from pleasure, these ones come from a different place. Fear.