The Professor

Chapter Thirty-Four

I finally caught my breath. It took a while but I regained it, and now my body is completely useless. I can't move and I haven't since he pulled out of me. I've been lying in his bed lifeless with no intentions of going anywhere.

Dean got up to pull the sheets over us and then crawled back into bed with me. We've been lying here for almost thirty minutes and neither of us have said a word. My head is nestled against his chest and his arm is wrapped around my body, drawing figures on my skin. I don't need him to say words. I know what he's thinking.

My head falls and rises with Dean's breathing and I feel him take a deep breath.

"What's the matter?" I ask him.

"Nothing," he says, pulling me tighter to him. 

"Dean," I hesitate, hoping what we just did put him in a softer mood for the conversation I intentionally came over here to have. "We really need to talk about the party."

I hear him huff.

"What about it?"

"Well," I push off of him to rest on my elbow. I look at him softly and find his eyes looking at me with no readable expression. "Why did you do it?" I ask softly, trying to tell him I don't want to fight with him.

Dean takes another deep breath and looks away.

"I don't know," he starts. 

I can see something in the way he's looking right now, as if it's painful for him to say what he's thinking.

"Dean, you can tell me," I urge softly.

He shakes his head softly and purses his lips, hesitating before looking at me.

"I couldn't stand the thought of you with him."

I stare at him blankly. It's the explanation I was expecting and wanting, but hearing him admit it still shocks me. I force my smile away.

"So you get the party I went to busted because of that?" I ask skeptically. "Dean, we aren't even really dating."

He raises his eyebrows.

"We're not?" There's no surprise in the way he says this. He's reiterating my words with a hint of hurt. I give him a soft, ridiculous look.

"I want to be but you know we can't."

"So you can see two guys at once, one of them secretly, but i'm still the bad guy because I made a phone call to stop a college party? A college party where there's underage drinking going on, most likely drugs being passed around there, and possible rape? Makes a lot of sense to me."

"Don't start downplaying me," I say, raising my tone.

Dean shifts away from me slightly.

"I'm not downplaying anyone, i'm just clarifying." I can hear the sarcasm in his voice.

I scoff at him and shake my head. I throw the covers off my body and step out of his bed, picking my bra and panties off the floor to put them on.

"What are you doing?" he asks me ridiculously.

"I'm going home. All we're going to do is go around in a circle all night. I didn't even plan to end up in your bed but you see how that turned out." I knew I should have kept the last part to myself as soon as if flew out of my mouth.

Dean sits up in the bed and glares at me, cocking his head to the side.

"So now you're saying the sex is a problem?"

I sigh and roll my eyes.

"No, Dean, i'm saying using sex to solve a problem is."

"Well forgive me for trying to please you. I thought the least it could do was make up for what I did in a way that satisfies us both."

"It was satisfying. It was very satisfying but look at us now. Now we're arguing back and forth ever since I tried to verbally talk to you about it, and we're aggravated at each other."

"That's not my fault. I was being honest."

"And so was I."

"About what? You haven't said anything. All you've done is blame me for making the call; you're not even denying anything between you and that prick."

"His name is Collin."

"Exactly."

I shake my head and hold my hands up in surrender. Is he being serious right now? I pick my clothes off the floor and briskly pull them onto my body. I've got to get out of here. 

I storm out of him room and hear the sheets fly off his body as I walk out the bedroom door. I grab my purse off the counter and reach my arm out to grab the handle when I feel hands on my arm pulling me back.

"Get the hell off me!" I scream and yank my arm away.

Dean is standing in front of me in nothing but his boxer briefs. They highlight his body well and really make his sculpted abdomen stand out, but that's not important right now. Right now my anger level is so high, i'm seeing red. I'm close to exploding and I can see that Dean knows it. I know that he's on the brink of exploding himself but maybe that's good. We don't need to be in this situation anyways.

"Claire," he starts, but I cut him off by holding up my hand, silencing him.

"It's over."

The look of shock on Dean's face is imprinting itself in my mind. His chocolate eyes have widened and his body is frozen. His lips are parted slightly and he starts to subtly shake his head while I nod mine at the same pace as him.

"It needs to be. This relationship, or whatever it is, is going no where," I snort through my nose. "Hell, there's no where for it to even go. You're my professor and I am your student. We can't be seen together anywhere outside of the classroom, and i'm not going to spend my whole involvement with you in hiding. I'm also not going to justify my reasons for being around other people."

I yank on the handle of the door and halfway step into the doorway. The door rests against my side and I take one last look of Dean standing gloriously naked in his apartment. His expression hasn't changed.

"See you Monday, Professor Underwood."

Then the door closes behind me.