Beneath the Boardwalk (Alex Turner) COMPLETE

15 {morality, seductively}

"I don't know."

"You're lying." He lowered his head slightly, daring me to contradict him. 

"I couldn't say what I would've done if he didn't call."

"Oh, so it was a he?" 

"Yeah," I said slowly.

He hesitated and something flashed through his eyes. "What's your relationship like with this person?"

"Your questions are very pressuring and might I add, subliminally suggesting," I inhaled sharply.

"Oh, I don't mean it like that," he murmured. The look in his eyes said otherwise. "Just curious."

"I--I don't have an obligation to tell you."

"You said you always liked the unknown. Right now you're in particular running away from it," he said underneath his breath.

"I don't know what unknown you're referring to."

"Lying, again."

"Fine. He's just a friend."

He leaned forward on his elbows, and for a brief moment, there was something almost happy in his eyes. Bubbly, like champagne. Easy to swallow. "Just a friend?" 

I took a moment to gather myself again. Every time I was near him I seemed to lose track of what I was supposed to be doing. I raised my chin. "Dr. Turner, you're really bordering the fence on strictly professional."

"I suppose," he stood and took an agonizingly slow step forward, "but I may be rethinking my original proposition."

My lungs heaved. My palms were sweaty, like he said. "On what grounds."

"I need to know what you think of me in order to answer that." Turner's gaze is deep, demanding. Standing right in front of me as if he wasn't scared of anything. His suit was warm, and I'm sure the body underneath it was warmer. 

"Honestly?" I picked at my lip. "You're not an open book. I have nothing to base you on. I really don't know anything about you--except that you're my professor--and..."

"In that case, Greene, I'm dying to know what would have happened if your friend hadn't called." 

"I would have let myself out."

I sensed impatience. "Lying."

"I would've!"

"You're transparent!" He started to walk around behind me, all across the platform. Heels clacked. "You're the perfect character to write around. Stubborn. Honest. Intriguing," he said in a low voice. When I didn't respond, he continued, and I shifted in my seat. "Rules are made to be bent. So I ask you again, what would you have done if there was no call?"

"I don't know," I mumbled, just to piss him off.

"Don't you feel the tension?" Turner snapped. The noise was loud; it resonated. He moved behind me, his fingers on the back of my chair. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I'd feel his presence even if I didn't know he was there--it was instinctual. "Greene, tell me you feel it," he whispered, "don't you?"

I bit my lip. His gaze was fixed on the back of my neck.

My heart pounded while I struggled to find my voice. "Who wouldn't?"

He's right behind me now, leaning slightly against the back of the chair. "You do feel it, don't you," he growled. "What... would you have done," he sent shivers down my spine, "if you didn't pick up that call."

"I wouldn't have done anything," I finally uttered out, unsure about why I had answered. I was too distracted.

He leaned down to my left ear, and I inhaled sharply. HIs breath was hot, and he pulled all my hair, agonizingly slow, to my other shoulder, exposing my neck. Seductive. Slow and torturous. I felt Turner's hair brush against mine, soft and unkempt, and the chair groaned as he gripped it.

His lips brushed against my ear. They moved against the skin, damp, a murmur. "Is that why you're not doing anything right now?"

My lips parted. Air was a foreign concept.

"I know what I want," Turner breathes, trailing down my neck. His eyes didn't leave the skin as his lips moved against my earlobe. "I almost never get it... but I know when I do." My blood is hot. His teeth drag slightly, and I feel his lips part on my neck. "And I want... you."

I exhaled slowly. I couldn't believe what I was doing. What he was doing. This was wrong. Immoral, impulsive. Just wrong. But in some way, some sick way, it felt right, and my eyes fluttered shut. The muscles in my neck moved with his lips on me. I couldn't help my bitter tone. "Is this what you say to all of your students?"

"Believe me, I stay at a distance. You're different. You're still here. And the age difference isn't bad--we're very close in age." Turner slowly drew away his lips and stood, his heels clacking on the floor as he walked to the front of my chair. He put his hands on the armrests and stared down at me. It was sexually charged; it was all over my body.  "And the whole teacher-student thing," he paused. "Kind of kinky, don't you think?"

Okay, if I wasn't already turned on, I most certainly was now. It was unfair. I run a hand through my hair, needing to calm myself down and not get distracted by the dark eyes in front of me. "It's not at all wrong to you."

"Morality is simply the attitude we adopt to things generally disliked," Turner said fluently. He raised one brow. "I don't oppose. Do you, Greene?"

I stood up, hating to do so. "I wouldn't oppose if it were not for my self-respect." I was so close to him, and I really wanted to run my hands through his hair or bite his lip. Undo the buttons on his suit. "We all have needs. You need me, you need money. I need to know the person I'm investing so much in before anything else happens."

Turner raised his chin, leaned back on his desk, hands folded across his lap. The posture was unpredictability, it was attractive. A smile played on his lips. "Respectable."

The auditorium hummed. So did my blood. "I'll see you next class."

"But where does that leave us, darling?"

"It means, Turner--"

"Call me Alex."

I bit my lip, extending my hand for the last time. "It means, Alexander, take the cheque and we'll see where this goes."