Hot Dirty Love (Copperline Book 5) Read online

  “I’m not here for very long,” she replied with a gentle shake of her head. “I need to focus on school. On finishing. Not on friends. Not right now. I don’t need friends.”

  “Everyone needs friends, Rain.”

  “I don’t. Not here. Not when I’m just going to leave in a few months.”

  “Rain—”

  “Justin,” she sighed with a hint of exasperation.

  The sound of my name whispered from her lips reminded me of the other time I’d heard her say it. That night with Cole as we made our way to the bedroom. I felt a fresh surge of hot blood rush straight to my cock.

  Her voice dropped to become barely audible. “In class, it’s like there’s a window… or a screen. You’re on the other side. Untouchable. Seeing you outside of class yesterday, though… it was just weird. It was…”

  Knowing I shouldn’t but unable to stop myself, I stepped a hair closer.

  Her voice trailed off with a faint tremble of her lips. A shiver I wanted to taste. My dick ached with the thought of it all.

  For a tense moment, we just kind of stared at each other.

  “I don’t fuck students,” I finally muttered. My mantra, said with quiet emphasis, mostly to remind myself.

  “I don’t fuck professors,” she replied, echoing my tone. Echoing my desire and fragile resolve.

  I closed my eyes. I tried to force the overwhelming need to touch her from my fingertips. Yet all I wanted to do was to grab her and kiss her. To devour her.

  A quick movement sounded in my ears, and I opened my eyes to see her hurrying away. She didn’t look back. Not even a peek. I knew that because I couldn’t tear my eyes away until long after she’d disappeared.

  Friday night. Gig night at the Copperline. The euphoria of jamming with the guys brought a sweet nostalgia. The fans out in the crowd, blowing me lipstick kisses and flashing suggestive smiles. I could almost convince myself that it was like the good old days.

  Except for one table where four chicks sat.

  Denny’s wife Felicity, Cody’s wife Ilsa, Drew’s wife Raven, and even our friend Brannon’s very pregnant wife-to-be-someday Sophie. Four living, breathing reminders that those days were long gone. It didn’t matter how super hot they were. Even Sophie was hot, somehow, pregnant as fuck and looking like she might go into labor any second.

  My buddies were so fucking gone, taking the life I had relished with them.

  Bastards.

  I spotted Laura waiting tables across the room. In the past, I’d always been a little careful with her. She was a great lay, but she had the tendency to get a little clingy after sex. I sensed that she was angling for the security she thought a man might bring her.

  Yet maybe that’s what I needed.

  Just maybe, if she felt some attachment to me, it could drive me to feel some back. It might trigger some sense of responsibility. It was a shitty thing to do because failing would only hurt someone who was only looking for love, even if she wasn’t exactly going about it quite the right way.

  I did it anyway. Knowing full well I was a dickhead and a lost cause, I pulled her up the short stairwell by the stage during our break. Just out of sight of the boisterous crowd, I gave it a go and even allowed her to lean against me for a few minutes after. I tried to let her fulfill her own need for a human connection.

  True to form, though, the asshole manwhore in me won out. I pulled away, ignoring the sad dejected expression that crossed her face. I lightly smiled through my guilt and said “thanks” as though she’d just served me a beer.

  I was my father’s son.

  “I didn’t realize you were a local celebrity.”

  After Monday’s lecture, everyone had left the room. Everyone except Rain who remained in her seat until it was just the two of us.

  That alone made me edgy.

  But her words truly stopped me short. The Mofos’ notoriety at the Copperline was something I tried to keep away from the academic side of my life. It wasn’t like nobody at Tech knew, but I didn’t talk about it here. I didn’t even mention the Copperline here. I kept that duality separate.

  There, I could be my true self, free from the rules of polite—or even decent—society.

  Here, I had to be formal. Professional. Professor Badass, but a professor nonetheless. Here, I was on a different stage.

  I walked over to her table, standing right before it. Her gaze stayed focused on her notes, on the little leafy vine she was doodling along the edge of her page.

  So girly.

  Which reminded me that she was a girl.

  A really hot girl.

  And a really hot fuck.

  Dammit. I don’t fuck students.

  “I don’t really talk about my band here,” I cautiously murmured.

  “I can see why. It gives you the freedom to misbehave.”

  Something pulled at my gut, a quick pang of remorse in all the ways I was trying to forget she existed.

  But, the way she said that made me also feel just a touch busted. Like she somehow knew… and she didn’t like it.

  Without thinking it through, I responded more defensively than I should have.

  “I seem to recall that we met in the midst of me misbehaving. You were, too, actually.”

  At that reminder, said so quietly under my breath, her eyes lifted to meet mine. Dark and rebellious, laced with the knowledge that she was flirting with danger a bit just by staying after.

  I should have walked away. I knew it with every fiber of my being. This discussion was taking a perilous turn.

  Yet, I couldn’t. Especially once she looked at me.

  Her eyes conveyed so much. Passion. Apprehension. Fierce envy. And something that made my balls draw up tight.

  “You definitely have quite the following, though,” she softly remarked. “Lots of… admirers.”

  “We have a few loyal supporters,” I nodded cautiously.

  She laughed, a low, dicey sound. “More like raging groupies,” she murmured.

  I felt a catch in my throat. “You were at the Copperline.”

  “Just for a bit on Friday, but enough. I got to see you in action. On-stage… and just off.”

  A flare of discontent trickled through her gaze that carried something reckless. Right then, I knew without a doubt she had seen me fucking Laura in the stairwell.

  I crouched down, resting my arms on the table across from her. My voice was almost a whisper. I didn’t even want the walls to hear this. “You almost seem pissed about it.”

  For a long moment, we just looked at each other. She finally dropped her gaze, and sighed as she closed her notebook and tucked it in her pack. Just before she stood, she swallowed, looking back at me dead-on.

  “I don’t understand it,” she carefully began, so quietly I could barely hear her even as close as we were. “This feeling is not something I’m remotely familiar with, but I think I’m… jealous.”

  Her words echoed through my thoughts all afternoon. Into the evening. Into my dreams.

  She had said it almost in wonder. Like she couldn’t believe it herself. Like it was completely foreign.

  I don’t understand it… I think I’m jealous…

  Whispered with sheer bewilderment.

  After her confession, she quietly rose and left the classroom leaving me stunned in her wake.

  Aside from the occasional awkward moment in class, I had thought it was just me. The tension and the fierce yearning was solely due to my preoccupation with her because I couldn’t have her. She was off limits, so it wasn’t just that I wanted to fuck her. I did want to fuck her. Holy hell, I wanted to fuck her really, really badly. Granted, I wasn’t exactly picky when I came to places to stick my cock. I just never really wanted someone I couldn’t have.

  But that little glimpse into her mind—that little confession—sorta caught me off guard. Her admission told me she was jealous of other chicks I slept with. That she thought about me. That she wanted me. That she liked me.

&nbs
p; Which forced me to be honest with myself and admit that I actually liked her, too.

  Fucking cheesy, I know.

  It was just that she’d been so at ease with Felicity, Ilsa, and Raven at yoga that day, at least up until she saw me standing there. Almost like she fit so well in the group. Like she belonged.

  And, even though it was total juvenile, prepubescent, junior high crush type shit, I actually kinda liked seeing her light and warm smile. Thinking back over the weeks of class that faded into one another, I realized I liked seeing the glint in her eye if I subtly teased her. Or the totally fake dirty look she’d shoot me as she tried not to show her amusement.

  I tried not to focus on the way she chewed tenderly on her straw. Thinking about those soft lips and the sweet swipe of her tongue was murder on my balls.

  And there was the way she’d finally get tired of her classmates randomly chancing guesses to a question I’d asked. She’d murmur the correct answer, almost under her breath. I was so tuned into her, though, that I’d hear it every time.

  “Very good, Miss Hartmann,” I’d say in an attempt to stay professional.

  “Thank you, Professor,” she’d quietly respond likewise.

  Yet it gave me a raging boner every time. Fucking hell, I was getting a stiffy just thinking about it.

  As I had done day after day from the start of the semester, I pushed it all to the back of my mind. I packed up the rest of my things and headed to Ophir, refusing to give those thoughts any credence. I didn’t want to think of her any differently than my other students.

  But I did.

  Oh, fuck yes, I did.

  That night, she filtered into my dreams once again. I was out back of the Copperline, Ruth bent over the hood of a car while I nailed her from behind. Halfway through it, she straightened, her arm curling around my neck as she twisted to kiss me.

  But it wasn’t Ruth anymore. Those blue eyes had become brown. The shadows dancing across the dark lot flicked over her face, revealing Rain.

  “Fuck me, Professor,” she whispered.

  I jolted awake, my dick throbbing in my hand. Desperate to relieve the burning ache, I closed my eyes, stroked my length, and thought of her as I came in the darkness.

  The next few days were relatively uneventful.

  Class.

  Pretending I didn’t know Rain in another life.

  Rain pretending she didn’t know me in another life either.

  As though she hadn’t told me she was jealous.

  Like she had any reason to be. We had fucked. Weeks ago. Once. Really fucking well, but still only once. We both knew that was it. We both had lives to lead that meant we couldn’t fuck again. It would be detrimental to the both of us.

  By Friday, I’d grown a little irritable about the whole thing. What right did she have to be jealous? To tell me she was jealous, thereby making me all out of sorts. Sure, my ego loved it, but she had me second-guessing everything around me all of a sudden. Thinking of her and wondering how she’d feel about what I did and said.

  I stood on stage at the Copperline late in the afternoon tuning my Rickenbacker bass. A replica of the one played by the late, great Lemmy from Mötorhead, a legend in bass-world that I’d idolized since I was a little kid.

  My fingers danced across the strings, finding solace in the texture against my skin. Notes began to ring clearly. Mindlessly, I began to play, letting the rhythm come to me and flow through my body. To calm my frazzled nerves.

  Until I realized that the other Mofos, also on stage warming up, were all staring at me with puzzled expressions.

  “What the fuck are you guys all looking at?” I growled, instantly on guard.

  “Something wrong, Justin?” Drew asked, clearly concerned.

  Weirdly concerned.

  Why was he concerned?

  I narrowed my brows. “Why are you guys acting like a bunch of fucking vaginas?”

  “Dude,” Cody said from behind his drums, “you’ve been sitting there strumming the baseline for Under Pressure for about twenty minutes.”

  I snorted in response, rolling my eyes to amplify how full of shit I thought they were.

  However, Drew nodded. “Either that or Ice Ice Baby, but I’m thinking Queen and Bowie are a bit more your speed.”

  Shit, I totally had been. David Bowie’s words still echoed in my head.

  Insanity laughs under pressure we’re cracking…

  For a second, I just stared back at them in silent shock. So unlike me, but I didn’t have a retort. My entire brain was wrapped up in quiet whispers and wide brown eyes.

  “Jaysus,” Denny muttered, his Dublin accent thick with surprise, “he’s away with the fairies.”

  His Irishism yanked me from my frozen stupor… thank fuck.

  “Fuck off, it’s got an awesome baseline,” I growled, shooting a glare to all three of them, landing on Denny last, “and speak English, you fucker.”

  I was still all kinds of pissy as I stomped down the steps after our first set to see Ruth waiting at the bottom, a skirt that barely covered her ass and a top that didn’t cover much of her tits.

  Any other time, I’d have been all over that. I even tried to be. Maybe I needed a good hard fuck. It had been a few days and I was under some serious pressure.

  I walked over to where she stood, leaning my forearm on the wall above her. I allowed her to wrap her arms around me. To lift her lips up to mine.

  But just before she kissed me, I felt a wave of something. Regret. Remorse. Something strange that had me wanting to pull back.

  Weird.

  My latest dream flickered through my mind, broken, yet so vivid. Ruth morphing into Rain. Rain’s seductive whisper.

  Fuck me, Professor…

  With a shake of my head, I dove in to kiss Ruth hard. Almost brutally. Desperately trying to drive this bizarre sensation from my mind. Ruth moaned, and, for whatever reason, the sound grated on my nerves. I tangled my fingers into her hair and jerked hard, causing her to pull away with a pained cry. For a split second, she almost appeared afraid of me.

  I think I’m jealous...

  I stared down at Ruth, unsure where my head was at and why I felt so cold and unstable. Closing my eyes with a sick feeling in my gut, I loosened my grip and stepped back.

  “Maybe tonight’s not the best night, Ruth,” I finally said.

  She nodded, still clearly rather shocked, and slipped away.

  I turned to watch her more or less run away from me and once again caught sight of my bandmates. All three of them were frozen in pure astonishment.

  For good reason.

  This was probably the first time—ever—that any one of them had seen me turn down pussy.

  Cody had been rendered speechless. He just stood there gaping at me.

  “Bloody hell,” Denny gaped.

  “What in the actual fuck?” Drew breathed.

  What indeed.

  “Oh, please…” Brian snapped at Rain in class, “there’s already so much red tape. It’s not like they’re just going to let everyone go out and trash the whole world.”

  The Alberta tar sands were in the news, prompting a few questions that spiraled almost uncontrollably into a debate over the pros and cons of bitumen extraction. Controversial on a multitude of levels, the issue had become a hot topic of late across this state just south of Alberta. It was environmental, social, and economical all in one fell swoop. A perfect storm to get people all kinds of riled up.

  For the most part in class, Rain kept a low profile. She was smart as fuck, but kept quiet and listened. She took notes. She absorbed the material and aced every test and assignment.

  Yet every once in awhile, Douchebag Brian cocked off and said something really fuckin’ dumb. Something that she just couldn’t let slide. Something like the regulations surrounding in-situ production were too strict.

  “They have way too many ridiculous laws in place,” Brian continued.

  “Hardly,” Rain murmured, just loud e
nough for him to catch. “It requires a huge amount of water, and that water is then contaminated.”

  “They have special ways to store it to prevent environmental impacts.”

  “The people who live in the area rely on the Athabasca River for its fish supply which is being poisoned. Cancer rates are climbing. Even though the specific storage modalities are required, they’re not necessarily being used, and it’s killing wildlife and people.”

  I should step in, I thought.

  Not necessarily to save Rain, though. Her calm arguments were incredibly convincing and logical. Intelligent and backed up by science.

  And her confidence had a way of rattling her opponent, who was usually Brian because the guy was a complete know-it-all who actually knew very little.

  He was starting to look red in the face, realizing he was losing this argument. She generally had him clamping his mouth shut with a perturbed glare within a few minutes. He had given it a good go this round, but Rain really knew her shit and it showed. Now he was looking rather petulant. Losing an impromptu debate was clearly not something he was used to.

  “Whatever,” he frowned. He was getting ready to throw in the towel, spiraling into petulance.

  “I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done,” Rain coolly pointed out, “but I think it could be done in a better way. A safer way. A more environmentally sound way that doesn’t destroy some of the most pristine wilderness on the planet.”

  I had learned through these class discussions that Brian was from an oil family. Big money. Big heads.

  Rain was most definitely not. She didn’t share a lot about her background, but she definitely veered towards conservation. She was a bit of a puzzle.

  I thought back to that day in my office.

  I could switch degrees, she had said. Go into environmental, like my bachelors.

  I couldn’t figure out why the fuck she was getting her masters in petroleum then, and I thought about that more often than I should have. I thought about her more than I should have.

  It sometimes even started out innocent enough. Her thoughtful arguments in a paper. Her research to thoroughly understand the concept of the assignment. Her intuitive questions during a lecture that drew me into discussion.