Watched

By Suzanne Jefferies

Newly divorced Professor Evie Brown notices her student Cameron Slade and how attentive he seems, so totally unlike her ex-husband. Cameron is also delicious to look at, all taut body, broad shoulders, and hot eyes. He’s forbidden territory, but one late afternoon as she pleasures herself in an empty lecture hall, she looks up to find she’s not alone. He’s there…watching her. And then there’s Sophie Walker. Ever since Evie met the sensual woman, she’s allowed her inhibitions to unreel, one by one. It’s Sophie who’s been sharing Evie’s erotic awakening, Sophie who she yearns for. Or is it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Mar 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9781509219872

Suzanne Jefferies

Suzanne Jefferies loves to write romance. As a member of ROSA (Romance Writers of South Africa), she knows that she’s not the only believer in romantic tension and emotional power smacks to keep the romance reader hooked. A movie fanatic, she spends most of her time as a writer-for-hire. Working in communication, she has done more than her fair share of corporate and investor PR, and now freelances in between editorial jobs for big. glossy company magazines. The Joy of Comfort Eating, her first contemporary romance novel, won the 2016 Imbali Award for excellence in romance writing.

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Watched

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Suzanne Jefferies

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Watched

COPYRIGHT © 2018 by Suzanne Jefferies

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Kristian Norris

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewilderroses.com

Publishing History

First Scarlet Rose Edition, 2018

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-1987-2

Published in the United States of America

Chapter One

Can I help you with that, ma’am?

I stumble in carrying acres of marked term papers and glance at the young man standing too close to me.

Cameron Slade is tall, preppy, and has honey-brown eyes. His skin is so young and unblemished it shines.

Thank you. I’ve got it. I pull slightly away from him. The sweet smell of deodorant and well-soaped skin wafts my way.

Cameron Slade. Always wearing a winning smile, he’s cocky, so sure of his whole twenty or so years. And he displays all those things I was coming to value later in life—kindness, consideration, helpfulness—things I’d wished I’d valued sooner.

I dump down the papers, and set to that afternoon’s task. Catcher in the Rye.

Do we have to stay the whole four hours? asks one of the students.

Only if you want to pass. I didn’t want to stay the whole four hours, either. On such a late-week afternoon you could almost see the tumbleweed drift across the empty campus. I promise I’ll try to get through this quickly. Let’s start by looking at some of the themes.

One huge clean board in front of me, one long, long afternoon. I take a deep breath. The room is stale with over a thousand student tracks worn into the threadbare carpet. An air-conditioner shudders to a halt. Showtime. Dichotomy, is what they call it. Nuns who like sexy books, prostitutes who don’t like to swear. I squeak the black marker over the whiteboard, listing the contrasts I want them to grasp—lecturer/student, old/young, married/single.

Married. I’d used this concept to describe myself as every part of speech for so long. "And what is Evie? She is married. And how does she define herself? Married Evie, Evie got married, Evie’s marriage." I stop lecturing and look out at those achingly young faces—young, young, young. I face my future—old, old, old. And divorced.

Are you okay, ma’am? Cameron frowns at me. He sits front center, just under where I stand, and has chosen that moment to pull his sweater off, revealing a glimpse of taut young flesh. Ma’am. If marriage was a shield against temptation, the word ma’am was the reminder that age was the real barrier. Ma’am was my mother. Now, it’s me.

Students glued to their phones amble in late, shuffling to seats at the back of the lecture hall, never to look up again. There are rows and rows of heads that tilt to look down at their laps at the slightest vibration of those goddamn phones. Some are still switched on and their beeping and twinkling sounds page the students to another place, far away from here. The front row is different—eager students who engage, debate, or sometimes not, but keen nonetheless.

Ma’am? He’s waiting for my answer.

Yeah, all good. What can you tell us about how Holden feels about his sexuality?

Cameron Slade. He’s broad-shouldered, a young man who’s entered his twenties, unsure about the man’s body he’s inherited. He has a walk that staggers slightly. A limp? Always in jeans, always long pants, and always wearing the same sneakers. His hair is styled forward with gel. Sure, he’s cute.

I noticed. I always notice the cute ones. Who wouldn’t? All that youth as fresh as squeezed milk in a pail. Soft, creamy lushness right there under my nose. Tempting, sure. But I require a mental connection of sorts to accompany the physical. Sapiosexual, it’s called. To be turned on by smartness, intelligence, the thrill of the quick wit, the erudite, and the well-read.

Like Sophie? Had she ever read Catcher? I doubt it. And yet, she’d been sharing my bed for a few months now. Sophie could probably teach these young faces looking at me more than I ever could.

And Cameron? He looks at me, his pen scratching down notes. He raises his hand and answers questions. Cameron smiles at me.

I smile back, turn away in that disconnected way a lecturer does. I’m always the center of attention, but no one is really noticing. No one is watching.

Do we need to know this for the exam? Another student is evidently weighing whether to pay attention.

No, I thought I’d spend my time discussing this because the hairdresser was full, I snap back.

Hey ma’am, what say I take you to dinner, you’ll give me an ‘A,’ right?

A few sniggers show some of the students are paying attention.

I teach all day, what makes you think I want to teach in my evenings too?

Whoa, ma’am. Harsh.

Ma’am. He’d better believe it. Now, what about Holden’s exchange with Sunny, what do you think about his paying her to talk—

What if I gave you something you’d like? Ah, the persistent student.

Shall I guess at the ‘something’? There’s another round of titters. Please God, this was going to be the longest afternoon in known history.

Cameron catches my eye. Was that the ghost of a wink? Cameron Slade. Tall, broad, male.

I ignore the request and plow onward.

And if Cameron were to ask me to dinner? Or give me something I’d like? I appraise him. I’d like it. More than I care to admit.

Each hour drags by, with fewer and fewer students returning after the comfort breaks. The air conditioner has dropped to a monotonous hum that’s too much like competition. After three hours, I halt proceedings. We should wrap it up here, right? I raise my voice as the last remaining students make their dash to freedom. Make sure you complete your assignment by next week Thursday. But they’ve already scattered.

The lecture hall gapes back at me. Empty. Disheveled. Abandoned. Without the students and their shuffling, shifting, whispering, chattering, texting and ringing, the hall echoes its lifelessness. An empty echoing shell.

I wipe clean the whiteboard, enjoying the push of the felt, swinging from side to side as I move, the squeaking sound it makes as it erases the past three hours’ worth of hard work. An image replays over and over—that unexpected reveal of Cameron’s torso—a handspan of bareness, the grooved shadow of muscle. It was a shock to the sterility of that lecture hall. My mouth waters. Bare, taut skin—that male skin, so much rougher, harsher than a woman’s.

Male.

I replace the lids on the markers and switch off the projector. Alone. Facing late afternoon emptiness.

If Cameron were to give me something I’d like… I’d like him, close to me, all sweet-sandy raw male youth, at my knees. Male.

I swallow back the desire that is starting to slither through me, stroking the space between my neck and collarbone. Cameron. I picture the way he ran his hands through his lightly gelled hair, the bulge in his arms