Grading Curves

By Naima Simone

I didn't know him the night I climbed into his chair and under his tattoo machine. I didn't know him when he taught me about the kind of pleasure I'd only read about in kinky millionaire romances. I didn't know that when I walked into my college classroom the next morning the man who'd inked my skin and dirtied my body would be sitting in front of me. Dean Shaw is my student. My secret. And my downfall if the truth about us comes out. The problem is, he's also everything I crave and can't let go…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oliver-Heber Books
• Release date: Mar 6, 2025
• ISBN: 9798230207641

Naima Simone

USA TODAY bestselling author Naima Simone writes romance with heart, humor and heat. Her books have been featured in The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly, and described as balancing “crackling, electric love scenes with exquisitely rendered characters caught in emotional turmoil.” She is wife to Superman, and mom to the most awesome kids ever. They live in perfect, domestically challenged bliss in the southern US.

Book preview

1

Nikki

It’s a tattoo shop.

Not the Hellmouth or the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Or a BOGO sale at Forever 21. Not that I actually shop at Forever 21, because one, I left that age behind nine years ago. And two, I left the ass needed to fit into those clothes about fifteen years and four dress sizes ago. Still, with two nieces, I know from personal experience, a sale there is a special kind of torture…

Aaaaand, 90s TV shows, 80s movies and skinny girl shopping habits aside, I’m stalling.

Woman, get your ass in there, I mutter to myself. Inhaling a deep breath, I grab the handle on the front door to the tattoo shop and yank it open.

Bells jingle above the doorway, loud enough to be heard over the rap music blasting from the speakers. All heads turn my way—all two of them. A tall, bearded man whose wide shoulders are testing the limits of his white T-shirt and a young, gorgeous woman, almost as tall as the guy, with half her head shaved, and the rest of the thick, long mass flowing over one shoulder. Both are covered in tattoos.

I swallow, and the voice in my head that sounds suspiciously close to my mother’s screams, "Bitch, you crazy?"

Without my permission, my feet take a step back toward the door…and the safe, boring world I’d meticulously planned for myself. Which directly contradicts me being up here in a tattoo shop ready to permanently mark my body in places that might not be as tight and elastic in ten years. For some people, this probably isn’t their definition of wild, but for me, with my fear of needles? It’s the equivalent of streaking through Kensington Palace brandishing a Harry, marry me! poster. I might have a thing for the redheaded royal…

You lost? Lumberjack asks. He shoves off the front desk that he was leaning on and moves toward me. If you’re looking for the café that was here, it moved to the other side of town over a year ago…

Okay, I know what he’s seeing. Older black woman—older than him anyway—simple, almost conservative clothing and jewelry. So I get his question. Doesn’t mean I’m still not offended. But with terror crawling through my veins like an army of ants headed to Armageddon, my throat is too dry to deliver a verbal smackdown.

No, I blurt before he can give me instructions to said café while ushering me out of the shop. He halts, frowning at my most likely too loud and vehement protest. I mean, no, I’m here for a tattoo. Please, I tack on since he and the supermodel only stare at me more.

Where? Beneath the cardigan? He nods toward my pale blue sweater that’s opened over a white tank top.

Okay, that was just snippy. And uncalled for. My cardigan was cute as hell…and 50% off at New York & Company.

Forget him, the supermodel interjects with a wave in his direction. I’m sorry, but we’re about to close. Can you come back tomorrow? Or if you know what artist you’d like, we can set up an appoint⁠—

I can take her.

A new voice—a dark, rumble of a voice like a smooth scotch on extra hard rocks—enters the conversation, and the three of us turn in the direction of it. Relief flows through me that my mission hasn’t met an untimely end.

Thank you. I…

I think I’m hallucinating because no way on God’s green earth can you exist outside of an LSD-induced vision and Sons of Anarchy reruns.

Jesus, this new man staring at me from behind the desk is…almost hard to look at. Because my mother insisted we all attend church on Easter Sunday and Mother’s Day if no other days of the year, I know the story of Moses having to hide himself from gazing directly at God’s glory or else be killed. That’s the dilemma I find myself facing. I never thought dying from lack of oxygen to the brain due to deadly hotness was a thing, but apparently my bachelors and masters—and the bible—didn’t cover everything.

Dark, almost black hair shaved close on the sides and long-ish on the top, is slicked back from a face that is a little too sharp, a little too mean and way too beautiful. His cheekbones, nose and jaw are made up of cutting angles edging just shy of harsh. Not even the half-past-five-o’clock shadow covering his jaw can hide its marble-hewn lines. As if apologizing for the severity of his bone structure, his mouth is a creation of soft lushness. And his eyes. Blazing blue like the heart of the hottest flame. This is upstate New York in September, but his skin holds a golden tan that probably has more to do with genetics than a bed under ultra-violet lamps.

If Lumberjack is wide and huge like, well, a lumberjack, then this man, equally as tall—if not beating him by a couple of inches with almost the same shoulder span—is cut like a swimmer. No. My eyes jerk back to his bright, unwavering gaze. A wolf. A lean, menacing but gorgeous wolf whose pelt you want to dig your fingers in and rub your face over and run away from at the same time.

And the tattoos. Good God, they swirl over almost every inch of him. His neck, his strong, corded forearms that aren’t hidden by a black Henley, his hands. And if I’m not mistaken, even one side of his shaved head under the short hair almost hiding it.

I can take her. His words ricochet against the walls of my skull, and suddenly they sound so much more salacious, dirty. Like a filthy promise instead of a kind offer.

I should feel all shades of shame for even considering the softness of his mouth or if he offers filthy promises or not. Even with the scruff, the large frame and piercing stare, he’s young. Too young for me to have these kinds of thoughts about him anyway.

Yet, my mind persists in wondering how those big, inked hands would look against my bare, unblemished skin…