Teach (City of Sinners Book 1) Read online

  OLIVIA

  After I’ve had a few hours of sleep, if that, my alarm clock beeps, the sound reverberating through my bedroom. It gives me an instant migraine, and coupled with the massive hangover, it makes me feel sick to my stomach. I open one eye, afraid of what I might find when I glance at the space next to me on the bed. A small part of me is hoping Mark is gone. I wanted nothing more than a one-night stand. Clearly, that was all Mark was looking for as well.

  But, when I find myself rolling onto my other side, I take in the sight of his pale skin and the dark tattoos on his arms and chest. He has one on his hip bone—a green four-leaf clover.

  How very Irish of him.

  He’s even more attractive in natural light. The early morning rays breaking through the opening between the curtains reveal a dusting of freckles on his cheeks, arms, chest, and legs.

  The sight of him naked makes me wet with anticipation for more, and the thought of his huge cock inside me again forces me to lean over and take his length in my hand, stroking gently before picking up the pace. I have never been this forward with men in the past. But, after the night we had together, Mark has provoked my inner smuttiness, and that part of me wants to come out and play.

  With a sexy-as-fuck glaze in them, his eyes shoot open as he reaches over to run his fingers through my hair, the thick muscles in his arm flexing. “Fuck, Teach,” he mumbles under his breath. When I lean forward to lick the tip of his forever-growing erection, he pulls my head closer. “You sure know how to wake a man up.”

  I stop for a second to look up at him. “I want to hear you say it.”

  He groans. “Say what?”

  I smile, finding pleasure in teasing him. “Those three little words.”

  At first, he looks confused. Then, he cracks a smile, and the corners of his mouth turns up into a smirk. “Suck. My. Cock.”

  I nod and take his length in my mouth until I can feel him in the back of my throat. He twists my hair between his fingers, practically choking me as he tightens his grip and lifts his hips. I love hearing the sounds he makes when he comes.

  He licks his lips, and his voice is soft and sensual as he says, “Good girl.”

  My God, I love when he says that to me, and I barely have time to swallow before he has me on my back with my legs spread open. He grabs a condom from the nightstand, rolls it on, and pushes inside me. I have no time to adjust to his size, forced to take all of him at once. Grabbing my hips, he fucks me hard, so fucking hard that I’m in physical pain but that pain turns to pleasure. And I don’t want him to stop. It has been far too long since my last boyfriend, and no one has ever fucked me in the way Mark is right now. Mark is a sex god.

  He’s so rough that I’m pretty sure he will leave his fingerprints on my skin. I want him to mark me, make me his, make me come. I slide my hand through his auburn spikes, my legs wrapped around him and digging into his back. A sheen of sweat forms on his forehead, and I can taste his saltiness as he kisses me.

  My screams die off in his mouth as my body trembles beneath him. He makes me come not once, but twice, the orgasms happening so close together that I had no idea it was even possible. After he comes, he kisses my forehead and then leaves a trail of kisses down my neck and chest before sliding out of me and off the bed to use the bathroom.

  A minute later, he stands in the doorway, still hard as a rock. Ripped with muscles and covered in tats, he reminds me of a younger and more athletic version of Michael Fassbender, which makes this even hotter because I have an insane celebrity crush on him.

  Looking like he just stepped out of a fitness magazine, Mark either lives at the gym or has played sports because his thighs are big and toned, and his calf muscles are perfectly chiseled, unlike any man I’ve ever been with before. And he has an ass, a legit firm backside that I can grab ahold of and dig my nails into as he takes me to a point of ecstasy.

  “You know, it’s not polite to stare.” He laughs and bends down to retrieve his clothes from the floor. “But who could blame you?”

  Sitting up, I cross one leg over the other and frown. “Cocky much?”

  “Cocky? No.” He steps into his boxer briefs and slides them over his hips, the band snapping at his waist as he winks at me. “Confident? Yes.” Once he finishes dressing, he sits on the bed, takes my cell phone from the nightstand, and taps on the keyboard and sends a text message before handing it to me. “We are doing this again.”

  I’m still naked, and for some reason, despite having Mark explore every inch of my body, I feel vulnerable, so I fold my arms over my chest to cover myself. That vulnerability also makes me more defensive. “A little too confident now, aren’t we?”

  Scooting closer to me on the bed, he reaches between my legs and rubs my clit with his thumb. His breath sends chills down my spine as he whispers in my ear, “Your pussy is mine. Whenever I want it.”

  A soft moan escapes my lips, the throbbing at my core too intense to ignore, so I let him keep going even though I know I’ve lost this fight. “Yes,” I hiss, staring into his green eyes.

  “Yes what?” he demands.

  “My pussy is yours. I’m yours. Just don’t fucking stop.” Possessed by the orgasm brewing inside me, my voice sounds like a growl.

  My cheek presses against his, and he pulls me closer with one hand while making me come again with the other.

  “Good girl,” he says, plunging his fingers inside me but only for a second. Then, he pulls them back to suck on them before sliding his index finger into my mouth for me to taste. “That’s fucking hot,” he groans as I suck on his finger. Then, he removes it from my mouth, so he can kiss me.

  The kiss only lasts a few seconds, leaving me wanting more. After the sex we had, I want him to call. I still haven’t told him my real name. He hasn’t even bothered to ask. Not that he cares about what he calls me. While I hope he will call, I doubt he will bother. This was a hook-up, a one-night stand.

  “Well, I have to go to work.” I stand up from the bed and open the closet to retrieve my bathrobe.

  Mark stalks toward me. Taking my breasts in his hands, he sucks on one nipple for a second and then the other, tugging on each of them with his teeth, before he looks up at me.

  “I’ll call you.” He kisses me one last time.

  The passion and intensity behind it makes my toes curl and my ovaries explode.

  “Later, Teach.”

  And then he’s gone.

  Today marks my first official day as a college professor, and I am fucking late already. I just had to take Mark home from the club with me last night. After he’d saved me from embarrassment and stood there, staring up at me with those bedroom eyes, all man and broad-shouldered, I’d wanted to fuck him right there on the dance floor. After waiting what had felt like an eternity to have sex again, I could not resist him. My defenses had weakened with each second I spent around him.

  He might have ruined me for all men. I can’t even recall a single detail of the last sexual encounter I had before Mark. But I have a feeling I will remember him for a long time, maybe even scream out his name as I make myself come. Because the sex was highlight-reel, spank-bank-worthy material.

  On my way to campus, I stopped at Broad Street Beans for a nonfat latte, but the caffeine is barely helping to keep my eyes open. My legs are still wobbly from all the hammering Mark did between them. My core throbs, but it’s not from the agonizing pain; it’s the promise of having more time with him.

  In heels and a pencil skirt, I want to look presentable and professional for my first real teaching job. When an assistant professor slot in the Franklin School of Law at Strickland University opened up and I received a call from Peter Swanson—one of the most respected lawyers in the state and my former teacher at Strickland University—I accepted on the spot.

  Law and Ethics was not my first choice especially after my last case, but when Professor Swanson offered me the chance, I jumped at it.

  Stumbling into Franklin Hall, I almost fall i
nto a group of outgoing coeds who practically assault me as they push open the doors and knock me off-balance. They laugh and roll their eyes in my direction, as if I were the one who shoved them. I should have brought my emergency flats. My feet are killing me. I can barely walk a straight line. In hindsight, I should have gone home alone last night. Too bad my vagina was doing the talking for me.

  By the time I find Professor Swanson’s office, I am ten minutes late and not off to a good start in my teaching career. When I announce myself by clearing my throat from the doorway, he looks up from his computer, a delighted smile on his chubby face.

  “Olivia, perfect timing. I was just finishing up with my latest article for the law review.”

  Taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk, I mutter, “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Your first class starts on Monday. I hope you will be on time for that.”

  I fold my hands on my lap and sit up straight. “Of course. Again, I’m so sorry.”

  He takes a sip from his coffee cup and sets it down. “No problem. Today, I wanted to chat with you about what I expect for this class. I reviewed the course syllabus you’d handed in. The final project is a great idea, but I wanted to talk to you about it. Will your last case have any impact on how you grade this assignment?”

  The thought of the Wissinoming Park Rapist and the smirk he had on his face as he walked out of the courtroom that day is still fresh in my mind.

  I choke back the bile rising up from my stomach and feign a smile. “No, I can assure you that I am fully capable of handling this class and any assignment that I give out to my students.”

  “As a lawyer, I was proud of you and the case you’d built for your client, but on a personal level, I couldn’t stand to see him get off for what he had done to those women. But you had an ethical and legal obligation to your client—”

  “I should have let him fry.” I hate that tears are building up in my bottom lids, so close to spilling over. My voice cracks as I speak, “He should be in prison right now, not walking the streets as a free man.”

  “I don’t disagree with you. But you could have lost the right to practice law if you had tampered with the case in any way or intentionally provided ineffective counsel.” He rests his elbows on his desk and leans forward, pinning me down with his gaze. “Lawyers get a bad rap because of all the sleazeball ambulance chasers. They don’t see the tough cases or bad losses.”

  “I wanted him to find other representation, but he wanted me. He said I looked like his first victim.” I cringe at the memory of my previous interactions with my former client. “My boss refused to assign a different lawyer to the case. The DA didn’t have enough evidence to win his case, and with the spotty evidence and unreliable testimony, he left the door wide open for me to pursue other avenues.”

  “Look at it this way, Olivia. You ended your trial career with a solid win streak even if that case was not a win for the citizens of Philadelphia.”

  “But he’ll do it again.” I wipe the corner of my eye, overcome by emotion. “Brandis is as sick as they come. I’ve never met someone so depraved in my entire life. Just being around him made me sick to my stomach. How am I supposed to live with the fact that I let a guilty man walk because the DA didn’t have enough evidence? Brandis confessed to me in detail, told me everything he had done to those girls. It was like listening to Hannibal Lecter describe how a human liver tastes.”

  He shakes his head, a tiny smile on his lips. He’s somewhat amused by my reference, though I do not share his sentiment. “You just have to find a way to move on. We all have one case that stays with us for a lifetime. I’m very happy to have you on my staff.”

  “I just broke attorney-client privilege by telling you that he’s guilty, so I think my legal ethics might need evaluating.”

  He shrugs, unaffected. “I already knew he was guilty, and no one is here to tell on you.” He winks.

  For over a month after I secured a not guilty verdict for Brandis, I slept on my couch with a kitchen knife in my hand, terrified he would come for me next. I had to take a temporary leave of absence from the public defender’s office that led to a permanent one before I knew it, prompting my search for employment that landed me a job at Club Rave. My boss had to replace me because of their current caseload. While I knew deep down that I could never practice law again—at least, not criminal—I still wanted to continue with my legal career. Law school had cost me a fortune, a small fortune I wasn’t about to waste when I had tons of bills and too much pride to give up.

  But that sabbatical gave me a lot of time to think. I sat down with my parents, and even though I could not tell them why I’d lost my passion for the law, they knew it had to do with me taking on such a high-profile case, and they encouraged me to look into the open position in the Strickland law department.

  “Unless you have questions for me, I will see you on Monday.” Professor Swanson pushes his chair back from his desk and stands.

  I shake my head. “No, I have taken up enough of your time.” My words and facial expression do not match how I feel on the inside.

  I need to get out of here before I embarrass myself, so I thank him for his time and wish him a nice weekend. My hands and legs are trembling, but this time, it’s not from Mark. As soon as I leave Professor Swanson’s office, I haul ass across campus and into my car where the never-ending waterworks begin.

  MARK

  Now that I’m on the final stretch before graduation, I don’t have any room to fuck off. Even though graduating with honors is not something I need to play in the majors, it’s still something I want to achieve, seeing as I’m the only person in my family to attend college, let alone graduate.

  The spring semester starts in two days.

  Instead of partying with the boys, I need to go out and make some cash, so the bank won’t foreclose on my mother’s house. She spent most of my life on the couch with a bottle in her hand, living off welfare, too drunk to notice she had two children depending on her for food and support. Over the years, I’ve stashed away enough money to give my little sister a chance at a future, away from our mother and the shitty neighborhood that has slowly made its decline.

  The only thing I ever dreamed about as a kid was playing for the Philadelphia Phillies, a dream that will hopefully come true by the end of the school year. Baseball has been my life for so long that I’ve never thought of what I might want to be other than a professional baseball player.

  Until then, I have to do the same questionable shit I have done for years, ever since I was raised by the streets and always knew that, if I wanted something, I had to take it—something I learned while growing up around the Marchese crime family. Breaking the law never seemed all that strange after I became the sole source of income for my mother and sister before I even started high school.

  There were some nights I wasn’t sure we would last another day without the generosity of the Marchese family and the rackets Luca and I ran on the side. Now, I’m about to do something that’s less illegal as bookmaking and running card games but still illegal nonetheless.

  Before winter break, I had a sweet gig with Luca and Hunter, but we had to shut it down because of Luca’s Mafia connections and the fact that the FBI was breathing down his girlfriend’s back for information.

  Luca and I had grown up together in South Philly and had gone to the same school of hard knocks while Hunter had been sitting pretty, up in Connecticut, with his rich NFL superstar daddy and a silver spoon in his mouth.

  But none of us are what some might consider the normal pencil-dick, cardigan-wearing frat boys. Nope, we’re criminals and not the least bit sorry about it.

  Luca somehow managed to rope Hunter into our illegal gambling rackets our sophomore year at Strick U, and we have been together ever since. Luca and I’d hustled our way through most of grade school and all of high school, eventually turning our small-time games into a much larger operation in college.

  Luca wanted
out, and Hunter followed suit, but I had grown up dirt-poor and on welfare. No fucking way was I about to give up turning a quick profit. It had taken years of busting my ass to earn enough money to feed and clothe my little sister. Because Lord knows my mother could not stay sober long enough to take care of Sammy.

  On my way down the stairs, Hunter comes out from his room in our fraternity house, closing the door behind him, and stops me in the hallway, cornering me so that I can’t move any further.

  He clamps his hand down on my shoulder. “Be careful. You could get yourself killed one of these nights.”

  “I’ll be fine, bro.” I feign a smile and shrug his hand off. “It’s me you’re talking to, not some teenager driving a slushbox.”

  I take a step back, so the drunken girls wobbling past us can get to the bathroom. The sound of rap music thumps through the house, vibrating against my hand as the wall shakes beneath my fingers. Saturday nights at the Delta Sig house are insane, never a dull moment.

  For tonight’s theme, someone decided on Risky Business, a popular ’80s movie with Tom Cruise where he dances around his house in a button-down shirt and white socks. Luckily, most of the guys in the house opted for boxers beneath their shirts because no one wants to see their shit on display.

  The girls look hot as fuck in the same shirts and socks, making me think of what Teach would look like in my shirt and nothing else.

  “You’re not invincible, Mark.”

  Hunter has his concerned father face on again, which I deal with every week when I try to walk out of the house alone and to the only place I know of where I can make money without Luca getting involved. But it’s not just the money; it’s also the thrill.

  Hunter shakes his head, frustrated. He will never win this fight, not when he came from money and never had to work a day in his life or wonder where his next meal would come from. Nope, he doesn’t have a say when it comes to my livelihood.

  “Don’t get distracted again, like last time.”

  I pat him on the back, somewhat irritated by the thought of my first and only loss. “I will be fine. Don’t wait up.” Then, I descend the long staircase.