steven
Next class, I parked in the alleyway just outside of Radiant and led Sierra toward the entrance of the club. I had been buzzing every night and every day since the holiday party. She had promised to stay the entire week—from Christmas Eve to the day after New Year’s Day.
While I should’ve been nervous because I had never had anyone stay over my place for that long, I couldn’t seem to wait. Lately, my home had seemed so boring without her. I had found myself lounging around every night, staring down into the quiet city and wondering how much longer I’d have to endure the agony of being alone.
I tightened my grip on Sierra and pulled her hood up before we stepped onto the searing cold sidewalk from the alley. She giggled, her cheeks already a light pink, and quickly looked away, as if she wanted to tell me something but was too embarrassed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“What?”
“Why do you have that look on your face?”
“I don’t have a look.” She snickered, stepping into Radiant.
With my hands on her hips, I pulled her closer to me before we walked through the second set of doors and dipped my face into the crook of her neck. “You have a look, love. I can tell when you’re hiding something from me.” I curled my fingers into her sides. “Don’t make me tickle it out of you.”
She shrieked and jumped away from me, narrowing those beautiful eyes. “Don’t you dare, Professor Patton,” she said, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. “You know I’m extra sensitive there.”
My lips twisting into a smirk. “I could get it out of you in a different way.”
Those eyes lit up with excitement that she quickly contained. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the side of the hall as other students walked in for class today. She grabbed my hands, intertwined our fingers, and rocked back on her heels. “Would we be able to try … you being harder on me?” she whispered. “Like, um, calling me mean names and maybe treating me like …” She fumbled on her words, her cheeks growing redder by the moment.
“You want me to degrade you?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she squeaked, hiding her face in my chest. “I mean, if you’re not—”
“What would you like me to call you?”
She snapped her gaze up to mine. “You’ll really do it?”
“I’ll give you whatever kind of experience you’d like, but first, you have to answer me.”
“Answer you?” she asked, furrowing her brow. “Y-you want me to tell you …”
“What you’d like to be called.”
“But I can’t do that!” she exclaimed. “It’s way too embarrassing.”
Smirk widening, I pulled our hands up to my mouth and pressed my lips against her knuckles, eyes on her. “Then, I guess—”
“Slut,” she whispered with the straightest face ever, and then she burst out into a fit of giggles. “And maybe a dirty … a dirty whore.” She pressed her thighs together, nipples hardening underneath her clothes. “Some other stuff too.”
“Are you sure you want that?” I asked.
I remembered a few weeks ago, when she had asked me if I thought she was easy for taking Sex Education and I didn’t want to break her down to tears like that ever again. But if she really wanted this, then I would oblige.
“Yes,” she whispered, blushing. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”
“Ask and you shall receive,” I hummed, taking her hand and leading her into Radiant. After pulling off her coat, I handed it to the woman in the coatroom. “Do you want to try it out tonight? I can switch some classes around.”
While she didn’t say anything, her lips were curled into a small smile.
“We’re going to have some ground rules,” I started. “Okay?”
“Okay—”
Sierra stopped short, her gaze shifting behind me and her cheeks whitening. I glanced over my shoulder to see a guy about Sierra’s age saunter into Radiant like he owned the place, the two top buttons on his shirt undone.
“I, um …” Sierra said, swallowing. “Can we—”
“Look who it is,” the guy taunted, spotting Sierra. “Thought you’d be here.”
“Luke, what are you doing here?” she asked, making herself smaller behind me.
I shuffled in front of her and jutted out my hand. “Don’t think we’ve met.”
Luke hardened his glare at me, but placed his hand in mine. “Luke Carls, Sierra’s ex.”
“Steven Patton, Sierra’s professor.”
“Professor, huh?” Luke sneered.
After scooping up Sierra’s hand, I leaned toward Luke. “I’d tell you to enjoy the night, but an immature brat like you won’t be able to keep up with half the women here. But you can watch from the bar as I show your ex what being with a man is really like.”
When I walked away, Sierra shuffled after me, glancing back and forth between me and Luke, who stood there, completely stunned, as if I would let him get off with attempting to belittle Sierra in front of me. If I didn’t want to fuck Sierra in front of him just as a fuck off to him, I would’ve kicked him out.
“Degradation 101 tonight, Sierra,” I said as we reached the classroom door. I clenched my jaw and didn’t pay any attention to the fuming Luke still standing near the coatroom. “We’re going to have a bit of a … field trip out into the main room tonight, if you don’t mind.”
Sierra opened and closed her mouth a handful of times. “I, um … are you sure?”
“If you’d feel more comfortable if I kicked him out, then I will,” I reassured her.
“No. No, it’s okay.” A small smile crossed her face. “We can do that.”
I moved closer to her and gently took her chin in my hand, lifting it so her focus was on me. “In today’s class, I’m going to be mean to you. I’m going to say things to you that I don’t really mean. Do things that might embarrass you. Call you names and degrade you. Okay?”
She nodded.
“And if I call you dumb”—I tucked some hair behind her ear—“I don’t mean that you’re stupid, but that you’re mindless for me. My little plaything that I can use however I want. Understand?”
Again, she nodded.
“I need a verbal response, Miss Monroe.”
“Yes, Sir.”
I took her chin in my hand. “I need you to say your safeword if I hurt your feelings at all, if I do something or say something that you’re not comfortable with.”
She nodded. But I wanted her to really understand. Deeply.
“I refuse to let our class get in the way of …” I paused for a moment, getting ahead of myself. What really were we? A dominant and a submissive? Something more than that? I wasn’t quite sure. All I really knew was that I cared about her.
More than I had cared about any other girl in the past.
“Of us?” she finished.
I stared at her for a couple of moments, then nodded. “Of us.”
After another moment of silence, she finally tightened her grasp on my hand and nodded. “If I need my safeword, then I’ll use it. I promise that I won’t let it get in the way of”—her lips curled into a small smile—“us.”
Good, because, tonight, I would show Luke Carls that Sierra was mine.