BISHOP LOCKED PENELOPE out of the lab, knowing it was a terrible way to handle the situation. In truth, he panicked. He was so far over his head around the girl that the only thing he felt capable of doing was avoiding her. The first time she’d found the lab door locked, she’d pounded on the metal and screamed a string of impressive obscenities at him before stomping back up the stairs.
Her cussing him out hadn’t bothered him. What hurt was when she’d called him a coward. That accusation had cut deep, and he’d been nursing that wound in the several weeks since.
The truth always hurts the most.
He’d only locked the door that one time, but Pen hadn’t yet come back. For a while she’d avoided him, coming and going with an air of distance, his attempts at conversation met with one-word answers or shrugs.
This had both pleased Bishop and broke his heart.
The thinking side of him—the black and white part of his brain that tried desperately to keep his life simple and under control—nodded in approval at this development. Penelope was a young, college woman who should be out with friends, dating a boy her age, not nursing an inappropriate crush on her new father-figure, who, in turn, couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her irresistibly sexy body.
Keeping their distance was the right course of action. When they were both behaving, he could think back on his mentor, Penelope’s father, without guilt. If Bishop limited himself to caring for Professor Sullivan’s daughter as her own father would, then he could sleep at night.
But after moments of weakness, like that day in the lab, Bishop would suffer sleepless bouts of self-condemnation as he tossed and turned in the dark, dwelling on his depravities. He’d agonize over his latest taboo acts, like burying his face between his young ward’s legs and licking her sweet pussy until she climaxed on his tongue, or worse, forcing his cock deep between her lips as she stared up at him and tried her best to swallow his cum.
Penelope had been so innocent when she’d been placed in his care, and Bishop had been chipping away at that inexperience ever since. Now she’d had a man’s mouth on her pussy, a man who had no earthly right to be there. And his ward hadn’t even been an adult for a full twenty-four hours before he’d shoved his cock in her mouth, making her perform her first blowjob, on him, her legal guardian.
It didn’t matter how eager she’d been. He knew better. He was supposed to be thinking only of her best interests, not his own debauched needs.
Even with all that guilt, though, any time he relived those acts of sin with Pen, it was too much for his self-control. Recalling, detail by detail, his transgressions with the young girl always ended in a feverish lust that crowded out any shame in his head.
When Bishop inevitably threw off the covers, fisted his steel-hard cock, and jerked his balls dry of the cum that pulsed only for her, he told himself he was protecting her. If he satisfied his hunger for his little Penelope with his own hand—even if he was masturbating to thoughts of the improper liberties he’d already taken with her, then at least he wouldn’t sneak down the hall to her room and do something even worse.
The girl still had her virginity, at least. He hadn’t claimed that for himself. Not yet.
The idea made him shudder. He’d been so close to entering the observation room that day. Watching his little Pen naked, making herself come with a sex toy between her legs had nearly undone him.
He’d never seen anything so raw and fiercely sexual. With her eyes wild with desire, her skin flushed with arousal, Penelope had been unabashedly greedy for her own satisfaction. Bishop got hard every time he conjured the memory—her thighs clenching, body shuddering in ecstasy, her small, pink nipples hard and wanting.
In a moment of insanity, he’d nearly barged into the room. Instead, he’d yanked down his pants and wrapped a hand around his swollen cock, hoping to appease the alpha inside him who’d already claimed the girl. Already chosen Penelope for his own.
Bishop had to fight against that relentless, possessive force every day now, because that part of him would never be satisfied until Pen’s heart and body belonged to him alone.
He had no doubt that if he’d entered the observation room that day, he would have taken his ward’s virginity. Even worse, he’d have taken it with all the finesse of a marauding Viking after too many days alone at sea.
That was his very real dark side, and exhibit A for why he had to steer Penelope toward other men. He knew it was the right thing to do, though the idea of giving her up was growing more impossible with each moment he spent with her.
Bishop’s blackness inside of him was something he knew well, but lately, as Pen had begun to forgive him for locking her out of the lab, he’d noticed a new quietness growing inside him. He didn’t know what to call this new side because he’d never seen it in his adult life.
Thankfully, even mad, Penelope never missed their nightly reading sessions. And now that she’d started smiling again, he’d found himself, more and more, relaxing into the aura of her, as if just being around her had a calming effect on the otherwise unrelenting storm that battered him from the inside.
He could tell when she was so lost in her book she wouldn’t notice him staring. She’d pull her legs up onto the couch and twirl her hair around one finger, her eyes glued to the page. That’s when Bishop could watch.
He couldn’t come up with the words to describe how he felt with her. He only knew that the moments he spent with his little one were the only minutes of his day that mattered. And when he wasn’t with her, he was thinking of her.
Being with her was intoxicating, and the effect had only grown more potent since she’d stopped punishing him for the locked lab. It was becoming more and more difficult for him to maintain the cold and lonely life to which he’d sentenced himself. Pen’s warmth and light quietly worked on him like the sun works on icy, packed snow.
Sometimes he even had moments of true lightness, when he could almost believe that as long as he and Penelope were together, nothing could touch them. In those moments, they existed beyond everyone else, in a place of their own belonging. Just he and Pen. Forever.
But such thoughts were dangerous. In a situation doomed from the start, hope was not their friend. He couldn’t be with her, not now, and not forever, so he was careful about indulging that new side of himself.
Oh, but in those rare, peaceful moments, where, for the first time, happiness felt only inches away instead of light-years, Bishop wondered if this new, softer side of his was the man his seventeen-year-old self might have grown into, had his father not tricked him into being complicit in his corruption.
So, it was just as well that his interactions with Pen had been quiet lately, because he’d had a lot on his mind.
Bishop had elected not to teach classes the first semester, focusing instead on completing the analysis of the last study he’d done with Professor Sullivan, meaning he was home whenever Penelope came or went.
They tried to force an easiness to their interactions, but now that Pen wasn’t mad at him anymore, it was no use. Bishop was completely socially inept, and even he knew every time they were in the same room together they were both imagining getting the other naked.
Much to his delight, one random Wednesday, nearly a month after she’d encountered the locked door, Pen suddenly bounded down the basement stairs to the lab as if she always showed up at that time. As naturally as if they’d never hit a snag, Pen removed her jacket, dropped her book bag, and started transcribing chart data.
Bishop looked over at her seat from his at the next table, his mouth open, the page of the notebook he’d been writing in frozen in mid-turn. His heart nearly exploded with joy. He knew he’d been missing her, but he hadn’t realized how much until she’d shown back up and filled all his empty spaces just by being there.
“Well hi, Pen.” The words came out in such a slow, flirty drawl that he didn’t even recognize his own voice.
“Hi.” Her response was a brisk chirp. She threw one quick glance in his direction.
The gesture was so uncharacteristically cute and shy that a wide, sloppy grin—unusual for him too—engulfed his cheeks. She peeked at him again and tucked her windblown locks behind her ear. Bishop noticed the heat on her cheeks. He’d made her blush? The thought pleased him immensely, and he nearly started whistling while he worked.
After an hour of quiet productivity, Pen sat back and rubbed her eyes.
“Need a break?” Bishop asked, taking her in as she stretched and yawned. God, it was nice to see her in that chair again.
“Nah, I can do another thirty minutes, then I have to get to my homework.”
“How are you liking your classes?” He came to her table and leaned against it, crossing his arms and ankles in a casual pose.
Her eyes lingered on his skin where he’d shoved up the cuffs of his shirt. He glanced down and realized his forearm muscles were tensed and on display.
She was checking him out.
He shifted his hips as his jeans instantly became uncomfortable in response to her hungry stare. His balls squeezed in such a pleasant way that he nearly groaned, and for one crazy moment he thought about giving in. Just simply reaching down and unfastening the button at his waistband, lowering the zipper, and pulling his erection out without saying a word.
The dam in his head that was still tasked with holding back those wicked thoughts about his little Pen creaked and nearly burst at that line of thinking.
Because he knew exactly what she would do.
Her eyes would grow wide and she’d look up at him as if him offering her his cock was as exciting as Christmas morning. Like it was all she’d been hoping for. What mortal man could resist this girl?
Pen was the sexiest woman he’d ever known. Add in her enthusiasm for new experiences, and her interest in him, her guardian, and controlling himself around her was enough to make Bishop certifiable.
If he offered, she’d have his cock in her like she was dying to get him off. He wondered if she’d take it anywhere he was willing to put it—her hands, her mouth, her pussy, her throat, maybe even her ass. Isn’t that what she’d begged him before? Come inside her, any way he wanted it, anywhere he wanted it?
Goddamn if that wasn’t the most powerful high he’d ever felt, being desired like that by this firebrand of a woman.
Bishop jerked his eyes away from her and focused hard on blurry details on the far wall, an effort that always gave him a headache, just to regain control of himself. To stop that dam’s gate from breaching under the pressure and leaking even more filthy, carnal thoughts about his ward into his head.
His balls contracted in that heavenly way again. Just being turned on by Pen was bliss. Maybe that could be enough for him.
He’d never felt an attraction toward someone as maddeningly intense as he felt toward her. Though she seemed to keep to herself socially, he must be just one in an endless string of smitten men she left in her wake.
Since the moment she’d startled him in the library, she’d been throwing him off-balance. She was brilliant, world-weary, and yet, somehow, heart-achingly, vulnerable and innocent. She was gorgeous and strong like a woman, but as stubborn and willful as a bratty kid.
Her bravado was an act, but her need for sex and sexual experimentation was as real as the rock-hard shaft in his pants.
The guilt he’d lived with after he’d satisfied himself with one of his father’s sex slaves, had caused him to suppress his dominant, alpha-male-type feelings. Just the idea of exercising control with a woman used to bring back that guilt, full-force.
But with Pen, things were different. Maybe he’d let his guard down because he’d started their relationship as her guardian, but whatever the reason, all he knew is he wanted her, and he wanted her to be his. Only his. He wanted to kill any man who so much as looked at her. So it was going to take some serious strength when the time came for him to push her into the arms of another man.
Bishop knew the kind of thoughts Pen’s curvy figure and easy, teasing smile put in men’s heads. He knew this because she was totally off-limits to him, and no matter how much he beat himself up about it, he still couldn’t look at her without imagining her on her knees as he fed his throbbing erection into her hot, wet mouth.
Regardless, somehow, a nonsexual relationship would have to be enough. He’d just have to figure out a way to make it enough. Have Pen in his life as his best friend. Act as a mentor to her. Perhaps actually be the father figure he’d failed so badly at being.
He’d have to force himself to be satisfied from afar with the lust she stoked in him and the thoughts she gave him. Maybe if he let himself masturbate to any depraved fantasy he had about her, he could take the edge off enough to keep his hands, and his dick, to himself.
Like the guardian he was supposed to be, he’d guide her to what’s best for her, watch her live the life she was meant to live. Bishop would look on. Love her from the sidelines as she flourished.
And he did love her. There hadn’t been a certain moment when this had dawned on him, instead, it was as if it had always been true. He knew it the same way he knew to his core that his love for her was a once-in-a-lifetime deal.
There would never be anyone else for him. Never anyone like his little one. From now on, there would only ever be the presence of Pen and the absence of Pen, and between those moments of light and dark, he would simply go on loving her.
Penelope cleared her throat, regaining his attention. She seemed to drag her eyes from his forearms. “Sorry, what did you ask me?”
Her parted lips had a sheen of moisture highlighting their rosy perfection, making his heart thump a rhythm as strong and wild as that of ancient jungle drums.
Just as distracted as her, he had to search his memory. “Your classes. How are they?”
She blinked a few times before answering, the thick, sexual tension in the room dissipating slowly as they both tried to reestablish their conversation. “Uhh, fine. Easy, actually, except one—Quantitative Reasoning and Metatheory.” She made a face like she’d bitten into a lemon.
Bishop’s lingering carnal thoughts imploded with a snap at her mention of that class. The newly-awakened alpha-male in him jumped to his feet, pounding his chest and roaring. Bishop frowned and asked the question to which he was afraid he already knew the answer.
“Who teaches it?”
“Professor Warner. I like him, I’m just not a fan of the class.” She met Bishop’s eyes, and, perhaps picking up on the Neanderthal suddenly rioting and howling around inside him, she added slyly, like the brat she was, “He’s very attractive.”
She may have been trying to make him jealous, but that wasn’t what he was feeling. Murderous. Murderous was what he was feeling.
“Stay away from him.”
A mischievous smile spread across her lovely face at the warning in his voice. “Don’t like me getting close to another attractive, older man? Are you afraid I might give up on you and go looking for sexual instruction from a different Cooper College professor?” Her honeyed voice dripped with flirtation. She leaned back in the desk chair, her hands gripping the armrests. The posture made her breasts stand out, presenting themselves for his inspection.
Bishop gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore her tempting, pert globes, even though they were practically begging him to touch.
“It’s not that, Penelope. That man has a bad reputation for using freshman girls as his own personal escort service.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Realllly?”
She drew the word out with a tone of temptation, as if he’d told her the man gave out free chocolate during office hours. A red-hot burn started in Bishop’s chest.
“This isn’t a joke, Pen. I’ve heard a lot of rumors. The college hasn’t had a formal complaint yet, but from the stories I’ve heard, I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time. He’s not a nice man, and apparently he’s not afraid to use coercion to get what he wants.”
Pen swiveled the chair toward her guardian and leaned forward. Reaching out, she traced the muscles on his forearm slowly with one finger. Bishop quivered under her touch.
“What would I want with a nice man? I’m getting so sexually frustrated. Maybe what I need is a man who isn’t too nice to give me what I want.” She raised an eyebrow, landing him a direct blow.
Her trailing fingernails raised the hairs on his arm, just as her words raised his temper. She looked up at him through her lashes, swiping her wet tongue across her bottom lip before she spoke. “Maybe I could use a man who isn’t opposed to crossing a line or two for a young woman who’s willing and curious.”
“Penelope.” Bishop meant to load that one word with warning, but instead, it came out like an agonized plea.
“Professor Warner already asked me to come see him during office hours. That might be more fun than I initially thought.”
“No.” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice quite so much, and the word came out like a bellow. She jumped, jerking her hand back. Bishop stood ram-rod straight, his fists at his sides. “You will not see Professor Warner outside of class.”
For a moment she was speechless, but then she laughed, a tinkling, youthful sound that both infuriated him and pleased him, for very different reasons.
“Oh, I won’t, Dad? Do you forbid it?” She blinked wide, innocent eyes at him in a defiant air before grabbing her things.
“Pen, wait. I worry about you.” He reached out and grabbed her sleeve. “I just want to keep you safe.”
She looked down at his hand on her arm, then up at him. “Is it just that? Seems more like you want to have a say in who I get sexually involved with.”
Using his grip as a pivot point, she curled into him until she pressed against his front, and all he could see was her.
“You have a say, Bishop, but it begins and ends with yes, Pen, I’ll take you to bed, or no I won’t. We both know the answer to that.” She placed her hand on his chest, over his heart, and he sucked in a breath. “My curiosity and frustration keeps growing. Unlike you, I haven’t made a senseless vow of celibacy, and, I’m sorry, but I don’t need to abide by yours.”
He stared down into her cocoa eyes, swirling with vibrant life. His withered soul ached to be quenched by her spirited one, but his need was so strong. Would he drain her? Leave her a wounded and pathetic shell, just like him?
Compared to what this woman had to offer a partner, a lover, Bishop had nothing to give her. Nothing that was good enough to draw her away from the incredible life she was destined to have. He loved her too much to be that selfish. The big life she was going to have didn’t involve him.
That conclusion was simple, clear, and it ripped out his heart. Nonetheless, it was true.
“I wish things were different,” he said, emotion leaking into every word.
Without taking her eyes from his, Pen slid her palm from his chest and down between their bodies to cover the solid bulge in jeans with her small hand. She squeezed, and his eyes dropped half closed. Reflexively, his hips jerked, pushing his needy erection into her grip. A moan escaped his throat.
“Do you even know how much I think about your cock?” Her voice was the sexiest of purrs.
Of the thousand things he wanted to do to her in that moment, he picked the safest of them, and wrapped her in a crushing embrace, one hand around the small of her back, one hand buried in her thick, auburn hair. Pressing her cheek to his chest, he sank his nose into her locks, inhaling her scent hungrily. Her bag dropped to the floor with a thud.
They stood like that for a long time, and Bishop decided it was one of the best moments of his life.
Finally, she pushed away from him. “If you’re a bad choice, and Professor Warner’s a bad choice, which would you rather me make?”
He cleared his throat. “A good choice, obviously.”
“I don’t have any good choices, and you know I’d rather sit and read with you than go out and participate in activities.” She said the word as if social interaction was her least favorite chore.
It made him smile. They did have a lot in common. “Then I’ll help you find a good choice,” he said. “With very little effort on your part. But you have to promise you’ll actually give him a shot.”
She starts school. It was too late to apply but Bishop was able to get her in. I THINK I ALREADY SAID THIS. After a week of school, he asks her if she’s seeing any guys she might be interested in dating. She said she doesn’t want to date any guys but he has a serious talk with her about what he wants for her and that it’s important to him that she dates somebody an has friends and has a normal life intakes the car out or she fears he may need to leave the house.
Trying to make him jealous, she says yes in her chemistry lecture. She says he asked her out but she said no. Bishop asks his name and when she tells him he nods.
I know Bryce. He’s been in two of my classes.
She untangled herself completely from his arms and hoisted her bag up again.
“Fine,” she replied. “But in the meantime, as it turns out, it seems I can’t get off by touching myself unless you’re watching. So, if you don’t want me looking for the wrong kind of fun with Professor Warner, maybe you could at least come down the hall at night and watch? I’m so horny lately, god knows what I might do if I don’t find an outlet soon.”
She grinned as if she knew exactly how close she was pushing him to the fucking edge, and trotted back up the stairs, leaving him close to ruin in her wake.