Eight years ago. The horse limped, favoring its front hoof in an exaggerated motion that gave me pain just to watch it. I walked slowly, guiding it to the stall and unclipping the lead rope, patting the mare’s neck as she passed me by and headed for the feed bucket.

“Good girl.”

I pulled the door shut. There was the contented quiet of the barn, the soft nicker of horses, the sound of buckets bumping against stalls, of crickets outside. Peaceful, yet something was off. I glanced at the open doors at the end of the aisle, at the dark fields behind them. Nothing out there but a thousand acres of fields, the dotted black of the timber forests barely visible in the dusk. My unease grew, and I watched the mare eat and willed her to hurry up.

Headlights cut across the stalls, and the growl of an engine hummed through the quiet. Relief came and I pushed off the stall gate, heading to the front of the barn. Mom probably got off work early and swung by to save me the walk home. I paused at the sight of the truck. The driver’s side door opened and I raised a hand to shield my eyes from the headlights, watching as the passenger door also opened.

“Bell?” The voice was gruff and deep, an unfamiliar one.

I took a step back. “Yes?”

“It’s John.” He shut off the lights, and I could see Mr. Wright, the owner of the barn, a man I’d only seen a few times before. I typically dealt with his son. Johnny was a few years older than me and had the twitchy muscles of a drug user and the sort of wandering eyes that caused me to wear jeans and long-sleeve shirts in the dead of summer.

From the passenger side, Johnny stepped out. He flung the door closed and I flinched at the sound. He came closer and I watched a smile slowly stretch over his thin face.

I shifted my weight, uneasy. “I just finished feeding the horses. I’m headed home now.”

“Well, don’t run off so soon,” Johnny called. “We’d like to talk to you first.”

They came closer and I forced myself to stay in place.

It was a mistake.

I stepped back from the front door and weighed my options, trying to push back the old memory, the clench of their grip around my arms as they’d dragged me back into the barn. I should have run. The moment they’d stepped from the truck, the second I’d felt that spark of fear ... I should have taken off. They wouldn’t have caught me. Not that stiff man with his big gut. Not Johnny, with alcohol on his breath and that pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. He’d started panting before they’d been half done with me. There was no way he could have caught me in a sprint.

But I hadn’t run. I had stood there because I didn’t want to be rude, because I didn’t know what else to do.

Now, I wasn’t a scared fifteen-year-old girl. I had my handgun and a phone. I could get another taxi or try the police. I could call one of my roommates and find out what the hell is going on. I took the third option and dialed Jackie.

It rang, and I took a deep breath and eyed the other houses in the neighborhood. Everything looked normal, each home well-tended and still. It was the sort of neighborhood where the houses were stacked on top of each other, the front-facing garages all blocked by minivans and SUVs. Jackie’s car was in our spot, and I spotted Meredith’s Camry two spots down and Lydia’s Jeep just behind it.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” I stepped closer to the house.

“Home. By the way, don’t turn on the lights when you get here.” She sounded annoyed and I relaxed, pulling my hand from my bag and moving toward the house.

“Why?”

There was a rustle of background noise, and she cursed. “Fucking Lydia. She had a bunch of lightning bug larva in her room, and they hatched. We’re trying to catch them now, and we can’t find them in the—oh! I got one!”

“Why don’t you just open the door and let them out?”

“I tried. She needs them for a project. She wants them alive and it’s a total pain in the ass. When are you getting home?”

I laughed, relief sweeping through me. Nothing was wrong. They weren’t dead. There was no one inside, waiting to cut my throat. “I’m outside.” I pushed a hand through my hair and vowed to watch less true crime documentaries.

Jackie hollered loud enough that I could hear her through the brick walls. “Bell is OUTSIDE! Someone block the front door!”

She refocused on our conversation, her voice at a more normal level. “Come in quick. And for God’s sake, if you see a lightning bug, catch it.”

Nine hours later, lightning bugs were the last thing on my mind. I gripped the edge of the desk and closed my eyes, enjoying the bite of fingers into my skin, my panties yanked down, my skirt up.

ULV had a few shortcomings, but statistics professors who knew how to fuck wasn’t one of them. Dr. Ian Clarke swore, running his long fingers down my inner thigh and in between my legs, rubbing them along the sensitive area. I opened my thighs, propping myself up on an elbow and watching him. “Stop teasing me.”

“Tell me about linear regression.” He growled out the order as he leaned forward and kissed me. “And pull up your shirt and show me those sweet nipples.”

“I can’t think about linear regression right now.” I yanked up my tank top, bringing it over my breasts, his eyes focusing on them, and I stretched down the lace cups of my bra, letting my breasts fall loose atop them. He dove in, running his tongue over my right nipple and sucking on it gently before kissing his way over to the left, his two fingers sliding in and out, a steady rhythm that caused my bottom lip to hang, my eyes beginning to close.

“Are you going to fuck me, Dr. Clarke?” I arched my back and pressed against his hand, his thumb taking the hint and rubbing a gentle circle around my clit. He bit carefully down on my breast, and I moaned in protest.

“Not yet. First, I’m going to make you come all over my fingers, and then I’m going to send you into class. I want to spend the next hour thinking about bending you over my desk as soon as the bell rings.”

I laughed. “We don’t have bells.”

“Shh…You’re ruining the fantasy.” He withdrew his fingers and slapped my ass hard enough to make me yelp. Straightening, he braced one hand on the desk and looked down on me.

“Lay flat. Close your eyes. You’re about to drip that sweet little pussy all over my papers.”

I obeyed, letting my legs open wider, his fingers talented in their smooth dip, in and out of me, a slick friction that increased in speed as he applied careful and deliberate attention to my clit. First his hand, then his tongue, the hot and wet sensation causing me to thrash against the desk, my thighs trembling, my hands clawing for a handhold before I bucked off his desk and came.

He lifted me off his desk, pulling me against his body and letting me feel the hard ridge of his arousal. “I’m not going to be able to move from behind the podium today. I’m going to be hard as a rock for the next hour, thinking about your perfect pussy wrapped around my cock. Stay in the room after class.”

“Yes, Dr. Clarke.” I bit my bottom lip and slid my teeth over it, letting it pop free and enjoying the way his eyes darkened as a result.

He smiled, his hand tightening on my ass. “God, you’re perfect.”

“Not yet.” I pulled away from him and fixed my skirt, gathering my hair and twisting it into a loose ponytail. “But I plan to be soon.” I bent at the waist and reached for my bag, letting him get an eyeful before I straightened.

His lips twitched into a smile, and he ran a hand over his mouth, nodding to the door of his office. “Get to class before you drive me mad.”

I turned to leave, grinning as I opened his office door and stepped into the hall. He was filthy in the best way possible. God didn’t put a man like that in front of twenty thousand coeds and expect him to behave. Just like he didn’t put Ian in front of me, have him invite me to office hours, and expect me to keep my clothes on.

Granted, that first tutoring session we didn’t do anything. Ian sat on his side of the desk, I sat on mine, and we discussed binomial and normal distributions like two perfectly responsible adults. But on the way out, he walked me to the door, his hand on the small of my back, his fingers drifting a hair lower than was proper, the gentle caress before release telling me all I needed to know.

The next session, he suggested we block out an hour instead of thirty minutes. We got through confidence intervals before he told me to sit on his desk, that he wanted to taste me before he went fucking insane.

In fifteen minutes, I learned that the statistical probability of an orgasm from his mouth was one hundred gazillion percent.

And Mom said college wouldn’t teach me anything.