Fic: Educating Mr Snyder 3/? (NC-17)
Title: Educating Mr Snyder
Chapter: 3/?
Story Rating: Eventual NC-17
Fandom: As The World Turns
Pairing: Luke/Reid
Disclaimer: Luke and Reid aren't mine. Regrettably, Eric and Van aren't mine either. Life is cruel that way.
Summary: Okay, so this one time? sixtieshairdo and sexyscholar wrote this awesome fic after I mentioned that I was contemplating an AU!Luke/Reid fic with Reid as a brilliant, crusty English professor and Luke as his newest student - thanks to Daddy Grimaldi's hefty contribution to the university where he teaches. Anyway, after two months of writing it, I'm finally posting it.
Notes: Thanks everyone again for being so brilliant and supportive! Things finally start to get interesting between our boys. Also, no lurepuff header until tomorrow :( My broadband is still dead and my phone has no Photoshop. On the plus side, I finally do my NC-17 rating justice!
Other Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Educating Mr Snyder (3/?)
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
previous chapter | next chapter
Luke Snyder was no stranger to the silent treatment. You couldn't grow up with as many siblings as he had and not a) grow accustomed to passive aggression and b) be a master of it yourself. Whether Faith was having one of her teenage tantrums or Aaron was fuming at him for using his aftershave, Luke had got to the age that he knew exactly what to expect when someone wasn’t pleased with him.
So when Professor Oliver started to ignore his existence, refused to look in his direction and disregarded his hand when he raised it in class, Luke couldn't say he had never experienced being treated like this before. Because he had.
It still hurt like a bitch, though. And he wasn’t afraid to say it aloud.
"Dude, why do you even care what he thinks?" Casey had asked him once after a lecture. Wolfing down a bagel, he then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Making a face, Maddie handed him a napkin, which he duly ignored. "You’re the only one Professor Snape hasn’t actually bothered lately. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.”
"Yeah, he doesn't even pick on your work anymore. Sometimes I wish he would ignore mine..." Noah had chimed in. He then shuddered, as though recalling a particularly painful memory with the professor. Luke suspected he was thinking back to two lessons ago, when Professor Oliver called Noah's screenplay 'an affront to good taste' and promptly tore it in half.
“Yeah, but just because he doesn’t talk to me, it doesn’t mean he isn’t still failing me,” Luke persisted, pouting into his pasta. “You know, I must be masochist or something. I wrote five thousand words for that assignment on Thursday, knowing that he might not give it the time of day and what did I get in return? A big fat ‘X’ through my work. No constructive criticism, nothing.” He sighed, absently pushing his food around his plate. “I get that he's this big shot writer but how am I supposed to improve if he won’t even tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
“If it helps, he’s been failing most of the people in our class,” Maddie said kindly, placing a warm hand over his wrist. From the corner of his eye, Luke could see Noah frowning at this. “I mean, the people who are passing? They use Professor Oliver’s books as examples to back up their arguments. It’s cheating, Luke. plain and simple. Don't feel bad that you have your integrity.”
“Hey! It’s not cheating!” Casey cut in, grabbing his chest as though he was mortally wounded by her words. “It’s called strategy! He called my story ‘tawdry and debauched’ but he still passed me.” Casey looked thoroughly proud of himself before chomping on a handful of potato chips. “I don’t even know what ‘tawdry and debauched’ means, man!”
“Come on, Luke, just forget about it,” Noah said brightly, bumping Luke’s shoulder with his own again. He had done that a few times now. He was also sitting far closer to Luke than he technically should have been. Luke noticed Maddie and Casey sharing knowing smirks about it. He really wished they wouldn’t.
He let out a cough and tried not to blush.
“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject and trying to keep the pink tinge off his face, "I’m not sure about this party tonight, guys."
Immediately, three sets of voices erupted at him at once, talking over one another.
“Luke, come on!”
“We’re students, we deserve some fun!”
“Don’t be such a girl- ow! Maddie, come on! That hurt!”
“You’re not really going to let a jerk like Oliver stop you from having fun, are you?” Noah asked earnestly, his eyes big and puppy-dog like.
Luke couldn’t help but admire Noah for getting that look down so perfectly. He must have melted mirrors with it.
“Mayer’s right,” Casey said, throwing his arm casually around Noah’s shoulders. He then pointed at Luke with his free hand. “What you need, my man, is a distraction. You know, to forget how badly you’re failing.”
“Casey!” Maddie scolded but Casey just waved his hand and protested,
“It’s a joke!”
“Come on, Luke, it’s only one night,” Noah tried again. He was wearing a close-lipped, hopeful smile. “And you’re only young once, right?”
Looking between Noah’s expectant gaze, Casey’s mad grin and Maddie’s pleading pout, Luke knew a losing battle when he saw one. Lifting up his hands in surrender, he laughed and exclaimed,
“Okay, okay! If it means so much to you guys, I’ll go. But I’ve got to hand in my paper first.”
“Pah!” Casey snorted, throwing a used napkin at him. Luke ducked it easily.
“I thought you already handed in this week’s assignment,” said Maddie, narrowing her eyes with a doubtful smile. She then crossed her arms with playful disbelief. “Are you telling fibs, Snyder?”
“I’m re-submitting Thursday’s,” Luke explained, pulling out the assignment from his book bag before getting to his feet. “Here's hoping this one gets a better grade than the big fat ‘FAIL’ I got last time.” He rolled his eyes before turning to Noah. “Can you look after my bag?”
“Only for a minute, Snyder,” Casey said with mock seriousness as Noah took the leather satchel from Luke with a smile. “Any longer and we’re selling it on eBay.”
“Ha ha,” Luke said dryly, throwing the dirty napkin back at Casey before turning and heading out of the cafeteria.
He then looked down at the papers in his hand.
The words
The Selfish Giant
Re-written by Luke Snyder
stared innocently back at him.
Were Luke honest with himself, he would have to admit that this assignment was probably his favourite that the professor had set.
When Professor Oliver had looked at them all last week with those steely blue eyes and said “Adopt the title of a published novel and construct a short story from it”, well, Luke’s mind began to buzz so violently with ideas that he actually gave himself a migraine.
He had eventually penned down a story from the title ‘Great Expectations’ about a teenage boy who was constantly seeking his parents’ approval. He had written some of himself into the character and had been so immensely proud of the story that once he had handed it in, Luke eagerly awaited Professor Oliver’s thoughts on it. Even if the professor ignored him in the hallways and in the quad and looked through him during morning registration, he simply had to talk to him in a teaching capacity. Or so Luke thought until he received the story back with nothing but a huge red ‘X’ scrawled on it.
But he wasn’t going to give up that easily.
He pushed open the auditorium door, knocking on it in the process.
“Professor?”
Professor Oliver was standing over his desk and placing papers into piles when Luke walked in. The otherwise empty auditorium looked even bigger than usual as Luke stepped forward with trepidation.
“I… do you have a minute, professor?”
Reid Oliver looked up briefly and held Luke’s gaze before his eyes shuttered. Dropping his head, he continued to file and label his papers, ignoring Luke completely.
Luke fiddled with the papers in his hand uneasily as he moved towards lecturer. He could see Reid’s prominent jaw clench a little bit tighter with every step he took.
“I just… well, I wanted to re-submit my assignment from last week?” Luke said, almost asking for permission as his fingers fidgeted on the edges of the assignment.
When Professor Oliver loudly pulled out his chair, sat on it and began writing on his folders without replying, Luke furrowed his brow and slowly began to feel irritation claim him.
He bit hard into his tongue to stop himself saying something he would regret.
“Okay,” he said tersely. “I’ll just leave it here then, shall I?.”
When he didn't receive a reply, Luke felt his eye twitch quite violently in his head.
Composing himself, he perched his papers on the one empty edge of the professor’s full desk and turned to head back out the door. The sound of papers cascading behind him, however, stopped Luke in his tracks. Spinning around, he alternated his gaze between his strewn assignment lying on the polished floor to the professor’s face.
His jaw literally dropped.
“Did you just throw my assignment on the floor?” he asked in an incredulous voice, his face stunned.
Professor Oliver didn’t even look up at Luke to respond as his eyes continued to focus on the folders before him.
“I don’t accept resubmissions,” he said in a bored voice, his hands graceful as they slid crisp papers into envelopes. His fingers were almost mesmerising as he placed multi-coloured stickers on the appropriate files with utmost precision. “To avoid an abysmal grade, I suggest you do it right the first time around.”
Luke tried to stop himself from spluttering with outrage but he simply couldn’t control his mouth.
“Right? You didn’t even tell me how I could improve!” he raised his voice, finally losing his temper as he slammed his hands down on either side of the professor’s desk. Stationary jumped within pen pots, open condiment jars clinked together and the lettuce leaf within the enormous sandwich on the professor’s desk flopped.
Flickering his eyes to his sandwich, Professor Oliver almost looked amused when he finally caught Luke’s gaze. The smug look made Luke’s fingers itch to grab the collar of the lecturer’s shirt and pull him out of his chair.
“Mr Snyder,” Reid Oliver said in a light, mocking voice as he slid off his glasses, “your writing had so many obvious faults that I didn’t think they needed to be stated.”
Luke felt something snap within him.
Everyone had weak spot that drove them to their breaking point. Some people couldn't stand being patronised. Others didn't appreciate when their mother was the butt of a joke. There were even some people who lost their temper whenever they heard a certain song on the radio.
Luke Snyder had a problem when someone insulted his writing ability.
He narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth and, disregarding his better judgement, finally said what was on his mind.
"Do you know what I think?" he asked abruptly.
"You actually think?" Professor Oliver quipped back snidely before putting his glasses back on and going back to labelling his folders. Ignoring his rudeness, Luke crossed his arms and watched the professor scratch his black permanent marker on clean white paper. The ink glistened back at Luke as the heady smell of chemicals permeated up his nostrils.
"I think you're failing me for another reason," Luke carried on persistently.
The nib of the professor's pen stopped dead at that. He didn't lift his head immediately but, when he eventually did, his face had schooled its angular features into a masterful poker face.
The professor then quirked an eyebrow.
"And what would that reason be?" he asked softly, his voice smooth and dark all at once.
Luke lifted his shoulders and tried to steel up his courage before he lost his nerve. His fingers twitched at his sides.
"You don't like me," Luke stated as bluntly as he could. "You don't like how I got myself into this school and now you're punishing me for it."
There was a slight pause after his declaration.
Professor Oliver replaced the lid of his pen, dropped it into the appropriate pen holder and leaned back, pressing the pads of his fingertips together. He looked remarkably like a Bond villain.
"Mr Snyder, I don't like anyone," he returned curtly, blinking slowly over his spectacles, "yet everyone else in the class is doing better than you are."
"That's because they know all they have to do is put one of your books down as a good example of literature and you'll pass them!" Luke blurted out with frustration, angry and tired of how unfair the professor’s grading system was.
Professor Oliver positively bristled at his words. Luke felt an unexpected thrill of excitement shoot through him. The fact that something he had said affected the great Reid Oliver so strongly made him want boast about it to everyone he knew.
"Excuse me?” Reid said aggressively, sitting forward sharply in his chair so it creaked with protest. “They are a good example of literature."
Luke shook his head in exasperation, almost feeling sorry for pthe lecturer.
"Everyone is terrified of you,” he said simply. “They'll do anything so you don't yell at them. Haven’t you noticed that?"
Reid’s hard face softened minutely, his clenched jaw relaxing by a fraction. Had Luke not been so focused on his face, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.
"I yell at you," the professor reminded him after a considerable pause.
"Yeah, but I'm not afraid of you," Luke replied.
Professor Oliver's eyes glinted almost predatorily behind his glasses at Luke's words. It made Luke suddenly feel on edge.
"Aren't you?" the professor asked as he slowly eased to his feet. His voice was velvety and sultry and filled with a type of danger that Luke had never heard from him before. His brain told him to take a step back but his body refused to comply. They were eye to eye and Luke could feel the professor's breath on his lips. He opened his mouth a fraction and tasted Professor Oliver’s sweet exhale on his tongue. It licked at his teeth and made his boxers feel impossibly - painfully - tight.
The inside of Luke's throat suddenly felt like sandpaper.
"I'm not afraid of you," he repeated, his voice barely a croak as he suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Reid's eyes raked over his face, trailed down his chest like fire and only widened by a fraction at the considerable tent in Luke's trousers. He looked remarkably like the cat that got the cream as he lifted his burning eyes back at the blond's, irises glimmering.
"Then pray, how do you feel about me, Mr Snyder?" he asked, his voice accentuating the y in Snyder like it was a sexual profanity, his skin radiating warmth and spice and a heady smell that was making Luke feel dizzy with want. It touched something within Luke, brushing every nerve ending inside him as their lips moved closer, barely an inch away.
“I… I…” Luke whispered, unable to stop himself from leaning forward. The professor was like a magnetic force he was powerless to resist. He licked his lips, almost tasting the other man on his mouth...
And that was the moment Noah walked into the room.
"Um, Luke, are you ready yet?"
Luke could feel the professor withdraw immediately, taking his heat with him. Gulping, Luke suddenly felt like he had been doused with ice; cold and shivering.
He snapped his head towards Noah and felt genuinely terrified, like battery acid was pumping through his veins at a million miles an hour. How much had Noah seen? Would he tell anyone? What if he alerted Dean Hughes? Would Reid lose his job? And when had he started calling the professor 'Reid' anyway?
Taking one look at Noah, however, Luke's chest began to relax and he finally released the breath he had been holding.
Noah wasn't even looking at them. He was studying the light fixtures, which Luke assumed was because he was still too terrified to look at the professor directly in the eye.
For the first time in his life, Luke appreciated Professor Oliver's frosty demeanour.
"Er, yeah," Luke said, unable to look in Reid's direction as he shuffled stiffly towards Noah, still painfully turned on. He could feel his cheeks growing scarlet as he grabbed Noah's arm and practically pushed him out the door in his haste. "Let's go."
He didn't notice Reid's narrowed eyes watching him as he departed nor did he know, as the door shut after him, that the professor had picked up his scattered assignment from the floor and had begun to scan through it.
All Luke cared about, as he and Noah exited the building, was getting his hand into his pants and relieving his agony before he exploded in his boxers.
Making a quick excuse about feeling unwell to a confused looking Noah, he bolted across the quad and took the stairs to his dorm two steps at a time. The friction in his jeans rubbed him almost raw with a sweet sort of agony that had him popping his buttons open even before he reached his room.
Practically kicking the door open, he didn't even have the frame of mind to lock it behind him as he collapsed backwards onto his bed and practically ripped his fly open.
His hand snaked urgently into his underwear and he thrust into his eager fingers like a man possessed.
Curls on the nape of a slender neck... long, dextrous, ink-covered fingers flexing across hot skin... a voice that could make Luke hard in a matter of seconds...
Luke groaned desperately as his mouth hung open, sweat beading on his skin like dew. His breathing was ragged and uneven as he beat himself off, his movements so erratic that he was sure he had sprained his wrist in his need to climax.
Luke threw back his head, blond strands of hair wet and clinging to his forehead as stars began to dance on the inside of his eyelids.
He was so close.
“Hey, Luke, I just wanted to check if you were ok-"
Squeezing shut his eyes, Luke groaned more with mortification than arousal as the door creaked open.
There were some moments when you think 'I knew I should have locked that door'. And Luke, with his jeans around his thighs, his hand jerking him off and Noah staring at him with huge, stunned eyes, was definitely considering going back in time and turning the latch.
Twice. That was twice now that Noah had barged in on him in a matter of minutes. His timing was so ridiculously bad that Luke would have laughed had he not been so close to tears.
Noah gulped, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as his mouth opened and closed multiple times.
"I..." he said almost stupidly.
Wincing, Luke eased his fingers out of his underwear like a guilty schoolboy with his hand in the cookie jar, sore as he tucked himself back into his jeans. He then opened his mouth to say something, anything, to alleviate the horrible awkwardness in the room.
Noah, however, beat him to it by saying the last thing in the world that Luke expected him to say.
“Do… you need a hand with that?”
His voice was strained and breathy as his eyes stayed firmly on Luke’s crotch.
Luke wet his mouth in response.
He should have said no, really. He knows he should have.
Noah was a friend and Luke didn’t want to ruin that and really, he was lying there with his hand on his dick, thinking about Professor Oliver of all people. Professor Oliver. With his biting tongue and his glittering eyes and smirk that could get Luke to drop to his knees in second…
Luke licked his lips and shivered, tasting salt on his tongue.
He should have said no. He knows he should have.
But unfortunately, his mind was too addled to form coherent thoughts.
So he didn’t. What he did do was spread his legs a little wider in invitation and say, “Okay," knowing as soon as he said it that he was going to regret this.
previous chapter | next chapter
Chapter: 3/?
Story Rating: Eventual NC-17
Fandom: As The World Turns
Pairing: Luke/Reid
Disclaimer: Luke and Reid aren't mine. Regrettably, Eric and Van aren't mine either. Life is cruel that way.
Summary: Okay, so this one time? sixtieshairdo and sexyscholar wrote this awesome fic after I mentioned that I was contemplating an AU!Luke/Reid fic with Reid as a brilliant, crusty English professor and Luke as his newest student - thanks to Daddy Grimaldi's hefty contribution to the university where he teaches. Anyway, after two months of writing it, I'm finally posting it.
Notes: Thanks everyone again for being so brilliant and supportive! Things finally start to get interesting between our boys. Also, no lurepuff header until tomorrow :( My broadband is still dead and my phone has no Photoshop. On the plus side, I finally do my NC-17 rating justice!
Other Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Educating Mr Snyder (3/?)
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
previous chapter | next chapter
Luke Snyder was no stranger to the silent treatment. You couldn't grow up with as many siblings as he had and not a) grow accustomed to passive aggression and b) be a master of it yourself. Whether Faith was having one of her teenage tantrums or Aaron was fuming at him for using his aftershave, Luke had got to the age that he knew exactly what to expect when someone wasn’t pleased with him.
So when Professor Oliver started to ignore his existence, refused to look in his direction and disregarded his hand when he raised it in class, Luke couldn't say he had never experienced being treated like this before. Because he had.
It still hurt like a bitch, though. And he wasn’t afraid to say it aloud.
"Dude, why do you even care what he thinks?" Casey had asked him once after a lecture. Wolfing down a bagel, he then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Making a face, Maddie handed him a napkin, which he duly ignored. "You’re the only one Professor Snape hasn’t actually bothered lately. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.”
"Yeah, he doesn't even pick on your work anymore. Sometimes I wish he would ignore mine..." Noah had chimed in. He then shuddered, as though recalling a particularly painful memory with the professor. Luke suspected he was thinking back to two lessons ago, when Professor Oliver called Noah's screenplay 'an affront to good taste' and promptly tore it in half.
“Yeah, but just because he doesn’t talk to me, it doesn’t mean he isn’t still failing me,” Luke persisted, pouting into his pasta. “You know, I must be masochist or something. I wrote five thousand words for that assignment on Thursday, knowing that he might not give it the time of day and what did I get in return? A big fat ‘X’ through my work. No constructive criticism, nothing.” He sighed, absently pushing his food around his plate. “I get that he's this big shot writer but how am I supposed to improve if he won’t even tell me what I’m doing wrong?”
“If it helps, he’s been failing most of the people in our class,” Maddie said kindly, placing a warm hand over his wrist. From the corner of his eye, Luke could see Noah frowning at this. “I mean, the people who are passing? They use Professor Oliver’s books as examples to back up their arguments. It’s cheating, Luke. plain and simple. Don't feel bad that you have your integrity.”
“Hey! It’s not cheating!” Casey cut in, grabbing his chest as though he was mortally wounded by her words. “It’s called strategy! He called my story ‘tawdry and debauched’ but he still passed me.” Casey looked thoroughly proud of himself before chomping on a handful of potato chips. “I don’t even know what ‘tawdry and debauched’ means, man!”
“Come on, Luke, just forget about it,” Noah said brightly, bumping Luke’s shoulder with his own again. He had done that a few times now. He was also sitting far closer to Luke than he technically should have been. Luke noticed Maddie and Casey sharing knowing smirks about it. He really wished they wouldn’t.
He let out a cough and tried not to blush.
“Anyway,” he said, changing the subject and trying to keep the pink tinge off his face, "I’m not sure about this party tonight, guys."
Immediately, three sets of voices erupted at him at once, talking over one another.
“Luke, come on!”
“We’re students, we deserve some fun!”
“Don’t be such a girl- ow! Maddie, come on! That hurt!”
“You’re not really going to let a jerk like Oliver stop you from having fun, are you?” Noah asked earnestly, his eyes big and puppy-dog like.
Luke couldn’t help but admire Noah for getting that look down so perfectly. He must have melted mirrors with it.
“Mayer’s right,” Casey said, throwing his arm casually around Noah’s shoulders. He then pointed at Luke with his free hand. “What you need, my man, is a distraction. You know, to forget how badly you’re failing.”
“Casey!” Maddie scolded but Casey just waved his hand and protested,
“It’s a joke!”
“Come on, Luke, it’s only one night,” Noah tried again. He was wearing a close-lipped, hopeful smile. “And you’re only young once, right?”
Looking between Noah’s expectant gaze, Casey’s mad grin and Maddie’s pleading pout, Luke knew a losing battle when he saw one. Lifting up his hands in surrender, he laughed and exclaimed,
“Okay, okay! If it means so much to you guys, I’ll go. But I’ve got to hand in my paper first.”
“Pah!” Casey snorted, throwing a used napkin at him. Luke ducked it easily.
“I thought you already handed in this week’s assignment,” said Maddie, narrowing her eyes with a doubtful smile. She then crossed her arms with playful disbelief. “Are you telling fibs, Snyder?”
“I’m re-submitting Thursday’s,” Luke explained, pulling out the assignment from his book bag before getting to his feet. “Here's hoping this one gets a better grade than the big fat ‘FAIL’ I got last time.” He rolled his eyes before turning to Noah. “Can you look after my bag?”
“Only for a minute, Snyder,” Casey said with mock seriousness as Noah took the leather satchel from Luke with a smile. “Any longer and we’re selling it on eBay.”
“Ha ha,” Luke said dryly, throwing the dirty napkin back at Casey before turning and heading out of the cafeteria.
He then looked down at the papers in his hand.
The words
The Selfish Giant
Re-written by Luke Snyder
stared innocently back at him.
Were Luke honest with himself, he would have to admit that this assignment was probably his favourite that the professor had set.
When Professor Oliver had looked at them all last week with those steely blue eyes and said “Adopt the title of a published novel and construct a short story from it”, well, Luke’s mind began to buzz so violently with ideas that he actually gave himself a migraine.
He had eventually penned down a story from the title ‘Great Expectations’ about a teenage boy who was constantly seeking his parents’ approval. He had written some of himself into the character and had been so immensely proud of the story that once he had handed it in, Luke eagerly awaited Professor Oliver’s thoughts on it. Even if the professor ignored him in the hallways and in the quad and looked through him during morning registration, he simply had to talk to him in a teaching capacity. Or so Luke thought until he received the story back with nothing but a huge red ‘X’ scrawled on it.
But he wasn’t going to give up that easily.
He pushed open the auditorium door, knocking on it in the process.
“Professor?”
Professor Oliver was standing over his desk and placing papers into piles when Luke walked in. The otherwise empty auditorium looked even bigger than usual as Luke stepped forward with trepidation.
“I… do you have a minute, professor?”
Reid Oliver looked up briefly and held Luke’s gaze before his eyes shuttered. Dropping his head, he continued to file and label his papers, ignoring Luke completely.
Luke fiddled with the papers in his hand uneasily as he moved towards lecturer. He could see Reid’s prominent jaw clench a little bit tighter with every step he took.
“I just… well, I wanted to re-submit my assignment from last week?” Luke said, almost asking for permission as his fingers fidgeted on the edges of the assignment.
When Professor Oliver loudly pulled out his chair, sat on it and began writing on his folders without replying, Luke furrowed his brow and slowly began to feel irritation claim him.
He bit hard into his tongue to stop himself saying something he would regret.
“Okay,” he said tersely. “I’ll just leave it here then, shall I?.”
When he didn't receive a reply, Luke felt his eye twitch quite violently in his head.
Composing himself, he perched his papers on the one empty edge of the professor’s full desk and turned to head back out the door. The sound of papers cascading behind him, however, stopped Luke in his tracks. Spinning around, he alternated his gaze between his strewn assignment lying on the polished floor to the professor’s face.
His jaw literally dropped.
“Did you just throw my assignment on the floor?” he asked in an incredulous voice, his face stunned.
Professor Oliver didn’t even look up at Luke to respond as his eyes continued to focus on the folders before him.
“I don’t accept resubmissions,” he said in a bored voice, his hands graceful as they slid crisp papers into envelopes. His fingers were almost mesmerising as he placed multi-coloured stickers on the appropriate files with utmost precision. “To avoid an abysmal grade, I suggest you do it right the first time around.”
Luke tried to stop himself from spluttering with outrage but he simply couldn’t control his mouth.
“Right? You didn’t even tell me how I could improve!” he raised his voice, finally losing his temper as he slammed his hands down on either side of the professor’s desk. Stationary jumped within pen pots, open condiment jars clinked together and the lettuce leaf within the enormous sandwich on the professor’s desk flopped.
Flickering his eyes to his sandwich, Professor Oliver almost looked amused when he finally caught Luke’s gaze. The smug look made Luke’s fingers itch to grab the collar of the lecturer’s shirt and pull him out of his chair.
“Mr Snyder,” Reid Oliver said in a light, mocking voice as he slid off his glasses, “your writing had so many obvious faults that I didn’t think they needed to be stated.”
Luke felt something snap within him.
Everyone had weak spot that drove them to their breaking point. Some people couldn't stand being patronised. Others didn't appreciate when their mother was the butt of a joke. There were even some people who lost their temper whenever they heard a certain song on the radio.
Luke Snyder had a problem when someone insulted his writing ability.
He narrowed his eyes, opened his mouth and, disregarding his better judgement, finally said what was on his mind.
"Do you know what I think?" he asked abruptly.
"You actually think?" Professor Oliver quipped back snidely before putting his glasses back on and going back to labelling his folders. Ignoring his rudeness, Luke crossed his arms and watched the professor scratch his black permanent marker on clean white paper. The ink glistened back at Luke as the heady smell of chemicals permeated up his nostrils.
"I think you're failing me for another reason," Luke carried on persistently.
The nib of the professor's pen stopped dead at that. He didn't lift his head immediately but, when he eventually did, his face had schooled its angular features into a masterful poker face.
The professor then quirked an eyebrow.
"And what would that reason be?" he asked softly, his voice smooth and dark all at once.
Luke lifted his shoulders and tried to steel up his courage before he lost his nerve. His fingers twitched at his sides.
"You don't like me," Luke stated as bluntly as he could. "You don't like how I got myself into this school and now you're punishing me for it."
There was a slight pause after his declaration.
Professor Oliver replaced the lid of his pen, dropped it into the appropriate pen holder and leaned back, pressing the pads of his fingertips together. He looked remarkably like a Bond villain.
"Mr Snyder, I don't like anyone," he returned curtly, blinking slowly over his spectacles, "yet everyone else in the class is doing better than you are."
"That's because they know all they have to do is put one of your books down as a good example of literature and you'll pass them!" Luke blurted out with frustration, angry and tired of how unfair the professor’s grading system was.
Professor Oliver positively bristled at his words. Luke felt an unexpected thrill of excitement shoot through him. The fact that something he had said affected the great Reid Oliver so strongly made him want boast about it to everyone he knew.
"Excuse me?” Reid said aggressively, sitting forward sharply in his chair so it creaked with protest. “They are a good example of literature."
Luke shook his head in exasperation, almost feeling sorry for pthe lecturer.
"Everyone is terrified of you,” he said simply. “They'll do anything so you don't yell at them. Haven’t you noticed that?"
Reid’s hard face softened minutely, his clenched jaw relaxing by a fraction. Had Luke not been so focused on his face, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.
"I yell at you," the professor reminded him after a considerable pause.
"Yeah, but I'm not afraid of you," Luke replied.
Professor Oliver's eyes glinted almost predatorily behind his glasses at Luke's words. It made Luke suddenly feel on edge.
"Aren't you?" the professor asked as he slowly eased to his feet. His voice was velvety and sultry and filled with a type of danger that Luke had never heard from him before. His brain told him to take a step back but his body refused to comply. They were eye to eye and Luke could feel the professor's breath on his lips. He opened his mouth a fraction and tasted Professor Oliver’s sweet exhale on his tongue. It licked at his teeth and made his boxers feel impossibly - painfully - tight.
The inside of Luke's throat suddenly felt like sandpaper.
"I'm not afraid of you," he repeated, his voice barely a croak as he suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Reid's eyes raked over his face, trailed down his chest like fire and only widened by a fraction at the considerable tent in Luke's trousers. He looked remarkably like the cat that got the cream as he lifted his burning eyes back at the blond's, irises glimmering.
"Then pray, how do you feel about me, Mr Snyder?" he asked, his voice accentuating the y in Snyder like it was a sexual profanity, his skin radiating warmth and spice and a heady smell that was making Luke feel dizzy with want. It touched something within Luke, brushing every nerve ending inside him as their lips moved closer, barely an inch away.
“I… I…” Luke whispered, unable to stop himself from leaning forward. The professor was like a magnetic force he was powerless to resist. He licked his lips, almost tasting the other man on his mouth...
And that was the moment Noah walked into the room.
"Um, Luke, are you ready yet?"
Luke could feel the professor withdraw immediately, taking his heat with him. Gulping, Luke suddenly felt like he had been doused with ice; cold and shivering.
He snapped his head towards Noah and felt genuinely terrified, like battery acid was pumping through his veins at a million miles an hour. How much had Noah seen? Would he tell anyone? What if he alerted Dean Hughes? Would Reid lose his job? And when had he started calling the professor 'Reid' anyway?
Taking one look at Noah, however, Luke's chest began to relax and he finally released the breath he had been holding.
Noah wasn't even looking at them. He was studying the light fixtures, which Luke assumed was because he was still too terrified to look at the professor directly in the eye.
For the first time in his life, Luke appreciated Professor Oliver's frosty demeanour.
"Er, yeah," Luke said, unable to look in Reid's direction as he shuffled stiffly towards Noah, still painfully turned on. He could feel his cheeks growing scarlet as he grabbed Noah's arm and practically pushed him out the door in his haste. "Let's go."
He didn't notice Reid's narrowed eyes watching him as he departed nor did he know, as the door shut after him, that the professor had picked up his scattered assignment from the floor and had begun to scan through it.
All Luke cared about, as he and Noah exited the building, was getting his hand into his pants and relieving his agony before he exploded in his boxers.
Making a quick excuse about feeling unwell to a confused looking Noah, he bolted across the quad and took the stairs to his dorm two steps at a time. The friction in his jeans rubbed him almost raw with a sweet sort of agony that had him popping his buttons open even before he reached his room.
Practically kicking the door open, he didn't even have the frame of mind to lock it behind him as he collapsed backwards onto his bed and practically ripped his fly open.
His hand snaked urgently into his underwear and he thrust into his eager fingers like a man possessed.
Curls on the nape of a slender neck... long, dextrous, ink-covered fingers flexing across hot skin... a voice that could make Luke hard in a matter of seconds...
Luke groaned desperately as his mouth hung open, sweat beading on his skin like dew. His breathing was ragged and uneven as he beat himself off, his movements so erratic that he was sure he had sprained his wrist in his need to climax.
Luke threw back his head, blond strands of hair wet and clinging to his forehead as stars began to dance on the inside of his eyelids.
He was so close.
“Hey, Luke, I just wanted to check if you were ok-"
Squeezing shut his eyes, Luke groaned more with mortification than arousal as the door creaked open.
There were some moments when you think 'I knew I should have locked that door'. And Luke, with his jeans around his thighs, his hand jerking him off and Noah staring at him with huge, stunned eyes, was definitely considering going back in time and turning the latch.
Twice. That was twice now that Noah had barged in on him in a matter of minutes. His timing was so ridiculously bad that Luke would have laughed had he not been so close to tears.
Noah gulped, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as his mouth opened and closed multiple times.
"I..." he said almost stupidly.
Wincing, Luke eased his fingers out of his underwear like a guilty schoolboy with his hand in the cookie jar, sore as he tucked himself back into his jeans. He then opened his mouth to say something, anything, to alleviate the horrible awkwardness in the room.
Noah, however, beat him to it by saying the last thing in the world that Luke expected him to say.
“Do… you need a hand with that?”
His voice was strained and breathy as his eyes stayed firmly on Luke’s crotch.
Luke wet his mouth in response.
He should have said no, really. He knows he should have.
Noah was a friend and Luke didn’t want to ruin that and really, he was lying there with his hand on his dick, thinking about Professor Oliver of all people. Professor Oliver. With his biting tongue and his glittering eyes and smirk that could get Luke to drop to his knees in second…
Luke licked his lips and shivered, tasting salt on his tongue.
He should have said no. He knows he should have.
But unfortunately, his mind was too addled to form coherent thoughts.
So he didn’t. What he did do was spread his legs a little wider in invitation and say, “Okay," knowing as soon as he said it that he was going to regret this.
previous chapter | next chapter