Irish Alpha Dragons: (Irish Dragon Mafia: The Complete Series Books 1-4) Read online

  Naturally, being a dragon, he knew it wouldn’t be particularly difficult for him to find a mate. Especially since, even for a dragon, Aidan was hot. And charming, too. He wouldn’t have gotten away with half as much as he had in his life if it weren’t for his charm.

  And when he couldn’t get something with his smile, well, that’s what the family connections were for.

  “Professor Littman,” a voice said from outside his door.

  “Come on in,” he said.

  It was Amanda Whitehorse, the head of the philosophy department and the one who put her ass on the line to get him this position after his family gave her a little “help.” She closed the door behind her.

  “Who was that I saw leave your office?”

  “A student,” Aidan said. A scorching-hot student who refused to leave his mind. “She needed me to sign a form so she could add my class.”

  “And why was her face red?”

  “I tend to have that effect on women,” he said like it was nothing.

  Whitehorse sat down across from him in the same seat that Steph was in. “Your charm doesn’t work on me, Aidan.” Her dragon eyes glowed as she used his real name. Humans had always been more susceptible to his charisma. Dragons usually saw through it in an instant.

  “I’m just having a little fun, Amanda.” Imagine how furious she’d be if he had a chance to do what he really wanted to do to Steph: lay her down in front of him and pull her tight shorts down as he rubbed his face against her inner thighs...

  “A little fun is what’s going to get you in trouble, you know that, right? The last thing our department needs is another sexual misconduct case. And if something happens and I’m not the first one who reports it, you know who gets reprimanded?”

  “You do,” Aidan said, sliding into his guilty expression as his erection throbbed with the thought of Steph’s breasts, her nipples nearly poking a hole in her shirt at the sight of him. What he wouldn’t give to suck on them...

  “That’s right. I do. And, on top of that, they’ll start investigating the shell universities that served as references for you to get this job. I’ll lose my job. My real job.” She looked at him and sighed. “And, since I know you don’t actually care about me, it matters to you because you’ll lose your cover. Need I remind you why you’re here in the first place?”

  “Of course not.” The way Aidan went through his life in the Irish Mafia often gave the impression that he didn’t care or wasn’t aware of the danger he was in. That was never the case. At this moment, he was very aware that his former boss, the leader of the Clover Gang, was behind bars and assigning someone from his crew to track Aidan down and kill him, along with the rest of the Ryan brothers.

  What others tended to not understand is he could keep that thought in his mind and be aware of his surroundings while also enjoying himself. After all, what was the point in protecting his life if he wasn’t going to live it?

  Whitehorse gave Aidan a look of distress and frustration. “I knew this was a bad idea. Why did I let you convince me I should do this?”

  “You owe me,” Aidan said. He knew she already knew this. He knew it was a rhetorical question. But it didn’t hurt to remind her that she would very likely be dead if it weren’t for the help of Aidan and his brothers. “But mostly it’s because we’re friends. It’s not a tit-for-tat type situation.”

  “I don’t want any tats, and you’re certainly not getting any tits. Keep it in your pants and ensure your dragon desires remain taken care of. You’re a professor now, John.”

  “We’re all consenting adults here,” he said. Enthusiastically consenting adults. As he sat at his desk, he regretted not making a move on Steph. She had given him all the signals, conscious and subconscious. He could have grabbed hold of her and taken her right there in his office.

  Maybe that was the issue that Whitehorse had with him. He was never very good at subtlety. And he was supposed to be laying low right now.

  “Aidan, do I need to spell this out for you? I can’t have my Philosophy of Moral Ethics professor diddling his students. Can you at least pretend to play your role for the semester?”

  “Okay, okay,” Aidan said. “I’ll be on my very best behavior.” By which he meant that in everything that he did, he’d make an effort to ensure that nobody found out about it, especially Whitehorse. And if that meant he needed to restrict the sex to off-campus, so be it. That’d be a compromise, right?

  “I’m just worried that your very best isn’t very good,” Whitehorse said.

  “I should be offended by that.”

  “And you probably would be if it weren’t true.” She has a point. “I can see it in your eyes. I’m not even out of the office yet and you’re already looking for loopholes. Stop it. Aidan, you’ve always been there when I needed you. Please don’t make me have to report you to HR.”

  “I’ll be good,” Aidan said.

  “That’s what I want to hear. Now let’s see you follow through. Take care.”

  She walked toward the door and was about to open it, but then turned back toward Aidan.

  “I want to be very clear,” she said. “In no uncertain words: don’t sleep with your students. Not a single one.”

  She left the room and closed the door behind her.

  Aidan remembered the first rule of getting away with things: it’s only a crime if you get caught. Whitehorse said, “Don’t sleep with your students,” but what she really meant was, “Don’t let anybody find out that you’re sleeping with a student, especially me.”

  Aidan reclined in his chair, putting his hands behind his head so he could focus on thinking.

  So, he asked himself, what’s the easiest way to get Steph back to my condo?

  Chapter 3

  Steph

  The first day of class had arrived and Steph was biting her nails, something she hadn’t done since her pre-teen years. This was a whole new world for her at the university, and she sat and observed the students slowly come in, talking to each other after a summer apart. She felt the general excitement from everybody being back together, seeing the friends they’d missed after a summer apart. Though the joy was infectious, Steph couldn’t help but feel a bit lonely.

  Mostly, though, she was nervous about meeting the hot naked professor again. She could still see him in her mind’s eye, focusing on his back tattoo with the snakes wrapped around the cloverleaf. A pleasant jolt shot through her body from the thought alone.

  She sat in the front of the lecture hall, which was where she was most comfortable anyway, but this class’s seating was especially important for her. She’d been waiting for this day for almost a whole week.

  Everybody knew somebody there. And they were all younger than she was. Not by a lot, but by enough. She had to drop out of community college to support Michael, the man who dominated the last several years of her life, and here was yet another thing to blame him for. If not for Michael, she’d have her undergraduate degree and be on her way to medical school, her dream that much closer to being realized.

  That was the thing that nobody told her about some men. They would steal things from you that you could never replace. Four years earlier, she’d be one of the other students in the class, smiling and laughing, but now, everything she did had to be serious if she had any hope of becoming a doctor before her thirtieth birthday.

  “You know anything about this guy?” It was a girl behind her, talking with a high-pitched, energetic voice that made her sound like a child to Steph.

  “Nah,” another girl said, the one she was talking to. This one had more of a Jersey accent. “Probably another white guy with a beard, just like every other philosopher.”

  “Probably doubles as a mall Santa during winter break.” They both laughed at that.

  Steph laughed, too, though it was for a different reason.

  I’d sit on that mall Santa’s lap any time of the year, she thought before reminding herself that this was serious and she was here to study a
nd catch up on lost time in her life. If she didn’t pass this class, or even if she walked away with a B, it could ruin her college average so that she couldn’t get into a good medical school. Steph worked too hard to get where she was to let her dreams slip through her fingers because she was too busy lusting over a professor.

  With really pretty blue eyes.

  She felt so much younger and more energetic now that she had Professor Littman in her life. Or, rather, John. That’s what he wanted her calling him. To her, he was a rock star. She wanted to put a poster of him up in her dorm room and kiss it every night before bed, touching herself as she looked at him.

  Which was ridiculous. He was a professor, not a celebrity. But he had that same kind of charm to her. Like he was made of different stuff than the rest of the mere mortals who surrounded her in everyday life. Yes, he had a perfect body and a beautiful ass, but what she remembered more than anything about her day in his office was the way he looked at her when he talked to her. His light blue eyes were like the sky, and she just wanted to jump and fall into them.

  She felt ridiculous for thinking about him so much. Steph was too old for this kind of schoolgirl crush, especially now that she had a better idea of what men were really like once you get to know them. They’re hot, sure, but they also suck the joy out of life, and they keep taking until there’s nothing left to give.

  The best thing about John, her rational inner voice told her, is that she didn’t know anything about him. If she truly knew him, she wouldn’t be able to put up with him, no matter how hot he was.

  Still, she’d love to know what he felt like between her legs.

  John entered the lecture hall and stood behind the podium. The class went silent in an instant.

  He looked up at them. “I’m a few minutes early,” he said with his thick Irish accent, oblivious to the reason behind the sudden silence. “You can keep talking.”

  Nobody said a word. He looked back at his notes, then scanned the hall before his eyes landed on Steph. He smiled at her, and she felt her face get warm as she returned the smile instinctively. She couldn’t help it. The force of the grin was actually painful for her, but she loved the way it felt. His eyes were even prettier than she remembered, and his body filled out his suit in all the right places.

  John returned to his notes and scribbled a few things down as the class continued to watch him in silence.

  He looked back at the class. “Really,” he said, “I promise to let you know when we’re beginning. Please, continue talking. We need to wait a few minutes for the rest of the class to arrive.”

  There were a few scattered whispers. The girl behind Steph, the one with the Jersey accent, said to her friend, “I think just looking at him got me pregnant.”

  They giggled to themselves, and Steph felt her face burn with jealousy. Stay away from him; he’s mine.

  She wasn’t even joking. A feeling of ownership overtook her for this man whom she’d only met once, and her eyes darted to his hands to make sure that she wasn’t misremembering: no wedding ring. Good.

  He’s just like every other guy, Steph, she told herself. He’ll only show interest until he gets you in bed. That’s what men do. They can’t help it. You’re not special to him. That’s just the way he makes everyone feel.

  But her mind wasn’t in a place to be reasoned with. She didn’t want a relationship with him. She couldn’t have a relationship. Not with him or anyone. Besides, John wasn’t the kind of guy who went for her. He had an aura of danger, and Steph was always the good girl who played by the rules. Still, she wondered what it would be like to be with him and to feel his taut muscles wrapped around her...

  John looked at his watch. “Okay, let’s get started.”

  He walked away from the podium, and Steph’s eyes went straight to the outline in his pants. The bulge was massive, and she let out an audible sigh of surprise, then looked around to see if anybody noticed her. No, they were too busy looking at him. Even the guys in the class seemed taken in by him, not necessarily in a sexual way, but in the way that he was just so radiantly charismatic. Something about every move he made seemed to be more interesting than if anybody else did the same thing.

  “My name is John Littman. You can all call me John. Not Professor Littman. I also respond to ‘Hey, you’ or ‘Irish guy.’”

  The class laughed.

  “I am Irish, by the way, not British. So please remember that.” He paused, but nobody chuckled at that. “This class is about the Philosophy of Moral Ethics. What does that mean to all of you?”

  Hands shot up throughout the class, and he pointed to one, belonging to a young girl wearing a sorority shirt two sizes too large for her frail figure.

  “Yes, you, what’s your name, ma’am?”

  “Uhh...Rita. Rita Roth.”

  “Yes, Rita, what are moral ethics to you?”

  “Like doing the right thing?”

  “Good,” John said, “but say it with confidence. This is philosophy. It’s not math or science. You are all philosophers, and the secret to being a brilliant philosopher is confidence.”

  “It’s doing the right thing!” she said, not necessarily more confidently, but certainly louder.

  “Excellent,” John said. “And what is the right thing? Well, that’s tricky, isn’t it? Let me pose a scenario: a man is about to shoot three innocent people standing in a row. You have just enough time to throw a metal...I don’t know...trash can lid, which will deflect the bullet so that they hit someone else. Do you throw that trash can lid?”

  There was some nodding in the class. He pointed to another student. “Your name, sir?”

  “Neil Singh.”

  “Neil, would you throw it? With confidence, please.”

  “Absolutely. One hundred percent.”

  “Why?” John asked. Steph hung on every word. He clearly wasn’t going from any kind of notes, just saying whatever entered his mind, keeping on his feet and letting the class answer the questions rather than lecturing. But the accent gave him such authority! And all of the students were paying attention. Is this how the whole semester will be?

  “Well,” Neil said, “it’s better to kill one person rather than three.”

  “Very good,” John said, “but let’s change it up a bit. What if, instead of throwing that trash can lid, you must push somebody in front of the bullet? Would you do it then?”

  The confident look on Neil’s face dropped, but then it returned after a second or so of thought. “I suppose I would have to.”

  “Not so sure that time, are you? Perhaps your rationale isn’t as logical as you think it is. How about you, Neil? You look like a healthy young man. You’ve got a good heart, two good kidneys, I assume, and you probably haven’t been here long enough to completely destroy your liver. There are people that will die without those organs. We can kill you and take those organs to save four lives. How does that sound?”

  “That sounds terrible,” Neil said, and the class laughed.

  “Yes, it does. It seems to me, and perhaps I’ll convince you of this, that what is moral or immoral is largely a matter of perspective. And being a philosopher is about finding the edge cases.”

  He was so sexy to Steph when he spoke in his Irish accent, walking back and forth in the front of the hall with the confidence of a man who had complete control of the room. He spoke with a calm pace and seemed to have a purpose in everything he did. It wasn’t just his perfect body and facial features that made him so sexy; it was the way he held himself. He commanded attention with every pause and made Steph feel as though he was talking directly to her, even as he lectured the class.

  Steph wanted everyone else to go away and leave the two of them behind for a one-on-one tutoring session. She wanted to talk to him, but mostly, she just wanted to listen to what he had to say. It all sounded so important. And when he walked up to her, she ached for his touch, but she didn’t get it. No, instead, she realized that she had focused on how he was talking and
not what he was saying.

  “And you, Steph, how do you feel about that?”

  She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Uhh…”

  He stared at her with his devilish smile, torturing her because he knew she wasn’t paying attention.

  He let the silence sit as her face grew red and she felt sweat build up on her forehead. He wasn’t about to give her any hint at all.

  Chapter 4

  Aidan

  Aidan loved watching Steph squirm. She had been staring at him, daydreaming no doubt, and this was his subtle hint that he knew what she was thinking about. At the same time, part of the game was for him to avoid letting on that he was thinking of the same thing. He looked at her with a relaxed stare as she struggled to figure out any possible answer to a question that she didn’t hear.

  “Morality is a personal decision?” Steph said.

  Pretty vague. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nobody can tell you what’s moral. You need to figure it out on your own.”

  He watched the look in her eyes as she responded to him, as she slowly realized he knew exactly what he was doing. Aidan threw her a bone.

  “So would you say morality is subjective, then? If somebody believes cold-blooded murder is moral, is he correct?”

  “I would say no,” Steph said. “And I would be right.” She paused for a second. “He would say yes and, in a way, he would be right, too.”

  She could teach this class just as well as I can, Aidan thought to himself.

  In reality, they were in the exact same boat, acting like they knew what they were talking about without any reason to. Aidan didn’t have any sort of background in philosophy, formally anyway. He was a high school drop-out and the past week had been his first time even stepping foot on a college campus. It’s why Whitehorse gave him a spot teaching the honors class.