Page 18 of Marrying My Professor

“You’ll be forbidden fruit in every seat you take in this building,” I say, and it’s uglier than I want it to be, honest in the way ugly things are. “I’ll want to reach for something I’m not allowed to touch, and I will spend the semester pretending I’m not thinking about the way you look in the half-light, about the way you⁠—”

I stop. The sentence walks toward a cliff and I drag it back.

She flushes, but it isn’t embarrassment. It’s heat being honest on skin. “You’re not the only one who has to pretend,” she says, and it’s quiet, a confession she might already regret. “I’ve thought about you. Every day. And when you walked through that door I almost⁠—”

“Elara.” Her name comes out like a warning. It’s also a plea.

“We can just be normal,” she says. “We’ll make it normal. We won’t look at each other like that. We won’t speak about it. We’ll be two people who happened to cross at the wrong time. Please don’t pull me from the course. I worked to get into this seminar. I’m not asking for favors. I’m not asking to be treated special⁠—”

“You are expecting a huge favor, because if anyone finds out, we are both liable,” I respond, leaning against the bookshelf and looking down at her like we’re two love struck kids.

“Who would know, Professor, unless I told or you told,” she closes her eyes and swallows, not making eye contact with me which is a certain way to tell someone is lying. “No one would know.”

“That’s the problem, pet,” I groan, turning so I brace a hand on the shelf over her shoulder, the other on the opposite side, not touching her, but creating the honesty of a corner. I look down. She looks up. It feels like the world holds its breath. “I would know that I had you. I would know that I could have you, again, and it would drive me fucking mad.”

Her mouth parts. “Don’t make it dramatic.”

“I am being honest,” I whisper, staring at the pink fullness of her lips.

“Then just alert the college.” She challenges me with it. “I can’t stop you, Professor.”

Professor. I shouldn’t like the way she says it. It puts a ladder between us I can climb or fall from. I don’t move my hands. I don’t touch her. I feel the heat of her forearm even with an inch between us, and the inch is more dangerous than contact would be. Contact would answer something. This asks.

“You didn’t plan this?” I ask, because the old part of me that has been burned wants a villain, wants causality. “You didn’t see the schedule. You didn’t⁠—”

Her eyes flash. The accusation lands and finds no soil. “You came up to me, remember? Or did you see my name on your schedule, look through your students and stalk me to a party?”

I snort, leaning in closer so our breaths mingle, because she has such a smart fucking mouth. I don’t look at my student list before the semester starts—a flaw I see now—but even if I did, I would never go to such an extent just to get laid. Not with most of New York already in my black book, waiting and untouched.

I don’t tell her that.

Instead, I let the depraved part of me come out and play.

“And what if I did, pet?” I say. “What if I saw you and wanted you so bad that I tracked you to the ends of the earth to have you?” I get closer with each word, my lips brushing hers slightly.

She leans back, those emerald eyes glistening. “I would call you a creep.”

“Good one,” I compliment her, watching the heat rise up her neck as she shifts against me.

She breathes out shakily. “But you didn’t?”

I meet her eyes. “I did not.”

“And I didn’t set you up. I didn’t know your name. I didn’t know your title. I promise,” she breathes, her eyes drunkenly staring at my lips, and I know I should be a stronger man than this.

But I lower my left hand an inch, palm hovering by her hip, not touching. She doesn’t flinch. The space between us turns into lightning. If I move a fraction, the whole system will power up and burn.

“I’ll notify the department chair,” I say, voice rough. “I’ll request an immediate transfer for you to Dr. Kline’s section. I’ll file a conflict of interest. You’ll be protected and so will I. That is the only way this continues cleanly.”

“I don’t want Kline,” she says, and there’s a half-laugh that’s not happy.

“Then you’ll take the other seminar. Or an independent study. I’ll help you find a path that doesn’t compromise your position as a student, and my position as a professor.”

“You mean doesn’t compromise you,” she says, not unkind, and it lands exactly where it should. “I meant what I said. We won’t do it again.”

“But I will think about it,” I say, and I need her to understand I’m not noble enough to make this effortless. “I will think about it every time you ask a question, every time you challenge me, every time your handwriting shows up in the stack I’m grading. I will think about the sound you make when⁠—”

The sentence crashes against the rocks of my restraint. I stop, breathing hard. She stares at my mouth like it’s a word she forgot.