Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
LUCA
Come to me if you need anything.
The offer echoes in my head long after Professor Levine has vacated my little safe haven—well, it used to be a safe haven. Now it’s filled up with visions of how broad his body was, how much he filled up the space.
Maddox Levine is not an easy person to escape, even when I’m trying to. I half wonder if some part of him heard me thinking about quitting the TA position before I talked to my grandma. He seems like the kind of man who could read minds.
And… even though I’m not completely sure about a lot of things, it’s impossible for me to deny that it seems like he… likes me. I could run through a million excuses in my head for the way he looks at me, for the way he touched me…
But I’m a practical person, logical when emotions fail. Even when I’m being logical enough to be confused about why someone like him would be interested in someone like me, I can’t deny the fact that it’s true.
“God… what am I supposed to do?” I drop my face into my hands as I murmur the question aloud, like I’m hoping the quiet whisper of books that usually brings me comfort will somehow manage to take the knowledge the pages hold and give me an answer.
The only thing I hear is the sound of the rain.
I sit in the library for another hour before I realize that I can’t spend the entire day hiding. Of course, no one comes into this section—except, apparently, Professor Levine—so I could probably curl up on the chair and go to sleep without anyone knowing.
I need to get back to my dorm, though. Zandy probably forgot his keys again, and no one wants him trying to break in and breaking the door instead.
I take another slow breath, and when the books around me still don’t give me any answers, I head out. At least it isn’t raining anymore.
I make my way toward the dorms, but realize I’ve turned back toward Professor Levine’s office a few seconds after my feet carry me down the wrong path.
I don’t know what I’m going to do—I don’t know what I’m going to say. I’m honestly not even sure if he’s in the room anymore.
But… I have to talk to him. I have to figure this out, because between my conversation with my grandma and the image of Professor Levine’s face caught just behind my lids… I know I have to figure out how to make this work.
And maybe the first step in doing that is just making sure I can still be in the same room with him without spontaneously combusting.
That will be good. If I can manage that, then I can probably handle figuring out how to get through the rest of the semester without disaster striking.
And what if I do? What if I get through the semester and my chest still feels like it’s going to implode every time he looks at me?
What if he keeps telling me how good I am…
What would happen if I actually let him know how much I liked it?
That’s the possibility that scares me the most. Professor Levine seems like he’s so astute, so perceptive. I’m afraid if I’m not careful—very careful—he’s going to look right through me and see that what almost happened at Mask is something I want.
I want it more than I have words to articulate… and a small part of me knows that he wanted it too, or he wouldn’t have offered. He wouldn’t have let me into his classroom again.
Which means that somewhere, somewhere in that realm of what-if and possibility is a world where I don’t have to hide how I’m feeling.
Somewhere there’s the what-if of the things that would happen if I just…
If I just told him yes.
I’m so caught up in possibilities and fantasies that I’m not looking when I bump into a broad body as I round the corner. As much as I want it to be Professor Levine, I know better. I don’t even raise my eyes as a smooth voice drips across my skin, slimy like pond scum.
“Oh, hey there, Luca. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
That’s been by design. I stare at Professor Hilman’s stupid shiny shoes and don’t look up when I answer. “I’ve been busy.”
It’s not a lie, but…
“So busy you can’t take a few minutes to visit with your favorite professor?
” The way he says it makes my entire body jerk.
My heart feels like it’s going to jump out of my chest, my entire body threatening to seize up.
Just hearing him talk, being this close to him, smelling his stupid cologne as it spills through the air is enough to jerk me back to freshman year.
His body pressed against mine, his hand drifting down the back of my jeans—his mouth hot and demanding and wrong as he forced his tongue between my lips and I—
When I feel his fingers trace my jawline, I jerk back like he slapped me.
Usually I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I know myself. I’d be frozen in fear and shame and lost in memory.
Lost in thought.
But…
Come to me if you need anything.
How much do you want to forget? What’s up there that you want out?
Everything.
I want to forget everything.
“I have to go,” I mutter, surprised that I’m able to speak at all.
“Why? Maybe we could head back to my office? What do you think? It could be nice to catch up.”
Catch up.
I know what he means by those words—poison on a snake’s tongue, and I…
I have somewhere to be.
“I have to go,” I say again, and it’s the thought of Professor Levine’s dark gaze more than anything, the soft smile that sometimes spills across his face when he’s looking at me… the way it sounds when he calls me good boy that gives me the strength to actually turn away.
I’m pretty sure Professor Hilman would have followed me, but as I round the corner, another student calls out his name. I use the distraction to dart down the hallway, half running by the time I get to Professor Levine’s office.
The door is closed, but I can see the light shining through the crack at the bottom.
He’s still here.
He’s still here.
Which means everything is going to be okay.
I force air into my lungs and knock.
“Come in, Luca.” Professor Levine’s voice rings through the silence, and I instantly feel some of the terror from earlier spill out of my body. He knows it’s me just from the way I knock?
He knows me.
He can help me.
I step into his office, and I don’t miss the way his eyes widen when I take a second to turn and click the lock on the door behind me.
“Luca?” he says my name again, and another small modicum of calm flutters through me. “Is everything okay?”
“No.” I can’t do anything but answer honestly. “Nothing is okay.” And then, like I can’t help it now that I’ve started, words keep spilling out. “I feel like nothing has been okay since that night at Mask.”
His face falls. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“That’s not it.” I interrupt him, shocked that I manage the words at all.
“It’s you. It’s… it’s…” I gesture between us, and feel tears stinging at my lids, catching in my lashes.
It doesn’t matter. I’m doing this now. It’s too late.
“It’s whatever this is between us. Whatever this is you make me feel. ”
“Luca…” This time his voice is more curious than apologetic, and he watches me from his office chair with wary eyes.
My teeth are chattering and my entire body feels like I’m connected to a live wire.
I can’t stop trembling—it feels like electricity is scorching all my veins as I make my way across the room, my entire world swimming in the depths of Professor Levine’s eyes and the memory of how he made me feel when we were at the club.
The club.
Not his office.
This isn’t the place to do this.
This isn’t anywhere near the place I should be doing this.
But I move forward until I’m standing nearly between his legs, and then I do the only thing that feels natural.
I drop to my knees in front of him and turn my face up, knowing I probably look broken and vulnerable and terrified.
“At the club…” My voice is trembling, my throat so dry I can barely swallow to make my tongue work.
“At Mask you said you could help me get out of my head.” Shaking fingers lift, and I brush them gently beneath the hem of his pants.
Just that contact of my skin against his sends streaks of calm through me that I don’t understand…
but I know I have to have it. I need this.
“Please… Professor Levine, please… show me how.” I lean forward, licking my lower lip and dropping my gaze to his lap.
It’s actually a little wild, the way my adrenaline is pumping, the way I feel powerful for the first time while I’m begging. “Please, teach me.”