Chapter 4 #2
In the projector lighting, I noticed the gray at his temples and dotting the trimmed beard on his chin.
Nothing that detracted from his looks but instead enhanced them with an air of maturity that made me quiver.
He squinted at something behind the podium, stressing the lines at his eyes.
Fuck, he was much older than I’d originally assumed.
Or maybe the thrill of the moment had blinded me.
“Good evening, class. I am Doctor Luther Quinn, and I’ll be your professor for this class.
” He spoke with smooth authority, easily taking command of a captured audience who seemed inherently drawn to his presence.
“Don’t call me doctor, as it sounds horribly pretentious.
Professor Quinn suits perfectly. I’ll be lecturing you throughout your 400-level course.
You are required to have the textbook for this class as it will help you through your thesis. ”
Alright, so he was the professor. We had a moment.
No big deal. Or not even a moment. It was nothing.
I slipped, and he helped me up. There wasn’t any spark or boiling cauldron of arousal in my stomach.
Definitely not. There hadn’t been a charged atmosphere encasing us in a bubble of pure, erotic tension.
Not at all. He was my history instructor, even though he looked more like a depressed English professor, and I wouldn’t even begin to explain what that aesthetic was doing for me, but—no!
Get a grip, Ophelia.
He was still talking, and I berated myself for losing my concentration over the way his suit hugged his broad shoulders and trim waist. A perfect blend of lean muscle and impressive height that magnetized my eyes to him. And I knew I wasn’t the only one.
“… hardly anyone passes my classes—”
“That sounds concerning,” I blurted before realizing my mouth had opened. His gaze snapped to me, and a frigid chill oozed through my blood.
Professor Quinn turned toward me, his stare as potent as a heat-seeking missile. His expression favored a stoic reserve compared to the tantalizing warmth of what now felt like a dream. He’d gone sharp and hard as a blade. “And how’s that?”
I shifted in my seat, heart pounding as all eyes zeroed in on me.
Especially his with that sea-tide, hurricane gaze dragging me into a whirlwind tempest. Opening my mouth had gotten me in trouble more than once when my unruly sense of justice flared up.
My face flamed, and my throat bobbed on a dry swallow, and I regretted every word I’d said since stepping foot on campus that morning.
“A high failure rate is nothing to boast about—”
“—I wasn’t boasting.”
“Students consistently not passing classes reflects on the instruction,” I continued, breezing past him. His expression hardened, and something glinted in his eyes. “Ideally, students should not only be learning the course material but succeeding.”
“Are you insinuating I’m a bad teacher?” It felt like a game, that volleying of words back and forth. A chess tournament in the final rounds, and he’d made a swift, devastating move.
My jaw snapped shut. Then my brows pinched together as indignation surged within me, as hot and fulminating as an erupting firework. I sat up straighter, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Not at all. I mean this entirely respectfully, professor.” I stressed his title and noted the muscle clenching in his jaw.
“I joined this course, and signed up for this class specifically, to learn. If students are willing, eager even, then it seems like setting them up for failure, which is the antithesis of your role.” I was on a roll and blasting full steam ahead.
“Is your job to ensure mastery and growth of the minds entrusted to you, or to prove how few can keep up with you? Otherwise, it would seem the course material would need to be adjusted.”
“I wrote the textbook,” he gritted back, keeping one hand on the edge of the podium and placing the other on his hip as he addressed me. “The material is verified and approved. It’s simply a complicated course.”
“It’s also a required class for those pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in History and Literature.
How many students has your complicated and impossible class barred from achieving their goals?
This is a history course, not rocket science.
” I didn’t know what came over me, but a slow smirk spread across my lips, and I swore I saw a vein in his temple pulsing.
“I believe that class is down the hall.”
A few snickers echoed at the back of the room.
It seemed my metaphorical victory was all but assured, and I couldn’t name the strange sense of power flooding through my veins as I grinned at the professor.
Until I read the mask over his face, analyzing the stark calculation in those arctic ocean eyes.
A brilliant force to be reckoned with as he puzzled out his response in the span of a single breath.
“In that case, thank you for volunteering.” His statement skewered me through the stomach, catching on the lingering butterflies that hadn’t managed to vacate since he’d caught me.
Now the stubborn things were missing wings that had been shredded as easily as a dagger through gossamer and drifted uselessly to the pit of my being.
“For what?” I squeaked.
“Apparently, it would seem I need assistance preparing course materials, and you’re so confident in your own ability in this class, I see no reason to deny you the spot as my new assistant.
You can bridge the gap for your fellow students.
” Professor Quinn pulled a pen—my favorite pen, the one he’d failed to return to me—and clicked it.
The sound clapped like thunder in my ears. “I’ll see you after class.”
A dangerous thrill coursed through me. As did a sense of abject anxiety.
And the final jab of his victorious glare screamed checkmate.