11. Jasmine #3
Besides, I think it’s better that I keep my head down because, ever since I reached that magnificent O due to Landon’s incredible fingers, Professor Kilgore’s lecture has been faster and way more aggressive than normal.
He paces as he speaks, lecture spilling out of him with uncharacteristic intensity, like he’s trying to outrun his own thoughts.
I don’t dare look at him. Not really. Not when, every time I do, I’m met with those icy green eyes that pin me in place—empty but somehow too full with desire? Or disdain? Maybe a dash of rage? I can’t tell, and frankly, I don’t want to.
“Homework for Monday…” Professor Kilgore’s voice cracks like a whip against the buzz of my nerves. “Chapters five through eight. Two-page analysis on the ethical implications of compromised crime scenes. Don’t copy-paste theory. I want you to think. ”
The way he spits the last word has my stomach dropping. I flinch when Landon’s hand squeezes my thigh—harder this time—like he wants me to squirm. Like he’s proud of the chaos he’s crafted.
The second he says, “Dismissed,” I shoot out of my chair. My notes are half-scribbled, bag barely zipped, but I need out. The air feels hot and thin, like it’s burning me from the inside out. I shoulder past someone, my eyes locked on the door, heart racing.
I almost make it.
“Miss Rivera. A word?” He practically growls and I stay frozen, staring at the floor as the rest of the students escape into the hall.
“Professor Kilgore, I have my music theory class in like forty-five minutes,” I rush out, pulling the strap of my messenger bag up higher, and plastering on my brightest smile. “And I still need lunch, so…”
The last student slides out of the classroom and Professor Kilgore practically snarls, pulling a chair out in the front, middle of the room. “Sit down, Miss Rivera.”
I race down the steps almost automatically and sit down in my designated seat as Landon chuckles.
“I didn’t know you had her on such a short leash, Con?”
My body burns a cherry red, but I keep my eyes locked on the table, listening to the lazy steps of Landon.
I don’t know why Conner Kilgore does this to me.
He’s fucking terrifying and I feel like a trained animal, ready to roll over and show him my belly.
Ready to be anything he wants, just to keep him from looking at me with those analytical eyes.
It’s like he knows me down to the molecule.
“Look at me,” Professor Kilgore demands, his voice that low rumble that makes me clench my thighs and heat build in my core.
I lock eyes with his and see what I saw on the first day of school.
The overblown pupils, dark and dilated, swallowing the green whole.
A tremor beneath the surface—one he’s barely containing.
His mouth is tight, his jaw ticking like he’s biting back a growing hunger.
“Tell me,” he says, low and sharp, “do you think I’m stupid , Miss Rivera? ”
I blink. My lips part, but no sound comes out.
He leans forward, knuckles braced on the desk, the whites of his eyes brighter than they should be in the dim classroom light.
“I don’t think it is appropriate to make eye contact with your professor as you get fingered in the back row, do you?”
His mask cracks on that last word, a flash of something feral breaking through. Rage. Possessiveness. Shame. Maybe all three.
I swallow hard, but my voice still sounds too soft. “I wasn’t trying to?—”
“You weren’t thinking .” He cuts me off like he’s dissecting a body. Clean. Precise. Brutal.
And then he pauses. Breathes. The glint in his eye dims just slightly, like he’s yanked the curtain back into place.
“You’re too smart to play dumb,” he says, quieter now, but no less intense. “Don’t let him make a fool of you.”
I feel the words slice deep. Shame and arousal knot in my chest, thick and cloying like honey turned sour. It coats my ribs, drips down my spine. I don’t know if I want to bolt for the door or drop to my knees and bare my throat. So I do the stupid thing—I dig my heels in.
“You’re right,” I hiss, leaning forward until our noses nearly touch. His breath is sharp with mint. “I am too smart. Because it’s not like you looked away.”
His eyes narrow, pupils blown, jaw flexing once.
Behind me, Landon chuckles, low and amused. “Come on, Con. Just admit it,” he says, dragging his fingers across the exposed skin of my collarbone.
“She is my student,” Kilgore snarls. It’s guttural, animalistic—but he still hasn’t looked away from me. If anything, he leans in.
“And she’s willing to get an A,” Landon teases, hand slipping beneath the neckline of my dress, his touch light, possessive, cruel.
“Landon.” The warning in Kilgore’s voice is pure steel.
“Conner,” Landon returns, mocking him by name.
“Professor,” I whisper, and his eyes lock on mine like I just pulled the pin from a grenade between us. “I don’t know what this is, but…”
“You’re scared of me, Jasmine,” Kilgore cuts in, his voice smooth and soft and terrifying.
I try to swallow. I can’t.
He watches me like he’s cataloging the flicker of every emotion across my face. His gaze dips to my throat, to the frantic flutter of my pulse.
“Do you know why?” he asks.
I shake my head, biting down on my lower lip until I taste blood. I feel like I’m about to fall apart molecule by molecule, and I want to. If it’s for him, I feel like I need to.
“That’s your body realizing the predator in the room,” he says, voice dipping dangerously low, smooth as a scalpel sliding beneath skin. “You should listen to it. It’ll save your life.”
Silence wraps around us like smoke—thick, clinging, suffocating. My heart hammers like it’s trying to shatter my ribs from the inside. Each breath feels smaller than the last, like the room is shrinking around me and only he gets to breathe fully.
Landon’s hand ghosts over my chest, fingers catching the delicate chain that dips into my cleavage. He gives it a lazy tug, letting the pendant bounce once against my sternum before he exhales a low whistle.
“Come on, Con,” he drawls, with that infuriating grin that never quite touches his eyes. “Stop playing with your food.”
He tilts his head to the side, still smiling—but it’s wrong. Cold. The kind of expression a cat might wear while toying with a dying bird. Detached amusement laced with cruelty. It’s the kind of smile that doesn’t blink.
“Normally,” he murmurs, almost like an afterthought, “when my prey squirms, I punish it.”
He kneels down, his hands large and calloused on my knees.
Without instruction, my thighs open for him, and I swallow hard.
His touch isn’t warm like Landon, and it doesn’t feel meant to be there, it feels cold like electricity bringing the dead back to life.
I jerk in my seat as he cocks an eyebrow at me.
“How should I punish you, Jasmine?”
I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. All I can hear is blood rushing in my ears, the beat of my pulse slamming through my veins. I can’t look away.
Kilgore moves slowly, like he’s giving me time to run—and knows I won’t.
His hands slide up my thighs, skin-on-skin, igniting a burn where he touches. His fingertips trace the curve above my knees, then higher, dragging the hem of my dress with him. His knuckles graze sensitive flesh, and I gasp despite myself.
“Be still,” he commands, barely above a whisper.
I freeze.
When his fingers hook the edge of my underwear, it feels like the air is sucked from the room.
“Lift up,” he whispers, eyes locked on mine, and I do.
He peels the lace down—slow, careful, reverent in a way that makes it worse.
Like he’s unwrapping something fragile. Like he wants to ruin it on purpose.
They pool at my ankles. He bends to catch them before they fall, holds them in his hand like a specimen—turning them over once, twice, as if studying a thread of evidence.
“You will get these back when you learn how to not make a mess of yourself in my class,” he says finally, his voice back to clinical and composed. But his pupils are still dilated, jaw tight. “We’ll start with that.”
Then he slips them into the breast pocket of his button-down like they belong there.
My breath stutters. My thighs clench instinctively, as if trying to hold onto something that’s already been taken. I don’t know what I’ve become in this room. All I know is that I can’t look away from him. And he—he hasn’t blinked once.
“Now, you’re dismissed, Miss Rivera.”
I jump like a live wire and scurry out of my seat. “Thank you, Professor.”
I don’t wait for a response. I don’t want one.
I shoulder past Landon—he whistles low and slow, like I’m some pretty little thing trotting off the auction block. But for once, he doesn’t touch me. Maybe even he knows Kilgore’s leash is shorter than it looks.
The hallway hits like a slap of cold air, but it does nothing to cool the heat crawling under my skin. My panties are gone. My pride’s in shreds. And my body doesn’t know whether to shake with shame or…crawl back for more.