Chapter 6 #2
My stomach twisted with a sudden, frustrating knot of nerves, prompting me to keep moving down the hall.
I turned on my heel and looped back for a second glance, confirming she hadn't moved an inch.
Panic rising, I kept walking, took a lap around the stairwell to gather my courage, and passed her door a third time, catching a faint waft of her perfume.
Taking a deep breath, I forced my feet to stop their pacing, turned around, and stepped through the open doorway.
“Dr. Carter?” I paused just inside the threshold.
She didn’t look up from her screen, her voice level and entirely devoid of emotion. “Is three your lucky number?”
I just stared at her. “Er, no?”
“Then I assume I make you so nervous that you had to walk past my door three times before walking in.”
Holy fuck. I wished the floor would collapse underneath me. “Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “I have no comeback to that.”
She hit the enter key with a decisive click, slowly closed her laptop, and finally looked at me. “Take a seat, Alex. Since you made the effort to be punctual for my office hours.”
I sat across from her, instantly feeling tiny beneath her sheer presence. “I was hoping you could look over my coursework before I submitted it. I hadn’t done an assignment with formal references before.”
She raised an eyebrow with a flicker of genuine surprise, then held out her hand.
I hesitated. “I haven’t printed it.”
She rolled her eyes, a sharp, quick gesture. “You could have just said that instead of staring at my hand like you were expecting me to do a magic trick.”
I grinned. “Sorry. Didn’t think it through.”
She gestured to my bag, “Get your laptop out.”
“I don’t have a laptop.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And how have you been doing your work?”
“On the library computers. Look, sorry, I shouldn’t have come. I’m wasting your time,” I said, standing up quickly, feeling like a complete idiot.
“Sit down, Alex,” she drawled. She typed rapidly on her laptop, then spun it toward me. “You can log in.”
I walked around her desk, trying not to have a full-blown heart attack at the thought of invading her personal space. Sitting in her leather chair, I logged into the portal. I could smell her perfume—a deep, woodsy scent that matched her perfectly.
Before I could even think about moving out of the way, she leaned over me to look at the screen. One of her hands rested lightly on the back of my chair; the other slowly scrolled.
Mother of Christ, she was close. Her jawline was sharp, and through the crimson fabric of her shirt, I could see the subtle muscle definition in her arms. She definitely worked out. Her lips moved slightly, mouthing the words as she read.
“It’s rude to stare,” she said, making me jump.
Trying to regain a shred of my usual swagger, I kept my eyes locked on her profile. “Red suits you.”
Her fingers froze on the trackpad for a fraction of a second before she continued scrolling. Yes. Enough to know I wasn't totally imagining the heat.
“The quality of your research is excellent, Alex,” she said, her voice dropping into a purely academic register. “Your application of the Scarcity Principle is sound.”
I released a breath. “So… it’s okay?”
“I didn’t say it was okay,” she countered.
She tapped a heavily highlighted sentence on the display.
“The style is too conversational. You’re writing an academic paper, not a club monologue.
This line here—‘If demand’s high and supply’s low, the punters pay whatever we ask,’—while accurate, must be translated into formal economic terminology.
Use concepts like inelasticity of demand and market equilibrium. ”
She scrolled through the rest, her critique thorough but fair. “Your structure is messy, but your referencing is meticulous. Where did you learn to reference so well?”
I shrugged. “I spent a week in the library learning the preferred style guide. Didn’t want to lose marks on formatting.”
A brief, undeniable flicker of approval crossed her eyes before she suppressed it. “You have an excellent conceptual grasp. Correct the tone, formalise the structure, and resubmit. You have two days.” She finally leaned back. “Any questions?”
“No, I think I’ve got it, thanks.”
“Then log out.”
I chuckled, logging off, and mockingly pulled out the chair for her, gesturing grandly for her to return to her throne. Dr. Carter narrowed her eyes, but I just grinned, walking back around the desk to grab my backpack.
Just because I was an arsehole, I reached out and slightly twisted a small ornament on the edge of her desk, intentionally messing up her immaculate alignment. I could practically feel the tension coil in her body.
She looked up, her voice slow and dangerously low. “If you touch my property again without permission, you’ll regret it.”
Okay, her threatening me should not have been attractive, but it absolutely was. “Understood,” I murmured, suppressing a smirk.
She folded her arms. “No more bruises?”
I wasn’t expecting the shift back to that. I shrugged. “Only to my ego.”
Her lips twitched—just a fraction—before she forced them neutral. “Threats?”
“Oh yeah, every Friday and Saturday night. Pretty sure it’s in the job description.”
“Do you walk home after your shift?”
“I do, most of the time, yeah.”
She hummed. “What time do you usually finish work?”
I smirked. “Offering me a lift home?”
She gave me a look that could kill, and I raised my hands in mock defence. “I usually finish at about half one.”