Chapter 19
Alex
The morning sun filtered through the guest room curtains, a sharp contrast to the shadowy, wine-soaked intimacy of the night before.
I shifted under the covers, my head throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache—a polite reminder from bottles of white wine that I was not as invincible as I felt at midnight.
I blinked my eyes open, and my heart immediately fucking skipped a beat.
Dr. Carter was already awake, propped up against the pillows beside me. She stayed.
She was buried in a thick hardcover book, but it was the addition to her face that nearly fucking ended me.
Perched on the bridge of her nose was a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses—meaning at some point while I was out cold, she’d made the conscious decision to slip out of bed, padded across the hall to fetch them along with her book, and chosen to climb right back in next to me.
The frames made her look incredibly sharp, intellectual, and—fuck—unbearably hot. The sight of her like this, domestic, relaxed, and deliberately choosing to stay in the morning light, was a total sensory overload.
I stayed still for a moment, rubbing my face and letting the memories of the weekend wash over me. The sharing meals, the sofa, the way she clung to me during the movie, the feeling of her release against my fingers…fuck... and then her sleeping in my arms.
It was Monday. University was canceled, but the reality of our "real life" was looming. What would happen then? Would we go back to cold stares and clinical distance? Was this just a three-day fucking fever dream?
My internal spiralling was cut short when I saw the edge of her book tilt down. She’d noticed me. Shit. She peered over the top of those glasses, her eyes scanning my face with a look that was terrifyingly unreadable.
"Good morning, Alex," she said, her voice smooth and devoid of the husky vulnerability from last night. "I was beginning to think the wine had finally claimed you."
I sat up slowly, wincing at the movement, fuck my head, but I kept my gaze locked on hers. "Morning," I croaked, trying to find my footing. "The glasses are a new look. Suits the formidable Dr. Carter."
She didn't snap at me as I would have expected.
Instead, she closed the book with a soft thud and set it on the nightstand, sliding the glasses off her face.
The way she looked at me then was different—it was not the professor, and it was not the woman who was scared of a movie. It was something in between.
“How did you sleep?” she asked. Her hand reached out, and I caught a flicker of a smirk as she began to run her fingers through my sleep-mussed hair, trying to tame the mess I'd made of it.
I yawned, the sound stretching out as I leaned into her touch. "Like the dead," I croaked, my voice still rough with sleep.
A slow, mischievous smirk pulled at my lips as the memories of her locking the door came rushing back.
I couldn't fucking help myself. I leaned back against the headboard, looking at her with mock-exhaustion.
"Though, to be fair, I did have to wake up around 3 a.m. to fight off two Ghostfaces at once.
Very intense. Very bloody. Honestly, Dr. Carter, you should be extremely grateful to your bodyguard. "
She paused, her fingers still tangled in my hair, and for a second, I thought I’d pushed it too far. Shit. I expected the professional mask to slam back down, or for her to give me that look that made students burst into tears.
Instead, she let out a short, dry laugh—a sound so genuine it made my chest fucking ache.
"Two of them? My, how heroic," she murmured, her eyes dancing with an amused light.
She didn't pull her hand away; instead, she let her palm rest against the side of my face, her thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone.
"And here I thought the only thing I had to be grateful for was your ability to sleep through a category five hurricane. "
The warmth of her hand was grounding, but the way she was looking at me—without the glasses, without the lecture hall between us—was making it very hard to fucking breathe.
"I'm serious," I joked, though my voice had lost some of its edge. "I'm a hero. I deserve at least a trophy. Or maybe breakfast."
"Breakfast," she repeated, her gaze dropping to my lips for a fraction of a second before meeting my eyes again. "I think I can manage that. Though I suspect your 'heroism' was mostly just very loud snoring, Alex."
She started to move as if to get out of bed, and the thought of the distance between us returning made me reach out instinctively to catch her wrist.
Dr. Carter chuckled as she allowed herself to be pulled back into the nest of blankets. She didn't fight it; she just sank back into the pillows, her body seeking my warmth with a familiarity that felt both dangerous and fucking perfect.
"I do not snore," I protested, shaking my head and trying to maintain some shred of fucking dignity.
She smirked, the light from the window catching the green glint in her eyes. "Oh, but you did, Alex. It was a remarkably consistent drone. I was actually contemplating braving the hallway—Ghostface and all—just to get away from the vibrations."
I chuckled, the sound vibrating in my chest, and I pulled her even closer. We were tangled together then, a messy heap of silk and morning skin, our legs intertwining as the teasing hung in the air. It felt so domestic, so... easy. Fuck, I couldn’t stop this. I didn't want to.
My heart suddenly flipped in my chest, a heavy, nervous thud. The humour in my voice softened into something more vulnerable as I held her gaze.
"Ah, but you didn't," I replied, my voice dropping to a whisper. "You stayed."
The smirk on her face didn't vanish, but it shifted, turning into something quieter and more contemplative.
She didn't deny it. She didn't make an excuse about the wine or the locked door or being too tired to move.
She just stayed there, her hand coming up to rest on my chest, right over my racing heart, as if she could feel exactly what she was doing to me. Fuck.
"I did," she murmured, her thumb tracing a slow circle over the fabric of my nightgown.
The silence that followed wasn't awkward; it was heavy with everything we weren’t saying.
Monday was there, the world outside was waking up, and the university was still waiting for us that week—but for this one moment, she was still just the woman who chose to stay in my arms. Fuck, the tingles were back again.
I hesitated for a heartbeat, my breath hitching as I looked at her.
It felt like I was about to kiss her for the first time all over again, the weight of the morning—and everything it represented—hanging between us.
I searched her face and saw that same hesitancy mirrored back in her eyes.
Those fucking eyes. Up close like this, I could see the intricate details of her irises: deep, dark chocolate brown with those sharp flecks of green that seemed to burn in the sunlight.
It was a gaze that made my heart race with a fucking terrifying, beautiful speed.
We both leaned in at the same time, drawn together by a gravity I was powerless to fight. Our lips met in a soft, tentative press, testing the waters to see if the magic of last night survived the sunrise.
It had.
The kiss was gentle at first, almost cautious, but the moment the spark ignited, the hesitancy vanished.
A low, soft sound escaped her throat, and it was all the permission I needed.
I pulled her impossibly closer, my hands sliding into her hair to anchor her to me, while her arms wound around my neck, dragging me down. Fuck, this was perfect.
The kiss deepened, turning from tentative to hungry, fuelled by the realisation that neither of us was ready to pop this bubble just yet.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I wanted this.
I wanted her. The dull ache in my head vanished, replaced by the sheer, electric heat of her mouth on mine.
We weren't just a professor and a student anymore, or even the protector and the protected.
We were just two people clinging to a weekend that was never supposed to happen—and unable to pretend it was not the only thing that mattered.
For the first time in a long time, the usual hunger to push for more wasn't there. Usually, my brain was ten steps ahead, wondering how to get her fucking clothes off or how to make that sound leave her throat again, but right then? I didn’t want sex.
And from the way she was holding me, I could tell Dr. Carter wasn't looking for that either. Fuck, this was strange.
It made my stomach flip in a way that was completely different and honestly much fucking scarier than lust. We weren't trying to get anything out of each other. We were just... being.
The kiss naturally slowed, the frantic heat simmering down into something steady and grounding.
We parted just an inch, our foreheads still resting against each other.
I kept my eyes closed, savouring the sound of our synchronised breathing in the quiet room.
We stayed like that for a silent, heavy moment, just holding on as if we were both trying to memorise the feeling before the sun got too high.
Then, the shift happened. I felt her spine stiffen just a fraction—the professor reassembling herself.
Dr. Carter cleared her throat, the sound a soft boundary being drawn in the air. She pulled away, her hands sliding off my neck, leaving a cold trail where her warmth had been.
"I’ll make breakfast," she said.
Her voice was steady, but she avoided my eyes as she slid out of bed. She didn't wait for a reply, either—she simply turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the tangled sheets. I lay there in the sudden, deafening silence, staring at the empty space beside me.
The bubble hadn't burst, but it was definitely thinning.