Chapter 38
thirty-eight
ROOK
The door to Morgan's apartment clicks shut behind me with the finality of a cell door.
The space is exactly what I expected. It's sterile, organized within an inch of its life, and every surface is gleaming. There's not a single stray sock or empty water bottle to break the militant perfection, and none of the chaos that makes my apartment look like a hurricane’s vacation home.
I hover near the door, arms hanging awkwardly at my sides while my fingers drum a nervous rhythm against my thighs. Every spotless surface seems to judge me, and I’m genuinely terrified that my mere presence is somehow contaminating her perfect ecosystem.
My usual instinct screams at me to fill this suffocating quiet with noise, but my throat has forgotten its primary function. Because Morgan is looking at me—no, not just looking, hunting—while she leans back against the door she just locked.
Christ, when did she learn to smile like that?
The rigid control that usually defines her has melted into something liquid and dangerous. Her slate-gray eyes track me with predatory focus, and I suddenly understand how gazelles feel when they realize the grass just moved wrong or that one of their buddies didn't show up for lunch…
“You were there for me,” she says. “With Galloway, you stood with me.”
The boardroom flashes through my mind, filled with the coalition I’d spent three days quietly building through text chains and coffee bribes. Then there was the beautiful silence of unified defiance, the way her eyes had gone wide with genuine shock when she realized what I’d orchestrated.
“So now,” she continues, pushing off from the door with fluid grace, “I want to help you.”
She stalks toward me, and my primitive brain starts sending up flares.
Danger! Predator approaching!
Also, extremely aroused!
Confused, send help!
Or don’t!
Actually, definitely don’t! We'll take our chances!
“Help me?” My voice cracks like I’m thirteen again, standing in front of the entire eighth grade with an unfortunate erection during my history presentation.
Her smile deepens, something wickedly amused dancing in her eyes. “Your sociology final is tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I—”
“And you need to ace it.”
Not a question, but I nod anyway. The weight of it sits heavy, because even with Galloway’s restrictions suspended, I need this. I need to prove to myself, to my team, and to her that I’m more than just the loud idiot who makes everyone laugh when things get too serious.
I have to prove I can do this.
“Good.” She glides to her coffee table, where a sociology textbook sits. “Then we’re going to study.”
"OK…" I say.
“But,” she adds, turning to face me fully, her weight shifting in a way that makes her hips do something X-rated, “we’re going to make it interesting.”
My brain immediately supplies about seventeen different interpretations of ‘interesting,’ each more pornographic than the last. “Interesting?”
She picks up the textbook, flipping to a marked page without looking, her eyes holding mine. “For every question you answer correctly, you get a reward.”
The word ‘reward’ from her mouth hits like a promise wrapped in barbed wire, dangerous but impossible to resist. And I’m suddenly, viscerally aware of how her fitted blazer traces curves that haunt my dreams, and how the late-afternoon light sets her hair on fire.
“What kind of reward?” My voice comes out rough, like I’ve been gargling gravel and bad decisions.
Instead of answering, she shifts straight into professor mode. “What is Durkheim’s primary argument about the function of deviance in society?”
The question is like a bucket of ice water poured over my libido. My brain, which two seconds ago was calculating the exact shade of her lips, has to execute an emergency pivot back to academia. I scramble through mental files, dodging panic like it’s a defender. “Uh…”
"You know this, James," she chides. "I guess you don't want your reward…"
“Deviance serves to… to clarify moral boundaries." I grin, like I've just conquered Everest or won the Stanley Cup. "It defines what’s acceptable by showing what isn’t. Like how we only appreciate normal because we see what fucked up looks like.”
“Good.”
The approval in her voice shoots straight to my dick. Academic validation should not be this arousing, but here we are, breaking new ground in educational kinks I didn’t know existed. But any further exploration of that theme dies when she reaches up and slowly, deliberately, shrugs off her blazer.
Yep, in no universe did I expect to see Morgan doing a striptease.
The blazer slides down her arms in slow-motion, revealing a crisp white blouse that’s suddenly the most erotic piece of clothing ever created. She drapes it over her couch, every movement deliberate, controlled, and specifically designed to murder me via sexual frustration.
“Next question,” she says, as casual as discussing the weather. “Explain Marx’s concept of alienation under capitalism.”
It takes three attempts to remember that words exist and I’m theoretically capable of producing them. She’s standing there in her blouse and slacks, utterly composed while I’m having what feels like a cardiac event, but eventually I spit out the answer.
“Workers become… alienated from the product of their labor,” I manage. “They don’t control what they make or how they make it. They’re just selling their time, not creating anything meaningful. I sympathize, because I'm currently experiencing that exact alienation from my ability to form thoughts.”
“Very good.” Her fingers move to the top button of her blouse. "Two from two, it seems…"
Jesus fucking Christ.
I watch, hypnotized, as she works the button free with agonizing patience. Then the second button. Then the third. Each reveals another inch of pale skin, a glimpse of black lace. By the time she reaches the last button, I’ve forgotten my name and possibly the entire English language.
She doesn’t remove the blouse, just lets it hang open like curtains framing the best view in existence.
The black bra is simple, elegant, and absolutely devastating against her skin.
I can see the defined muscles of her abdomen, each line carved from years of brutal training, and fuck, do I want her.
“Weber’s three types of authority,” she says, snapping me from my thoughts, ignoring that she’s standing there looking like every fantasy I've ever had.
“Traditional,” I croak out. “Based on… on custom and history. Legal-rational, based on rules and laws. And charismatic…”
She slides the blouse off her shoulders. “Charismatic?” she prompts, letting the blouse fall.
“Based on… on personal qualities of the leader.” Words tumble out desperately. “Their ability to inspire devotion.”
“Perfect.”
She reaches for her waistband, and I have to grip the couch arm to keep my knees from buckling. The button comes undone with a soft pop that echoes in the silent apartment. The zipper follows, each tooth separating so slowly it's torture.
She pushes the slacks down her hips, revealing matching black panties that make my mouth flood with want. Her legs are fucking perfect, with powerful thighs that could crush a man’s skull (and what a way to go) and defined calves that speak to thousands of hours on skates.
As she steps out of the slacks and kicks them aside, she hits me with the next one. “Describe Goffman’s dramaturgical approach to social interaction.”
How the fuck am I supposed to remember dead sociologists when she’s standing there like that? When I can see the faint bruise on her hip from last week’s game, purple-green and absolutely beautiful in its imperfection? When the light through her spotless windows is making her skin glow?
“People… people perform roles,” I stammer, my voice discovering new octaves. “Front stage is how we act in public, backstage is private. We manage impressions, and control what others see. Personally, I'm currently experiencing complete performance failure and would not receive positive reviews.”
“Excellent comprehension.”
She reaches behind her back, and I know what’s coming, but I’m still utterly unprepared when the bra comes undone. She holds it in place for a moment, those analytical eyes dark with something that has nothing to do with academic assessment.
Then she lets it fall.
Her breasts are perfect. Not airbrushed-magazine-perfect, but real, touchable, devastatingly perfect.
Soft and small with pale pink nipples already hard, begging for my mouth.
At the sight, a sound escapes me that might generously be called a whimper but probably more accurately resembles a dying moose.
“One more question,” she says, hooking her thumbs in her panties. “Then you get your first real reward.”
“Morgan…” My voice is wrecked, like I’ve been screaming at a game for three periods plus overtime.
She shakes off my attempt to interrupt. “Explain the relationship between institutional power and individual agency.”
It’s complex, the kind of question that would normally send me spiraling into academic panic. But something about the way she’s looking at me—patient, expectant, utterly confident in my ability, sexy as all fuck—makes everything crystallize.
“Institutions shape our choices but don’t eliminate them,” I say, words flowing easier despite my complete distraction. “We operate within structures of power but maintain the ability to resist and to create change from within, so agency exists even under constraint.”
“That’s absolutely correct.”
The panties slide down with the same deliberate patience she’s applied to this entire exquisite torture. She steps out of them and stands there, naked in her pristine apartment, looking at me with an expression that makes my chest feel too small for my lungs.