Chapter Eleven #2
Her voice had brushed through me, silk threaded with wire, cutting and soft in the same breath. She hadn’t known it, but she’d called to me that night, called to something that was already hers long before she ever spoke my name.
And maybe she still did. God help me. Maybe she always had.
I didn’t mean to stand that close. But closeness was its own kind of confession, and my body had never been good at pretending.
She looked up the moment I reached her table, eyes widening before she could hide it. Her lips parted. That tiny catch in her breath gave her away.
“Miss Carter.”
She straightened, every inch of her composure snapping into place, though I caught the twitch of her fingers against the folder in her lap, the way she pressed her palm flat over it as if it could shield her from me.
“Professor.”
Nothing more. No trace of warmth or mockery. Just the title between us, hard and formal, as though it could erase what existed underneath it.
Good. Let her try.
I gestured toward the empty chair beside her. “Is this seat taken?”
Her pause lasted just long enough to tell me she was thinking about more than the question.
“No.”
I sat down. Too close. Not close enough.
The air shifted, thick, weighted with the things we wouldn’t say, the memories we shouldn’t have. I didn’t turn to face her. Her scent was already under my skin, the trace of her perfume caught somewhere between breath and heartbeat.
“You received my email?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her answer came softer than I expected, her voice carrying that slight raw edge that made my pulse stutter. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe nerves. Maybe something else.
“Good.” My reply landed quiet, measured, the edge of authority smoothing over the violence beneath it. “The committee expects your draft this morning. I trust it’s ready.”
Her nod was small, too measured to be effortless.
Every inch of her posture was held in a kind of rehearsed stillness, but the tremor in her fingers betrayed her.
They tightened around the folder resting in her lap, the pressure turning her knuckles pale, her composure stretched thin against the weight of what lingered between us.
“It’s ready,” she said. Her voice trained, but beneath it something wavered, something uncertain, hesitant, alive. I saw it in the subtle flicker of her eyes, in the brief collapse of her mask before she forced it back into place.
I leaned forward, knowing I shouldn’t, knowing that proximity only ever made the silence more dangerous. The distance between us narrowed until I could see the small pulse at her throat, could sense the strain in her breath as she tried to ignore the gravity that kept pulling her closer.
“You’re unusually quiet today,” I said, the words slipping out low, threaded with something I couldn’t disguise. “Did something happen?”
She turned her head toward me, the motion deliberate, as if she feared that moving too fast might fracture the air that had hardened around us. Her gaze found mine, calm and cold, the kind of composure that didn’t come from peace but from effort.
“You didn’t show up to class yesterday,” she said. “That was… unusual.”
A faint trace of amusement tugged at the corner of my mouth. “So you were paying attention.”
“I’m your student and assistant,” she replied, her tone stripped of inflection, too careful to sound natural. “It’s my job to notice.”
Liar.
It was a lie, and we both knew it. The words were armor, built from professionalism and fear. But her eyes, they told the truth. They always did. They were unguarded even when she thought they weren’t, windows to every thought she couldn’t silence.
I leaned back slowly, letting the quiet settle into something heavy. Silence was a weapon, and she was beginning to understand its sharpness, the way it could wrap around two people and make the space between them unbearable.
“Then we’re finished here,” I said, though I didn’t move.
She hesitated, the pause slight but potent, enough to make the moment stretch and tighten. Then she rose, collecting her papers with her usual precision, but her steps faltered when she turned away. That subtle break in balance, that almost imperceptible weakness, God, I hated that I noticed it.
“Miss Carter.”
She stopped, her spine rigid, tension brimming in the air. But she didn’t turn around.
“You may want to review the keynote material again,” I said. “Some of the phrasing in your abstract leans too far into theory. The committee will want clarity.”
Her head turned just slightly, enough for the faint outline of her profile to catch the light. “I wasn’t aware clarity and theory were enemies,” she said, her voice quiet but edged.
There it was again, the restrained defiance that always managed to thread itself through her words, soft enough to be forgivable, sharp enough to cut.
“They often are,” I said. “When ambition begins to cloud precision.”
She didn’t flinch. “Or when precision hides fear.”
The words slid under my skin before I could brace for them. I exhaled, the air rough against my throat. She was baiting me again, the way she always did, testing the boundaries I pretended were firm. And God help me, I wanted to be baited.
“You’re walking a fine line,” I said quietly, though the warning came out closer to a confession.
She turned then, fully, her expression unreadable but her eyes burning with something I couldn’t name. “So are you.”
The door closed behind her with a muted thud that landed somewhere inside my chest. Final. Contained. I didn’t move. I only stared at the space she had just left, the faint trace of her scent still suspended in the air, sharp and familiar enough to haunt.
The department meeting would begin within the hour. She would be there again, poised, unflinching, her voice smooth and articulate while every word between us simmered unspoken beneath the surface.
And I would sit across from her, pretending to listen, pretending not to remember the way her mouth had shaped the word fear as though it were a challenge meant only for me.
The conference room smelled the same as it always fucking did, burnt coffee, paper that’d been handled too many times, and Dr. Hanes’ perfume choking the air as if she was trying to hide the stench of decay with flowers.
I took my seat at the end of the table, the one by the window where the cold light cut through everything soft. I needed that light. I needed edges.
The others were already muttering about schedules and logistics, the kind of bureaucratic noise that passed for purpose in this department. I let them talk. Their voices droned through the room, static under my skin, until the door opened and silence cut through it like a blade.
She walked in.
My undoing.
Head high, coat fitted close, mouth pressed into that delicate half-line that always looked a little too controlled, a little too goddamn tempting.
Her eyes didn’t meet mine, but that didn’t matter.
Every detail of her hit me anyway, the exhaustion shadowing her face, the way she carried herself, the quiet defiance in the set of her shoulders. I knew she hadn’t slept. Neither had I.
She took her seat across the table, diagonal to me, far enough to be safe but close enough to ruin me all over again. Her presence wasn’t loud, but it crawled beneath my skin, filled the space until I could feel her even without touching her.
Dr. Baylor’s voice snapped through the stillness. “We’ll begin with symposium logistics. Professor Stone, any updates on your keynote and your assistant?”
Assistant. The second it left Baylor’s mouth, the room vanished.
All I could see was the way Edwina’s fingers tightened around her pen, that small, involuntary flinch when she heard the word assistant.
She straightened her spine, lifted her chin, but the effort showed.
She felt the eyes on her. Felt mine most of all.
I’d done that to her. I’d made her mine in ways none of these idiots would ever understand. My assistant. My keynote partner. My fucking obsession. And every time that title was spoken aloud, I watched her hold her breath, the same way I did when she looked at me.
She didn’t even have to move for me to lose focus.
The way her pen moved across the page, the way her throat worked when she swallowed, the way her legs crossed under the table, every goddamn thing about her was noise in my blood.
She was sitting there, and all I could think about was how easily I could wreck that composure, how fast she’d fall apart if I stopped pretending to be civilized.
Good girl.
But I didn’t want her good. I wanted her trembling, half-wild, gripping my shirt while I made her forget every rule she ever followed.
I didn’t look at her when I answered. “Miss Carter submitted her updated abstract this morning. I’ve reviewed it. It’s sufficient.”
I heard the breath she tried to hide. That tiny hitch in her chest. She fucking hated that word. Sufficient. It burned her, and that made me smile.
Dr. Baylor didn’t notice. She nodded, droning something about deadlines and revisions, but I wasn’t listening anymore.
Edwina’s jaw tightened. Her lips parted slightly, then pressed together again, as if she’d almost said something she shouldn’t. My entire body reacted to that almost. To the way she wanted to push back. To the restraint she held with her teeth.
I wanted to break it. To bend her over that fucking table and make her drop every bit of that fake calm. I wanted to hear her beg for something she couldn’t even name.
And the worst part? I couldn’t stop imagining it. The sound she’d make when I whispered her name against her throat. The way she’d tremble when I told her not to look away. The way her voice would falter when she tried to say Professor while I was buried deep inside her.
Every second sitting across from her was an act of violence against my own restraint. Every time she looked down, every shift of her fingers, every fucking breath she took turned into a dare.