Chapter Eleven #3
The others kept talking. The words blurred. I didn’t hear any of it. I just watched her. The edge of her collarbone. The faint pulse beneath her jaw. The way she pretended not to notice me.
She wasn’t some student on a committee list. She wasn’t a subordinate. She was the slow undoing of every rule I’d built to survive.
But I’d chosen her. And now I was fucking obsessed with the choice I couldn’t take back.
The chair beside me scraped, a colleague said something about final panel timings, and I nodded on instinct, offering some meaningless agreement while my mind drifted back to her.
It always did. My gaze found her hands again.
Fingers curled around a pen, pressing into the paper with quiet purpose.
Those hands looked soft. Controlled. Too fucking elegant for the kind of thoughts running through my head.
What would they feel like twisted in my hair?
What would they look like around my cock, trembling, desperate to keep pace with the rhythm I’d set?
I inhaled sharply, jaw clenching. Christ. I needed to stop. I needed to fucking end this before it swallowed both of us whole.
But that was the problem. Every time I told myself to stop, I found another reason not to. Even now, surrounded by professors droning about symposium panels and seating charts, my mind was unraveling, falling apart in the same direction it always did. Toward her.
Her mouth. Her voice. That barely-there smile when she said, No promises. The words had coiled around me for days, lodged somewhere between temptation and threat.
Someone called my name. I gave an answer, automatic, detached, but my head wasn’t here. It was across the table, where Edwina Carter sat pretending to be composed. Pretending she didn’t care what I thought.
She did. I could feel it in the smallest shifts, the way she never looked too long, never too soon.
The way her voice always caught a fraction when she had to address me directly.
And maybe that was what fucked me up most, knowing that the more she tried to hide it, the more I wanted to strip her down to truth.
I wanted to test her.
Push her.
Find out how far I could go before she stopped pretending and begged for the thing she swore she didn’t want.
And I knew — I fucking knew — that if I kept this up, I’d reach a point I couldn’t crawl back from.
I looked at her again. Just once. But once was all it ever took.
Her eyes met mine across the room. No flinch. No blink. Just a silent acknowledgment that neither of us was fooling the other anymore.
The meeting bled to an end. Chairs scraped, papers shuffled, voices rose in a half-hearted exchange of goodbyes. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, washing everything in dull clarity. I didn’t move. Not until everyone else had gone.
She stayed seated, deliberate in her slowness. Her hands smoothed the pages of her notebook, then lingered too long at the corner of the table. She knew I was watching. She always knew.
When she finally looked up, her voice came quiet, careful. “Professor.”
I nodded once, slow, the word settling somewhere dangerous in my chest. “Miss Carter.”
She hesitated, then added, “Good meeting.”
I let the corner of my mouth shift. “You did well.”
Her brows drew together slightly. “It was just a meeting.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. “But you listened. Closely.”
Her lips curved, barely. “Would you rather I doodled in the margins?”
My eyes dropped to the edge of her open notebook, a faint graphite curve, the ghost of a shape, a line that wasn’t academic at all. Before I could read more, she snapped it shut, the sound sharp in the silence.
A single heartbeat stretched between us. Then another.
“That depends,” I said, the syllables dragging out between us until the air turned heavy. “Were you drawing me?”
She froze, lashes lifting slowly, eyes cutting to mine with the kind of irritation that barely hid its tremor. Then she rolled them, sharp and deliberate. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
Too fucking late.
I moved around the table, unhurried, my steps measured but carrying a quiet threat.
The distance between us thinned until we stood at the threshold, where the light met the shadow.
Close, but never close enough. Her breath touched the air between us, and it felt charged, dangerous, waiting to break.
“You haven’t submitted your term project paper yet,” I said, letting the reminder come out softer than it should’ve, too intimate to pass for simple authority.
“I’ll send it tonight,” she said, lifting her chin. The movement was small, defiant, the kind that made me want to grip her jaw and tilt it higher.
“Make sure you do,” I murmured. “We wouldn’t want to confuse your competence with distraction.”
Her eyes flashed, the sharp edge of her voice returning. “I’m not the distracted one.”
My mouth curved, slow, knowing. “No?” I stepped a fraction closer, my tone a whisper that found the fragile space between her pulse and mine. “Then tell me, why are you still standing here?”
The air tightened. Her breathing changed. I could smell her shampoo, something faint and clean, the kind of scent that made me want to bury my face against her neck just to ruin it. The irritation at her mouth faltered, replaced by something else, something dangerous.
Then she stepped back. Smart fucking girl.
“I’ll send the file,” she said.
“Good,” I said, quieter now. “I’ll be waiting.”
She reached for her bag, fingers curling around the strap, the mask of composure sliding neatly back into place. I almost admired it, how she rebuilt herself piece by piece before walking away.
“Miss Carter,” I said, stopping her before she reached the door.
She turned slightly, that guarded formality back in her voice. “Yes, Professor?”
I let the silence stretch before I answered. “We’ll meet Friday at the symposium venue. Ten sharp.”
She nodded once, curt, professional, already half gone. But I couldn’t stop myself. The words came lower, rougher, meant for her alone.
“And Edwina…”
Her pulse jumped at her throat. I saw it. And fuck, I wanted to follow that pulse with my mouth.
“Dress warm,” I said first, voice low enough to graze. Then I let the corner of my mouth tilt, the softness curdling into something darker. “Tight, too. As I told you before, I don’t want my assistant catching cold before the event.”
Her hand stilled on the door handle. She didn’t turn around. She didn’t need to. I saw it, the faint shiver that rolled down her spine, the way her shoulders drew in just slightly, the smallest betrayal of control.
Then she left, the click of the door final.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was her. It was her scent, still threaded through the room. Her voice, still echoing under my skin.
I leaned back against the table, arms crossed, pulse hammering deep and uneven beneath the surface. The veneer of discipline still clung to me, but I could feel the cracks forming.
I’d told myself I could manage it, that I could draw the line and hold it. But the truth was simpler and filthier. I was already drowning in her, and there was no way in hell I wanted to come up for air.