Chapter Fourteen #2
A small, crooked smile pulled at my mouth when her first message appeared.
She hadn’t saved my number. Of course she hadn’t.
That was so fucking her, careful to the point of denial, pretending distance could erase what was already written between us.
I didn’t respond right away. I wanted her to sit in it for a while, to feel that small ache of uncertainty in her chest. Maybe she’d recognize the rhythm of my words when I finally replied, the edge of command that always slipped beneath the surface when I spoke to her.
Maybe she’d know exactly who it was without asking.
But she didn’t. Another message followed, neatly typed, restrained to hell.
Edwina:
Is this Professor Stone?
I leaned back in my chair, the phone burning against my palm, the glow from the screen cutting through the dark.
Her hesitation bled through every word, carefully chosen, restrained, painfully polite.
Always so fucking proper. She crafted her messages the same way she built her defenses, tight, measured, pretending I couldn’t already see the fractures beneath the surface, the small tremors betraying the control she tried so hard to keep.
Hayden:
Yes.
One word. Nothing else. Just a clean, hard truth that left no room for escape.
I could picture her then, frowning at the screen, thumb hovering, debating whether to reply.
Her pulse probably skipping, breath shallow as she realized she couldn’t quite decide what tone to take with me now.
Too formal, and she’d sound defensive. Too casual, and she’d give herself away. Another message buzzed through.
Edwina:
I won’t be on campus this weekend.
My jaw tightened as I reread it, the words sinking into me in a way they shouldn’t have. Where the hell was she going? And who the fuck would be there to watch her when I wasn’t? Before I could even type the question, another message came through.
Edwina:
We’re going on a ski trip. I’ll have the material ready before I leave.
I stared at the text longer than necessary, the words burning behind my eyes. A ski trip. She hadn’t mentioned a goddamn thing in the meeting. Not one word. My grip on the phone turned iron, knuckles stiff. Why the fuck hadn’t she told me?
Not on campus. Not in my reach. Not under my watch.
A jagged pull tore through my chest, raw, possessive, and far too vicious to pass for reason.
I shouldn’t have cared where she went. She was a student.
An assistant. That was all. That’s what I kept telling myself.
But it was bullshit. Every part of me knew it.
The problem wasn’t that she was leaving.
The problem was that someone else would see her, laugh with her, maybe fucking touch her while I sat here pretending I didn’t want to lose my mind over it.
My thumbs hovered above the screen for a long moment before moving.
Hayden:
That’s unexpected.
Three dots pulsed. Then disappeared. Then returned.
Edwina:
I figured you already knew. Everyone in the department is talking about it.
So you didn’t think I’d care. That’s what she meant.
You didn’t think I’d notice. I stared at that message until the edges of the screen blurred.
I wasn’t thinking about the department. I wasn’t thinking about the work.
I was thinking about her, on a mountain, surrounded by people, bundled in layers, laughing, her cheeks flushed from the cold.
I could see it too clearly, and the image crawled under my skin until it burned.
My fingers itched to reply with something sharp. Something to remind her who the fuck she was talking to. To remind her that I wasn’t just another name in her inbox. That I could make her remember exactly where she stood, on the edge of something dangerous, with me holding the line.
Instead, I forced the words through, clean and hard.
Hayden:
Fine. Have it on my desk by Friday morning before you leave.
I paused. The cursor blinked, taunting me. I should’ve stopped there. I didn’t.
Hayden:
And Edwina, don’t forget what I said about dressing for the cold.
I hit send before I could stop myself, watching the message light up the thread. My pulse thudded in my throat. I could almost see her reaction, the way her lips would part, the small hitch in her breath, the memory of my voice saying those same words against her ear.
Professional, my ass. There was nothing fucking professional about any of this.
She was driving me insane, and the worst part was, she didn’t even know it.
Or maybe she did. Maybe that was what made it all so goddamn intoxicating.
I didn’t wait for her reply. Couldn’t. I didn’t trust myself to read whatever came next, because if I did, I’d start imagining things I had no fucking right to imagine.
I’d start asking questions I had no claim to ask.
Who was she going with? Was she sharing a room?
Would someone else be there when the cold settled in, when the lights dimmed, when the night got quiet enough for touch to mean more than it should?
The thoughts clawed through me, brutal and unwanted.
Would some kid, a smug, twenty-something asshole with too much confidence and too little sense, get close enough to make her laugh?
Would he stand beside her, breath steaming in the cold, fingers brushing her sleeve like he had any right to know what warmth felt like against her skin?
Would he unzip her jacket after a long day, shake the snow from her shoulders, and lean in, too close, too casual, saying her name as though he’d earned it?
The image hit hard, cut through reason, through logic, straight into the gut.
She wouldn’t let him. I knew she wouldn’t.
But the idea of it, the possibility of someone else’s hands finding her first, someone else hearing the sounds she didn’t mean to make—Christ—it was enough to set something inside me unravelling.
If he touched her, I’d break his fucking fingers. If he kissed her, I’d bury him deep enough that no one would find the body until the mountain thawed. The thought wasn’t rational. It wasn’t right. But it was honest.
She wasn’t mine. Not yet. But every part of me already belonged to her.
And that was the goddamn problem, because when I let myself feel it, when I let the thought of her up there in that cabin with warm lights, snow in her hair, and someone else’s shadow crossing her body seep into my head, I wanted violence.
I wanted to drag the whole fucking mountain down until she was standing there alone again, untouched, freezing, waiting, for me. Only me.
And that made me exactly the kind of man I didn’t want to admit I already was. But the truth? I’d always been that man. For her, I’d burn the whole fucking world and call it devotion.
Her message stopped blinking on the screen, but it was too late.
The damage was done. I tossed the phone across the couch.
It hit with a dull thud and landed face-down, but that didn’t stop the pulse pounding in my veins.
I started pacing, the kind of restless that chewed through bone.
Back and forth. A caged thing in an apartment too small for what was clawing its way up my spine.
My hand found my hair again, raking through it hard enough to sting.
I sat down, stood again, cursed under my breath, grabbed the phone off the couch before I could think better of it, and hit call.
There was no trace of hesitation, no flicker of sense or restraint left in me, only the relentless, consuming need that drove every thought toward her and refused to loosen its grip.
It rang once. Twice. Three times. Then a groggy voice cracked through the static.
“Stone? What the actual hell? It’s nearly midnight.”
I exhaled, the sound rougher than I intended. “David.”
There was rustling, the faint scrape of movement, then a long-suffering groan. “You do realize I have a life outside of academia, right? One that usually involves sleep?”
“I need to ask you something.”
He sighed. “Of course you do. Let me guess, your bookshelf finally gave up under the weight of your God complex?”
I ignored that. “The university ski trip. Who’s going?”
Silence stretched, then a hum that carried too much knowing amusement. “Interesting. You’ve never given a damn about extracurriculars. Or snow. Or, you know, people.”
I said nothing. The quiet between us was answer enough.
David chuckled, low and smug. “Oh,” he drawled, voice dripping with that mock curiosity that always made me want to hang up on him. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain gorgeous young teacher, would it?”
“Just answer the damn question.”
He laughed softly, and I could picture the grin spreading across his face even through the line. “Christ, Stone,” he said. “You really are in deep this time, aren’t you?”
But I didn’t answer that. Because I already knew the fucking truth.
He chuckled through the line, the sound lazy, dragging, far too casual for the way my blood had started to climb.
“Relax, Stone. It’s the usual mixed bag, students from the upper years, some junior staff, a few of us professors who drew the short straw. It’s meant to be all professional bonding and team-building, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly students getting drunk in ski jackets.”
I pressed my thumb against my temple, eyes narrowing into the dark of my apartment. “Who approved it?”
“Department head,” he said, unbothered. “You signed off on it too, remember? Back in January.”
The words hit with a dull thud, heavy and cold.
Fuck.
He was right. I had.
But that had been before she’d walked into my orbit, before her voice started haunting the spaces between my thoughts. Back then, she was just another name on a page, another student whose existence didn’t crawl under my skin and twist.
David’s voice came again, faintly amused, the kind of tone that always made me want to smash the phone against the wall. “There’s a full list in the admin portal if you’re that curious. Or you could just admit you’re spiraling over a pretty woman.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Of course you are. Don’t forget to pack your jealousy in a thermal bag.”
Click. Silence again.
But it wasn’t calm. It was a raw, pulsing kind of quiet that left no room to breathe.
The phone sat heavy in my hand before I dropped it onto the table, the sound echoing through the room.
My pulse was a slow hammer against my throat.
The lights from the city bled through the window, fractured and distant, but none of it touched the thing gnawing at my chest.
I tried to swallow it down, the irritation, the want, the fucking ache that had no name. But it didn’t fade. It never did.
She was still there. Always there.
The shape of her silhouette at the edge of my thoughts, the echo of her breath against my neck, the goddamn sound of her voice saying my name.
And now she’d be gone for the weekend, buried in snow and laughter, surrounded by people who didn’t understand what it meant to touch something sacred and ruin it anyway. Layers between her and the world. Layers I wanted to tear apart with my teeth just to get to her again.
The thought crawled through me, violent and alive. It wasn’t just jealousy anymore. That was too soft a word. Too fucking small for the thing clawing its way up from the pit of my chest.
No. It was possession, vile and consuming, the kind that burned through reason until nothing was left but the hunger to claim what shouldn’t belong to me.
And it was spreading, feeding, turning everything else to ash.
By the time I realized my hands were shaking, it was already too late to pretend otherwise.