CHAPTER 53 #2
I tucked the check into my bag, because if nothing else, it just felt too heavy in my hands right then. “You push and you pull, and I feel like I’m being torn apart.”
His dark chuckle echoed through the room, and I looked up, scowling at the audacity of him laughing at me while I felt at my most vulnerable.
“You think you’re the only one?” His jaw hardened, lip curled in disgust. “There isn’t a sharp enough blade to carve you out of my head, Lilia.
I’d have to tear out my own goddamn eyeballs to keep from noticing your every move.
Who you talk to. Who you fucking kiss .”
The breath shot out of me at the realization that he’d seen what had happened with Spencer.
Oh, God, how that must’ve looked. I opened my mouth to offer an explanation, but the resentment sketched in his expression told me it didn’t matter.
At the same time, a twisted part of me enjoyed that I could hurt him that way.
That something poked at his emotions, when it seemed like he’d been trying to forget what had happened between us.
“We’re just professor and student. Just like before.” I forced the same aloof tone that he’d fed me. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“We’re more than that, and you know it.” The tight clench of his teeth almost made me think he was insulted by what I’d said.
“I don’t, actually.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked away. “For the love of Christ, stop biting your lip.”
It was only then I realized I’d been gnawing the hell out of my bottom lip as I swept my tongue over a slight sting there.
“These little things you do that mess with my head.” Hand raking through his hair, he paced.
“There’s a violence in my blood. This rage that twists in my gut, and it makes me sick.
I’m fucking sick when it comes to you. That I could even fathom breaking his neck …
” He paused his pacing, eyes lost to whatever images spun through his head, like he could vividly see himself in them.
“I can’t control it,” he said, curling his hands to tight fists.
“I can’t reel it in because I still feel you.
I still smell that nauseating sweet scent on your skin that drives me fucking crazy.
That sickening shade of lipstick that takes me back to that night.
I’m losing my mind!” His voice thundered around me, shaking every nerve in my body to life, as I watched him unravel.
There was a beauty in it. The vulnerability I longed to see in him.
The visible distress creeping over him was unfitting for a man so otherwise collected and detached.
He was coming apart at the seams. Finally, a dent in the armor he wore like a second skin.
What I’d mistaken as indifference wasn’t that, at all. He ached and burned as much as I did.
I wanted to watch him come completely undone, to turn reckless, just like me. To grab me by the throat and tear away this resistance between us. “Why are you fighting it?”
“You know damn well.” He stepped closer, backing me against the wall.
“I’m not one of your goddamn classmates, Lilia.
I’m your professor. Your future would be destroyed.
You’d be kicked out and sent home to whatever life you were living, and I’d be here, hating the fact that I fucked you up. That I took everything from you.”
“That’s only if we get caught,” I whispered.
Every emotion seemed to flash across his face, like a battle waged inside his head.
He lifted his hand, brushing only his finger across my cheek as his tongue swept across his lips.
“The things I want to do to you …” Wincing, he looked away, and as he recoiled, I snatched up his hand.
A look of torment claimed his expression as I dragged his palm across my cheek.
Eyes closed, I focused on the texture of his skin, the sensation taking me back to that night.
I kissed his palm, drawing it across my lips, and latched onto his finger.
Gaze locked on his, I sucked it into my mouth, moving up and down the length of it, just as I had done to his cock in the shower, a trail of lipstick marking the path.
Jaw slack, he watched me with heavily hooded eyes.
“Lilia …” His grip hardened around my face, the veins in his neck popping as he snarled back at me.
“You want to know how you can repay me?” The grit in his voice sharpened his tone.
“Stop making me think of fucking you every hour of the day, so I can get back to my work!”
Exasperated, I gnashed my teeth. “If that’s what you want, then okay. I’ll stop.” I didn’t even wait for his reaction as I stepped past him for the door.
A hard grip of my nape was the only warning, before my body spun back around and he slammed his lips to mine in a kiss that was neither gentle, nor calm.
One hand fisted my hair, the other took hold of my jaw.
He kissed me ruthlessly. Plundered angrily.
And he groaned and bit my lip, digging his fingers into my flesh with unflinching possession.
And jealousy. God, the jealousy beat through me in punishing fury, as he held me to his face and ate the breath from mouth.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, he broke away, chest heaving, and crossed the room back toward the lectern. In a subtle gesture, he thumbed away the lipstick from his mouth, wiping it onto his pants.
Trying to catch my breath, I somehow snapped into motion after that kiss, and after wiping my lips as he had, I hid my hands behind my back as I scampered in the opposite direction, putting distance between us.
An older woman I didn’t recognize popped her head into the room and smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry, Professor Bramwell, I didn’t realize you were holding a meeting.”
“We’re just wrapping up.”
I winced at the breathlessness in his voice, something the woman didn’t seem to catch onto when she answered, “No problem.”
She quickly exited, her heels clacking against the hardwood floor as she made her way back down the hallway.
Exhaling a long breath, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Not getting caught is far more difficult than you might imagine. Even my lab is subject to the occasional visitor.”
“We’ll have to be creative. Assuming you’re interested.”
“You know damn well I am,” he growled, as if it angered him to admit it.
“Then, I know of a place. Library rotunda. There’s a room at the top that’s used mostly for storage.”
“And how would one go about finding you there?”
“I have work study tonight. My shift ends at eight o’clock. The library doesn’t close until after midnight. I need to show you something, anyway. Something I think you might find fascinating.”
Wearing his usual frown, he swiped up his bag on the way to the door, and came to a stop alongside me. “If you’re smart, you won’t show.”
With a defiant tip of my chin, I stared back at him. “And if you want me as much as you claim, you will.”