Chapter 20 Reyna
REYNA
Ninety-three minutes.
That’s how long I’ve spent questioning whether it would be fine to let my professor fuck me in front of the entire class.
I haven’t absorbed any information, nor have I been able to understand a single word Maddox has said—let alone a full sentence.
I was wound up after Maddox teased the ever-loving shit out of me on the subway.
Because I’m apparently broken and entirely desensitized to murder, my libido decided that a crime scene was the right place to go into fucking heat all because my goddamn professor validated my fascination with a serial killer no one else believes exists.
Without thinking, I pull Maddox’s scarf higher to bring it closer to my nose. My core tightens as his scent fills my lungs. Even my bra feels too harsh against my nipples. Every time I move, I’m reminded of the tear he’s made in my tights and how soaked my underwear still is.
My attention falls to my empty Word document before going back to Maddox. He’s just so—infuriating. He’s going to make me go crazy, and I think I am crazy for thinking that we may genuinely be compatible.
He may be eleven years older and my professor, but once I graduate, neither will matter. We’ll still share the same broken edges that somehow fit together.
And as for the rest of him? Attractive doesn’t begin to cut it.
The black sweater he’s thrown over his white button-up is clinging to his chest and shoulders, tapering at his waist, down to the belt I know costs enough to make me cry.
His dark-gray pants stretch and hug his thighs whenever he paces the classroom.
And is it just me, or is the fabric straining over his bulge more than usual?
Maddox looks like an academic god when he has a blazer on. Without it, he’s pure danger. The Clark Kent type that causes the crime. To think the same hand he’s gesturing with was between my thighs a couple of hours ago.
I shift in my seat, eyelids growing heavy as my focus drifts back to the bulge in his pants. He feels it, doesn’t he? The pull between us.
“Miss Sinaga?”
I blink. The blood rushes to my face. Half the class is staring at me. I clear my throat and sit straighter. “What was that?”
Nicole gives me a look of pity as I try to stop imagining my professor doing indecent things to me.
A slow, knowing smile spreads across his lips, and I glare at him. Jerk. “I was asking what the intention was behind the tonal contrast.”
“Um.” It takes far too long for my brain to process work.
Someone snorts a laugh behind me, and I fumble, dropping my pen on the floor.
My skin burns hotter as I scramble to pick it up.
I suck in a sharp breath to regulate my breathing only for it to be thrown out when I look up to find Maddox glaring at whoever it was who was amused by my struggling. Even I’d wither under that stare.
I exhale and try to focus on the projector.
The screenshot is from Hereditary, a horror film that’s hailed by critics and hated by the public—it’s by the same man who directed Midsommar, one of my favorite movies—a fact I happened to have shared with Maddox in the cab, right before he went down on me.
On the screen is a woman, played by Toni Collette, sitting alone in a warmly lit workshop filled with golden hues, while the rest of the house recedes into shadows behind her.
The class know-it-all beside me stirs in his seat. “Psychological—”
“It shows psychological fragmentation,” I say a little too loud before Austin can answer for me.
“Aster uses the warmth to deceive the viewer into thinking she’s in control, while the rest of the house slips into colder, fractured tones.
It’s a visual way to mirror emotional dissonance. ” It doesn’t come out any friendlier.
“That’s correct, Miss Sinaga,” Maddox praises.
I narrow my eyes at him. That rat bastard knew I was distracted because of him.
Pissed off, sexually frustrated, and completely and utterly wound up, the moment class ends, I jump to my feet and shove everything in my bag.
“Someone’s in a rush.” Nicole laughs as she leisurely packs up.
“I have an appointment.” With my vibrator. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I throw the strap over my shoulder and beeline for the exit.
This is our last class of the day, and we usually walk to the subway together, but I’m not waiting. The sooner I get home, the better it’d be for society. Maddox’s voice stops me.
“Miss Sinaga, a moment.”
I’m going to kill him.
Maddox is the reason I’m acting this way, and goddamn him for looking so good, sitting on the edge of the desk, legs crossed at the ankle as he flicks through a textbook.
“Good luck,” Nicole whispers, patting me on the back as she passes me.
I glower and clutch the strap of my satchel, striding up to him as students pour out of the class.
Two students reach him before I can, and I’m left to fester and curse him and his bloodline while they ask their million questions.
A solid five minutes pass, and they’re still talking. Everyone else has left.
What could they possibly want to know that they can’t just look up online? A child could understand the criteria of our next assignment.
I tap my fingers on my arm as I wait. Finally, they say their thanks and fuck off. But apparently Maddox has zero consideration for me, my time, or my libido, because the moment they walk away, he turns around and starts packing up as if I don’t exist.
The wooden door slams shut, and I take it as my cue to leave as well, but once again, he stops me before I can.
“Lock the door, Miss Sinaga.”
My irritation vanishes, and my internal temperature skyrockets when he looks up at me out of the corner of his eye, arching a brow in challenge.
He straightens to his full height and adjusts his belt, pulling my attention down to the bulge in his pants that’s doubled in size.
I swallow the lump in my throat. It doesn’t go away.
“After what you did in the subway, and embarrassed me in front of the entire class, you must be delusional if you think you can order me around.” I’m proud of myself for keeping my voice measured when my core is clenching with my internal battle not to stare at his erection.
Maddox prowls forward, eating the distance between us.
He reaches out to hold my chin between his thumb and forefinger, and tips my head to the side so he can lean down and say against my ear, “Unless you’d like for someone to walk in and see your pretty lips around my cock, I suggest you lock the door for your private lesson. ”
Molten desire floods through me. Maddox straightens, eyes falling to my mouth when it parts on a soundless gasp. In here? This is a classroom.
Every single alarm bell is going off in my head, and each one of them is telling me how stupid I’d be for doing what he says. Yet delicious tension coils through my flesh at the danger that comes from doing something I shouldn’t.
Oxygen stutters in my chest as I glance back at the door. Doing as he says will plunge us deeper toward the point of no return, where it’ll be so much harder to claw my way back out and try to move on after knowing what life is like with Maddox Shaw.
I’ll have to go back to being invisible and living with a brain that no one understands.
This… It can’t be permanent, can it? Could we actually make this work? Keep what we have going on in secret until it’s safe? Does he see us moving in that direction too?
Looking into his eyes, I think I know the answer. It’s more than lust or pure want, it’s a desperate, visceral need that surpasses mere physical touch. I’ve written about it before, and have only dreamed of being able to encapsulate it on the screen.
My heart hammers in my chest, and the warmth that follows stings my eyes, because I know without a doubt that I want this to work out between us.
I let the strap of my bag fall and set my satchel and outer layers down. Then, before I can change my mind, I turn around.
“Reyna, if you lock that door, there’s no going back.”
I pause to look at him over my shoulder. One word crosses my mind: good.
The doubts are still there. No one has ever stayed or picked me first—not in the way that really counts. This could always be a game to him. Just a bit of fun with his student to pass the time. But I can’t let fear control me.
I keep walking until my fingers hover over the lock, and with a resounding echo that cracks through the room like thunder, it clicks into place.
“Knees.”
Three seconds is how long I give myself to accept fate. Slowly, I turn around, afraid that it’ll all vanish if I move too quickly. He watches me with the steady surety of a man who decided this moment was happening long before I did.
The air is heavy with tension and words unspoken. The room is charged with something volatile that could strike either of us with the slightest misstep. If I concentrate hard enough, I can hear his pulse beat as rapidly as mine.
I keep walking until there’s a foot of weighted space separating us. We stare at each other. Study each minute movement. Maddox reaches for me, skating his fingers along my jaw before tucking a lock of hair behind my ears. The touch feels like forbidden magic, and I’m at the whim of his spell.
“Knees, Reyna,” he repeats, voice a soft demand.
Another three seconds. I spend each one of them filling my lungs; then I do what fate intended.
My legs shake as I stare up at him, slowly lowering until the wooden floor digs into skin. Black devours all traces of green in his irises, and I can track every rise and fall of his chest.
Backlit by the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows, he looks like he could be a deity of death and art with his dark clothing, blackened eyes, oozing dominance. Yet from down here, kneeling before him, I feel powerful.
There’s power in safety, being seen and untouchable, the centerpiece and every focal point.