4. Lynn
— ? —
Lynn
The water is too hot.
I know it’s too hot because my skin is turning pink and the mirror fogged over ten minutes ago and I’m still standing here, forehead pressed against the tile, replaying the moment he caught me like it’s a movie I can’t stop rewatching.
His hands on my waist. The heat of him through my clothes. The way he looked at me before he buried his face in my neck-
I squeeze my eyes shut. This is insane. He’s my professor. My professor. I should be thinking about the reading assignment, about the essay due next week, about literally anything other than the rough drag of his tongue up my throat.
But my body doesn’t care about ethics.
My body is a traitor. It remembers.
The steam curls around me, thick and warm, and I let my hand drift down my stomach without making the conscious decision to move. This is fine. Totally normal. People touch themselves thinking about inappropriate things all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.
Except it does. It means I’m fucked.
My fingers find the slick heat between my thighs, and I gasp at how sensitive I already am. Just from thinking about him. From remembering the growl in his voice, the gold flash of his eyes, the way he said mine like it was a fact of the universe.
“Mate,” I whisper to the empty shower, testing the word on my tongue.
My clit throbs.
Jesus.
I circle it slowly, teasing myself, imagining it’s his hand instead of mine. He’d be thorough, I think. Deliberate. The kind of man who pays attention, who notices everything, who would take his time learning exactly what makes me fall apart.
The water beats down on my shoulders as I lean back against the tile. My other hand comes up to cup my breast, thumb brushing my nipple, and I’m so wet I can feel it even with the shower running. Slippery and swollen and aching.
I think about his mouth on my neck. The heat of his breath. The way his hands tightened on my waist like he was holding himself back from something more.
What if he hadn’t held back?
I let the fantasy build, because apparently I have no self-control tonight: his body pressing me into the shelves, books falling around us, his hand sliding up my thigh while his mouth works down my throat.
He’d be hard, I know he’d be hard, and I’d feel it against my hip, thick and insistent, while his fingers found me wet and wanting.
“Fuck,” I breathe, and my hand moves faster.
I imagine him growling my name. Imagine him dropping to his knees in the stacks, shoving my skirt up, putting his mouth where I need it most. That tongue, god, that tongue, I already know what it feels like, hot and demanding, and the thought of it between my legs makes my knees buckle.
I brace myself against the wall and fuck my own hand, two fingers now, curling them the way I like, my palm grinding against my clit with every thrust. The pressure builds fast, too fast, because I’m not thinking about some generic fantasy anymore.
I’m thinking about him. His voice. His hands.
The way he looked at me like I was something precious and dangerous all at once.
“Professor-”
The word slips out before I can stop it, and the shame of it, the wrongness, only makes me wetter.
I’m close. So close. My thighs are shaking, my breath coming in gasps, my body clenching around my fingers, desperate for something bigger, something more-
I think about his teeth on my throat.
I think about him calling me his mate.
I imagine what it would feel like to have him inside me, filling me up, claiming me the way his voice claimed me in that lecture hall-
The orgasm crashes through me, sudden and total.
I cry out, too loud, definitely too loud, and my whole body seizes, pleasure rolling through me in pulses while I ride my own hand through it, thinking Miles Miles Miles even though I should be thinking Professor Draven or better yet literally anyone else.
When it’s over, I slump against the tile, breathing hard, the water starting to cool around me.
“Cool,” I say to nobody. “That was normal and fine and not at all a sign of impending disaster.”
My reflection in the foggy mirror doesn’t look convinced.
By the time my shift starts, the library is quiet, the way it always is on Thursdays.
It’s always quiet on Thursdays, most students have given up on the week by now, but tonight feels especially still. I’m shelving alone, pushing my squeaky cart through the stacks, trying very hard not to think about what I did in the shower three hours ago.
(I’m failing. I’m failing spectacularly.)
My phone buzzes.
Mom: how’s the new professor??
I stare at the message for a long moment.
Me: fine
Mom: just fine? you were so worried!
Me: he’s good. knows his stuff. very professional.
The lie tastes sour even in text form.
Mom: that’s wonderful honey! proud of you for giving him a chance
I shove my phone back in my pocket before I can spiral further. Shelving. Focus on shelving. The Dewey Decimal System doesn’t care about your inappropriate fantasies-
“Good evening.”
I spin so fast I knock a book off the cart.
Professor Draven is standing at the end of the aisle, and he looks-
God, he looks good.
He’s not wearing his teaching clothes tonight. No sweater, no button-down, no glasses. Instead, he’s in a dark henley that clings to his shoulders and jeans that probably cost more than my rent and he’s looking at me like he’s been thinking about me too.
“Professor.” My voice comes out squeaky. “It’s - we close in fifteen minutes.”
“I know.” He moves closer, unhurried, and I catch a whiff of something warm and woodsy. “I wanted to return a book.”
“You could use the drop box.”
“I could.”
He doesn’t elaborate. He also doesn’t stop moving until he’s close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at him, close enough that I can pick out the thread of amber running through the green, close enough that my traitorous body remembers exactly what it felt like to have his hands on my waist.
“How are you finding the coursework?” he asks, like this is a normal conversation and not an ambush in the stacks.
“Fine.”
“Just fine?”
“The reading’s good.” I’m babbling. Why am I babbling? “I liked the piece on transformation myths. The way you connected it to identity theory was - I don’t know. It made sense. In my brain.”
His mouth curves. “That’s the goal.”
We stare at each other. The silence stretches.
“You know,” I say, because apparently my filter has completely abandoned me, “most professors don’t personally return books at 9:45 p.m.”
“Most professors aren’t me.”
“Clearly.”
His smile widens, just slightly, and my pulse trips over itself. He’s so pretty. It’s actively unfair. Nobody should be allowed to be this pretty while also being this inappropriate.
“I wanted to apologize,” he says.
“For?”
“The other day. In class.” His jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly. “My behavior was… unprofessional.”
“You growled at a guy for asking about the reading list.”
“Yes.” He doesn’t even blink.
“And called him yours. In front of the whole class.”
“I said mine, actually, but yes.”
“And you think an apology fixes that?”
“No.” His eyes meet mine, steady and dark. “But I thought you deserved one anyway.”
I don’t know what to say to that. He’s looking at me with such intensity, such focused attention, that I feel like the only person in the world. It’s intoxicating. It’s terrifying.
“I should finish shelving,” I say.
“Let me help.”
“You’re a professor.”
“I’m capable of alphabetization.”
“That’s not-” I huff out a laugh despite myself. “Fine. But if anyone asks, you insisted.”
“Noted.”
We work in surprisingly comfortable silence for a few minutes. He hands me books; I shelve them. Our fingers brush more than strictly necessary, and every time they do, I feel it like a spark.
“Question for you,” I say, reaching for a copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
“Anything.”
“Why mythology? Like, what made you choose it?”
He considers this. “I grew up with the stories. My family is… traditional. Old tales, old ways. By the time I realized other people considered them just myths, I was already in love with them.”
“That’s actually kind of beautiful.”
“Is it?”
“Most academics have boring origin stories. ‘I read a book once and it changed my life.’ Yours sounds like you were raised by druids.”
He laughs, that same surprised, warm sound from before, and I feel it in my whole body.
“Something like that,” he says. “And you? Why literature?”
“ADHD,” I say honestly. “Reading was the only thing that made my brain shut up. Stories gave me structure when nothing else did. And myths…” I trail off, suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know. There’s something about them. The way they try to explain the unexplainable. Make sense of chaos.”
“The intersection of desire and the inhuman,” he quotes back at me.
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything you say.”
The words land between us, heavy with meaning. I should deflect, make a joke. Instead, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind:
“Do you know who Britney Spears is?”
He blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“Britney Spears. Pop star. ‘Baby One More Time’? ‘Toxic’?” I gesture vaguely. “Cultural icon? Documented mistreatment by the media? Triumphant return to autonomy?”
His expression is completely blank.
“Oh my god.” I actually stop shelving to stare at him. “You don’t know who Britney Spears is.”
“Should I?”
“Should you - she’s Britney. Everyone knows Britney. My grandmother knows Britney. There are probably uncontacted tribes in the Amazon who know Britney.”
“I’ve led a… sheltered life.”
“Sheltered isn’t the word. This is cultural illiteracy. This is a crime.” I’m fully turned toward him now, hands on my hips. “What about… okay, what about Friends?”
Nothing.
“The Office?”
A slight head tilt.
“Mean Girls? Twilight? High School Musical?”
“I’ve heard of Twilight,” he offers.
“You’ve heard of it. Have you seen it? Read it?”
“No.”
“This is a disaster.” I’m pacing now, genuinely distressed. “You’re teaching mythology in literature and you don’t understand modern cultural mythology. Do you know how much of contemporary storytelling is shaped by-” I stop. Spin to face him. “I’m going to fix this.”
“You’re going to… fix me?”
“I’m going to educate you. Pop culture boot camp. We start with the essentials and work our way up to the discourse.”
“That sounds…” He’s smiling now, soft and amused and something else I can’t name. “Educational.”
“It will be. I’m an excellent teacher.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
The aisle feels smaller than it did a minute ago, closer, and he’s looking at me like I’ve done something remarkable by yelling at him about Britney Spears.
Then his nostrils flare.
It’s subtle, barely a movement, but I see it. His eyes darken, and something shifts in his posture, tension coiling through him like a spring.
“Miss Crowe,” he says, and his voice has gone rough, strained, the same way it sounded before he licked my throat. “Your hand.”
“What about my hand?”
“Where has it been tonight?”
The question doesn’t make sense. And then it does.
Oh god.
The shower. My hand. The lingering scent of-
My face goes nuclear. “That’s - you can’t - how do you even-”
“I should go.” He’s stepping back, jaw tight, hands clenched at his sides. “I’ll see you in class, Miss Crowe.”
“Wait-”
But he’s already walking away, his stride fast and rigid, like he’s fleeing something he can’t outrun.
I stand alone in the stacks, mortified and confused and achingly, stupidly aroused.
He could smell it. He knew exactly what I did in the shower, hours later, through my clothes.
What the hell is he?