The Forbidden Professor

Chapter 11

When the next lecture came, I got there early the way I always did. Took my seat in the front row.

Opened my notebook. Wrote the date at the top of the page.

My heart already beating faster than it should have been.

Nolan dropped in beside me a minute later with his coffee, nudged my arm in greeting, asked me something about the reading. I nodded. Not sure what he’d said.

Then the room changed.

He walked in and I felt it before I looked up. That pull, low and warm, that had apparently decided it lived in me now whether I invited it or not.

He set his briefcase down. Rolled his cuffs.

Then he looked up.

His gaze moved across the hall. Back. Middle. Front.

Then he found me.

My stomach tightened.

He stayed for a second longer. Then the lecture began.

I kept my pen moving and tried to write.

Ten minutes later, Nolan nudged me. “You okay?” he asked, looking at the page in my book.

I blinked and looked down at my notes and realized I’d stop writing.

I’d just been staring.

I nodded quickly and started writing again, glancing at Nolan from the corner of my eye. I made myself actually pay attention this time. I didn’t want any more strange looks from him. Didn’t want him to think that I was suddenly acting any differently.

When the class ended, I packed my bag and walked out with Nolan and the crowd.

I turned back once.

His eyes were already on me. My pulse raced. I broke it and kept walking.

~0~

The email about the Freshman closing ceremony had been sitting in my inbox all week. Mandatory. Semi-formal. The final Freshman event before the university settled into the ordinary rhythm of the term.

I had been planning to go in something low-key. Something I could almost forget I was wearing.

Then Lia found the dress.

Black, fitted, something I'd bought months ago for a reason I couldn't remember now. I'd bought it and not touched it since. Lia pulled it out.

"That one," she said.

I gave her a look. "It's just a closing ceremony."

"It's a semi-formal, Sienna." She was already holding it up, head tilted, assessing it with the narrowed eyes she reserved for things that mattered. "Do you know how good this is going to look on you?"

The dress was black silk that fell to my mid-thigh, fitted through the bodice, with a low back that crossed into a deep V. Simple from the front. The kind of dress that waited until you turned around to say what it actually was.

I looked at it.

I looked at Lia.

"Sit down," she said, pointing at the bed. "I'm doing your hair and makeup and I don't want to hear about it."

An hour later she stepped back with the satisfied expression of someone who had been right the whole time.

"You look gorgeous," she said.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The dress against my skin, hugging my curves. My dark hair down and curled, falling past my shoulders. I took in the way the silk moved when I moved, the way the cut did exactly what Lia had known it would do.

I stood there and tried not to think about him seeing me in it. And failed completely. My heart racing instead.

~0~

The main hall had been transformed. Low amber lighting that turned everything warm and a little unreal. Round tables pushed to the edges of the room. A cleared space in the center already full of people moving to the song the DJ had put on.

I walked in with Lia and told myself I wasn’t looking for anyone. I saw students milling around. Faculty standing to one side. I scanned their faces.

He wasn’t there.

Disappointment settled in me uncomfortably.

Lia grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward the dance floor and I went because standing at the edge of the room with this feeling was far worse than dancing.

~0~

The music was good. Lia danced the way she did everything, with her whole self, and I let it pull me in. Let the sound and the movement take up enough space that there wasn't room for much else.

It almost worked.

Then I felt it.

The back of my neck first. A warmth, a weight, a prickling sensation that moved down through me. That specific feeling I had apparently learned, and could recognize anywhere. Even in a crowded room. Even with music loud enough to feel in my chest.

I turned my head.

He was across the room.

Standing near the far wall with the other faculty who had to be there, jacket dark against the low light. He wasn't talking to whoever was next to him. He was looking at me. Not at the room. Not at the crowd between us. Just at me, with that same complete stillness he always had.

I turned back to Lia.

My heart was very loud.

"You okay?" she said close to my ear over the music.

"Fine," I said.

She looked at me for just half a second with those sharp eyes of hers and I watched her decide not to push it. Then the song changed and she grabbed both my hands and we started dancing again. I made myself stay present in my own body and tried to enjoy it.

But instead, I felt heated, my pulse beating harder than ever before.

~0~

Nolan found us after the fourth song, appearing at the edge of the floor with two glasses of punch and a smile, offering one to each of us. I took it gratefully and stepped to the side where the music was slightly less all consuming. Nolan followed me.

Lia drifted back toward a group of other girls near the center of the dance floor.

Nolan took me in. "You look—" he stopped. Started again, with a smile. "That dress."

"All Lia," I said. "I just showed up."

He laughed, warm and easy, and nodded back toward the dance floor, the music now shifting to something slower. "You want to?"

I swallowed the part of me that wanted something else.

"Sure," I said.

He was a decent dancer. Easy to follow, comfortable, and I let myself settle into it. Let the steadiness of it be what it was. It was fine. It was normal. It was exactly the kind of simple, uncomplicated thing that I should have been into.

Then I looked up.

Through the slow drift of bodies, through the low amber light.

And met his eyes.

He was in the same place he'd been before, and his expression still hadn't changed. He was still looking at me the way he had been looking at me all night…like I was the only thing who could hold his attention.

He nodded to the drinks table.

I stayed in the dance until the song ended.

Then I stepped away from Nolan with a smile. Murmured an excuse and made my way to the table near the edge of the room.

The table was mostly clear and quiet enough. I poured a glass I didn't particularly want and stood there and let the noise of the room exist at a distance.

Then he came.

I stood completely still with my glass in my hand and stared at the punch bowl and made myself breathe steadily.

Then I heard him.

"Leave in ten minutes."

I blinked then I was standing there alone at the punch table. The music still played. Lia was somewhere on the dance floor. Nolan was probably looking for me…and I was completely still with his words settling in me.

I looked at the clock on the wall.

I watched the minutes move. Then I left.