Corrupt me Professor

Chapter 1 Aria Voss POV The blindfold reeked of smoke, old leather, and the kind of money that bought lives. The kind that had just bought mine. Lot 17 The auctioneer said: Female Twenty years of age Virgin... Doctor verified.. I heard the file hit the table. Three pages: my blood type, my dental records, and one word stamped in black: intact My hands were cuffed behind my back. I wore a silk robe and nothing else. The room was freezing and my body shook. “Bidding starts at one hundred thousand.” “One-fifty,” a man said. “Two hundred.” Another voice, eager. “Two-fifty.” Someone laughed. I thought of Dad, detective James Voss. He’d been a cop for twenty years. He died last month and left me with a debt to pay. Five hundred thousand dollars, to the mafia. They didn’t send bills. They sent photos. Last week I found a silk paper under my door. It was me asleep in my dorm. Written on it: pretty girls shouldn’t have poor dads. “Three hundred,” a new voice said. The room went dead silent. That voice was deep, calm. It didn’t ask. It commanded. When it spoke, people stopped breathing. “Four hundred,” he said. “Cash tonight.” The auctioneer stuttered. “Sir, we have protocol” “Five hundred,” he said. It wasn’t a bid. It was a sentence. No one else spoke. “Sold,” the auctioneer whispered. “To the gentleman in the back. Lot 17 is gone.” I heard steps, slow sure. Like he owned the floor. Someone ripped off my blindfold. The light stung. I saw gold walls, red carpet, and men in suits who suddenly found their drinks fascinating. Then I saw him. Professor Lorenzo D’Amato. My criminology professor. He stood three feet away, black suit, black tie, and a face that showed nothing. He looked at me like I was a case study, not a woman he had just bought for half a million dollars. He was thirty-four. I was twenty. I had sat in his class for two months. I had wanted him for two months, and I had hated myself for it. He had given me a C on my midterm. In red pen, he had written: Miss Voss, your arguments lack penetration. See me after class. I had thought he meant my essay. “Hello, Aria,” he said. He used my first name. Not Miss Voss. Aria. My name in his mouth did something to my stomach, something hot and wrong. “You,” I whispered. He tilted his head. He looked at my face, then my throat, then the way the robe had slipped off my shoulder. He saw the scar on my thigh. I had gotten it at fourteen. I had been sad, and I had been stupid. His eyes landed on it, held for a second, and then moved on. But he saw. He knew. “Disappointed?” he asked. “You teach class on Tuesdays.” “I do. And I break the law the rest of the week.” He nodded, and the cuffs clicked open. My arms screamed. I didn’t rub them. I wouldn’t give him that. “You can’t do this,” I said. “I did.” He pulled out his phone, tapped it twice, and didn’t look down. “Your father’s debt is gone. Zero. I paid the funeral home. I stopped the eviction from your dorm. You’re welcome.” The room spun. “How do you—” “I make it my business to know who owes my friends money, Miss Voss.” His voice went cold, clinical. “Especially when their daughters wear short skirts to my eight a.m. class and make it hard to lecture about impulse control.” He had known. For months, he had known. He had watched me squirm in his class while my dad’s debt bled interest. “Stand up.” I stood. The robe slipped more. I didn’t fix it. He had paid for this. He could look. And he did.and they took inventory. He wasn’t looking at a student. He was looking at property. Because I was. “The car is outside,” he said. “We leave now, or Matteo Russo buys you tomorrow. He doesn’t pay cash, Aria. He pays with a knife. He starts with fingers.” Matteo Russo. The name from the news. The name from my nightmares. “Why?” I asked, and the word scraped my throat raw. “Why me? Why five hundred thousand?” He stepped close. I smelled his cologne. Wood, smoke, and sin. I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “Because,” he said, and his voice dropped so only I heard it, “I read your papers for two months, Aria. And I wanted to bend you over my desk since the first day. You bit your lip when you argued about intent, and all I thought about was teaching you what penetration really means.” My knees went weak. He caught my arm, his thumb found my pulse, and it was racing. He felt it. His jaw ticked. “Do you still want to ask questions?” he murmured. “Or do you want to save your father’s name? Right now, the headline says _ dead cop who owed the mafia_ You can change that.” I thought of Dad’s coffin. The flag on it. The men at his funeral who weren’t there to mourn. I thought of the photo. Me, asleep. Helpless. I lifted my chin. “I’m not going with you.” “No,” he said. “You’re coming with me.” He turned and walked to the door. He didn’t look back. He knew I would follow. I stood there, and I counted to three. One... I could run. Two.... I could scream. Three.... I could call the police and tell them my professor bought my virginity. Then I remembered his red ink: _Your arguments lack penetration._ I followed him. The car was black, inside and out. He opened the back door for me, like this was a date. I slid in. The leather was cold against my bare legs. He got in beside me. He didn’t look at me. He pressed a button, and a wall slid up between us and the driver. Now, it was just us. He pulled a folder from his jacket. My name was typed on it: _VOSS, A._ He opened it. It was my midterm. The C- was circled in red, so hard the pen had torn the paper. “First lesson, Miss Voss,” he said. He turned the page. There was a new grade. Fresh red ink. *A+.* Under it, one sentence in his handwriting. See me after class. Detention. My office. Eight p.m. Tonight. He clicked his pen shut. Finally, he looked at me. His eyes weren’t a teacher’s eyes. They were the eyes of a man who had just spent half a million dollars to own a woman. To own me. “Do you understand your terms, Aria?” His voice was soft, the same voice he used to explain murder in class. I shook my head. “Then let me teach you,” he said. He leaned in, but he didn’t touch me. His breath hit my lips. “For one semester, you’re mine. My bed, my rules, my body to use. You break a rule, I punish you. You come without permission, I ruin you. You call me Professor when I’m inside you, and you call me Professor when you beg me to stop.” I couldn’t breathe. “You don’t like that?” He smiled, and it wasn’t kind. “Good. I don’t want you to like it. Not yet.” He checked his watch. “We go to my penthouse. You shower. You eat. At eight p.m., detention starts.” He looked away, out the window, like I was already dealt with. But his hand was on his thigh. His fist was closed. He wanted to touch me. He hated that he wanted it. And I felt it. I felt his hunger in the air, and it terrified me. It also made me wet. I hated that, too. He looked at me one last time. I saw a possessive and obsessed man, and there was no going back.