His Forbidden Model: The Professor's Obsession

10

Davin

The front door slammed shut somewhere behind her, but I made no move to follow.

I remained where I was, standing in front of the easel with my eyes fixed on the unfinished sketch.

The studio had gone quiet again. Just me, the charcoal dust clinging to my fingers, and the woman staring back at me from the paper.

Or at least my attempt at her.

I studied the lines for a long moment before setting the charcoal down and dragging a hand across my jaw.

It wasn’t right.

Not yet.

The posture was there. The shape of her mouth. The stubborn lift of her chin whenever she thought someone was being challenging. But the eyes still felt wrong.

And that was the problem.

It was always the eyes.

I leaned back in my chair and rubbed a hand across my jaw.

The truth was, Jasmine had been living inside my head long before she ever stepped into this studio.

The first spark had come at the bar.

I remembered noticing her before she’d even spoken to me. There had been something about the way she sat alone in a crowded room, looking like she wanted company and wanted to be left alone at the same time.

It had caught my attention in the way certain subjects always did. Then the hotel happened. And everything changed.

The memory surfaced before I could stop it.

I closed my eyes briefly.

That had been the moment everything changed.

The artist in me had spent years buried beneath lectures, research papers, faculty meetings, and obligations I no longer cared about.

Yet the second she stood in front of me, stripped of every layer of clothing, so carefree, her eyes drunk with desire, all I could think about was reaching for a sketchbook.

I had wanted to freeze that moment forever. Not because of s*x, or because she was beautiful—though she was.

But because she’d looked completely unguarded. And artists spend their entire lives searching for things that are honest.

It would have been a masterpiece. My private masterpiece.

Years ago, that kind of feeling would have sent me straight to a canvas. Lately, nothing had inspired that urge. Not landscapes. Not commissions. Not the countless subjects people insisted were worth painting.

Then Jasmine walked into my life, and suddenly I couldn’t stop drawing again.

A humorless laugh escaped me.

I had recognized her the second she entered my classroom. For a moment, I’d actually expected recognition in return. Instead, she’d walked right past me without the slightest indication that we’d ever met.

At the time, the realization had irritated me more than it should have. Then I remembered how much she’d had to drink that night.

With a quiet sigh, I sat back down and looked at the sketch again. The eyes were still wrong.

I’d spent most of the session trying to capture them, but every attempt felt incomplete. There was something in Jasmine’s gaze that refused to stay still long enough to be put on paper.

I reached for the charcoal, intending to try again, when my phone suddenly rang.

I glanced at the screen and frowned.

Jessie. The assistant lecturer assigned to my course.

Answering the call, I leaned back in my chair.

“You do realize it’s eight p.m., right, Jessie?”

“I’m sorry, Professor, but you told me to call you at eight sharp.”

My frown deepened.

“And why exactly would I tell you to do that?”

There was a brief pause before she answered.

“The test tomorrow, sir. You said it would be safer to print everything tonight so there’d be less risk of the questions getting leaked.”

I rubbed a hand over my forehead as the memory came rushing back.

Right. The test.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “I must’ve forgotten.”

“Oh, sorry, sir. If this is a bad time, I could—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I cut in, already standing and reaching for my car keys. “Just wait outside my office. I’ll be there soon.”

The university wasn’t far from the studio. One of the reasons I chose this location was that it was tucked away from the rest of the city, yet close enough for convenience.

Twenty minutes later, I was pulling into the faculty parking lot. Jessie was waiting outside my office, exactly where I’d told her to be.

The moment she saw me, she straightened.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting.”

She shook her head quickly.

“No, that’s fine, Professor.”

I unlocked the office door and glanced over my shoulder.

“You brought the flash drive?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Come in.”

She followed me inside as I switched on the lights and headed toward my desk.

The studio occupied most of the floor, but there was a smaller section at the back that functioned as a living space whenever I worked too late to bother going home. A bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and a bathroom. Nothing impressive, but it served its purpose.

The moment I stepped inside, I dropped my keys onto the holder beside the counter and headed straight for the kitchen.

Dinner tonight consisted of instant noodles and poor life choices.

I emptied the noodles into a bowl, added the seasoning and water, and then shoved it into the microwave before making my way back toward the studio.

That was when I noticed it.

The sketch.

I’d left in such a hurry earlier that I hadn’t covered it.

Muttering under my breath, I crossed the room, reaching for the cloth draped over a nearby chair.

Before I could pull it over the easel, my phone started ringing.

A video call.

I already knew who it was before looking.

With a sigh, I answered and dropped into a nearby chair.

“What do you want from me, Lucas?”

Lucas rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Well, hello to you too, you grumpy old man. You know, normal people usually start with, ‘Hi, Lucas. How was your day?’ Words I can never seem to get from you, despite the unfortunate fact that we’re best friends.”

I rubbed my forehead.

“Hi, Lucas. How was your day?”

“It’s too late for that now. I already asked.”

I huffed a laugh despite how tired I felt.

His eyes narrowed as he studied the screen.

“Where the hell are you?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re sleeping at the studio again.”

“I had a few things to finish here.”

“A few things?” He looked unconvinced. “So you are sleeping there.”

I shrugged.

Lucas snorted. “You’re an erotica artist, Davin. You don’t spend nights hiding in your studio unless you have a muse.”

“Maybe I decided to paint landscapes.”

The look he gave me said exactly what he thought of that answer.

I leaned back in my chair, keeping my expression neutral.

The truth was, I had tried landscapes. More than once. But from the moment I saw her, every attempt after that suddenly felt pointless.

Every canvas became her.

Every unfinished sketch somehow turned into her eyes, her mouth, and the stubborn tilt of her chin.

At this point, I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to get her out of my system or trapping her there permanently.

Lucas chuckled.

“As if—”

Then he suddenly leaned closer to the screen.

“Wait. What the hell is that?”

My brows furrowed.

“What?”

I glanced over my shoulder and immediately saw what had caught his attention.

The unfinished sketch. It was too far away for him to see clearly, but it was visible enough.

“Is that a lingerie painting?” he asked.

I shifted slightly until the easel disappeared from view.

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Just something I had in my head.”

The look he gave me made it clear he wasn’t buying that for a second.

“And you think I believe that?” he asked. “Come on, Davin. It’s me.”

I rubbed a hand over my jaw and looked away. Unfortunately, Lucas had known me long enough to recognize guilt when he saw it.

His expression changed immediately.

“Who is she?”

For a moment, I considered lying. Then I decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

“Just a one-night stand.”

To my surprise, Lucas visibly relaxed. He breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back in his chair.

“Okay.”

I frowned.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s good.”

I almost laughed.

“Good?”

“One-night stands are fine, Davin. One-night stands leave.”

Something tightened in my chest at that. Before I could examine why, the microwave beeped from the kitchen. The sound cut through the conversation.

I stood immediately. “Look, I have to go.”

Lucas pointed a finger at the screen.

“We’re not done with this conversation.”

“We are.”

“Davin—”

I ended the call before he could finish.

The screen went dark. For a moment, the studio fell silent again. I set my phone on a nearby table and crossed the room toward the easel.

The cloth I’d meant to use earlier was still draped over the chair.

This time, I pulled it over the sketch without hesitation. Lucas was the last person I wanted asking questions.

Especially about this. Not when he knew exactly why I’d stopped creating that kind of art in the first place.

Once the sketch was covered, I moved toward the back of the studio and unlocked the pantry tucked behind the storage shelves.

Most people assumed it was storage space.

In a way, they were right.

I unlocked the door and pulled it open, placing the latest unfinished sketch inside.

But it wasn’t there by itself. It had just joined dozens of others.

My gaze moved across them slowly.

Pages torn from sketchbooks, loose charcoal studies, and half-finished drawings pinned to boards.

Jasmine sitting alone at the bar.

Jasmine laughing at something I’d said.

Jasmine staring into her drink.

Jasmine before she’d ever known my name.

Before the arrangement. Before the classroom. Before any of this.

The first sketch had been drawn the morning after we met, and the second later that same afternoon.

After that, I’d stopped counting.

I stared at the collection for a long moment, then I closed the door and turned the key.

It should have felt like putting the obsession away.

Instead, it felt like I was locking it somewhere safe.