Page 14 of Marrying My Professor

I pause like I’m considering whether to respond, then turn my head slightly, just enough to bring him into my peripheral vision. Up close, his eyes are an impossible shade of blue, bright and intent in a way that should make me feel chosen.

“Yes?” I ask, neutral, polite.

He smiles, wider now, clearly pleased I turned at all. “You new?”

I glance back at my notebook, then at him again, letting my gaze linger for half a beat longer than necessary. “Is it that obvious?”

He shrugs, unapologetic. “I’d remember you if you weren’t.”

“First week,” I say, turning forward again as the volume in the room rises, chairs scraping and voices overlapping near the podium. “I’m still figuring out where I’m supposed to be.”

Behind me, Wesley lets out a low laugh, the sound warm and self-satisfied, like my answer confirmed something he’d already decided.

“Lucky me,” he says, leaning in again. “I know exactly where you belong.” The words are meant to land smooth, maybe even possessive, but the grin in his voice undercuts it, turning the line juvenile, like he thinks he’s just won a prize instead of speaking to a woman. “What’s your name beautiful?”

I turn to look at him, my face, tilted in like I feel coy, a tad bit uncomfortable about my nerves. “Elara.”

“Welsey,” he purrs, leaving a thin wet cast around my ear. Gross.

I smile anyway, polite and practiced, even as I fight the urge to groan. A split second later there’s the unmistakable smack of hands meeting behind me, followed by a muffled laugh. I don’t have to look to know who it is. I’d bet my entire bank account it was Wesley and the greasy guy next to him congratulating themselves like middle schoolers who just got away with something.

The door at the front of the room opens, and conversation dies instantly.

I straighten automatically, pen stalling mid-line as measured footsteps cross the front of the lecture hall, already bracing myself for some old man with a sour mouth and narrowed eyes, the kind of professor who treats discomfort like a teaching tool and women like furniture. Instead, my stomach drops so violently it feels like I’ve missed a step on the stairs.

Alexander walks in.

Alexander—my personal, intrusive fantasy made flesh—moves toward the podium with an ease that borders on arrogance, and for a suspended, dizzying moment my mind refuses to reconcile the man standing in front of the class with the one who had me pliant and shaking two weeks ago, whispering commands like he had every right to own my pulse. He’s stripped of shadows and masks now, of bronze light and secrecy, but the daylight version of him is somehow worse, because there is nowhere for either of us to hide. His charcoal suit is tailored within an inch of its life, the vest beneath buttoned clean and unforgiving, a crisp white shirt and dark tie pulled tight at his throat. He looks contained in a way that feels intentional, like he’s holding something back, and I know exactly what he is hiding.

Then I notice the glasses, black frames resting low on his nose, and my thoughts scatter completely. Who knew a man in glasses was a bullet train straight to my watering pussy?

Those same impossible storm-gray irises sit cool and observant behind the lenses, professional and distant in a way that makes my thighs tense on pure instinct. Call me fucked up, but I like him like this—unreachable, controlled, visibly off-limits. I like knowing every girl in this room wants him, watches him, imagines herself under his attention, while I sit here already marked by the memory of having had him exactly where they wish they could. Right where everyone wants him.

His hair is dark and just slightly undone, like he’s dragged a hand through it once too often, and the faint stubble along his jaw makes him look far less academic than any professor has a right to be. He’s devastatingly composed, immaculate, a man who looks like he has never fucked me senseless in a private room and called me pet in a voice that still curls under my skin, like he has never tied my wrists with reverent precision or left me waking days later to six figures sitting quietly in my bank account as proof that he always finishes what he starts.

“Good morning,” he says, voice steady, familiar in a way that sends heat crawling up my spine. “Let’s take attendance.”

Alexander—Professor Draven—sets his briefcase down with controlled precision, surveys the room once, and then reaches for the attendance sheet on the podium. My stomach promptly free-falls. He’s going to see my name. He’s going to see me. He’s going to connect the dots and realize that the girl he fucked senseless two weeks ago is sitting three rows from the front pretending to be invisible. If the room weren’t so painfully quiet, I’d already be halfway out the door. I should have sat in the back. I should have listened to every self-preservation instinct I have ever had.

“ Adams, Rachel” he says, his gaze lifting as it sweeps the room and lands on a perky girl two rows over who immediately shoots her hand into the air like she’s auditioning for attention.

“Here, Professor Draven,” she replies, forcing her voice into something that’s meant to sound sultry.

Alexander doesn’t acknowledge it. He doesn’t even blink.

He continues down the list, voice even and unhurried, each name landing like the steady tick of a countdown. Around me, students answer without hesitation, chairs creak, papers shuffle, and I focus on breathing like that alone might keep my name from appearing on the page.

“Carter, Wesley.”

“Here,” Wesley answers immediately, smug confidence baked into the single word as he leans forward again, close enough that I can feel the heat of him at my back.

Alexander doesn’t look up when he marks him present, his pen moving methodically down the page in front of him, and something about that indifference tightens my chest more than if he had acknowledged him at all.

The list continues.

Each name lands like a measured step closer to the edge, my pulse syncing to the cadence of his voice, my nerves coiling tighter with every breath I take too shallow, too fast. I focus on the grain of the desk, on the faint scratch of pen against paper, on anything except the certainty that my name is waiting for him.

“Cross, Elara.”