Page 22 of Marrying My Professor

My skin prickles. “That sounds…”

“Like a totally fucked up college rumor?” She nods. “I know this campus is morbid.”

On the TV, Klaus makes a vow that sounds like a threat. Georgia murmurs, “Drama queen,” into the blanket.

I smile and hold onto the fact that here, on this couch, with a girl who calls me sugar and knows all the lines to a vampire show, would also miss her classes on the first day of school to cheer me up, because I see the sun slipping from the sky and I know she should have left fours hours ago and didn’t.

The episode ends. The next one queues. Georgia looks at me. “One more?”

“One more.”

7

ELARA

Alexander is the only thing in my head, a low-voltage current that won’t stop humming. I try to drown it with coffee and class notes and the steady march of to-do lists and my light stalking of Wesley Carter, but the hum keeps threading through everything. I even skipped my Thursday class last week just to get a reprieve, but it didn’t do anything, but make me yearn more.

I make my way inside Belgrave’s law building, white columns and cold light rising around me, my oversized cream turtleneck sweater dress cinched tight with a wide belt, bare thighs sealed off only by suede thigh-high boots that feel like a terrible idea in twenty-five-degree weather. The glassed-in atrium echoes every step as I carry my bag like armor, silently thinking seduction would be so much easier if my skin wasn’t bracing against the cold. The main library opens into a chessboard of tables and leather chairs, and my eyes sweep the room, already searching for my target.

Welsey lounges back in a leather chair, one ankle crossed over a knee, the sole of his shoe clean like he never touches ground unless he wants to and a navy blazer with a blue patch on the left side. Similar to the patch Georgia said was on the boy who was rumored to have been killed initiating into the Veritas. He’s talking to two guys who are trying too hard to look like they’re not trying at all. They laugh when he laughs. The table in front of him is an altar of textbooks, a half-open laptop, and a glass bottle of water that catches the light like a trick.

He notices me the way the sun notices glass—at first nothing changes, and then everything does. His posture shifts just slightly, interest sharpens behind a face that tries for indifference and fails, eagerness leaking through the cracks no matter how still he keeps to himself. With a brief tilt of his head he dismisses the two guys beside him, and they scatter without question.

“Elara,” he says, like maybe he already knew I was coming. “Long time no see.”

“Aww,” I pout, even as my mouth edges into a smile I don’t fully authorize. “You’ve been looking for me?”

“Have I been looking for the hottest girl on campus,” he says, amused, tracing an idle line on the table with his finger. “Absolutely. Sit.”

There’s a chair. I ignore it and take the corner of the table instead, the wood cool through the thin fabric of my dress. A few heads tip our way, but I keep my composure.

“I missed you in Draven’s class,” he says, appreciative, eyes dropping to my knees, then back to my face like he never left. “And at my party last weekend.”

“I got busy,” I say, crossing my ankles, which is absolutely not true. I lost his number, and Georgia didn’t know anyone who knew where the party was, so I had to cut my losses—which, oddly enough, seems to have worked in my favor, because Wesley looks even more interested now than he did the first time I saw him.

“A tragedy. We lit the house in gold for you.”

“You sure do know how to make a girl feel special,” I tell him, leaning forward so I can trial my nail up the slither of exposed chest.

“You bet I do,” he says simply, and I like that he doesn’t make a joke. “Consider yourself on probation. You can make it up to me, for the initiating party. The Kappa House, and this time there is a theme.”

“Theme?”

“Sin,” he says, teeth flashing. “But tasteful.”

“Of course,” I say, like sin is a dress code, because for all I know it could be an anything but clothes party and that would be sinful enough. “I’ll be there.”

His eyes heat in a way that’s more curiosity than lust. “Don’t make me chase you,” he says lightly. “I hate running.”

“I’ll save you the cardio.”

“And wear something tight, and red,” he says, and it’s less an order than an expectation that the world will comply.

“You’ll like whatever I show up in,” I counter, because this little boy can’t tell me what to wear, and if we are going to play this boring-ass game of cat-and-mouse then we have to play it by my rules. “Besides the red curtains match the drapes, Wes. I don’t want to show all my cards too quickly.”

“Miss Cross,” a voice says, crisp and measured, close enough that it finds the place between my ribs. “Is there a reason why you are sitting on the table and not in a chair?”

I don’t need to turn to know the shape of him, but I look up anyway and immediately regret it. Alexander is wearing a gray jacket fitted close, white shirt crisp at the throat and no tie, which allows for a slither of his chest to be exposed. I almost lick my lips as I remember the taste of his skin on my lips. Professor Draven’s face stays politely composed for everyone else, but his eyes catch on me and linger a beat too long, heat flickering there like he’s already decided how close is too close and hasn’t moved away yet.