“If you have questions about assignments or missed classes,” the professor continues, “she’s the one you’ll want to talk to.”
She gives a small wave and an easy smile, like she’s just another friendly face in the crowd.
But she’s not. Not to me.
I sink back in my seat, watching her settle at the small desk near the front by the professor’s office door. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, glances down at her notes, completely unaware she’s just flipped my world inside out.
That’s when it hits me—she’s older. Of course she is. And hell, knowing she’s older than me just turns me on more.
Lucky doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Of all the classrooms on campus, I gothers.
My brain keeps flashing back to Saturday night; the way she told me what to do, the way I listened. The way she made me forget everything else.
For a second, she glances my way. Just one look. Her mouth lifts into a polite smile before she turns back to the professor like she doesn’t know me at all.
Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe I was just another client to her.
Class starts. She sits quietly, jotting notes like she doesn’t have the power to break someone with a single word. I should be taking notes too, but my pen hasn’t touched the page.
The class drones on about deviance and social norms. The professor’s voice becomes background noise, but every example he gives twists into something else in my head—ways to get her alone, questions about consent that feel too personal now. I scribble notes I don’t read. I pretend to look at the slides and act like I care about labeling and stigma.
All I can think about is getting her back somewhere private; my dorm, Velvet House, some place where she can’t hide behind a mask or a polite smile. I imagine the way she sounds when she lets go. I want to be the one that makes her cry out this time. Scream my name as I give her pleasure like she did me. I know it’s messed up to want that, but I want it anyway.
No way I’m missing this class now. Not if she’s here every day. I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to have her.
Chapter Four
PENELOPE
What the fuckis he doing here?
I freeze halfway through taking notes on the syllabus, my pen hovering over the page. The guy sitting in the front—the one with the dark hair, the tattoos climbing up his arms, the glasses he pushes up with his thumb every few minutes…that’s him.
Talon.
The same Talon who was tied up and trembling under my voice less than forty-eight hours ago.
He can’t know it’s me. There’s no way.
I wore a mask. I always wear a mask with new clients until they earn more. The eyes are the thing I protect. Eyes give everything away if you let them. It keeps the worlds apart. It’s always been enough.
Except he’s looking at me like I’m not real, like I’m his leather-clad Cinderella and he’s just found the perfect glass toy to fit the fantasy. Want. Need. Hunger. It’s all there, written across his stupidly handsome face for anyone to see.
I grip my pen until the plastic creaks and keep my eyes on the attendance list. I read down the column like my life dependson it. Maybe he’s mistaken. Maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe I’m still carrying the club’s electricity, and everything looks like a spark.
Except I can feel it, his eyes on me. Every time I move, every time I shift in my chair, he follows.
Shit.
My weekend life cannot mix with this one. I need this credit. I need this TA position. If I lose it, I won’t graduate. And after my mom died, I promised I would finish. I promised I’d get the degree and sit across from kids who’ve lost too much and tell them the truth. That they can still build something. That grief is a shape you learn to carry, not a hole you fall into forever. Social work isn’t a fallback for me. It’s my whole damn future.
So I ignore him. I keep my head down. I put a quiet smile on when Professor Brose starts with the welcome speech. I write “Week One: deviance, social norms” at the top of my notes. I try to be the girl who has the color-coded Google Drive and the attendance spreadsheet and the reminder to post readings before noon.
Brose leans on the desk and taps a stack of syllabi into a neat rectangle that will last two seconds. He starts talking about the difference between folkways and mores. He says something about how groups draw lines and how they defend those lines when they feel threatened. He tells them how the study of deviance is really the study of power.
If he knew how strange it feels to sit here and listen to this with Saturday night still echoing in my head. Or knew how good control can feel when the person holding it cares about you, how carefully I keep my two lives in separate boxes that should never touch.
