His laugh follows me all the way to my car.
Chapter Fourteen
TALON
I’m screwedthe second I walk into class.
I tell myself I’m fine, that I’m chill. That I can sit through fifty minutes of Intro to Sociology without staring at her like a starving animal.
Then I see her.
She’s at the front of the room, half-bent over her desk, sorting papers, and it’s game over.
The overhead lights find her hair first—platinum strands with darker roots that look deliberate, expensive, too soft for this campus lighting. Her skin’s bronze, the kind of glow that doesn’t fade in winter. The curve of her cheekbones could cut glass; her mouth is full and glossy. And then there’s the outfit.
A black-and-white Houndstooth blazer over a thin black cami that dips low enough to destroy me, high-waisted leather shorts cinched with gold buttons, and heels that click on the tile every time she moves. Professional enough for plausible deniability. Cruel enough to make me question the existence of mercy.
My dick twitches.
I adjust my backpack a little lower and head to my usual spot before anyone clocks what’s happening in my jeans. The room smells like dry erase markers, cheap perfume, and stress. People file in with laptops and dead eyes, talking about exams and parties. Nobody’s really paying attention to her yet.
I am.
All I can see is coffee shop sunlight on her hair, the way she laughed when she said she didn’t believe in monogamy, the casual way she dropped that she already has two guys in her orbit and doesn’t plan on apologizing for it.
Two boyfriends.
And here I am—the kid, the student, the one she keeps patting on the head.
She straightens, flips through her notes, then looks up. Our eyes catch. It’s not long, but it’s enough. A flicker of recognition. A hint of something amused.
Professor Brose is slouched at the back, still nursing his “accident” injuries and pretending to supervise while she runs the show. It’s obvious who’s actually teaching. She straightens, flips through her notes, then looks up. Our eyes catch. It’s not long, but it’s enough—a flicker of recognition, a hint of something amused.
“Good afternoon,” she says. “Let’s talk about gender and social roles.”
Fucking perfect.
I bite back a grin and open my notebook.
My pen moves, but my brain isn’t on the notes. My brain is on her leaning against the desk, fingers loose around a marker, mouth shaping words about gender, identity, and the boxes people get shoved into. About how we’re all performing versions of ourselves just to make other people comfortable—and all I can think is how she looks when she isn’t performing for anyone.
I take notes that make no sense.
At Velvet, she’s chaos. Here, she’s control.
And I want to find out what happens when the two collide.
By the time she caps the dry-erase marker, the hour has vanished; chairs scrape back, students stretch, and the room fills with the low hum of bodies eager to escape, but I stay exactly where I am.
She’s alone at the front, stacking assignments, the gold buttons on her shorts catching the light. Her perfume hangs in the air—coffee, vanilla, something darker underneath. I stand before I can stop myself.
“Can I help you with something, Talon?” she asks without looking up. Professional. Controlled.
It should stop me. It doesn’t.
“Yeah,” I say. “I want to know when I can get you one-on-one again.”
Her eyes lift, slow and skeptical. “Office hours are on the syllabus.”
