His arms are crossed over his chest like he’s been waiting for me, and he wears an unreadable expression. His wavy hair is now slightly mussed, like he’s been dragging his hands through it out of frustration.
The image sends a shiver slinking down my spine, and I freeze in place.
Fuck me, I’d forgotten just how hot he was. Even standing at the top of his class earlier, I hadn’t been entirely sure. My brain was still reaching for anything that could disprove this being the awkward man who made me come on his hand last week.
Standing here now, though, there’s no denying it’s him.
“What are you doing?” he asks, his voice carefully detached.
“I was told I could get a copy of the syllabus from you.”
“Only students enrolled in my courses receive syllabi.”
My head cocks. “Iamenrolled.”
“You were. I’m having that taken care of.” He surges forward, reaching for the door and pulling it wider. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got?—”
“You can’t kick me out just because we hooked up.”
“Jesus,” he hisses, sliding a hand around my waist to pull me into the office as he slams the door shut. As soon as he touches me, though, he withdraws, curling those icy fingers into a fist and clenching his teeth. “Do youwantme to get fired?”
“I have no particular feelings on the matter,” I reply, lifting my chin in defiance. “All I wanted was a syllabus.”
His eyes vibrate with his ire, but I lose myself in the mossy shade anyway. Soft yet firm, like a forest floor you could lie down on until it swallowed you whole.
Internally, I shake myself. I’m here for one thing and one thing only, and I can’t let a cute guy distract me from that goal—not again.
After a long, heavy moment, he withdraws entirely, crossing his arms and walking to lean against the edge of his desk. “You could have just emailed.”
“So you could ignore me? I don’t think so, Boy Scout.”
“I hardly find that an appropriate thing to call your professor.”
“But you just said you were ‘having that taken care of.’ So… Are you my professor or not?”
He reaches up, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers. I ignore how the tendons in his forearm, exposed by rolled-up sleeves, strain against his skin.
Somewhere in the perverted recesses of my brain, I wonder what he’d look like in glasses. A tie, maybe, or some suspenders. He could take the glasses off as he leaned in to kiss me and undo the suspenders to wrap them around my?—
“What’s your interest in my class?” he asks, interrupting my thoughts. The taut look on his face makes me think he can read minds. “Are you taking the course just to harass me?”
“Harass you? Like by, perhaps, making you repeat your name over and over in front of a class full of students as if you’ve committed some heinous crime?”
Pink crawls up his neck, flushing his cheeks. “I didn’t intend for that to be so…” He exhales, shaking his head. “You have to understand my confusion. I mean, you said you were a tourist?—”
“No, I said I wasn’t from here, which I’m not.”
He’s quiet for a long time, seeming to mull something over. “Are you related to Quincy Anderson? And Asher?”
“They’re my brother and sister,” I finish, shrugging. “So?”
Exasperation colors his features. “If you’re an Anderson, one ofthoseAndersons, by default, we’re supposed to have some sort of unspoken rivalry. At the very least, we shouldn’t be speaking, much less interacting privately.”
I frown, tilting my head. “Why is that?”
Sutton releases his nose, opens his eyes, and swallows. “Because of our familial history?”
I blink at him.
