“Power dynamics?” I squint at him, inching closer with the textbook still clutched to my chest. “They’d automatically think you coerced me or something?”
“That’s how it would look, yes.”
“But the semester hadn’t even started when we?—”
“It wouldn’t matter to the administration.”
I’m not sure if it’s the early hour or his presence alone, but my brain is struggling to wrap around the logic. “But…Ipropositioned you.”
His throat bobs on a swallow.
“Didn’t I?”
Sighing, Sutton leans against a metal table, extending his arms behind him. “Yes.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He watches, silent, as I walk over and set Descartes onto the table next to his hand, stretched out on the cool surface. I slide back, stepping directly in front of him, and tuck my hair behind my ears.
“The problem,” he answers softly, eyes straining as I slink evencloser, until I’m between his legs and our clothes are almost touching, “is I’m your superior. I could have—should have—said no.”
“You didn’t know it at the time.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So you do regret it then?”
“No,” he replies, voice gruff. He meets my gaze, and his irises shimmer like raw jade under the stars. “It isn’t…regret. I’m acknowledging what I should have done and explaining why I can’t repeat my previous actions.”
“Didn’t you say youwoulddo it again though? You’re sending a lot of mixed signals here, Professor.” As if it has a mind of its own, my arm lifts, and I brush some stray lint off his sleeve, intrigued by the way he tenses beneath even the slightest touch.
But he doesn’t pull away.
“Elle…”
My head tilts. “Is distancereallywhat you want?”
“I want you to behave.”
“That’s not true,” I whisper. “Where’s that honesty, Boy Scout? You were sogoodthat night in your car, don’t you remember?”
A few tendons in his neck bulge against his skin. “Mind and soul of the man is entirely different from the body.”
Descartes.
I spread my fingers over Sutton’s abdomen, feeling him flex as a familiar sensation pinches in my stomach.
That’s the issue.
No matter how I explain the situation to myself, sense doesn’t fully compute with carnality. Logically, I know I’m being an asshole here, pushing for something I don’t deserve that would have shitty consequences for us both, not to mention the repercussions it would have for Quincy and Asher.
But the body remembers things the mind suppresses, and sometimes we seek assurance to cover the phantom memories. To create new ones.
Sometimes, we want just because we can.
“I can keep a secret,” I tell him.
He gives me a small smile and shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have to be one, temptress.”
