And still—God help me—I wanted to bend her over that desk after hours, make her forget every lecture, every line she’d ever rehearsed about right and wrong. I wanted to strip her down to sound and motion, to the soft, unguarded rhythm of surrender. I wanted to ruin her in a way she’d remember every time she walked into that room.
But I didn’t want to be the man who turned her brilliance into collateral damage. I didn’t want to be the ruin hidden in the margins of her success.
And yet there I was, standing in my kitchen, gripping the counter as if it could anchor me, the veins in my wrist tight as wire while my thoughts dragged me under, her mouth on my skin, her thighs parting, her hands clutching my shirt, whisperingpleasewith that breaking edge that made every rational part of me disintegrate.
I was becoming something feral, irrational, unhinged, addicted. Every breath felt wrong without her in it.
How the hell was I supposed to sit across from her tomorrow, act civilized, pretend I didn’t want her sprawled across the conference table while the department droned on about symposium logistics? How was I supposed to resemble a man when all I wanted was to taste her, to fuck her until reason stopped existing altogether?
My hand dragged through my hair. The breath that left me felt torn out, not released. I didn’t need a drink. I needed an exorcism.
But instead, I stood there and let her name scrape through my skull, carving itself deeper each time I breathed it.
Edwina.
There was no saving myself from this. I was already lost, and some brutal part of me didn’t want to be found.
Morning came too soon. Gray light filtered through the blinds in fractured bands that cut across the floor, turning the silence into something accusatory. Sleep hadn’t touched me. My body might have stilled, but my mind hadn’t stopped pacing, circling the thought of her, the sound of her name, the memory of her voice spilling into the dark.
I trimmed the edge of my stubble in silence, the razor gliding over skin I hadn’t truly felt in days. The mirror offered a stranger, too polished, too contained, a man pretending control wasn’t slipping from his grasp. The reflection stared back with a kind of false composure, the mask of someone who didn’t flinch every time her image flared behind his eyes.
The shirt clung too neatly across my shoulders, the collar pressed against my throat, its tightness a quiet punishment. Dark gray, neutral enough to hide the chaos underneath. The cuffs hugged my wrists, not comfort but restraint. I adjusted my glasses, feeling the frame settle against the bridge of my nose, the weight of them grounding me in a way that only reminded me how much I’d already come apart.
None of it fucking helped. Not the blade scraping order into chaos, not the shirt buttoned to the throat, not the pretense that control was still mine to hold.
Because she’d be there.
The drive to campus blurred past, cold air clawing through the seams of my coat. The lot was half-empty, but my chest felt crowded, every heartbeat hitting harder than it should. The walk to the department lounge stretched on, every step a reminder of what waited ahead. Her voice fucked with my head, and herscent—God, that scent—stayed on my hands long after she was gone. I told myself I’d keep it clean. Professional.
The word hit my tongue and turned to ash.
How the hell was I supposed to be professional when the last time I saw her she was in that black dress, the fabric molded to her body with the precision of a promise I had no right to keep? When her mouth parted with the quiet need of a woman holding back a confession she didn’t want to make, and her eyes told me to stay away while every inch of her told me to do the opposite?
I stepped into the lounge. The room murmured around me, colleagues talking, the shuffle of papers, the dull scrape of chairs, the faint hiss of the coffee machine in the corner. The meeting hadn’t started yet.
But she was there. Of course she was.
Seated near the window, her hair loose, a dark cascade that caught the morning light and fell around her shoulders in soft, careless waves. It wasn’t fair, the way it framed her throat, the way it reminded me of how close I’d come to losing control.
She hadn’t noticed me yet. Good. I needed the distance of a heartbeat to pull the leash tighter around my composure, to remind myself I still had a line to hold.
Because I couldn’t look at her and not feel the echo of that night, the way she’d tilted her head, the curve of her lips when she’d said,What are you doing here, on your birthday?The words had landed against my skin with the softness of a plea and the sting of regret, and I hadn’t stopped thinking about them since.
Her voice had brushed through me, silk threaded with wire, cutting and soft in the same breath. She hadn’t known it, but she’d called to me that night, called to something that was already hers long before she ever spoke my name.
And maybe she still did. God help me. Maybe she always had.
I didn’t mean to stand that close. But closeness was its own kind of confession, and my body had never been good at pretending.
She looked up the moment I reached her table, eyes widening before she could hide it. Her lips parted. That tiny catch in her breath gave her away.
“Miss Carter.”
She straightened, every inch of her composure snapping into place, though I caught the twitch of her fingers against the folder in her lap, the way she pressed her palm flat over it as if it could shield her from me.
“Professor.”
Nothing more. No trace of warmth or mockery. Just the title between us, hard and formal, as though it could erase what existed underneath it.
