We moved through the hall without speaking. Not in the silence of strangers, but in something charged, an unspoken current that hummed low between every exchanged glance, every pause too long to be accidental. He moved with the same contained authority I had come to recognize, every step purposeful, his hands clasped loosely behind his back as he gave quiet directions to the staff.
I trailed him, clipboard in hand, noting changes to the layout, minor adjustments to the podium, the subtle way he stopped near the rear window, pausing long enough for thought to look like calculation.
And all the while, the tension persisted.
When I bent forward to check a name tag in the front row, I felt his attention shift toward me. It wasn’t overt. It wasn’t crude. It was relentless and consuming, the kind of gaze that didn’t skim over skin but pressed through it, mapping where to linger, where to leave untouched.He didn’t watch me in passing, he studied me, quiet, assessing, the kind of gaze that knew exactly where the heat of skin gave way to fabric and where the breath caught beneath it, as though the memory of that boundary already lived in him. I forced myself to stand straighter, to break whatever current was running between us, and found him still holding my eyes. He didn’t blink. Neither did I.
Then he moved, turned sharply toward the center of the room, voice cutting through the charged silence. “Come with me.”
The words carried more weight than volume, they left me no room for refusal. I followed, the echo of his steps leading me through the side exit into a narrow back corridor. It smelled faintly of old paper and polish, air that seemed to cling to forgotten places. The lights hummed above, yellow and dim, casting everything in a suspended sort of stillness. He stopped at the far end and faced me. The distance collapsed in an instant. No clipboard between us now, no professional armor, nothing to hide behind except breath and pulse. His gaze locked on mine, sharp enough to feel.
“You seem distracted,” he said, his voice roughened by restraint, though something beneath it was coming undone.
“So do you,” I answered, the words slipping out before sense could stop them.
His eyes darkened, the shift almost imperceptible but enough to drag the air tighter. I took a step back, small, instinctive, only to meet the wall behind me. The chill pressed into my spine, unrelenting, as if the wall meant to remind me where I stood. He didn’t have to move closer, the lack of space did the work for him. His hand lifted, resting on the wall beside my head, not touching, not yet, but close enough for the warmth of him to reach me.
“You know this isn’t going to end well,” he said, voice gravel-low, every syllable coiled and restrained.
The heat in my body climbed higher, defying logic. “Then why did you choose me?” My voice came out quieter than I wanted. “If you already knew.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Because I thought I could handle it,” he said, tone slow and tight. “Thought distance would be enough.”
The honesty hit harder than it should have. “And now?”
“Now I want you closer.”
The air fractured. I felt it in my chest, in my knees, in the tremor that chased through my breath. I turned my face toward him, the challenge already forming. “Then take what you want, Professor. Isn’t that what you do?”
He went still, gaze burning through the space between us. “I’m not the one against the wall, trembling,” he said, his voice softer but scalding. “You’re not as unaffected as you pretend to be.”
“I never said I was unaffected,” I whispered.
His eyes fell to my mouth. “Then tell me to stop.”
I didn’t. Couldn’t. The words refused to form. I looked up at him, lashes heavy, breath uneven. “You wouldn’t listen.”
“I would,” he said too fast, the sound of it rough, almost desperate. “Don’t think I wouldn’t.”
“Then why are you still standing here?” My pulse was chaos under my skin.
He leaned closer, just enough for his breath to slide against mine, a heat that tasted of want and defiance. “Because I want to ruin you,” he murmured. “And I hate myself for it.”
My throat closed around air. “You’re not alone in that.”
The silence that followed burned. The space between our mouths felt thinner than thought. Every heartbeat carried the threat of movement. Then he pushed away from the wall, not far, just enough to gather control back into his shoulders.
“We’ll meet here again before the keynote,” he said, voice re-sharpened into the cold cadence of a professor. “Ten sharp. Don’t be late.”
I nodded, pulse still hammering where his nearness had been.
He turned, leaving me with the echo of his footsteps and the taste of everything we hadn’t done still heavy in the air.
Then he added, quiet enough for the air itself to carry the weight of it. “Dress warm. The venue runs cold. But not too warm.” His gaze slid to my mouth, lingering. “Tight is better.”
And then he left, unhurried, as if he hadn’t just stripped the air from the room. The sound of his footsteps faded before my pulse did. I stayed where I was, pressed against the wall that now felt more alive than I did, breath snagged in my chest, every nerve still humming with the echo of his voice, a thread woven too deep to be pulled loose.
I didn’t move. My spine had molded to the wall, my body betraying me in its need to stay grounded in the space where he’d been. The stillness felt rehearsed, but it wasn’t. It was survival.
