“Oh.” It was my turn to blink dazedly. “Yes, he was my grandfather.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised that so many people recognized the name of my grandfather, least of all in the town our family helped establish generations ago. Yet it stumped meeach time. Likely from only spending winter holidays in town while growing up.
My grandfather might have been the only Ashcroft worthy of the name and the long, detailed history that it carried. A brilliant man with a profound understanding of languages that went beyond the standard of his generation. Hunter Ashcroft had been a kind, attentive, and doting grandparent, and a man who bore the burden of our surname with pride.
Only his death spared him from the shame of my father’s lapse in decency.
The attractive stranger hummed in acknowledgment. He stared with those intense, sea-storm eyes, almost calculating and severe. I could easily believe in his power of observation. Like he viewed the world through a magnifying glass, analyzing every minute detail that passed him by. It might have intimidated me if not for the trembling flame breathing to life in my lower belly.
“The Ashcrofts can’t seem to resist Kilbride,” he said. It wasn’t a ‘Welcome home,’ but it almost felt like one. Like stepping into an old, well-worn pair of boots built to last through whatever terrain I dared hike.
Or mountain I dared climb.
It had been too long since someone touched me if I was ready to start panting over a stranger after one embarrassing interaction. Not since that guy I met at that pub after finals. Months since the hands of another had made me feel good, and my fingers couldn’t quite reach that one spot that I needed to see stars. The lack of release might have been adding to my frazzled state. Pent-up stress layered thick on top of everything else.
“Thanks.” I stood, and he rose alongside me, stretching to his full height with a predatory grace that made my spine tingle. My head stopped under his chin, my eyes level with his chest. He towered over me, exactly mountain height. Further conversationescaped me as an alarm chimed, marking the start of class. “Oh, shoot. Thanks again.”
He nodded, staring after me as I extricated myself from the encounter, cheeks flushed and blood humming. Thankfully, the front row corner seat remained open as the average student seemed content to hide in the back. Perfect for catching up on sleep or working on other assignments out of sight of the instructor. I was too excited about the subject to even consider such blasphemy. History courses received my full attention, like the devout at a Sunday service.
Unable to locate my favorite pen I’d used all day, I grabbed a backup and opened the syllabus. I looked down towards the front of the lecture hall. Handsome Stranger had moved behind the podium and began turning on a projector. My heart stalled, and my stomach dropped. Maybe he was offering a helping hand, but…
In the projector lighting, I noticed the gray at his temples and dotting the trimmed beard on his chin. Nothing that detracted from his looks but instead enhanced them with an air of maturity that made me quiver. He squinted at something behind the podium, stressing the lines at his eyes. Fuck, he was much older than I’d originally assumed. Or maybe the thrill of the moment had blinded me.
“Good evening, class. I am Doctor Luther Quinn, and I’ll be your professor for this class.” He spoke with smooth authority, easily taking command of a captured audience who seemed inherently drawn to his presence. “Don’t call me doctor, as it sounds horribly pretentious. Professor Quinn suits perfectly. I’ll be lecturing you throughout your 400-level course. You are required to have the textbook for this class as it will help you through your thesis.”
Alright, so he was the professor. We had a moment. No big deal. Or not even a moment. It was nothing. I slipped, andhe helped me up. There wasn’t any spark or boiling cauldron of arousal in my stomach. Definitely not. There hadn’t been a charged atmosphere encasing us in a bubble of pure, erotic tension. Not at all. He was my history instructor, even though he looked more like a depressed English professor, and I wouldn’t even begin to explain what that aesthetic was doing for me, but—no!
Get a grip, Ophelia.
He was still talking, and I berated myself for losing my concentration over the way his suit hugged his broad shoulders and trim waist. A perfect blend of lean muscle and impressive height that magnetized my eyes to him. And I knew I wasn’t the only one.
“… hardly anyone passes my classes—”
“That sounds concerning,” I blurted before realizing my mouth had opened. His gaze snapped to me, and a frigid chill oozed through my blood.
Professor Quinn turned toward me, his stare as potent as a heat-seeking missile. His expression favored a stoic reserve compared to the tantalizing warmth of what now felt like a dream. He’d gone sharp and hard as a blade. “And how’s that?”
I shifted in my seat, heart pounding as all eyes zeroed in on me. Especially his with that sea-tide, hurricane gaze dragging me into a whirlwind tempest. Opening my mouth had gotten me in trouble more than once when my unruly sense of justice flared up. My face flamed, and my throat bobbed on a dry swallow, and I regretted every word I’d said since stepping foot on campus that morning.
“A high failure rate is nothing to boast about—”
“—I wasn’t boasting.”
“Students consistently not passing classes reflects on the instruction,” I continued, breezing past him. His expressionhardened, and something glinted in his eyes. “Ideally, students should not only be learning the course material but succeeding.”
“Are you insinuating I’m a bad teacher?” It felt like a game, that volleying of words back and forth. A chess tournament in the final rounds, and he’d made a swift, devastating move.
My jaw snapped shut. Then my brows pinched together as indignation surged within me, as hot and fulminating as an erupting firework. I sat up straighter, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Not at all. I mean this entirely respectfully,professor.” I stressed his title and noted the muscle clenching in his jaw. “I joined this course, and signed up for this class specifically, to learn. If students are willing, eager even, then it seems like setting them up for failure, which is the antithesis of your role.” I was on a roll and blasting full steam ahead. “Is your job to ensure mastery and growth of the minds entrusted to you, or to prove how few can keep up with you? Otherwise, it would seem the course material would need to be adjusted.”
“I wrote the textbook,” he gritted back, keeping one hand on the edge of the podium and placing the other on his hip as he addressed me. “The material is verified and approved. It’s simply a complicated course.”
“It’s also a required class for those pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in History and Literature. How many students has your complicated and impossible class barred from achieving their goals? This is a history course, not rocket science.” I didn’t know what came over me, but a slow smirk spread across my lips, and I swore I saw a vein in his temple pulsing. “I believe that class is down the hall.”
A few snickers echoed at the back of the room.
It seemed my metaphorical victory was all but assured, and I couldn’t name the strange sense of power flooding through my veins as I grinned at the professor. Until I read the mask over his face, analyzing the stark calculation in those arctic ocean eyes. Abrilliant force to be reckoned with as he puzzled out his response in the span of a single breath.
