“You always this clumsy with your variables,” he says, voice like silk, “or am I just the X you can’t solve for?”
Sweet Jesus. I cannot with him. “I don’t do equations with unreliable inputs.”
“Then let’s simplify.” His grin sharpens. “No distractions. Just you, me, and some hands-on calculus.”
“When are you going to realize that this isn’t calculus.”
“It is now.” His nose traces my jaw, deliberate, slow. When he reaches my ear, he whispers, “Because Tote… I’m about to find every curve on your graph.”
And I—snort. I actually, fucking, snort. The sound is undignified and exactly what I need—like popping a balloon in a too-warm room.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Don’t worry.” He tips his head, lips close enough to graze. “I’ll start slow. Run a derivative. See where the slope’s steepest.”
“Oh my God.” My laugh bubbles up, half mortification, half arousal. “You’re so bad at this.” But also, like, why is this so fucking hot?
“Maybe. But I’m converging. And unless you want thisfunction to go undefined—you might want to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” I whisper.
“Like you want a little chaos.”
“Fat chance.”
But he doesn’t back off. His chest brushes mine. His eyes burn into me. Every nerve ending in my body screams Yes. God, yes.
“You know what I think?” he murmurs.
“What?” My voice barely makes it out.
“I think what you really want is some nonlinear dynamics.”
NOPE. STOP THAT. STOP THAT RIGHT NOW.
Not today, horny mathemetician!
I duck, shove past him, and yank the door open before I can make the worst decision of my life. Thank God for push locks that pop open when you turn the handle.
The office air blasts my face, and for two seconds, it almost works to calm my racing pulse.
I don’t turn back. I don’t need to. I know exactly what he looks like right now—smirk cocked, smug as hell, knowing full well I’m not immune to him. He’s probably watching me walk away, adjusting the start of an erection in his slacks—good God, woman, don’t think about that.
“Get back to work, Professor!” I call, chin high, even as my pulse tries to punch out of my throat.
My legs are jelly and my spine is steel; apparently both things can be true. I march because marching feels like backbone, and backbone is the only thing I’m willing to show him right now.
I grab my phone off my desk as I pass, clutching it like a lifeline, and march straight toward Dr. Johnson’s class with the stack of exams balanced like an offering. He never asked me to proctor—I’m fairly certain he’s scheduled one of his grad students for this one—but I suddenly find myself in need of a morning activity. I need the walk. I need the air. I need the space.
Because the truth is, Leo is not the problem. I am.
And I want him. Like, right now.
I tellmyself I’m professional and composed and that the fact I flushed halfway to my ears is just the price of being a functioning adult. I tell myself this as I walk straight out of the pod, phone in one hand and thirty exams in the other.
The hallway hums with fluorescent light and sneaker squeaks. A student laughs too loudly for 9 a.m. and a passing professor shushes him. It’s finals week, after all, and every one of the classrooms in this building is filled with testing students. The building exhales heat in uneven bursts, old radiators clanking like they’re in a fight with winter.
I pass Dr. Wallace’s open classroom door—he’s teaching Intro to Differential Equations this semester, which is quieter than everything else on campus, probably because half the students are asleep. When I nod, he nods back in that literal, slightly panicked way he always does, like he’s not sure how humans work. Poor, awkward turtle of a man. I keep walking.
