“You flatter me,” he murmurs, his warm breath ghosting against my cheeks. “I do hope you’re not sucking up to me in the hopes of earning more house points, Miss Blake.”
“N-no…” I stammer, the word coming out weak, breathless, as the heat in my cheeks spreads through my entire body. It takes everything inside me not to close the remaining inch of distance between us, to press my lips against his and find out if he tastes nearly as good as he smells. “I would never do that. I genuinely like you, Professor. I…I can’t seem to help myself.”
He raises an eyebrow at the frustration in my tone, his hand slipping down my jaw. A whimper nearly escapes me when he brushes his thumb across my lower lip, and I only just manage to stop myself from darting out my tongue to taste him.
“I can see I’ve made the right choice, investing my time into you,” he says in that deep, low voice that causes my core to clench every time. “Once you complete your lessons with Blaze, I’m confident we can move things to the next…level.”
“Sir?” I ask, feeling both confused and hopeful. Did he mean…could he possibly mean…?
But he steps back, his expression shuttered. “You’d better go, Miss Blake. You don’t want to be late for dinner.”
“Yes, sir.” I hesitate, but the dismissal in his voice is clear. Hitching my bag over my shoulder, I hurry from the room, my mind whirling from the encounter. I’m so flustered that I’m nearly at the mess hall before I remember I was supposed to be checking the field for Maxon. The smell of hot food, however, makes me realize how starving I am, and I decide to keep going. Maxon and the team are probably going to head in for dinner anyway.
“Addy!” Kaia and Gertrude are waving me over to their table. I hurry over to where they’re sitting, and they immediately move aside so I can squeeze between them. “Is it true you got into a fight with Celeste?” Gertrude whispers. “That you two used magic on each other?”
“Yeah,” I say, wincing a little as I notice the other students staring around at me. I’d forgotten we’d had an audience—of course word would have traveled about that already. “Professor Dal almost got hit when he was coming out of an office nearby.”
Kaia clapped her hands over her mouth. “You must have been insomuch trouble,” she says. “How many detentions has he given you?”
I glance around to see if any of the boys are coming, then lower my voice. “None. And get this…”
Quickly, I tell them about the intimate moment Professor Dal and I shared, how close we’d come to kissing, the innuendo in his last comment before he’d dismissed me. By the time I finish, I’m blushing hard, and Kaia and Gertrude have gleeful looks on their faces.
“Oh my god, Addy,” Gertrude gushes. “If only the other girls in our year knew! They would besojealous.”
“Almost everyone in our year has a crush on Professor Dal,” Kaia says, grinning. “More than a few of them have tried to get into his pants, with no success. I have to say though, I never actually thought he’d go for a student. It’s, well…” she glances over her shoulder. “It’s forbidden.”
A thrill shoots through me, and suddenly I’m nervous. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” I ask, twisting my hands in my lap. “I…it’s possible I imagined it, and I don’t want to get him into trouble—”
“Don’t want to get who into trouble?” Blaze asks cheerfully as he plops into the seat opposite me. His hair looks windswept and his clothes are spattered with dirt and grass stains. He’s wearing his Captura uniform, which consist of black pants reinforced at the knees, a tight-fitting black T-shirt with his house emblem stitched over his heart, and a thick black cloak. There must have been a practice after all.
“You,” Kaia says immediately, giving him a dirty look. “For being a man-whore.”
“Me?” Blaze puts a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wound me, my dear lady. I am as chaste and pure as a unicorn on a moonlit night.”
Maxon and Silas both snort loudly at this as they sit down on either side of Blaze, looking equally dirty. “Anyway,” Blaze says, ignoring them. He leans forward and meets my eyes, a grin lighting up his face. “I’m looking forward to our private lessons together, Addy.”
Kaia chokes on her bite of mashed potatoes, and Maxon drops the fork he just picked up. “Private lessons?” he demands. “What are you talking about?”
“The headmistress and Professor Dal want me to get my scythe sooner than later.” I glance at Maxon, and am surprised at the burning fury in his eyes. “They’ve arranged for Blaze to give me lessons for the next two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” He clenches his jaw, looking between me and Blaze. The others around the table have gone silent, giving Maxon strange looks.
“Yeah, she needs to complete seven hours of pre-training,” Blaze says, looking non-plussed. “Why are you upset, man? I didn’t think you’d want to do this, since you’re busy with—”
“I’m upset because Addy needs to finish catching up so I can stop tutoring her,” Maxon says, cutting Blaze off. He slams his hands on the table and pushes himself to his feet, a muscle working in his jaw. “If she’s spending time with you in the evenings she’s not working on her studies, is she?”
He storms off before either of us can get a word in edgewise. Kaia and the others exchange bewildered looks, and I ball my fists beneath the table. The urge to run after him is so powerful my legs are shaking. I want to rage and shout at him, to slap that sneer off his handsome face, to hurt him the way he hurts me.
But Celeste appears at the table before I can make a decision. “Where’s Max—” she begins, and then her eyes widen as she sees him storming away. “What’s happened?”
“He accidentally shoved the stick up his ass a little higher,” I snarl. “You might want to help him loosen it up a bit.”
Celeste gives me a scornful look, but it’s not enough to cover up the flash of triumph in her eyes. “I’ll go talk to him—he obviouslyneedsme,” she says as she hurries after him, her long hair bobbing down her back as she goes.
“Well then.” Blaze clears his throat, trying to diffuse the tension. “How about tomorrow night, Addy? Seven o’clock? We’ll use the training rooms in the basement.”
“That sounds great,” I say cheerfully.
