“I have to go,” I say again, and it’s the thought of Professor Levine’s dark gaze more than anything, the soft smile that sometimes spills across his face when he’s looking at me… the way it sounds when he calls megood boythat gives me the strength to actually turn away.
I’m pretty sure Professor Hilman would have followed me, but as I round the corner, another student calls out his name. Iuse the distraction to dart down the hallway, half running by the time I get to Professor Levine’s office.
The door is closed, but I can see the light shining through the crack at the bottom.
He’s still here.
He’s stillhere.
Which means everything is going to be okay.
I force air into my lungs and knock.
“Come in, Luca.” Professor Levine’s voice rings through the silence, and I instantly feel some of the terror from earlier spill out of my body. He knows it’s me just from the way I knock?
He knows me.
He canhelpme.
I step into his office, and I don’t miss the way his eyes widen when I take a second to turn and click the lock on the door behind me.
“Luca?” he says my name again, and another small modicum of calm flutters through me. “Is everything okay?”
“No.” I can’t do anything but answer honestly. “Nothing is okay.” And then, like I can’t help it now that I’ve started, words keep spilling out. “I feel like nothing has been okay since that night at Mask.”
His face falls. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have?—”
“That’s not it.” I interrupt him, shocked that I manage the words at all. “It’s you. It’s… it’s…” I gesture between us, and feel tears stinging at my lids, catching in my lashes. It doesn’t matter. I’m doing this now. It’s too late. “It’s whatever this is between us. Whatever this is you make mefeel.”
“Luca…” This time his voice is more curious than apologetic, and he watches me from his office chair with wary eyes.
My teeth are chattering and my entire body feels like I’m connected to a live wire. I can’t stop trembling—it feels like electricity is scorching all my veins as I make my way acrossthe room, my entire world swimming in the depths of Professor Levine’s eyes and the memory of how he made me feel when we were at the club.
The club.
Not hisoffice.
This isn’t the place to do this.
This isn’tanywhere nearthe place I should be doing this.
But I move forward until I’m standing nearly between his legs, and then I do the only thing that feels natural.
I drop to my knees in front of him and turn my face up, knowing I probably look broken and vulnerable and terrified.
“At the club…” My voice is trembling, my throat so dry I can barely swallow to make my tongue work. “At Mask you said you could help me get out of my head.” Shaking fingers lift, and I brush them gently beneath the hem of his pants. Just that contact of my skin against his sends streaks of calm through me that I don’t understand… but I know I have to have it. Ineedthis. “Please… Professor Levine,please…show me how.” I lean forward, licking my lower lip and dropping my gaze to his lap. It’s actually a little wild, the way my adrenaline is pumping, the way Ifeelpowerful for the first time while I’m begging. “Please,teachme.”
Chapter
Twelve
MADDOX
A fissure slicesthrough my heart. Luca isn’thim. He’s not.
Hecouldn’t look this vulnerable, this scared but resolute.Hecouldn’t play this perfect mix of sexy and terrified.
No, this is all Luca.
