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I sucked in my breath sharply, whereupon he looked me straight in the eye again and pressed his lips together.

But instead of unbuttoning it for me and completely clouding my mind, he sat down on a stool in front of the examination table and... reached for my sleeve.

I was sure my face was now covered in red spots.

Julie, damn it. What's wrong with you? Why on earth would he want you to take off your blouse?

And at that moment, I knew I would never be able to separate Quentin from Erik. It had taken me time to process that these two men were one and the same person. And no matter how many light years there were between them in my head, my body made no distinction.

He was an attractive man, and I had slept with him. Now I was pregnant with his child, and my hormone-driven brain was associating him with feelings I had for Erik. Despite the Salma.

The fact that he was my professor and ten years older than me didn't make it any better. It felt forbidden. In fact, it was forbidden.

Why should I fight it?

Quentin unbuttoned my blouse sleeve before rolling it up. Far too careful for the way he always spoke to me, far too gentle for my miserable heart to bear without pounding wildly against my chest.

His warm fingers brushed my arm.

I flinched.

He paused, looked up only with his eyes, straight into mine again, and simply continued rolling it up, more slowly, his gaze focused on me as if he wanted to watch precisely how I reacted to his touch. As if he knew something and wanted to torture me until I confessed.

And there it was again. The goose bumps on the back of my neck.

“Sometimes I wonder if you're afraid of me or if you're just easily startled.”

I stared at him, unable to breathe.

Oh, Quentin, if only you knew it is something else entirely.

Once again, his skin touched mine and I sucked in air between my lips, much too sharply.

His gaze wandered straight there, and my heartbeat quickened, sending a much too warm tingling sensation through my body.

What were we doing here?

“The latter…” I lied, and his gaze wandered back to my eyes.

He gave a soft laugh, but it sounded more like he was exhaling without breaking eye contact.

It was addictive to look at him for so long. He was the first person I had ever managed to hold a gaze with for longer than two seconds. And at the same time, he was a dangerous mystery that was tearing my life apart piece by piece from its strict fixture.

I had tried to check the photos I had taken of his documents, but when I had gone through my phone gallery, all the writing had been blurred, as if a child had scribbled on his papers. Yet I was sure that I had been able to read some of it on the day I had broken into his office.

I couldn't concentrate on my thoughts, could only stare.

Quickly, I looked away, ashamed of the attraction my body was making me feel, ashamed of the thoughts that were about to merge Erik and Quentin into one person.

This professor was the man I had sent philosophy books with messages in them. The man who had sent me books from an antique bookshop, also containing small, neat handwritten notes, allusions only we understood and archeological postcards from his trips to the Mediterranean. The man with whom I had joked about the world of Greek mythology. The man whose warm, hard body had nestled so perfectly against mine…

I managed not to look at him for three seconds, and he let go of my sleeve. Another three seconds of not looking at him passed until suddenly pure, raw heat hit my skin. The same heat I had last pressed myself against when he had slid into me with his full length.

Heat rushed through my core.

This time truly startled, I stared down at my arm, where Quentin had placed two of his fingers and was feeling for veins in the crook of my arm. He began to apply pressure to my forearm with his two fingers and rub them across my skin.

My heartbeat threatened to cloud my mind.