Page 4 of Stalked By the Lawyer

"Fuck," I say again, the word slipping out like a prayer or a curse—I can't tell which anymore. The thought of her soft curves beneath my hands, her gasp of surprise turning into moans of pleasure…it's maddening. She's poison and antidote all rolled into one, and I'm addicted to the taste I've never had.

I'm back in my office now, door locked, blinds drawn. The image of her today—how her skirt clung to her thighs, how her hair fell over her shoulder—plays on a loop in my mind. I lean back in my chair, hand slipping beneath the waistband of my slacks. I close my eyes, and it's her hand, not mine, that I imagine. Her touch, her breath against my neck.

"Jill," I breathe out her name like it's a sacred incantation, as my body tenses, reaching for a release that's as much pain as it is pleasure. There's no stopping this, no going back. I'm falling, spiraling, losing myself to this obsession.

And deep down, I know I'm past the point of no return.

***

The phone buzzes in my pocket, a vibration that ripples through me like an electric shock. It's him, Jill's father—her patriarchal gatekeeper holding the keys to my damnation.

"Logan," he says, his voice like gravel on the line, "I've got a favor to ask you."

My heart thumps—a feral drumbeat in my chest as I wait for it, the request I didn't know I was praying for until this moment.

"Jill's struggling a bit with her college courses," he continues. "Could use a tutor. I immediately thought of you. You're sharp, Logan, and hell, she’s going into the same field as you. Thought you could help her out."

Every word pulses through me, ignites something dark and hungry. Tutoring Jill. Alone time with her. The idea is a spark thrown into the dry tinder of my obsession.

"Sure," I say, voice steady despite the tempest inside me. "I'd be happy to help." Happy is a euphemism for ecstatic, for desperate, for fucking starving.

"Great. I'll let her know you'll reach out to set up a time."

"Of course," I reply, before ending the call, my breaths coming out short, ragged. This is what I want, isn't it? The chance to be near her, to bask in the glow of her presence without the pretense of accidental encounters.

But there's a coil of anxiety in the pit of my stomach, tight and cold. How am I supposed to keep my hands to myself, my thoughts pure when every second with her will be a test of restraint?

My reflection in the phone screen sneers back at me. I'm playing with fire, walking a razor's edge between professionalism and the raw, primal urge to claim her.

I picture those tutoring sessions, just the two of us, cloistered in some quiet corner of the library or at her room, delving into textbooks and notes. Her brow furrowed in concentration, biting her lip in frustration, looking up at me with those wide, innocent eyes for help. And God, how I'll want to help—want to teach her more than just the curriculum, want to educate her in the language of sighs and moans, in the give and take of flesh on flesh.

It's dangerous, this game I'm about to play. But the thrill of it courses through my veins like a drug I'm too far gone to quit. I can already feel the heat of her skin beneath my fingertips, the sweet torture of maintaining control when every fiber of my being screams to take her, make hermine.

Tonight, I'll lay awake, wrestling with the dual forces of anticipation and dread churning inside me. Tomorrow, I'll face her with a smile plastered on my face and a monster caged behind my ribs.

***

The clock ticks—a metronome to my skyrocketing pulse as I wait for her at the library's private study room. The door creaks open, and there she is.

Jill, with her cascade of auburn hair and that oblivious smile that could damn or save me at any given moment.

"Hey, Logan," she greets, and the sound of my name on her lips feels like a caress I don't deserve.

"Hey." My voice is a strangled sort of gruffness, betraying none of the chaos she ignites within me.

We sit across from each other at the small table, textbooks and notes forming a paper barricade between us. But it's futile. The air is thick with unspoken words and unacted deeds, a tension that weaves around us like a tangible web.

"Let’s start with the corporate law," I suggest, trying to steer my mind towards academic banality. "Jump right into it, wouldn't you say?"

"Absolutely," she nods, flipping open her textbook with slender fingers that I envision tracing patterns not on parchment but on skin—my skin.

We dive into the material, but the undercurrent of our exchanges isn't lost on me. Every brush of her hand against mine while passing a pen, every shared glance when we decipher a particularly tricky passage—it's foreplay masked as tutoring, and I'm drowning in the subtext.

"Your father tells me you paint," I comment during a lull, watching her eyes light up.

"Yeah, I do. It's like... letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding." Her words float between us, laden with vulnerability.

"I know the feeling," I confess, and it’s true. The darkness inside me recognizes the need to create, to channel what simmers beneath the surface into something tangible.

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