Page 2 of My Forbidden Professor

I won’t allow that to happen. I’ll do whatever it takes, including being Daniel’s handy little voice in Dad’s ear. After all, I have the perfect father who not only listens to me, but takes what I say into consideration. Upcoming promotion? What about Daniel Adam? Excuse me while I throw up in my mouth. Need more money? Sure, take what I have from my personal account.

I tug at the collar of my sweatshirt, but the invisible noose around my neck tightens. No one can find out about Daniel and what he has over me. No one.

I push open the lecture room door with more force than intended. I try to stop it from slamming into the wall, but I’m too late. The loud bang catches the attention of Professor Black, whose vibrant blue eyes lock onto me, made even bluer and sharper against his crop of messy dark hair that flops dangerously low. His eyes flare and I don’t miss the flicker of heat that’s quickly extinguished beneath the shadows. Something ignites inside me that I quickly extinguish.

“I wish all my students were as enthusiastic about attending my lecture on business analytics,” he says.

I suppress an internal shiver because that voice reaches between my thighs with an invisible hand and strokes my clit while I’m standing frozen in the middle of the open doorway. The husk alone is enough to send a virtual orgasm erupting through me. It happens every time the man opens his mouth, and makes it hard to concentrate on lessons.

Potent male. That’s all my overwhelmed brain can think in this moment. Professors should be middle-aged and balding, not someone with broad shoulders I could hang off, biceps that create hills and valleys in a denim shirt, and long muscular legs that devour the miles as he jogs every morning. I’ve seen those legs in action from my dorm window, as he runs past with his black hoodie and his face hidden, completely absorbed in his own world. I’m not sure what demons he’s running from, but they must be intense given his obviously singular focus.

Professor Black turns away from the whiteboard, hand holding the marker dropping as I continue to stand there. His eyebrows furrow, forming a crease between them. “Is everything all right, Miss Smith?”

Speak, Steph. He’s waiting for you to respond. “Um...”

“I can give you catch-up notes during our appointment if you’re unable to attend the lecture,” he offers.

That appointment will mean being alone with him in his office, surrounded by the scent of his masculine aftershave, as he assists me with my assignment. It’s an appointment I both dread and anticipate in equal measure.

“Otherwise, the notes will be available online tomorrow if you can’t make it this afternoon.” His eyes appear to miss nothing. They caress me from toe to head, seeing far too much. At this moment, concern flickers in their depths, but I’ve also noticed something else—an interest, an awareness. Something neither of us can afford to acknowledge.

If we were to act on it, we’d both go up in flames. “Um...”

A soft snigger erupts from one of the students already seated at the back of the auditorium. I scan the room, unable to identify the culprit, but it’s enough to break the spell Professor Black casts over me every time I’m near him. It reminds me of the attention I don’t want directed my way.

“This afternoon is good.” I internally roll my eyes. So eloquent. But my body snaps into motion. I head to the farthest seat, pull the little table from the arm rest and set my laptop on top. I avoid looking up, and after a pause, I hear the marker squeaking over the whiteboard once again.

My shoulders droop, but my clit still pulses in time with each thumping heartbeat. As though his fingers are on my body. His mouth on my skin. His presence heavy around me, because when he looks at me he’s probably seeing the same thing I am. My imminent downfall.

I refuse to fall for the wrong guy again.

Chapter Two

Jacob

My chair tilts as I gaze from my office window to gaze out over the university campus where students walk between classes, chat in groups, or sun themselves on the grass. It’s a fine day, but it doesn’t match the storm inside me. A storm I don’t want. Or need.

Yet it still exists.

My gaze is trained on the view, but my every awareness is of the closed door behind me. More accurately, on the woman who will soon open it and step into my office. The space is far too constricted to allow for her presence.

And that is the problem.

I shouldn’t care that four walls are too close together. It shouldn’t enter my mind that a student has the power to change the air. Or that she’ll turn my sanctuary into a space I’ll want to lock us both within. A sanctuary no longer. A prison perhaps?

She’s a student. That is all. I see hundreds of young people in my office.

None affect me like her.

She’s different than all the other young women who have passed through my classes. Bright. Intelligent and so bloody beautiful it almost hurts. I shouldn’t notice how her brown eyes are flecked with gold, her long hair is the color of coffee or the way her lips look like they’d be soft against my own.

But I do.

I notice. Every little thing about her.

The way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching. A mixture of longing, sadness and something I can’t quite put my finger on before she catches herself and a blank expression takes over.

I’ve been around long enough to know when a smile is forced and a laugh is fake, and there’s something about her that isn’t quite right. I want to know what it is, but I can’t ask. I can’t get involved. I won’t.

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