Page 58 of My Forbidden Professor

I’m there, bathed in its glorious fucking light.

I collect Steph in my arms, turning us onto our sides to face each other on her bed with the last piece of my sanity, still buried deep within her body.

I float.

I slowly become aware of the sheets under me. The heat of her body down the length of mine. The gentle rise and fall of her breathing, the puff of her warm breath on my chest. A profound sense of peace and well-being washing over me in waves.

Physical sensations that would normally just feel good are now absolutely mind-blowing. The brush of Steph’s fingers along my arm raises goose bumps and sends little frissons of pleasure zinging through my nerves. When she kisses me, unhurried and deep, my entire body melts. Just the barest sweep of her tongue is enough to short-circuit my brain.

Steph’s fingertips trace idle patterns over the sheen of sweat cooling on my chest as we lay tangled together in the rumpled sheets. For a few stolen moments, it’s like we exist in our own little world—a bubble where the rest of reality can’t reach us.

I bask in the simple comfort of skin on skin, of being able to openly touch the woman in my arms. But like all fragile, ephemeral things, our sanctuary can only withstand the press of the real world for so long. I feel it first as a subtle weight, an almost imperceptible grain of gravity. A cosmic pull beckoning.

Steph seems to sense the shift too, if the minute tension suddenly coiling her muscles is any indication. Her fingers still against my sternum, nails scratching lightly in an unconscious tell that she’s registered the change in energy around us.

With each passing second, it grows harder to ignore the void beyond our shelter of tangled limbs and rumpled sheets. Ugly truths lurk just on the periphery of our blissed-out oblivion.

“I have to tell you about Daniel...” Steph’s body goes rigid, losing the previous softness. I almost want to stop this line of conversation, but the part of me that wants to know and protect wins out.

Her words ring in my brain: Daniel knows about us—you and me. And if he’s already been squeezing you for money behind my back, I can only imagine how much worse it will get now.

Her throat bobs several times as she fights to speak.

“He can’t hurt you here. You don’t have to do this alone. Not anymore.” I thread my fingers through her hair, smoothing it off her face, and tighten my hold on her.

She buries her face in the crux of my neck and breathes me in as a slight tremor works through her body. “He seduced me when I was sixteen.”

The words detonate inside my skull. I barely stop the recoil. The visceral need to launch out of bed, find that scum and rearrange his face. That asshole preyed on her. My Steph, innocent and barely more than a child, manipulated and violated. I knew I didn’t like him, and now I know why.

“Just a dumb kid...I thought I loved him. Thought he was it for me!” Her plaintive murmur only lances deeper, because that isn’t true. He manipulated her when she was too young to fend for herself. “I fell for his bullshit lines, and by the time I realized what kind of sadistic predator he really was, it was too late. So fucking stupid.”

Violence crests inside me and I rein it in through sheer willpower. “He took pictures. Intimate ones. The one and only time we were...together like that.”

Oh God. No. Please, anything but that.

“He’s been using them against me ever since as leverage to extort money...and favors...”

A sickening picture forms in my gut. “What sort of favors?” I choke out.

“He works for Dad. I…I’ve spoken to Dad. About him. Told him how good Daniel would be for a particular job. Put him in line for a promotion. It’s been small level stuff, but recently he…he’s asked for a senior role he wants me to talk to Dad about and…” She draws a deep breath. It’s killing me—killing me—to hear this, but she needs to get it out. I need to know. “There’s no way Dad would even entertain Daniel taking on this role, and if he doesn’t then….then Daniel will…show… God, Jacob. I’ve been lying to my own father for years. What am I going to do?”

When I finally manage to blink some of the red haze from my vision, Steph is crying—silent, gut-wrenching sobs that wrack her entire body. The sight snaps something vital inside me and a strangled sound tears from my body.

“That sadistic son of a bitch.” The roar erupts from deep within me. “I’ll fucking kill him. I swear to God, if he ever so much as looks at you again, I’ll—”

Her slender fingers map planes of my face with infinite tenderness. I love her touch, but I need more. I draw her body over mine, wrapping my arms around her shoulders, as though anchoring her to me will help. “It’s all right, Jacob.”

She’s calming me? This woman.

I pull in a ragged breath. “We have to get those photos back. Destroy them once and for all so he has nothing to hold over us.”

“I’ve tried for years, but even if he handed them over to me, there’s no telling whether or not he’s made copies. They’re digital,” she says.

This situation is untenable. How could someone as depraved as Daniel have gotten his hooks into Steph for so many years? But then I look at the woman I love, curled into herself with shame and vulnerability radiating off her in waves, and the anger transmutes into a bone-deep protectiveness.

“You’re not alone in this anymore,” I rasp out, gathering her against my chest and cradling her trembling body against mine. “This sonofabitch doesn’t get to keep tormenting you, not while I’m here to fight by your side.”

She lets out a humorless huff against the bare skin of my shoulder. “Easy for you to say. You didn’t spend years lying to everyone you care about, digging yourself into a pit.”

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