Page 44 of Hello Kitten

“Are you trying to recreate that ... already?”

“No. I was trying to ...” I shake my head. “Why’d you cancel class? You looked like shit on Monday by the way.”

“So did you.”

We look at one another and Adrian finally cracks a small smile. “Oh, kit-Emily ... what am I going to do with you?”

“Ignore me. Should be easy. Plenty of people do,” I comment.

“I’m not plenty of people.”

“I know you’re not, sir,” I say.

The second I say the word, my eyes drop to my plate. Adrian takes a slow breath even though his foot brushes mine. “Tone it down.”

“Are you saying that to me or you?” I ask.

“Don’t be a brat. I’m exhausted, you look amazing, and I’m trying very hard to ignore everything but taking care of you,” he grits.

“I told you not to be gentle.”

“I told you not to call me ‘sir’,” he says.

We stare at one another, each waiting for the other to make the first move. But the only move Adrian makes is to pay for my meal—since he ate nothing—get me to his car, then drop me off at my dorm.

I glance back as I open the door to the building and still see him there.

Not fucking a professor is a stupid rule, I decide it as I get inside, feeling sober, full, and tired. I’m twice as distracted by him now that I can’t touch him as I was when I thought we could get away with it.

“Fucking torture,” I grumble.

twenty

The weekend sucks.

I really thought nothing could suck more than having Adrian in touching distance and not being able to touch him, but wanting to text him and not being able to, not being able to see him, not being able to read him. Fuck, I want him.

“You’ve been pouting all weekend. I’m guessing whoever you got on your knees for on Friday didn’t please you,” Beth jokes.

“Nope,” I say simply.

“It’ll happen. You made an effort and that’s what matters, babe,” Beth says, dropping onto my bed with me.

I shove my phone under my bed. I should delete every text from Adrian, but I can’t make myself do it. I bite my bottom lip. “I hate this.”

“It was just sex, right?” she asks.

We still haven’t said his name. I nod slowly. “Yeah. Just sex. Just mind blowing amazing sex with a guy that has ‘no’ stamped across him in capital letters.”

“I know. But you’re doing the right thing,” she insists.

She hugs me and I feel twice as shitty for lying to her.

“Come on, we have class in a bit,” she says and peels herself away to get ready.

I triple check that we have class. I almost text Adrian to make sure of it, but I’m embarrassed. He almost slipped. He started to call me ‘kitten,’ but he didn’t. I did slip. I called him ‘sir’ and instead of acting on it, he was a gentleman.

Why the fuck was he gentleman? Why the hell does he care? Why does him being decent, just a decent man make me want him back? Worse, it makes me question everything. I think of him feeding me fruit in the morning, taking care of me, rubbing my wrists to make sure that there were no marks from the tie, telling me about his tattoos.

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