Page 4 of Forbidden Lessons

I can explore the campus until my next class…whenever the hell that is. At least I know I’ll get a text ten minutes beforehand.

As I turn to leave, the door opens behind me. Sound spills into the hall like I took off a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

The professor’s deep, melodic voice.

The tap-tap-tap of students making notes on their laptops.

A cough, someone clearing their throat?—

“Yeah, just fucking hold on. I’m not supposed to be taking calls in class.”

My entire body goes rigid.

I recognize that voice.

I spin on my heel, but the student exiting the lecture hall is already leaving, his chaotic golden-brown hair swaying as he stalks away.

He’s inches taller than me, wearing gray joggers, expensive-looking white sneakers, a branded black college sweater with the sleeves pushed up, and a big, silver ring on the hand hanging loosely at his side.

Did I summon him by repeatedly wishing he wouldn’t be here? Like what happens if you say Candy Man in the mirror a few times?

I’m frozen in place by a rush of panic.

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t?—

He glances over his shoulder.

And then gives me a double take.

He’s already halfway down the hall, but when he recognizes me, he stops walking. Tilts his head. And stalks back toward me.

Shit, shit, shit!

Why won’t my damn feet move? They might as well be planted in fucking concrete.

“Hey, slut!” he calls out. “You lost or something?”

Damn it, Haven, move!

“’Last I checked, your trailer park’s on the other side of the Agony River. That’s fuck far away.”

The anger in his green eyes keeps me pinned like a hand on my throat. And then, because I’m an idiot, and I still can’t move, itishis hand pinning me.

I gasp in shock, but it only takes a second before he’s cut off my air.

“The fuck are you doing back here, huh?” He gives me a shake, banging my head against the wall. “You run out of Riverside dicks to suck?”

Woah. Hang on one fucking minute.

Did he just call me a slut?

A dick-sucking slut?

He grunts, and that’s when I realize I punched him.

When did he get abs?

“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” he rasps, and not from pain.

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