Page 143 of Boiling Point
I turned, caught her waist, and set her squarely in my lap, her knees bracketing my hips. She squeaked—a sound I would catalog for later, alongside the first time I’d made her laugh, the first time she fell asleep on my chest, the first time she told me she loved me and meant it.
She blinked in mock outrage, then squared her jaw, as if determined not to cede the moment. She succeeded, mostly. I let her.
“Tough course load, you say?” I slid my palms up her back.
She pressed against me. “Brutal.”
“Sounds like you’ve earned a reward…” I traced a slow line up her spine. “For enduring such an exacting, unsympathetic professor.” I tangled my fingers in her hair—not to pull. Not yet. Just enough to make her still. “Lucky for you, he offers extra credit.” I tipped her chin until her eyes locked on mine.
She held her breath.
“But it’s rigorous…and very hands-on.”
“Better be. Or I’ll be forced to leave a scathing course review.” She rocked forward, the motion calculated and criminal.
“You wouldn’t dare.” I looped an arm around her waist and pulled her in until there was no air, no daylight between us, nothing but the thrum of her pulse under my hands and the soft, devilish curve of her smile against my mouth.
The spell broke with the graceless chime of an incoming email. Gabrielle flinched, and we both looked toward the desk. She climbed off my lap, freeing me to lean forward and tap the trackpad. The preview alone was enough.
SUBJECT: Notification of Formal Disciplinary Hearing
I exhaled—a hiss more than a sigh. “Well, they do move quickly.”
She hovered beside me, arms folded tight. “When is it?”
I skimmed the message. “Tomorrow at eight. The tribunal’s been assembled, and I am summoned to answer for my many and varied sins.” The phrase ‘expedited process in the public interest’ chased itself in a loop behind my eyes. That was code for ‘we want this done before the holiday weekend.’
She rested a hand on my shoulder. “What do you want to do today, then? Anything at all.”
I looked up at her. The question felt ceremonial—a last meal before the executioner’s sword. I wanted to saycrawl under a rug and stay there until the heat death of the universe. Orlet’s drive north until we hit Canada and change our names once we’ve crossed the border. Or evenfuck it, let’s fly to Vegas and get married tonight. So there’s at least one true thing in the record, even if the rest of my life gets redacted.
“Want to take the motorcycle out?” she offered. “Let me put my life in your hands. Only seems fair.”
I glanced out the window. “In this heat? It’s a hundred degrees in the shade. We’ll absolutely boil.”
“Drive fast enough, and the wind will cool us down. Isn’t that a thermodynamics thing?”
I snorted. “Cute. Perhaps youdoneed summer remediation.”
She feigned offense, emerald eyes wide. “We didn’t cover convective heat loss in your class.”
“Negligible, in this climate. Besides…” I let my gaze walk up the length of her, basking in the anticipation. “The only ride I want is with you. In bed. Right now.”
It was a joke—mostly—but the way her breath caught told me she knew the truth beneath it.
I stood and pulled her flush against me. “I’m a condemned man. Would you deny me this last request?”
She bit her lip and shook her head—cheeks flushed, pupils blown. “Absolutely not. That would be a human rights violation.”
I swept her into my arms. “So glad we agree.”
She pressed her mouth to mine, hard, and in that moment, every extraneous thought—tomorrow’s hearing, every threat and accusation, even the distant echo of my father’s voice—evaporated. There was only heat, the flutter blooming in my chest, and the taste of her on my tongue.
We were clawing each other out of our clothes before we even hit the bed. She sprawled beneath me, loose and wild-haired, her body a territory I’d spent the last six months mapping and still hadn’t finished.
She looped her arms around my neck, pulled me down, and whispered against my ear, “There’s something I want you to teach me,Professor.”
She said it with a smile, but the challenge was real.
