Page 21 of Damaged Professor

Another double thump in my chest. My cheeks feel warm. “Alright. Dylan.”

The corners of his mouth twist up into a smile. He moves over to the front of his large, dark wood desk. It seems even bigger with the rest of the room empty, honestly. Like, you never take notice as to how wrong it feels to be the only person in a big room like this until it happens.

There’s a part of me that is still worried I’ve managed to do something wrong. But the rest of me is getting hopeful that maybe something else is about to happen.

“I just wanted to talk to you about…” Dylan waves a hand, gesturing at the space between us. “You know.”

“Right.” I know that it’s not appropriate to sit down on his desk, so I hop up onto one of the student desks in the first row instead. “I was actually hoping to talk to you about that, too.”

He doesn’t look relieved. If anything, that comment makes him seem even more unhappy. He rubs at his chin with one hand, and then he admits, “I just can’t stop thinking about you.”

The words are like a shock to my system. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” says Dylan. “I know what we spoke about before, but I just—I can’t get you off my mind.”

A wave of relief washes over me. I tell him, “I can’t stop thinking about you either. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

But then he says something that I’m totally not expecting. “I think that it might be time you consider changing classes.”

I pause. “What?”

“That way, you can study without any interference on my end,” explains Dylan. “I don’t want my thoughts and actions to come off as inappropriate—”

“They don’t!” I jump onto my feet, my boot heels clacking against the tile. There’s a note of something almost desperate in my voice. I try to swallow it back, but the problem is… I am desperate.

Just the thought of having that happen is enough to send my heart straight down into my feet. Dylan says, “It’s just… I don’t know if I can spend time around you and not think about how we met.”

“That’s okay,” I tell him. I step over to him, taking action in a way that I haven’t since my senior year, when I cornered James behind the bleachers and insisted that he take me to the homecoming dance. Only this time, I’m sliding my way between Dylan’s slightly spread legs, and planting one hand on the top of his left thigh. “It is.”

“Abby,” he protests, but his right hand is drawn to my side, as though by magnetism. I can tell that he wants to be close to me, the same way that I want to be close to him.

“I like the way that you teach,” I tell him. “And we both know that no one else here can give a lecture with the same unbridled passion that you do.”

“You think I’m passionate?”

“I know you’re passionate.” I make sure to lean forward as I say it, right into his personal space. “I don’t want to change classes.”

That’s true.

He is a very passionate teacher. But more than that, I really want to be close to him. I just can’t stand the thought of seeing him less. And so, even though I know that it's not really the type of relationship I’m looking for, I still tell him, “We can make this work.”

“I don’t see how,” says Dylan. “Every time I look at you, I lose track of what I’m saying.” His free hand comes up, thumb swiping over the softness of my lower lip. “You’re the only thing that’s on my mind.”

“So get me off your mind,” I mutter.

“I tried, but I couldn't... It didn’t work.” There’s something almost bitter in Dylan's voice when he says that.

I definitely don't like the sound of him trying and failing to get me off his mind. But we’re not dating, so I just keep going.

“That’s fine,” I tell him. “You don’t need to do it your way. If you can’t stop thinking about me… Then let me give you something else to think about.”

When I say that, I lean forward and plant the most chaste, teasing kiss that I can on the very corner of his mouth. Dylan lets out a heavy sound, as though I’ve done something far more than that.

“Oh,” says Dylan. The hand on my side slides around, dropping down until his palm is pressed against my ass. He pulls me forward and I go willingly. “Is that so?”

I want him.

I want to date him. To go home with him. To have dinner with him. But I would do absolutely anything to be closer to him. Even if it means that we’re sleeping with each other, and it doesn’t go further than that.

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