“I know you don’t enjoy answering these kinds of questions...”
My professor straightens up and gives me a side-eye glance at the beginning of my sentence.
“Oh, no, what’s this?” he asks, knowing perfectly well where I’m heading with this. “You have a question?”
“But I would like to understand more about you,” I mutter. “Your past, for instance.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“You do? Why?”
I shrug. “I’ve seen the articles and the headlines, but I want to know what makes you tick.”
“My love for literature,” he replies, unemotive. He straightens his tie.
I laugh, but it rings hollow.
“No, I want to know more about you and not just the standard answer to a media interview,” I say. “Why have you moved back to Crystal River? Why have you decided to teach at this university, out of all others? I mean, the world must be completely open to a man like you, so why have you come back home?”
“Why not?”
“You’re just so... talented and intelligent and educated,” I say.
The professor raises a hand. “Be careful now, Miss Weldon. That’s getting dangerously close to a compliment.”
“But why Crystal River, of all places?” I ask him.
“Now you’re sounding like my father.”
I shake my head.
“Why the walls? You’re just sosecretive.”
“Oh, Olivia.” My professor strolls across the room and takes my chin with his fingers. He lifts up my face so that he can kiss me. “Don’t worry about me. Don’t fret about my past.”
He’s acting so coy and flippant. Like he’s sticking to the non-disclosure agreement I signed that this is nothing more than acasualrelationship.
But, somehow, the way he holds me... it makes me feel like all this is more than just some casual fling written down on a piece of paper...
47
OLIVIA
I gofor one of my famous runs, but this time, I’m wearing slightly different clothing.
Spencer’s hoodie.
I fit it over my head, breathing in his scent as it hangs loosely around my body. I can’t get enough of him. His smell. The rush of manliness. It’s like he’s standing in the room with me.
Like he’s about to kiss me.
I put my headphones in and leave the dorm for the run. I’m not planning for a long one - just a half-hour jog around the outskirts of the campus and then back to the dorms again. I’m feeling too tired to try anything more...adventurous, and I think that goes back to what Professor Penmayne has been doing to my body recently.
The things he makes me feel...
Now’s not the time to get excited over him, Olivia.
I do my run and get back in a fast time. I’m panting. I really wanted to expend my energy.