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“Wanted to make it as hard for me as it is for you?” Barlowe says, his brow lifting in accusation. Apparently, I do look at her like I want her just as badly as he does. “What would the board think of this?”

“What would her father?” I counter, “Because I’ve seen enough to know what you two are up to.”

Barlowe’s head falls back, and he presses his palms to his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Indeed.” I wait for him to level his gaze on me again. “Two things. First, I have a proposition for you. And second, I have something to show you.”

14

ORION

The crisp late September chill is finally setting in, which helps significantly when I’m crammed onto a bus with twenty students and Sofia. They’re loud, rowdy, and much more difficult to wrangle than I previously thought.

Thank God for Sofia. She has no problem clapping her hands to silence them and telling them what to do. No nonsense, even though she does it with a smile. How much practice has she had at this?

It’s certainly not what I signed up for. I teach at a university because I don’t want to deal with groups of children. My niece and nephew are awesome, but I wouldn’t want to be surrounded by the little monsters on a day to day basis.

Like now. I forget how eighteen-year-olds are stillteenagers.

It makes the ride into New York City taxing.

Most of them are a normal level of loud and obnoxious, but Leann… God, I wish that girl had stayed home. Her giggle has become a noise from my nightmares. Literally.

I sit beside Sofia, a natural shield as my seatmate, my co-captain of this excursion, and rub my temples.

Her soft laugh is sweet, and I wish it could drown out every other noise.

“I’ve got an extra set of earplugs if you need them.”

I wipe a hand down my face. “How about trading me seats so she stops brushing my arm every time she comes to check on our progress?”

Sofia is biting back a smile that pulls one of my own at the corner of my mouth. “She’s probably only coming because of you. She doesn’t seem quite so interested in what the club is actually trying to do.”

I groan and press back into my seat harder. “Don’t tell me that.”

“The truth is what the truth is. She doesn’t seem to get that what she wants is against school policy and can get her in just as much trouble as it would get you into.” Her tone is light but admonishing. If only she knew how untrue that statement is. It doesn’t coincide with my experience.

“Not necessarily. It becomes a he-said, she-said situation far too easily. I’d be the one to bear the weight of it.” And I can’t tell her that I already have.

“That’s why you should put an end to it.”

Frustrated, I’m practically growling when I say, “And how am I supposed to do that? Call her out on her crush? Show everyone that my opinion of myself is so high that I presume to think she’s trying to be inappropriate with me?”

“Sheisbeing inappropriate with you. Just because you’re her professor does not give her carte blanche to touch you. You still have autonomy over yourself. Tell her, nicely, to please not touch you. It makes you uncomfortable. That way, it’s about you and what you need instead of about what she’s doing wrong.”

I turn to her, and it amazes me how she can be so soft and sweet but also strong and independent. There’s more to her than she’s let me see so far. And fuck, I’m trying to keep it cool, butI’m so attracted to her. Every little glimpse and sliver she gives me sends me further out of control.

“You make it sound so easy.”

Her head shakes. “No. I never said it was easy, but there are… easier ways to deal with it than others. Likenotdealing with it. That’s only going to blow up in your face.”

“Too much to wish for it to simply go away if I ignore it long enough?”

Her eyes close, but she smiles. “Definitely.”

I turn back in my seat, too aware of the mirror reflecting our seats back at us. But it lets me watch her, how her head tilts back and elongates her pale neck, accentuates the muscles of her throat when she swallows.

Tipping back and forth from sweet to dirty thoughts of her has my own head spinning. I adjust in my seat when a hand comes down on my forearm and Leann’s face appears far too close to mine.