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“You’re very passionate,” he tells me. His voice is like a shot of top-shelf bourbon. “It’s cute.”

My balls tighten as blood rushes down and my stomach clenches.

Dante reaches farther, until his fingertips brush along my knuckles and I drop my pencil. My breath catches in my throat.

“Why are you here, asking me these questions?” I ask. His eyelashes are dark and brush his cheeks when he blinks, and fuck me…all I can focus on is the feeling of his warm fingers on the back of my hand. His hands are a bit rougher than mine…and larger than mine.

My eyes dart from his to the table. “Do you even have a laptop to plug in?”

He smirks at me. “I think you know why I’m here, Ethan,” he whispers.

His hand feels like it could swallow mine whole. I feel so small compared to him, and something about that makes my head spin.

“I don’t,” I insist. “What do you want from me?” I manage to pull my hand away from his.

“Oh, look at you with that look on your face. Blushin’ redder than a cherry.” Dante grins at me, his fingers grabbing mine again, harder this time. “What doyouwant, Ethan? That’s what I’m curious about.”

“Nothing,” I choke out. “I want to focus on my work.” I lean back, trying to get as far from him as possible while still sitting down.

“Oh, come on. I know that look,” he chuckles darkly. “You might be an uptight straight-A student, but even the best students need to get railed every now and then. Actually, probably a lot more frequently than that.”

My face grows even hotter, and my cock is half-hard in my jeans. I try to ignore it and tell myself it’s nothing. It’s a fear response. That’s it. It’s a perfectly natural response to a guy I don’t like, not even a little—because I don’t like men—flirting with me.

“If that were true, you would be a much better student,” I snap at him. The frustration boils over inside of me. I close my laptop and start to shove everything back into my messenger bag.

“Oh, where are you going?” Dante says, standing up just as I do. “I thought we were having a good little date.”

“Fuck off,” I tell him. “I have a girlfriend, and even if I didn’t, I’m not interested. You can take your bad-boy flirting act somewhere else, man.”

Just getting those words out feels like it takes a thousand breaths. I’m never this worked-up or anxious. Sure, I have some social anxiety, but usually even the most annoying jocks are easy enough to handle…except, they’re not ever flirting with me.

“You’ll think of me later,” Dante assures me.

He doesn’t follow me as I head out of the library, just like he didn’t follow me out of the coffee shop the other day.

But this time, I can’t handle the tension coursing through my body.

I need to talk to someone about this.

I meet Nathan at his dorm thirty minutes later. Thankfully my body seems to have calmed down by this point. I’m not sure what I’m going to tell him, because frankly I’m not entirely sure what happened…or why.

Usually, Nathan would meet me at my apartment, but I have to go hang out with Lena soon, and her dorm is closer to Nathan’s than my place.

“What’s up? I thought you were having a study date with Lena tonight?” he asks as soon as he opens his door.

“I am…but I went to the library first to get some work done before going over there, and—” Nathan cuts me off before I can finish.

“Before you go over? You think she’s gonna wanna focus on something else?” he asks with a smirk.

I sigh. “No…I mean, maybe. She needs more help with her homework than I do, so I’m often not able to focus on my own work as much as hers,” I explain as I step in and he closes the door behind me. I shake my head. “That’s not why I’m here, though.”

“Then why are you here?” he asks. “You want some coffee?” He steps over to the small coffee pot sitting on the shared dresser in the room. His roommate isn’t home, and for that I’m grateful.

“No, I’ll be up all night.” I wave his offer away.

“Exactly. Isn’t that your go-to?” Nathan chuckles as he pours himself some coffee.

I sit down on the edge of his bed and he sits down on the beanbag chair that’s low to the floor nearby.