Page 191 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 10

I exhaled slowly. How could it be so easy to breathe around her one moment, and the next it felt like I was suffocating? As if she controlled my air supply.

"More than ten?"

"I spent a large portion of my college years fairly drunk."An understatement.

"More than fifteen?"

"We should probably stop playing this game."

"Professor Hunter, you're a slut!"

I laughed. "You seem to enjoy all my experience."

She cringed. I didn't like picturing her with anyone else. I imagined it was the same for her.

"And what about your one, Penny?" I thought about the video footage of Tyler leaving her dorm. She said they were just friends. Had they always been just friends? I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to handle him being in my class, sitting next to her, knowing he’d fucked her.Breathe.

"What about him?" She slid off me and onto her side, her head resting in her hand.

"One is rather intimate. Is he someone I should be worried about?"Please don’t be Tyler.I was already being a shitty professor. And I had a feeling if it was Tyler I’d be giving out an underserved F.

She laughed. "No."

"So you no longer speak to him?"

"No.”

I breathed a little easier.

“I doubt that I'll ever talk to him again,” she added. “He's an immature asshole."

"And why is that?" I was relieved it wasn’t Tyler. But the thought of someone, anyone, treating her badly made my blood boil.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because I don't want to make the same mistakes with you that he did."

She sighed. "There isn't much to tell. We dated last semester. He didn't speak to me all summer. He made me feel worthless."

"So you broke up with him?" I felt ridiculous asking so many questions about this one guy. She hadn’t made me give her details about all the women I’d slept with. But I needed to know everything. I was a hypocrite, and I knew it.

"You can't really break up with someone who you never officially went out with."

I took her hand in mine. Apparently she didn’t just date immature guys. She dated idiots. "Penny Taylor, I promise not to make you feel worthless. And I'll try not to act like an asshole." I smiled, intertwining our fingers. The promise of not making her feel worthless would be easy. Because I was the one that wasn’t worthy of her. The asshole promise was harder. Because I really was an asshole on most days.

"I don't know, Professor Hunter. From what I've found out about you, it seems like I'm just going to end up as another notch on your bedpost."

I laughed. "That's not who I am anymore." She’d never be a notch. She was quickly becoming everything. All that I thoughtabout. All that I craved. It was such a thin line for me, and I had already crossed it. I wasn’t sure I could go back even if I wanted to.

"I thought it was impossible for people to change?"

"I came here for a change. And I think I'm better off because of it." I pulled her toward me so that her head was resting on my chest again. Her leg crossed over me.

Having her in my arms felt so right. And there was something nice about knowing she felt it too. Because I wasn’t just fucking my student. I was in deep. I was pretty sure I was in love with her.I’m in love with my student.I breathed in her sweet scent. This moment could last forever and it wouldn't be long enough. Because it had been a really long time since I’d felt this whole. And this happy. Hell, that was a lie. I’d never been whole. And I barely even remembered what it felt like to be happy. The smell of cherries surrounded me. Until now. I was pretty sure this was what happiness felt like.

***

I had never slept so well before. There was something about having Penny beside me that calmed me. She looked so peaceful when I woke up. I wanted to wake up to her beautiful face every morning.Just like this.For a few minutes I just stared at the way her red hair fell against the pillow and the shadows her eyelashescast on the freckles under her eyes. She was good and perfect and pure.And mine.Somehow she was mine.