Now, I'd really thought I was dreaming. Curiously, I'd reached out and let a single finger lightly trace the curve of his spine. He was real. He was warm. And I was very much in this man's bed.
His steady breathing changed at my touch and he rolled over. Moonlit filtered in through the curtains touching that handsome--no-longer-hidden-behind-bulky-glasses--face.
He slid closer and leaned over my body enough for me to feel like he wouldn't have let me leave even if I tried. His hand lingered at my cheek until eventually, he let himself brush hair behind my ear.
"How are you feeling?" His voice was coarse from sleep and his breath warm across my chilled face.
"B--better," my own voice came out dry and I stuttered. I did feel off and it hit me that maybe, I was actually getting sick and that the overheating and dizzy spells weren't solely because of him.
"Did you... bring me to your place?"
His jaw feathered. Briefly, I wondered if something might have happened. He was shirtless and his hair tousled. Panicked, I looked down. My clothes remained.
"What happened?" I asked, and tried to look anywhere but his eyes. I settled for his neck. The curve of it tempting.
"You passed out. I don't know where you live and it wouldn't have been good if I'd been seen carrying around a student, so I brought you here. You had a fever, but it broke some time ago."
"You could have taken me to the school infirmary."
He went rigid. He knew he made a bad call--logically speaking--but it hadn't stopped him.
"That wasn't my primary focus," he finally said, his voice darkening and his eyes shifted, trying to read my face. I felt him tense beside me, even his hand stilled in my hair and his next words were hardly a whisper, "I wanted to see to it myself you were looked after."
For a while, he waited for me to speak, refusing to expand on that declaration. But regardless of who spoke next, I sensed it would spell trouble. And somehow, unlike the risk-averse good girl I'd lived life by, I craved chaos in the form of this man.
I took the invitation and directed it down the dangerous path I wasn't fully prepared to take though sensibility had long been forgone. "And now, I'm in your bed... with you and you're..." my eyes trailed to his chest. His defined, muscular torso of golden-tan skin. All kinds of senses flared. Some terrifying, others lustful, and a few unidentifiable.
Slowly, his hand moved in my hair again. Then to my cheek, making me face him. I was surprised what I found. Desire my have filled that gaze, but fear seemed to cloud it.
"Professor Voss--"
"Cole," He said quietly, "The other students call me Voss, I don't want you to. Not here... Emma."
Heat scorched my core and the chill of whatever I had turned to fire. My lips parted. Incapable at first of speaking his name, but after weeks of listening to his lectures, watching him present, of researching all the great work he'd done, something in me broke. That need in me to be good--to follow rules. I was going to break them all for him.
"Cole," I whispered and he went eerily still, so I said again, "Cole," and it felt smooth on my tongue. I wondered if his lips would feel just as so.
Wondering was short lived because my professor--Cole, someone I wasn't allowed to have--maneuvered his body over mine. He lowered his face, and paused a breath's length away. His shallow, uneven breaths were not only audible, but palpable. The weight of each staggered inhale and exhale had our bodies connecting. Suddenly, the barrier of my clothes felt overwhelming and wrong. I wanted them off.
And Cole, he wanted this. Undeniably, deeply wanted... me.
But, he waited. Waited for my response. For my acceptance--an approval of what he was inviting. Without hesitation, I arched forward into the mere fraction of distance between us, bringing my lips to meet his and something came alive.
Immediately, the uneasiness I'd felt melted into pure carnal need. Our breathing became a harmonious uneven pairing of batted breaths. His hands griped at my sides, at my waist, my neck, trying to refrain from going too fast. Every time I tried to push him to a limit, to get him to go further, he slowed me down.