The moment my fingers make contact with his face, I feel a tingling at the tips of them, and only then do I realize what I’ve just done. The tension drains from his expression, and he catches one of my hands.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
His eyes drop to my mouth, and I know I’ve forgotten to breathe.
This is not okay. Amalia, stop.Except that, for the first time, that voice goes nearly silent, and something closer to instinct takes over.
“Silas, I don’t think...”
Something that looks like surprise crosses his face, and I don’t understand why his name, coming from my lips, does that to him.
“Say my name again,” he murmurs, too close to my mouth.
I could step back. I could push him away. I could call him Professor Vaughn, but no one has ever reacted this way when I said their name, and my heart has taken the wheel from my head.
“Silas.” I swallow.
His eyes give him away. Just for a second, just a crack, but I see it, something vulnerable beneath all that composure, and the urge to pull him close hits me harder than I expect. I want to wrap my arms around him. I want to stand between him and whatever he’s carrying.
What is going on with me? Sweet Gauss, I think I need to be evaluated.
“Don’t let me get any closer, Amalia. For both our sakes.”
Then he turns and leaves me in that corner of the library, where anyone could have seen us. Where my heart is pounding at an alarming rate. Where the only thought in my head is that I should have closed that distance between us.
The old Amalia would never have done any of that.
No. But this Amalia would have.
Andreas has been staring at me like I’ve grown two heads while asking me the same question on a ten-minute loop without a break.
“So you, Silas Vaughn, almost kissed a student?”
My fist connects directly with his ribs, and I hear him swallow a sound of pure agony, but I have too much energy to burn off to care.
When he looks back up at me, I catch the triumphant grin. Because of course he’s going to say it a thousand more times just to get under my skin.
The next cross barely misses his right cheek, and with both hands raised in surrender, he steps out of the ring.
I came here immediately after the library incident, trying to clear my head, which had apparently gotten lost somewhere between those shelves.
“Almost,” I say through my teeth.
“That’s already more than you’ve managed in all your years as a professor. And not for lack of me trying to make you see reason, I want to point out. I’ve been telling you for years that your job could be better... utilized.” He says it with a laugh, and I roll my eyes.
Andreas has always made my career sound like paradise on earth, saying, and I’m quoting,“How many women love a hot nerd.”Yes, he said the word “hot.” Kill me now.
My best friend has zero discernment when it comes to the opposite sex. His criteria are simple: don’t talk too much, and preferably bring no more than two connected neurons to the table. Apparently, from three neurons upward they start to figure out that he doesn’t want anything beyond one night of tension relief before he sends them home.
I watch him wipe the sweat off with a towel and try to figure out what is wrong with me that I’ve lost the restraint I normally have without even noticing.
My career is at stake. My ethics are on the line because I have never been able to stomach the forbidden game between a professor and a student, and now I find myself standing right in the middle of it.
“Do it,” he says in a tone that doesn’t leave room for argument.
“Do what?”
“Go to her, kiss her, find the nearest empty desk, and get rid of the frustration that’s been rolling off you in waves. If it’s just a fluke, who’s going to care? If it’s something more, God help us, at least you’ll know.”
