“I’m so glad that I know who you are and that we’ve met again,” Taylor said, a wistful edge softening her jawline. “But I don’t know how I’m going to last the rest of the year. It’s only October, and I already feel like I’m a lost cause.”
The physical impact of Taylor’s confession hit Charlotte straight in the jaw.
Taylor wasn’t just entertaining a passing infatuation.
The realization flooded Charlotte’s nervous system. Taylor was just as consumed.
Charlotte spent the last four months telling herself the attraction existed only in her own isolated mind. She convinced herself the intense heat of that beach night faded for Taylor the moment the sun came up. Hearing the raw truth vocalized destroyed the safety of that assumption.
Taylor wanted her. She sat in the sloped lecture hall every week and fought the exact same physical demand that kept Charlotte awake at night.
The validation terrified her. It stripped away her primary excuse. She wasn’t harboring a one-sided, inappropriate obsession. She sat directly at the center of Taylor’s focus.
A vicious pull of desire pushed through Charlotte’s veins, before she came to her senses.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Charlotte said.
“I know exactly what I’m saying.”
Charlotte dragged her gaze away from Taylor’s mouth. The fabric of her slacks rubbed a harsh friction against her knees as she shifted her weight. She needed to stand up, walk down the rear stairs, and wait outside. Doing anything else meant dismantling the foundation of her entire life.
She participated in the committee that drafted the department ethics policy on student relationships. She sat in the sterile conference room and argued for strict professional boundaries.
The power dynamic demanded absolute separation.
Taylor sat in her classroom. Taylor needed her objective evaluation for a final grade.
“Taylor,” Charlotte said. Her voice scraped against the dry back of her throat.
“Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
Taylor leaned closer.
“I feel it,” Charlotte said. “But I’m your professor.”
“You weren’t my professor at the beach.”
“That doesn’t matter now.” Charlotte gripped her own thighs. She dug her manicured nails into the wool trousers to keep her hands anchored. “We can’t do this. I can’t do this with you.”
Charlotte looked down. Her fingers trembled against her legs. The visible lack of control exposed every lie she tried to force out of her mouth. The nervous energy humming in her muscles demanded she lean forward. Closing the remaining inches required only a slight shift of her torso.
“You have to let this go,” Charlotte said.
18
Taylor could let it go. Of course she could. But the thought of walking away from this, fromher, was like trying to un-remember a favorite song.
The couch cushions dipped slightly as Charlotte turned to face her fully. Taylor’s fingers itched to reach out, to bridge the gap that had reopened the way a fault line reopened after a quake. She knew the risks. Knew the weight of Charlotte’s position, the career she’d built, the rules she’d spent a lifetime upholding. But rules had never stopped the heart from wanting what it wanted.
“Say you want me,” Taylor said. The words came out steady, unshaken by the tremor in her chest. “Just once. Out loud. So I know I’m not inventing the way you’re looking at me right now.”
Because shecouldfeel it. The air between them thickened with it, a current pulling at her skin, at the fine hairs on her arms. Charlotte’s breath was shallow, her lips parted just enough to let the silence stretch. Taylor had spent three months convincing herself that night had been a fluke, a perfect storm of moonlit impulsivity. But here it was again—that same electric hum, that same sense of standing at the edge of something vast and terrifying andnecessary.
“Because I can feel it, Charlotte,” she said, softer now. “I can feel how much you want to close that last inch and kiss me the way you did before you remembered all the rules.”
The words hung there, raw and undeniable. Taylor didn’t need to hear them back. But god, she wanted to. She wanted Charlotte to admit it, just once.
“Idowant you,” Charlotte said, voice rough. “That’s never been the question.”
