Page 32 of Stranger to Love

"Damn it.”

Then I smiled—a real, wide smile. Because Dr. Carter bought me nuggets and picked me up. I sipped my Coke as I turned to walk home.

It was so weird. She barely even looked at me in class and hardly ever glanced my way during lectures. What the hell was going on? Why was the woman picking me up in the early hours of the morning and putting up with my nonsense?

I tried not to overthink it. If I did, the spell broke, and right then, she was actually paying attention to me. Maybe she didn't want to bend me over a desk just yet, but she was drawn to me enough to keep playing this game—and to pull that scary, possessive protector act. That had got to mean she at least wanted to get into my pants.

Chapter 8

Alex

And here we were again.

Holly looked like death as I settled into the seat beside her in our 9:00 a.m. Economics classroom on Monday morning. I chuckled as I took her in: her beautiful curls had been yanked back into a frantic scrunchie, she was wearing absolutely no makeup, and she’d thrown on a baggy jumper and jeans rather than her usual, put-together smart-casual look.

I waited a beat before resting my chin on my hand, looking at her with a smirk. “And what sort of night did you have?”

She groaned, the sound completely muffled by her arms. “A late one.”

I laughed. "I can see that.”

Mo and Abdul sat down across from us, both of them instantly laughing at Holly, who stuck her middle finger up at them without fully lifting her head from the desk. I smirked and raised an eyebrow at the boys. “What have I missed?”

Mo grinned. “Hallway party at Liberty last night.”

“Fucking hell.” I laughed and shook my head. “So, sweetheart, was one of those flats yours by any chance?”

Holly groaned dramatically, burying her head completely into her arms. I chuckled and rubbed her back gently. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

The sharp, distinct click of heels against the floor made her bolt upright. Everyone went dead silent as Dr. Carter walked into the room. The woman looked as entirely powerful as usual, wearing tailored black trousers and a deep blue silk shirt. I subtly cracked my neck, feeling a familiar tension coil through me as her cool gaze swept across us all. Her eyes held mine for a single, highly charged second before she turned to the whiteboard and began today’s introductions.

“This week,” Dr. Carter began, her voice cutting across the room with precise, academic clarity, “we will be concentrating heavily on microeconomics—specifically, the behaviour of individual agents within a market.”

I settled back into my chair, absorbing the rigid professionalism. She moved straight into the basic principles, lecturing flawlessly on supply and demand shifts and elasticity. She could have been reading straight from a textbook, yet her command of the subject was sharp enough to keep the class from drifting off entirely.

I tried to pay attention, I really did, but the tension from the weekend was still humming violently beneath my skin. Every time she gestured or turned to the board, I subconsciously tracked the sharp lines of her navy shirt, my mind unhelpfully flashing back to the provocative view of that dark red blouse and pencil skirt in her car.

After twenty minutes, she paused. “I’ve prepared some discussion prompts to guide this analysis.”

She moved through the room, her heels clicking rhythmically against the linoleum. When she reached ours, she placed the sheets down with an almost perfunctory efficiency.

I glanced up, my eyes meeting the level plane of her chest as she laid the documents down. Just a natural glance. I waited for the faintest acknowledgment—a twitch of the lip, a fractional narrowing of the eyes, anything that whispered of the late-night pick-up, the way she took down some prick to protect me, or the shared secret of a drive thru.

But there was nothing. Her gaze swept right over me, colder and more distant than it had been even last week. She didn't hesitate, she didn't blink, and she didn't break her stride. She moved right on to the next table, already instructing them in the exact same detached tone.

I let out a measured, quiet breath and picked up the worksheet. I knew it was just the way she had to be: frosty, professional, utterly impersonal in front of the students. And yet, I couldn't stop the private smile that played on my lips as I started on the first prompt with Holly, Mo, and Abdul.

Cold and distant. Yes, absolutely. But there was something else there that weekend. A barely veiled rage, a terrifying protective streak, and the husky sound of her calling me a brat. Fuck, just thinking about that word made me shiver. Those moments were reserved only for when the two of us were entirely alone, cocooned in the heavy silence of her car.

The contrast was intoxicating. She could play the untouchable Dr. Carter here, but I knew the truth: she was the woman who slammed doors, bought me chips, and floored a guy twice her size for daring to touch me. I thoroughly enjoyed this specific brand of in-class invisibility. It was confirmation that the chaos of the weekend was our little secret.

I managed to wade through the discussion prompts, occasionally kicking Holly’s foot under the table when she threatened to pass out, and whispering quick explanations to Mo and Abdul. The truth was, I was cruising on pure adrenaline and the residual buzz of the weekend. I glanced at the clock; the final twenty minutes were approaching.

Sure enough, Dr. Carter commanded everyone’s attention again, moving back to the whiteboard at the front of the room.

“Right. Let’s consolidate these points. Mo, what did your group determine regarding the concept of Elasticity of Demand?”

Mo delivered a solid textbook definition. Dr. Carter acknowledged him with a crisp, “Excellent,” and proceeded to smoothly work through the main principles, fielding answers and gently correcting students. She was flawless, controlling the pace and the narrative of the room with surgical precision.