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Oh… He was talking again, but I still didn’t know what the conversation was about.

“Luc; my name.”

“Oh! Um… I’m T-Tate.” Then it dawned on me, and a disbelieving laugh bubbled out of me. “Luc as in… Lucifer?”

Damn it, there went that grin of his again. I was such a goner, so much so that I almost forgot that I was scared of this creature.

Almost.

I shuffled over in my seat–away from him–just enough to say I’d done it.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “My parents really thought they were onto something.”

Maybe… Maybe this guy wasn’t as scary as I thought.

With every word out of his mouth, my defenses lowered.

Which did little to help the situation in my pants, especially when Professor Robinson began to speak, and Luc slid that much closer to me because “he forgot his textbook.”

Classic.

Or… was it? I wasn’t even entirely sure, but it seemed like one of those tactics people used in romcoms to get closer to the other person.

Next he’d be telling me he was cold and needed a hug.

I returned to my dorm that afternoon in a daze. I’d only had the one class with Luc, but that didn’t stop him from taking over my head the whole day, to the point where I began seeing him in every corner and lurking in every doorway.

I was ashamed to admit how many times it happened before I convinced myself that I was just seeing things.

It was nothing more than harmless daydreaming… right?

Chapter 4

LUC

I already had Tate wrapped around my little finger.

The ease in which he settled into conversation with me meant that I was right—he was the one I was here for, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

I still had yet to know what he’d done to force the stars to align—or what may have been coming. The year was still new yet, and Tate had a lot of growing into himself to do.

We had Monster Anatomy 101 together twice a week, but I made those couple of hours count. I learned everything I could about him and with how tight lipped he could be about his personal life, it was a feat.

His coffee order was the first thing I learned, but that wasn’t hard. Simply observing taught me that he didn’t like the overly sweet linen mocha that his roommate bought for him. The next day, he walked in with an alabaster espresso and nearly chugged it in record time, leaving him practically vibrating in his seat by the end of class. So the next class, I brought him one.

Fate aside, his smile and blush as he took it was enough for me to buy stock in the coffee place.

One night, my roommate was having a late-night study session with Tate’s. It was only polite to strike up a conversation, and Carter was quite the chatterbox—he was also the classic protective older brother, so I had to tread lightly. If he thought I was coming across as too much, he could easily shut things down.

He could take me out with one unexpected shift into his cat form.

But my attraction to Tate was so much more than surface level. Days passed and the tether between us only pulled harder. I began waiting, watching.

I did try to stay away, but it was in vain. It was like the longer I was apart from him, the more my skin began to crawl, to itch like I was being bitten by a thousand ants.

It seemed that—outside of classes—Tate didn’t have much of a social life. He’d grab dinner with his roommate or coffee with the guy’s younger brother and their ogre friend but other than that, he went to class, and he went back to his dorm.

I wasn’t stupid—I knew he could see me. At least, the ghost of me—shadows in a doorway or a flicker of movement around a corner, but he’d never be able to prove it.