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Chapter Two
Ashley made it to the bottom of the stairs, her heart still pounding in her chest. Her things were still in her car. She’d been ready to head home when she remembered she wanted to catch one of her professors before their office hours ended.
And then after spending weeks avoiding Carla, Ashley had literally bumped into her.
Ashley’s breath caught in her throat when she remembered the way Carla had just kissed her.
How had that even happened?
A confession had been on the tip of her tongue. Carla was supposed to hate her. Tell her that she never wanted to see her again.
But Carla had kissed her.
Ashley stood at the bottom of the stairs, frozen in place, replaying the last few minutes in her head.
“I can’t be seen with a student. I just can’t.”
That was what Carla had said. And yet, she’d kissed her anyway.
Ashley’s sweaty palm gripped the cool metal rail as she turned to climb the stairs she’d just come down.
Time would not help this situation. If anything, time would make things worse. The longer Carla had to think about this, about the potential consequences, the less likely it was that she would ever look at Ashley again like she had that first night.
The fact that Carla had kissed Ashley in her own office said something, and it struck Ashley in that moment, standing alone at the bottom of the stairwell, that if she didn’t go right back up to Carla’s office this second, she might never get a chance to talk to Carla about this again.
Ashley swallowed down the lump in her throat. She had nothing to lose. That’s what she kept telling herself as she climbed the steps and strode down the hallway, her heart hammering against her ribs the closer she got to Carla’s door.
Ashley made sure the hallway was empty before stopping in front of Carla’s office. She took a deep breath and another, doing her best to calm her nerves before she lifted her hand to gently knock on the door.
“Come in.”
Ashley wet her lips and reached for the handle, pushing the door open and stepping inside before Carla could tell her to get out. Ashley shut the door and met Carla’s wide eyes.
“What are you doing?” Carla asked, already out of her chair and coming around to the other side of her desk. “You can’t be here.”
Ashley resisted the urge to just leave, to listen to reason, to follow an instruction coming from one of her professors, but she couldn’t ignore the way Carla had behaved just a few moments ago.
“Ashley?”
Carla’s eyes searched her own, and Ashley could have sworn that Carla’s gaze flickered down to Ashley’s lips.
“I know I shouldn’t be here,” Ashley said, her voice surprisingly confident if not a little husky. “But I shouldn’t have left either.”
“What?” Carla folded her arms across her chest.
“Not after you kissed me like that.” Ashley took a step forward, and Carla looked away, exhaling as she traced her eyebrow with her fingertip. “I couldn’t leave it like that,” Ashley said, knowing that this was it.
If she couldn’t convince Carla in the next few seconds, she’d get thrown out. And Ashley would have to listen. She’d have to leave.
“I shouldn’t have,” Carla said, but it was barely a whisper, her voice thick with emotion, her gaze still avoiding Ashley’s.
“Because you’re my professor?”
“Yes.” Carla finally looked at her. “It just can’t happen.”
“It’s not against the rules you know.”
Ashley actually hadn’t known that until last week, when she was so desperate to either find a solution to this or figure out how to forget about it that she’d gone through the entire college handbook looking for some kind of a rule forbidding it. But nowhere did it say that students and professors couldn’t date.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Ashley arched an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
Ashley reached out, her fingertips light against Carla’s forearm, letting them fall to Carla’s hand, and Ashley held it, as if it was the most natural thing. She didn’t say anything as she turned her wrist, interlacing their fingers, and she didn’t miss the way Carla’s breath caught.
