Lover (Court University 4)

Evie had been so kind to me since I’d come to Maywood Heights, and here I was lying to her on the daily. The only relief I got from that was the fact that she was very busy and didn’t always have time to visit with me in my office or go for our runs. We hadn’t gotten to run together at all this week yet due to her tight schedule.

Ramses stood up in his suit, not surprising considering how formal he’d dressed last week. I assumed that had something to do with his job and today, he’d come in a full suit. In fact, the gray tapered blazer and tight trousers reminded me very much of the outfit I’d met him in, the wedding where we’d had so much fire. He’d basically blown me out of Evie’s Louboutin heels, and I had offered to give them back to her on a few occasions. She’d insisted I keep them, though, claiming she had a closest full of them and those were her gift to me. My friend was very generous.

I didn’t allow Ramses’s gaze to stay on me long before I was gathering my things and dashing out of the classroom. I needed time to get to my office and get myself together. He knew where my office was like the rest of the class since I put the room number on my emails and syllabus. I emailed the class quite a few times so, yeah, he should know where he was going.

It wasn’t far, down the hall, and after unlocking it, I tossed in my bag, then fluffed my hair like an idiot. I even swiped on a fresh layer of red across my lips, like that mattered.

What are you doing? This isn’t a hookup.

Tell my body that, completely buzzing at the fact my student was going to be here in nanoseconds. My hot student with the height of a demigod and a smile of an actual god. I’d missed seeing it in the class he’d missed, and today, he’d avoided my eye contact.

Yes, I was a complete mess, but I did stare in the mirror a second before smoothing out my cigarette pants and easing myself into my desk chair. I had my laptop out and ready. I did have office hours after this so I could pass off trying to look like I was working.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Like he was trying to be timid, or maybe just hesitant. I had pushed him away on more than one occasion. I blew out a breath. “Come in.”

He did behind my laptop, again lowering his head for basically every door frame he had to walk through. Outside of that, he filled the thing nearly shoulder to broad shoulder, that blazer he wore sans the tie. Perhaps, whatever work function he was doing today didn’t require it.

“You wanted to see me, Professor?” he asked, grinning when he took off his leather bag. He adjusted it to his shoulder. “Am I in trouble?”

He would be if he kept call me professor in that way, an edge to it I most likely put there because I wanted to hear it.

Cool your jets. This ends here.

Hence why I asked to see him, waving him in. He closed the door, then stamped those big thighs of his directly in front of me. I swallowed. “Probably don’t call me that.”

“What?”

My lips pinched together. “Professor. It’s just…” Weird. Ridiculous? I pushed my hair out of my face. “Just not professor.”

His grin easy n

ow, he eyed me. “What do you want me to call you then? Professor is what you wanted. What you said, right?”

He hadn’t been smart about it, but direct, and I didn’t miss how his throat tightened and worked a little. He may be aware I requested he call me that, but that didn’t mean it sat well.

It just showed me even more that this particular arrangement, what we were, wouldn’t work out any more than anything else had before.

I opened my hands, inviting him to a seat, and though he took it, he was hesitant about it. Like most things, he caused the seat to completely dwarf beneath him, his long limbs squeezing in just to adjust. He was like Goldilocks in a little chair but made do when he crossed his leg at the knee. He frowned. “Am I in trouble?”

I closed my laptop. “I just noticed I missed your attention today,” I said, nodding. “You were texting and possibly doing other work. At least, that’s what I’m assuming.”

I was speaking to him like I would any other student, but the issue was Ramses wasn’t every other student. He’d been mine.

At least, for a night.

He’d been a heavy cross, a sin in an evening charged rife with emotion and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to wash all that away.

His lips parted, a lengthy digit scratching his bare cheek. He flashed that chunky ring he wore, the one he’d fucked me and tightened my walls with.

I crossed my legs beneath the desk.

Like he noticed my reaction, either to the ring or him, he dropped his hands between his legs and leaned forward. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. And you’re right. I was working. Doing other projects but not school. I’ve been working really long hours. My father’s business, but that’s no excuse. You’re right. I shouldn’t have been doing that.”

I nodded, sitting back. “I remember your mom mentioning that the other night. You working for your family’s business?” I messed with my wristwatch. “I get it. You have a lot of responsibility.”

This seemed untold, and I wondered why he took on so much. If it was really like Evie said, him trying to prove something…