4

Jasmine

The pounding in my head woke me before my alarm did.

For several seconds, I lay perfectly still, my eyes closed against the sunlight filtering through the curtains. The brightness felt cruel, pressing insistently against my eyelids while a dull ache pulsed behind them.

Every part of me felt heavy, as if someone had replaced my bones with lead during the night.

A low groan escaped me.

Something wasn’t right.

The mattress beneath me felt unfamiliar. The air smelled wrong. Even the silence felt different.

My eyes opened slowly. The unfamiliar room came into focus piece by piece. Dark walls, a black dresser, and a chair in the corner with my dress thrown carelessly over it.

My brow furrowed in confusion before understanding slammed into my chest all at once.

This wasn’t my room.

I pushed myself upright too quickly and immediately regretted it.

“Fuck.” I winced.

The room tilted violently, sending a fresh wave of nausea through me. A low groan escaped me as I pressed my fingers against my temple.

I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my fingers against my temples until the dizziness settled. When I looked down, the sheet had slipped from my chest.

I froze.

I was completely naked.

My stomach dropped. “No. No, no, no…” I groaned. “God, please no.”

Fragments of last night began surfacing through the haziness in my head. They flashed behind my eyes in broken pieces—the whiskey, darkrooms, and a deep voice.

The way the room spun every time I tried to focus on his face. After that, everything became scattered pieces of memory that refused to fit together properly.

I swallowed hard and glanced around the room.

There was no sign of him, no sound or movement from the bathroom.

Nothing.

The stranger was gone.

The realization should have relieved me. Instead, it left me feeling strangely exposed.

My gaze drifted toward the empty side of the bed before dropping lower. Dark red stained the white sheets.

For a moment, I simply stared.

My heartbeat quickened.

The room seemed to narrow around me. “Oh, God.”

I looked away immediately, but the image had already burned itself into my mind.

The blood wasn’t what made my stomach twist. It was what it represented.

My fingers tightened around the sheet.

Twenty years of promises and expectations and careful boundaries, of hearing that some things mattered—that some things should be given to the right person.

To someone you loved, someone who loved you back.

And now—a hollow laugh escaped me. Now my first time belonged to a faceless stranger I couldn’t even remember properly.

The tears threatened to spill, but I blinked them back.

No, I wasn’t doing that.

I’d already cried enough over Jason, and I wasn’t going to cry about this, no matter how bad it hurt—how ashamed I felt.

The thought of his name brought a fresh ache to my chest as the image slammed into me once again. The way my entire world had seemed to split apart in a single moment.

Maybe that was why this had happened. Heartbreak and alcohol were a dangerous combination.

I dragged a shaky hand through my hair and forced myself to breathe, my gaze shifting toward the nightstand beside the bed.

A glass of water sat there neatly beside two aspirin tablets and a folded note.

Take it. You’ll feel better.

My brows furrowed instantly. I picked the note up, staring at the clean handwriting longer than necessary.

No name. Nothing else.

A frustrated sound left my throat as I pressed my fingers against my temple.

Broad shoulders.

A deep voice.

Strong hands.

That was all my brain had managed to save from the disaster that was last night.

Everything else was frustratingly blank.

Perhaps that was for the best. Because if I never saw him again, I could pretend this had been exactly what it was: a mistake and nothing more.

***

Voices echoed through the room while students filled almost every seat. I stood frozen near the entrance for half a second before Ari spotted me from the middle row.

Her eyes widened instantly. Then she waved and pointed to the empty seat beside her. I hurried over, sliding into the seat beside her while trying not to look completely unhinged.

“Thank goodness,” I whispered, dropping my bag at my feet. “I thought I’d have to stand.”

Ari stared at me for exactly three seconds before grimacing. “Holy hell, Jasmine.”

I blinked at her tiredly. “What?”

“You look horrible.”

I rolled my eyes and chuckled lightly. “Wow. Thank you.”

“When did you get home last night?”

“Honestly, I don’t even remember,” I admitted. “I was far too wasted.”

She sighed. “I’m really sorry that happened to you,” she said, squeezing my hand gently.

I waved it off, forcing a smile. “That’s fine. I mean, it is what it is, right?”

She nodded. “I guess so,” she said. “Mehn, I wish I had a bat when he showed up at my door. I would’ve—”

“He came to your apartment?”

“Yeah. How else did you think I got to know so fast?” she scoffed. “The idiot came asking to see you because he went to yours and you weren’t there.”

I scoffed, shaking my head. “That asshole.”

She snorted. “And to think that he was asking me to beg you—as if.”

My fingers tightened slightly around my pen as images of my sexcapade coursed through my mind. I looked away quickly so she wouldn’t notice how rosy my cheeks had turned.

Her face hardened. “That idiot.”

“Ari—”

“No, seriously, if I ever see him—”

The lecture hall doors slammed shut loudly.

“Everyone settle down,” a deep male voice called from the front. “Class is about to begin.”

Something about that voice brushed against my memory hard enough to make my stomach tighten. My eyes lifted automatically toward the front of the hall.

The lecturer stood with his back facing us, one hand braced against the desk while the other moved smoothly across the board.

“My name is Prof. Davin Jackson,” he said, writing it down on the board. “And I’ll be taking you for Nutritional Biochemistry this semester.”

Something in my chest tightened.

My brows pulled together slowly. Why the hell did that voice sound so familiar?

He set the marker down and turned toward the class.

And damn.

Handsome. Not the polished, pretty kind of boys my age tried so hard to be, either. This man looked grown and mature in a way that immediately shifted the air in the room.

He was tall, easily over six feet, with broad shoulders that stretched the sleeves of his charcoal button-up just enough to hint at the toned muscle underneath.

The top buttons were undone carelessly, revealing his Adam’s apple, while the sleeves rolled to his forearms exposed veins and tanned skin that looked unfairly distracting.

His jawline was sharp enough to cut glass, dark stubble shadowing it perfectly, like he either forgot to shave or didn’t care enough to.

And those eyes—God.

They were sky blue, the kind of blue that looked dangerous. The kind that looked straight through you instead of at you.

My pulse stumbled violently.

Beside me, Ari let out a low whistle, leaning back into her seat. “Now that is a man,” she muttered under her breath, a smile playing lazily on her lips. “Now this semester might actually be worth attending.”

I barely heard her.

Something about him felt familiar. Not just the voice.

The way he carried himself. The way he stood. Even the angle of his jaw tugged at something in the back of my mind.

It was ridiculous.

I was certain I had never met Professor Jackson before in my life. If I’d seen a man who looked like that, I would’ve remembered.

So maybe it was just one of those strange coincidences. Maybe he simply reminded me of someone. Still, the feeling lingered.

Professor Jackson picked the marker back up like he had no idea half the female population in the hall had mentally stopped functioning.

“So we’re going to start with the basics,” he said smoothly, turning back toward the board. “Nutritional Biochemistry is the study of how nutrients and food components interact with biological systems at a molecular, cellular, and physiological level…”

His voice echoed through the lecture hall. He continued talking, writing terms across the board while students scrambled to keep up.

But honestly?

I knew damn well no girl in that room was actually listening to a single thing he was saying. Not with the way his muscles shifted beneath that shirt every time he moved.

Not with that voice.