STEAMY DESIRES: TIES THAT BIND

SYLVANA

The door to Professor Hawthorne's office stood slightly ajar, an invitation, a test, a trap I walked into willingly every Tuesday at four… I should definitely be saying no to this but I couldn't stop since I started.

I paused in the hallway, my fingers trembling as I adjusted the collar of my blouse. The corridor was empty.

I could hear voices inside…Dr. Chen's nasal tenor, Dr. Halloway's measured baritone, and beneath them both, the low, cultured resonance that made my stomach clench. Julian Hawthorne.

I pressed my palm against the doorframe, feeling the wood against my overheated skin. Three weeks. It had been three weeks since he'd first touched me—just a hand on my wrist, lingering too long as he handed back an essay, his thumb brushing my pulse point with deliberate, devastating slowness. Three weeks of stolen glances across lecture halls, of finding his eyes on me when I looked up from my notes, dark and knowing and hungry.

Three weeks of wanting.

"Sylvana."

His voice cut through my thoughts unexpectedly. I startled, realizing the door had opened wider, revealing Julian Hawthorne himself—tall and imposing in his suit, his dark hair touched with silver at the temples, his eyes the color of storm clouds just before they break.

"You're early," he said, but his voice suggested I was exactly on time.

"The other professors—" I gestured vaguely at the voices still audible from within.

"Are leaving." He stepped closer, crowding me against the doorframe without touching me. I could smell him… old books and something uniquely male, uniquely him. "Dr. Chen has a committee meeting. Dr. Halloway has office hours across campus."

He didn't move back. He didn't touch me. But I felt the weight of his presence like a physical touch, making it difficult to breathe.

"Unless," he murmured, his gaze dropping to my mouth, lingering there with such obvious intent that my lips parted involuntarily, "you'd prefer to wait in the hallway. Where anyone might see you. Where anyone might wonder why my brightest student hovers outside my door like a woman waiting for something she shouldn't want."

My pulse hammered against my throat. "I'm not hovering."

"No?" He leaned in, just an inch, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his body. "Then what are you doing, Miss Voss?"

*Waiting*, I thought. *Wanting. Dying.*

"Seeking clarification," I managed, my voice barely above a whisper. "On the assignment."

His mouth curved but not quite a smile, something more dangerous. "Of course. Academic rigor. I do admire... thoroughness."

He stepped back finally, gesturing into the office with a sweep of his arm that was all propriety on the surface and pure provocation beneath. "After you."

I moved past him, acutely aware of my skirt brushing his trousers, of his eyes on my back, my waist, the curve of my hips. The office was warm, afternoon sun streaming through leaded glass windows, illuminating the heavy furniture, the walls lined with first editions…

Dr. Chen and Dr. Halloway sat in the visitor chairs, coffee cups in hand. They barely glanced at me—just another student, just another consultation.

"Ah, Miss Voss," Dr. Chen said, not unkindly. "Here for the Derrida lecture notes?"

"Among other things," Julian answered for me, moving to his desk with that intimate glare that made my knees weak. He sat, adjusting his cuffs. "Miss Voss is working on an independent study. Quite ambitious. The intersection of power dynamics and narrative structure in Victorian literature."

"Fascinating," Dr. Halloway murmured, already gathering his things.

I stood near the door, my bag clutched to my chest like a shield, watching Julian watch me. He was the picture of academic propriety—hands folded on his desk, attention apparently on his colleagues, every inch the respected professor.

But his eyes. His eyes kept finding mine across the room, holding them with an intensity that felt like touch. When Dr. Chen stood to leave, Julian's gaze dropped to my throat, to the pulse hammering there. When Dr. Halloway mentioned a faculty meeting, Julian's attention drifted lower, to my chest, my waist, mapping my body with devastating thoroughness.

I felt it everywhere—his gaze like fingers, like heat, like promise.

"I'll walk out with you," Dr. Chen said to his colleague. "Julian, the budget reports?"

"Friday," Julian replied, his voice perfectly modulated while his eyes still stayed on me. "I'm ahead of schedule. Very... focused on delivery."

The words hung in the air between us, weighted with double meaning. I felt myself swallow hard, heat pooling low in my belly as the other professors moved toward the door.

"Coming, Miss Voss?" Dr. Halloway paused at the threshold.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Julian spoke first.

"Actually, I'd like Miss Voss to stay. There's a passage in *Wuthering Heights*—the scene in the library—that I think would benefit her thesis. The dynamics of hidden desire. Of wanting what one shouldn't have."

His gaze held mine, steady and unblinking…"Hidden," he repeated softly. "Concealed. Secret."

Dr. Chen chuckled. "Careful, Julian. You'll give the girl a reputation for being your favorite."

"Oh," Julian said, his voice dropping low "she already has that distinction."

Seconds later the door clicked shut.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. The silence stretched, thick with anticipation, with everything unsaid, everything we'd been dancing around for weeks.

Then Julian stood.

He moved slowly, deliberately, circling the desk like a shark scenting blood. I backed up until my shoulder blades met the door, my breath coming in shallow gasps.

"Three weeks," he said, stopping just out of reach. Close enough to touch. Close enough to taste. "Three weeks of watching you take notes, your pen pressed against your lower lip. Three weeks of watching you cross and uncross your legs in the front row, knowing exactly what you're doing to me. Do you know how many times I've had to stay seated after lecture, unable to stand because of you?"

I shook my head as my throat dried out. "Say it," he commanded softly. "Say you know."

"I know," I whispered.

"And did you do it on purpose? The crossed legs, the lip biting, the way you lean forward when you ask questions, giving me a view of—" He stopped, his jaw tightening. "Did you torment me deliberately, Sylvana?"

"Yes," I admitted, the word escaping like a confession. "I wanted you to look. I wanted you to want."

He made a sound—low, guttural, almost pained—and then his hands were on my waist, lifting me effortlessly onto the edge of his desk, stepping between my spread knees.

"Then you got your wish," he growled, his forehead dropping to mine, his breath against my lips. "I want you so badly I can't think straight. I want you in ways that would get me fired, arrested, ruined. I want to bend you over this desk and fuck you while the entire faculty listens outside the door. I want to mark you, claim you, make sure every man on this campus knows you belong to me."

His hands slid up my thighs, pushing my skirt higher, his thumbs tracing the sensitive skin just beneath the hem of my underwear.

"But first," he murmured, his mouth brushing my ear, "I'm going to make you beg for it. I'm going to make you so desperate that when I finally give you what you want, you'll scream my name loud enough to shake these walls."

He pulled back, his eyes dark with predatory hunger, and reached for the knot of his tie.

"Now," he said, his voice a command that I couldn't get past, "get on your knees."