Chapter Four

The door clicked shut behind Eden, soft but absolute, and the silence that followed was a violence all its own.

Adrian didn’t move at first. He couldn’t. He stood there with his palms pressed flat to the edge of his desk, head bowed, breath caught in the tight cage of his chest. His pulse hammered at his throat like it was trying to break free.

He hadn’t been this undone in years.

Not by desire.

Not by temptation.

Certainly not by a student.

But Eden wasn’t just a student.

Not in the ways that mattered.

She was twenty-two.

Grounded.

Intelligent.

Fearlessly perceptive.

And the one person who made him forget the lines he’d spent half his career enforcing.

He dragged in a slow breath, then another, but the ache in his body didn’t ease. His arousal throbbed beneath the desk—persistent, humiliating, and unmistakably fierce. He had never reacted this strongly to anyone. Not even in his twenties, when desire felt like an untamed, stupid thing.

But this… this was different.

This was want braided with something deeper, more dangerous.

She didn’t just stir his attraction—she stirred his hunger.

He straightened slowly, running a hand over his face. His palm was warm, embarrassingly damp. He was usually so composed. His colleagues said he was “unshakeable,” “stoic,” “hard to read.”

If they saw him now—flushed, tense, pulse unsteady—they wouldn’t recognize him.

Hell, he barely recognized himself.

He walked around his desk, lowering himself into the chair with a hissed breath. His body was still hard, straining against the fabric of his slacks. He pressed his palm briefly over the tightness, more to steady himself than anything else, but the contact only made the ache sharpen.

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath.

He leaned back, staring at the ceiling, willing the heat in his body to recede. But closing his eyes was a mistake.

Because she was there instantly.

Eden leaning forward in her chair.

Eden’s lips parting when she concentrated.

Eeden wearing that soft, knowing smile like she understood exactly what she was doing to him.

Like she’d felt the tension in the room too.

His breath stuttered.

He pictured her walking around the desk, slow and deliberate… stopping in front of him… lowering herself onto his lap—

Her body warm, her thighs tightening around him as she whispered—

He snapped his eyes open, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.

This was spiraling.

Unacceptable.

Unprofessional.

Unthinkably intoxicating.

He dragged both hands through his hair, gripping the strands hard enough to ground himself. The ache between his hips lingered stubbornly, pulsing with every thought he tried to suppress.

He turned toward the window, staring out into the courtyard below. Students came and went, laughing, talking, living their ordinary, uncomplicated lives. None of them made him feel like he was losing his mind.

None of them were her.

He pressed a fist against his mouth, forcing himself to breathe through the remnants of his desire. His body gradually cooled, the acute hardness easing, though the longing remained—low, heavy, impossible to ignore.

When he finally felt steady enough, he reached into a drawer and pulled out one of his older journals. A place where he wrote down thoughts he couldn’t voice. Feelings he didn’t trust. Instincts he needed to pin down before they became something real.

His handwriting was tight as he scrawled:

I am losing control around her.

I need distance. Boundaries.

I cannot allow this to continue.

But as soon as he finished the sentence, he knew it wasn’t entirely true.

Because under the fear… under the restraint… under the rules he clung to like armor…

He liked the way she looked at him.

Liked the way she pushed him.

Liked the fire she sparked in him without even trying.

He closed the journal, exhaling through clenched teeth.

He couldn’t have her.

He shouldn’t want her.

But God—he did.

He scrubbed a hand over his face once more.

And the worst part?

Next week, at three o’clock, he’d sit right here again… knowing exactly what she could do to him.

And wanting it anyway.