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Chapter Three
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2025-11-19 19:11:20Three o’clock arrived slowly… and all at once.
Adrian had been sitting at his desk for nearly ten minutes, pretending he was reading the open book in front of him. In reality, he’d absorbed nothing. His pulse had been unsteady since noon, but now it thudded in a heavy, deliberate rhythm that matched each second hand tick on the wall clock. He heard footsteps in the hallway—light, unhurried—and his whole body went taut. The knock was soft. “Come in,” he managed, though his voice was rougher than he intended. The door opened, and Eden stepped inside. Not a girl. Not unsure. Not timid. She walked in with the quiet confidence of a woman who knew exactly where she was going… and who she wanted to be in front of. A faint smile touched her mouth. “Professor Hale.” He nodded, his throat tightening. “Miss Marlowe. Please—sit.” She crossed the room slowly, as though part of her was studying him just as deeply as she had in the lecture hall. The click of the door behind her sounded far too final. She sat across from him, crossing her legs, the subtle shift of her knee drawing his eyes before he snapped them back to her face. Focus. He needed focus. “What did you want to go over?” he asked, keeping his voice as steady as he could. She tilted her head, considering him. “A bit of everything, I think. You cover a lot of ground, and I’d like more clarity.” Her eyes held his, steady. “From you.” A muscle in his jaw tightened. He opened the book between them, flipping to the section she had supposedly struggled with. “Let’s start here.” But she wasn’t looking at the text. She was looking at him. Her attention felt like a warm hand sliding over his skin, unraveling him piece by piece. He forced himself to speak—calm, academic explanations—but he could feel the heat building low in his abdomen, an ache that had been simmering since yesterday but now burned hot and real. She leaned forward slightly, and the subtle movement made his breath hitch. It wasn’t the action. It was the ease of it. The way she seemed perfectly comfortable taking up space in his world. Her perfume—soft, warm, something like jasmine—rose between them. His fantasies slipped past his restraint before he could stop them. He imagined her leaning closer, close enough that her thigh brushed his beneath the desk. He imagined her fingers touching the inside of his wrist, tracing the line of veins beneath his skin. He imagined her mouth—God—soft and insistent against his, tasting like the heat he’d been denying for too long. He imagined her straddling his lap, his hands on her waist, his breath breaking as she— He stopped breathing entirely. Because he was hard. Painfully. He shifted subtly in his chair, forcing one knee to the side so the desk would hide his body’s betrayal. He kept his hands flat on the table, fingers digging into the wood. Every inch of him was tense. “Professor?” she murmured. His eyes snapped to hers. “Yes.” “You seem… distracted.” Her lips curved slightly. “Is something wrong?” Everything. And nothing he could admit. “I’m fine.” His voice was tight, strained. “Continue reading.” She didn’t. Instead, she watched him with that soft, dangerous curiosity, the kind that made him feel bared open. Her gaze flicked once—to his throat, the place where his pulse hammered too visibly—and then back to his eyes. A silent acknowledgment. Nothing improper, but enough to make him fight for breath. He forced himself to speak again, to lecture, to cling to the last threads of professionalism he had left. But every word felt like it scraped against heat. She leaned in again, closer than before, her knees nearly touching the desk. “Thank you for taking the time,” she said softly. “You didn’t have to.” He swallowed. “It’s my job.” “It feels like more than that.” His vision went dark at the edges for a moment. Control was slipping. Not physically—he didn’t move. He wouldn’t. But inside… inside he was burning. He imagined—again, against his will—her sliding off the chair, coming around the desk, her body warm against his, her mouth at his ear whispering his name— He exhaled sharply and stood abruptly, putting space between them. “I think that’s enough for today.” Her brows lifted, slow and knowing. “Did I say something wrong?” “No.” His voice was too rough. “I just have another meeting.” A lie. A desperate one. She gathered her notebook, rising to her feet with unhurried grace. When she reached the door, she paused. “Three o’clock again next week?” she asked. He should say no. He should end this. He should reclaim the control slipping through his fingers. “Yes,” he said instead. Her smile was devastating. “Good.” She left, closing the door quietly behind her. Adrian braced both hands on the desk, bowing his head as the tension crashed over him, his breath shuddering. He had never been so undone by wanting someone he couldn’t have. And God help him— He wanted her more with every breath.
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Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student Chapter Twentyeight
The night before he flew home, Adrian didn’t even pretend to work.The conference was technically still going—panels he should attend, dinners he should make an appearance at, conversations he should be part of—but he’d slipped away early with the easy excuse of “jet lag” and “early flight.”No one argued.Everyone understood fatigue.No one knew what kind he meant.Back in the flat, he dropped his keys on the table and stood in the doorway for a long moment, just listening to the radiator tick and the muted city noise beyond the glass.He felt… wrong.Not sick.Not tired.Not restless exactly.Just misaligned, like his body was here but some essential part of him was still in a rain-wet office thousands of miles away.He hung his coat over the back of the chair. The armchair in the corner caught his eye.For one unguarded heartbeat, he saw her there again—knees parted, hand between her thighs, eyes locked on his as she whispered come for me—He shut his eyes, jaw tightening.Not now.
Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student Chapter Twentyseven
Prague was supposed to distract him.That was the lie he kept repeating as he walked through the narrow streets the next afternoon, collar turned up against the cold wind sweeping off the river. His conference badge hung uselessly from his coat pocket—he’d slipped out early, claiming fatigue, even though the truth was simpler:He couldn’t focus.Every hallway looked like it might contain a glimpse of her.Every stray laugh, every shadow, every passing perfume note made something inside him twist.Distance wasn’t diluting her.It was sharpening her into something he couldn’t escape.He crossed a small stone bridge near the Old Town, boots scuffing the damp cobblestone. Tourists moved around him in slow clusters, cameras raised, chatter rising like a soft mist.He forced himself to look outward.At the river.At the swans.At the tiny boats drifting beneath the arches.He needed grounding, not memory.But memory arrived anyway.Her sitting in the front row, twirling her pen, watching hi
Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student Chapter Twentysix
Prague didn’t care that he was unraveling.The next day passed in a blur of polite conversations, academic posturing, and forced composure. Adrian nodded through lectures he couldn’t absorb, pretended to take notes he never intended to reread, and accepted compliments from colleagues who saw only the professional veneer he’d spent years perfecting.None of them could see the exhaustion threaded beneath his skin.None of them knew he’d woken with the remnants of a dream he couldn’t fully banish.None of them would have believed how badly he wanted to check his email every twenty minutes.He didn’t.He didn’t dare.When the last conference event ended, he walked through the cold Prague evening with his hands in his coat pockets, collar turned up against the wind. The city was beautiful in the way old cities always were—cobblestone slick with recent rain, street lamps giving everything a soft amber glow, foreign voices rising and falling around him like a language he only half understood
Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student Chapter Twentyfive
In the dream, there was no plane.No conference.No distance.He was in his office.Of course he was. The lamp on his desk glowed warm. Rain streaked down the window in slow, steady trails, blurring the world outside into an impressionist smear.He knew it was a dream in the way dreams sometimes announced themselves: the air too thick, the silence too loud, the edges of objects too sharp and too soft at the same time.He was standing behind his desk when the door opened without a knock.Eden stepped inside.Not soaked, not shivering. Just… there. Calm. Certain. Wearing the simple black dress he’d never actually seen her in but had imagined once, shamefully, half-awake in the dark.It clung to her waist, skimmed mid-thigh, left her collarbones bare. Her hair was slightly damp, like she’d rushed here through the rain anyway.“Professor,” she said softly.His pulse kicked.“Eden,” he answered before he could correct himself.No Miss Marlowe. No syllabus. No rules.Her lips curved, slow a
Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student Chapter Twentyfour
Prague was supposed to be loud enough to drown her out.That had been the logic. New city. New schedule. New faces. A different rhythm of days that would smooth over the edges she’d left in him.Instead, the city only made the silence around her name feel louder.Adrian sat at the narrow desk in his rented flat, the kind of temporary space that felt more like a waiting room than a life. There was a single lamp casting a yellow pool of light over his laptop, a half-unpacked suitcase in the corner, and the distant sound of the tram rattling past three floors below.He should have been working.There were conference papers to review, a draft to edit, an email chain from a colleague about a panel he had no energy to care about.Instead, he stared at his inbox.One new message.From: Eden Marlowe.His pulse stumbled.He shouldn’t open it. Or he should at least wait. Give himself the appearance of distance, of indifference, of something besides the aching, pathetic truth that his entire day
Unprofessional - I shouldn't want my own student Chapter Twentythree
Prague greeted him with cold air and old stone — a city that felt older than sin, carved out of shadow and silence. It pressed against him the moment he arrived, heavy, ancient, indifferent.Fitting, he thought.He’d run halfway across the world to escape something simple and devastating:her breath against his lips.The taxi dropped him at the university-owned apartment, a narrow building with iron balconies and peeling paint that felt appropriately worn. He dragged his suitcase inside, shut the door, and leaned his back against it, exhaling a breath he’d been holding since the plane landed.Three weeks.Twenty-one days.He thought the numbers like they were a mantra capable of saving him.He pushed off the door and walked further in —small kitchenette, a desk by the window, a narrow bed that looked unforgiving.Everything smelled faintly of cleaning products and old books.Academic housing was supposed to feel neutral.Instead it felt like exile.He placed his suitcase beside the w
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