“Look at me,” Professor Kilgore demands, his voice that low rumble that makes me clench my thighs and heat build in my core.
I lock eyes with his and see what I saw on the first day of school. The overblown pupils, dark and dilated, swallowing the green whole. A tremor beneath the surface—one he’s barely containing. His mouth is tight, his jaw ticking like he’s biting back a growing hunger. “Tell me,” he says, low and sharp, “do you think I’mstupid, Miss Rivera?”
I blink. My lips part, but no sound comes out.
He leans forward, knuckles braced on the desk, the whites of his eyes brighter than they should be in the dim classroom light.
“I don’t think it is appropriate to make eye contact with your professor as you get fingered in the back row, do you?”
His mask cracks on that last word, a flash of something feral breaking through. Rage. Possessiveness. Shame. Maybe all three.
I swallow hard, but my voice still sounds too soft. “I wasn’t trying to?—”
“You weren’tthinking.” He cuts me off like he’s dissecting a body. Clean. Precise. Brutal.
And then he pauses. Breathes. The glint in his eye dims just slightly, like he’s yanked the curtain back into place.
“You’re too smart to play dumb,” he says, quieter now, but no less intense. “Don’t let him make a fool of you.”
I feel the words slice deep. Shame and arousal knot in my chest, thick and cloying like honey turned sour. It coats my ribs, drips down my spine. I don’t know if I want to bolt for the door or drop to my knees and bare my throat. So I do the stupid thing—I dig my heels in.
“You’re right,” I hiss, leaning forward until our noses nearly touch. His breath is sharp with mint. “Iamtoo smart. Because it’s not likeyoulooked away.”
His eyes narrow, pupils blown, jaw flexing once.
Behind me, Landon chuckles, low and amused. “Come on, Con. Just admit it,” he says, dragging his fingers across the exposed skin of my collarbone.
“She is my student,” Kilgore snarls. It’s guttural, animalistic—but he still hasn’t looked away from me. If anything, he leans in.
“And she’s willing to get an A,” Landon teases, hand slipping beneath the neckline of my dress, his touch light, possessive, cruel.
“Landon.” The warning in Kilgore’s voice is pure steel.
“Conner,” Landon returns, mocking him by name.
“Professor,” I whisper, and his eyes lock on mine like I just pulled the pin from a grenade between us. “I don’t know what this is, but…”
“You’re scared of me, Jasmine,” Kilgore cuts in, his voice smooth and soft and terrifying.
I try to swallow. I can’t.
He watches me like he’s cataloging the flicker of every emotion across my face. His gaze dips to my throat, to the frantic flutter of my pulse.
“Do you know why?” he asks.
I shake my head, biting down on my lower lip until I taste blood. I feel like I’m about to fall apart molecule by molecule, and I want to. If it’s for him, I feel like Ineedto.
“That’s your body realizing the predator in the room,” he says, voice dipping dangerously low, smooth as a scalpel sliding beneath skin. “You should listen to it. It’ll save your life.”
Silence wraps around us like smoke—thick, clinging, suffocating. My heart hammers like it’s trying to shatter my ribs from the inside. Each breath feels smaller than the last, like the room is shrinking around me and only he gets to breathe fully.
Landon’s hand ghosts over my chest, fingers catching the delicate chain that dips into my cleavage. He gives it a lazy tug, letting the pendant bounce once against my sternum before he exhales a low whistle.
“Come on, Con,” he drawls, with that infuriating grin that never quite touches his eyes. “Stop playing with your food.”
He tilts his head to the side, still smiling—but it’s wrong. Cold. The kind of expression a cat might wear while toying with a dying bird. Detached amusement laced with cruelty. It’s the kind of smile that doesn’t blink.
“Normally,” he murmurs, almost like an afterthought, “when my prey squirms, I punish it.”
