I scramble backward toward the headboard, shoes rucking up the bedding before my legs give out. Knox’s crisply ironed suit is now rumpled, the jacket twisted, the shirt half-untucked, and the knotted tie askew.
Ezra follows me onto the bed, prowling across its soft surface with the fluid grace of a predator who knows his prey has nowhere left to run. His knees bracket my thighs as he settles his weight over me. In the dim light from the bedside lamp, his eyes gleam with dangerous amusement.
“You know what I love about Knox?” He traces the starched edge of my collar, following the line to where it meets my tie, the feather-light touch sending electricity racing across my skin. “He’s so buttoned-up. Makes undressing him all the more fun.”
I try to reclaim my dignity, to remember I’m not some blushing ingénue, despite the heat crawling up my neck. “Stop. Don’t turn this into a joke.”
Ezra leans closer, licking the shell of my ear. “Are you into roleplay?”
A sound escapes me, half groan, half incredulous laugh. “What are you talking about?”
His weight shifts, and he plucks the glasses from my nose, slipping them on. In a heartbeat, his expression transforms into wide-eyed innocence so at odds with his natural intensity that it catches me off guard.
“Professor,” he whispers in a higher pitch made breathy with false desperation, “if I fail your class, I’ll lose my scholarship. Isn’t there anything I can do to improve my grade?”
Mortification floods me, hot and immediate, and I bury my face in my hands. “I’m already ashamed of myself. Stop making it worse.”
The mattress dips as Ezra shifts his weight, easing back so he’s not looming over me. The absence of his body heat leaves me chilled, and I lower my hands to find him sitting back on his heels, still straddling my legs but giving me space to breathe.
He takes the glasses off, tossing them aside as he studies me. “Does the age difference really bother you that much?”
Unable to bear his scrutiny, I turn my head away. My fingers find a loose thread on the duvet cover, worrying at it. “I thought you were older.”
Ezra’s hand rises to touch the silver streak in his hair, and his lips curve in a rueful smile. “Yeah. I get that a lot.”
It had been three weeks into my stay at Rockford Manor when he revealed that he had graduated from college when he was sixteen. But he had gotten the silver in his hair when he was thirteen, when he was in a car accident with his older cousin, Sebastian.
I remember him telling me about it during one of our rare nights of true honesty. The doctors had warned his family he might not walk again, and the trauma had leached pigment from that patch of his hair. The experience had taught him to seize what he wanted without hesitation.
“If I had realized how young you were, I wouldn’t have…”
I trail off, because wouldn’t I have? The plan had never been tostaywith Ezra. It was intended as a one-night stand, but I kept adding one more night.
“I was twenty-nine, and you were twenty-two.” I sigh. “I never should have touched you.”
“And now I’m twenty-three, and you’re thirty. The scandal.” Sarcasm drips from the words. “Shall I alert the media?”
“It’s not just the number.” My fingers abandon the thread before I’m tempted to break it and unravel the duvet cover. “It’s what those years represent. We’re in different places in our lives and want different things.”
“And what do I want, Ren?” His use of my real name sends a shudder of awareness through me. “Since you’ve appointed yourself as the expert on my desires.”
I meet his eyes, finding challenge there, but also hurt. “You want beauty. Excitement. The next acquisition. You’re at the beginning of everything, and I’m?—”
“A coward.” He cuts me off, the word sharp enough to draw blood. “You’re hiding behind age as if it’s the real problem and not the most convenient excuse.”
My mouth opens, then closes, the argument dying on my tongue. Because he’s right. The age difference was never the real issue. It was the socially acceptable reason to run from the terror of wanting more with Ezra.
Ezra’s thumb brushes across my cheekbone, the touch unexpectedly gentle. “You were never an acquisition for me, Ren. And I’m not the innocent boy you’ve built up in your mind to justify leaving.”
My throat tightens around words I can’t form, around truths I’m not ready to face. His weight on my thighs holds me prisoner when every instinct screams to flee.
“I’m not naïve enough to think all of your fears are going to vanish just because I carried you up here,” he continues, his expression softening. “But I am stubborn enough to make you face them, one by one, until you run out of excuses.”
His hand moves from my face to my tie, fingers working the knot with practiced ease. “Starting with this delicious professor costume.”
Despite everything, a laugh escapes. Ezra’s expression lights with answering amusement, and for a brief, suspended moment, we’re just two people enjoying a moment together.
But then the laughter fades, leaving behind a charged silence.
