My Professor Obsession

The velvet mask pressed against my temples, a tight, artificial skin that hid the daughter of a ruined dynasty. Outside the stone walls of the Aethelgard conservatory, the Maine wind howled, smelling of salt and dying pines. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of expensive bourbon, vintage perfume, and the kind of desperation that only old money can breed.

I didn't come here to dance. I didn't come here to find a prince. I came here to forget that my father's name was a punchline in the financial news and that my brother's life was being measured in gambling debts I couldn't pay.

I needed to be nothing. I needed to be a body.

"Looking for someone, Little Bird?" A voice drifted from the shadows of the arched walkway, but I didn't turn. I kept walking, my heels clicking against the cold flagstone, leading me away from the ballroom and toward the dark, overgrown gardens where the statues looked like frozen ghosts.

I felt him before I saw him.

The air behind me shifted, growing heavy and charged, like the moments before a lightning strike. I stopped near a high stone wall, the ivy clawing at the rock like fingernails.

"Don't look back," he commanded.

The voice was a low, resonant vibration that crawled up my spine and settled deep in my gut. It wasn't a request; it was an architectural blueprint of authority. I stayed still, my breath hitching in my throat as he stepped into my space. He didn't touch me yet, but the heat radiating from his chest through my thin silk dress made my skin prickle.

"You've been watching me all night," I whispered, the words sounding small against the crashing of the waves in the distance.

"I've been dissecting you," he corrected.

A large, calloused hand suddenly clamped around my waist, pulling me backward until my spine arched against the hard planes of his body. He was massive, a wall of tailored wool and hidden muscle. He tucked his head into the crook of my neck, his breath hot against my ear.

"You're a mess of contradictions, Seraphina. You walk like a queen, but you have the eyes of a girl who wants to be ruined."

He knew my name. The terror should have kicked in, but it was drowned out by a surge of pure, primal heat. I wanted to be ruined. I wanted to forget the scholarship, the thesis, and the "perfect" life that felt like a noose.

"Then ruin me," I challenged, turning in his arms.

In the moonlight, his mask was a jagged piece of obsidian. I couldn't see his eyes, but I could feel them burning into me. He didn't waste time with a kiss. He grabbed the front of my dress and hauled me up, pinning me against the cold stone wall.

"You want to bang a stranger in the dirt, Little Bird? You want to feel something that isn't a lie?"

"Yes," I gasped, my legs