It’s several tight, pounding heartbeats before he answers. “You know I can’t do that, Miss Holland.”

“Can’t because of the rules? Or because you don’t want to?” My fingers are moving faster now, sliding easily over skin that has grown slick with the sound of his voice, the sound of his breath through the line. I can imagine him sitting behind a desk, his hand clutching himself through his zipper. Even the thought makes me gasp.

“Because of the rules.” His voice drops to barely a whisper. “Also, I can’t want to. You’re my student.”

Without meaning to, I moan quietly, because he does want it. He wants me, even when he’s drowning at work and miles away.

How would it feel to really be his student, or to be one of the girls on the metro, watching him, wanting him? What if he really were my teacher, and every day I had to sit, and listen to his quiet, deep voice, unable to move forward, catch his eye, run my hands up his chest and into his thick hair?

“Mia, you’re not doing anything . . . inappropriate right now, are you?” he asks, stern voice back in place. It’s the first time I can’t see his face when we’re playing like this, but already I know him well enough to know he’s pretending. His voice is never stern with me, even when he’s upset. He’s always even, always steady.

My back arches off the mattress, sensation pooling and warming in my thighs, low in my belly. “You want to hear me?” I ask. “Do you like to imagine me doing this here in your bed?”

“You’re in my bed?” he hisses, sounding irate. “Mia! Are you touching yourself?”

The thrill of the game spins through me, making me dizzy and nearly high. I remember the way he looked over me this morning, conflicted, wanting to take me before he left for work. I remember how his mouth felt on my neck when he climbed into bed last night, how he pulls me against his chest, spooning me every night. And then, when I barely whisper, “Oh, oh, God,” I hear his rumbling groan on the other end and completely fall to pieces under my own hand, pretending it’s his, knowing how much better it will feel when it really is his, later.

And he can imagine me now, because he’s seen me do this.

My legs are shaking and I’m crying out into the phone, riding through the wave of heat, of slick pleasure sliding across my skin. I say his name, some other things I’m not sure are even coherent but just knowing he’s listening, and it’s all he can do—he can’t touch or see or feel—prolongs my release until I’m spent and gasping, my hand sliding to my hip and then down to the mattress beside me.

I smile into the phone, drowsy and satisfied . . . for now.

“Mia.”

Blinking, I swallow and whisper, “Oh, God. I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sor—”

“Don’t go anywhere,” he growls. “I’ll be there soon to take care of this . . . this indiscretion.”

I’VE DRIFTED OFF waiting for him when the door slams open, the knob hitting the plaster of the wall just on the other side of the bedroom. Startled, I sit up, pushing my little skirt down my legs, rubbing my eyes as Ansel storms into the bedroom.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he roars.

I scoot back to the headboard, disoriented and heart pounding as my brain slowly catches up to the adrenaline racing through my bloodstream. “I . . . you told me not to go anywhere.”

He stalks toward me, stopping at the side of the bed and tugging his tie loose with an impatient jerk. “You broke into my house—”

“The door was open—”

“—and got onto my bed.”

“I . . .” I look up at him, eyes widening. He looks genuinely upset, but then reaches forward, reminding me it’s all a game by gently sweeping his thumb across my bottom lip.

“Mia, you broke about a hundred university rules and several laws tonight. I could have you arrested.”

I push up onto my knees, sliding my hands up his chest. “I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

He closes his eyes, moving his fingers to my jaw, down my neck to my bare shoulders. I’m wearing nothing but a short skirt and underwear beneath, and his palms slide over my breasts before he pulls his hands back, forming tight fists.

“You don’t think I notice you in class?” he growls. “Up front, your eyes on me the entire hour, lips so full and red all I can think about is how they would feel on my tongue, my neck, my cock?”

I lick my lips, bite the lower one. “I can show you.”

He hesitates, eyes narrowing. “I’d be fired.”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

His conflict feels so genuine: he closes his eyes, jaw tight. When they open again, he leans in and says, “If you think of this as rewarding you for breaking into my house . . .”

“I don’t . . .” But he sees the lie in my face. I’m getting everything I want and my dark smile makes him growl, cup my breasts again with rougher hands.

My skin rises to meet his touch, and inside, my muscles and vital organs twist as if being wrung out, pushing heat down my chest, into my belly where it pools low, down between my legs. I want him so much I feel restless and urgent, this elemental need clawing in my throat. I dig my hands into his hair, holding him to me and barely letting him move a breath away from my skin.

But it’s all a ruse. He pulls free of my grip easily, leaning back to look at me with convincing fire in his eyes.

“I had a lot of work on my desk when you called with your little show earlier.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. Being near him makes me liquid, my insides slithering and molten.

His eyes flutter closed, nostrils flaring. “What do you think it did to my concentration, knowing you’re here thinking of me, touching skin that could be mine to touch?”

With his eyes anchoring mine, and to make his point, he slides a rough hand into my underwear, two fingers searching, dipping inside and finding me soaked. “Who made you this wet?”

I don’t answer. I close my eyes, pushing into his hand before reaching to grip his wrist and fuck his fingers if he won’t move. I’m on fire, everywhere and especially here, drowning with a clawing need to come, for him to make me come.

With a jerk of his arm he pulls his fingers from me and reaches to push them into my mouth, pressing my taste onto my tongue. His hand grips my jaw, fingers curled into the hollow of my cheeks to hold my mouth open.

“Who. Made you. Wet.”

“You,” I manage around his intrusive fingers and he pulls back, plucking at my bottom lip with an index finger, a thumb. “I thought about you all day. Not just when I called.” I stare into his eyes, so full of anger and lust it takes my breath away. They soften as I continue to hold his gaze, and I can feel both of us stutter in our roles. I want to melt into him, feel his warm weight over me. “I think about you all day long.”

He can see the truth in my expression and his eyes drop to my lips, his hands spread gently across my sides. “You do?”

“And I don’t care about the rules,” I tell him. “Or that you have a lot of work. I want you to ignore it.”

His jaw tenses.

I say, “I want you. The semester will be over soon.”

“Mia . . .” I can see the conflict in his eyes, and does he feel it, too? This longing so enormous it shoves everything else inside my chest into a tight corner? Our time together is almost over, too. How can I possibly be away from him in only a couple of weeks?

What are we going to do?

My heart turns, pounding so hard it’s no longer a safe rhythm. It’s cymbals crashing and the deep heavy pulse of the bass drum. It is thrashing beneath my ribs. I know what this feeling is. He needs to know.

But is it too soon? I’ve been here barely a month. “Ansel . . . I—”