I'm a fucking wreck during class – distracted, irritable, and generally in a piss-poor mood the entire time. None of my students seem to notice. I suppose I do a good enough job of faking normalcy – or they're not paying attention.

It's all because of her.

It's her damned fault, strutting into my classroom in a fucking schoolgirl outfit.

Of all the things she could choose to wear to remind me of exactly what the hell she is. She's a fucking schoolgirl.

Barely a woman.

Barely legal.

The short blue pleated plaid skirt is hardly long enough to cover her ass cheeks, let alone those perfect thighs. When she uncrosses her legs in the middle of my lecture, I catch a flash of white underneath the skirt and completely lose track of what I'm saying.

White cotton panties.

That's what she's wearing under that skirt.

It's enough to make a man insane – and she knows it.

Yet she sits there with her notebook on her lap and her pen in one hand, her other elbow resting on the edge of her chair, seemingly hanging on my every word – looking like a dutiful college student. She blinks her eyes innocently like she has no idea she flashed me.

Maybe she doesn't know what she's doing. Maybe the girl really is naïve and innocent and pure.

Or maybe she's lust and desire and temptation, the apple in the Garden of Eden.

Hell, maybe she's the snake.

I'm certain she's my downfall.

That's the thought I had when I turned around from writing on the board before class started, to see her talking with one of the other students – a male student. My head nearly exploded. I was torn between wanting to wrap her up in a blanket to shield her from everyone else's eyes and kicking the ass of the guy who dared talk to her. Every part of me wanted to pick her up and carry her straight out of the classroom and down the hallway to my office so I could bend her over the desk and fuck her until she learned a lesson about looking at anyone else but me.

But I didn't do any of that. Instead, I reminded myself that I'm a professor and she's a student. An eighteen-year-old student.

I don't have a right to think of her as mine.

I told myself to be reasonable. I told myself that what happened in my office could never happen again. I already crossed a line by asking her all of those questions. I went too far by grabbing her hair and pulling her toward me. I went too far by sitting in front of her with a hard-on, virtually daring her to touch me.

What the hell did I think was going to happen if she had touched me?

I wasn't only warning her with all of my talk about playing with fire. I was warning myself.

Making it through the rest of the class is pure torture. She sits in front of me, dressed the way she is, her legs impossibly long and stretched out in her chair, crossed at the ankles so that the smooth expanse of her thighs is on display for me.

That's more than enough torment for any man.

But then she puts the end of her pen in her mouth, her plump lips glossy and shiny, and looks up at me with those wide doe eyes – and I can't think of anything else but ripping the pen from her hand and replacing it with my cock.

I thought my fantasies about her were under control.

I thought I was under control. If there's one thing the Marines taught me, it was how to stay in control. I'm good at that. This is just another exercise in self-discipline.

That's what I have to tell myself in order to make it through the rest of class.

The problem comes at the end. The guy sitting beside her says something to her again, his eyes traveling up and down her body. The fact that he dares to even glance in her direction makes me want to throttle him.

Purity laughs. I want to believe it's uncomfortable laughter and the way she leans away from him and tucks her hair behind her ear is because she's nervous about the way he's talking to her – and not because she wants to flirt with him.

The guy stands up as the rest of the class begins to file out, and Purity still stays seated with her bag on her lap. "See you next time, Professor Ryan," he calls to me. "See you this weekend, right, Purity?"

I turn away from both of them and don't hear what she says to him in response because my pulse is pumping so loudly in my ears, I can't hear anything at all. When I turn back around, Purity and I are the only people left in the room.

She stands and pulls the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and it tugs her shirt up an inch, giving me a glimpse of her taut abdomen. When her eyes meet mine, a pink flush fills her cheeks as she tugs on the end of the shirt. Her attempt to pull it down doesn't help matters for me at all. The gesture only reminds me of the way she sat in my office tugging on the hemline of her skirt while I thought about how much I wanted her to pull it in the opposite direction.

Her gaze darts quickly around the room as if she's not entirely certain we're alone. "That – a minute ago – with Randolph … that wasn't anything."

Hearing another man's name on her lips makes me irrationally angry. I shouldn't care in the least what she might be doing with anyone else.

I also shouldn't do what I do next.

When I step close to her, she inhales sharply, her chest rising. I'm standing too close to her to explain away our proximity if someone were to walk into the classroom right now.

I'm playing with fire.

The door to the room is wide open and students are passing by in the hallway on their way to their next classes. Anyone could walk in. There's a class after this one, fifteen minutes from now. Students will arrive for it at any moment. Hell, the professor for that class will arrive any moment now.

This goes beyond recklessness.

It's suicidal.

I don't care.

I'm completely consumed with lust for her.

"Go to my office," I order. "The door is already unlocked. Walk straight there without stopping to talk to anyone. Sit down in the chair by my desk and put your hands on your lap and wait for me."

"Mr. Gabe, I –"

"Not another word, Purity," I tell her, my voice strangled by the arousal I'm trying desperately to tamp down here in this public setting. "My office. Immediately."

She tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear and pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, something I've noticed she does when she gets nervous. "Yes, Sir," she whispers. Then she turns and walks in the direction of the door, her little plaid skirt swaying gently back and forth on her hips. The skirt is just as much of a tease as she is, moving just enough that it threatens to expose her ass cheek as she walks, but never quite gets there.

I close my eyes and try to compose myself, giving her a little head start before I follow her to my office.

I'm also trying to reason with the rational part of myself, the part of me that knows this is completely fucked up. That part of me understands that this isn't something I should be doing, that I'm risking my job, my relationships, my reputation.

Most importantly, I'm risking destroying her – taking this innocent little thing and completely defiling her.

The problem is that the reckless part of me considers the thought of defiling this girl to be absolutely fucking irresistible. I can't reason with that part of myself because it's consumed by my desire for her.

That's the part of me that wins. That's the part of me that walks out of the classroom and through the hallways teeming with students and faculty who are moving from place to place, completely oblivious to the immoral acts I'm about to commit.

That part of me is completely fixated on the fact that Purity Taylor just called me Sir. I've never been much of a "Sir" guy, brushing off students who attempt to call me that with a "It's Gabriel or Professor Ryan". "Sir" is much too formal for me, not really my style.

Except when she calls me Sir.

That's the second time it's happened. Both times, it made me want to push her to her knees and order her to call me Sir while I plunged my cock down her throat.

Those thoughts should terrify me. I'm not that guy. I've never been that guy.

But the things I want to do to her…

The things I want to do to her are not things I should consider doing to a preacher's daughter.

When I pass the English Department office, I pause to talk to Gina. "Hold my calls, please."

"Writing?" she asks, glancing up at me from her computer.

Bending the preacher's virgin daughter over my desk and fucking her.

"Writing," I echo. "Yes. Absolutely."

"No problem, Professor Ryan," she chirps.

I hold my breath as I turn the doorknob to my office door. What's the likelihood that Purity is even sitting in my office? Really, she could have simply ignored my demand and gone back to her dorm room.

It would be far better for us both if that's what she did.

But she didn't.

The girl is perched on the edge of the chair, her feet on the floor and her palms on her thighs, her back ramrod straight. She's waiting for me exactly the way I told her to wait, wearing that little plaid skirt and top, looking every inch the dirty little schoolgirl.

I let out a long exhale. I could still walk away from this, I tell myself. Reason and rationality could still prevail.

Then she looks over her shoulder at me, her lips falling open slightly and her cheeks flushed, and I know without a doubt that this girl is going to be mine.

Mine to take. Mine to own.

Mine to defile.