Gabe and I sneak around the rest of the semester. It's thrilling and exhilarating knowing that we could get caught but we don't. I'm pretty sure that Luna suspects what's going on between us – or at least thinks my "studying at the library" excuses are really thin – but she doesn't ask about Gabe.

The only thing she asks is if I'm happy, and I tell her I am. She tells me that's all she needs to know. I am happy –mostly – despite all of the crazy risks I'm taking. Or maybe because the risks intensify everything that's happening between Gabe and I.

I hang out at Gabe's house, studying while he writes, and he doesn't share his book with me yet because he doesn't know how it ends. We lounge around his living room talking and we laugh in his kitchen as we try our hand at making recipes that neither of us can cook well at all. For all of his other good qualities, he might be the worst cook in the entire world.

Lots of fucking happens. There are a lot of up-all-night marathons of amazing, earth-shattering, mind-blowing sex sprinkled with conversations about our lives and who we want to be.

Everything isn't entirely roses and sunshine when it comes to Mr. Gabe. I haven't met a single other person in his life – not his brother or any of his friends. I don't even know if he has any friends. Sneaking around is exhilarating, but I wonder if it means that what's going on between us is only sex and nothing more.

It feels like more to me, but maybe that's what sex does. Maybe sex messes with your brain and confuses you and screws up your emotions and makes you think something is happening between you and another person, when really nothing of substance is going on at all.

I wonder if it's normal for sex to be the catalyst that changes everything. Or maybe it's Gabe who has changed everything.

I'm a different person than I was when I came to college, totally shell-shocked and overwhelmed by the prospect of being anywhere outside of South Hollow. I feel like I've aged a decade over the course of a single semester.

The one thing I haven't done is confront my father. I'm not sure how I can evolve in other areas of my life, yet when it comes to telling my father that I'm not going to bend to his will, I choke on my words. Christmas break is only a few days away, and he's driving all the way up here to bring me back to South Hollow – probably because he senses that if it's up to me, I might not return to South Hollow for Christmas break at all.

* * *

"Today is the last day of class, Ms. Taylor." Gabe pushes his office door closed behind him, his lips immediately finding mine as he stumbles through the office with our fingers finding the buttons on each others' clothes. When we bump into his desk, a giggle bubbles up in my chest.

"I'm totally finished with everything for the semester," I whisper. "No more finals, no more papers."

"No more professor," he murmurs in my ear.

"Are you disappointed in that?" I ask, my heart pounding a million beats a second. I have to admit that I've wondered whether once the semester ends, if everything will change.

"Disappointed that you're not going to be my student anymore?" he growls. "I can't fucking wait."

His mouth covers mine and I moan into him as he cups my breast with his hand. His touch sends heat through my body, as if it's the first time he's touched me. I left his house mere hours ago, yet my body aches for him like I've been without him for far too long. He picks me up and sets me on the edge of the desk, and my legs go around his waist as he pushes my skirt aside.

"No panties," I tell him, but he already knows. He's already unzipped his pants, and he's already guiding his cock inside me.

And I'm already wet.

My ankles locking around his waist, I pull him in tighter, reveling in the sensation of him filling me up. "I'm going to miss this," I tell him. "What will I do in South Hollow without this?"

Without you.

"It'll only be a few days," he murmurs.

I'm not sure I can manage without him for a few days. Gabe has turned something on inside me, flipped a switch that I don't want to turn back off. He's gotten me used to multiple orgasms and crazy sex, and what in the world will my body do without it?

"My father doesn't show up until tomorrow morning to pick me up," I whisper.

"Every waking moment until tomorrow morning, you're mine," Gabe tells me, thrusting deeper for emphasis. "I'm going to send you back to South Hollow not being able to walk right."

I giggle at the idea of limping around my father's house after being so thoroughly fucked that I can't put my legs together. "Good thing I'm young and have endless amounts of energy and don't need sleep."

He growls. "Stop reminding me of how young you are."

A sharp rap on the door echoes through the room and my heart stops beating. "You locked it?" I hiss.

His brow furrows. "I think."

I slap his arm. "You think??" I whisper.

"I locked it."

The door swings open. "Professor Ryan, I tried to call but I think the phone was turned off -"

Oh, shit.

Everything that happens next happens in slow motion.

I look at Gabe, and Gabe looks at me – and the English Department assistant stands in the open doorway looking at both of us with her mouth wide in shock.

My father and the guy I'm betrothed to stand behind her gaping at us.

I'm paralyzed there on the desk for what seems like an eternity with my skirt hitched up around my waist, my legs spread, and my professor's cock lodged firmly inside me. Gabe's body is the only thing that prevents the entire world, all of the students passing by his open office door, from seeing all of me. So I sit there, clinging to his shirt and to him like a life raft, the only thing keeping me from floating away in a sea of public humiliation.

This moment is worse than anything I could have conjured up in my worst nightmare.

Gina the assistant shrieks. My father and Justin yell.

I bury my face in Gabe's shoulder, my lips against his neck, scrunching my eyes closed the way you do when you're a child pretending that if you can't see anyone else, they can't see you.

Everything around us erupts into chaos.

I cling to Gabe as all of the voices echo from far away, half-muted as I pretend this is happening to someone else and not to me.

It's all a bad dream.

Wake up, Purity. Wake up.

But it's not a dream at all. It's a fucking nightmare, and Gabe screams at them to get the hell out of his office as he wraps his arms protectively around me, trying to shield me from everything.

Except that he can't protect me. My eyes fly open and everyone's still there.

Gina blinks rapidly, her face pale. "I was trying to reach you because your wife was calling," she says softly. "She says she needs a loan. It's an emergency. She's calling from India."

Those words ring through loud and clear, louder than anything else in the room.

Your wife.

Gabe bellows loudly. "Get out of my office now!"

The door swings shut. My heart races, my head spins, and I can't process any of this right now. I can't think, and I can't breathe, and I might be hyperventilating because my vision narrows, but I shove Gabe away from me and pull down my skirt frantically.

I'm filled with embarrassment and humiliation and shame and…

He has a fucking wife??

I look at him in horror.

"Ex-wife, Purity," he says carefully. "Emphasis on ex. She's very, very ex."

But my mind feels sluggish and stupid, like all of my thoughts are occurring in slow motion instead of at a normal pace and I can't possibly sift through any of this. Even my movements feel slow as I smooth my skirt and back away from him and… oh God, my father and Justin are outside of the office right now because they saw me fucking Gabe and… he has an ex-wife.

"But we've talked about things," I mutter, confused. "We've talked about things other than sex and… oh God, this is just sex, isn't it? I'm the student you're screwing, because if you weren't just screwing me, you'd have told me that you were married."

Gabe crosses the space between us and takes my face in his palms. "I'm not just fucking you, Purity!" he says, his voice loud. "And I'm not fucking married!"

The door swings open again, and my father bursts through it. "Get your hands off my daughter, you pervert, or I'll call the cops!"

"I swear to God, Alan, I don't want to beat a preacher but you're as far from a man of God as I think there is in this world –"

I can't think.

Gabe is about to punch my father right here in his office and he's going to get arrested, and he has an ex-wife he didn't mention, and Justin is staring at me from behind my father, and I'm hyperventilating.

"Stop!" I shove myself between Gabe and my father, screaming so loudly that my voice echoes through Gabe's office and down the halls. I'm beyond certain we're causing a scene, but I don't care.

Pushing past everyone, I take off. Gabe calls out for me, but I run through the hallway past the group of students who've congregated outside of the English department because they're wondering what the hell is going on and hoping for some juicy gossip.

This is certainly the juiciest bit of juicy gossip, too. The only thing that would be more scandalous than this is if Gabe and I had been caught screwing on the dean's desk. Or screwing the dean.

I run out of the building and across campus as fast as I can. I take the stairs in the dorm two at a time. When I reach my room, I burst through the door and slam it shut behind me.

Only then do I stop to catch my breath. I lean back against the door, my chest heaving as I gulp big breaths of air. I can't breathe, and I'm not sure if I'm going to vomit or burst into tears.

Luna jumps up from her bed. "You look like hell. What happened?"