I stare at the email from Dean Armstrong.

Hi, Dr. Hill, considering that Mrs. McBride is a good friend of the school’s, and that her daughter is working hard to be accepted to medical school, can I ask you to please reassess her grades for the term? If you agree with the grades you have given thus far, please provide detailed written explanation as to why these grades were deemed fair. However, if you choose to go this route, a full investigation into your methods may be necessary. Thank you.

Then I open up the grade log for my creative writing class, finding Addison’s first 74, shining in bright red lettering. I change it to a 100. Then I go back to the “save” button, my cursor hovering over it.

Do it. Just do it.

No. Addison’s right. Bending the rules to be with Addison is one thing, but outright lying is another. I stop and X out of the program, leaving the grade the way it is.

The past week had been strange. Despite the increasing pressure I’d been hearing from Dean Armstrong, I managed to get through my classes. Addison barely looked at me, and when she did, it was the cold, aloof glance, which was hard to stomach.

Excruciating, actually.

Over the week, I’d written another couple chapters of my book, still feeding off the taste of Addison’s pussy on my tongue. God, she’d been so sweet. But the memory is fading. Now I know I need to be with her again, get her juices flowing in order to keep my creative juices flowing. All it would take would be me to show up at her hotel in Boston. She’d let me in, and I could probably sweet-talk her into giving me enough motivation to finish this goddamn book and another dozen.

Then I open up a document and write a ten-page essay on why Addison McBride’s poem deserved a 74. I include excerpts from other, higher-graded class poems, detailed line-by-line notes, and more. I feel like I’m back in college again, myself.

When I attach it to the file and hit send, I can’t help thinking Addison would be proud of me. I think about telling her, I think about running my tongue up and down her sweet pussy while she thrashed and grabbed my face, pulling me to her. I’d fucking kill to do that again.

Then I hit refresh about a million times. Dean Armstrong is going to fucking hate me.

Fuck. What did I just do? Did I do it because I was thinking with my dick again, or did I do it because I actually wanted Addison to be happy?

At this point, I don’t know. I hope it’s the first one—but goddamn, there’s a fine line between having perfect, inspiring sex and falling hard. I’m walking a tightrope to avoid losing my job while getting this book done.

And now, the shit is about to hit the fan.

Fuck it. If I lose my job, I lose my job. She’s right when she said I was going through the motions. I’ll get another one. But I’ll still have Addison’s respect. Right now, that means more. If I ever want to finish this book, I need to make her happy.

I drive up 95 like a madman, getting into the Boston city limits at a little after ten. The hotel is the Four Seasons, of course—nothing but the best for Addison. I have to bribe a maid in order to tell me which room is hers. Turns out, she’s in a penthouse, and from what the very chatty maid had to tell me, her warden chauffer isn’t even on the same floor as she is. When the elevator stops on her floor, I find the double door and knock. Her soft voice comes from behind it, groggy and confused. “Who is it?”

“Room service,” I say, leaning against the door.

She pulls open the door. “I didn’t—“

I smirk at her. She stops, her mouth still open, and I have to laugh at her. She’s wearing giant, shapeless flannel pajamas with bacon and eggs all over them, and her hair is a mess of static cling, piled on the top of her head. Her face is scrubbed clean of make-up, and there’s a blush climbing over her cheeks.

“Oh, my God,” she says. Then, she starts to slam the door.

I catch it before the clasp can lock. I push it open and stride inside, dropping my bag to the floor. “Listen to me.” She’s retreated into her room. There’s a giant couch there with a plate of what looks like waffles, and a big-screen TV is playing some old Fred Astaire movie.

She collapses on the sofa, staring at me like she’s completely shell-shocked I’m here. “No. Why are you here?”

“Because I never said our deal was off,” I tell her. “I’m still in.”

“But what if I’m out?” she snaps, hugging a pillow to her chest. “Why don’t you just go kiss my mother’s ass some more, like everyone else? You’re good at it.”

“Listen to me,” I say again. “I—“

“No!” she throws the pillow at me and rockets to her feet. “You’re right, my first time should be special, not with a coward like you. Why don’t you just leave? I can’t even stand to see your stupid face anymore.”

I’ve tried to interject a word edgewise about a thousand times by the time she takes a breath. Before she can speak again, I lunge at her, grabbing her hands, which are in fists, ready to pummel my chest. I kiss her on the mouth, hard. Her resistance dissolves instantly.

If you would just shut up for two seconds,” I growl into her mouth, “You’d know that it’s going to take a lot more than threats from your mother to get me to change that grade.”

She stops, pulling back, gazing at me. “What?”

“What can I say?” I tell her with a nonchalant shrug. “You’re right. Even if I lose my job, I refuse to change the grade, because that would be lying. Your poetry is godawful. Probably the worst I’ve ever read. ”

She grins. “Really?”

I nod.

She grabs my tie and yanks me to her, kissing me harder and with all her strength. Her mouth is sweeter than ever, like maple syrup. “God, I am so happy you’re here.” Then she stops and looks down. Her face falls. “Oh, god.”

I take her chin and lift it to me. “Don’t worry. You’re gorgeous.”

She purses her lips. “But I had ideas. Lots of ideas. Of how this would go. And . . . this isn’t exactly what I expected.”

I cock my head. “What ideas did you have, exactly?”

She grins sheepishly. “Well, I . . . oh gosh, it’s too embarrassing.” She looks up at the ceiling, at the walls, at the black and white movie playing on the television, anywhere but at me. It’s adorable, the way she blushes. “I had an idea of an outfit that I’d wear for you. And this isn’t it.”

I reach over and pry the top button on her pajama shirt loose. “You’re still fucking sexy.”

She blinks. “Really?”

“Undoubtedly,” I say, undoing another button, so now the shirt is open to her mid-chest, and her cleavage is visible.

Her breath hitches. “I also thought we’d . . . I don’t know. Have a nice room service dinner together.” She points at the half-empty plates near the sofa. “Not waffles.”

I shrug. “Waffles are good.”

She offers the plate to me, and when I shake my head, feels a need to explain: “I just had a hankering for breakfast.” She clasps her hands together in front of her. “Also. I don’t know. You said special, so I thought candlelight. Isn’t that what they always do in movies? Maybe dancing.”

“Dancing?”

“Well, my mother made me take ballroom dance lessons for six years, but she never let me go anywhere where I could actually use them,” she explains.

I move over to the fireplace and flip the switch, igniting a small glowing fire. Then I go to the light switch, twisting the dimmer so that the candled sconces are barely a flicker. It’s not real candlelight, but it’s decidedly romantic. “Firelight is better.”

She nods just as on the television screen, Fred Astaire sits at the piano and begins to belt out “The Way You Look Tonight.” I step around the coffee table, where there’s area to move around, and motion her to join me. “Shall we?”

She blinks, surprised, then scuttles over to me. I lift one hand up, entwining fingers with hers. The other, I wrap around her flannel-covered waist, drawing her to me.

And we waltz. It’s as perfect as any movie, Addison showing that every one of her lessons have paid off. I’ve not had as much instruction, but she makes leading her effortless. “You know how to waltz,” she breathes, and even through the thick flannel of her pajamas, I can hear her heart beating.

“I was engaged once,” I tell her. “A long time ago. Layla made us go for ballroom dancing lessons so we wouldn’t embarrass ourselves.”

I see the question in her eyes.

“She called off the engagement,” I explain. I think about going into it, but I don’t want to. I want to concentrate on the now, on Addison, who is dancing so close to me, strawberries and syrup and honestly, the sweetest thing in my life right now. I love that she doesn’t ask me more. I pull her close to me, my hand trailing under her loose top, and up the warm, smooth skin of her back, feeling the angled rise of her shoulder blades. God, she’s gorgeous.

When the song ends, and Fred ends up staring up at Ginger with her hair in soap suds, and Ginger, horrified, runs away, Addison’s staring at me expectantly, as if to say, what now? “You’re a good dancer,” she says, filling in the silence.

“You’re a good liar,” I tell her. Then I kiss her, softly, tenderly, savoring the maple syrup on her tongue. I delve a hand inside her open pajama top, cupping her full, round tit.

She heaves in a breath, and her ribcage presses against my wrist. “Oh,” she murmurs. “I love that.”

I spread the shirt wider, letting it fall over her shoulders, exposing her full tits. They’re pale and sweet, the nipples already pebbling in the cool air. I rub a thumb over the tips, and they respond, growing harder.

She starts to let out a low moan but catches herself. Self-consciously, she brings her hands to either side of her head, wrapping curls of blonde hair around her fingers as the rest of her pajama top falls to the ground. I maneuver her toward the couch and sit, bringing my hands down the small of her back, to her round ass. Pulling her body toward me, I take her tit in my hand and run my tongue along the hardened nipple. “You have gorgeous tits, Addison. Do you want me to suck on them some more?” I breathe into her skin.

“Oh, yes,” she says, inching forward, offering them to me.

Holding them both in either hand, I bring one to my mouth, taking it in, moving my tongue in slow circles around the puckered flesh. Now she lets out a little squeak of exhilaration as I thoroughly explore the skin. It’s sweet like the rest of her, tasting faintly of baby powder, and that familiar scent of strawberries intoxicates me. I move to the other breast, getting my fill of that one, before switching to the next, all the while molding her ass cheeks. Though my cock strains against my pants, I’m in no hurry. I can stay here, with her between my legs, sucking on her tits, caressing her perfect ass, until sun-up. “You’re fucking perfect, you know that?” I groan. “Your tits, your ass, everything.”

She smiles unsurely. “Do you think we should go to the bed?”

“If that’s where you want it to happen.”

She nods.

I easily scoop her up into my arms, taking her across a vast penthouse suite to the double doors of an enormous king bed. For a deflowering, she could do worse. When I lie her down on the bedspread, she sits up on her elbows and slowly undoes the tie at her waist. I help her to lower the pants down over her hips, then gaze at her entirely naked body.

God, she’s more than gorgeous, she’s a work of art. It’s almost enough to make me forget myself. A second passes, two, with me just staring. I sense her unease and get myself together, letting out the deep breath I’d been holding. “You’re beautiful, Addison.”

She smiles unsurely. “I’m ready for my lesson, Dr. Hill.”

I kneel on the bed, hovering over her. “Cain,” he says. “And this isn’t a lesson.”

She studies my face. “Then what is it?”

I don’t honestly know. It’s not making love, but it’s not lust either. I can’t be sure what I feel right now. All I know is that I run in the other direction from love, but for some reason, I had to run like crazy toward her tonight. “I can’t quite define it,” I admit.

“You, the doctor of English, at a loss for words?”

I kiss her, then, close to but not touching her naked body. She reaches out to undress me, undoing my tie, each button on my dress shirt with slow, deliberate movement and I explore her mouth deeply, nibbling on her lips, letting her tongue slide tentatively in and out of me. I nearly cry out from the pleasure of her hands when they land flat on the skin of my chest. Eagerly, I rip the rest of my shirt off, letting her concentrate now on getting me naked.

She’s faster now, her second go at my pants, so my lessons have paid off. When I pull off my pants, she wastes no time in getting my underwear down, too.

She’s gazing at me from the bed when I’m standing before her, naked. She’s never seen a naked man before. I can tell that much from the way she’s blushing. Before I can ask her if everything’s all right, she says, “You’re so beautiful, too. And . . .” Her eyes focus on my cock and widen. “Big.”

I half-smile. She’s not meaning to compliment me, though it is a compliment. She’s afraid I won’t fit into her virgin pussy. I have little recent experience with virgins, but that doesn’t matter. Wide-eyed and sweet, Addison is someone I instinctively want to protect. As much as I want this, I’d stop before I hurt her.