I look forward to reading it.

Why the hell did I goad her like that, egging her on to write something like…

Something like this.

I stare at the assignment she turned in. I'm sitting on the back porch outside of my house going through the assignments for the week. I saved hers for last, the way I've taken to doing, because I wanted to savor it.

I basically dared her to turn something like this in, so why should I have expected anything other than exactly this?

Go on and draw on all of the extensive experience you've had.

That's what I said to her.

Now I'm sitting here reading the piece she submitted while my cock is as hard as granite and wondering what the hell I've done. I may have opened up Pandora's box with this girl, and that's not something that can be undone.

I may have crossed a line.

I've definitely crossed a line.

I'm playing with fire when it comes to this girl. Even if nothing has happened between us, this back-and-forth is dangerous. This attraction to her is dangerous. I'm not stupid enough to believe that it's not insanely reckless. The rational, adult part of me knows there would be consequences if I crossed that line. I could lose my job.

Yet I stood there in the classroom and all but dared her to write something sexual like this. I dared her to write something sexual like this to me.

I dared her, which makes everything that happens my fault.

Of course, she did rise to the challenge all by herself, didn't she?

I think of him at night. Lips brushing like a feather against the inside of my thigh, the heat of his breath against my ear, the taste of him on my tongue.

I think of him at night when I slide my fingers between my legs.

I think of him, and I know he'll never be mine.

I think of him, and I'm certain he already belongs to me.

I asked for fire, and I got it in spades. The question is what the hell do I do with it now?

I know what the right answer is.

The appropriate response is to give the girl objective feedback and then leave it at that. I should leave her alone.

Objectively, her piece is good. Truthfully, it's the best one submitted by the students in the class. The writing is poetic and lyrical, just like the submission she made when she applied to my class. This piece has the spark the last several assignments were missing.

I could just give her that feedback and stop there. All of that feedback is honest.

That would be the right thing to do. It would be the professional thing to do.

It would require that I pretend she's not writing this for me specifically.

I tell myself that I'm going to stay objective. I'm going to treat this like a professional and maintain an appropriate amount of distance.

I reassure myself that I'm staying objective even as my hand goes to the zipper on my jeans. Even as I read her paper, my palm moving up and down my cock, I convince myself that the key to getting through this semester with her is retaining professional distance and objectivity.

I tell myself that I'm being appropriately distant even as I imagine her on her knees between my legs while I read her paper aloud. Even as I picture her wrapping her lips – warm, wet, and perfect just like the rest of her – around my cock.

I tell myself a fantasy is irrelevant, even as my hand moves up and down my length, my other hand clutching her paper. A fantasy means nothing.

I tell myself that it's not a big deal.

And it doesn't feel like that big of a deal – at least, until I come all over Purity's writing assignment.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

How the hell did that just happen??

I'm fucking delusional, trying to tell myself this isn't a big deal. I just jerked myself off while reading her writing… and came on her paper.

Coming on a student's assignment should be the biggest red flag ever, a massive warning sign: "Do Not Proceed Further."

I tell myself this is as far as it goes, and I mean it. I've never had a problem with self-control before, and I don't intend to begin developing one now.

That all goes out the damned window when Purity walks into class wearing a sundress. I just finished writing on the board and happen to turn around at the exact moment she walks through the classroom door.

My heart stops beating. Time of death: 9:57 a.m. Cause of death: tiny yellow sundress.

The floor-length dresses – the old-fashioned ones she wore because they're what she was permitted to wear in South Hollow, her father's hopeless attempt to conceal her curves – are gone. The dress she's wearing today makes no attempt to conceal her body the way those other dresses did.

The dress itself isn't obscene. In fact, on any other woman, it would be completely ordinary and unrevealing, a regular yellow sundress, the type of outfit you might see worn by any number of students on campus while it's still warm in early fall or during the spring semester.

But Purity isn't any other woman. On her, the sundress is the sexiest thing I've ever seen.

I'm not the only one who stares at her as she breezes into the classroom. Every male in the room is brazenly checking her out. How could they not be??

As she glides past me on the way to her seat, the cotton skirt of the dress swings, brushing against the creamy skin of her thighs. With every ounce of strength I have, I try not to openly gape at her long legs.

But I can't seem to stop staring.

As Purity turns and sinks into her seat, I can't seem to take my eyes off of the rest of her body, either. I can't stop looking at her shoulders, thinking about how easily the thin straps would come apart if I ripped the dress off her body.

Heaven help me.

The top of the dress scoops down in a semicircle across her breasts, giving me a more than generous peek at her cleavage. I have to work to force my eyes up instead of down because if I don't, I'm going to be completely ruined – and in the middle of class, no less.

When her eyes meet mine, she gives me a smug look – like the cat that ate the canary. If I had any doubts before about how coincidental it was that the girl chose to write about a forbidden relationship in her assignment, those doubts are quelled as of this moment.

What she wrote about was no accident.

She's pleased with herself – and she's aware of the effect she's having on me, too.

She's trying to provoke a reaction from me.

Turning away toward my desk, I feign preoccupation with the writing assignments as a cover for what I'm really doing, which is trying to get my mind out of the gutter when it comes to her. Flipping through the stack of assignments, I weigh out what I'm going to do.

If she wants a reaction from me, that's exactly what she's going to get.

I hold up my hand to get the class's attention before I begin speaking. "The assignment was to write about the seven deadly sins," I start. "By and large what you turned in was excellent, and that goes for all of you. You produced some really great work. Now, some of you took the task literally, while others wrote about their sin from a figurative perspective. But there were a few pieces that stood out as interesting ones I'd like to focus on for the purposes of class discussion, because they illustrate some of the points we discussed last time."

Leaning back against the table, I glance down at the stack of papers in my hand. Purity's is on the top where I placed it intentionally. I wait for a moment in order to give the class a chance to focus their attention on me – but also, because I want to catch Purity's gaze. I want to see her expression when she realizes what I'm holding.

A few seconds later, that's exactly what happens. She looks up from her notebook and makes eye contact with me.

She knows it's her paper I'm about to read.

That self-satisfied, confident expression she wore when she entered the classroom dressed to kill finally wavers.

I could just choose another student's assignment to focus on during class today. That would be the right thing to do. I know that she's self-conscious about her writing and reading something like this, which I'm fairly sure was meant for my eyes only, is going to embarrass her.

I tell myself that I'm only reading it aloud because it was the best assignment of the bunch. It was objectively interesting, and she submitted it knowing there was a possibility she'd get feedback on it from the class.

Reading it has nothing to do with that sundress she's wearing – or the smug little look on her face when she strutted in here in that dress looking for a reaction from me.

Nothing whatsoever.

The classroom goes completely still the second I open my mouth and begin to read. There's a mounting tension in the room that only happens when you're listening to something really special – and that's exactly what this piece is. Every student in the class recognizes it.

When I finish, the room is so silent you can hear a pin drop – until one of the guys in the class finally mutters, "Damn," and several other students chuckle.

"Damn." I echo his response. "Is that it? We're eloquent writers here and the only feedback we can come up with for the author is 'damn'?"

I refer to her as "the author" because the students know that if I choose papers to read in class, they retain anonymity. That way, no one's publicly embarrassed, and the students tend to give more honest feedback.

"It's really good," someone else replies.

"Okay, 'damn' and 'really good,'" I repeat. "Who else has feedback, positive or negative? What did the author do well and what needs developed further? Let's think about applying some of the things we've been discussing when it comes to character development. What do we know about the characters in this piece? Are they flawed or not flawed?"

I toss out a barrage of questions to jumpstart the discussion.

"It's classic forbidden love," a student offers.

"Is it?" I challenge. "Where did the author say it was forbidden?"

"Well, the author doesn't say it overtly," the student replies.

"There's a lot of language that hints at it being forbidden love," another student chimes in.

"What kind of language?" I ask.

"Religious language," he replies. "It makes it sound like it would be a sin to love him."

"But it's not love," a third student argues. "It's lust. That's the deadly sin, not love. That makes it forbidden lust. We're saying it's love right now, but that's all projection – the author never says that it's love."

"So we're making it love for our own reasons," I conclude. "Why is that? Is it more comfortable to think about love than lust?"

"No, I think the piece is about love," someone else says.

"Tell us why," I prompt. "Justify your reasoning."

"Because of the end of it," the student explains. "The author says he already belongs to her. That implies love – she wants him to be hers."

When my gaze meets Purity's, she sets her jaw and looks at me defiantly. Her cheeks are flushed pink, but not bright red the way they'd be if she were embarrassed.

Good girl.

I'd be disappointed if she was embarrassed by what she wrote. Owning it means that at least she has a backbone.

"Wait a minute," another student quickly interjects. "I disagree with that because the author says she wants him to be hers that implies this is a love story. Belonging doesn't necessarily mean love. Serial killers talk about their victims belonging to them, but that doesn't mean they're in love with their victims."

"Interesting. So this could be darker and not just a simple unrequited love – or lust – story, since the author hasn't hinted at a whole lot when it comes to the characters," I point out. "Do we want more? Does this make us want to keep reading?"

"Absolutely." The student nods.

Do I want more?

My answer to that question is definitely problematic.

I'm in my office for all of five minutes after class ends when there's a rap on the inside of the open office door. Purity stands just outside with her messenger bag on her hip and her notebook clutched tightly against her chest.

I'm not sure how I expected her to react after I read her assignment in class today, but I didn't expect her to show up in my office. "These aren't my office hours, Ms. Taylor."

"I'm aware of that," she replies. "I just – I mean – um, can I have five minutes of your time?"

She doesn't know what she's asking. Five minutes with this girl alone in my office could undo me.

I look at my watch. "Five minutes and not a second longer," I concede.

Not a second longer, I remind myself.

I lean back against my desk and watch as she steps into my office and shuts the door behind her. It seems to happen in slow motion, giving me a more-than-generous amount of time to tell her to stop, to leave the door open. The rational, adult part of me knows that I need to tell her not to close the door.

I shouldn't be alone with this girl. I can't be alone with this girl.

Yet I stand here, quiet and saying nothing.

I stand here, completely still, rooted where I am because I don't trust myself to move a single muscle. Hell, I barely trust myself to breathe, not when she's wearing that sundress and we're alone and she wrote the things she did.

Nothing about this is a good idea.

"Why did you read what I wrote in class?" she immediately demands.

I ignore the question because I don't have a good answer to it. Instead, I gesture toward the empty chair in front of me. "Would you like to take a seat, Ms. Taylor?"

I make an effort to keep my voice excessively polite and respectful, not at all how I was when I saw her at the pizza restaurant. I was over the line when I backed her up against the wall at the pizza place. I lost control when I saw the guy hitting on her.

I tell myself that I'm back in control now. That's why I'm standing here, crossing my arms and not moving at all. I'm calm, reserved, and professional.

At least, I feel like I'm in control – until Purity slides into the chair and the yellow sundress moves up her thigh as she crosses one leg over the other. That's the second I feel my control slip. My cock acts as if it has a mind of its own, hardening right here in front of her.

For a moment, she's as oblivious to my hardness as she is to the fact that her skirt is all the way up her thigh – at least she is, until she catches the way my gaze lingers on her leg.

Then her gaze lands on my very visible erection.

Her cheeks color and her eyes quickly meet mine as she clears her throat and shifts uncomfortably in her seat. She realizes that I'm hard because of her.

Her hand moves to the hem of her skirt, but she doesn't pull it down. She touches it, her fingers playing with the fabric, but she doesn't make a move to cover up her thigh.

She's playing with me.

"You read my paper in front of the whole class," she repeats, her voice soft.

"It was anonymous," I remind her. "And you know that part of the class is getting feedback on your writing assignments."

"You didn't read it to the class because you wanted to give me feedback," she argues.

Is it wrong that I'm pleased she's disagreeing with me? She's not quite the pushover I'd assumed her father had raised.

"What is it that you thought I was doing by reading it to the class, Ms. Taylor?" I ask innocently, as if this is a normal conversation and not one where I'm sitting here in front of her with my cock tenting my pants. "If you can't take criticism, you shouldn't be in my class."

I'm acting like a jackass. I should leave her alone, but that flush on her cheeks deepens and it only makes me want to push her further.

Her nostrils flare. I don't even know if she's aware of it. Her flash of irritation only makes my cock harder.

"I'm not objecting to criticism," she snaps.

She's also mouthy. It makes me want to spank her.

"What exactly are you objecting to?" I ask. "Your peer feedback was very positive, as was my feedback to you. You gave me exactly what I was looking for."

I speak the last words before my brain even registers what I'm saying. They're probably the most honest words I've ever spoken – and also the most inappropriate.

She looks up at me, her eyes large, as she fiddles with the hem of her skirt. "What are you looking for?" she asks.

Are, not were. We're no longer talking about the assignment. What are you looking for, she asks. Present tense.

"You're not prepared to give me that, Ms. Taylor," I warn her.

Neither am I.