Damn it. This is so embarrassing.

Heat rises to my cheeks. I feel guilty for even thinking the swear word in my head, but I can't help it. I'm totally mortified.

The way that Mr. Gabe – that's what I used to call him when I was a kid – is looking at me right now, with his brow furrowed and that dark expression, makes me think he's almost angry that I'm registered for his class.

Scratch the almost part. He seems livid that I'm in his class.

That's not even the most embarrassing part of this whole situation, though. If only it were. It's embarrassing, of course, that my father dragged me down to Mr. Gabe's office – and not even because they were friends a long time ago. No, he brought me down here so he could sic Mr. Gabe on me.

My father told me before we left South Hollow: "I'm going to have a talk with Mr. Ryan. I'm not letting you run off to college hundreds of miles away from home unless there's someone I know who will keep an eye out for you – and who will report back to me on your behavior. There will be no boys, no alcohol, nothing except studying. Studying and church."

Calling my father over-protective would be putting it mildly.

I'm the daughter of a preacher. Not just any preacher, either. My father is the preacher in South Hollow, leader of the only church to speak of in the small town where I was born and raised. He preaches hellfire and damnation, rants and raves about the evils of the world, and believes that the only way to Heaven is to stay away from all forms of temptation.

Temptation like the man standing in front of me right now, the too-handsome one with the chiseled jawline and dark eyes and the hint of five o' clock shadow. The one looking at me with a mixture of disdain and anger.

You know how you hear about preacher's kids being wilder than regular kids? That's not the case with me. My father has ensured that I've been under lock and key since I was a child. I've always empathized with Rapunzel, shut away from the world in her tower, because that's exactly how I've felt for most of my life.

I've never had a boyfriend, let alone been on a single date.

So what could be more embarrassing than being the sheltered girl from the hick town whose father dragged her down to her professor's office to ask him to keep an eye on her while she's at college? What could be more mortifying than the way Mr. Gabe is staring at me right now, like there's been a huge mistake and there's no way I could be in his creative writing class because I have absolutely zero talent?

What could possibly be more humiliating than any of this?

It's the fact that the way he's looking at me right now – dark and angry and condescending – sends heat through my whole body, all the way down to the tips of my fingers and toes. It's the same kind of heat that rushes through me when I'm lying in bed alone at night, when I think about how it would feel to have someone's lips brush my skin or someone's fingers between my legs.

I bet a man like Mr. Gabe, handsome and worldly, knows exactly how to touch a woman.

The words flit through my brain before I can stop them. When my eyes meet Mr. Gabe's eyes, I swear he can see right through me. I swear he knows my most sinful thoughts, and my face flushes red hot. My breath catches in my throat.

I tell myself that it's not true, that he can't possibly know what I'm thinking. He can't possibly sense that I just imagined how his fingertips would feel as they brushed against my skin.

It's so wrong.

I knew Mr. Gabe when I was a little girl. I even think of him as Mr. Gabe, not Mr. Ryan or Professor Ryan.

What's wrong with me, thinking about him like that?

It's just nerves, I reassure myself. The way my heart is racing right now, the way my pulse quickens and heat floods my body, is not attraction. There's no way it can be.

"It's impossible." Mr. Gabe's voice breaks through my thoughts. For a second, my heart stops because I think he is actually reading my mind. Then he finishes his statement: "Purity can't be registered for my class."

When he looks at my father instead of me, I finally let out a breath, physically relieved that the intensity of his gaze is no longer directed at me – even if he's talking to my father right now like I'm not in the room.

Even if he just implied I'm not in his class because I'm not qualified to be here.

"Trust me when I say I tried to talk her out of it," my father mutters.

Talk me out of it?? Scream and yell me out of it is more like it. I knew my father would never permit me to submit applications to any schools other than the local community college. He would have told me it was a waste of time, that the big bad dangerous world would eat me alive and it was nonsense to think I'd go away to school. No, he'd say, what I needed to do was to stay in South Hollow and get married and have babies. Heck, everyone in town had already decided I was going to marry Justin Evans as soon as I graduated high school.

So I applied to colleges without telling my father. I filled out my applications with the help of Mrs. Cooper, the librarian in town. She'd never liked my father much, and ever since I was a kid she'd let me sit in the library on afternoons when my father was writing sermons. I'd pretend to read books my father had chosen for me, but Mrs. Cooper would slip me books she knew he wouldn't approve of.

Once, when I was driven to tears by the thought of staying in South Hollow for the rest of my life, I told her it was all her fault. She was the one who had given me books and made me dissatisfied with South Hollow and with the life my father wanted for me. When she'd grinned in response, I wanted to scream. Didn't she know what she'd done to me by showing me there was something out there other than the life I had?

I insisted it was delusional to apply to really prestigious schools, but after my SAT scores came back nearly perfect, Mrs. Cooper had insisted I apply to the best places possible – and helped me pay for the application fees. After I got my first acceptance letter, I folded it back up and taped it to the underside of the desk in my room, bringing it out every night for a week to stare at it before I was convinced it was actually real enough to show her.

When I told my father what I'd done – that I'd applied to schools out of state without telling him – he forbade me from going. He threatened to keep me in South Hollow forever. But as crazy as my father is, even he wasn't insane enough to think that he really could keep me a prisoner in my hometown, not since I turned eighteen six months ago.

Eventually, he benevolently (according to him) agreed that I should attend college. I had to swear on the Bible that after I was finished, I'd return to South Hollow where Justin Evans, one of the deacons in my father's church, would be waiting to marry me.

No, thanks.

I put my hand on the Bible and swore I'd return to South Hollow. I lied to my father. And now I'm lusting after Mr. Gabe.

I'm totally going to Hell.

"Why on Earth would you try to talk Purity out of registering for my class?" Mr. Gabe asks. He shakes his head, his brow furrowed, before he finally looks at me again. "Never mind. It doesn't matter. My class is already full, Purity. As much as I'd like to allow you into it, I can't. It's also only open to students at the university."

My face warms until my cheeks must be bright red as I realize he thinks I'm not actually a student here.

"I'm enrolled in school here," I say, my voice trembling. I try to quell the feeling of nausea rising in my throat. This is beyond embarrassing. Clenching my jaw, I press my fingertips into my palm, nails against my skin, and take a deep breath. "And I'm already registered for your class."

And if you don't think I'm good enough to be here, join the club, because my father thinks I should be in community college, not at a school like this. And I'm not exactly confident in my talent, either.

The crease in his brow gets deeper. "That's just not possible," he starts. Then he pauses to move behind his desk, clearly preoccupied with figuring out how I could be enrolled in his class. Instead of asking me, though, he begins typing furiously on his keyboard, his eyes focused intently on the screen as he logs into his computer.

Wait a second.

Does he think I came to his office to try to convince him to let me into his class??

A surge of anger begins to replace whatever attraction I felt toward the man a moment ago. "Do you think I came here to beg to get into your class?"

He doesn't answer.

Okay, so I might have known Mr. Gabe when I was a kid, but the guy has clearly become a jerk over the years. After all, it's not like I even know him – he and my father had a falling out years ago and anything my father said about him after that involved the words "heathen" and "reprobate."

Of course, that only made me more intrigued, and I sneaked off to the library and borrowed his books. The first one I read was the one that made him famous, but that was actually the second book he wrote. I read all of his books; I must have pored over every word a hundred times.

Yet I can't seem to reconcile the man who wrote the beautiful words in those books, words that inspired me to write, with the man who apparently thinks I'm not good enough to get into his stupid class.

I deserve to be here, I tell myself. I won't let him make me feel bad for being here. I won't let my father feel bad about being here, either.

Even if my stomach turns over and over and I feel so nervous about being a student here that I might faint. Even if I don't feel nearly smart enough to attend a school of this caliber.

"I applied to get into your class, and I sent in a writing sample," I say, forcing confidence into my tone despite how shaky my voice sounds to my own ears. "I was accepted like everyone else – to this school, and to your class."

When Mr. Gabe – ugh, not Mr. Gabe because I'm not eight years old anymore – Professor Ryan looks up from his computer, his face is pale. "So you did," he mumbles, glancing back at the computer screen before looking at me again. "I read the writing samples blind. I had no idea yours was among them."

"Would that have made a difference?" I ask angrily. Is he really that upset I had the audacity to apply to his class? It's enough that my father thinks I shouldn't be "running off to college", as he puts it, but for Professor Ryan to look so surprised that I'm in his class is just insulting.

But Professor Ryan doesn't even seem to notice I'm the least bit upset. He's hardly paying attention, instead opening his desk drawer and pulling out folders as he mutters to himself. "I remember your sample…"

His voice drifts off as he opens a manila folder.

My heart stops. Other than the generic form email that said I was accepted into this class, I've never gotten any feedback on my writing – and that email wasn't exactly direct feedback. No one's ever read anything I've written before – not my friends in South Hollow and definitely not my father. No one except for Professor Ryan, who clearly didn't even know it was mine.

And now he's standing here holding a folder and scanning the piece I submitted, right here in front of my father.

My heart stops beating, and fear grips my chest. Professor Ryan wouldn't read it aloud, would he? Does he understand how personal, how intimate, that piece is?

I can't breathe.

I don't have any excuse for what I do next, except that I'm totally panicking and am not thinking clearly. I just know that the man is holding my writing sample, the one I worked so hard on, that I poured my soul into, and he's looking at me like I'm a talentless hack.

I grab the folder and rip it right out of his hands. "I was admitted to your class, fair and square," I tell him before he can react – and before I can think about exactly how stupid and childish it was to do what I just did. "But if I shouldn't be here because I know you or because you don't think I'm good enough, then I'll withdraw."

You shouldn't be her, because you want to feel his lips on your skin. You shouldn't be here, because you want him between your thighs.

I want to scream at my out-of-control thoughts.

My heart races, and my breath grows short as Professor Ryan's eyes search mine. My cheeks burn with embarrassment at my childish behavior. What was I thinking, ripping the folder from his hands?!

I search for disdain in his eyes. Part of me wants him to say Yes, do it, withdraw from my class because I don't know why I feel hot when Professor Ryan looks at me. I also don't know why I care what he thinks about me.

But I don't see disdain. For a second I think I see desire, but that's not possible because I don't know what it's like to be looked at that way. Even if I think Professor Ryan is looking at me like that, it's not true. I must be imagining things. Or I'm losing my mind.

It's probably the latter.

"Withdrawing from Gabriel's class – and this school – and coming back to South Hollow so you can settle down and get married to Justin is exactly what you should be doing." My father's tone is forceful and insistent. "If you're set on going to college, the community school is good enough –"

"I'm not going back to South Hollow," I snap, surprising even myself with how adamant I am.

I'm not going back whether Professor Ryan wants me in his class or not. My father might want me to stay in South Hollow forever. He might think it's my duty to marry Justin Evans. But he doesn't know – or care – what my dreams are.

And none of my dreams involve South Hollow, Tennessee or getting married and having ten kids before I'm thirty.

Professor Ryan hardly reacts when I declare I'm not returning to South Hollow. He doesn't break eye contact, and neither do I, despite the fact that I can feel my father's gaze burning into the side of my face. My father is angry; I know that much without even looking in his direction. I've never dared to be blatantly disrespectful and defy him like this.

I don't know why I feel so brave right now, able to stand up to my father right here in Professor Ryan's office – especially considering the way Professor Ryan is looking at me makes my knees tremble.

For a long moment, Professor Ryan just stands there, staring at me. His gaze causes a flush to spread across my cheeks and down my neck before moving lower and lower, until it pools between my legs, settling there.

"You're not withdrawing from my class," he says finally.

I hear myself let out a slow exhale, acutely aware of the fact that I'd been standing here waiting on his verdict – not just in terms of the class, but in terms of my talent.

Gabriel Ryan selected me blindly from all of the applicants to his class based solely on my writing sample – and he still wants me in his class – so that must mean I have some modicum of writing ability.

Right?

Professor Ryan speaks as if he can read my mind. "Judging by your writing sample, you should be in my class. You need all the help you can get."

Ouch.

I stand there blinking in shock as my heart sinks at his words. For a second, I see something flicker in his eyes – maybe regret? – but it's more likely I'm imagining that because I don't want to think that the Mr. Gabe I remember from my childhood is actually an arrogant jerk.

In fact, I must be seeing what I want to see in his eyes, because the look passes and he turns toward my father, completely dismissing me.