Not until I’m getting ready for bed do I remember Beckett’s request for my manuscript. It’s nearing eleven o’clock but figuring it’s better sent late than never, I draw my laptop onto the bed and open my email. In addition to the expected spam, I see a message from an unfamiliar, non-university address.

Unfamiliar, yes, but not unrecognizable: j.s.beck. The subject line reads, Don’t be a coward, and when I open it, there’s no other content.

“I guess the message is clear enough,” I mutter, and hurriedly attach my manuscript and send it.

Seconds later, a chat box pops up in the corner of the screen.

My mouth drops open.

My nipples tingle in response. “Don’t do it, don’t do it,” I tell myself, even as my fingers fly over the keyboard and like an automaton, I hit Send.

Frozen, my heart pounding, I wait. The cursor blinks at me like an oracle of judgement, then a tiny chime sounds. My eyes snap to his reply.

I frown in confusion.

Another chime.

“Holy shit,” I whisper, as heat funnels straight to my core.

At a soft knock on my bedroom door, I slam my laptop shut. “Come in, Claire,” I call hoarsely.

She pops her head inside the room. “I saw your light—Why is your face red?”

“I was, uh, rubbing it.”

Her eyes narrow, flickering to the laptop beside me. “I thought I heard you talking. Were you Skyping your mom?”

“Nope, just muttering to myself.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but after a moment gives me a tired smile. “Okay, goodnight. See you in the morning.”

“Yep, ‘night.”

The door closes and I open the laptop warily. There’s a new message.

Somewhere in my rational mind, I know this is wrong. So risky. But the long-dormant, reckless half of me is wide awake and in control. I haven’t felt this way in years. Wanton. Desirous. It’s a gift I won’t—can’t—give back.

My hips twitch, driving my pulsing center against the bed. With a shaking hand, I pull up my t-shirt to expose my breasts. Feeling possessed, I pinch one of the aching peaks and swallow a moan.

The mental picture of his dark head over my chest, sucking and licking, shoots shocks of pleasure through my groin.

He doesn’t disappoint, sentences filling the screen at a rapid pace.

I stare at the blinking cursor, panting and poised on the edge of climax. I can’t wait for him to start typing again—so I don’t. Three more purposeful movements of my hand and an orgasm unfolds, so consuming I arch backward to smother my cry with a pillow.

Lazy heat swirling through my limbs, I roll onto my side to stare at the computer screen. Finally, another sentence comes, and it brings a gratified smile to my lips.

My breath dies, my body throbs, and my rational brain wakes up. With shaking fingers, I type my response.

Grey text informs me that j.s.beck is offline.

“Oh my God, what did I just do?” I whisper.

* * *

By the time I walk into class the following evening, I’m half-convinced last night was a dream. I’m sure that somewhere on my computer the chat between j.s.beck and myself is logged, but I’m also sure I don’t have the guts to read it in the light of day.

Somehow, I have to get through Advanced Fiction Writing with Beckett. Not as my advising professor or thesis chair, but as my teacher. The class is only one day a week, which is a blessing, but because of its infrequency it’s the ungodly length of two hours and fifty minutes.

With ten minutes to spare before the seven o’clock start, I enter the room and veer toward the back. Most of the students are familiar—there aren’t that many of us in the MFA Creative Writing Program—and I drop into a seat beside Griffen Banks.

“Hey, Iris, how was your summer?”

“Peachy. Did you go back to Houston like you talked about?”

He nods, brown eyes warming. “Yeah, it was great. Can’t wait to move back permanently. How about you? You’re from San Francisco, right?”

“Yep, but Seattle’s home now. Plus, I did a summer internship at Fox Publishing. Fingers crossed for a job offer at the end of the year.”

His brows lift. “Awesome, I remember you mentioning that you were going to interview.”

We don’t notice that the room’s gone quiet until Beckett says, “If you’re done flirting, Ms. Eliot and Mr. Banks?”

Griffen flushes in embarrassment, but at this point I’m almost immune to the cutting tone. Turning my gaze to the front, I see Beckett glaring at me.

“Sorry, professor.”

His eyes darken, and last night’s exchange races through my veins. Whatever my expression reveals compresses his lips in satisfaction. Then he spins toward the whiteboard.

“Pens out,” he commands. “I want five hundred words on this topic. You have ten minutes.”

Marker squeaks over the whiteboard, then drops with a clank. Beckett turns and sits, already opening a notebook and lifting a pen. At the low murmuring around me, I finally lift my gaze to the word on the board.

Orgasm.

I blink at it, waiting for a different word to appear. But I’m not that lucky. Not lucky at all, because when I glance down, Beckett is staring at me. One brow cocks in challenge.

So I write five hundred words about climbing a never-ending staircase to nowhere. When the ten minutes are up, I’m the first person he calls on. Of course. I read it to the class, earning chuckles from the women and speculative glances from the men.

Beckett is not amused but he hides it well, merely nodding and calling on another student. The next hours drag by in usual first-class format—introductions, lengthy discussion of the syllabus, and assignments of writing partners. There’s an odd number in the class, and I’m in the last seat.

“She can join our group,” offers Griffen.

Beckett’s lips thin. “Ms. Eliot, you can submit your assignments to me for feedback.”

My fellow students throw me sympathetic glances. I manage a smile and a nod, while inside I’m churning, feeling like a steel net is closing around me.

I can’t escape him.

The final hour of class is a new lesson in endurance. Beckett speaks in depth about the first assignment—a fictional scene involving a couple who love each other but can’t be together. The context, content, and style are completely up to us.

“Go ahead and enjoy leaving a few minutes early tonight,” he says finally. “It’s the last time it will happen.”

As the room empties, I pack with purposeful slowness. The emotions on simmer since he first locked eyes on me boil over. I have to do something. Now. When the final student is gone, I stand and stalk to the front of the room.

“This has to stop,” I say rigidly.

He glances up from his notebook. “What, exactly?”

“I can’t concentrate,” I snap. “Tone down the… whatever!”

His lips curl. “Eloquent, Ms. Eliot.”

I groan, sinking fingers into the hair on my crown. “Look, Beckett. Beck. Whatever your name is. Last night was totally my fault. I completely lost my mind and forgot that you’re my professor, my freaking boss. I’m not going to throw away the last two years of grad school on what you’re hiding in your jeans. Whatever you may think, I’m not that kind of girl.”

He blinks up at me. “I know. I finished your manuscript, by the way. Can you come to my office Monday after our morning class? I have a two-hour time block.”

I stare at him and finally sputter, “It’s like being in a blender. Every second, you make my head spin in a different direction. Is that your thing? You like targeting women, teasing them, baiting them, and watching them fall apart?”

He’s around the desk so fast I only have time to gasp. Hot fingers grip the back of my bare neck, angling my face to his. His expression is an enticing mix of frustration and appeal.

“No,” he whispers. “I don’t know. Since you walked into class yesterday morning, I’ve been sideways over you. It doesn’t make a lick of sense.” Almost to himself, he adds, “Something about your eyes. Selkie-dark. So odd against your hair and skin.”

The deepest, most damaged part of me roars to the surface and hijacks my voice. “Let’s do it, then,” I snarl. “Fuck me, and I guarantee you’ll be over it. It’s pretty much my M.O.”

Shock drops his full lower lip. “Jesus, Iris, why would you say that?” he asks, scanning my eyes like he might find the answer in them.

I can’t handle the intimacy of our stance and jerk away from his touch. Hastening to the back of the room, I grab my bag, then beeline for the door.

“Iris!” he snaps.

With my hand on the knob, I look at him. “The woman you were thinking about through the computer last night doesn’t exist. Google my name, professor, and read about the accident. Maybe then we can get back to some semblance of a working relationship.”

I wrench open the door and flee.