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“That’s hardly your fault,” he told me gently. “And before that, you were exemplary. And don’t worry about a thing. We’ll get you back on track, okay?”

I couldn’t get enough of him like this. Doing this exact thing, the thing he was always doing, in one form or another.

Giving me attention. Reassuring me. Tending to me. Taking care of me.

I could feel my eyes devouring him, could feel his reaction to it in his soft eyes.

I’d been in love with him. Now it had grown beyond all proportion. I was in love with him and his biggest fan.

“Does it distract you that I stay up late reading your novels every night?” I asked him.

We were working in his office again. It was a rare slice of productive time between my school and work, and he was helping me plow through more homework.

I was trying not to be preoccupied with what else I wanted him to plow.

“Everything about you distracts me,” he said, not looking at me directly.

“I need to start getting ready for work,” I told him, shutting my laptop.

But I didn’t move. We were sitting side by side. I touched his knee.

He stood abruptly, moving to sit at his desk. He tapped his mouse, looking at his computer.

I went and stood next to his chair.

He looked up at me, raising his brows. “Aren’t you in a hurry?”

I put a hand on his shoulder, and he didn’t pull away. I leaned forward, pushing my breasts against his face, and he didn’t pull away.

I rubbed my hands over his head, pressing him against me.

His hands gripped my butt in both hands, and suddenly I was straddling him in his chair. He was pressing me hard against him, his hips churning under me, our loins flush.

He was just so deliciously huge. His shoulders. His hands. His raging hard-on. Everywhere.

A hot, drenching rush of sensation swept over me.

Our eyes were locked, and I felt like I was under a spell, like we both were.

He cupped my face in his hands, and for the first time, he pressed his lips to mine. And it was perfect.

His mouth was tender on mine, gentle but commanding. It was the first time I’d kissed someone that knew what they were doing. It was heaven. I never wanted to stop.

I rocked against him in the chair, rubbing my breasts into his chest, but he never took his hands from my face as he showed me what it meant to express your desire perfectly through a simple kiss.

It was beautiful and full of magic, and somehow I fell even more deeply in love.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CARTER

I found out in a roundabout way—asking her questions here and there so she wasn’t too on guard about it, she didn’t like those kinds of questions—that her worthless relatives still had her social security card and birth certificate.

Their address and names were easier to access, so I didn’t even have to ask her for those and clue Nova in to my intentions.

I paid them a visit for multiple reasons, not the least of which that I felt the need to give them at least a small piece of my mind. They deserved much more, but I tried to come at it as her teacher, not her lover.

Her aunt answered the door, eyeing me up in a curious way, though the twist to her mouth was so unpleasant that it made you think it was frozen in that shape.