“Miss Ford.” The professor’s voice cracks through the hall.
Fuck.
I slowly turn around.
Cormac stands with his hands braced on the podium, his eyes locked on me. “Youare not dismissed.”
Chapter 16
Cormac
“Miss Ford,” I call out to the woman who detonated my brain. “You are not dismissed.”
I take delight in the way she freezes, like prey caught in a spotlight at night. It’s not just me who suffered ninety minutes of internal turmoil, feeling ready to vomit. Okay, maybe that was just me.
I wave off the female students, standing at my podium, gawking at me.
She turns and slowly slinks down the steps in my direction while the lecture hall empties around her. My pulse hammers in my throat, too fast, too loud.
She’s fucking ScarlettFord?
Bradley Ford’sdaughter?
The daughter of the man who was my mentor, who gave methis job?
The daughter Ifucked.
Of course she is. That’s why she was in his office weeks before the semester began.
What have I done?
The name Scarlett didn’t set off any blips on my radar that night. I couldn’t even say when her father was my professor if he had a child or children. We never talked about family. It wasn’t any of my business.
When Scarlett gets close, she lifts her eyes to me. Soft and golden brown, her gaze brutally tightens something in my chest.
I drag a hand over my face. That she’s my student is goddamn catastrophic.
The room slowly begins to fill again as students for the next class shuffle in. A professor in a tight pencil skirt and blood-red lipstick strides up to the podium with a stack offolders.
“Dr. O’Rourke,” she purrs. “This is my hall now.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She bristles at that. But sheismarried. Just like Ford wants all his faculty to be shackled.
Dr. Pencil Skirt’s eyes flick to Scarlett standing on the last step, one foot hovering. “Talk to your student in the hall. Or your office.”
Fuck, it’s like she knows. Do we already look guilty?
“Ford. My office. We need to talk.” I don’t wait to see if she follows. I just walk out, jaw clenched, vision tunneling.
In the faculty wing hallway, I stop to turn and check on her. Too abruptly, and she bumps into me. Her tits bounce off my back.
Jesus Christ.
She smells like vanilla and lime and something very forbidden that hits me straight in the gut. And my dick.
I can’t get erections here. Not near students. Of all the things I worried about, this was the last thing I considered. And it’s the first brick in the wall to crumble.