Teach Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

need to cut the hell out.
    It
doesn’t help that
he’s standing right
next to me, close enough that I can feel the heat from his body. I
know that if I meet his intense gaze again, I’ll
lose all my nerve. So I focus on the desk instead, and try to ignore
it when he squeezes past me, and his arm brushes my shoulder. Fire
ignites along my whole side, and my breath catches as I remember the
way his arms circled me last night, pulling me against him, so firm,
completely in control.
    Meanwhile,
he’s refusing to
meet my eyes too. Does he remember? Does he recognize me somehow?
    I
clear my throat. Doesn’t
matter. I need to come clean, and somehow convince him to let me into
that seminar.
    “Well?”
he asks, and we lock eyes finally. Yep. Intimidating as crap to stare
into those deep, dark eyes—almost
honey from close up, with the sun shining in them through the window.
A lock of his dark hair falls across his forehead, and my fingers
itch to run through it again.
    All
my carefully planned speeches fly straight out of my head.
    “I
have a confession to make,”
is all I can think to say.
    Apparently
it’s enough. His
eyebrows shoot skyward, and from the way the color drains from his
face, I’m guessing
he’s recognized my
voice after all. Or my choice of wording.
    “Dear
god.”
    “I
wasn’t going to say
anything,” I babble,
my words practically tripping over themselves in my rush to explain.
“I was going to just
drop the class, because, I mean, obviously that would be the right
thing to do, given the, um, the circumstances, but I accidentally
overheard you talking to the dean about the Eliot thing and I’m
planning to write my thesis on him next year; I would do anything to
help you with those papers, please, I really need this.”
By the time I reach the end of that little meltdown, I’m
out of breath.
    On
the bright side, color returned to his face while I was talking. On
the down side, now he’s
just straight up scowling at me, his jaw clenched.
    “You
told me you were just visiting for the day,”
he says, after a pause so long I nearly sweat through my shirt.
    “I
know. I didn’t know
who you were or I swear I would never have . . . I
mean . . . ”
His glare makes the words die on my tongue. I clear my throat to
force the block out of it. “It
will never happen again, professor.”
    “Damn
right, it won’t. And
if you think I’m
going to give you favors because of what happened—”
    “No,
of course not, I’m
not asking for favors, I—”
    “You
just told me you lied to get into my pants last night, and now you’re
asking me to let you work on a project that you only know exists
because you eavesdropped
on a private conversation ,
and you don’t see
the conflict of interest there?”
    I
grimace. This all sounded a lot more convincing in my head. “Just
consider me. Please. I’ll
do anything.” I
pause, realizing how that sounds. “No,
I mean, not like that, I . . . ”
    He
heaves a sigh, and for a second the angry facade drops. I catch a
glimpse of the guy I met last night underneath. Overworked,
frustrated. Passionate, in desperate need of a release. His eyes
catch mine, bore straight into me, and I forget to breathe. He can
pin me in place without even touching me. “I’ll
consider you in the same way I plan to consider every student in your
class. No more, no less. Impress me with the Heaney essay due this
week, and then maybe— maybe— we’ll
talk about Eliot.”
    Hope
and fear war in my chest. Our lecture has about fifty students in it.
Most of whom will want this research gig as bad as I do.
    But
as bad as I am at managing my love life, I’m
stellar at academia. Poetry is what I write, live, breathe. I can do
this. I raise my chin and smile at him, our eyes still locked, my
face hot from the sensation of his eyes on me.
    “I
won’t let you down,”
I say. Right before I turn around and flee the office. Best get out
of here before he can think better of this