Students flitted past, laughter spilled in bursts and the chatter of normalcy filled the campus grounds of Bellwood University as Maya walked through. But inside her chest, the thunder of anxiety and anticipation clashed like cymbals.
Two days.
She had stayed away for two days, just to avoid Logan like he was a sin she hadn't quite decided whether to surrender to.
But his texts...his words still clung to her mind. You can run away, but you'll still be mine.
God help her, she missed him.
She brushed her hands through her curls, pushed her shoulder bag higher, and focused on keeping her breath even as she moved through the building's archway.
Some strong, familiar, and possessive arms, were wrapped tightly around her waist and spun her into the shadows.
"What-Logan?" she gasped.
She hadn't even seen him.
One moment she'd been walking, the next she was his again, pressed against a cold wall just inside a dim, unused room near the old lecture wing. The door clicked shut behind them, and silence cloaked them in intimacy.
She barely registered the fleeting figure of Damian from the corner of her eye, the way he'd started toward her, arm waved in a raise, only for him to stop and he froze. His hurt flicked in his features before he turned and walked away.
But all that vanished as Logan's body caged her in.
"You've been avoiding me," Logan said quietly with a deep voice.
Then her breath caught in her throat.
"I-I had things to do," she lied, eyes darting to his lips before she could stop herself.
He tilted his head, a wicked, knowing smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth.
"No, you were hiding," he murmured, stepping even closer. His hands found her hips. "You were scared. Of this."
He leaned in slowly, brushing his nose against hers, his breath hot and tingling.
"I missed you," he added, so softly it almost sounded like a confession.
Maya hated how fast her pulse sprinted at that. She hated how much she wanted him at that very moment despite her better judgement, despite the warning sirens blaring in her head.
"Logan, this isn't-" she started, but her words turned to smoke when his mouth came on hers.
It wasn't a kiss, it was another collision. Harder than the first one.
It was more of desperate and consuming, amplified than the last time.
Her fingers threaded into his hair without permission. His body molded to hers like they were made of the same fire. His hand roamed over her back, pulling her closer, chests pressed and their hearts racing. She moaned softly into his mouth, and that sound undid something inside him.
"You haunt me," he growled between kisses. "Every damn hour. I couldn't sit still, couldn't think straight. I went to your place. I waited."
"You're insane," she breathed, still kissing him, still pulling him closer.
"You make me insane," he corrected, brushing his lips down her jaw to her throat. "But I don't want sanity. I want you."
Time slipped and melted.
In that moment, they weren't a tutor and a student, they weren't complications and there were no rules.
They were two people lost in each other.
And then, the sound of footsteps and voices, and doors opening in the distance followed.
Students flooded toward the lecture halls as the morning classes began..
Reality cracked the fantasy.
Maya gasped and pulled back, her cheeks looking flushed, her lips tingling, and her heart pounding in her ribs like a drum.
Logan didn't move at first and he just stared at her, his chest rose and fell hard, like he had run through a hurricane.
"I have class," she whispered, still dazed.
"I know," he murmured. "Me too. Different buildings."
She blinked at him. "How did you-"
"I only sat in your class that one time to see you. Before we ever spoke," he admitted. "I wasn't even registered. I just needed to know your name."
Something in her chest twisted, softened. He was trouble. She knew it. But Lord, he had her heart wrapped around his pinky, and he hadn't even asked for it.
He gently brushed a kiss to her forehead.
"I'll see you after," he said, with a soft voice.
And just like that, he vanished into the hallway crowd, leaving Maya breathless and shaken and she had already fallen headfirst to whatever spell Logan Hayes was casting.
---
In the classroom, Maya sat two rows from the front, her hands folded atop her open anthology of Romantic Poetry. Her eyes followed Professor Laird as he moved fluidly across the room, a man who tweed like a second skin and a wielded literature like a sword.
"Miss Thompson," he said, his voice crisp as a breeze through autumn leaves. "Care to tell us what Wordsworth meant when he wrote 'the child is the father of the man?"
Maya blinked because she knew this, she had read it a dozen times. Maybe a hundred times.
But her brain faltered, snagged on the memory of lips and hands and the searing kiss that still burned behind her eyes. Logan's mouth and his voice. The curve of his smile when he whispered things that seeped into her soul and camped there.
"Um..." she started, fumbling.
Then someone snickered from the back.
Maya straightened her shoulders. "He meant that our childhood experience shapes who we become. That the child is the origin of the adult."
Laird nodded. "Adequate."
Adequate. The world landed with a dull thud in her chest.
The class rolled forward as other students chimed in. Theo, with his usual smug insight, Carla with her honey sweet voice that made even Milton sound flirtatious. Maya participated once more, something about Keats and ephemeral beauty, but it came out flat and hollow.
When the class ended, the students poured out like water set free from a faucet, their voices rising with relief.
Maya rose, her bag slung over one shoulder, when she heard her name again.
"Miss Thompson, a word, if you will."
Professor Laird stood at the door, with an faint expression. He wasn't angry but he wasn't casual either.
Maya could feel the tension curling in her stomach.
Moments later, Laird gestured to the chair across from his desk in his office.
Then Maya sat.
He didn't open with a question. Instead, he reached for a slim folder. Her folder.
"I'm concerned," he said finally. "You're one of my brightest students, Maya. But over the last few weeks...your essays have been rushed, and your insights are dulled. Today, you were nearly absent-minded."
Her mouth opened, a lie forming before she could help it.
"I've just been a little tired, Professor. Helping with tutoring and volunteering at the kid's event last weekend...it's been a lot."
He nodded once, not buying it, not challenging either. "Understandable. But you need to find your balance again. Otherwise, you're going to fall further. I'd hate to see you waste the promise you've shown."
That one landed hard.
Promise. The very thing she'd built herself on. Maya Thompson, who was dependable, smart and insightful. She was not the girl who kissed distractions in dark rooms and skipped classes because her thoughts were tangled in flirtation and fantasy.
She thanked him quickly, politely, then fled.
She walked without direction through the center of campus, where cherry blossoms danced above stone benches and cluster's of students who passed her by in blurs.
It hit her then.
She had really been slipping.
All in her grades, her focus and her sense of self. One by one, the things she clung to, her structure and her ambition, her boundaries were cracking under the weight of what? A kiss? A boy?
Logan was gravity in her life and that is why she had been free-falling.
Then her phone buzzed. She had received another text, she didn't need to check to know it was him.
"Still avoiding me? Baby, you're better off giving in."
Maya closed her eyes.
She couldn't keep this up. She couldn't pretend that her heart wasn't getting lost in this current fantasy that was forged just two days ago..
She needed to stop and breathe so that she could find herself again.
Because if she didn't, she would end up losing more than just grades but herself too.
And Maya Thompson had come too far for that. Then she walked faster, one determined step at a time, toward whatever came next.