GABRIEL'S POV
I couldn't concentrate on a single lecture today. Every time I tried to focus on Victorian literature or discuss the moral complexities of Hardy's heroines, all I could think about was the way Ava had kissed me this morning.
The way her lips had felt against mine. The way she'd looked at me afterward, like she was seeing me for the first time.
My two o'clock class was a disaster. I stumbled through my notes on social commentary in industrial fiction while scanning the lecture hall for her familiar face. She wasn't there. Third row, center seat – empty.
Ava had skipped my class.
She'd never skipped before. Not once in the entire semester. The girl who took meticulous notes on everything I said, who hung on every word even when I was being deliberately difficult, had deliberately chosen not to show up.
She was testing me. I was sure of it.
The realization should have annoyed me. Should have made me want to remind her exactly who was in charge of this arrangement. Instead, I found myself oddly impressed. Ava was learning to push boundaries, to see how far she could go before I pushed back.
By the time I got home at six-thirty, I was wound tight with anticipation.
The apartment was quiet when I walked in, but I could sense her presence. She was here somewhere, probably waiting to see how I'd react to her little act of rebellion.
"Ava?" I called out, setting my briefcase down by the door.
No response.
I checked the living room first but it was empty. The kitchen was spotless, no sign that she'd been there since this morning. I walked down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
I knocked on her door. "Ava? Are you in there?"
Silence.
I tried the handle. The door was unlocked, but the room was empty. Her bed was made, her few belongings still scattered around like she hadn't quite settled in yet.
Where was she?
I was about to check the balcony when I heard it – the soft sound of pages turning, coming from my office.
I walked down the hall, my footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. The office door was slightly ajar, and I could see a sliver of light coming from inside.
I pushed the door open and found her.
Ava was curled up in my leather chair – the chair I'd sat in every evening for the past three years, the chair where I graded papers and wrote lectures and planned my carefully ordered life. She looked tiny in it, her legs tucked under her, a book open in her lap.
She looked up when I entered, no surprise in her expression. Like she'd been waiting for me to find her.
"You're in my chair," I said quietly.
"I know." She didn't move. Just looked at me with those wide brown eyes that had been haunting me all day.
"That's my desk. My office. My private space."
"I know that too." She closed the book – one of my first editions, I noticed – and set it carefully on the side table.
I studied her face, looking for some hint of what she was thinking. She was wearing a different blouse than she'd had on this morning. Softer, more feminine. The kind of thing that made her look less like a student and more like a woman.
"You skipped my class today," I said.
"Yes."
"Care to explain why?"
She shrugged, the gesture casual but calculated. "I didn't feel like going."
"You didn't feel like going." I repeated her words slowly, letting them hang in the air between us. "That's your explanation?"
"Do I need a better one?"
The question was asked innocently enough, but I could hear the challenge underneath it. She was daring me to call her out, to assert my authority, to remind her of the rules we'd established.
"Get out of my chair, Ava."
"Why?"
"Because I told you to."
She tilted her head, studying me. "And if I don't?"
"Then you'll face the consequences."
"What consequences?" She leaned back in the chair, making herself more comfortable. "You'll what? Kick me out? Take back the money?"
I took a step closer. "I'll find other ways to make my point."
"Will you?" She smiled then, and it was nothing like the shy, nervous expressions I was used to seeing from her. This smile was bold, provocative. "Like what?"
I moved closer still, until I was standing right in front of the chair. She had to tilt her head back to look at me, but she didn't back down.
"You're playing a dangerous game," I said softly.
"Am I?" She uncurled her legs and stood up, but she didn't step away from the chair. Didn't give me space to reclaim it. "What's dangerous about sitting in a chair?"
"It's not about the chair."
"What's it about then?"
I stared down at her, this girl who had somehow turned my perfectly ordered world upside down in the span of a single day. She was standing so close I could smell her shampoo, could see the pulse beating at the base of her throat.
"It's about respect," I said finally. "About understanding boundaries."
"I understand boundaries just fine." She took a half-step closer, closing the distance between us even more. "Do you?"
The question hit me like a physical blow. Because she was right. I was the one who had crossed every professional boundary that existed. I was the one who had bid on her at an auction, who had moved her into my apartment, who had kissed her in my kitchen this morning.
"You know better than this," I said, my voice dropping lower.
"Do I?" She looked up at me, her brown eyes bright with challenge. "Then make me behave."
The words hung between us like a dare. Like a promise. Like a threat.
I wanted to walk away. I wanted to reminded her of the contract, of the professional relationship we were supposed to maintain, of all the reasons why this was a terrible idea.
Instead, I stalked forward, closing the final inches between us. My hands came up to frame her face, and I kissed her.
This wasn't like the tentative kisses from this morning. This was claiming, possessing, showing her exactly what she was asking for when she challenged me like that.
She melted against me immediately, her hands fisting in my shirt, her mouth opening under mine. When I deepened the kiss, she made a small sound in the back of her throat that went straight through me.
I pulled back just enough to look at her face, to see the flush in her cheeks and the slightly dazed expression in her eyes.
"Is this what you wanted?" I asked, my voice rough.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
"Then you'd better be sure," I said, my thumb tracing her lower lip. "Because once we cross this line, there's no going back."
"I'm ready."