Page 6 of Such a Bad Girl

Venturing deeper into the shelves, I shook my head. There was no way it could have rolled that far. Doubling back on myself, I stilled, convinced I’d heard footsteps that weren’t mine.

It was just the echo.

I shivered as an unsettling weight slunk around me. Another few steps toward the open area. Another noise I couldn’t place. I snapped my gaze toward the end of the shelves and narrowed my eyes. Was someone lurking in the dark?

‘Who’s there?’ I demanded, wrapping my arms around myself as goosebumps rose.

Nothing.

‘I’m serious. If there’s someone there, come out.’

A bang sounded nearby and I about shit my pants, abandoning my search and making a run formy bag. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that running was always the answer. I was reaching for the door handle when a face appeared to my right. I let out an ear-splitting scream and heard a chuckle in response.

The librarian lost it at whatever look she saw on my face.

‘Oh my god,’ I panted, leaning a hand on the doorframe, and gathering my abandoned wits. ‘You scared the life out of me.’

Her laugh followed me out, leaving me feeling like an idiot.

Of course no one was creeping about in the library. Everyone else had the sense to be out doing something far more fun with their evening.

I flagged down one of the campus transports and sat heavily on the plastic seat next to a drunk and giggly couple.

The way he skimmed his hand over her bare thigh had me clenching mine.

I needed to relieve some stress before I exploded.

CHAPTER FOUR

HENRY

Cobwebs coatedmy hair as I squeezed myself through the old grate in the cupboard at the back of the library.

‘I’m too old for this,’ I berated myself as the evening air hit me with an autumnal bite. Straightening up, I heard my back click.

Damn, I’m too late.

A campus transport bus trundled Rebecca away from me toward her apartment.

I should go home and shower. Get the dust and grime off, and stop sneaking around like a weirdo. But I barely saw her that week. Our lectures together covered four hours most weeks, and I didn’t think she’d noticed me at all.

Why should she notice you?

Because she’d stolen every waking fuckingthought from me, and if she didn’t see me soon, I was going to make her. Risk everything and let her know how she affected me. Without a solid nod that she wouldn’t run straight to the dean, it could cost me my job, my career, all of it.

So I didn’t go home. No, I let her draw me to her like a moth to a flame, finding myself staring through her window yet again. Rebecca pottered around, putting things away before heading into what I assumed was the bathroom. I’d never actually investigated student accommodation at Willem enough to know for sure.

Shifting foot to foot, I waited. The cold had me shoving my hands deep into my pockets, fighting off the numbness that gripped them.

Still, I waited.

Since the moment she’d walked into my classroom, my life had become a series of blissful moments and painful waits. My soul roiled every moment she wasn’t within my eyeline. And when she was? It was worse. My pulse became erratic, my back sweaty, my focus all but deserted me.

There was only her.

Her sweet smile.

Those dark eyes.

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