Page 9 of Wild Skies

So maybe he deserves to watch another guy flirt with me in the water. Maybe it feels good to know thatsomeonewants me.

Maybe I’m not sorry at all.

The sun is warm on our bare skin, and the distant guitarist switches to a new song. The mountain breeze ruffles our hair, and right now I’m so glad that we’re out here in the wilderness, where I can drag in lungfuls of fresh, crisp air. It’s cleansing.

“Maren,” the professor says again, quiet and low, just for me. He sinks an inch lower in the water, like he can hide the intensity between us from prying eyes. Over his shoulder, we’re getting a few curious glances from the other students, but mostly they’re too wrapped up in each other to care. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Hearing him say those words… doesn’t feel as good as I hoped. My hands wave idly in the water, and I nibble my bottom lip. What is he even sorry for? That hug? Ignoring me afterward? Or charging over here when Tommy dared to flirt with me?

What the hell does this manwant?

He’s close enough now that I could put my hands on him beneath the water. I could slide a palm across his chest, his ridged stomach, could dip my thumb into his belly button. Couldslide right down beneath the waistband of his swim shorts, and touch my professor where a student never, ever should.

Just the thought is enough to make my stomach twist with need. My thighs squeeze together beneath the water, and I drift closer by another inch, until we’re a hand’s width apart, both hunkering low in the river, only the tops of our shoulders and our heads showing.

To an outside observer, we could be discussing my class assignment, just like the professor said. Having a quiet, calm, serious conversation away from the splashes and yells of the other students. The sun is high in the sky, shining down on all of us, but right now it’s like we’re alone in the shadows again.

“You,” I say, poking the professor’s sculpted chest, “need to figure out what you want.”

He scoffs, catching my wrist and placing my whole hand against his body. He’s so solid, so warm, his heartbeat drumming against my palm, and my nails dig in without permission from my brain.

“Believe me,” he says, “that is not the problem here. The problem is that I knowexactlywhat I want, in lurid detail, and I can’t have it.”

My heart knocks against my rib cage. “Well… not yet.”

Heat and hope flash in the professor’s eyes, and his thumb rubs against my inner wrist. “Not yet,” he agrees, his usually smooth voice gone raspy. “But do you think… after this semester is over, do you think…”

“Yes.”

Can’t believe he needs to ask me that. It’s so obvious, isn’t it? Splashed all over my face like the droplets of river water.

I’ve pined after this man for months now. He’s starred nightly in my dreams, and I’ve thought about him while awake too—while idly daydreaming, while walking between classes, while trying and failing to concentrate on my essays, and yes.While slipping a hand between my legs and easing the now-constant ache that he started in me.

“Fuck.” The professor closes his eyes for a long moment, still as a statue except for the thumb moving in steady circles against my wrist. “Okay. Okay.”

“Professor Carter—”

“Greg,” he interrupts, opening his eyes. They pin me in place, and I’m helpless. Breathless. “When we’re alone, call me Greg.”

I swallow hard, darting a glance all around us. No one’s watching us right now; no one cares. No one has any idea that my world just turned upside down and shook everything out of place.

The professor wants me too.Gregwants me too. Not just for a forbidden hookup, but for something longer. Something real.

Oh, hell. My thighs squeeze together, slipping past each other, but at this rate I’ll need a solid hour alone in my tent, biting down on my pillow to keep quiet. Ineedhim, and some of that desperation must show on my face, because Professor Carter—Greg—makes a low noise and reaches out beneath the water.

Blunt fingertips brush against my hip. I jerk and let out a squeak, blushing hotter than the sun, but when he pauses and looks at me, I nod frantically.

“Please don’t stop,” I whisper.

A muscle leaps in the professor’s jaw.

Nostrils flaring, he takes a slow, casual glance all around us, but everyone else here is wrapped up in their own world. Swimming and laughing; splashing and yelling. Lazing on the riverbank and chewing on burgers. Plucking guitar strings and manning the grill. No one can see us with the way Greg’s back blocks their eye lines, and the slow-moving current blurs the view below water anyhow.

Only Tommy spots us looking as he climbs up on his friend’s shoulders, and he waves and whoops before falling backward into the water. Oblivious.

“This can’t happen,” the professor says quietly, even as his fingertips stroke up and down my rib cage, my skin tingling madly in their wake. “If we—this is reckless. It can’t happen again. Not until after the semester.”

“Uh-huh.” My body rolls toward his touch, so shameless and hungry beneath the water. “Whatever you say.”

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