Page 45 of The Naughty Professor
A tremor ran through me, and suddenly I was cold all over.The last thing I remembered was being in the lab.The syringe.The serum.Rolling up my sleeve, telling myself I’d do anything to escape my miserable life.
Then—nothing.A total blank.
And now this.Naked.In Thorne Carr’s bed.
Panic clawed up my throat.I eased out of his arms inch by inch, my heart pounding so loud I was sure it would wake him.He shifted in his sleep, murmured something I couldn’t make out, and I froze until the sound of his breathing evened again.
The floor was cool beneath my feet.I crouched, scanning the shadows for my clothes, for anything that looked like mine.All I found were tight jeans, black boots, and a gauzy, glitter-dusted shirt that shimmered faintly in the moonlight.
I stared at them in disbelief.“What the hell…” I whispered.
Still shaking, I pulled them on—the jeans clinging like they’d been made for someone else, the shirt sheer enough to make me want to crawl out of my skin.I caught sight of my reflection in the window, and I didn’t recognize the man staring back.
For a moment, I just stood there in the dark, staring at him.The way the moonlight traced his shoulders, the faint rise and fall of his chest—it was unreal.The man I’d admired from a distance, pretending my heart didn’t skip every time he passed me in the hallway.And now, somehow, I’d been here—with him.It was everything I’d ever imagined.
If only I could remember it.
Whatever had happened last night, whoever he thought I was—it wasn’t Felix Sterling.It was…someone else.And when he woke up—when he realized what I’d done—he’d hate me.
I took one last look at the sleeping figure on the bed, my chest constricting so hard it hurt.Thorne looked so peaceful, and I couldn’t reconcile that with the chaos unraveling inside me.
I slipped out of his bedroom and walked to the front door.After easing it open, I stepped out into the hallway and stood there, my thoughts racing faster than my pulse.
What the hell had I done?
ChapterSixteen
Felix
By the time I stumbled onto campus the next morning, the sun was already high in the sky, my brain felt like it was being wrung out like a dishrag, and I was praying—literally praying—that Juniper had opened the lab and started setup without me.Not only did I feel like hell, I couldn’t find my glasses this morning, and could barely see anything.
I clutched my travel mug of coffee like a lifeline, though every swallow turned my stomach.My head throbbed in that special way that said I’d either been hit by a bus or done something catastrophically stupid.
Spoiler: it was the second one.
Bits of the night before kept slipping back through the fog—heat, sweat, laughter, men crowding close.I remembered flashes of faces, hungry eyes, hands on me.
No, not on me.On him.Jax.
God, I’d been unstoppable.A walking chemical reaction.I could still feel the confidence like a ghost under my skin—how people had looked at me, how he had looked at me.
Thorne.
That thought hit like a defibrillator.My chest tightened.
Thorne Carr—handsome, brilliant, maddeningly composed Thorne—had looked at me like I was something out of his wildest, most forbidden fantasy.
And if he ever found out what I’d done—what I was—he’d never forgive me.Not for creating a lie.Not for drugging myself into a different person.
I pushed open the lab door, trying to shove all that down, and found Juniper bent over the counter, setting out flasks and pipettes.
She glanced up the second she heard me.Her heavy eyeliner framed eyes that could wither steel.
“Well, look who finally decided to show up,” she said.“You look like you’ve been hit by a bus full of drag queens.”
“Morning to you too,” I croaked, hanging my jacket on the hook.
Her eyebrows rose sharply.“Uh-huh.”Then she pointed at my neck.“Where the hell did you get that?”
