Date My Professor

by Ivy Collins

  Date My Professor

  Ivy Collins

  Copyright © 2019 by Ivy Collins

  https://ivycollins.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and stories are the product of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons (living or dead), organizations, and events is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are consenting adults of ages 18 years of age or older.

  This book is for adult audiences only. It contains sexually explicit scenes and graphic language.

  Contents

  1. Sophie

  2. Sophie

  3. Sophie

  4. Sophie

  5. Elijah

  6. Elijah

  7. Sophie

  8. Sophie

  9. Elijah

  10. Elijah

  Epilogue: Sophie

  About the Author

  1

  Sophie

  Nothing messes up your ability to focus on complicated data structures quite like being evicted from your apartment in the middle of class.

  As my phone starts playing Jingle Bell Rock, the other students shoot me death glares. Up front, Professor Elijah Oliver pauses partway through writing out a function on the old-fashioned chalkboard. I cringe as he turns around and fixes his deep green eyes right on me. He quirks one of those sharp blond eyebrows my way, and I squirm in my seat, glancing down at the number on the phone with increasing panic.

  “Please, Miss Eddings, don’t let me interrupt your eighties Christmas nostalgia with my boring exam review,” Professor Oliver draws. He says it in that crisp British accent that normally makes me squirm in my chair for entirely different reasons. A few of the college girls behind me titter with laughter on cue.

  Professor Oliver has a sharp wit, but it isn’t really his jokes that make girls laugh; he could probably spend the whole class telling hokey knock-knock jokes and get the exact same reaction. The man is—not to put too fine a point on the matter—absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. His aristocratic features and sharp Oxford button-down shirts stand out like a sore thumb in the middle of our proudly-weird Austin, Texas campus. I have zero doubts that every girl in my class—and some of the guys, probably—have spent a certain portion of the past hour dreaming about running their fingers through his short, messy blond hair, and kissing the edges of that wicked smirk that often graces his mouth.

  It doesn’t hurt matters, of course, that he’s also a certified genius. I shudder to think how much money the university must have spent to entice him across an entire ocean. As a leading researcher in artificial intelligence, Professor Elijah Oliver probably doesn’t even need to teach boring bachelor’s level classes. He runs some kind of crazy start-up incubator for the university, and consults for a lot of the high-tech companies in the area. But he must like something about us moronic students, because here he is, spending his Wednesday evening making fun of my ringtone.

  Normally, I would throw back an equally acid retort—we both relish trading rejoinders—but today, my brain is coming up empty.

  “I... I’m sorry,” I sputter out, wilting beneath his sharp eyes. “I have to take this, sir. I’ll be... I’ll be right back.” I stumble to my feet, slinking for the door to the hallway, praying to god that I’m about to get the first good news I’ve had all month.

  I try to ignore the way his eyes heat up my back as I creak the door open and leave the classroom.

  “Hello?” I ask breathlessly, as I answer in the middle of a jingling note. “This is Sophie.”

  “I was under the impression we’d finished our discussion, Miss Eddings,” says a disapproving male voice on the other end of the line. My heart sinks all the way down into my stomach. “I want you out of that apartment tonight. I won’t ask again. After this, I’m changing the locks.”

  Tears blur at my eyes. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” I choke. “Please, I just need another week or so to find a place, I’ve been looking, I promise—“

  “That’s not my problem,” my landlord replies curtly. “I don’t want the police showing up at my property ever again, Miss Eddings. If your boyfriend wants to fight with you, he can do it elsewhere.”

  “He’s my ex-boyfriend!” I burst out desperately. “And I didn’t invite him there, I’ve had to change my phone number and move twice—”

  “Well, now you can move a third time.” The voice on the other end of the line is hard and unsympathetic. “Tonight, Miss Eddings. And don’t call me again unless it’s to tell me you’re gone.”

  The line clicks dead.

  I stare blankly down at my phone for another few minutes, trying to process everything. The reality of my desperate situation refuses to manifest, though. My brain keeps searching for another alternative, another way forward. I’m a computer science student—if anyone knows how to adapt, it should be me. But I’ve truly, properly exhausted all my options.

  My ex-boyfriend Jordan Lynch has been ex for more than a year now. He wasn’t always terrible—he was once a model high school student, with an open fraternity spot waiting for him and his college career mapped out from start to finish. But Jordan started partying a little too hard with his frat brothers, and it got to the point where I saw him drunk more often than I saw him sober. He got more angry, more threatening. I didn’t stick around to see how long it would take before he finally hit me. Instead, I broke it off and begged him to get some help for his problem.

  I’ve spent the last year desperately trying to dodge him while I finish my degree. I can’t afford to leave university—I can barely afford to go to university, even with my generous scholarship. But Jordan doesn’t know how to take no for an answer. He showed up at my apartment in the middle of the night last week, pounding on my door in a drunken fit. My neighbor, understandably terrified, called the police. By the time they arrived, Jordan was gone... but my landlord wasn’t pleased to find out that my problems had scared the girl next door.

  So now... I’m no longer his problem.

  “Hey Jingles,” a guy says behind me. “Would you move it? You’re blocking the door.”

  I jump out of the way, glancing behind me. Students are filing out of the lecture hall. Oh god, I realize. Class is over? How long have I been standing here, having my little panic attack?

  My breath comes short. My head begins to pound. I don’t know what to do. I sink back against the wall, kneading my palms into my eyes, trying desperately not to cry. It’s a losing battle. There are hot tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes.

  Before I know it, I’m sitting against the wall, hiding my face against the torn-up knees of my jeans.

  “Miss Eddings?”

  Oh, god.

  It’s Professor Oliver’s voice. I can feel him standing over me in the hallway. There’s a suspicious curiosity in the accented way that he says my name. He knows something is terribly wrong, but he’s too polite to make a fuss about it right away.

  I try to reply, but I have to choke down a sob first, and I know he hears it. “I... I’m sorry,” I manage. “I left my things in the hall. I think I n-need to go get them.”

  He sighs heavily, as though put-upon. Warm hands slide beneath my arms, hauling me up from the tile floor. I’m forced to look up at him in bewilderment as he curls his arm around my back, holding me up against him.

  Even in the midst of an absolute panic attack, I’m capable of appreciating the rare, guilty pleasure of the moment. Every
girl in my class would die to be in my position right now, pressed up next to our wicked British professor, feeling the heat of his body against mine. He’s taller than I realized—a full head and a half taller than me—but he’s looking down at me such that there’s not much distance at all between his face and mine. Those dark green eyes are even more intense up close like this, and oh my god, he’s wearing some kind of sharp cologne that hits me like a drug. I fit against his side like I was made for him. The crazy thought won’t let me be, though maybe it’s just because my blood is up and my head is a panicked mess.

  His eyes darken as he looks down at me, and his fingers tighten around my side, tickling against my rib. I wonder if I’m imagining the heat that flickers through his touch—but it’s gone an instant later, buried beneath that proper British concern. “Come on inside,” he says. “Unless you’d prefer to cry in the hallway?”

  “Who... who’s interrupting who, now?” I retort weakly. I want it to be a kind of challenge—a way to re-establish normalcy between us—but my voice trembles on the words.

  “How rude,” Professor Oliver replies, playing along with the conversation. “You left your things in the lecture hall. If anything, you’re preventing me from closing up and going home on time.” His hand tightens again on my side, oddly reassuring. He opens the door for both of us, and pulls me safely inside, out of view. “I hope you intend to apologize for the trouble.”

  The door closes behind us with a hard snap, and I break out into laughing, mortified sobs.

  ELIJAH

  I have never seen Sophia Eddings speechless before.

  The moment she fails to reply to my needling about her phone, I know that something is incredibly wrong. She keeps her composure very well—I don’t think there is anything terribly revealing on her face—but something subtle about her behavior as she flees my class sets alarm bells ringing in my mind. I have to resist the immediate urge to go after her, with more than forty students staring at me, waiting for me to finish the function on the blackboard. But her things are still in her seat, and I reassure myself that she’ll have to return for them, one way or another.

  My mind, I’m afraid, is not on the exam review. I rush through the last few bullet points on my list, dimly aware of the growing worry in my students’ eyes as I do so. “Wait!” gasps a boy near the back of the class, as I adjourn for the evening fifteen minutes early. “Can you please go back to the different sorting algorithms, sir—”

  “I went over sorting algorithms for two whole weeks, Mister O’Dell,” I inform him, with a forced cheer in my voice. I start packing up my things, clearly signalling to the stragglers that I have no interest in taking further questions. “You might not recall, as you slept through half of it. Given your confident naps, I will refer you to my esteemed colleague, Professor Wikipedia. His office hours are twenty-four seven, and I believe he can accommodate your eccentric sleeping schedule.”

  Two of the girls giggle at that, and I have to resist the urge to snap at them. There’s little I find more irritating than those who laugh at others’ misfortune. If you’re going to poke fun at someone, damn it all, you ought to at least exercise your words instead of making mindless tittering noises. Laughter is just so... lazy.

  “I’ll see you at the exam in two days,” I tell them. The two girls blink at me in bewilderment, and I wonder if some of my irritation has seeped into my voice. I push away the thought, and start shooing students out the door.

  Sophie’s bag is still draped over her seat.

  I mutter something very unprofessional under my breath, and stalk for the door outside.

  I nearly miss her on my way out. She’s curled up against the wall, her head on her knees. Sophie doesn’t normally strike me as a small woman, but when she’s caved in upon herself like that, she’s suddenly very tiny and compact. I can barely see the wetness on her cheeks beneath the messy, mid-length black hair that’s come loose over her arms. Concern shoots through me instantly, mixed with... anger. White hot anger. That surprises me so much that I stop short for a second. I want to make someone pay for doing this to her. I’m not even sure that it’s a human being that hurt her; the phone call could be about a relative in the hospital or some other spot of cosmic bad luck. But at that thought, I’m simply angry at the world on her behalf, useless as that might be.

  I force down the uncomfortable rage and clear my throat politely. “Miss Eddings?” I say.

  “I... I’m sorry,” she mumbles into her knees. “I left my things in the hall. I think I n-need to go get them.”

  That tiny stuttered syllable nearly does me in. I’m only a human man, and the sheer patheticness of her voice makes me want to gather her up into my arms and promise to fix things for her. But I’m reminding myself now that I’ve always enjoyed myself a little too much in classes with Sophie. I know I look forward to Wednesdays and Fridays, subconsciously keeping track of the next time I’ll see her chewing on that old pencil of hers, staring at me with that sly half-smile, as though we share some entertaining secret just between the two of us. Every time she’s shown up in my office, we’ve devolved into discussing everything but my class.

  Sophie is a tough, brash, delectably American woman. She’s whip-smart, hard-working, and quick-witted—always dressed in tattered jeans and comfortable shirts. She’s hungry for knowledge, for problems to solve, for opportunities to throw herself at new challenges. I’ve never thrown a barb her way she couldn’t turn back on me in an instant. I know that she struggles with difficult things outside of the classroom, but she’s still somehow leagues ahead of her classmates. If anyone could afford to cry in the hallway and miss a pre-exam review, I suppose, it’s Sophia Eddings.

  But of course, she shouldn’t need to.

  I sigh and kneel down in front of her, relinquishing any hope of maintaining my professional distance. No one could expect me to just walk away from a crying student, I argue to myself.

  But I’m keenly, painfully aware of every place we touch when I slide my arms around her and help her to her feet. The feel of her faded cotton shirt against my palms is a forbidden thrill. The heat of her body, the soft hitch of her breath as I lean her against me, the wideness of her chocolate brown eyes as she stares up at me, all make me want to close the gap between us and kiss her so thoroughly that she can’t think straight enough to be upset about anything.

  It wouldn’t work that way, I remind myself forcibly. In all likelihood, I’d just be taking advantage of her shock and adding to her problems. Get hold of yourself, you bloody twat.

  “Come on inside,” I tell her, forcing myself back into the more normal rhythm between us. “Unless you’d prefer to cry in the hallway?”

  At first, I’m worried I’ve gone too far—that I’ve badly assessed the situation, and upset her even further, instead of making her feel normal. But Sophie looks away, gathering herself up with an awful amount of effort. “Who... who’s interrupting who, now?” she manages. Her voice trembles again, and another shot of irrational anger flickers through me. Sophie should never sound this way. It’s a damned travesty, is what it is.

  “How rude.” I have to force the words out with a modicum of humor. “You left your things in the lecture hall. If anything, you’re preventing me from closing up and going home on time.” I know I’m pulling her closer, tucking her into my side more tightly as I drag her back into the lecture hall and safely out of view. “I hope you intend to apologize for the trouble.”

  The door closes. Sophie looks up at me with an awful expression that I can’t quite decipher.

  She bursts into hysterical tears, and now I truly have no idea what to do.

  2

  Sophie

  I can feel the situation getting away from me. I’m sobbing into Professor Oliver’s neatly-starched shirt in a half-darkened lecture hall, clinging to him like a life raft. He’s stiff with surprise; his hands settle awkwardly on my shoulders. I want to apologize endlessly for putting him in this position, but I ca
n’t seem to find a convenient break in the sobs to do so.

  Slowly, he closes his arms around me, settling himself on the edge of a chair arm. He’s warm, and comforting, and surprisingly strong. I feel safe. It’s a shocking realization. For more than a year now, I’ve been scared, terrified, out of my mind. I’ve slept light, plagued by nightmares, worried that Jordan will find yet another way to burst back into my life and wreck what pathetic little sandcastles I’ve managed to build in his absence.

  I suddenly understand how afraid I’ve been, and how badly it’s drained me—because in this moment, just for now, that fear is gone.

  My body takes all of this as a signal to give up the last of my composure. I bury my face in his shoulder and promise myself to be properly mortified later. His fingers stroke my hair reassuringly. I’m in heaven, I think, even though I’m utterly miserable. I don’t want this to end. As long as I’m in this deserted lecture hall, buried in his warmth, I don’t have to face all those awful things waiting for me outside.

  For just a second, I let myself fantasize. I imagine that I’m not a student. I’m graduated, I have a job, I’m steadily paying down my debts. I’m the sort of capable, put-together woman that attracts capable, put-together men like Elijah Oliver. I don’t have to worry about an old boyfriend getting drunk and upset at me—no, when I get upset, there’s a calm, loving boyfriend waiting for me at home, willing to hold me and soothe away my problems.

  In my fantasy, that boyfriend looks an awful lot like Professor Oliver—Elijah, I think, with a guilty thrill. Maybe even Eli. That fantasy really works, for the moment, because he’s holding me close, murmuring something vaguely comforting in my ear. My conscience digs at me, knowing that he’d probably be horrified by my thoughts. But I can’t bring myself to shove them away. I’ve had a rough year. I deserve just a second of selfishness.