Page 62 of Stranger to Love

“Well,” Alex suggested, aiming a thoroughly innocent, devastatingly charming smile at both of us, her dark eyes glittering with absolute mischief. “Seeing as you both called my name at the exact same time, maybe you two should figure out who has the most pressing need for my company first?”

Billie’s eyes flared with a sudden, bright competitive spark, her lips parting as if she were about to fire back a retort.

I didn't give her the opportunity.

Bypassing Billie entirely, I stepped fully and aggressively into Alex’s personal space. I didn't lay a finger on her, but I used my body as a deliberate, elegant barrier, completely cutting off her sightline to Ms. Davies and trapping her against the wall beneath the weight of my presence.

“I do,” I said simply. My voice was low, absolute, and utterly devoid of negotiation as my eyes locked onto hers, leaving absolutely no room for misinterpretation. I made the claim final. “My office. Now.”

I didn't wait for her verbal compliance, nor did I afford her the chance to look back at Billie. Pivoting sharply on my heel, I marched down the corridor toward my office, the quick, rhythmic click of my heels echoing like a countdown.

Behind me, I heard Ms. Davies let out a small, sharp noise of pure frustration—a quiet gasp of shock and immediate defeat.

I kept my gaze fixed straight ahead, my jaw set in a rigid line as I navigated the corridor. The absolute arrogance of the girl, the way she had flaunted herself in front of my staff, had pushed me past the brink of my academic restraint. My parting words from the weekend echoed in my mind with an entirely new, punitive edge.

We have all the time in the world. And the moment that office door clicked shut behind us, I was going to ensure she learned exactly what happened to brats who played with fire.

The walk down the corridor was an exercise in absolute, suffocating silence. The air between us had thickened into something so dense it felt entirely tactile, a volatile current that threatened to choke the remaining oxygen from the hallway. When we finally reached the privacy of my office, I turned the key, unlocking the heavy timber door with a smooth, practiced twist of my wrist.

Before she could even contemplate crossing the threshold on her own terms, I reached out. My fingers wrapped firmly around the fabric of her forearm, anchoring her, and I pulled her decisively into the room.

She stumbled slightly as she entered, the unexpected force of my grip sending her bag clattering onto the floorboards by the edge of my desk. I stepped inside behind her, my back to the room as I closed the heavy door. I turned the lock.

Click. The sound was definitive, a sharp mechanical barrier separating us from the rest of the university. I turned around slowly, the fury that had been tightly coiled in my chest since the seminar finally bleeding into my expression. I was entirely enraged. The absolute lack of discipline she had displayed in that corridor had obliterated the final remnants of my academic restraint.

I took three aggressive strides forward, systematically crowding her space. Alex attempted to hold her ground, lifting her chin to meet my advance, but as she was forced to crane her neck to look up into my face, I caught the exact micro-second her confidence fractured. The smug cards she had been playing so aggressively in the hallway were suddenly scattered across the floor alongside her bag.

My eyes flickered to her temple for a fraction of a second—a brief, involuntary instinct checking the status of the laceration from the weekend. The concussion. The exact medical vulnerability I had spent forty-eight hours monitoring. The memory of her vulnerability didn't soften my resolve; it crystallised it.

I made my decision.

Reaching out, I seized her. One hand clamped firmly around the side of her neck while my other palm locked against the high curve of her hip, and I violently altered her trajectory. I shoved her backward. She hit the windowless accent wall of the office—not with enough force to exacerbate her head injury, but with a sharp, heavy momentum that caused her to suck a ragged breath through her teeth.

She raised her eyebrows at me, her eyes flashing with a sudden, defensive spark of defiance. Even pinned against my wall, the brat refused to make this easy for me.

“So,” she challenged, her voice tight but entirely steady as she pushed the words past her lips. “What point did you want to clarify, Dr. Carter?”

My eyes narrowed, the shadows in the room darkening the irises until they were practically black. I leaned in even closer, invading the final boundary until my lips were a mere breath away from her mouth. I could feel the heat radiating from her skin. Against the soft flesh of her throat, my fingers flexed, tightening just enough to signal the absolute disparity in our strength.

My gaze was a scorching, deliberate weight, tracking from her eyes down to the wet line of her mouth, then back up to pin her stare. I didn't afford her pathetic, academic excuse a single sentence of acknowledgment. When I spoke, my voice was a low, predatory growl—barely exceeding a whisper, yet entirely filling the suffocatingly small radius between our faces.

“You came here today, wearing that blouse, with that… mark on your neck, and you deliberately drew attention to yourself,” I accused, each word slicing through the static of the room like a scalpel. My fingers applied a fraction more warning pressure against her throat, anchoring her head against the plaster. “And you had the audacity to flirt with someone else in my class, in my territory.”

I watched her chest rise and fall in a series of shallow, frantic pants. Her hands, which had been bracing weakly against my torso, suddenly shifted. Her fingers wrapped instinctively around my forearm, her grip tightening with a desperate, white-knuckled pressure that matched my own hold on her flesh.

“Are you jealous, Dr. Carter?” she challenged.

The question was pushed past the lump in her throat, a reckless, unvarnished strike of honesty intended to meet my fire with her own.

The word hit me exactly where she intended. My breath hitched, a sharp, involuntary tremor disrupting the rhythm of my chest as the rigid, intellectual control I prided myself on fractured completely.

“I only tolerate things that are under my control, Alex,” I hissed against her lips.

I finally acknowledged the purple stain on her throat, shifting my thumb downward to press directly, unmercifully over the centre of the bruised hickey.

She let out a sharp, fractured gasp, her hips stuttering against mine as the pressure forced her eyes to wide-angle focus.

“And you,” I murmured, my thumb grinding into the marked skin. “You are rapidly becoming an entirely unacceptable variable.”