Page 50 of She’s Worth the Risk

His nostrils flare. “Zinnia…” he begins, tone laced with warning.

But I gaze at him brazenly, undeterred. He likes Venus’s boldness. Maybe I need to be bolder.

“You feel this too,” I say. “I know you do.”

He makes that same agonized expression again. “It doesn’t matter what I feel,” he grits out. “You’re my student.”

A thrill shoots down my spine. He’s not denying it. He feels this. And it makes me want to push. To hear him say it.

“I’ve seen you look at me in life-drawing class.”

“I’m teaching a class where I have to look at you,” he mutters, taking his glasses off to wipe them on his jacket. I notice the button is undone, his tie loosened and hair more mussed than usual, like he’s slowly coming apart at the seams, and all I want to do is pull at the threads until he unravels completely.

“But you like to look,” I say. A statement, not a question.

He slides his glasses back on. His denim-blue eyes finally meet mine, darker than before, but he stays silent.

“What do you see?” I press. “When you look at me in that class, what do you see?”

A muscle tics in his jaw, like he’s trying to hold the words in. “I’m not going to say you’re not beautiful, Zinnia.”

“You already said it in front of the class,” I remind him, and he winces. “You may as well say it to me.”

“I can’t…”

“Nick,” I plead, needing to hear him say it. Needing to know I’m not alone in this. I step down until I’m only a few inches away, eyeline level with his. “Tell me what you feel. Please.”

His eyes move searchingly between mine, chest rising and falling with his rapid breathing. For a second I think he’s going to do it—he’s going to finally admit he feels this as intensely as I do.

But he tears his gaze away, shaking his head. “I feel nothing.”

Then he exits the stairwell, leaving me alone.

21

NICK

The next week and a half passes in a blur of work, coffee, and a shitload of denial. Not the most mature approach, but it’s all I can do to survive.

I want Zinnia so badly I can’t think. I’ve never wanted a woman like this, and I can’t shake the feeling. Trying only makes it worse.

Every time I close my eyes, I see her in that stairwell. The way she looked at me, begging me to admit my feelings. All I wanted was to lean in and kiss her soft, full lips. To finally let my hands roam the curves that have mesmerized me for weeks.

Nick… tell me what you feel. Please.

Every time I think about it, guilt twists through me like a knife. All she wanted was the truth. Truth I’m certain she already knows. It must be all over my face every time I look at her.

Instead, I lied. I told her I feel nothing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I feel things that I shouldn’t. That I’ve never felt. That I didn’t know I could feel.

And it’s fucking terrifying.

She doesn’t approach me during the next week. No chit-chat after lectures, no hanging around to talk after life drawing. I’m equal parts relieved and disappointed, half knowing it would be better if I never saw her again, and half wishing she’d come to my office, shut the door, and undress on my desk.

Fuck, I’m a mess. Jackson Pollock has nothing on me.

I’m so distracted by Zinnia that I almost forget about Marcus’s bachelor party. Frankly, it’s the last thing I feel like doing, but when he texts to remind me to meet him at a bar in Brooklyn Heights the following Friday night, I know I can’t let him down. So, I dress in dark jeans and a forest green button-down, and force myself onto a train.

Maybe a drink will be good for me. God knows I could use one.