The Temptation: A Professor Student Romance (Forbidden First Times Book 6) Read online

  The Temptation

  A Professor Student Romance (Forbidden First Times Book 6)

  Sofia T Summers

  Contents

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Boss’s Baby (Sample)

  The Rest of Forbidden First Times Series

  Connect with Sofie

  Copyright © 2020 by Sofia T Summers

  All rights reserved.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  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.

  Description

  I’ve been through this before.

  I’ve been accused of sleeping with a student before.

  And it was false.

  But I’m not about to actually make that mistake with someone else.

  Eden is my student.

  She’s tempting, forbidden, everything I shouldn’t crave.

  But I still want her.

  Her recklessness will get us into trouble.

  She’s too young.

  And the way I want to touch her will complicate things.

  This relationship cannot and should not happen.

  It will destroy my career.

  Everything I’ve worked for.

  And it will ultimately destroy the two of us.

  But will we go for it, anyway?

  1

  Eden – Tuesday

  My eyes flew and I launched myself up to a sitting position in bed, breathing hard. My room was still dark but I was somehow panicked that I’d already screwed up – that it was the first day of the second semester of my senior year in college and somehow, I’d managed to oversleep.

  Then, the alarm on my phone began to buzz and shriek and I groaned with relief as I reached for it and began to fumble in hopes of turning it off. The alarm screeched louder and louder until finally, my fingers found the right button and pushed. From the other side of my bedroom wall, I heard a thumping.

  “Sorry!” I yelled as a smile spread over my face.

  Petra, my roommate and best friend, only responded with a muffled groan. I heard the creak and whine of her bedsprings as she threw herself down on her mattress and I smiled again as I thought of how she’d no doubt be lying right now: tangled up in the covers with a pillow smashed over her face.

  Petra wasn’t a morning person. For the record, neither was I.

  At least, not usually.

  Today was different, though. You know those motivational posters that have been hanging in every high school guidance counselor’s office since the dawn of time? Those ones with the cute little kittens hanging from tree branches, or puppies with mortarboard caps on?

  Those ones that say: This is the first day of the rest of your life!

  I’d always thought they were kind of cheesy. Maybe they still are – deep down, I can be a total cornball. But this morning, I felt like those posters had been speaking to me and finally, I was ready to hear the message.

  Fifteen weeks – only fifteen weeks! – stood between me and graduation. I was twenty-one years old, and I couldn’t believe the moment was finally here. Back when I was a kid, it had seemed like I would be in school forever. I remembered being in elementary school and counting on my fingers, losing hope as I went along, the years that would pass before I was out in the real world, being a real adult with a car and a credit card and a fabulous closet.

  A wry smile crossed my face as I climbed out of bed and stretched, remembering how naïve I had been as a kid. Now, I’d grown up to the point where I knew being an adult wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I knew people in their twenties and thirties and even forties weren’t incapable of screwing up.

  But I was ready for my chance, and all I had to do was get through one measly semester before it was my turn to prove myself to the world.

  I’d set out my outfit for my first day of classes the night before: another childish ritual that persisted from my childhood because my mom somehow had thought it would make me more excited to roll out of bed and take on the world. Back then, we’d gone shopping for nice clothes from Penney’s or Sears in the middle of July, after the holiday sale, and I’d waited not-so-patiently for another month and a half to wear them into school, fashionable as could be.

  Now, though, I’d chosen comfort over fashion. As I peeled the oversized t-shirt that I wore as a nightie over my head and tossed it to the floor, I pulled on a pair of fleece-lined dark leggings and a cozy t-shirt before topping it off with my favorite navy-blue hoodie. My room was chilly and I looked outside to see a fresh coat of white snow lining the grass outside of the apartment I shared with Petra.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. As warm and cozy as my bed had been, for once I wasn’t dreaming about going back to it. I wanted to get on with the day, cross it off the calendar, and march forward.

  After I got dressed, I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, then tied my hair back in a messy bun that somehow managed to look perfectly undone on the first try. A good omen, I thought as I looked at myself. Maybe today will be even better than I expected.

  Petra was in the kitchen, making coffee and rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “Hey, you,” I said as I sat down at the breakfast bar and reached for a muffin. “Sleep okay?”

  Petra groaned again. “I can’t believe you let me sign up for nine-thirty classes again,” she said. “I promised myself after freshman year that I wouldn’t be caught dead on campus before noon.”

  “But this way, we’ll be done right after lunch,” I said. “Isn’t that better? Getting out of class while it’s still light outside?”

  Petra rolled her eyes at me. “If I had more energy, I’d smack you right now,” she said.

  I giggled. “Sorry,” I said. “I know you’re not exactly a morning person.”

  Petra poured herself a cup of coffee, blew on the oily surface, then took a cautious sip and wrinkled her nose.

  “Neither are you,” she observed. “What’s with you this morning, anyway?”

  I grinned at her.

  “This is seriously weird, Eden,” Petra continued. “What’s going on?”

  “I ... dunno,” I said. “I’m just excited.”

  “For class?” Petra asked skeptically. “Jesus, is George Clooney doing a guest seminar or something?”

  “Close,” I said. “I have Professor Marks for Faulkner and Woolf, first thing.”

  A sly smile crossed Petra’s face and I blushed.

  “That explains it,” she said. “Although, I’m not sure that he’s worth
all of this,” she added, spreading her face into a wide, happy smile and raising an eyebrow at me. “You’ve had him before – I mean, yeah, he’s hot. But he’s a professor,” she said. “It’s not like you’re going on a date or anything.”

  “God, no,” I said quickly, still flushing hotly. “It’s more than that. It’s not just him.”

  Petra still looked skeptical as she took another sip of her coffee. “What, then?”

  I pressed my lips together. Petra and I had been best friends ever since we’d been randomly assigned to each other as freshman roommates. We’d shared almost everything – and I was thrilled to finally have an off-campus apartment with her instead of another year in the cramped, dingy dorms. But knowing that she didn’t share my excitement made me feel weird, like a gulf was growing between us.

  “It’s just, well, I guess I’m excited to be almost done,” I told her. “It feels like college has lasted forever – even longer than high school did.”

  Petra nodded. “That’s true,” she said. “But like, aren’t you worried?”

  “About what?” My smile faded and I shifted uncomfortably on the stool where I was sitting.

  “Just about the future,” Petra said. She gulped the last of her coffee down and set the empty mug on the counter. “Like, we have to start taking internships and applying for jobs in like, March. That’s like, less than two months away. And then if we don’t get anything, we have to worry about finding some stupid fucking retail job until we can actually find something with a salary. And then we have to worry about dealing with a boss and like, learning how to use Excel and stuff.”

  I frowned.

  “Yeah, well, that’s why I didn’t sleep so well,” Petra cracked. When she saw my frown, her tone softened. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said. “I think I’m just anxious.”

  “It makes sense,” I admitted. “I guess I just haven’t been thinking about all of that. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Well, go and enjoy the sexy Professor Marks,” Petra teased. “I’m sure he’ll put all unpleasant thoughts out of your head.”

  I finished my muffin while Petra rinsed out her coffee cup and then we left for campus together. Classes hadn’t been canceled, or even delayed – such was what came with living in Connecticut and only getting two inches of snow – but I had to admit that campus looked beautiful. Oakbrook College was an old school, founded at the end of the nineteenth century, and I loved the gothic buildings with their brick facades and bright white columns. Everything looked so majestic and proud, like the very campus itself was proud to be right where it was.

  And I was proud to be there. My parents had wanted me to go to a state school, some anonymous, former land-grant university with tens of thousands of students and massive seminars and ugly modern buildings. But I’d fallen in love with Oakbrook from the very first brochure that they’d sent me. And while I hadn’t really been a spoiled kid growing up, I was an only child. In the end, I hadn’t even had to beg, despite the fact that Oakbrook was private and cost thousands and thousands of dollars per semester.

  It was like Oakbrook and I had been made for each other, and I loved it there. As I tromped through the snow on my way to the Liberal Arts building, I tried to push Petra’s warnings and anxieties out of my mind. Not because she hadn’t been correct – she absolutely was – but because I wanted to thoroughly enjoy my last semester as an undergraduate. After I graduated, I was hoping to work in publishing: Oakbrook had a reputation of sending students into successful, arts-based careers, which I knew was practically unheard of in the modern world. It was all STEM-this, STEM-that.

  I’d never been interested in science, or math, and I could barely use the word processor on my laptop without having a panic attack. I didn’t think them useless or anything like that, but it was just something I didn’t personally care for. My dream job would have been sitting quietly at a desk, surrounded by old documents and books, inhaling that musty fragrance all day long.

  I made it inside the building and hiked up the steep stairs to the second floor, where my first class would take place. There were already a few students I recognized – all English and Communication majors – but no one I was particularly friendly with, and I settled on a seat in the second row, to the left, right in front of the lectern.

  You’re such a suck-up, I could hear Petra saying in my head, but I pushed the thought aside. My GPA was stellar, and I intended to keep it that way.

  Staring at hot Professor Marks was just a bonus.

  At just after nine-thirty, the man himself strode into the classroom and I felt my jaw clench. There seemed to be a collective sigh in the room but I couldn’t look at any of my fellow classmates. My eyes were focused right on Professor Marks. He wore a dark blue button-down shirt and dark khaki pants with a tweed blazer and I had to swallow to keep myself from salivating over him. His dark blonde hair was brushed away from his high forehead and the deep tan on his perfect skin made me wonder if he’d spent the entire winter break skiing in somewhere like Aspen or Sun Valley.

  I’d spent my holiday working, at the Oakbrook bookstore, even picking up overtime just in hopes of covering my own textbooks this semester.

  “Morning, everyone,” Professor Marks said, without taking his eyes off the dark blue notebook in his hands. “I trust you all had a good break.”

  Without waiting for us to answer, he cleared his throat and surveyed the room with his intense dark eyes. I swallowed hard as he flicked his gaze over me for a mere second – it felt like we were the only two people in the world when he looked at me like that.

  The moment didn’t last, though.

  “But, as all good things do, that break has come to a close and here we are,” Professor Marks said. Some of the students mock-groaned, but I knew better.

  Maybe I really was a suck-up. At that moment, I didn’t care. The only thing better than learning something I was passionate about was being taught by a sensual, leonine professor who was smart as hell.

  And I was there to make the most of it.

  The class quickly sprang into motion after Professor Marks made a show of taking the roll and letting us know that more than three absences per semester would result in a lowering of our grade. He went over policies quickly and businesslike, then turned his attention to our first book.

  Virginia Woolf’s The Waves.

  “Now, some professors would conclude the course with The Waves,” Professor Marks said. “As many consider it her most experimental work.” He paused and glanced out at us once again, gauging our reactions. When his eyes landed on me, I couldn’t help but give him a shy smile.

  Professor Marks raised an eyebrow at me and I blushed hotly.

  “But I’ve decided that it’s the best place to start, the best place to truly get inside of her head,” he continued smoothly, his eyes already torn from mine.

  As he continued, I found myself growing more and more enraptured with every passing second. I’d had Professor Marks before for a class or two, but nothing like this – there were only nine people enrolled in this class, and by the way some were muttering I had a feeling that by the next time we met, there would be significantly fewer of us, his gorgeous looks aside. This was so intimate, it was almost like a conversation at a party instead of a senior-level seminar.

  By the end of class, I was filled with even more excitement than when I’d woken up this morning. I felt practically lightheaded as Professor Marks gave us our first assignment – the first half of The Waves and a short essay on our thoughts so far.

  With a short, clipped wave, Professor Marks was gone, just like that, leaving the rest of us in his dust. I felt like I was an astronaut slowly coming back down to Earth after a long voyage in space, like I was suddenly in the middle of the ocean with nothing but my wits about me.

  “Wow,” a girl sitting beside me who I vaguely recognized muttered. “That was intense.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, feeling lame. “I’m excited. I think this is g
oing to be a great class.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “I thought this would be cake,” she said. “Reading novels and talking about them? No hard research papers or anything like that,” she continued. “At least he’s hot.”

  I felt a strangely protective surge of feelings towards Professor Mark.

  “He’s a great professor,” I said. “He’s so young and he’s already on tenure-track.”

  She blinked at me, then snorted. “Wow,” she said sarcastically. “Sorry, I forgot you English majors are basically cheerleaders for him.”

  The remark should have stung, but I didn’t let it. With my head held high, I gathered my books in my arms and left the classroom.

  Outside, the sun was shining high overhead and the snow was already starting to melt, showing patches of brown, dead grass below. Watching the light sparkle on the remaining snow was beautiful, but it almost made me sad, like the early morning magic was beginning to fade. I went to my second class – a core technology requirement that I’d been putting off since freshman year and promised to be boring as anything – and then to the school bookstore, where I had a quick, two-hour shift before lunch.

  On my way, I texted Petra to ask how her classes were going so far. When I got to the bookstore, I stashed my stuff in an employee locker and pulled on the orange polyester smock with my nametag.

  Karen, my manager, looked relieved to see me.