Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
In the dim lighting and the new, thrilling, unusual location, I didn’t really feel like Professor Steele’ student anymore. Jackson Steele. Jackson. I just felt like a girl who knew a man and was in his house. Reality seemed to have floated out the window, replaced by a fantastical world of disguises and pretend. I felt like I was in a castle. Like we’d stepped out of reality for one night, into fairyland.
I felt intoxicated with it.
“I’ll be there in a second,” I called. She grinned and kept walking.
“I’m glad you like the library,” Jackson said, gazing down at me.
People were sure to see us together, standing alone together in the middle of the room, our bodies closer together than they needed to be for a conversation. I found that I suddenly didn’t care. What did it matter what other people at school thought of me? They were going to misinterpret and gossip-monger no matter what I did. I might as well just live my life the way I wanted to.
“I love it,” I said breathlessly, looking up at him.
“Would you like to see the rest of the house?” he asked. “I’ve given a couple of tours already.” He paused. “Should we ask your friends?”
I glanced at them. Annie was thumbing through the pages of some old tome excitedly. Cynthia and Jasmin had found some people to flirt with over near the bar.
“I can take them on a second tour if they want,” I said. “As long as that’s all right with you.”
He smiled a quick, delighted smile as if it was something involuntary he couldn’t suppress. “Absolutely,” he said. “I’ve locked away all pocket-sized valuables and locked the doors of a few rooms. As a sensible precaution. Everyone had permission to explore the house as they please. I know it’s the main attraction of the night.”
No. He was the main attraction of the night.
“It is impressive,” I said.
“I’d love to tell you about it,” he said.
“I’d love to hear about it,” I said.
Neither of us moved. It was as if we both knew that if we started walking around the house together, something was going to happen. It wasn’t later, in some shadowy corner, that we would be making that decision. It was now, before we started on the tour.
“Let’s go,” I said, smiling.
“Where would you like to go first?” he asked.
Ellie and I set off through the house.
I was acutely aware of her walking behind me, as if I could feel her touching me even though we were a few feet apart.
She looked so beautiful. And she’d gone as Jane Austen, like I’d suggested. That had felt like a signal, like a secret message from her to me.
I was proud of my house. The designs of the rooms were an eclectic mixture of modern and antique. Ellie gazed at everything in delight. My stomach warmed, watching her interest.
I wished she could come here all the time.
We moved from the library into my home office, then down a back hallway to the kitchen. In this room, a high-ceiling room with redwood cabinets and black marble countertops, there were no students. We’d left the noise and the lights of the party behind. We were alone together. I found that my blood was rushing and my heart was pounding more than I’d expected.
“Would you like a drink?” I asked.
I had my personal store of vintage wines here in the kitchen, as well as a bottle of brandy.
Ellie’s eyes widened slightly. I realized what that might look like. The last thing I wanted to be was predatory.
“I didn’t mean ” I said.
“Sure,” she said, smiling quickly. “I’ll take a glass of wine.”
“White or red?” I asked, returning her smile.
“White,” she said. She laughed. “I wouldn’t want to spill red on this dress.”
I poured her a glass and handed it to her.
“Is it your own wine?” she asked.
“It isn’t,” I said, “but there are plenty of bottles of that in the library. You can try some when we go back there.”
“You don’t drink your own wine?” she teased, taking a sip from her glass. She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the taste.
“I do,” I said, “but I’ve only been producing wine for fifteen years. That wine you’re drinking is fifty years old.”
She raised her eyebrows. “It’s older than you,” she said.
My lips parted. I felt punched in the stomach. I was forty-one. Did she really see me as old? Was that part of why she’d resisted me? It wasn’t just that I was her professor, I was much too old for her?
I felt a complete fool.
It must have been showing on my face because Ellie bit her lip.
“I didn’t mean…” she said. “It was just a joke.”
“Of course,” I said, smiling, but some of the tang of joy had gone out of the evening. I suddenly realized what this might look like to her: a creepy older man, arranging to take her around his house alone. Her eyes had widened when I’d offered her alcohol. Had she been worried I might try to take advantage of her?
I poured myself a glass of brandy, less because I wanted it and more because I was suddenly conscious of how it might appear if I offered her alcohol and drank none myself. I felt an itching tension in my shoulders. I wanted to tell her exactly how I felt. What she meant to me. But that was likely to make her more uncomfortable than anything.
We continued to walk through the house. Ellie admired my statues, my paintings, and the designer furniture. Past the foyer, on the other side of the downstairs, there was a high-ceilinged sitting room containing a tasteful arrangement of circular couches and glass walls that overlooked the vineyards. This room was filled with students talking and laughing. I noticed some of them watching Ellie and me walking together with sharp interest on their faces.
Ellie noticed it too.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said.
“Whatever you like,” I said. My itching discomfort had spread to the rest of my body. They must all think I was some predatory old man. Inviting students over to his home in the hopes of bedding one of them.