He sets his rough hand on my cheek and caresses it with his thumb moments before our lips make contact.

The feeling is electrifying, thrilling, and an absolute pleasure.

I can't believe this is my very first kiss, and I can't wrap my head around just how good it feels.

However, I fear I may be clumsy and awkward. I don't even know how to go about it even though Cole leads me well.

His other hand creeps to my waist, and some weird mix of sensations spread from my stomach to between my legs, where all of a sudden feels too wet.

"Something's wrong with me," I mutter against Cole's lips. "I'm wetting my panties. Is that alright?"

The man huffs a smile. I feel his breath fan my face in a good way. "Nothing is wrong with you, Lilac," he says soothingly while leaning back, still caressing my cheek. "What you are experiencing is the start of pleasure." Cole suddenly frowns. "Hold on a sec. You haven't been intimate before?"

I shake my head nervously.

"Then you have a long way to go, Lilac."

I lean into the man, wrapping both hands around his shoulders. "Show me. Please."

I watch Cole's Adam's apple bobble as he gulps hard, and I smile inwardly. I love the fact that he's having a good hard time because of me.

However, he takes me unawares when he suddenly pecks my lips. "You've got to go home now. It's late." He crosses my hands off his shoulders but doesn't let them go as he stands up. "Come on." He pulls me to my feet. "I'll put you in a cab."

I groan out my displeasure. Although I just want to finish what we started right here and now, I'm still happy about how this night turned out.

Henceforth, I know things are about to change.

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Getting reading for school never felt so refreshing. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, I scrutinize my looks.

I've always been proud of my ebony black hair and my brown eyes, but I've not been more grateful than I am that I'm quite thick and really curvy.

My insecurities were my baby face and my overly pale skin. But, seeing as the person I like likes me back, I can now look at the mirror and smile at my reflection.

"Hi, Mom!" I greet as I walk past the kitchen.

I don't bother looking at her, but Mom seems to have laid one glance at me and judged.

"What are you putting on, Lily? That is too slutty for school."

Too slutty?

A fitted long-sleeved top tucked into a mini skirt, fashioned with a pair of lace leggings and a pair of knee-length boots, is slutty?

I look down at myself. Well, maybe it is, but who cares? I've been wearing extra large outfits since last year, after all.

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"We need to submit our literature projects, and the course prefect is absent," one student presents a problem. I do know why it's a problem.

"Due to his grumpy habit, I fear Dr. Cole would strangle me if I should step into his office. I rather forfeit the project than go there," another whines.

"Who will go then?"

There are murmurs for a while before...

"Wait! Everyone! Dr. Cole eases up with Lilac. She surely is his best student and may as well be the course prefect. Let her submit the assignments."

"Perfect idea."

"Wait... what?" I try to protest, but, in truth, I was waiting to be elected.

"Do not worry, Lilac. If you don't return, we'll write the perfect eulogy for you. It's literature, remember?"

I smile. Ironic.

If there's anybody whom a eulogy should be written for, it's Cole. He's the one who's about to be murdered by my looks, anyways.

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I knock once on his office door.

"Come in," I hear him say, and my heart skips a beat.

I let myself in and dump the pile of project works in a corner of his desk, setting my hands on the table and leaning on it.

"There's the homework. Your students are afraid to meet you."

Cole regards me for a while. His eyes shift to my breasts, where the material is hiding my cleavages, but the outline is still pretty visible. Then he looks down at a script he's marking.

"Why so?"

"They say you're the reaper. You dismember heads and hearts, they say."

"Then why aren't you scared?" Cole pauses his marking and starts stabbing his pen on the paper, seeming lost in thoughts.

"Cos I want to see the reaper in you come out," I respond.

"Fuck it!" Cole grunts and shifts the scripts aside. Then he pushes his swivel chair backwards so that there is enough space between him and the desk. "Come here." He taps his thigh.

Bloody hell! He wants me to sit on his lap.

"I have weight, you know," I say in feigned hesitation.

Without saying anything, Cole reaches for my wrist and pulls me into his natural seat.

The connection between us starts to spark flames again. Goosebumps spread through my skin as butterflies dance in my belly.

He holds my jaw between his thumb and index finger and brings my head down so that we can kiss while I slip my hands around his neck.

I love the feeling of his other hand tracing my curves. And I love the feeling of pulsating down there as juices leak without my control.

Most of all, I love whatever it is I'm seated on. It's hard and long and jerks from time to time.

I don't need to ask Cole what it is so as not to sound too dumb. I need to use my common sense on this one. After all, what else would be on his crotch aside from his manhood?

Our relationship... Oh my god! I can't believe I'm in a relationship with Cole... has progressed well so far.

He brings me to his house on Friday night, and it happened impromptu because I was already spending the weekend with my parents before he called.

Still, I told Mom that my mates are organizing night classes once in a while. I hope she doesn't perceive the deceit.

Cole cooks dinner, and I watch him from the comfort of the living room with a smile as he moves around the kitchen.

I spend that entire weekend with him. I only go home during the afternoons to feed Mom more lies about night classes.

The weekend soon bows out into a new week.

It's already a week and a few days since Cole and I started dating. To celebrate that, I prepare breakfast in bed for him.

Cole, who was once going through his phone in bed, sees me coming with the food tray and immediately sits up.

"What do you have there?" he asks with a smile.

"Just a little something?" I respond, turning into a nervous and giggling mess as I hand the tray to him.

One look at the food and his eyes light up. "You didn't tell me you could cook, Lilac. This is so... unexpected."

"You better not get used to it, though."

Cole chuckles while looking into the yellow sticky note I gummed on the tray.

"You shouldn't always need sexual satisfaction, my love. You have to eat too. From your lovely student, Lilac," he reads out before looking at me with a smile and a 'you don't mean it' kinda expression.

"Eat and tell me your feedback. Don't let it get cold," I urge.

"Before that, let me take a quick picture." Cole captures the content of the tray with his phone. "Oh, could you please do something for me, Lilac?"

"What?"

Cole goes through his phone for a while, then hands it to me. "I just marked some files for the third years' lecture tomorrow. Please transfer them to my laptop, will you?"

"Okay."

I do as Cole says, while he tastes the food.

The laptop's screen faces him, so I watch his reaction from his reflection on the screen. And I don't miss the moment when he tightens his face.

I grow anxious. "Is uh... anything wrong with the food?" I ask.

I still watch his reflection as he quickly replaces the previous expression with a smile. "Oh, no. Nothing. Nothing at all."

I know he's lying, though. "Come on, just admit it." I turn to face him now. "Tell me the truth. Honest feedback helps in learning."

Cole shrugs. "Well, is this the first time you've ever cooked?"

I shrug, which means yes. Cole then bursts into laughter. I don't hesitate to do the same as well.

"I'll improve, don't worry," I assure him.

After breakfast and preparing for school, Cole takes me to a bus stop near school in his car.

For protective purposes, it wouldn't look right if a lecturer drove a student to school. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with it. But... people's minds tend to get twisted at the first glance of things.

In my case, I wouldn't blame them, since it actually is true.

Throughout the lecture, which isn't a Dr. Cole lecture, by the way, I keep thinking of several magical ways I could skip time to when Cole would finally walk through those doors and stand on that very podium.

I swear, he makes teaching look like foreplay, cos while he's standing there in his posh suit, all I think of are those lips of his wrapped around my nipples or those hands of his tracing every curve of my body. And right here in the class, I would wet my panties again with the fear of it marking a portion of my skirt.

Oh, what good times.

"Have a nice day, students," the professor finally says after the break alarm.

Everyone springs to their feet. Unlike Cole's lectures when I linger for the hall to empty out, I'm actually the first to start running down the steps.

However, I notice the weird looks on people's faces as they look from their cellphones to me.

"That's her?"

"It's her."

"I've seen her notebook before. It is her handwriting."

"Wait... she's fucking a lecturer? That's messed up."

Those are the whispers I hear as I run down. So I slow down a little in an attempt to grasp the situation, but then someone approaches me.

Not just anyone. It's one of the dean of faculty's PAs.

"Lilac Stone, correct?" he asks me.

I nod. "Yes, that's me."

"Come with me to the dean's office. Now." His voice sounded stern. My heart leaps a thousand miles at that.

Something is happening. Something BAD is happening. And I know it has to do with my relationship with Cole, which is something that we didn't intend to get out and should never have gotten out.

Between Cole standing quiet and still next to me and the dean glaring at us from the comfort of his spectacles, there's tension. High, formidable tension.

Inviting us to his office and making us stand in front of his desk for minutes in silence is enough punishment, but now looking at us like we're shite and then turning his laptop for us to see what's on the screen... that's absolute evil.

"You do realize this isn't something that should appear on a school's platform, right?" he asks us.

We say nothing.

I mean, what are we supposed to say? It's the truth.

What's on the screen is the root of the chaos. Somehow, Cole managed to mistakenly show the note he captured this morning on the projector screen while lecturing. Students took a picture of it and spread it on the school's official platform.

Now the news has gone far. There's no stopping it.

"Are the speculations true or not?" the dean asks. "You have to say your truths because it won't be fun when the investigation team takes over this case. It will cause huge damage to the school and to both of you."

"It is true, and I'll take responsibility for it," Cole blurts out.

In my book, the best way is to deny it. Investigate all they want. They won't find anything. But, as usual, Adrian is the man who plays by the book.

"Thank you for your sincerity, Dr. Cole. Now this matter will not reach my superiors. I'll give my judgment here. You both are adults, and I cannot tell you what to do concerning your relationship. But it is also unlawful for a student and a lecturer to be in an intimate relationship in this school. Therefore, it's best that you either quit your relationship and render a formal apology to the school or one of you leave the school if you want to continue with what you're doing."

Cole shifts in his position. "I will present my resignation letter to you promptly, sir."

"What? No!" I shriek. "Cole, we have to talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about, Ms. Stone."

Ms. Stone? Is that how it's going to be now?

I huff, storming out of the office. One would think I was going home, but no. I'm actually heading to Cole's office.

He'll be here in a minute, and I want to talk some sense into him.

Speak of the devil, he casually walks in as I pace the office.

"What are you doing? We were supposed to discuss this as a couple!" I yell at him.

He quietly slips behind his desk and sits down, typing into his laptop. I bet he's writing his resignation letter already.

"This is not up for debate, Ms. Stone; I should never have done what I did to you. It's improper."

"And then the sudden shift to formality? Does that also mean your feelings have been flipped off like a switch too?"

Cole sighs and rests his forehead on his palms. He remains in that position for a while before looking at me with tender eyes. "Look, Lilac, this is hard for me too. I'm having a hard time trying to process it all, and it pains me. It pains me that we have to end like this. But I should have been more careful so as not to expose us, or I should have waited until two years later when you finished school."

"That doesn't mean you have to make decisions for me or ruin your own career for the sake of taking responsibility!"

"What else am I to do? Let you leave school? Write a letter of apology to the school and quit dating? The first option is not an option, but the second...? That is just an illusion. There is no way I can bring myself to stay here after what happened, especially since we'd keep seeing each other, and it'll be grounds for bullies to keep mocking you."

"I can handle my own feelings and bullies. You should do the same."

"Well, then I'm weak. My feelings for you are so strong that I can't look at you every day and know I can't kiss you or wrap my hands around you or even smile to you. It will hurt. Bad. Which is why I'm gonna resign no matter what."

I let my shoulders drop as I sigh. Cole is saying the truth, though. There's no way I'd agree for us to break up and remain in this school. It'll pain me every time I see him. But, also, I can't handle the thought of him ruining his career for me.

"If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then be rest assured that I can find a job somewhere else even after leaving here. But you... it'll be very difficult to get into another school."

"It's the same, Cole. This is a scandal. No one would want to employ a teacher who dates his students."

"Ouch."

"I'm sorry I didn't mean it that way. I-"

"Stop worrying about me and worry about yourself, Lilac. Worrying about you is my job. Besides, my certificate is spotless. And, yes, I may not get the chance to work in this country again, but that doesn't mean I can't do so in another country."

Wait... another country?

"What?" I spit out. Everything around me starts to sink. The air. The noise. All muted by clangor. He's leaving the country? He's not only leaving the school but the country as well? "You didn't... I didn't think..."

"Now you know, Lilac. I'll have my tickets ready as soon as I'm done with the resignation letter."

"While we argued about you leaving the school, we hadn't talked about the nature our relationship will adopt, and now you're leaving the country too? What will happen to us, Cole?"

"We remain as we are. Isn't that the whole point of not breaking up in the first place?"

He said it with a smile on his face, but why don't I trust that smile?

Why do I feel uneasy?