Luca stepped in front of me, which was either brave or stupid.

Probably both.

"Nothing, sir." His voice was cold. "We were just leaving."

He reached back for my hand, but Professor Ferraro moved faster, one long stride, and his hand closed around my wrist, pulling me clean out of Luca's grip.

"Hey—" Luca started, but one look from Ferraro shut him up completely. Not even a word or threat, just those dark, unreadable eyes settling on him like a verdict, and Luca went still.

"My office, Miss Benson." Ferraro's accent wrapped around my name like a hand around a throat. Gentle, yet commanding. "Now."

He didn't wait; his grip moved from my wrist to my lower back as he steered me forward, and all I could do was throw Luca a small nod over my shoulder that said I was fine while my entire body screamed the opposite.

I was totally not fine. In fact, I was on fire.

His hand burned through the thin fabric of my blouse, every point of contact between his palm and my spine felt like a brand, and I was acutely, miserably aware of how wet I still was from the hallway.

From the dream before that, and from three years of wanting this man from the third row of his classroom, and never once believing it would lead me here.

His office door opened, and he guided me through it, then clicked it shut behind us.

The lock turned. Oh god.

I stood in the middle of the room and tried to look composed while my thighs pressed together under my skirt.

His office smelled like him, dark cedar, something faintly warm underneath it, expensive and understated.

Books lined every wall, and the late afternoon light cut through the blinds in long golden strips.

He walked toward me slowly, hands loose at his sides, and I backed up instinctively until the edge of his desk pressed into the backs of my thighs.

There was nowhere else to go.

He stopped close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze.

Six feet two of a controlled, quietly furious Italian professor, and I was five four with soaked underwear and absolutely no defense.

"What were you doing out there, little bunny?"

My breath stopped. Little bunny.

The exact words from my dream. From every dream. My knees nearly buckled.

"I—" I tried, but nothing came out; my mouth was useless.

His jaw tightened, and he reached out slowly and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind my ear, his fingertips grazing my cheekbone, and the touch was so deliberate and so gentle that it was somehow more devastating than anything else he could have done.

"You moan in my class," he said quietly. "You look at me like you want to be ruined." His thumb dragged slowly across my lower lip, pressing just slightly until my mouth parted. "And then I find you in the hallway letting another man touch what isn't his."

My heart slammed in my chest. “What—"

He gripped my hips and spun me before I could finish the sentence, pressing my chest flat against the surface of his desk. The wood was cold against my flushed skin, my breasts crushed against it, and my palms splayed on either side, trying to ground myself.

His body pressed against my back with controlled, like everything he did, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.

"You want to be fucked." That wasn't a question. His mouth was at my ear, his accent low, dark, and private. "So badly you dream about it in my class. So badly you let your little friend touch you in an empty hallway."

His hand slid under my skirt, palm flat against the back of my thigh, dragging upward slowly. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're not." The words left me in a breath.

His hand reached the hem of my underwear and stopped there, fingers curled at the edge, not moving.

"Who do you want, Seren?" The use of my first name almost undid me completely. His voice was strained now, all that careful composure cracking at the edges.

"Say it."

"You." My fingers curled against the desk. "I want you. I've always—"

His fingers pushed my underwear aside and stroked through my center without warning, and the sound I made wasn't dignified or quiet. It was desperate and raw, and I didn't care.

"Cazzo," he breathed against my hair, the Italian slipping out like he hadn't meant it to. His fingers moved slowly, parting me, learning the shape of my cunt with devastating patience. "You're soaked."

"Please…" My hips rolled back against his hand. "Please, I need…"

"I know what you need." Two fingers pressed inside me in one slow, deep thrust, and I gasped so hard I nearly choked on it, my walls clenched greedily around him as he curled them precisely, finding the spot that made my vision go white at the edges. "I've known for a long time, little bunny."

He worked me open slowly, no mercy in his pace, his thumb circling my clit in tight controlled strokes while his fingers fucked me deep and steady.

My hips moved without my permission, riding his hand shamelessly against his desk while the sounds filling the room made my cheeks burn.

"That's it." He growled, low with approval. His free hand fisted in my hair, turning my face to the side so he could see my expression. "Look at you. All that innocence and you fall apart so easily."

"Vincenzo," His name left my mouth before I could stop it, and I felt him go rigid behind me.

"Again." His fingers drove deeper, harder, punishing and perfect. "Say it again."

"Vincenzo! Please…" I begged, my orgasm building as he increased the pace of his fingers, thrusting deep inside me.

"Brava ragazza." His mouth pressed to my temple, my cheek, and then the corner of my jaw. "Come for me, bunny. Don't hold it."

The orgasm cracked through me like something breaking loose, long and rolling, so intense my legs stopped working entirely.

I cried out against the desk, his name dissolving into a wordless murmur, his fingers working me through every aftershock until I was trembling, limp, and completely undone.

He withdrew slowly, pressed his lips to the back of my neck once, and then his weight lifted from behind me.

I heard him straighten, composing himself. When I finally managed to push myself upright and turn around, he was already behind his desk, jacket back on, expression unreadable.

Like nothing had happened, and his fingers weren't wrist deep inside me.

"Sit down, Miss Benson." He gestured to the chair across from him, his voice entirely calm. "We need to discuss your academic performance."

I stared in stunned silence, my heart still racing.

The ghost of a smile crossed his mouth, just barely, and it was gone before I could be sure I'd seen it.

"Siediti." Sit down, and I sat.

I lasted exactly four days before I broke.

Four days of sitting in his classroom with my thighs pressed together and my pen moving across my notebook on autopilot while Professor Vincenzo Ferraro lectured about Renaissance literature like he hadn't had his fingers inside me on his desk.

Like I hadn't cried his name while I fell apart.

Like none of it had happened. He never looked at me. Not even once. He called on every other student, moved through the room with that controlled, unhurried grace, and treated me like I was invisible.

A mere piece of furniture.

It was the most effective torture I'd ever experienced. And Luca noticed on day two.

"You look like you haven't slept a wink," he said, dropping into the seat beside me in the campus café, sliding a coffee across the table without being asked.

"I've slept fine." I countered, putting on my best poker face.

"You have the face of someone who's been staring at the ceiling thinking about something they shouldn't."

I wrapped both hands around the cup and said nothing.

He was quiet for a moment. Then, carefully… "Did something happen? After he took you to his office?"

I stared down at the cup, but my silence answered for me.

"Seren." His voice dropped. "What did he do?"

"Nothing I didn't want." I met his eyes. "Drop it, Luca."

He studied me for a long moment, something moving behind his expression that I didn't have the bandwidth to examine. Then he leaned back and picked up his own coffee.

"You know this is going to destroy you," he said quietly. "He's your professor."

"I know what he is." I shot back.

"Do you?" He looked at me. "Because you've wanted him for three years and now something happened, and he's acting like it didn't, and you're already unraveling. That's not nothing."

It wasn't nothing. He was absolutely right, and I hated him for it.

I hated Vincenzo more for making it true.

I went to his office at 6pm when the building was mostly empty. Telling myself it was about the essay he'd handed back with a single line of feedback and no grade.

Purely academic. Professional.

I lasted about thirty seconds believing that, until I was standing just outside his door.

He was still at his desk when I knocked. He looked up, took me in with one sweep of those dark eyes, and whatever micro-expression crossed his face was gone before I could name it.

"Miss Benson." He set his pen down. "Close the door."

I obeyed, not moving from where I stood. "You didn't grade my essay."

"No." He leaned back in his chair, completely at ease. "I didn't."

"Why?"

"Because I haven't decided yet whether I can grade your work objectively." His eyes stayed on mine, leveled, and unreadable.

"Given the circumstances."

The words landed somewhere low in my stomach. "And what are the circumstances, Professor?"

Something flickered on his face. "Don't."

"Don't what?" I took a step forward, then another. "Don't remind you? Don't make it awkward?" Another step until I was standing at the edge of his desk, close enough to see the slight tension in his jaw.

"You touched me, and then you acted like I didn't exist for four days. I think I'm allowed to make it a little awkward."

He went very still. "You should go home, Seren."

"You used my name." My heart was slamming in my chest. "In this office, four days ago, you used my name."

"I'm aware of what I did." His voice had dropped. The careful composure was doing that thing again, fraying at the edges, just barely, enough to hear the lust in them. "Which is exactly why you should go home."

"What if I don't want to?"

There was silence, then he stood, slowly, and rounded the desk. I held my ground even though every nerve in my body was screaming.

He stopped directly in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my chin up, close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him.

"You don't know what you're asking for," he said quietly.

"Yes, I do," I said in a steady voice, and I was proud of that. "I've known for three years. You're the one who keeps pretending otherwise."

His hand came up and gripped my chin, tilting my face up further, his thumb pressing lightly against my lower lip. His eyes dropped to my mouth and stayed there.

"If I do this," he drawled, low and deep, "it won't be soft. And I won't apologize for it afterward."

My lips parted under his thumb. "I'm not asking you to."

He crashed his lips on mine in a demanding kiss, stealing every syllable right out of my tongue, his hand moving from my chin to my jaw to fist in my hair, angling my head back exactly where he wanted it.

His other arm hooked around my waist and pulled me flush against him, and I felt every solid inch of what four days of pretending had done to his self-control.

I gasped into his mouth.

"Dio mio," he breathed against my lips. Then he walked me backward until my thighs hit the desk again and lifted me onto it in one fluid motion, stepping between my knees, his hands pushing my skirt up my thighs without hesitation.

"Vincenzo," I breathed out.

"Sì." He pressed his mouth to my jaw, my throat, the curve of my neck, his hands moving over me like he was relearning something he'd been trying to forget. "Tell me to stop, and I stop. Otherwise…" his teeth grazed my pulse point "...silenzio, little bunny."

I grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists and pulled him closer. His fingers found the edge of my underwear and dragged them down my legs, dropping them somewhere on the floor, and then his hand was between my thighs, and I was already embarrassingly, completely ready for him.

"Four days," he murmured against my throat, stroking through my heat slowly, "and you're this wet for me."

"Four days of you ignoring me," I managed.

A low sound vibrated in his chest, like an almost laugh. "Brava." He pushed two fingers inside me and swallowed the cry that left my mouth with another searing kiss, working me open with slow, deep strokes while his thumb pressed against my clit in tight circles. "You want to be angry at me? Be angry. You can do both."

I could barely do either. My head fell back, his mouth following the line of my throat as his fingers fucked me steadily, curling on every inward stroke until I was trembling and incoherent, grinding against his hand with zero shame.

"Please," My nails dug into his shoulders. "I need more, I need you to—"

"I know." He withdrew his fingers, and I almost sobbed, grabbing at him, but then I heard his belt, and my entire body went liquid with anticipation.

He gripped my hips and pulled me to the very edge of the desk, and then the hot pressure of his dick was right there, exactly where I'd been dreaming about for three years, and he paused.

His forehead dropped to mine. "Guardami." Look at me, and

I did.

Slowly, he pushed inside me, inch by devastating inch, and watched my face the entire time, drinking in every flicker of expression, every hitched breath, every moment I tried to look away, and he gripped my chin and brought me back.

"Tutta. Give me all of it."

When he was balls deep inside me, I made a sound that should have embarrassed me, and didn't.

Then he started to move, and I stopped thinking entirely.