The worst thing about having Mr Grey as my tutor was focusing…not on him but on what he was teaching, but apparently, my mind didn’t understand that.

Half the time, I found myself staring at his lips, wondering if they were as rough as they looked or were actually sweet to touch, and I spent the other half watching his muscles flex against his shirt.

“For the hundredth time: Focus, Ms Decembers!” he scolded me again, making me clutch my head. “What’s going on with you?”

“Uh…” I groaned before deciding to come clean. “It’s not my fault. You should wear a mask and put that blazer back on. Why do you have to look the way you do? Have some mercy on this poor girl,”

He exhaled loudly before clutching his head. “You really hate respiration, don’t you?”

“That too,”

He nodded before fixing his gaze on the floor for a long moment before loosening his tie and holy shit- that small action made him look gorgeous.

“Let’s start this midway, from the chemistry part of this. From glycolysis…do you know what that is, Ms Decembers?”

“It’s a pathway by which glucose breaks into pyruvate,” I answered simply.

“Correct. So, let’s began with the steps of the process,”

He went on for the rest of the hour, and my attention surprisingly stayed directed towards the board. Every once in a while, he asked me if I understood what he was teaching and surprisingly, I managed to get it all in my head.

He handed me a sheet after finishing glycolysis and I was able to solve all the questions on it. He offered me a small smile and fished a candy out of a drawer and handed it to me.

“Aw, a candy, I love it!” I squeaked jokingly, making him smile.

“My dog used to take getting treats as a good motivation. Thought I should start it with you too,”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Comparing me to a dog, now, are we?”

“Well, there aren’t many differences,”

I gasped dramatically before smirking. “My, my, I am concerned now. Are you admitting to being attracted to dogs, Mr Grey?”

He glared at me and I smiled at him in response. Riling him up had started to prove to be fun, and I made a mental note to never stop doing that. “I was going to let you study Ecology tomorrow, but for that comment, we’ll be starting with genetic expression,” he smirked and my eyes widened in horror.

“No, no, please don’t,” I begged, terrified at the prospect of having to study genes. I was good with one portions of genes, the one concerning Mendel and all the disorders, but when it came to the biochemistry portion: I was fucking shit at it and I hated it and Mr Grey knew that. “I-I won’t make such jokes again, I promise! Please, please, please, Mr Grey…” I pleaded, pouting.

“A punishment’s long overdue for you, Ms Decembers,”

You want to punish me? I have an idea in my mind, is what I don’t say, but it’s as if he could read my mind, for his eyes darkened and he tipped his head back, holding the sides as he groaned. I wanted to smile at the effect my unsaid words had, but I knew it wouldn’t do me any favours, so instead, I spoke, “I’ll be a good girl, I promise,”

“Out of my class, Ms Decembers,” came his next words and I had to stifle the laughter booming in my chest at his pained expression. His order was soft and not aggressive, so, I didn’t feel insulted at all as I carried myself out of the classroom, smiling to myself.

Due to the tutoring, Rhys and my time tables had changed, and he had to leave before me, so, he wasn’t able to drive me home. My father had hired a driver who was to pick me up from the school and drop me home. The driver was a quiet man in his mid thirties who looked ripped enough to work as even a bodyguard.

My father had sent me a photo along with some of his details the previous day, and I had crosschecked everything before sitting in the backseat.

I pulled out my phone and texted my father that I had taken a seat in the car before opening Wattpad. I was a sucker for cringe cliché every day romances and my new fascination had been the ‘professorxstudent’ trope. Of course, I never imagined having that relationship in real life with a certain teacher with an accent. I only read it for fun but…who am I kidding? I totally wanted those forbidden scenarios with Mr Grey where we secretly date and everyone knows he favours me but has no idea why until there is a secret video of us leaked due to which he gets fired and I get suspended (of course, I didn’t want that part), and then he shows up at my graduation with a new stable job and we live a happily ever after.

Or like a porno where he tells me to turn to page sixty-nine and we do a lot of…that.

I had countless fantasies surrounding him, since I had nothing but studying to do, and my poor, poor, heart had no one else to crush on.

I was done with the first chapter of the book when the driver stopped the car in front of my house. I thanked him before hopping out of the car and he drove back to his house. It was our car but apart from when we needed it, he was free to use it for himself.

I unlocked the door with the key I had in my pocket and locked it carefully behind me. The house had been cleaned up by the housekeeper, Bea. She cleaned the house everyday when I was at school, opening the house with the key my dad had given her, and locking it behind herself.

We had known her long enough to know that she would never rob us, or take anything at all without permission.

I dropped my bag on the couch and let myself collapse on it. My mother wasn’t supposed to be back for five days, my father six, so, for once, I was relaxed.

After lying down for a few minutes, I made myself some tea before heading back to my room. I was passing the window near the door when I felt like someone was watching me. I froze when I saw a man standing outside from the corner of my eyes before slowly turning my head in that direction, only to find no one standing there.

Leaving the cup on a spot made for showpieces, I ran to the backdoor and confirmed that it was locked, before going to check all the balcony doors. Everything was closed, but I still couldn’t shake the uneasiness I felt.

I locked myself in my room, the paranoia eating me from the inside. The house had cameras outside and I opened up the feed and went back to the time when I felt like I had seen someone outside.

No one was there, so, I watched it again, and this time, noticed the shadows of the trees shift suddenly and the realization dawned upon me.

Someone had been there.

And someone had hacked into the feed and had edited it to hide it.

I didn’t feel good enough to be alone anymore, or even in my house, for that matter, and just when I decided to go and stay over Rhys’s, something clicked inside my head.

Five minutes later, I was impatiently ringing the doorbell of his house, a pocket knife in my hand, looking behind me over and over again to make sure that no one was there.

“Coming!” came Mrs Cornell’s voice. I bit my lip, praying for God to give me one more moment…

The door opened and I jumped into her arms. “Jan? What happened?” she asked, concern dripping in her voice.

“I…I need to come in,” she let me and I slammed the door shut behind her. “There was someone out there…I-Can I check your security cameras’ feed?”

“Sure, sweetheart, come on,” she turned on the computer and opened the live footage. I went back to the time and just when I spotted a man standing, the screen went black for a split second before it came around again. Edited.

A curse left my lips and Elizabeth pulled me into a side hug. “Stay the night,” she spoke and I didn’t think twice before nodding.

I climbed up the stairs to Rhys’s room to find him sleeping peacefully on his bed. Placing a kiss on his head, I grabbed a textbook off his table before quietly sitting there, reading.

Rhys’s parents had a strict bedtime set for Rhys for school nights, so, we went to bed early. Rhys and I had been sleeping (only sleeping) together for years, since we were kids. Our parents knew about how good of a friend we were to each other, so, they never raised any issues against it.

The truth was, a year ago, I would’ve been fine sleeping by his side. There would’ve been no emotions, nothing that wasn’t platonic, but we had changed. I wasn’t in love with Daniel anymore, he wasn’t in love with Rivika anymore, we had both moved on and apart from the silhouette of a presence of Mr Grey in my life, I had no one who romantically interested me.

“We need to talk,” I declared, twisted in the bed to face him, to already find him looking at me.

“Yes we do,” I saw him nod in the darkness before he leaned down and crashed his lips on mine.

Shock and confusion wrecked me the second his lips touched mine and my senses jumped out of the window for a moment.

He pulled back only to grip my head and kiss me again. I froze for a moment before finally realising what was happening. Someone was kissing me. I was kissing someone. Well, my lips weren’t moving, so maybe I wasn’t?

His lips had captured my bottom lip, so, I did the only thing I could think of: I started sort of sucking his upper lip.

Terrible mistake, cause a portion of his short mustache touched my lips, and I instantly grossed out. But I had to try, I couldn’t let my first kiss be an utter failure, right?

The anxiety kicked in, and the palpitations rang in my ears, loudly and in an unusually faster pace.

I forced myself to focus on the kissing part. In the books, kissing was supposed to come naturally and easily, but it was neither for me.

The palpitations quickened and I felt vertiginous, and my fight with my body only lasted for five seconds after that. Slowly, I pushed his chest away and croaked, “Rhys,”

Luckily, two of the lamps were still on, so, he could see what had happened, and I saw his eyes widen from my heavy lidden ones at my state. “What happened?”

“Tachy…” I managed to speak before he pulled me to a sitting position. He jumped to his feet and poured me a glass of water before sitting beside me and handing it to me.

I held it in my hands, trying to calm the trembling inside my body, but even the glass shook with me. Rhys pulled it out of my hands again and said, “Breath with me,”

I inhaled and exhaled as he did, and felt myself get better in a few minutes. He brought the glass to my lips and I sipped wordless, trying not to faint.

When I was done drinking half of the glass’s contents, he helped me lie back down on the bed and grabbed an eye mask for me. He curled an arm around my waist and held me close as I succumbed to the darkness, the stress from earlier and the anxiety, finally taking me away.