Temptation (The Hunted, #1)(10)

"Catch you later, Penny," Tyler said as he stood up.

A girl in the front row quickly got up from her desk and went up to speak to Professor Hunter. I delayed by rearranging things in my backpack for as long as possible, but the girl was still talking to him. She had long black hair and tan skin. She was wearing a shirt that revealed her stomach. Is that the kind of girl he thinks I am? I closed my eyes. That wasn't me. I looked down at the outfit I was wearing. Tyler was right, I was a tease. I was actually a good girl and Professor Hunter didn't even realize. I blew it. Besides, a girl like that had to be more his type. I didn't have that much to offer.

I had another class that I needed to get to. I got up and walked past his desk. I didn't want to look at him, but I couldn't resist glancing over. He tilted his head so he could see me over the girl's shoulder and we made eye contact for just a moment. He raised his left eyebrow as he watched me exit the room.





Chapter 8


Monday

I opened up my textbook and pulled out my notes. Statistics was not going to be my forte. I was great at math in high school. Calculus had actually been one of my favorite subjects. But the foreign professor who was teaching Stat was hard to understand. I was going to have to teach it all to myself.

Melissa came into the room with a huge smile on her face. "You will not believe the day I had!"

"What happened?" I turned to face her, pulled the notes off my lap, and placed them on my bed. I leaned over and grabbed my soda from my desk and took a sip.

"You know that professor you have a huge crush on?"

I almost choked on my soda. "I don't really."

"Yes you do! Come on, Penny. I mean...you kept his sweater for God's sake."

"I'm going to return it later this week." I was planning on it. But I truly did want to keep it. "Did you find out something about him, or what?"

"Well first of all that he's gorgeous. This girl in one of my classes was talking about this hot professor she has, and it turns out it's the same guy. You didn't tell me that he's basically a model."

"He is really handsome."

"You mean smoking hot! Anyway, apparently he got fired from his last teaching job."

"Why?" I tried to ask it nonchalantly, but I felt like I was begging for the information.

"The girl didn't know. Weird though, right? I mean what does a professor have to do to get fired? Punch the dean or something?"

"You're just making things up." But I knew what a professor could get fired for: having sex with a student.

"Well yeah, it's probably just a rumor." Melissa shrugged. "Thought you'd find it interesting. Anyway, and then I met up with that cute guy, from the party we went to last Thursday, and we had dinner. He's such a gentleman. He even pulled my chair out for me."

"That's nice." My mind was no longer on the conversation. There was no reason to jump to conclusions about Professor Hunter. He may not have even been fired. He looked so young; this was probably his first job as a professor.

Maybe Professor Hunter didn't have the wrong idea about me. No, I wasn't a bad girl, but I wanted to be bad for him. Doesn't that make me bad? I wanted to do things with him that would surely get him fired. I looked down at my phone. I could text him right now. He gave me his number. He flirted with me every day in class. He even confessed that he dreamed about me too.

I clicked on his number and typed out: "I enjoyed our first date. But you stood me up today." I smiled to myself. Would he find it funny? It didn't matter. I wouldn't send it. He gave me his number because he was worried about my safety. I was a pathetic girl walking around in barely anything in the middle of the night. Any normal adult should be worried about me. I needed to delete his number before I made a terrible mistake.

My phone buzzed and I fumbled it in my hands. It made a light bleeping sound to let me know that my message had been sent. I almost screamed "NO!" out loud. I gulped. Oh my God, what did I just do? I felt like I was hyperventilating. Is there any way to undo a text? What if I get kicked out of school?!

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to send that," I quickly typed out. I was about to hit the send button when my phone bleeped to let me know I had received a message.

"Miss Taylor, that was never my intention."

I put my phone down on my bed and stared at it. He had responded to me right away. He even knew it was me. So that probably meant he didn't give his phone number out to everyone. I deleted the message that I had typed out. I pictured him sitting in sweatpants, lounging on a couch, waiting desperately to see what I had to say next. I was going to be bold and bad.

I texted back: "You dreamt about me."

A minute later he responded: "I can't control my dreams, Miss Taylor."

He wanted to control his feelings for me. He wanted me to pull back. But I didn't dare. I had confidence when I wasn't staring directly into his deep brown eyes. "I don't want you to." I pressed send.

I placed my phone on my bed and pulled my hair into a ponytail. My foot began to tap impatiently. I pulled my Stat book onto my lap again and began to read the page I had left off on. I had to stop halfway and start over because my mind was wandering.

"Trust me, you do," his response read.