Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 11

The lecture hall emptied with the usual chaos of scraping chairs and muffled conversations, students filing out with their notebooks clutched like lifelines.

I sat frozen in my seat, watching Adrian organize his papers with that methodical precision that somehow made everything look effortless. He suddenly looked up, meeting mine directly. Then he returned to organizing papers.

"Miss Hale, I would like to ask you to stay for a little while," he said without looking up, his voice carrying that quiet authority that made my knees go weak.

My heart was doing that thing where it forgot how to beat normally, and my palms were sweating like I was about to take the SATs again.

Cleo had glanced at me on her way out, eyebrows raised, lips already curled into something teasing.

"I'll wait for you outside?"

I just nodded, pretending not to feel the way his eyes tracked my every movement.

I couldn't tell her the truth—that I was staying behind because I was a complete fucking mess who couldn't handle the fact that my untouchable literature professor was apparently my anonymous club stalker.

"I just need to ask about the reading list," I said, but I hadn't brought my book. Or my pen, or anything resembling actual academic interest. Because let's be real—I knew why I was here. And so did he.

The door clicked shut behind Clep, leaving us alone in a space that suddenly felt too small and too charged with electricity.

The silence inside the room shifted once we were alone. Not heavy or awkward, but dangerous. Like standing too close to the edge of a cliff and realizing you're not entirely sure you don't want to jump.

I stood near his desk, heart hammering, pretending to care about the notes scrawled across my folder. Lewis leaned against the edge of his desk with that same predatory casualness he'd had at the club—one hand flat on the surface, the other adjusting his perfectly rolled cuff.

"So, Dr. Lewis…" I said, because apparently my mouth had decided to work independently of my brain. "Private Room Service, huh?"

"Adrian." His eyes met mine across the empty room, dark and unreadable. "When we're alone, you call me Adrian."

The correction sent heat spiraling through my chest. "Adrian," I repeated, testing the name on my tongue. "This is... completely insane."

His expression didn't change. Didn't even flicker. "You're upset."

"Upset?" I let out a laugh that sounded slightly unhinged. "I'm having a complete existential crisis. My professor, my literature professor, has been sexting me for weeks. How exactly should I feel?"

He moved around his desk with that predatory grace I was starting to recognize, each step deliberate and calculated. "What exactly do you find insane about it, Sophie?"

"All of it." I stood up, needing the distance, but somehow my feet carried me closer to him instead of toward the door. "You're my professor. I'm your student. We were... we did things in that club, and I had no idea who you were."

"And now you do." He stopped just close enough that I could smell his cologne—something dark and expensive that made my head spin. "Does that change how you felt when I touched you?"

My breath hitched. "That's not the point."

"Isn't it?"

Adrian tilted his head, studying me with the intensity of someone conducting a psychological experiment.

"Your body responded to mine before you knew my name, before you knew my title, before you knew anything except that you wanted to surrender control."

"I was drunk," I whispered, even though we both knew it was a lie.

"You were sober enough to choose," he said, voice dropping to that register that made my thighs clench together involuntarily.

"You were sober enough to follow me into that private room. Sober enough to let me tie you down and make you come apart."

Heat flooded my face. "Don't."

"Don't what? Don't remind you how you sounded when you begged for more? Don't mention the way you trembled when I told you to be still?"

He took another step closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off his body. "Or don't acknowledge that you're getting wet right now, just from hearing me talk about it?"

My mouth opened and closed without sound. Because he was right, and the knowledge that he could read my body so easily was both terrifying and intoxicating.

"This is scary," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Good." His hand came up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing across my bottom lip. "Fear keeps you honest. Fear means you understand the weight of what you're choosing."

"And what am I choosing?" I asked, even though part of me already knew the answer.

"To let me own you." The words were spoken so quietly they were almost lost, but they hit like lightning. "To give me parts of yourself you've never given anyone else. To trust me with your body, your pleasure, your limits."

My knees went weak. "Adrian..."

"I want you, Sophie."

His other hand settled on my waist, fingers splaying across the fabric of my shirt.

"Not as your professor, not as some academic authority figure. As the man who made you scream in that dark room. As the man who knows exactly how to make you fall apart."

Before I could respond, he was moving, walking to his desk and retrieving something from the bottom drawer. When he turned back, he held a small black box tied with silk ribbon.

"What is that?" I asked, though my pulse was already racing with anticipation.

"A gift." He held it out to me, and I took it with trembling fingers. "Open it."

The ribbon slipped away like liquid silk, and inside was the most beautiful lingerie I'd ever seen. Deep wine-red lace that looked like it cost more than my rent, delicate and devastating in equal measure.

"It's gorgeous," I breathed, running my fingers over the soft material.

"I want you to wear it tomorrow night." His voice was steady, controlled, but his eyes burned with something primitive and hungry. "Nothing else underneath that coat of yours. Just this, and the knowledge that you chose to put it on for me."

"Tomorrow night?" My voice cracked slightly.

"I'm going to pick you up at seven. Same coffee shop where we met before." Adrian moved closer, his presence overwhelming and magnetic. "We're going to my house, Sophie. To a room I designed specifically for women like you."

My breath caught. "What, like a red room?" A nervous laugh escaped my throat, but Adrian ignored my question.

“Hair?” his voice softens into something almost cruel in its precision. “Loose waves. Soft. Nothing polished. I want you to look like temptation dressed as innocence.”

Adrian’s thumb traced along my jawline. "My room is designed for women who are brave enough to explore the parts of themselves they've been taught to hide. It's a place where inhibitions go to die."

My mouth went dry. "That sounds..."

"Terrifying?" he suggested. "Overwhelming? Like something you've fantasized about but never dared to ask for?"

All of the above, I thought but didn't say.

"I don't know if I'm ready for something like that," I admitted.

"You're not," Adrian said matter-of-factly. "That's what makes it perfect. Readiness is overrated, Sophie. Sometimes you have to jump before you're ready, trust that I'll catch you before you hit the ground."

He stepped back, giving me space to breathe, but his eyes never left mine.

"The choice is yours," he said. "Wear the lingerie tomorrow night, meet me at seven, and let me show you what you've been missing. Or don't. Walk away now, pretend this conversation never happened, and spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been."

I clutched the box to my chest, feeling the weight of silk and possibility.

"Will it hurt?" I asked.

"Probably." His honesty was brutal and somehow comforting. "But it will also feel better than anything you've ever experienced. Pain and pleasure, Sophie. They're not opposites—they're dance partners."

I stared at him for a long moment, memorizing the sharp angles of his face, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead, the intensity in his storm-gray eyes.

"Seven o'clock," I said finally.

His smile was devastating. "Good girl."