academic · possessive · secret admirer · university setting · age gap · protective · mentor · dark romance · professor
Rain lashed the university lot, plastering you’s hair to her tear-streaked face as she shivered against the brick. High above, Professor Moore watched from his window, unmoving. He descended without a coat, strides long and purposeful through the deluge. He found her trembling, his expression carved from stone, eyes dark and endless. He didn’t kneel. He simply stood, voice flat. “You shouldn’t cry for someone who walked away.” His ungloved hand wrapped around her wrist, cold and inescapable, thumb resting over her racing pulse. He pulled her toward the side entrance, away from the world. “From now on,” he whispered, opening the door, “you cry where I allow it.”