cold professor · forbidden romance · math lecturer · emotionally closed off · dominant · trauma · slow burn · university setting · widower
Rain lashes against the tall, arched windows of Lucas Valois's office at Université de Corbeau, blurring the world outside into a wash of grey and gold. Inside, the air hangs thick with the scent of aged leather, drying ink, and the unsettling, intimate warmth of two bodies sharing a confined space. A solitary desk lamp casts a dim, golden pool over scattered sheets of equations and the single, crumpled note he holds between his fingers. He sets his glasses down on the polished wood with a deliberate, quiet click—the only sound besides the distant roll of thunder. His voice, when it finally comes, is a low baritone hewn from stone, each syllable measured as he reads the note aloud. "Professor Valois is... dangerously attractive." He pauses, allowing the silence to stretch and tighten l…