She arrived thirty minutes late.
Not by accident, but as a calculated move.
Delilah's entrance was deliberate. The rhythmic click of her heels against the marble floors echoed through the penthouse like a siren's call. Every eye in the room lifted to meet her, but none lingered longer than Professor Kellan Hart's. He didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
Delilah was wrapped in deep black latex. A second skin that shimmered beneath the soft lighting, hugging her hourglass shape like sin itself. Beneath it, lace teased at her cleavage, peeking out with the kind of quiet audacity only a woman in full control dared to wear. She didn't dress to impress. She dressed to haunt.
"Evening, Professor," she said, her voice coated in something sweet and dangerous. "I hope you haven't started without me."
Kellan closed the book on his desk, the students around him still milling about after the informal seminar. He was tall, all sharp lines and barely concealed tension, his blazer rolled up at the sleeves, a glass of untouched whiskey on the table beside him.
"Miss Vale," he said slowly. "You were expected half an hour ago."
"Late but dressed for the occasion." She stepped closer, eyes burning through him.
He smiled tightly. "What occasion would that be?"
Delilah looked around at the students packing up, then leaned in with a whisper meant only for him. "The one where truths are stripped, layer by layer until all that's left is honesty or something dirtier."
Kellan's jaw tightened. She saw the pulse at his neck stutter, just once. It was all the confirmation she needed.
The "salon" as Kellan called it was technically a weekly grad seminar. Unofficial, by invitation only. No grades were given, but reputations were made or destroyed. It was exclusive, intellectual, and always wrapped in a veneer of academic brilliance.
But everyone knew the undercurrent.
The ones he invited were chosen for more than their intellect.
Delilah had clawed her way into the group with carefully written essays and subtle provocations. She played the long game dressing conservatively for weeks, asking cutting questions, quoting obscure philosophers. And then, on the night she wore lace beneath latex, she changed everything.
That night, she wasn't the clever girl in the back row anymore. She was temptation incarnate.
As the last student left, Kellan poured a second drink and gestured toward the velvet chair across from him. "Sit," he said.
"I didn't come here to sit," Delilah replied, circling the desk.
He followed her with his gaze. "Then tell me. Why are you here?"
She leaned her palms on the desk, her face inches from his. "Because you pretend to care about truth. About reason. About clarity. But everything about you is curated your clothes, your lectures, your silence."
"You think you see me?"
"No," she whispered. "I think I want to."
Kellan looked down at her hands, encased in black gloves that shimmered with each flex. He exhaled like a man trying not to drown in something he couldn't name.
"I could lose everything," he murmured.
She smiled. "So lie to me. But don't pretend you don't want to touch what's already touching you."
His hand hovered over hers and didn't land. Instead, he stood, putting distance between them.
"I don't seduce my students," he said, more to the air than to her.
"You don't need to," Delilah replied. "We're already seduced."
The rules began to bend over the next few weeks.
She'd show up after hours, sometimes wearing nothing scandalous, but always with eyes that dared him to give in. They argued fiercely in discussions. They found themselves alone, too often, too conveniently. Their hands brushed. Their words lingered.
Kellan started sending her obscure reading assignments, topics on ethics, desire, secrecy. He began watching her differently. She noticed.
But neither crossed the line. Not yet.
Until the night of the exhibition.
It was an off-campus gallery, curated by the art history department. Delilah attended in red lace and a leather coat that fell from her shoulders like smoke. The moment she saw him walk in suited in charcoal, jaw tight, she knew what would happen.
The room was full of whispers and movement. She found him staring at a sculpture a twisted bronze figure, naked and contorted in grief.
"A symbol of restraint?" she asked, appearing beside him.
"A symbol of guilt," he replied. "You don't need chains to be trapped."
"And what traps you, Professor Hart?"
He didn't answer. His eyes dropped to her lips, her throat, her bare collarbone.
Delilah moved closer. "You're losing control."
He turned to face her fully. "No. I'm choosing not to use it."
Then, without another word, he walked toward the exit. She followed.
They barely made it to the car. Her coat was open before he turned the ignition. His hands, shaking, reached for the steering wheel instead of her.
But her voice was like fire against his throat.
"I don't need your promises," she whispered. "Just your honesty."
Kellan's hand fell to her knee, tentative. She didn't flinch. Instead, she leaned over and kissed the spot just beneath his ear once, like a question.
When he didn't pull away, she undid the top button of his shirt. Slowly.
They drove in silence, the kind of silence that throbbed.
His apartment was immaculate. Too clean. Too calculated. But Delilah wasn't here to admire it. She walked in and peeled off the leather coat, revealing the scarlet lace underneath. Not lingerie art.
Kellan closed the door behind her. Locked it.
"I don't know who you really are," he admitted, voice low. "What game you're playing."
"Maybe I'm not playing one," she said.
But they both knew she was.
Delilah walked to the mirror and stared at herself at the girl in lace and lies. Kellan came up behind her, eyes locking with hers in the reflection.
"This is a bad idea," he said.
"I know," she whispered.
And then his hands found her waist.
They didn't undress quickly. There was no rush.
Lace met skin. Latex slid off like a confession. Each inch of flesh revealed felt like a truth being dared into the open.
Delilah didn't tremble. She was power, wrapped in softness.
Kellan kissed like a man starving, like someone who hadn't allowed himself to feel in years. And she let him lose control, just this once, with someone who wouldn't ask for more than the moment.
But the moment turned into hours.
She pressed her secrets into his skin. He buried his guilt in her touch.
The next morning, Delilah woke to the smell of coffee and an empty bed.
She sat up slowly, wrapped in his dress shirt, her hair tangled, her lipstick smudged like a confession on the pillow.
Kellan stood in the kitchen, silent, stirring milk into her coffee.
When he looked up and saw her watching him, something changed in his expression not regret, but the weight of consequence.
"This doesn't leave this apartment," he said.
Delilah smiled softly. "Then lie to the world, Kellan but don't lie to yourself."
He handed her the coffee, his fingers brushing hers. "Who are you really, Delilah?"
She sipped, eyes never leaving his. "Just a girl who wore latex to lure a man into telling the truth."
He nodded once, slowly.
And neither of them mentioned what would come next.
Because some stories are better told through touch…
And some lies are best worn like lace.
But Delilah wasn't finished weaving hers.
The affair with Kellan didn't end in that immaculate apartment. It evolved. It bled into every corner of her life, into the folds of his career, into the silences of their stolen nights. They became masters of performance: he, the untouchable professor; she, the brilliant, hungry student.
To the world, they were nothing more than academic adversaries. In seminar, she pushed him, needled him, challenged his theories until other students whispered that she was obsessed. He pushed back, colder, sharper, never giving her ground. It was intellectual war. But behind locked doors, her defiance was rewarded, her provocations answered in ways that left her marked and trembling.
It was intoxicating, because it could end everything.
And that was exactly why she craved it.
The first real test came two weeks later.
A departmental dinner. A long oak table crowded with faculty and select students. Wine flowed too freely. Laughter ricocheted. And in the middle of it all, Kellan sat at the head, cool and unreadable, while Delilah sat six seats down in a silk dress the color of midnight.
She didn't look at him once.
Not directly.
Instead, she laughed too easily at another professor's joke. She let her hand linger a second too long on the wine bottle as Jordan, the golden TA, poured her a glass. She leaned back in her chair, baring the smooth line of her throat, aware that Kellan's gaze, though it never shifted, was burning holes in her skin.
When dessert came, she finally let her eyes catch his. Just once. A flicker. But in that single glance, she poured every secret, every memory of his hands and his mouth, into the space between them.
Kellan didn't flinch. He simply raised his glass, sipped, and set it down like nothing had passed.
But Delilah's pulse hammered. She had won that round.
And she knew he would punish her for it later.
He did.
That night, when she arrived at his apartment uninvited, he didn't greet her with words. He pinned her against the wall before the door even closed, his mouth rough, his hands harsher.
"You like playing with fire in front of an audience," he growled against her ear.
Her smile was breathless. "I like watching you burn."
And burn he did. Hours later, her silk dress lay shredded on the floor like evidence, his shirt torn open at the collar, their bodies slick with sweat and sin. When she finally collapsed against him, he whispered the words that undid her.
"You'll ruin me, Delilah Vale."
She pressed her lips to his chest, listening to the rapid thud of his heart. "Only if you let me."
But ruin wasn't a one-way street.
The deeper they fell, the more she realized she wasn't in complete control. Kellan had layers she couldn't predict. Moments where he seized her daring and turned it on its head. Nights where he made her confess things she hadn't planned to share: her mother's illness, the lover who betrayed her, the fear that all she was, was performance.
He listened. He pressed until she broke. And when she shattered in his hands, he kissed her like she was the only truth he'd ever wanted.
It terrified her.
Because Delilah Vale didn't do truth. She did masks. She did lace and latex and sharp edges. Truth was for other people.
And yet, Kellan kept peeling her open.
Their secret would have remained buried if not for the symposium.
A weekend conference two cities over. Faculty, grad students, visiting scholars. The kind of event where reputations were sharpened or destroyed in a single panel.
Delilah was invited. So was Kellan.
And so was Jordan, the golden TA.
It was Jordan who nearly caught them.
Late one evening, Delilah slipped into Kellan's hotel room. She wore nothing but a silk robe, a challenge tied at the waist. He was already waiting, glass of scotch in hand, tie loosened. Their mouths met before words could, the night thick with urgency.
But the knock on the door froze them both.
"Professor Hart?" Jordan's voice. Too close.
Delilah's heart slammed against her ribs.
Kellan straightened, his expression steel. He gestured sharply, and she ducked into the bathroom, barely pulling the door shut before he opened the room.
"Jordan," he said evenly. "It's late."
"Sorry, sir. I… I wanted to go over tomorrow's panel notes. Thought you'd be awake."
Delilah pressed a hand to her mouth, breath shallow, robe slipping from her shoulder. She could hear Jordan's footsteps, the shuffle of papers, the low murmur of voices. She pictured him just feet away, oblivious, while her body still hummed with Kellan's touch.
Ten minutes stretched into eternity.
When Jordan finally left, Kellan locked the door, turned, and dragged Delilah out of hiding. His mouth crashed into hers, equal parts fury and relief.
"That," he rasped, "was too close."
Her answering laugh was wicked. "Close is what makes it worth it."
And then he lifted her, robe falling open, and slammed her against the hotel window overlooking the glittering city. Their reflections burned back at them as if daring the world to see.
By the end of the symposium, Delilah knew the affair wasn't sustainable. Not because she wanted it to end, but because their hunger was becoming impossible to disguise.
Students noticed the way Kellan's gaze lingered too long when she spoke. Faculty noticed how sharply he cut her down in panels, how only she could draw real anger out of him.
Whispers started.
She heard them in bathrooms. In hallways. In the way Jordan looked at her, suspicious, too curious.
It was only a matter of time before the lie split open.
The breaking point came on a rain-soaked Thursday night.
Delilah arrived at Kellan's apartment, soaked through, trembling from more than the cold. She paced the living room, latex clinging to her like armor.
"They're talking," she snapped when he tried to calm her. "Jordan. The others. They know."
Kellan rubbed a hand over his face, his own composure cracking. "Then we stop."
Her laugh was sharp, broken. "Stop? After all this? After everything you've made me feel?"
His silence was brutal.
Delilah stepped closer, rainwater dripping onto his floor. Her eyes burned. "Don't you dare lie to me, Kellan. Not now. Do you want me?"
His answer was a groan as he seized her, crushing his mouth to hers, desperate, devouring. Clothes tore. Bodies collided. They fell into bed like drowning people clinging to each other.
Every touch was frantic. Every kiss a battle.
It wasn't just sex anymore. It was confession. It was surrender. It was love, though neither dared to speak the word.
When it was over, she lay against him, heart still racing. The storm battered the windows. His hand stroked her hair absently, like he didn't know he was doing it.
"This will destroy us," he whispered.
Delilah closed her eyes. "Then let it."
That night, for the first time, Delilah Vale dreamed not of games, not of victories, but of a future she couldn't name.
A future with him.
And that terrified her more than anything else.