Lily
Impossible. This couldn't be real. My mind scrambled for answers, for logic, for anything that could explain what my eyes were seeing. Maybe I was still asleep. Maybe this was another dream, some cruel trick my subconscious had decided to play on me. Because this couldn't be happening.
This man, the man who had haunted my nights, whose hands and voice had tangled themselves into my very soul, was supposed to remain trapped in the shadows of my dreams. He wasn't supposed to walk into the daylight, dressed in a sharp suit, introducing himself as if he were just another professor. No. That was impossible.
How could I dream of someone who existed in the real world, someone I had never met before? How could my fantasies, dark and secret and shameful, align so perfectly with reality? My chest tightened painfully, my heart slamming against my ribs as if trying to escape. No, this wasn't real.
Julian Ashford couldn't be real.
I squeezed my eyes shut, panic choking me, and pinched my wrist so hard under the desk that my nails bit into my skin. If I were dreaming, then surely pain would wake me. I needed to wake up. I had to wake up. The voices around me faded into static, muffled and distant, as if my brain refused to let them in. My only thought was wake up, wake up, wake up.
But instead of waking, the voices sharpened, cutting through the fog and pressing closer. Reality refused to fade. The sting in my wrist was too sharp, too real, and the heat of the lecture hall pressed down on me like a weight.
Then came the push. A gentle nudge against my shoulder that snapped me out of my spiral. My eyes flew open in shock, only to meet the one thing I dreaded most.
Hazel eyes. Piercing. Steady. Zeroed in on me.
I froze. My breath hitched audibly in my throat, terror and something else, something shameful and electric, shooting through me.
"Lily, he's calling you out," Peter whispered urgently from beside me, but I didn't need his warning.
I already knew.
Julian Ashford's gaze was locked on me, pinning me to my seat like a butterfly trapped beneath glass. But unlike in my dreams, his eyes weren't warm or worshipful. They weren't filled with hunger or desire. No. This was different.
He wasn't admiring me.
He was glaring at me.
His jaw was set, his mouth a hard, unforgiving line, and his hazel eyes, so beautiful in the darkness of my dreams, now burned with something else entirely. Displeasure. Anger. Authority.
And God help me, that look, so far from tender and so far from the way he touched me in my sleep, made my stomach twist and my skin flush all the same.
"What is your name?" His voice cut through the silence, sharp and commanding.
I knew he was speaking to me. His eyes were locked on mine, unwavering, cold, and unyielding. My stomach dropped.
Of course, he knew my name. He'd whispered it countless times in the darkness of my dreams, breathed it against my skin like a secret. But here, under the bright fluorescent lights of the lecture hall, that sounded insane even inside my own head. I couldn't say it. I couldn't scream at him to stop pretending. I couldn't call him out without sounding utterly unhinged.
My chest tightened. My throat closed. The air felt too thick to breathe. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to answer, but no sound came out. My lips parted and closed again like I was drowning.
My heart was slamming so hard I swore the entire hall could hear it. My palms turned slick with sweat, and I rubbed them against my jeans, but it did nothing to stop the trembling. My vision swam, the edges blurring as if my own mind was trying to shield me from the intensity of his stare.
I wanted to disappear. To sink into the floor. To escape those hazel eyes that saw too much.
And then, for a fleeting second, I thought I saw something change. His eyes softened, just barely. His jaw unclenched, and the tight lines of his face loosened as he exhaled through his nose. The anger that had radiated from him moments before dulled into something less dangerous, though not entirely gone. Annoyance. Frustration. Displeasure.
He broke the silence, his voice lower this time. "Give her some water. She doesn't seem well."
The command wasn't directed at me. His gaze flicked to Peter, who immediately scrambled to grab the bottle on his desk.
"I told you, you shouldn't be drinking all that coffee," Peter whispered as he pressed the bottle into my hands, trying to get me to drink. His voice was kind, but my humiliation only deepened.
The whole lecture hall was staring. Their eyes crawled over me, curious, judgmental, pitying. My cheeks burned. My throat worked, but the water caught in my mouth, the lump in my throat refusing to let it pass. I wanted to vanish. To close my eyes and wake up back in the dream, where at least I understood the rules.
But here, under Julian Ashford's piercing glare, I was unraveling.
"Maybe you need to take a break. Freshen up and return to the class when you're ready," Mr. Ashford said coolly, his voice calm but cutting through me like a blade.
I struggled to swallow the water Peter had given me, my throat refusing to cooperate. He didn't need to repeat himself. The weight of his stare alone was enough to drive me out of the room. My body felt raw beneath his eyes, as though he had stripped me bare in front of everyone. As though he had actually seen me the way I appeared in those forbidden dreams, half-naked, bound to his will, whimpering under his hand.
My chest tightened. The flashes of those nights, his touch, his voice, the sharp sting of his palm, blurred with the reality before me. No. I shook my head quickly, desperate to banish the visions. This wasn't real. This was humiliating.
I said nothing to him. My silence was my escape. Shoving the water bottle back into Peter's hand, I fumbled to gather my books, my journal, and my pens, my bag nearly slipping from my shoulder in my rush. The scrape of my chair against the floor echoed through the hushed hall as I forced myself to stand.
From high up on the eleventh row, the descent felt endless. Every step down the aisle was clumsy, hurried, as though I was fleeing from something unseen. My hands shook so badly I could barely keep hold of my things. I must have looked like someone who had just seen a ghost.
But the true terror waited for me at the front of the hall.
Mr. Ashford stood near the podium, his tall frame casting a shadow that seemed to stretch into me. His hands rested casually in his pockets, but there was nothing casual about the way he watched me. Those hazel eyes tracked my every move, sharp and unrelenting, as if he could peel back every layer of my thoughts until he reached the shameful truths buried within.
As I drew closer, the faintest trace of his scent reached me, and my body froze.
It was him.
The same intoxicating, dark, masculine scent that haunted my dreams. For a heartbeat, the world tilted, and I was no longer in the lecture hall. I was back in that golden-lit room, trembling beneath him.
My breath caught painfully in my throat. Our eyes met, locking me in place. There was no kindness there, no recognition, only that same piercing authority that both terrified and ensnared me.
I gulped hard, tearing my gaze away as quickly as I could. "Sorry," I whispered, my voice breaking, and rushed past him.
The moment I crossed the threshold of the door, I gasped for air, dragging in breaths as though I had been drowning. My chest heaved, my pulse thundered, and shame burned down my spine.
But no matter how far I walked, I couldn't shake the truth. He smelled exactly the same as he did in my dreams.