Chapter 1

Arabella Hale

I entered into the theater seating style classroom and immediately made my way over to sit next to my crazy best friend Sabrina, or Brina for short. My crazy wild bestie. It was about middle semester for my first year of my master’s program and to say it was stressful was a huge understatement. Luckily though, this was my favorite class out of the full load of credits my were taking. For multiple reasons.

Of course, I loved the subject, but this course has the added benefit of academic eye-candy. Professor Luc Paxton.

At first, the only things I wanted where good grades. However, when my eyes set upon him, just maybe one more thing added to the list.

I had always admired his intense green gaze, his perfect cut jawline, the prowl he made at the front of the room when he instructed. Just the way he commanded attention in his class, set my core on fire. Of course, I would taken in all these details for educational purposes only.

I wouldn’t dare ever admit I had this infatuation for the professor, but Iimaged you weren’t the only girl on campus that felt the same way. It probably wasn’t a coincidence that the ratio in his classes typically favored women. But hell, even the guys on campus appreciated him.

The only person I’d hinted to that I found him so attractive had been Brina, and since her type was a bit different than my own, she didn’t quite understand the lure. I made myself comfortable and pulled out my notebook along with some of the class’ recent worksheets and outlines, just as Professor Luc entered the room.

The idle chatter that surrounded the room immediately stopped, and everyone faced towards the front as he set his brief case down and took out the class’ agenda. Although he did occasionally project the lesson on the screen, he typically preferred the traditional way of teaching. Which was fine with me; I also preferred the traditional way of taking notes and studying, rather than typing everything down.

“Good afternoon class, I expect you’ve all finished the previous chapter I have assigned as well as the supplemental readings I provided… if not, I am afraid you’re wasting your time by being here as you won’t understand a damn of what will be discussed…” he greeted, making his way around the front row to pass out papers.

Okay… so he was a bit temperamental and maybe an ass, but still great to look at. I were just happy that I was able to keep up with the course work this far, as you definitely didn’t want to be on the other end of his wrath. He was known for making his students withdraw and wasn’t above making you cry in the middle of class for criticizing you. But the dominance was a little sexy, I thought, gigging quietly not to catch anyone's attention.

I received the stack of papers that were circulating and handed one to Brina, who rolled her eyes at me. She wasn’t a big fan of Professor Luc but needed this credit in order to graduate. “Now then, shall we get started,” he rhetorically started, “I would like for someone to briefly summarize the last chapter… any volunteers,” he leaned against the desk in the front of the room, and slowly made eye contact with random students, challenging them. No one raised their hand.

“Very well then, I shall choose for you… you there, blue shirt… please enlighten us,” he crossed his arms, nodding for the unfortunate student to answer him. This was too painful to watch, I slightly tuned out what I knew was about to be a massacre, just keeping my head down to avoid any attention being drawn to myself, once again.

“Sit down and shut up, you’re incredibly wrong and wasting my time,” Professor Paxton interrupted the ramblings of the student, and pointed to someone in the next row, “you there, you’d better hope you can do a better job than your classmate,” he challenged. I could feel your muscles tensing up empathetically for my peers; even after all my years of education, I hated being called on. Can you blame me?

Evidently this student had done a bit better though, as he saw it fit to continue with his lecture. Brina suddenly slid her hand across to me and snatched my paper away. I shot her a confused glare and tried to swiftly grab it back but she was bent over it writing something. My simply faced forward again, not wanting to get caught fooling around, he didn't take too kindly to that either.

Brina eventually pushed the paper back to me and me saw she had written a list of some kind on the back. I flipped it over, and my eyes grew wide. She started to chuckle at my reaction, and quickly covered it up with a cough as not to draw attention. There on the page read, Arabella's Dirty Secrets, with a list of questions underneath.

I turned back to Brina and shook my head, like I said, she was crazy. “Do it, it’s just for fun. This class sucks, liven it up Bellz,” she whispered to me, sending me a wink. I bit my lip and looked back at the list; it was just for fun, I thought. Seemed harmless enough. I read the list over:

1 – Who in this room would you sleep with? I bit down on my lip harder, to keep the sly smirk off my face.

2 – Does this person know that you want to sleep with them? Hell NO! I wrote down. I was semi positive I wasn’t the only one on campus, who daydreamed about him, and maybe he picked up on that; but I would never imagine someone actually hitting on him.

3 – Have you ever pleasured yourself while thinking about them? My cheeks instantly turned red and I could feel the heat creep up my neck. I slyly glanced around you to make sure no one was reading over my shoulder. I wasn’t really sure why I was answering these anyway, but like Brina said, it was just for fun.I bravely wrote down, multiple times.

4 – Would you rather have kinky wild sex, or sweet romantic sex with this person? I tapped my pen against my chin; honestly I could picture either with Professor Paxton. He seemed like the dominating passionate type, but I could also imagine an intimate side only he would share with his partner. I would want both.

5 – What’s your dirty fantasy of this person? I held back your scoff; obviously I was totally cliché when it came to my fantasy of myself and Professor Paxton. To be bent over his office desk.

6 – What would this person do if they found out? I internally cringed at even the idea. He was so stoic and dominating in class, Iimagined he wasn’t much different in his personal life. He probably made his dates go home crying. He’d probably humiliate me in front of everyone, and report me so that I would be kicked out for sexual harassment. I could definitely picture him doing something on that level. Luckily, I didn’t plan on finding out.

Professor Paxton’s booming voice brought me back to reality, suddenly, “you may write your answer on the sheet that I passed out earlier. No need to write anything more than a couple of sentences. You’d only be wasting both our times.” I snapped my head up and looked over at Brina.  “What answer?” I whispered. Brinahalf shrugged, “something about what we thought of the supplemental reading and if it holds validity, I don’t know.”

I switched gears and rethought what I had read, jotting down a few quick sentences on the other side of my paper. I leaned over to Brina skimming what she’d written to compare it to my own, “You know this stuff better than I do Arabella, I just bullshitted the answer,” Brina whispered back as she passed her paper forward.

Wait…you had to turn this in?!

I needed to write this on a new sheet of paper! I whipped back around in my seat, and the paper was gone from myplace.

My heart instantly dropped to my stomach.

My frantically leafed through my notebook, looked in my bag just in case, peered down to the floor to see if maybe it’d fallen… it was nowhere.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!! My anxiously peered around and saw that all the papers from the class had been compiled to the front row, and just then Mr. Paxton was collecting them and binding them together.

NO!

No, no, nooooo!!!

I could feel the blood drain from my face as he placed the stack of papers into his briefcase. My hands were shaking and a sweat broke over my brow. This was NOT happening. This was a nightmare! No, no, no, no!!

“Sabrina!” I hissed at her, trying to keep from hyperventilating. I college career was over, ruined. Goodbye, my future author self. I gripped onto Brina’s arm and stared at her wide-eyed. Brina looked at me concerned, and put her hand over my own, “what?! What’s wrong?” she whispered back. “He has the paper!” I whisper yelled to her.

She scrunched her brows up, confused at first, and then I saw as the lightbulb went off in her head, and her eyes grew wide. “Arabella Hale…. please don’t tell me you filled that stupid list out about HIM!” she hissed back to me. All I could manage was a small nod of my head.

I was gonna’ be sick, my stomach was twisting and heart hammering in my chest. “I am sorry, are we interrupting you?” Professor Paxton suddenly called out. Please don’t be talking to me, please, please I pleaded as I slowly turned myself to look forward again.

But of course, there he was, glaring up at myself and Brina. I audibly gulped and shook my head, turning my gaze down to my notebook. I didn’t have the courage to look at his devastatingly handsome face, after I knew what he now had in his briefcase.

I could feel his punishing glare on my being, “now… where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?” I had no idea how I managed to make it through the rest of class. My mind was only half paying attention to anything that was going on; I couldn’t shake the utter humiliation that Professor Paxton was going to read my stupid dirty list of secrets.

I started to go through what I had written but quickly pushed it to the back of my mind; I couldn’t bear knowing what he was about to read.

Finally he dismissed the class and I but ran out the door with Brina hot on my heals.

“Maybe he won’t even know it was your paper! There’s a girl with the same first name who sits on the other side of the room,” Brina reasoned, “or maybe he won’t even realize there’s writing on the back!”

I shot her a glare, “how stupid do you think he is, Bri?” I couldn’t help the bitterness in my tone. “I am so fucked,” I groaned, pulling my fingers through my hair. All Bri could do was rub my shoulder sympathetically, even she knew this was a pretty terrible situation.

I really had no clue how I was going to accomplish getting anything done between now and next class, when I would see him again; and by then he would know my dirty secrets – all about him.