Squirrels wander around the lawn, clearly used to humans. They look at us, interested, hoping we might have a pizza crust to throw their way. The buildings feature architecture from every decade.

“You should come here,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says, her voice animated. “I’m really leaning toward this place. I mean, the school in Connecticut had such a strong social services program, but I really feel like there’s something about this one that clicks with me. It’s smaller, but there’s also going to be more opportunities.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, you shouldn’t do the correspondence courses. You should come here. You should stay on campus.”

Her expression falls. “Beau, we’ve been over this.”

“And I’m going over it again,” I tell her. “And again, until you do what’s right for you, instead of what I want.”

She stops on the path and faces me. “What about what I want?”

And then I can’t resist any longer. I touch the soft, tender flesh of her neck and then reach around behind to pull her close. “You’re too young to know what you want,” I tell her. “How do you know you don’t want some frat boy or some brooding artist? You don’t know. You can’t, not until you actually experience this the right way.”

“The right way?” she says, scoffing. “What is the right way?”

“Like everyone else,” I tell her. “You deserve to have this, like everyone else.”

She feels so good against my body. I pull her close and kiss her.

It’s a direct denial of every word I’ve been saying.

The way that I kiss her is full of possession. My words tell her to leave, but my hands pull her close. My words push her away, but my mouth tells her she’s mine.

I slide my tongue against hers in sensual demand.

And she moans into my mouth. Anywhere, anywhere. I can have her anywhere, that’s what she’s telling me, but it feels manipulative. God, I’m a selfish bastard.

I want to take her into a classroom and bend her over the teacher’s desk. I want to spank her until her ass is red. And then I want to fuck her. It would be a game between us, a game where I’m the professor and she’s the student. A game where I have all the power and she bends to my will.

Except the secret is that it’s not a game, that the power imbalance between us can never really be overcome. That every time I touch her, I’m hurting her.

Whether she knows it or not.

When I pull away, we’re both breathing hard.

I rest my forehead against hers. “She thought you should come to campus,” I say, referring to Mary.