The lecture hall smelled like old wood, chalk dust, and the faint metallic tang of anticipation. Two hundred students sat in tiered silence while Dr. Damien Blackwood paced the front like a panther in tailored charcoal slacks and a crisp white shirt rolled to his forearms. At forty-one, he was the kind of professor who made coeds forget their notes and straight male students question their life choices. Arrogant? Absolutely. Brilliant? Undeniably.

“And that,” he said, voice low and cutting, “is why Austen’s so-called restraint is nothing more than repressed Victorian horniness dressed up in polite dialogue. Any questions?”

Kenzie’s hand shot up before her brain could file a formal...