~Lyra~

“I’m creative,” I said with a grin that could’ve gotten me suspended from school and excommunicated from church. “And also very committed to your academic success, Mr. Thornvale.”

I dragged my fingers slowly up his chest as I said it, watching the way his body reacted beneath my touch. Every muscle in him tightened like I was pulling strings in all the right places.

His jaw clenched. His eyes darkened. His breath came slower and heavier like he was already imagining everything I hadn’t even said yet.

And honestly, that just encouraged me. Because I could feel it in the air—that slow, dangerous kind of heat building between us,...