Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
His lips curved. “Probably.”
Her shoulders slumped. “You don’t have to sound so cheerful about it.”
“I can’t help it,” he said. “Right now, I’m on top of the world, knowing how much you love me. You’re such a shy creature, and yet you actually attempted public fornication in the name of love—-”
“Professor!”
Laughing, he lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers. “I love you, little Kassia.”
She stilled.
“All my life, I was waiting for you and I hadn’t even known it. I never dreamt that someone like you could exist, that someone could make me feel so damn happy and terrified all the time.”
Tears started stinging her eyes again. “Oh, Professor. I never knew you could be so wonderfully romantic.”
In the distance, he heard Domenico laugh at Kassia’s words.
“Your words were so much like a poet’s...”
While her words, Alessandro thought, were making him sound like a lovesick idiot.
Her eyes suddenly started shining, and Alessandro became even warier when her voice took on a hopeful note. “Professor?”
“What is it?”
“Do you think you’ll ever write me a love letter?”
Almost every Lyccan in the vicinity, his traitorous brother included, doubled over in laughter at the request.
He opened his mouth to refuse, but then he made the mistake of looking into Kassia’s eyes—-
Ah.
So this was love.
“Every day if you want me to,” he heard himself promise.
TWO YEARS LATER
Alessandro and Kassia were enjoying a secret meal in his office when across the table she released another dreamy-sounding sigh. Since he didn’t think it was the taste of their cafeteria’s spaghetti that was making her swoon mentally, he had to ask, “What is it?”
“I just can’t forget how beautiful Domenico and Misty’s mating was.” She sighed again. “It was so romantic.”
The professor raised a brow. “Banging is romantic?”
Ignoring his words, she continued, “Just imagine how much love it took to—-”
“Do you mean how much load he shot out that day?”
She glared at him. “Stop twisting my words.”
“Then stop forcing me to talk about my brother’s love life.”
“When do you think you’ll propose to me, Professor?”
The sudden question had him choking.
“When you do, you must be as romantic as your brother—-ah!” All of a sudden, Alessandro was down on one knee in front of her, and Kassia’s breath caught when she saw one of the professor’s hands was hidden behind his back.
Was this it, Kassia wondered, fearful and excited at the same time. It had been two years since they had started going out, and every new day always seemed to manage to be better than the last. Life wasn’t perfect, of course. There was her mother, incarcerated and still unwilling to cooperate. And somewhere in this world, her mother’s mysterious lover, Mel, still lurked. But even so, she couldn’t remember being this happy—-
“Kassia?”
The professor’s husky, accented voice made her heart race, and her entire body trembled as their eyes met. “P-professor?”
The professor pulled out something from behind him.
Her eyes widened.
It was...not a ring.
SWAT!
“Ow,” Kassia exclaimed as the professor swatted her forehead with his paper scroll.
“That’s for your disgusting hero worship of my brother.”
“But he’s—-oww!”
“That’s for filling your head with nonsense when you’re about to fail another subject.”
She made a face. “It’s not my fault that horrible teacher wants to fail me—-”
“Pass your subject and we’ll see,” the professor murmured.
She continued hotly, “I honestly think she’s jealous and...” She stopped, the professor’s words only sinking in just now. Pass her subject and they’ll see what? She turned around, but the professor was suddenly nowhere to be found.
“Are you actually playing hide and seek with me?” she demanded. Hurrying towards the table for a clue, Kassia had the fright of her life when she saw the professor in his Lyccan form, hidden under his desk, green eyes gleaming.
“Oh my God, you keep wanting to give me a heart attack,” she accused.
The wolf nodded.
She was about to berate him when the wolf lifted one paw up, and that was when she saw it.
A box.
She sank to her knees.
The wolf pushed the box towards her.
She opened the box with shaking hands, and she had no words to say, her mind a complete blank when she saw the ring inside it.
“Oh God, Professor.”
Stepping out from under the desk, the wolf nuzzled her face as if asking the most intimate of questions with whispered words from its heart. Will you marry me?
She threw her arms around her wolf. “Of course, yes,” she whispered. When she pulled away, she was crying, and the wolf’s eyes were ablaze with love...and hunger.
Kassia’s arms fell to her sides.
The wolf looked like it wanted to devour her.
Umm...
Really...
Like this?
In another blink, the professor returned to his human form. He was completely naked, and his wicked laughter filled the room. “What a naughty little mind you have, my love.”
She turned red. “I did not—-”
Alessandro snatched her into his arms, pulling her up with him as he came to his feet. From behind her, he set his sharp teeth to her clothes and used it to rip the fabric apart, just to give her a little taste of how much he had been holding back.