You watched Kylo stare dead ahead through the windshield as he drove you through campus. His eyes were hidden under the darkness of his Ray-Bans, but the intensity of what was brewing between you wasn't lost on you for a second. There was a rippling heat between the two of you confined in the small space of his luxury car as you drove past students making their way to their classes. You watched them as you approached, and you watched them shrink into the background as Kylo sped past them, leaving them in the dust.
It was electric. There they all were, and there you were. You and Professor Ren. Kylo. Together. In front of everyone.
You felt like everyone was watching you.
And it ignited your blood.
You could feel the heat coming off of Kylo as well. He couldn't do anything about it; not like this. But even just being in the same car with him felt wicked and bad. You shifted in your seat, suddenly quite cognizant of the heat between your legs, and watched his gaze twitch towards your direction from the corner of you eye. You bit back a grin.
With one hand on the steering wheel and designer shades masking any ounce of emotion that wasn't visible on his face regardless, Kylo looked somewhere between a rock star and a wealthy CEO. He looked incredible and delicious, and you couldn't help but think how nice it would be to straddle him in the backseat of the very car you were in.
Mental note for later.
All that being said, it might have been too much for Kylo to drop you off anywhere other than Holdo Hall. Even though should anyone ask, the story was that you had been grabbing coffee and discussing next term's lecture and your newfound employment under Kylo, the implications of him dropping you off at home were just a little too...well, much.
Kylo pulled into his reserved parking spot behind the English Building and you stepped out of the car. You heeled shoe hit the pavement and your dangerously sexy secret made you feel glamorous and alluring. Kylo pulled his sunglasses down from his head, and you shot him a certain look, your eyes pinched subtly the corners, lips pulled into a barely-there smirk.
He flashed you a warning look, but didn't seem particularly bothered by the show.
Looking down, you grinned, and trailed after him through the back doors of the building.
This was your job now, you supposed, accompanying him to his office, making sure there was nothing else he needed, any preparations that you needed to make on his behalf. You weren't employed yet, and you still had his final exam to worry about. But regardless of the extra time you wanted to spend with him, you would need any help preparing for your new position that he could possibly offer you.
Honestly, you could hardly imagine keeping up with Kylo Ren on an intellectual and professional level, but you knew you would get there.
Eventually.
He was the smartest yet most somber, grim but acutely intense human you had ever encountered in all your twenty-something years on earth, and you'd never seen the man make a mistake. You, on the other hand, were rather prone to mistakes, and actually acted like a real human being. You could only hope that he would grace you with an allowance of a few mistakes while you learned.
"You sure you're up for this?" he asked once the two of you were in the elevator. As if he was reading your fucking mind.
"What, now you're trying to talk me out of it?"
"I'm not trying to talk you out of it; I just want to make sure that I'm not holding you to the position against your will," he replied, stoically as ever.
"I want the position," you said evenly. "I want to learn from you and I want..." your voice trailed off and you finished the sentence with a soft, breathy laugh, as you imagined the possibilities of being even closer to him.
Your eyes flickered towards Kylo, and your breath sat heavy in your lungs when you saw he was already watching you. Kylo could pick up on a single drop of desire coming off of you like he had a built-in radar for it, and this time was no exception. Before you even realized how much you wanted him on you, his hands were cupping your face ungently, his lips smashing against yours.
The force of his kiss shoved you back against the wall, and a sickeningly loud smack shook the confined air around you. You felt his tongue dive into your mouth, and parting your lips, you released a shuddering breath as your fingers snatched in his hair and pulled him tighter against you. His lips were violent as they attacked yours, but the kiss was fleeting. As he felt the elevator slow as it neared the top floor, he pulled away, looking down at you with a blank expression. Searching for an answer in his face was fruitless, but you couldn't help but try. You stared up at him, silent, panting, trying to catch your breath and trying to read him and trying to calm your fluttering nerves.
"You should take the position for the right reasons. It would be a valuable experience for you."
"Well, I don't imagine you offered it so we could spend less time together."
The elevator door opened. Kylo, still towering over you and holding your gaze, adjusted the bag at his side. "Hmm," was his only response, and he stepped off the elevator and stalked down the hall to his office.
Ever the king of mixed signals.
You were on his heels, shoving a strand of hair behind your ear. A telltale sign that you were nervous, though hopefully no one would pick up on it. Suddenly, you felt your stomach roiling as you watched professors and students mill about. As you followed Kylo to his office, you felt like the walls were closing in on you—claustrophobic and practically unable to breath.
Once you were in Kylo's office with the door shut behind you, you were able to exhale, breath stuttering on the way out of your lungs. Kylo, rounding his desk, set his bag down and lifted his gaze to watch you, expression nearly concerned.
Concerned wasn't it. Interested? Not quite. Attentive. He definitely noticed that you were struggling.
He didn't say anything. He never did. No, he merely stalked towards the front of his desk and leaned against it, crossing his arms and watching you, waiting for you to speak. As always.
"Do you think anyone suspects us?" you asked, eyes flickering up to meet his, any notion of confidence and sexiness and allure having been thrown out the window in a heap of fire.
"Why should they?" he muttered lowly, shrugging his shoulders and slowly tilting his head. You watched him as he drank you in with his eyes.
Jesus fuck, he was perfect, and you were generally concerned about getting caught, so why did you want him even now?
"We've been discreet."
"Have we?" you scoffed.
"If you're going to be working for me, then it's completely normal that we should be spending an increased amount of time together. It's completely normal for you to come see me. Here." Pushing himself off the desk, Kylo stood and began slowly crossing the room. Towards you.
You held your breath.
"If we don't give them a reason to suspect a thing, then they won't," he said, words biting through your skin and making you tingle. He stood directly in front of you now, dwarfing you against his towering frame. "If we don't act like we're doing anything wrong," he said deliberately, eyes narrowing at you, "then they won't have any reason to believe we are." His voice was so low, so sexy, and you knew he was warning you against your own behavior but the severity in his tone, in his eyes, made you buckle at the knees.
He quirked his brow. "If merely being in the same room as me proves to be enough to make you come undone like it does now, perhaps I should reconsider this arrangement."
Briskly, you turned around, trying to maintain any false shred of confidence left over from your earlier high. Your hand on the doorknob, you turned back to look at him, but were ready to bolt from the pressure of it all. "It won't be a problem," was all you could muster. Fuck, you wished you could have done better-- like telling him not to flatter himself, or making some quip about how maybe he'd be in the same position for having such a sexy-as-hell TA.
But your wit was hardly razor-sharp when he had you like putty in his hands, which was most of the time, so it was just a challenge overall.
"Can you just send me whatever preliminary information I'll need for the seminar?"
"I'll get that to you before the beginning of next week," he said, sitting down and starting up his computer. "And your final next week." His voice was a sheer warning as his eyes darted towards you, dark and foreboding. You'd think you were talking about life and death rather than a fucking English test. "You know what my expectations of you are."
Jesus, how was he so sexy talking about how he wanted you to study?
"Yeah," you scoffed. "Hopefully my grade won't make you rethink hiring me."
He didn't find that amusing.
"I'll see you this week for prep," you assured him.
He nodded sharply and turned back to his computer.
You nodded, and left. He didn't give you so much as a glance for a goodbye, but you couldn't fault him for that. Not during office hours.
Your one class of the day had you bored to tears, especially given the evening you'd just had. You'd spent the entire period gazing out the window and doodling in the margins of your notebook: hearts, flowers, flames. The things that represented how Kylo made you feel. You felt like a stupid teenager but he occupied your thoughts on a near-intrusive level, and anything to express all the things that you were forbidden from actually telling anyone was an appreciated output.
You wished you could talk to Rose. Kylo was busy prepping for the final and grading the last essays of the term, so for a day or two at least, you tried to go easy on the communication with him.
More time for you to decompress after your almost-panic-attack in his office. You knew that a brief separation was probably beneficial, but it was hard to focus on what was best for you when the only thing you wanted were his hands squeezing your hips, running down your back, tightening around your throat.
You made it to Thursday before asking Rose to get coffee. It was something you would have delighted in anyway, but you knew that she was as busy preparing for her exams as you were for preparing for yours. It pained your heart to admit it, but the motivation behind seeing her was so you could attempt to not think about Kylo for two seconds at a time. And the kicker was, of course, that you wouldn't even be able to tell her that. To tell her about everything. Every delicious night with him, every fear you had in your heart, every ounce of trouble you had just from being away from him for a day or two.
Thursday morning came around, and the two of you were seated outside at the campus café, coffees between you, bodies huddled together against the cool, sweet-smelling fall air.
For a while, the conversation was completely normal. She'd been agonizing over some engineering exam. Whatever the class was, you knew you wouldn't have been able to understand it if you tried. She was having a harder time than you were even aware, and you felt a twinge of guilt for not being there for her. Rose was incredibly ambitious, but her field of study was impossibly challenging. Honestly, you didn't know how she balanced it all.
You were grateful to hear her vent, but eventually, the conversation turned.
"So, why did Finn tell me that he could have sworn he saw you in Kylo Ren's car?"
Your heart leapt to your throat so aggressively you nearly choked on it, and you were this close from spewing your coffee out on the table. But as long as your expression didn't let on, you were fine. Or so you tried to remind yourself.
"Oh, that?" you asked, taking another sip of coffee to try and mask your discomfort. "Shit, I forgot to tell you. We had a meeting, he asked me to be the TA for his lecture next term."
"[Y/N]! That's awesome! I can't believe you didn't tell me!" she exclaimed, leaning towards and knitting her brows together.
"No, I know, it's a great opportunity, I just...I don't know. It didn't seem like that big a deal."
"Of course it's a big deal. Think about it. If he likes you, he could set you up with a job once you're out of here!"
You grinned, biting back the bile rising in your throat. "Let's hope he likes me," you said, raising your coffee cup.
Seeing Rose was good. Better than good. You'd missed her, and you missed when the term hadn't been so busy. When finals were over and you were all back from break, things would be back to normal. With the exception of the fact that you'd be TAing for the professor you were sleeping with.
Shit- Kylo, you suddenly remembered. It was Thursday, and you still hadn't set up a time to review the final. He was so busy, and you were so paranoid about giving him his space that you'd forgotten about setting up a time to meet with him, and now the week was almost over. Cursing, you pulled out your phone, remembering that oh, yeah, you were sleeping with him, so why not just do it at his place over the weekend?
But the first thing you saw on your screen was a missed call and a voicemail--from Kylo.
You furrowed your brow. This was unlike him. Calling...it was unlike him. Usually, he would bark orders via text and that was always sufficient. It looked like you'd missed him while you were getting coffee with Rose. Eagerly, you pressed play and lifted the phone to your ear.
"[Y/N]. It's me." You heart clenched at Kylo's voice, and clenched harder when he paused for a few moments. "I'm going to have to leave town for the rest of the week. Through the weekend, actually," he continued. "I know this isn't ideal. And that you wanted more time to review with me." Another brief pause. "But you're going to be fine. I promise. And if you'd like to start your TA duties early, I would appreciate it if you would conduct a review with the class on Friday. Keep them off my hide for having to miss the last class before finals," he grumbled bitterly. You furrowed your brow. A professor missing the last class before finals...it wasn't a good look. And Kylo didn't sound happy. At all. Biting the inside of your cheek, your mind began spiraling, fearing the worst.
But then his voice softened, and you felt lighter. "I know I said I'd be there. I'm sorry" I'm sorry. You didn't think you'd ever heard the man say those words. You were pretty sure you never would again.
"But you'll be fine. Trust me. I won't be available for a while, not by phone, but if anything comes up...email me."
A click, and then he was gone. You furrowed your brow again, staring at the empty screen of your phone. If anything comes up...and then a pause. You silently cursed yourself for half-expecting him to have said something affectionate. But that would hardly be like him at all. A text would suffice. You waited a while, of course, trying not to seem to needy. You considered making yourself wait an hour to text, but then you figured that he'd tried to call you twenty minutes ago, so you might as well do it now: safe travels. hope everything's ok!
You sent the message standing mindlessly on the sidewalk outside the café. And then there was nothing to do but go home and prepare for the hellfire of next week and Kylo Ren's gargantuan expectations of you-- and you were on your own.