Off-Limits to My Hockey Star

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Chapter 3

Evelyn's POV

I had assumed it was Liam. I stood in the bedroom for a long moment, working up the nerve to open the door, only to find Principal Adam waiting on the other side.

He stood in the doorway dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose — the picture of respectability, except for the way his eyes moved over me the moment I appeared. That part was anything but respectable.

"Evelyn, do you have a moment?" he said, and without waiting for an invitation, walked straight in.

I met his gaze evenly. "Principal, what brings you by?"

He stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him.

"I've reviewed the initial draft of your tenure application materials. Overall, they're solid, but a few things need to be addressed." He adjusted his glasses. "The school has updated its evaluation process for tenure-track faculty this year. All applicants are now required to submit an additional monthly progress report on teaching and administrative collaboration — countersigned by me."

I didn't know quite what to do with that, so I poured him a glass of water to buy myself a moment. "I haven't heard anything about this form before."

Adam settled onto the sofa and crossed his legs, his gaze drifting — and lingering — at my neckline. "New policy. Approved just last week."

Last week. I had been preparing my tenure review materials for over a month, and no one had breathed a word about any such requirement.

Adam smiled pleasantly. "You know how it is, Evelyn — tenure slots are limited. The literature department has exactly one opening this year, and three candidates in the running. Your academic record is the strongest of the three, but your administrative collaboration score..." He paused. "Has no entries at all."

As he said it, he reached over and patted the cushion beside him, a clear invitation for me to sit closer.

I stayed where I was. A cold, quiet dread settled somewhere beneath my ribs.

"I've had no administrative collaboration responsibilities over the past several years," I said.

"Which is why we're adding them now."

When I didn't move, he rose from the sofa and looked at me with an expression I could only describe as greasy. "Everything is negotiable, Evelyn. Don't play dumb — you've been at this school long enough to know how the game is played. You've been on your own for years. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone in your corner?"

He took a step toward me as he spoke.

I stepped back on instinct and felt the edge of the dining table press into my lower back.

Then came a knock at the door — sharp, urgent, insistent.

I crossed the room and pulled it open like a woman grabbing a lifeline.

Liam stood in the hallway. His eyes moved past me to Adam, and the look in them was cold and utterly still.

"Professor," he said, his voice low and even. "I'm returning your book."

He stepped inside without being asked, his broad frame positioning itself naturally — deliberately — between me and Adam. He kept his gaze fixed on the principal, and there was nothing deferential about it. If anything, it carried a quiet challenge.

Adam's expression shifted. He gave a short, dismissive sound. "Evelyn, think it over. Come find me once you've made up your mind." With that, he left.

The moment the door closed, Liam turned and pressed me back against the wall.

He lowered his head until his nose nearly touched mine, his breath warm against my face.

"Did he touch you?"

"No — no, he didn't."

"Did you lock your door tonight?" he asked.

I bit my lip and said nothing.

He raised one hand and let his fingers graze my cheek.

"Professor—"

"Don't call me that."

"Evelyn."

Liam smiled, slow and certain, and kissed me.

I grabbed a fistful of his shirt at the small of his back and pulled him down toward me. He caught my hand and guided it to where his pulse was still running hot. When my fingers found him — hard, burning through the fabric — I felt the heat radiate up through my palm and spread through the rest of me. He bent his head to my neck, his hand sliding up along my waist beneath my clothes.

"Evelyn," he murmured against my ear. "Do you want me?"

"Yes." My voice came out rough.

Liam's breath caught. His fingers traced down along the hem of my skirt and slipped beneath it, brushing the edge of my stockings until they found bare skin. He touched me softly at first, and I heard myself make a sound I hadn't intended to make. Then he took hold of my wrist and shifted his other hand, pushing my underwear aside, and when his fingers pressed inside me I gasped and arched against him, unable to keep still.

"Liam—"

He guided my hand back to him again, his voice dropping lower. "When that man was standing over you, you were trembling. Was that fear, Evelyn? Or something else?"

I knew it was wrong. I knew exactly what it was between us, what line we were crossing. But I wrapped my hand around him anyway, and the sound he made — low, satisfied, unguarded — undid something in me. His fingers inside me began to move with more intent, and my knees buckled. I half-collapsed against the dining table, eyes closed, trying and failing to keep quiet while pleasure moved through me in slow, deepening waves.

His breathing had grown ragged. His hips rocked forward in a rhythm that matched the motion of his hand, and I pressed my palm over my mouth, but it didn't help much.

Then, without warning, he withdrew his fingers entirely. The sudden absence was almost unbearable.

"Let's go to your room," he said.

My bedroom was spare and solitary in the way that years of living alone tend to produce — a single bed, one pillow, the blanket folded with unnecessary precision. Liam wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed me face-down onto the mattress. The moment I shifted, I felt him lift the hem of my sleep dress and pull my underwear down to my ankles in one smooth motion.

"You're beautiful," he said quietly, close to my ear.

When I felt him positioned at my entrance, some instinct in me tensed and wanted to pull away. But it was Liam — and some other part of me thought: why not find out?

He held my hips and pushed forward, filling me completely in one long, forceful stroke, and then he began to move in earnest.

"Liam — I'm your teacher. Aren't we letting ourselves get completely carried away?"

My whole body shook with each impact.

"What's wrong with that?" His voice was strained and uneven. "You're so turned on right now, Evelyn. I can feel you — you're clenching around me."

He turned me onto my side, lifted one of my legs, and entered me again from that angle. I never could have imagined, in all my years of teaching at this school, that I would end up here — with a student, on what was also my first time, being held and filled and undone like this.

Each wave hit harder than the last, and my voice started to break apart at the edges. "Stop — Liam, please, I can't—"

"Not yet. Come with me. Actually — let me call you Professor again. It's better that way, isn't it? Tell me you feel it. Tell me."

His rhythm accelerated.

"I can't take any more — Liam, stop, I'm going to—" I realized, with sudden clarity, that I was close. I pushed at him, trying to create distance between us.

I was completely lucid now. How could I let myself reach that point with a student? His technique was extraordinary — that much I couldn't deny — but he was still my student. This was a line that wasn't supposed to be crossed. It couldn't be crossed.

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