"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."

― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Chapter One

The auditorium was Satan's sauna.

The air conditioner was broken. We had nothing to keep cool outside our own lack of clothing and a single open window parallel to the desk in the middle of the room.

The girls around me had been complaining—bitching really—about the heat and how their own sweat was ruining the inch of makeup they had caked on their faces. As far as the female to male ratio was, it was unevenly divided; men taking up sixty percent while the women only made up 40 percent of the class roster. Why I cared about gender radio in an English Lit class? I didn't. It was fucking hot and doing math made me temporarily unaware.

One of the guys next to me—Eddy, I think his name was—had borrowed a pencil from me and in seconds was already chewing on the eraser.

"So you guys, you remember Jessa, right? The one who failed rush week because she puked in a heating vent?" A long-legged girl named Siobhan said to her friend. I shared a class with Siobhan last semester and she was surprisingly intelligent without her friends around to annoy everyone else. "Well, she told me she took this class last year and apparently the professor is ridiculously attractive."

I tried to restrain my laughter as I whispered to Eddy, "I bet that's why half of them are in here."

He nodded. "Attractive females will flock to attractive males, even if the class they teach is two-hundred dollars a credit."

"Who is he?" I asked, pulling a square slip of paper out from my notebook and onto my desk. "My schedule doesn't have the last names of my teachers listed, just what room to go in."

Eddy shrugged after looking down at his own crumpled, folded, and slightly torn schedule. "I don't know. I suppose we'll find out soon."

"What a great impression," I rolled my eyes and began doodling on the edges of my schedule. "The first day and Professor McHottie is ten minutes late."

Eddy put my pencil back into his mouth. "Did you know that if a teacher doesn't show up with in fifteen minutes then the class is dismissed and it's not docked on our attendance?"

"Well, we've got just a few minutes then."

As if on cue, the door burst open and someone's heavy steps clattered on the old wood-paneled floor. By the time I looked up from my amateur drawing, the professor already had his back turned to us, his hand rapidly scribbling in chalk along the green board.

"Good morning," his voice boomed against the wall. The sound was so familiar that my body twitched at the last consonant.

His back was still to us as he recited, "It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility."

The longer he spoke, the more intensely his voice seemed to boil my blood. This unexpected, malignant dread had begun invading my nerves, brimming along my skin like an allergic reaction.

I wasn't tired. Heat exhaustion, maybe?

When the Professor finished scribbling, he dropped the chalk onto the metal lip of the board and dusted off his hands.

"So let's get this out of the way," he said, twisting in a sharp pivot to face the class. The second I caught a glimpse of those  sapphire eyes, my heart plummeted to the floor. "My name is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Yes, that is also the name of the author of The Scarlet Letter. No, that was not my parent's intention when they named me. They had no idea I would end up with a Master's in English, teaching sophomore Lit. And yes, I do appreciate the irony of the situation."

Nate stretched his arm out to point at the scribbled quote. "Which is why we will be starting this semester studying Nathaniel Hawthorne and his scandalous novel about adultery. We'll be discussing Hawthorne's approach to writing, language, and his struggles as a short-story novelist.

He released a smile, so charming beneath that reddish-brown patch of scruff, and while I could hear girls like Siobhan shifting in their seats dreamily, my blood went cold. "You may call me Nate."

Nate Hawthorne.

It was like the air had been sucked from the building in point-five seconds and everything was a blur. Everything but him.

"Charlie, are you okay? You look like you're gonna hack." Eddy leaned in and whispered. He was still gnawing on my damn pencil.

"I'm fine," I said through clenched teeth. I kept focus on anything but Nate, even if that meant hiding behind a sheet of hair like an emo kid and sketching images of the 101 ways I wanted to murder him.

What was he doing here? And why hadn't I known he was teaching English Lit at the University now?

"Seriously, you look bad. Do you need water?" Eddy asked a little too loudly.

"Excuse me, what's your name?" Nate called out, interrupting his own lecture on Puritan culture.

He stammered out his name like a kid caught shoplifting from a candy store.

"Eddy, if you have something else you need to be doing, or would rather be, then I have to suggest that you go do it instead of interrupting everyone else's right to learn."

"I'm sorry, man. It's not anything about me."

I sank deeper into my seat, muttering under my breath, "God dammit Eddy...don't you dare rat me out..."

"You, then." Nate said with authority. And without having to look, I knew he was directing his inquiry toward me.

Breathe.

I sat up and brushed the dark hair back from my face, focusing on keeping my expression steeled over. By the time I made eye contact with Nate, his face had drained of blood, rendering him as ghostly as I was.

He cleared his throat, peeling his eyes from me and then scanned them around the room before settling back on Eddy.

"If anyone needs to remove themselves from my classroom, now is the time to do so." His voice was hard, uneasy. Part of me wondered if anyone else could tell something was amiss from the exchange we just shared. "Now, who can tell me the difference between sin of passion and sin of principle?"

Nate slipped back into his lecture with ease, seemingly able to erase all evidence that he had been stilted by my presence.

I, on the other hand, couldn't focus on anything but him. I desperately wished to be invisible as I slunk further down in my seat. I tried to think about The Scarlet Letter and the Puritanical assholes that used to run the small world—anything to ignite an emotion more potent than the lingering pain burning in my chest—but my mind had already been flooded with nostalgic memories all co-owned by him.

Class went by in such an anxious, slow motion blur that when the clock struck six forty-five, I all but lunged out my seat in a flurry to leave.

I held my breath as I descended the staircase, my head hung low and eyes pointed at my toes. Despite being both physically and scientifically impossible, I had managed to convince myself that if I merely believed I was invisible then I very well would be.

"Please wait, Miss Lindquist," Nate politely commanded, and I almost tumbled down the last step. "I want to speak with you for a moment."

I don't care what you want.  But as if my feet had a mind of their own, they chose to stop, remaining frozen in place as Siobhan and her friends jealously gaped at me as they exited the room. I wanted to yell that he was all theirs if they wanted. Been there, done that, not impressive.

I let out a sigh. I'm the world's worst liar.

When the last student left the room and the door clicked shut to confirm it, Nate lifted his eyes from the stapled syllabus in his hand and straight into my soul.

Be strong, Charlie.

"What's up, professor?"

He frowned briefly and I had to hold back my cringe. I already knew what he was thinking—it was a look perpetually written across his brows—that I was still so completely and utterly my age.

I clutched the strap of my satchel, pulling it away from my body so it didn't get sucked into the crease between my boobs. "What is it you wanted to say?"

His frown fell into an even flatter expression. "I didn't think you were brave enough to go through with it."

"Go through with what?"

"English Lit. I thought maybe you had listened to your parents and majored in Politic Science."

"Oh," I exhaled. "Yeah, wasn't for me. I hated the pretension."

And there it was; that dangerously charming smile with the single dimple that appeared when he laughed. "If you wanted to steer clear of pretension, a literature degree is not the best alternative."

I gripped the strap even harder. "That's another thing I chose to learn the hard way."

His smile died the way a flower shrivels in the middle of autumn, and the air seemed to go stale.

"You cut your hair," He stated. He spoke with a reserved tone that almost bordered pensive. Reflexively, I lifted my hand up to finger the edges that barely touched my collarbone when curled.

"I did." I swallowed hard on the bubble rising in my throat.

"Well then."

I dropped my hand to my side. "Did you have something you wanted to talk to me about or did you just want to passively talk about my hair?"

Hawthorne flicked his eyes back up from his desk and on mine. I hated that he could use his simpering stare to debilitate my defenses. One sultry gaze and I was melted butter.

"You need to transfer out of my class."

The hard cut sentence knocked me back. "Excuse me?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Charlotte. You already know this isn't going to end well."

"It's Charlie—"

"This is dangerous for both your education and my reputation. I need you to transfer out. Its past deadline, but I'm sure I could get you into John Brummel's class as a late start with a recommendation."

Nate turned his back to me and began to scratch a new quote in the middle of the chalkboard as if that were the end of this conversation.

"That's it?" I didn't bother trying to hide my irritation. I moved forward so I could look at the profile of his crossed face. "Just because you're done speaking doesn't mean the conversation is over."

"It is over." He didn't look at me, just kept scribbling some stupid quote about love on the board—a quote he once recited to me as I horribly burnt his grilled cheese. "I expect I won't be seeing you again."

"What if they don't let me transfer?" The rage was boiling inside of me again. The more he commanded that I just surrender to his will, the more I wanted to fight it. To prove that I was no longer so easily manipulated.

Then, Nate gave me a look I hadn't seen in two years. His eyes were on fire.

In a swift second, he dropped the chalk on the floor and grabbed my waist, pulling me against him against the board. I gasped as my bare shoulders hit the cold slate, but his warm hand quickly consumed that feeling as it slid along my neck.

"Charlotte, please do not make this difficult," he whispered, his thumb grazing my lips. I could taste chalk on the tip of my tongue.

Before I could catch my own breath, his nose burrowed into my neck, brushing up until his lips ghosted my ear. My satchel clattered to the floor.

"I need you to drop out. Do this last thing for me, please." He spoke, but the shock of his skin on mine devoured me whole. Despite my anger, when his thumb pulled at my lip, I desperately wanted it to be his teeth.

"Nathan," I panted, overwhelmed by the sandalwood and leather scent emanating from his skin. After all this time, he still wore the same cologne. My cologne that I had spent two weeks working extra hostess shifts at the Sea Haven Grill in order to afford for Christmas.

He pulled back, his lids heavy and sparkling in their ethereal hue of blue. Wool scratched at the exposed skin of my inner thighs, sending shivers up my body as he separated my legs with his knee.

It was always apparent that I desperately missed him—some days it was unbearably so—but this, this was far more incapacitating than it ever was without him. There was no middle ground. I was either desperately blinded by passion or agony.

"You're a little taller than before," he chuckled against my neck before grazing his teeth along the edge of my jaw until they clasped around my bottom lip.  I quivered.

He shifted even closer, building an impeccable friction between my shorts and his slacks.

Unconsciously my body began to react to the way his hands pressed me into him. My breasts heaved into his chest; my hips began to gyrate against the top of his thigh. It was slow at first, but the harder and more frequently I moved, the more his breath hitched against my mouth and I wanted—needed—to hear more. I fed off of his desire like it was a drug.

"Charlotte," he groaned. "If—"

"Charlie," I corrected, taking a hold of his belt and yanking him as close to my body as possible. The heat was unbearably delicious between us as it built. I could feel him pulsating on my thigh, an satisfying indicator that he craved this just as much as I did.

But this intense desire that racked my body was something that mere friction couldn't satiate. I wanted him to need me. I needed to be in control. It had been so long since I he had let me be in control. This time, I wasn't asking for permission.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, hands sliding through his ginger-kissed hair, and mimicked the way he twisted me into the chalkboard. His back hit the slate unexpectedly hard and he groaned, but I reveled in it.

Before he had time to reject me, I tugged at his belt again. This time, I slid my hand lower and lower until I passed the band of his trousers to grip him gently.

He moaned, tilting his head against the board as I began to stroke.

I missed this, I realized as he trembled in my grip. I missed his body and the way I needed him to fill the unquenchable ache he ignited. I missed being with him, losing myself to his commanding touch. I missed his passion and his exquisite mind.

Nate shifted again, his fingers digging into the shelf on the bottom of the board, knocking chunks of chalk and erasers from the metal lip. My strokes had intensified subconsciously and I had to physically slow myself down. I was enjoying this power too much for this to end so quickly.

I removed my hand from the band of his trousers and finally kneeled on the floor. His head was still tilted back, but he was watching me through heavy lids as I leaned in and kissed him over cloth.

"Charlotte," he closed his eyes tight and whimpered. "Not here."

I maneuvered his clothing, freeing him from any constraint so that I could access him fully. His body pulsed between my lips as I bobbed down. He was slave to my touch, lost in himself as I continued to take him. His knuckles were white-hot as he strained against the shelf. His breath was jagged, his torso heaving with exasperated breaths.

Nate grumbled something inaudible, but I felt the noise vibrate through his body into mine. I took this as a cue to go harder, so I opened my throat and pushed him as deep as I could go.

When was the last time he was with someone? I wondered as he swelled inside my mouth, but the thought of him with someone else deterred me more than it satisfied a curiosity.

"Charlotte," Nate rasped, and I went even harder. His thighs trembled, his veins pulsed and swelled and I knew he was ready. I went deep again, readying myself for him. I wanted him, needed him with me up until his final moment. Perhaps then I wouldn't be seen as a child, an inferior only fit as a secret companion instead of an adult capable of an illustrious affair.

I wanted him to feel the way I felt during the majority of our relationship. I was a puppet—his guilty pleasure behind closed doors—and when one of my strings finally snapped, he simply tossed me away.

The flash of a memory played in a series of blinks, of me standing in the rain, clothes soaked through, as he stood dry and safe beneath his awning.

I used this as fuel to finish him off.

"Charlotte," Nate grunted and jerked, but I wouldn't let up. "Goddammit, Charlotte. Stop!"

He pushed me off him just as I could taste a hint of salt on my tongue. I fell to the floor as he quickly grabbed a syllabus from his desk and used that as a Kleenex. He stood like that, still, as he caught his breath, remaining hunched over with his extended arm supporting his weight against his desk.

Even though he pulled away, I still felt accomplished, like I finally had had the upper hand on him after all these years of him ruling over my heart, soul, and body.

I picked myself up off the floor and put my kimono back on over my tank top.

The paper crinkled as he balled it up and tossed it in the recycle bin. He was shoving himself back into his slacks as I picked up my satchel and readjusted the strap to fall diagonally across my torso.

Nate fell into his leather seat, his coarse fingers brushing back the sweat beading along his hairline.

The look on his face was puzzling. Part of me thought it was guilt, but then he would exhale sharply, as if he were overcome with something similar to sorrow. It was almost like...shame.

"I'd stay and cuddle, but I've got this thing with my roommate tonight," I joked, but he didn't respond with a smile. His sea-green eyes met mine and it confirmed my suspicion. His remorse was apparent.

"Right, well, I'll see you," I said, severing our eye contact as I awkwardly pivoted to leave.

"Charlotte," Nate called out. His voice was still rough. "The office closes in an hour. If you head there now, you should be able to speak with Miranda about transferring. I'll have that request sent to both her and John by tonight."

And like that, he had stripped me bare of any sense of control I gained.

Never so desperately did I want to take that wadded syllabus and shove it down his throat than I did in that single moment.

"It's Charlie, you fucker," I grated. I let the door slam on my way out.