Please Harder Professor (Sophie and Adrian) novel Chapter 52

e other side of the washroom door like he owns the hallway, leaning one shoulder against the frame, hands in the pockets of his dark slacks. The low, slow smile he gives me isn’t the polite-professor expression he wears in class. This one is edged—sharper, darker, a little too satisfied, as though he’s been waiting for this exact moment.

I freeze for a heartbeat, still half turned as I pull the door wider, the soft thump of the school prom’s bass-heavy music bleeding in from the corridor behind him. His gaze drags over me in a deliberate glide, starting from my hair—still damp from the earlier anxiety-sweat and nerves—to the fitted satin dress hugging my body. He looks at me like he’s assessing something he already decided to want.

“Expecting someone else?” he asks quietly, voice lowered to a warm, smoky whisper.

My breath catches. “Cassian… what are you doing here?”

He steps past me without waiting for permission, though the brush of his shoulder against mine feels like a question he’s giving me the power to answer. When his scent—cedar, ink, something darker—follows him inside, I move automatically to close the door. It clicks shut with a small, intimate sound that feels far louder than it should.

“I saw you walk away from the dance floor,” he murmurs, turning slowly to face me. “You looked… tempted.”

“That wasn’t—” I swallow. “You were staring at me like—”

“Like what?” he presses, taking a step closer.

The small bathroom shrinks instantly. The overhead light glows warm on the tiles; the mirror behind him reflects his height, the dark outline of his fitted black shirt, the faint rise of his chest as he inhales.

“Like you were hunting,” I whisper.

His smile deepens—not playful, not mocking. Satisfied.

“Sophie,” he says softly, “you walked away and looked over your shoulder. People don’t do that unless they want to be followed.”

Heat rushes to my cheeks. I want to deny it, but the truth pulses in my blood. Something about how he watches me—like he can read every thread of tension in my body—pulls at my breath.

Still… this is wrong. This is dangerous.

And yet I don’t tell him to leave.

Instead, I lean slightly back against the counter, feeling the cool marble press into my spine, grounding me. Cassian steps close enough that his shoes touch the edge of my heels. His hand lifts—slowly, giving me time to stop him—and then his fingers trace just under my jaw, the touch feather-light, far too confident for a man who claims he’s giving me a choice.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he murmurs. “You always do. But tonight… You look like you want trouble.” My heart hammers. “You don’t get to decide what I want.”

His thumb gently strokes the line beneath my ear. “Then tell me.”

The air thickens. My pulse jumps. My body betrays me by leaning in even as my mind screams a warning.

The moment stretches—slow, heated, too quiet.

Then—

A heavy crash against the door.

Both of us jolt.

Cassian turns his head sharply toward the noise, jaw clenching. My stomach plummets at the sound I know too well—the hard, controlled breath behind the door. The violent tension. The possessive silence.

Adrian. Oh God. The handle rattles once. Then the door swings open with a force that slams it into the stopper. Adrian fills the doorway like a storm breaking loose.

His hair slightly mussed, shirt sleeves rolled up, veins visible on his forearms, shoulders coiled so tightly they look near explosive. His eyes—usually a cool, lethal calm—are now a glacial fury, locked onto Cassian’s proximity to me… then dropping to Cassian’s hand still touching my jaw.

The temperature in the room plummets.

“Move your hand,” Adrian says, voice a low, deadly command stripped of all the softness he sometimes saves just for me. Cassian doesn’t move. The silence is so sharp it cuts.

Adrian steps fully into the bathroom, closing the distance in three slow strides, every line of his body radiating territorial restraint on the thinnest edge of snapping. He positions himself between Cassian and me, but never once breaks eye contact with him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Adrian’s voice doesn’t rise, but the menace in it is palpable. “In a locked room. With her.”

Cassian’s jaw ticks. “She asked me to follow.”

“I didn’t,” I snap instantly, panic slashing through me. “Cassian, I didn’t ask—”

“You looked back,” Cassian counters, gaze slicing toward me. “You wanted me to.”

Before I can deny or explain, Adrian’s hand slams against the wall beside Cassian’s head. The sound ricochets off the tile.

“Say that again,” Adrian growls.

Cassian’s expression flickers into something like cold amusement, though I can see the tension coiling in his shoulders. He’s not reckless—he’s calculated. And right now, he’s pushing.

“I said—”

“That she wanted you?” Adrian’s voice drops to something feral. “That you can read her better than I can? That you think you have any claim on her?”

Cassian stays silent but doesn’t back down.

Adrian exhales once—short, sharp—then turns his head, finally looking at me.

“Sophie,” he says, voice rough, “tell me the truth. Did you want him here?”

His head tilts slightly, breath catching at the word terrify. Not because he’s offended. Because he knows it’s true. Because he knows the line he walks with me is razor-thin.

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