Yet to Maya, he had always been her picture-perfect dream professor. She had fantasized about being in his class for a year before finally getting to experience him first hand, but her fantasy had crumbled after his first review of her work. Now that she saw him this way, exposed, vulnerable to her, she discovered that he was even more attractive than her fantasy had been, by far.

“Professor Reardon-”

“James,” he corrected her with a smile.

“James…” She tried it out in her mouth and found it felt good. “I don't understand.”

“What don't you understand?” He leaned back.

“Why were you so hard on me?” Maya found she could barely get the words out. She had spent months longing for, looking for, his approval. “I mean… it can't be that I write romance, which is what I thought it was, what it had to be… because now I know that you write it, too.”

James shook his head, frowning, but didn't interrupt her.

“It must… it must just be me, then?” She heard how small her voice was and tried to hide it behind the lip of her bottle. “Am I so awful?”

“No.” He sat up and reached across the table, grabbing her beer and setting it aside, grasping her hands in his. They were large and warm and everything Maya thought a man's hands should feel like. “Don't you get it?”

She was shaking her head, willing her tears not to fall.

“I discouraged you from writing romance…” He leaned in to capture her eyes with his and she felt her lower lip trembling. “Not because I think you're a bad writer, but because I think you're a good writer. You have an exceptional talent.”

The words made her feel warm, or maybe it was the alcohol working its way through her system. His hands, cupping hers, were a point of human contact that she hadn't allowed in for a long time. She found herself craving more.

“I don't want you to get stuck doing what I'm doing.” His eyes pleaded with her. “You have no idea what it's like, being stuck doing something you hate. And believe me, as fun as the fantasy is now, you will eventually grow to hate it.”