Professor's Office Claimed His Graduate Assistant

The basement lab smelled of dust, old stone, and the faint metallic tang of preservation chemicals. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting long shadows across the wide oak worktables cluttered with pottery shards, bronze figurines, and half-assembled display trays. At 11:47 p.m. on a Thursday, the rest of the archaeology department had gone home hours ago. Only two people remained.

Dr. Elias Voss stood at the far end of the table, silver hair catching the light like polished steel. At fifty-two he still carried the broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped build of the field archaeologist he had once been. The crisp white shirt stretched across his chest, sleeves rolled to reveal corded forearms dusted with dark hair. His jaw was sharp, his eyes a stormy gray that had made generations of students sit straighter in their seats.

Lena Harper stood opposite him, trying not to fidget. At twenty-three she was the youngest graduate assistant the department had ever accepted. Her dark auburn hair was twisted into a messy knot at the nape of her neck, and her simple black blouse clung to the curve of her breasts from the humid air. She kept her gaze on the clay fertility idol between them—an exaggerated female figure with wide hips and pendulous breasts—but her pulse hammered in her throat every time Elias’s deep voice rolled over her.

They had been cataloging for three weeks. Three weeks of late nights, of his quiet commands, of the way he would lean over her shoulder to point out a detail and she would feel the heat of his body like a brand. Every time he said her name in that authoritative baritone, her thighs clenched so hard she worried he could smell her arousal. He was old enough to be her father. The thought should have disgusted her. Instead it made her cunt throb.

“Careful with the provenance notes, Miss Harper,” he said now, voice low. “Your handwriting is getting sloppy.”

Lena’s pen stilled. “I’m tired, Dr. Voss. We both are.”

He set down his tablet and looked at her fully. The weight of that stare always made her feel stripped. “Then perhaps we should discuss why you keep volunteering for these late shifts when you know I won’t leave until the work is finished.”

Heat crawled up her neck. She opened her mouth, closed it.

Elias stepped around the table. Slowly. Each footfall echoed. When he stopped in front of her, the difference in their heights forced her to tilt her head back. The silver at his temples gleamed.