Your Girlfriend Calls Me Daddy

Chapter 150 - 151 | A Very Thorough Professor

Laurana watched Rome finish his Scotch with the same unhurried appreciation she might give a well-executed kata demonstration. Her own glass stood abandoned on the counter, half its contents still inside. She’d forgotten about it somewhere between deciding what she wanted and recognizing that the laboratory’s clinical sterility had outlived its usefulness for what came next.

"My apartment is three blocks from campus." She reached for her discarded clothing, fingers closing around the soft fabric of her tank top. "Better equipped for the kind of extended observation this situation requires than this sterile institutional box."

Rome raised an eyebrow. That infuriating half-smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, the one that suggested he knew exactly where this conversation was heading before she’d opened it. "Extended observation."

"I prefer to be thorough when the subject warrants it." The tank top slid over her head, black cotton settling against skin still warm from residual Essentia discharge. The red lines running along her forearms caught the laboratory’s fluorescent lighting as she moved, pulsing with heat that hadn’t quite dissipated yet. "And you’re clearly worth investigating properly."

The boy moved with that same unsettling confidence he’d carried throughout their entire encounter. Not a boy at all when you looked past the age on his academy file. Those mismatched eyes had already seen things most eighteen-year-olds couldn’t comprehend, witnessed endings that carved themselves into a person’s foundation and changed how they navigated every moment afterward. He gathered his own clothes from where they’d been scattered earlier, pulling fabric over a body that still carried visible proof of their recent activities. Temporary heat signatures marked his skin wherever her hands had pressed hardest during testing. They were already fading though, his remarkable regeneration processing away evidence faster than it had any right to.

"What about your position as my professor?" His tone held no actual concern, just mild curiosity about where she’d drawn her personal boundaries and whether those boundaries existed at all. "Isn’t this crossing several institutional ethical lines?"

The laugh that escaped her came out sharper than intended, carrying an edge of genuine amusement at the question’s fundamental misunderstanding of where those lines had been twenty minutes ago. "I crossed those lines the moment I leveraged your secret into laboratory cooperation. Everything after that point was just follow-through." She reached for her blouse, fingers working buttons with practiced efficiency while her attention stayed fixed on Rome’s reflection in the glass cabinet doors. "Besides, I’m tenured. You’re technically classified as a Null in every system that matters. Makes the administrative paperwork remarkably straightforward if anyone bothers asking uncomfortable questions."

She didn’t bother with the top three buttons, left them open in a configuration that sat just on the acceptable side of professional presentation. Her lab coat went over the ensemble, white fabric settling into place like armor that happened to pass dress code requirements. She pulled her wine-red hair into a loose ponytail, fingers securing it with practiced motions that didn’t require mirror confirmation.

"And if someone sees us leaving the building together?" Rome asked.

"Then they’ll assume I’m conducting additional testing on your unusual adaptive responses." She unlocked the laboratory door with her fingerprint. "Which is entirely accurate."

The campus at night carried a different quality than daytime operations. Fewer voices. More shadows. Weekend security making their rounds between buildings. Study groups hunched over laptops in the library windows. The occasional pair of students stealing privacy in alcoves where the footpath lights didn’t quite reach. Laurana mapped the routes automatically, keeping enough distance from Rome that anyone watching would read the scene as professor and student, nothing more.

The night air helped. Her head had gone cloudy in the lab, wrapped up in the feedback effect his ability created. Walking cleared some of it, brought her thoughts back into focus.

Her building stood separate from faculty housing. She’d bought the property outright when she took the teaching position, preferring clean separation between work and everything else. The doorman gave her a respectful nod as she passed through the entrance, his attention sliding past Rome as if the boy weren’t there.

"Professor Reeves."

"Thomas."

The elevator ride stretched out in silence. She caught Rome watching the red lines on her arms where they showed beneath her cuffs. The laboratory session had woken something in her pathways that had been dormant for months. The circuits ran brighter now, responding to his nearness without her conscious input.

Her apartment took the entire top floor. The elevator opened straight into the foyer, which fed into an open living space with windows running floor to ceiling across the far wall. The city spread out below in geometric patterns of light. She’d furnished the place in blacks and whites with crimson accents. Clean lines. Minimal decoration. A kitchen she almost never touched. A bar that saw regular use.

"Impressive," Rome said, taking in the space with one quick scan. "Though exactly what I expected from you."

"Oh?" She dropped her lab coat over the back of a chair and stepped out of her heels. The marble felt cold against her bare feet. "And what’s that?"

"Expensive. Elegant. Nothing personal anywhere." He walked to the window wall, looking out at the glittering grid below. "A display space, not somewhere anyone actually lives."

The accuracy hit harder than she would have liked. She turned to the bar instead of responding, giving herself something to do with her hands. "Another drink?"

"Please."

She poured the same Scotch from the lab, this time using proper crystal instead of laboratory glassware. Two fingers, neat. No ice to water down the flavor or soften the burn. When she turned back, Rome had shed his jacket and stood backlit by the city lights streaming through the window. His white hair picked up the glow from below, creating a halo effect that should have looked ridiculous but somehow didn’t.

"You’re staring," he said without turning around.

"Professional observation." She crossed to him with both glasses. "Your physical recovery rate is fascinating. The bruising from your match has nearly disappeared."

He took the offered drink, letting his fingers brush against hers in a way that was absolutely deliberate. "Hard to Kill. One of my sub-abilities."

"A passive regeneration factor." She tasted her Scotch. The heat rolled down her throat and spread through her chest. "Combined with your drain capabilities and whatever that rubber manipulation was during your match earlier. An interesting collection for someone supposedly registered as a low-level adaptive type."

"You sound jealous."

Laurana laughed before she could catch it. The sound came out genuine, surprised by his sheer nerve. "I’m a retired four-star hero with thermal manipulation abilities that can melt through reinforced steel plating. Why would I be jealous of a freshman with novelty tricks?"

"Because I can do what you can’t." Rome closed the remaining distance between them, stepping into her space with confidence that most people his age hadn’t earned yet. "I can grow past my limitations. Adapt. Evolve. Your ceiling is fixed, Professor. Mine isn’t."

The truth in his assessment felt like a match struck against the back of her teeth. Her pathways responded to the spike of emotion, red lines brightening beneath pale skin.

"Bold words from a boy who needed a door held open for him."

"A door you were happy to provide." His eyes, grey and green and too damned sharp, held hers. "So who’s really using whom here, Professor?"

She closed the distance and kissed him instead of answering. Hard, demanding, the Scotch on his tongue mixing with the ghost of her own Essentia that he’d pulled from her earlier. Her hands went to his shirt, working buttons with the same ruthless precision she applied to everything else.

Rome met her perfectly. His fingers buried themselves in her hair and pulled, angling her head back to expose her throat to his mouth. The drain stayed closed this time. He was controlling it now, keeping the channel shut despite skin-to-skin contact.

The bastard was making her wait for it.

"Bedroom," she said against his mouth.

"Lead the way."

She took his hand and pulled him down the hallway. The bedroom carried more of her than the rest of the flat. Books stacked on the nightstand. Ancient weapons mounted on the far wall. Heavy blackout curtains for the mornings she could afford to sleep past dawn.

The bed dominated the room. Dark sheets already turned down. Laurana pushed Rome backward until his knees hit the edge and he sat, looking up at her with that infuriating certainty that had snagged her attention his first day in her classroom.

"You’ve done this before," she said. Straddled his lap without ceremony, settling her weight onto his thighs. "Not just sex. This particular version of it."

"Which one?" His hands found her waist, steadying her. "The professor thing or the age gap thing?"

She laughed. Low, genuine. "Both, I suspect. And I’m not twice your age."

"Close enough." He opened the buttons of her blouse with hands that knew their business, pushed fabric off her shoulders. "Does that bother you?"

"That you’ve had other professors?" She ground her hips forward, felt his body’s immediate answer through layers of clothing. "Or that I’m older than whatever girls you typically collect?"

"Neither." His mouth found the place where her neck met her shoulder, teeth scraping skin. "I was asking if it bothered you that I know exactly what I’m doing with a woman like you."

Heat rolled through her. Part of it her ability responding to arousal, the rest just pure physical reaction to a man speaking like he had receipts to back up the claim. Her fingers tightened in his white hair, yanked his head back so she could see his face.

"Prove it."