Dare to Love: 14. Tainted Devotion (1)

The morning after came softly, as though the world itself knew what had been broken and remade in the quiet, fevered hours before. Pale light slipped through the slats of Julian’s blinds, painting muted gold across his bedroom. The air was heavy with the scent of sex—warm skin, tangled sweat, the faint trace of her perfume still clinging to his sheets.

Julian lay awake long before Amelia stirred. He had not expected sleep, not with the taste of her still on his lips, not with the memory of her nails on his back etched into his body. He had crossed the one boundary he had sworn he wouldn’t—teacher and student, professor and protégé. It should have sickened him. Instead, it filled him with a dangerous, aching sweetness he couldn’t shake.

She was curled into him, her cheek against his chest, her breath rising and falling in steady rhythm. Strands of her dark hair fanned across him like ink. He could feel every curve of her pressed against his body, the heat of her thighs draped ov