Chapter Text
“Come on, unlock,” Francesca whispered desperately to her trembling hands.
The key finally slid in. The lock clicked. She practically fell through her own front door, shutting it behind her with her back as if the night itself might try to follow her inside.
For a long moment she just stood there in the dark hallway of her flat, eyes closed, breathing like she had run all the way from the woman's building instead of taking the tube and then walking in the cold. The silence of her apartment — usually a soft, familiar comfort — now felt accusingly loud.
Her body was an absoulte traitor.
It was a map of contradictions, every step she had taken since leaving that warm bed had been a mortifying reminder: the cool autumn air slipping wickedly beneath the hem of her dress, the deep ache between her thighs, the unmistakable wetness that had made her press her legs together on the night bus like a guilty schoolgirl.
She was twenty-six years old. A respected literature professor. And of all people, Francesca Bridgerton, had fled a one-night stand without her underwear.
That proved, to her, she had quite literally fled the scene of the crime.
Worse, she had been with a woman for the first time, and could barely walk to her apartment this morning because of the night she had, each step pulled at the soreness and tender ache that turned into warmth between her legs, making her press her thighs together every time she walked a step.
Before everything, she had ditched an objectively decent date mid-evening.
Francesca could still picture James’s kind, slightly puzzled expression across the candlelit table while she had invented a sudden migraine and practically escaped the restaurant. He had been nothing but attentive — asking gentle questions about her work, his laugh had been warm. His touch on her hand had been respectful.
There had been nothing wrong with him at all.
And she had left him there with half a bottle of wine and an unfinished dessert, murmuring apologies about needing to lie down. When instead she couldn't go home to suffocating silenece after the realisation---
As usual, she hadn’t felt a single thing.
Then, something inside her had simply switched back on and something else completelty switched off. After the polite date of nothingness, the moment she walked into that bar and saw the women serving drinks at the counter.
Because the moment their eyes met across the crowded room, every safe, sensible part of Francesca Bridgerton had gone up in flames.
Before she could stop herself from thinking about her, the flashes of memory returned — the beautiful woman asleep in the soft morning light of her bedroom, dark curly hair spilled across the pillow, lips slightly parted in unconscious peace. The sheets had been pushed low around her waist, showing Francesca the aftermath of the night before: dark, possessive hickeys blooming across her throat, one just above the swell of her breast, another lower on her hip where Francesca’s mouth had been greedy and relentless.
They looked almost staggering against the strangers smooth brown skin, like signatures of someone who had momentarily lost all sense of restraint left them.
"Get it together, Francesca," she whispered to the empty apartment, her voice trembling.
Francesca dragged herself into the bedroom and caught her reflection in the full-length mirror. Her hair was a disaster — wild and tangled from desperate fingers. Her lips were still swollen, faintly bruised, bitten red from hours of desperate kisses.
When she tugged her collar aside, the evidence stared back at her: a purple mark at the base of her throat like a death sentance.
A hickey.
She let out a helpless, slightly hysterical laugh that bordered on a whimper as she clutched at her hair with trembling hands, her fingers tangling in the strands as though she was trying her very best to hold herself together. She squeezed her eyes shut, her breathing uneven, the overwhelming rush of realisation threatening to spill over regardless of every attempt to stay calm.
She had worked too hard, sacrificed too much, and maintained a flawless reputation to let it all be unraveled by a single night of rare impulse.
Francesca was due to lecture 34 final year students on repressed desire in Victorian literature at nine o’clock sharp. She looked like repressed desire had taken her out for drinks, erased her favourite underwear, and left her for dead.
So, moving with unnecessarily frantic quickness, she stripped and stepped into the shower, turning the water as hot as she could stand.
As the steam rose, she shut her eyes, but it didn't help; the water tracing down her spine felt too much like those long, confident fingers. She remembered the women's broken whimpers when Francesca had taken control in the dark. The way that confident, rakish charm had succumbed and moaned so beautifully---teaching while she was under her.
She scrubbed harder than necessary.
The terrifying part wasn’t the regret. There wasn’t any. The Scottish woman she was with made that impossible.
She wasn't ordinary. She carried something impossible to name, something that set her apart from everyone else Francesca had ever met. It wasn't just her beauty or her confidence—it was the unnerving sense that she existed outside the rules everyone else seemed bound by, as though she were the kind of person you encountered once in a lifetime, if you were unlucky... actually impossibly fortunate.
What frightened Francesca was everything else—the ease of it, how naturally she'd crossed a line with a woman she didn't even knows name. She'd spent her whole life believing she'd never do something this reckless. She'd always been so certain she knew what she preffered also.
So certain she only looked one way. Yet now that certainty felt fragile, futile even, beneath the memory of a single night she couldn't bring herself to wish away.
The terrifying part was how hard it was to truly regret it.
When she stepped out, Francesca avoided looking at the bed. Instead she dressed herself for the day ahead: A fresh charcoal dress with a collar that sat high against her throat, completely hiding the mark on her neck. She pinned her damp hair up into a neat, twist—not a single strand allowed out. She slid her glasses onto her nose.
Staring at her reflection, she desperately tried to remind herself of who she was.
Because to everyone who knew her, ever member of staff in the institution, Francesca Bridgerton was close to a genius.
Becoming a professor of English Literature at just 26 years old, was simply uncommon. She got there by moving through university much faster than most people. She started university early, finished her degrees, and completed her PhD in record time. The university gave her a permanent faculty job early in her career. Most people in her department were impressed—maybe even a bit envious trying to come to terms with it—what she achieved, what she was capable of, usually took many more years.
"You are a professor of English Literature," Francesca continued her rant whispering frantically to her reflection, clutching the edges of the sink to stop her hands from shaking. She forced herself to stare at her slightly swollen lips, reciting her resume like a desperate prayer. "You secured your place in academia far swifter than is typical. You are a professional.You are unshakeable."
She swallowed hard, her throat locked. Knowing everything she'd been telling her mirror for the last 3 minutes sounded ridiculous out loud—a resume recited to an empty bathroom—but she needed the reminder. She needed to feel the weight of the titles she earned.
Francesca looked in the mirror again and saw what she was supposed to be — a composed, respectable, woman. The sort of literature professor who would be discussing passion, uncontested and safely from behind a lectern.
She actually believed it.
Grabbing her briefcase and a stack of freshly printed syllabi, Francesca stepped out into the grey morning. The rain had started, soft and insistent. She pulled her coat tighter around herself and began the car journey to campus.
She would walk into that lecture hall, she would read her notes on repressed desire, telling herself she would completely forget about the woman who had so thoroughly ruined her underwear last night.
Or so she thought.
-------
Michaela Stirling was a lot of things, but punctual on a Monday morning was rarely one of them.
She woke slowly, drifting in the kind of lazy morning warmth she rarely allowed herself with two jobs. Sunlight came through the curtains, and her body felt heavy in the best possible way—very thoroughly used, and slightly sore. She stretched with a low hum, reaching out across the sheets.
Her hand met cool, empty space.
She frowned, keeping her eyes closed as she patted the mattress again. Nothing. No warm skin, no beautiful, shy, nervous woman trying to figure out what to say after the night they’d had.
Michaela cracked her eyes open. The pillow beside her still held the faint imprint of a head, and the scent of her—soft skin, faint perfume, and sex—still hung thick in the air. Michaela stared at the empty space for a long second.
Then, she let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
“I can not believe," she muttered to the ceiling, an impressed smirk tugging at her mouth. “This woman actually ran.”
Michaela wasn’t used to being the one left behind in the sheets. Usually, she was the one gently ushering women out of her flat with a warm coffee and polite excuses. This time, the quiet felt entirely wrong.
Without warning, the flashbacks hit her, hot and fast.
The woman sat at the bar—the same woman, who had looked so proper, so tightly wound, so competitive but yet so agonizingly nervous—completely loosing every ounce of those traits beneath her. Michaela mind went to Francesca laying on her sofa, legs spread wide as she knelt between them, licking slow and deliberate until the other woman was trembling and gasping with pleads.
The way she had begged and screamed when Michaela slid three fingers deep inside her on the kitchen counter, fingering while whispering praise against her throat. The desperate roll of her hips when Michaela had pinned her down later.
The sudden, shocking strength in those soft, hesitant hands as they gripped Michaela’s ass hard, pulling her flush against her. The broken, needy sounds the women had made when Michaela begged her to go faster. The desperate way she’d sucked dark marks into Michaela’s skin, like she wanted to stamp her ownership into her flesh for days.
Michaela’s thighs clenched tight at the memory, her core throbbing with a deep, satisfying ache. Her bedroom smelled like that distinct, sweeter scent that belonged entirely to the stranger.
Michaela had actually been looking forward to the morning after, oddly enough and had wanted to see that flustered, blushing version of her again, wanted to watch her try to make awkward small talk over coffee while, privately pleased with herself for her first time, nervous, and sore from the night before.
Instead, she had slipped away like a ghost, leaving Michaela without so much as a name.
Suddenly, her phone started buzzing aggressively on the nightstand—not an alarm, but a call cutting through her private debrief of the night before like a knife. She swiped the phone off the wood, and before she could even glance at the top of the screen, the blinding digits of the digital clock face caught her eye.
8:48 AM.
Her lecture started at nine.
She answered the call, pressing it to her ear just as a loud, piercing screech blasted through the speaker.
"Hello?" Michaela yawned.
"Michaela Stirling, if your useless, giant ass is still in that bed, I am going to personally castrate you!" Stella’s voice boomed, American accent, completely unfiltered and way too loud for her quiet bedroom.
Michaela winced, pulling the phone an inch away from her ear. "Stella, bloody hell, lower your volume—"
"Do not 'Stella' me! Where the fuck are you?!" Stella yelled, the background noise of a bustling, crowded university campus echoing behind her. "It is the literal first day of term. The first day! How are you already messing this up? I am standing outside the seminar room looking like an absolute loner while everyone else is networking, and you're probably tucked in bed like a giant, lazy, Scottish burrito!"
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Michaela muttered, her voice rough and raspy from sleep and sex. She immediately started cursing under her breath as the sheer panic of the timeline set in. “Shit, fuck, fuck, fuck no—”
"Are you cursing at me? Did you just wake up?!" Stella gasped dramatically, letting out a loud cackle. "Oh my god, you did. Who was it? Did you bring home a woman from the bar? Did she break your legs? Is that why you can't freaking walk to class?"
"I'm moving, I'm moving!" Michaela scrambled, swinging her legs out of bed entirely too fast.
The moment her feet hit the floor, her body reminded her exactly what she’d done last night. Her thighs burned, her muscles protested, and her knees nearly buckled beneath her weight. She grabbed the edge of the dresser to steady herself, letting out a surprised laugh that was half pain, half absolute admiration.
"Ooh, I heard a groan," Stella teased, her voice practically vibrating with mischief. "Someone finally did break your legs. Brilliant. Excellent work to whoever she is. You will not take another gap year. Now get your broken body down here in ten minutes or I'm stealing your seat in the back row!"
“Christ…” Michaela breathed, hanging up on Stella's laughing face before she could get teased any further.
Hobbling toward the bathroom, her foot caught on something soft near the doorway. She bent down, picking up a scrap of black lace underwear, finding it still slightly damp in places. A slow, private smile spread across her face.
Left in such a hurry she forgot her panties.
Michaela went into the bathroom, dropping her phone onto the vanity with a loud clatter.
She turned the shower dial straight to hot, stripping off her towel while the pipes groaned into life. She didn’t have time for a proper, lazy soak, but she desperately needed the steam to shock her system awake.
Stepping into the glass stall, the spray hit her back, and she let out a sharp gasp. The heat on her skin instantly revived the sensation of the stranger’s fingernails digging into her shoulders. Michaela leaned her forehead against the damp tile wall, closing her eyes as the warm water cascaded down her front. It was maddening, every single inch of her body felt heavy and reeled from the night before; the water tracing lines down her inner thighs only served a reminder of how thoroughly they both had been undone.
"Focus, Stirling," she muttered, grabbing the body wash.
She scrubbed herself down and rinsed off on pure adrenaline, turned the water off with a snap, and lunged out of the shower to regrab her towel.
Sprinting over to the sink, she squeezed a massive blob of toothpaste onto her brush and shoved it into her mouth, scrubbing furiously. Foam bubbled at the corners of her lips while she stared at herself in the fogged-up mirror.
Her eyebrows immediatly shot up, with her free hand, she wiped a clear circle through the condensation on the glass. The moment the mist cleared, she froze, her toothbrush stalling mid-stroke.
Dark, deep purple and brown marks bloomed proudly across her collarbone and the soft skin of her breast. But the worst of it was right at the side of her neck—an obvious, undeniable hickey that sat exactly where her jaw met her throat. It was completely exposed.
Michaela spat the mint foam into the sink, rinsing her mouth hastily with a splash of mouthwash. She leaned closer to the glass, tracing the edge of the mark on her neck with a thumb.
“I truly suspect… she did this to me on purpose,” Michaela muttered, a breathless, utterly fond laugh escaping her lips.
Francesca had marked her territory before vanishing like a thief in the night.
"Michaela, I swear to God, if you are not on the bus right now—" Stella's imaginary voice echoed in her head, threatening her with academic ruin.
Cursing, Michaela grabbed her concealer stick. She frantically began dabbing the thick makeup over the dark spots, blending it out with her fingers, and throwing her damp, dark curls up into a tight, messy bun to get them out of her face. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to survive a ninety-minute lecture.
She ran out of the bathroom, pulling on her high-necked, short-sleeved brown shirt to mask the evidence, yanking on her jeans, and grabbed her pre-packed tote bag and keys.
As she stepped out into the hallway, she caught one last trace of the stranger’s sweet scent lingering on her own skin now. Pulling the door shut, she locked it and braced herself, heading out into the autumn rain to face Stella, and the first day of her delayed final year of university.
Michaela sprinted down the third-floor corridor of the arts building, her phone vibrating in her palm. A text from Stella popped up on the screen:
Stella--- Row 2, right side. I saved you a spot. HURRY UP.
Balancing a scorching, hastily purchased cup of coffee in one hand and her heavy tote bag in the other, Michaela threw open the heavy oak doors of Seminar Room 307. She was fully prepared to flash her most disarming smile, offer a charming, breathless apology to whatever dusty, ancient professor was at the board, and slide into the row next to her friend.
Instead, the moment she stepped inside, the world screeched to a sudden, violent halt.
The apology died in her throat along with her trace of thought.
The lecture hall was dead silent, thirty--three pairs of eyes turning to look at her. But Michaela didn't notice any of them. Her gaze was locked entirely on the woman standing behind the podium at the front of the room.
Standing at the front of the room, behind the sleek mahogany podium, was the same exact woman from last night. The same beautiful woman she served. The same woman she even bedded.
Except she wasn’t merely the stranger from the bar. She was wearing a perfectly neat, high-collared charcoal dress, her hair pinned up in a very tight and severe twist. She looked like an untouchable, authoritative academic.
A whole professor.
Her whole professor.
For about 30 seconds, the professional mask completely slipped. Francesca’s eyes widened in absolute, complete shock, her cheeks flushing a panicked, sudden crimson as she stared back at Michaela. Francesca, the tryingly rigid, composed professor, looked... for one beautiful moment, completely trapped.
Michaela didn't move. She didn't breathe. The effortless, confidence she usually wore like a second skin evaporated instantly, leaving her in a state of unadulterated shock.
Her mind frantically tried to piece the two realities together—the proper, tightly wound woman at the podium, and the memory of that same woman losing her absolute mind against the sheets just hours ago.
From Michaela's point of view, down at the front, the professor was a statue, a piece of white chalk snapping perfectly in two beneath her fingers as they dropped onto the floor. Their eyes locked, a flash of shared, terrifying panic passing between them before the professor forced her eyes back to her notes.
"Michaela! Over here!" Stella’s loud, aggressive whisper cut through the silent room.
Michaela almost broke her legs and spilled her coffee, nearly missing a step. Moving entirely on autopilot, Michaela stumbled down the stepped aisle, her eyes glued to the stunning woman at the front of the room.
She sank into the seat Stella had saved in the second row, setting her coffee cup down with a trembling hand.
She didn't look at Stella. She didn't look at her bag. She didn't even blink. Her gaze was locked entirely on the woman at the podium, her mind spinning.
"Fuck sake, where have you been?" Stella immediately began to nag, leaning over and swatting Michaela's arm. "Why are you late? I told you ten minutes! And what is wrong with your face? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Michaela didn't turn her head. She couldn't. If she broke eye contact for even a second, she felt like the reality of the situation, the absoulte absurdity of the universe would crush her.
"Stella," Michaela murmured, her voice hollow and entirely stripped of its usual playfulness.
"What?" Stella grumbled, pulling out a notebook.
"That's her," Michaela whispered, her wide, unblinking eyes tracking the way the professor's hands shook slightly as she adjusted her glasses.
Stella stopped rifling through her bag, frowning. "What do you mean, 'that's her'? Who?"
Not looking away from the professor for even a fraction of a second, her heart pounding against her entire body, Michaela breathed out the impossible truth.
"That is her. The woman from last night."