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PROLOGUE
I'm twenty-three years old, a first-year graduate student in economics, and I'm in love with my thesis advisor.
Professor Ryan Cole. Forty-six. Married. Brilliant. And completely, devastatingly off-limits.
I tell myself it's just admiration. Intellectual attraction. The kind of crush students get on charismatic professors—harmless, temporary, something I'll laugh about years from now.
But I know I'm lying.
Because when he looks at me during our weekly meetings, when his hand brushes mine as he hands back my papers, when he says my name in that low, careful voice—I don't feel like a student.
I feel like prey.
And the worst part? I want to be caught.
It started innocently enough.
I'd applied to the graduate program specifically to work with Professor Cole. His research on behavioral economics and decision-making under uncertainty was groundbreaking. His book on risk assessment had won awards. He was a legend in the field.
I didn't expect him to be gorgeous.
The first day of his seminar, I walked into the classroom and there he was—tall, lean, with salt-and-pepper hair that was more salt than pepper, sharp blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a presence that commanded the room without effort.
He wore a wedding ring. I noticed that immediately. Told myself it didn't matter. That I was here for academics, not romance.
Then he started teaching, and I was lost.
...
Dr. Scarlett Vaughn has spent over two decades as a psychology professor specializing in human sexuality, teaching courses on desire, taboo, and the forbidden. Her academic research into what draws people to transgressive fantasies led her to write the stories her students whispered about but rarely saw represented with depth and nuance. Writing from her Boston brownstone near the university, Scarlett explores the psychological complexity of forbidden attraction—age gaps, authority dynamics, and step-family scenarios—always with an emphasis on consent, emotional truth, and the healing power of accepting your desires without shame.
