Chapter four

It was a long week. Emma stayed up late every single night in an attempt to get all of her assignments finished on time, and by Thursday she wasn't sure she had the energy to deal with Regina's constantly distracting presence. Emma wasn't the best at hiding her crush even when she'd had a solid eight hours' sleep – on that day, clocking in at barely three, she was certain she'd start softly weeping if Regina so much as smiled in her direction.

But missing out on another hour in Regina's presence wasn't an option, no matter how exhausted she was, so she straightened her spine and made herself look as presentable as possible. Her eyes were scratchy and dry from all the late nights and from wearing contact lenses for too many hours, so she forced herself to forgo them in place of her thick glasses. It was the first time she'd worn them onto campus that semester, since she usually saved them for her annual Christmas breakdown, but it was her only option for getting through the day. She doubted anyone would notice anyway.

After the humiliation she'd suffered in her previous class, Emma was determined to be on perfectly on time for Regina's seminar. She went and had her lunch in the department cafeteria as usual, and then slowly ambled across to the seminar room 15 minutes before class was due to start. The door was locked when she arrived, so she leaned against the wall outside and clutched her books to her stomach. She closed her eyes, wondering if maybe she could sneak in a 10-minute catnap before anyone else arrived.

"Your timekeeping skills never cease to amaze me, Miss Swan."

The voice floated over from a few paces away and Emma nearly slid down to the floor in shock. Her eyes snapped back open, and she found Regina watching her with an amused smile.

"Oh. Hey."

"You're early," Regina noted, brushing past her and unlocking the door. Emma tilted her head to one side so she could look at her.

"I'm making up for last week."

Regina smirked at that. "Excellent. I appreciate it."

She opened the door and gestured for Emma to join her. Emma followed her inside, heading for her usual spot in the second row, and sat down awkwardly. Regina seemed to be perfectly comfortable with the whole situation, however – she was bending over her desk, firing up her laptop like she always did. Emma shivered at the sight of her.

When the silence stretched on, Emma began to rummage around in her backpack for her notes. She placed them on her desk, opening her anthology to the right page, and then paused, staring down at the poem they'd been told to read over the weekend with no idea what to do next.

"I didn't know you wore glasses."

Emma's head shot up to find Regina watching her. She'd sat down in her desk chair and her hands were poised over her keyboard, but her dark eyes were taking in Emma's face.

"Oh," Emma said. There was a long pause. "I do."

Regina looked like she was going to laugh at that subpar response, but instead she asked, "Do you normally wear contacts?"

"Yeah," Emma sighed. "I only get these bad boys out when I'm really tired."

Regina actually did laugh at that, and Emma felt her exhausted soul catch fire.

"Oh dear," she murmured. "Has it been a long week?"

"The longest. I thought I'd gotten used to only getting three or four hours' sleep a night, but apparently my body disagrees. I couldn't find my iPod this morning and then when I went to make breakfast, I found it in the fridge."

Regina chuckled, leaning forward and resting her chin on one hand. "You'd think that we're working you too hard."

There was a twinge of something unspoken in that sentence, and Emma had to force herself not to sigh wistfully.

"Well. It's what I signed up for," she said.

Regina just smiled again. She was still leaning on her hand, and she hadn't taken her eyes off of Emma for a full minute. Emma could feel her skin starting to tingle.

There was some noise outside the door, and then a group of Emma's classmates were walking into the room. Emma glanced over at them, but when she looked back at her professor, her gaze hadn't strayed.

"Try and take a break tonight," Regina said, surprising her. "If you need an extension on my paper, just ask."

Emma blinked and leaned back in her chair, but before she could respond, Regina was on her feet and asking the new arrivals to open their books to page 164 once they were settled. She turned to the whiteboard and began to write down a list of key themes, and Emma begged herself to not stare at her ass as she did so. But it was futile, because her tired eyes were already resting on the curve of Regina's backside underneath her tight grey skirt, and she couldn't have dragged them away again for love or money.


When the class came to an end, Emma staggered to her feet and wondered if it was exhaustion or Regina's constant soft looks that had made her feel quite so lightheaded. Her professor was back at her desk, putting her notes into her purse, and Emma felt a tight longing in her chest when she realised it would be another week before they spoke again. She tried desperately to come up with a reason to go and talk to her, no matter how arbitrary or pointless, but her head was foggy and she was drawing a blank.

"Oh," Regina suddenly said, making the entire class look up from their backpacks. "I forgot to say – a classics author will be coming onto campus this weekend to do a lecture. It's not mandatory, but it could be a useful insight for those of you who are interested in writing on Lucian of Samosata in the future."

Lucian of who? Emma was pretty certain the name had come up in class before, but she hadn't been able to focus on it at the time. Nor could she now – not when Regina was pulling a stack of flyers out of her purse.

"I'll leave these here," she said, dropping them on the table nearest the door. "Grab one on your way out if you'd like to come along."

Emma had frozen on her feet. People were already filing out of the door, barely half of them stopping to take a piece of paper, but her fingers were already twitching with the desperate need to have one. If there was even the slightest chance that Regina might be going to that lecture, then she had to be there too.

She edged out from behind her desk, her eyes darting over to where Regina was leaning over her laptop once more, and swallowed. Regina glanced up, sensing the pressure of someone's gaze on her.

"Anything you need, Miss Swan?"

Since fucking when had hearing someone call her that become such an aphrodisiac?

Emma just shook her head, smiling awkwardly, and headed for the door. Her sweaty hand reached out and snatched up a flyer as she left.


The lecture was taking place in the college's second-largest auditorium, which was weird considering Emma thought no one in their right mind gave a shit about classics. But she had done some Googling about this author over the past two days and it turned out he was a pretty big deal, so when she arrived 10 minutes before the talk was due to start, she found the stalls to be almost entirely filled out. She couldn't see what the upstairs seats looked like, but she could hear a rumble of chatter that suggested it was much the same.

She pulled at the bottom of her sweater and looked around. There were hundreds of people there – dozens of them women with dark hair – but Emma knew right away that Regina wasn't one of them. Disappointment curled up inside her stomach like something dying at the side of the road.

Emma glanced up at the balcony above her and wondered whether she should try up there instead, but then the bell sounded from out in the foyer and she knew that she'd lost her chance. She was stuck listening to this bullshit for the next two hours, and all for nothing.

She genuinely considered turning around and walking home again, but in the end, she couldn't do it: the lecture was connected to Regina in some way, and she didn't want to let that pass her by. If nothing else, it would give her a reason to talk to her after class the following week.

Oh, Professor Mills, I noticed that you weren't at the lecture on Saturday. Would you like me to tell you how it was?

Yes please, Miss Swan – maybe we could discuss it over dinner. You could even wear those delightful glasses of yours again.

Anything you want, Professor, I'd be more than happy to—

"Excuse me," a voice suddenly barked in her face, and she blinked her way out of her reverie. "You should take your seat – the lecture is about to start."

Emma shuffled past the usher who'd just ruined one of her favourite daydreams and picked a seat in the aisle.

The talk began, and it was about as interesting as any lecture on ancient Greek literature could be – that was to say, not very. Still, Emma endured it with her fingers constantly picking at the skin around her thumbs, and by the time the two hours were up, she no longer felt disappointed. She just felt tired.

She got to her feet and straightened out her sweater once more. She'd bought it new for that evening, and she was already wondering if she'd be able to return it to the store since she'd barely gotten any use out of it.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. As everyone else began to file out of the room, Emma stood off to one side and pulled it free. Are you coming home any time soon? I need someone to test my lesson plan out on.

Emma groaned and began her reply to Mary Margaret: Leaving now, back in 30 minutes. Then she put her phone away and turned toward the door.

She was stopped by a figure standing directly in her path, a delighted smile on her red lips.

"Miss Swan. You came."

Emma nearly crashed to the floor at the dress Regina was wearing – it was black and fitted to every single inch of her body, and the neckline plunged just deep enough to show off a glimmer of cleavage.

"Um," Emma spluttered, forcing herself to look back up at her professor's face. She was still smiling. "Yeah. Of course."

"I missed the first 10 minutes. Car trouble," Regina admitted, stepping to one side so that people could walk past her. Her arm grazed Emma's as they stood against the wall together. "I had to take a cab."

"That's committed," Emma said. "I would have just stayed at home."

"I wasn't going to miss this," Regina said, sounding offended. "What did you think of it?"

Emma blinked. "Um…"

"I thought he had some very useful insights into how the tone of satire has changed over the past 20 centuries."

"Sure," Emma said. "Satire. Definitely."

Either Regina didn't notice the vacant expression on Emma's face or she didn't care about it, because she was beaming again. "I'm very glad you came."

"You are?"

"Of course. It's so refreshing when students take an interest in things like this."

Things like this, Emma repeated to herself, her gaze dropping to Regina's dress once more.

"I just thought it sounded interesting," she said slowly. "I'm not sure I really understood a lot of it, though."

That was better – she was forming full, coherent sentences, plus she was giving herself an out in case Regina was about to start piling questions down on her.

"Which parts did you struggle with?" Regina asked. "I'd be happy to discuss them with you."

"You... would?"

"We could go to the bar," Regina said, looking over her shoulder at the open door. "Or is it too pretentious to sit around discussing classics over a glass of wine?"

Emma laughed. "I really wouldn't know."

"Come on," Regina said, reaching out to touch Emma's elbow. "The tables will all get taken."

As Emma followed her dumbly out into the foyer, she realised that she hadn't actually agreed to this. Not that it made a difference – there was nothing on God's green Earth that would make her turn down a glass of wine with Professor Regina Mills. Even if technically she wasn't 21 yet.

Regina guided her over to one of the remaining free tables and asked, "What's your drink?"

Emma blinked up at her from her seat. "I can pay."

"No, you can't. What would you like?"

"Oh – anything. Anything's fine."

Regina looked flatly back at her, totally unimpressed by that answer. Emma swallowed and said, "Whisky coke?"

"Better," Regina said, turning and heading for the bar. She managed to nudge her way to the front almost instantly, and all Emma could do was stare after her.

She nervously pulled at her sweater again. When Regina had been guiding her out of the lecture hall, all she could think of was how pretty she looked and how nice she smelled and how great it was that she actually wanted to spend some time with her. Now that she had a second to sit alone, all she could think was, Oh, fuck. What the hell are you going to talk to her about?

It would take barely 30 seconds of stilted conversation before Regina realised what a rambling dumbass she was, and then she'd leave and nothing would ever be the same again and she'd have to move colleges just to get away from the humiliation.

Her phone buzzed again, distracting her from her spiral of panic.

Great! It's for a math class for third graders – I think you'll like it!

Emma sighed, having totally forgotten about Mary Margaret and her constant need to have someone pretend to be an eight-year-old in aid of her teacher training course, and quickly typed out a response: I'm so sorry, something just came up and I'm going to be on campus for a while. Can we do this tomorrow instead?

"Texting your boyfriend?"

Emma's head shot up. Regina's face was expressionless as she placed their drinks on the table.

"My who?"

"The guy from our class," Regina said, slipping into her seat. "The one with all the eyeliner."

"Killian?" Emma asked with a visible wince. "Definitely not."

"He was interested in you."

"I'm sure he was, but I'm not interested in him."

Regina sat back in her chair and regally crossed her legs. "I see."

She didn't say anything after that, and the sudden silence made Emma's nerves fizz. She swallowed and fought to think of something insightful to say.

"Thanks," she eventually settled on, nodding to the whisky in front of her. "For the drink."

"You're quite welcome," Regina replied, lifting her glass of red wine and waiting for Emma to clink hers against it. "I hope you didn't feel obligated to stay with me."

"No," Emma blurted out immediately, which only made Regina smile again. "Of course not. I'm happy to be here."

"Good. I'm sorry if it completely ruins your reputation on campus when someone sees you hanging out with your professor."

Emma snorted at that.

"I don't have a reputation, trust me." She hesitated before asking, "Besides, wouldn't this be more damaging for your reputation?"

It was something she'd been wondering for a while – granted, she hadn't been thinking about the repercussions of having an innocent glass of wine together, but she'd still spent a great deal of time wondering exactly what trouble they could get into if anything else were to happen.

Not that it was going to, of course. There was almost zero chance of that.

Except Regina was looking at Emma with a curious expression that she seemed to reserve for her alone, and when Emma wet her lips, Regina's gaze immediately dropped to watch it happen. Emma could feel herself going hot under her stare.

"There's nothing illicit about this," Regina eventually said, taking a sip of wine. "We're on campus, at a department event, discussing the material. I doubt anyone would even look our way."

She was right, but it was still a disheartening answer. Emma half hoped she would finish it up with a coy, "But of course, if we were to go back to mine after this…" but she was left disappointed.

She nodded sharply. "Right. Sure."

Another smirk; another glance down at Emma's lips.

"So," Regina said. "Tell me what you thought of the lecture."

It was the worst question she could ask, and Emma fought not to wince. "I thought it was… interesting."

"Really?" Regina asked, and for a second Emma was certain that she knew she was lying. "Which parts?"

Emma desperately wanted to whimper and beg her to stop, but she had Regina's attention on her and it was so intoxicating and delicious that all she could do was say, "I mostly just liked the way he talked about it. All my professors are so distant and professional, and it's nice to hear someone talk about a subject when it's obvious that they really love it." Regina smiled at that, and because Emma couldn't fucking help herself, she heard herself add, "Like you."

Regina's eyebrows shot up. "Me?"

Shit.

"Um. Yeah. You're obviously passionate about your subject and it's… nice."

She felt like a total moron, but there was a delighted beam on Regina's face that helped to lessen the twisting in her abdomen slightly.

"Nice," Regina repeated with a glint in her eye. "Well, I'm glad. Although I hope you plan on using slightly more sophisticated vocabulary for your term paper."

"I definitely will. I'm doing everything I can to avoid being one of your red-pen students, remember?"

Regina chuckled, swirling her tacky house red around in her glass like it was a vintage Chateau Lafite. "I'll try and be kind to you if you are. I can write 'this is absolutely dreadful' and then follow it up with a smiley face sticker to soften the blow."

Regina had only been teaching at Boston for a few weeks, and yet Emma had already heard tales about her marking style – the way she left students reeling from her sharply worded 'constructive criticism', or how she occasionally scrawled out entire paragraphs of writing while demanding to know whether they'd just added it in as a way of clawing their way closer to the word count. Emma knew there was zero chance she'd ever used a smiley face before in her life, and yet here she was joking about it with a relaxed smile on her face and her legs leisurely crossed in front of her.

Emma couldn't help but look down at that dress again.

"So," Emma said, clearing her throat so she wouldn't sound husky and insane. "Is your car going to be okay?"

"Hard to say," Regina said, waving a hand. "It's a 1998 Mercedes. It's bound to give up on me at some point."

"Why don't you…? You know. Buy a new one?"

"Because I have no interest in cars. I'll buy a new one when I have to."

"Sounds like that time might be right now," Emma pointed out, and Regina smiled wryly back at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were a mechanic, Miss Swan."

"I could be, for all you know," Emma protested, even though she absolutely was not. "I'm full of surprises."

"I don't doubt it," Regina said. Her voice had gone soft again. "What do you want to do when you graduate?"

Emma blinked. "I have no idea."

"You must have some."

"Not really." Emma wriggled in her seat. "I'm an English major – that's a notoriously bad first step on the career ladder."

"I was an English major too," Regina pointed out. "I'm doing just fine."

"Yeah, but look at the difference between us."

"I am. And I still think you'll be okay."

Emma smiled tentatively. "That's nice of you, but you don't know very much about me."

"I'm good at reading people."

"Really?" Emma asked, leaning forward. She couldn't help herself. "Then tell me about the other people in our class."

She saw the flash in Regina's eye at once. "All of them?"

"The people I know."

The challenge burned between them, and Emma knew instantly she wasn't going to get shot down.

"Well," Regina said, sounding far too excited by this game. "Mulan's quiet in class for someone who enjoys chatting to the boys so much, but I think she's a dark horse. She rarely stumbles when I call on her. She'll do well."

It was a fair summary. Emma nodded. "Okay. How about August?"

Regina scoffed.

"Not nearly as impressive as he thinks he is," she said. "He's branded himself a writer and now he acts like one, but he's done nothing to back it up. His essays won't hold up to much."

She was right again. August was working on his 'debut bestseller', as he constantly called it, and either Regina had heard him bragging about what a star he was going to be or she'd simply gotten the same vibe from the self-assured way he spoke up in class. Either way, she had him down to a T.

"And Killian?" Emma asked. Regina's face twitched.

"You're sure you're not interested in him?"

"Uh. Yeah, pretty certain."

"Good. Because he's a slime ball."

Emma blinked. "Are you supposed to talk about your students like that?"

"No, but I'm working on the assumption that I can trust you not to say anything," Regina said. Emma nodded enthusiastically as soon as she she'd finished her sentence. "Besides, I reserve this kind of hatred for a very special few. He's full of himself and lecherous and when I heard him trying to pick you up in the hall, I wanted to very calmly wring his neck."

It was deeply worrying just how quickly Emma's heart swelled at that. "He was just flirting."

"I know he was. But I also know how uncomfortable you were, and that was something he didn't seem to realise."

"I wasn't uncomfortable," Emma said, though she wasn't sure why she was protesting it when she'd somehow managed to catch Regina's sympathy with both hands. "I just wasn't into it. He didn't scare me, or anything."

"The bar shouldn't be set that low when it comes to inappropriate behaviour," Regina replied. "You weren't interested, and he kept touching you anyway. That's not acceptable."

"If that's the case, I'm surprised you didn't come charging in to save me."

"You don't strike me as the type of girl who needs saving," Regina said, and Emma smiled back at her, hopelessly full of joy.

"I guess not."

Regina took another sip of her wine, then her expression morphed into something more resolute. "So. The lecture."

Emma groaned out loud this time. "We're back on this?"

"I'm just interested to hear your thoughts."

"Why? You were there too. Why do you care so much?"

"Because you're normally very insightful, but right now you seem to be keen to avoid discussing it. Did you not enjoy it?"

"Kind of," Emma ventured. "It was fine. Better than I expected."

The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she glared down at her glass of whisky like it was its fault.

Regina's eyebrows lifted. "Were you expecting it to be bad?"

"I…" Emma paused to bite her lip. "Sort of?"

"Then why did you come?"

"Because I… I don't know. I didn't have anything else on tonight and I thought it might be interesting."

"Interesting but somehow also unbearable?"

Regina knew. There was a mischievous glint in her eye and an amused smirk on her face, and she knew why Emma had shown up there. But Emma wasn't going to let her off easy and tell her what she wanted to hear – not when Regina already seemed to have the upper hand in every single conversation she took part in.

"I thought it would be a learning experience for me," Emma said coolly. "Getting me out of my comfort zone, and all."

"I don't know about that, Miss Swan," Regina replied, eyeing the way Emma was sprawled out in her chair. "You look pretty comfortable to me."

"It worked then, didn't it? I feel totally at home. The only problem with this whole thing is that my classics professor is here harassing me about it."

Regina surprised her by glancing down at the way Emma's chest was confined by her tight black sweater.

"I wouldn't exactly call this harassment," she said lightly.

"You wouldn't – you're the harasser in this scenario."

"Miss Swan, I do believe you have a flair for the dramatic."

"I do not," Emma protested, although she was gesturing wildly with her glass as she said it. Regina watched her with amusement, her lips suddenly darker from the red wine.

"Sure you don't." She took another sip. "What about agreeing to have a drink with me? Was that you trying to get out of your comfort zone as well?"

"Not exactly," Emma admitted. "I just... wanted to."

"Why?"

The bluntness surprised her, and Emma blinked. She repeated the question. "Why?"

"Yes. Why did you want to?"

"I don't know," Emma replied. "Why did you want to have a drink with me?"

"Because you seem interesting," Regina replied without so much as a pause. "And intelligent, and genuine. And I wanted to get to know you a little better."

"But…" Emma started. She lost her courage for a second before trying again. "But I'm just a student."

"You're not just anything."

She said it so vehemently, like there was no possible way Emma could think anything else. "Okay, but you still have loads of students. Most of them are way smarter than I am. I really doubt I'm anything special."

Regina glanced down at her a second time, and this time her gaze lingered a little longer on Emma's body. Her lips pursed of their own accord.

"Trust me," she said softly. "I think you might be exactly that."


They left the auditorium together. Emma pushed her hands deep in the pockets of her coat and turned to face Regina, planning to say goodbye to her and then scuttle off home without looking back. But Regina had other plans.

"We should share a cab."

Emma snorted without thinking. "You don't hang out with students very often, do you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Cabs are a luxury we can't afford," Emma said, smiling at the way Regina rolled her eyes.

"I'm not going to make you pay, you silly girl," she said, pulling her phone out of her purse and tapping on an app. "It's freezing and late. You shouldn't walk home alone."

"I walk home alone every single night."

"Be quiet," Regina said coolly. "The taxi's coming. We'll drop you off first."

Emma could have protested if she really wanted to, but she found that she didn't. Instead, she just shrugged. "Alright, then. Thanks."

They moved to the edge of the sidewalk together, wrapped in a comfortable silence. There were very few people still out – a handful of students were lingering inside the bar, but for the most part the streets were deserted. Emma was all too aware of Regina's warm presence next to her; the way her dark hair flicked about so easily in the breeze. It was early November and the air was already cold, and for a second Emma wondered what Regina would do if she slipped closer to her and held her hand.

"I enjoyed tonight," Regina said, startling her out of her daydream.

Emma swallowed. "Yeah. Me too. The talk was… interesting."

She was looking down at the ground, but she still saw Regina's eyes flick over to her.

"I wasn't talking about that part."

Emma's head shot up, but Regina was already looking away again. "Our cab's here."

She was right – there was a car driving toward them, and Emma couldn't decide whether she was excited or disappointed by that fact.

When it pulled up alongside them, Regina walked over to the back door and held it open. Emma blinked at it. "What are you doing?"

"Opening the door for you," Regina said, shaking her head at Emma's confusion. "You must have been on some really lousy dates in the past, Miss Swan."

Something went clang inside Emma's chest.

Swallowing down her dual panic and joy, Emma slid into the car and waited for Regina to close the door. When she had walked around to the other side and settled into her own seat, she bullied Emma's address out of her and told the driver to stop there first.

"Where do you live?" Emma asked as they pulled away from the curb.

"The other side of town."

"I really could have walked. My dorm is like 15 minutes from here."

"I already told you that I'm not happy about you walking home alone – don't try and push it now that we're already in the car."

Emma laughed. "Why? Will you kick me out if I do?"

"Absolutely," Regina said, and Emma loved the way she could make a joke while sounding so serious. "Don't test me."

The tremor of danger in that sentence made Emma's cheeks go hot, and she wriggled in her seat. "I wouldn't dream of it."

For a few moments they drove in silence, Regina staring out the window and Emma staring at Regina. Her heart felt so soft, so stupidly fragile, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do about it. For the past few weeks she'd been telling herself that this whole thing was just a whirlwind crush – a stupid infatuation she had because Regina happened to be the only attractive professor in her department. She'd told herself that it didn't mean anything, and once she'd gotten used to Regina's presence, the feelings would simmer down again. By the end of the year, she wouldn't even think about her anymore.

But the curve of Regina's mouth seemed to get more tantalising every time she saw her, and now it had gotten to a stage where Emma's heart pounded at the mere thought of her. She was in a car with her, close enough to smell her perfume and her shampoo, and she knew then that the feelings weren't going anywhere. They were bubbling up inside her stomach like water from an overflowing drain, and she was content to leave them where they were. It was worth feeling like she was drowning just to hear Regina's gentle laughter directed at her.

"Are you doing much tomorrow?" Regina suddenly asked, turning in time to catch Emma staring at her. Emma snapped her gaze away again at once, hoping the car was dark enough that Regina might not have spotted the longing in her eyes.

"Not really," she replied, twisting her fingers in her lap. "More studying. And my roommate's asked if she can practice a lesson plan on me."

"She's studying to be a teacher?"

"Yeah. She's going to be great at it, but I wish she'd find someone else to do this with occasionally."

Regina laughed, tilting her head to one side. "You don't find fifth-grade biology interesting?"

"Not really," Emma said, risking a glance back across at her. Regina was smiling so softly, and it somehow tricked her into admitting something that she'd never been planning to say. "I went to, like, seven different middle schools, so listening to her brings back a few bad memories."

Regina's smile slipped. "Oh. Did your parents move around a lot?"

"No," Emma said, already kicking herself for bringing this up. No one wanted to hear her little sob story about poor orphan Emma, thrown from foster home to foster home because no one wanted to keep her for more than a few months. "It was just a… weird childhood."

That raised more questions than it answered, and Regina was looking at her curiously. Thankfully, though, they were slowly approaching Emma's building, and she was able to lean toward the driver and direct him to the right spot.

"So," she said, sitting back. Her heart was squeezing to the point of pain in her chest and, as much as she didn't want this to be over, she was looking forward to getting out of the car just so she could breathe normally again. "This was fun."

Regina was still watching her with quiet interest, but her face flickered with a smile at that. "It was. Thank you for humouring me."

There was no possible way she could really believe that Emma was the one doing her a favour then, but Emma chose not to say that. "No problem – thanks for the drink."

"You do have lovely manners, Miss Swan," Regina said. She always surprised Emma with how soft her voice could get. "You're welcome."

"Maybe I can get you back sometime."

The suggestion came tumbling out of Emma's mouth like the boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but before she could frantically scrape it back inside, Regina said, "I'd like that. Maybe I can get some more opinions about the lecture from you then."

Emma turned to glare at her, and at once Regina was chuckling.

"That was a joke, Miss Swan. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Good, because I'll start skipping your class again if you do."

Regina looked toward the front of the car, but their driver was fiddling with his phone and didn't appear to be listening to them.

"You won't hear the end of it if you do," Regina said. "I can be terrifying via email."

"Don't I know it," Emma scoffed. She glanced back out at her building. "I should probably get going."

"Yes, go ahead," Regina said. She looked down at Emma's mouth as she spoke. "I'll see you sometime next week."

"Sure."

There was a pause. The driver was watching them expectantly in his mirror.

Then Regina leaned forward, making Emma's entire body light up with nervous energy. She pressed her lips against Emma's warm cheek, pausing there to breathe her in. Emma shivered, her hand half reaching out to touch Regina's leg and then pulling back at the last second. The whole world felt like it had stopped.

Regina pulled back with a half smile on her lips. "See you soon."

"Yeah," Emma said, somehow managing to stammer on that single syllable. "Soon."

She fumbled for the door handle and all but fell out of the car, hurrying into her building without looking back. When she got into her room, the lights were off and Mary Margaret was already fast asleep.

Emma slipped into the bathroom and locked the door, switching the shower on with shaky hands. She peeled her clothes off, then glanced in the mirror: her skin was flushed, and there was the faintest smear of red on her cheekbone.

She tumbled into the shower and let the water rush over her, scrunching her eyes against it. It was too hot, but her body was still trembling and she needed the extra prickle against her skin to help her calm down.

Inside her head, Regina kept leaning toward her again and again and again. The moment from the back of the cab was stuck on repeat like an old film with a scratch on the tape. Regina's gaze was dark, her smile was full of amusement, and her eyebrows kept quirking upward at every stupid little thing Emma said. Emma could still feel her cool cheek, the tickle of her hair against her skin.

The water poured down on her, and her right hand slid between her legs. Emma sighed as it skimmed through a different kind of wetness.

I wanted to get to know you a little better. Emma leaned her forehead against the sweating tiles, holding herself up with her spare hand. The hot water streamed down her back as her fingers skated over her clit. You seem interesting, and intelligent, and genuine.

Emma whimpered as her fingers plunged inside her. She reached out to crank up the shower, hoping to drown herself out before Mary Margaret could wake up.

You do have lovely manners, Miss Swan.

Her spare hand slapped hard against the tiles as she came, her legs nearly slipping out from beneath her. She breathed hard, her eyes snapping open. Her fingers were still inside her, her pussy fluttering around them. Not for the first time, her body ached from the idea of Regina being the one to do this to her instead.