Chapter Sixteen
Alex was sitting at the desk in the dimly lit classroom. The only sound was the scratching of the quill as she worked on grading some tests that had been taken earlier that day. It was late and as far as she knew, she was the only one that was still awake in the school. Sighing, she grabbed another test from the large stack.
"You're here late tonight." Snape commented, suddenly appearing in front of her. Alex let out a startled yelp.
"Don't do that!" She cried out taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart. He laughed and smirked down at her.
"You should go to bed." He said studying her closely. It was quite obvious that she was very tired and was fighting to stay awake.
"I know. It seems that this pile just never end. What are you still doing up?" Alex asked curiously as she laid the quill down on the desk.
"Couldn't sleep." Snape shrugged. Alex peered up at him. He was acting strange tonight.
"What? No students wandering the halls for you to take house points away from?" Alex teased lightly.
"No. It seems that all have found some common sense and stayed in their beds tonight." He replied. Snape slowly reached out and gently brushed a stray hair out of Alex's face. His fingers trailed lightly over her cheek as he studied her intensely.
"You're very pretty, did you know that?" he observed. Alex just looked at him, suddenly very confused. What was he getting at? Was he trying to play some joke even though they had called a truce?
"Severus…" She started but was cut off as he pressed his lips to hers. Alex couldn't help but respond, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.
"Alexandra" he moaned softly as he deepened the kiss, holding her tightly to him. The clasp came undone from her hair and Snape buried his hands in the waves.
Alex's eyes shot wide open, sitting up in bed. She looked widely around and realized that she had only been dreaming.
"What the hell was that?" Alex asked out loud, in shock of her dream. Why was she dreaming about Snape kissing her? She hated him, loathed him. She didn't want to kiss him, did she? No! Of course not! Unable to fall asleep, Alex headed into the shower trying to erase the dream from memory.
In class, Alex was observing, as Snape was criticizing the class for their poor test grades. Frankly, Alex didn't really think that they were that bad seeing that the test was pretty difficult but she choice to keep her mouth closed for once. As she watched Snape pace back and forth in front of her, she couldn't help but remember the dream she had last night. Or rather this morning. Alex couldn't figure out what had triggered it. She had almost forgotten the kiss that had happened a few weeks ago. And it wasn't like he was drop dead gorgeous. But he wasn't ugly either. Just rather dark and imposing. Unfortunately, Alex couldn't help but admit that that was what she was attracted to. Scott was like that. Not really dark, though. He had the whole blonde hair, blue eyes thing going for him but he was very controlling and manipulative. But Alex had sworn off men like him. She didn't want to be hurt again. And it had worked so far, until now. Was she actually admitting that she was liked the professor? The one who angered and annoyed her constantly? She didn't really know.
"Miss Harper? Are you paying attention?" Snape sneered. Alex quickly realized that all eyes were on her, making her turn bright red. While she had been lost in thought, Snape had turned his attention away from the students and onto her, asking her to explain to the class a certain procedure that most had gotten wrong on the test.
"Miss Harper?" Snape asked again clearly annoyed at her for not paying attention.
"What did you say, Professor?" Alex asked trying to compose herself.
"The procedure on the test. Will you care to explain the correct way?" Snape barked, leaning over her in an imposing stature. Alex's eyes flew to his and all she could picture the dream.
"I gotta go." Alex said hurriedly and threw open the door, running up the stairs, leaving behind a very confused class and an even more bewildered professor.
