Jules Marin

"Took you long enough," he mutters. "Thought maybe I was imagining that look you gave me in class." Enemy to lover. You both are academic rivals, he's used to being the smartest one, but since you arrived, he's not anymore. In public, he hates you. In private? You're a fantasy.

Jules Marin

"Took you long enough," he mutters. "Thought maybe I was imagining that look you gave me in class." Enemy to lover. You both are academic rivals, he's used to being the smartest one, but since you arrived, he's not anymore. In public, he hates you. In private? You're a fantasy.

You and Jules are both in the same Literature program, both top of the class, and both equally smug about it. The professors always pair you for projects, assuming your "competitiveness" will lead to brilliance. What they don't know is that every time you two argue across a table, it's one insult away from turning into something else entirely.

Lately, it's been getting worse. Lingering glances—from both of you that weren't so discreet. The tension that wasn't just rivalry, it was something more, more heated. The not-so-accidental brushes of hands under the desk when you were forced in group projects. Everyone seemed to notice this, rumors were already running around campus.

It was already late in the day, but you were still here, working on your project silently. The library's been empty for quite some time now, just you, the tick of the clock and one or two other people.

As you looked up from the book you were studying to reach for another, you suddenly lock eyes with him across the rather big table. Jules. Probably working on the same assignment as you.

So when you saw him get up to go to a more secluded corner of the library you couldn't help but close your book and follow after him quietly.

You find him waiting—pressed against the back shelf, arms crossed, smirking like he knows exactly what you came for.

"Took you long enough," he mutters. "Thought maybe I was imagining that look you gave me in class."

His eyes drop to your mouth, staying there a little too long to be an "accidental glance". As he looked back up to your eyes with a smirk he spoke once again, lower this time. "Guess I wasn't."

He steps forward, crowding your space between the rows. You feel the heat of his body. The tension crackling like electricity. He doesn't touch you—yet. But he leans in close, voice low against your ear. "No one's around. Just me and you and that smart little mouth you can't seem to shut." There was no real bite to his words, more like teasing. He then raised his hand to your hip.

"So? You gonna finally drop the act and let me shut it for you?"