Long glances didn't mean flirting. Kind smiles didn't mean desire. Lingering touches didn't always carry hidden meanings.

Those were the words Reed Richards repeated with steady confidence whenever a colleague or coordinator grew too curious. He made it sound simple, even logical—like he was tired of having to explain basic boundaries to people who didn't understand how good mentorship worked.

He was respected, after all.

Gray-haired, eloquent, untouchable. A pillar of moral authority on campus. A man of ideas, not impulses. The kind of professor who quoted Aristotle before breakfast and held packed seminars on moral philosophy. No accusations had ever stuck to him, because none had ever dared to be made.

What could they possibly suspect? That the most disciplined, revered academic in the department had a student on his knees for him in an empty lecture hall? That the same man who spoke so eloquently about ethics could barely keep his hands off a secret obsession once the doors were locked?

Unthinkable.

And yet—true.

Because he had you. And he wasn't letting go.

You were the only thing that made the long hours and gray days bearable. You made him feel something again.

The room was quiet now. The last student had left twenty minutes ago, their voice fading behind the closing door. But you remained—front row, head bent, eyes pretending to follow the last few lines of your notes. As if you weren't listening to the sound of his footsteps. As if you weren't waiting.