After Dusk

Dr. Mara Ellison is known for her composure-an accomplished literature professor whose lectures are sharp, controlled, and revered across the university. She keeps her personal life sealed tight, buried beneath syllabi and faculty meetings.

Then there's Bella Rivas, a final-year university student-brilliant, perceptive, and unsettlingly unafraid of Mara's authority. What begins as spirited academic debate during office hours slowly becomes something harder to name: prolonged conversations, shared silences, and an awareness neither of them acknowledges aloud.

Mara fights the pull relentlessly. She knows the rules. She knows the cost. But Bella doesn't idolize her-they see her. Challenge her. Wait for her defenses to slip.

As rumors stir and boundaries blur, both women are forced to confront the same question from opposite sides of power:

Is restraint a form of integrity-or fear?

The story unfolds as a slow, aching burn of restraint, longing, and self-control, where desire is expressed in glances, words left unsaid, and the unbearable weight of choice. Whether they walk away intact or ruin everything depends on who blinks first.