only in her hands

At Blackwood University, Professor Valentina Armstrong is known for being untouchable.
Cold. Controlled. Impossible to read.
Students fear her sharp tongue as much as they admire her brilliance, and Valentina intends to keep it that way. Distance is safer. Feelings complicate things. And after years of shutting the world out, she's convinced she no longer needs anyone.
Then Isabelle Scott walks into her classroom.
Isabelle is quiet in the way storms are quiet before they break. Living alone at university gave her an escape from the abusive home she left behind, but freedom doesn't erase trauma. Sleepless nights, panic attacks, and the constant weight of pretending she's okay follow her everywhere she goes.
Valentina notices the things no one else does:
the shaking hands,
the exhaustion hidden behind sarcasm,
the way Isabelle flinches when someone raises their voice.
What begins as concern slowly becomes something far more dangerous.
Late-night office hours turn into conversations neither of them can forget. Stolen glances become lingering touches. And somewhere between poetry discussions and shared silences, the walls around both of them begin to crack.
But love was never supposed to happen here.
Not between a professor who buried her heart years ago and a student still learning how to survive.
Especially when the world would destroy them for it.
ONLY IN HER HANDS is a dark, emotional WLW romance about healing, obsession, vulnerability, and two women trying to find safety in each other when neither of them knows how to be loved.