Description

About the book

Office hours ended seven years ago. The wanting did not.

Noel Arce is twenty-nine, a bestselling queer romance novelist, and trapped at a coastal writing retreat with the one man he has never managed to forget.

Dr. Gideon Parish was once Noel’s professor and mentor: severe, brilliant, sparing with praise, and careful enough to keep every professional boundary intact. Gideon never touched him while Noel was a student and never confirmed whether the attraction between them was mutual.

Seven years later, Gideon is the retreat’s guest mentor. He no longer works at Noel’s former university. There is no academic authority left between them—only history.

Their first night together does not resolve the past. It creates a harder question: what happens when the long-held fantasy becomes a real man with fears, habits, and something to lose?

Then Gideon’s old seminar notes are leaked and their present-day relationship is made to look like misconduct that never happened. Gideon tries to protect Noel by disappearing. Noel refuses to let him decide what his life can survive.

Gideon taught him to tell the truth on the page. Noel intends to make them both live with it off the page too.

Book details

Author: Jace Wilder
Genre: MM contemporary age-gap romance
Pairing: MM; adult protagonists aged 29 and 48
Relationship context: Former professor/former student; no romantic or sexual contact during enrollment and no current academic power relationship
Tropes: Nineteen-year age gap, writing retreat, forced proximity, praise kink, slow burn, secret relationship, control/surrender, intellectual sparring
Heat: High heat; explicit adult romance
Ending: Happily ever after

Your ebook edition

This listing is for the digital ebook. No physical book is shipped. The audiobook is sold separately.

Content notes

For readers 18+. Contains explicit MM sexual content, a nineteen-year age gap, public accusations of misconduct that are resolved, strong language, creative anxiety, and a temporary romantic separation. No cheating, grooming, or coercion.