Search Results: take it to the next level

Right, so I'm tutoring this girl in English Literature for her A-levels; part-time, for about two hours once a week. Been tutoring her for a few months now, and her grades have improved quite a bit, up from the low to mid C's to straight A's. She's 17 (just), so she is legal. And she's just my type. Cute, pretty, slim, petite, quirky; a bit shy, modest and introverted at first, but enthusiastic and effervescent when she comes out of her shell. And she's been doing that a lot more recently; she took her AS level exams last Wednesday, and at the end of our last tuition session on Sunday, she confessed to me, and asked if we could start dating. What should I do?

I want to accept, I really do; she's a lovely girl, and she never fails to bring a smile to my face. She's also the only girl who's ever confessed to me in my life, so there's that. But even so, she is still only 17, and while I don't look it, and don't have much life experience to show for it (for instance, I'm still as much of a virgin as she is), I'm 31; that's a big age gap, even if her mum and mine are about the same age, and have been friends on-and-off since the early 80's. I asked her for a bit of time to decide, promised her I'd let her know come our next tuition session tomorrow; what do you lot think I should do? Embrace our feelings for each other, and start dating her? Or deny them, and turn her down as gently as possible? And either way, do you feel that I should keep tutoring her or not?

By initial move I mean a girl going up to a guy to hit on him before he's talkee to her. That or two friends and the girl asks to take it the next level first.

I ask because I am terrible at small talk and I'm shy. Is there any hope that a girl would ever approach me first?