Chapter 27
Kai
More importantly, waiting to see if Rooke follows.
It’s the proof I need that I’m not losing my goddamn mind.
Something’s off. It’s been off for two weeks, and I can’t figure out why. Haven says she’s fine. Rooke says he’s giving us space. Everyone’s so fucking fine that I want to put my fist through the closest wall.
The door swings open. Haven steps out, hoisting her tote bag higher on her shoulder.
She’s alone…for now.
I watch her walk toward the stairwell, pink notebook clutched to her chest, ponytail swinging, hips swaying in those tight leggings that make me want to drag her into the nearest bathroom and remind her who she belongs to.
I don’t follow her.
I wait.
Three minutes. Four. The stragglers in the hall thin out—students heading to their next class or the cafeteria, or somewhere else on campus.
Five minutes.
The door opens again.
Rooke steps out, shrugging into his designer tweed coat. He locks the lecture hall behind him and heads toward the main stairwell without looking my way.
I follow without a fucking clue what I’ll do when I catch up with them. Because obviously he’s going after her. Obviously they’re going to fuck each other because they’re finally alone and I know she’s been wanting to since we walked away from that mausoleum.
Ha, walked? I didn’t fucking walk anywhere. She had to carry me out of there like we were behind enemy lines.
So, yeah, I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do, but I can’t let him get away with it.
Not after sitting through an hour of his bullshit lecture about self-destruction while my skin crawled every time he opened his mouth.
But Rooke doesn’t go downstairs with Haven. He takes the stairs up to the faculty floor.
I have no reason to follow him.
Yet here we are, in the same hall me and Haven visited the day we came to see the dean.
Rooke unlocks a door halfway down the corridor and disappears inside.
He’s gone to his office, and Haven went to the library.
Because everything is fucking fine.
I can turn around. Pretend I didn’t just spend ten minutes stalking my psychology professor through campus like an obsessed freak.
But I keep walking until I’m at his door.
The office is small and would have been cramped if not for the window overlooking the sports field behind the main campus building. Bookshelves line one wall, a credenza and filing cabinets against the other. A desk with a few piles of papers and a sleek computer fills most of the remaining space.
Rooke has his back to me as he strips off his coat and tosses it over the back of the nearest visitor’s chair. He’s scrolling on his phone, oblivious as he tugs loose his tie.
I could tackle him from behind, and he wouldn’t even see me coming.
Instead, I step deeper into his office and push the door closed behind me. I try to do it silently, but there’s a faint click as it closes.
“Office hours are posted outside,” he mutters without turning around, eyes still on his phone. “I’m not available right now.”
“You’d better make time,” I grate through clenched teeth.
Rooke stills. Then, slowly, he turns.
His expression is unreadable. Eyes dark, mouth flat, shoulders loose. Giving nothing away, like always.
I fucking hate that.
“You spoke with Haven,” he says, sounding resigned. Though fuck knows why.
“Don’t.”
He tilts his head. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t bring her into this.” My jaw tightens, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “This is between you and me.”
He perches on the edge of his desk between the two visitor chairs, crossing his arms, eyes narrowing slightly. Amusement or interest, though I can’t tell which.
“Then talk. I’m listening.”
Like I have any clue what I want to say to him.
“Back the fuck off. Stop with the dinner invitations. Stop pretending like we’re all going to be best fucking friends.”
“I’m not pretending—“
“Bullshit.” I take another step toward him. “It’s done, okay. I’m done.”
“Done with what, exactly?”
“With you! With your fucking games!” I’m close to yelling, and I don’t care. “It’s Haven and me, that’s it. There’s no space for you anymore.” My jaw ticks. “There never fucking was.”
Rooke just watches me with bottomless black eyes as he finishes tugging off his tie, like he’s taking me apart.
“Did she tell you to say that?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t need her permission.”
“That’s not what I—“
“And I don’t need her help either.” I’m stalking the length of his office, too wired to stand still. “I can handle my own shit. I don’t need her fighting my battles, and I definitely don’t need you looking at me like I’m some kind of—some fucking assignment.”
“Kai—”
“No. I don’t care what you got to say, I don’t want to fucking hear it. I can see right through this fucking act you’re putting on.”
“It’s not an act,” Rooke says evenly. Fucking calmly, as he rolls up his sleeves like he’s getting ready to knead artisanal sourdough or some shit. “She asked me to be patient, so I’m—“
“Patient.” I bark out a laugh that sounds unhinged even to my own ears. “That’s rich. You’ve never been patient a day in your life. You take what you want, when you want it, and fuck whoever gets hurt.”
“That’s not who—“
I storm forward, stabbing a finger at him that stops an inch from his white button-up shirt. “That’s exactly who you are!”
I’m close enough to see the faded scratches on his cheek. Haven’s marks. A reminder of what happened in that mausoleum. Of what he did to me. What I let him do.
What I wanted him to do.
My stomach lurches.
“I hate you,” I spit out. “I fucking hate everything about you. The way you talk, the way you dress, the way you look at her—at us—like you own us. The way you look at me, like you know exactly what I’m thinking.”
“And what are you thinking, boy?”
“Nothing! Not a fucking thing! And stop calling me that.”
But that’s a lie, and we both know it. I’ve been thinking about him constantly. Every night when I close my eyes. Every morning when I wake up hard and aching. Every time I fuck Haven and catch myself wondering what it would be like if he was there too.
He’s doing it again now.
Watching.
Speculating.
Jesus, I want to punch him so bad.
I want to—
Rooke drops his chin, eyes narrowing. “I need you to calm down, boy.” His voice has gone soft. It’s the same tone he used in the mausoleum right before everything went to shit.
“Stop fucking calling me that!”
I grab the first thing my hand touches—a glass award of some kind sitting on his desk—and hurl it at the wall beside the filing cabinet.
It makes a most satisfying crash as it shatters.
But even more satisfying is the way Rooke flinches when some of the shrapnel hits us.
We both stare at the fragments scattered across the floor.
“Do you feel better now?” Rooke asks dryly, a rueful smile ghosting on his mouth as he tugs the front of his shirt to dislodge a few shards of glass. “It won’t last. Violence never truly fills the void. It’s always temporary. A flash in the pan that leaves you wanting more.”
He pushes off his desk, glass crunching under his shoes as he steps closer.
I hold my ground. But barely.
“Stop lecturing me. I’m not your student. I’m not your fucking T.A. I’m nothing to you.” I force a swallow, and Rooke’s eyes slide to my throat like he knows exactly how close I am to coming apart.
“Stop,” I murmur.
His gaze moves lazily back to mine, eyes hooded. “You’re sending me an awful lot of mixed signals.”
My eyelids tremble as I struggle not to look at his mouth. It’s the way he’s speaking, for fuck’s sake. Voice low, rumbling, I have to strain to make out every word. “I’m being crystal fucking clear.”
He tsks me, tilting his head. “You say you want space, yet you can’t seem to stay away.”
His cologne fills every breath now. It should smell like the woods me and Haven got lost in our entire childhood, but it’s too sophisticated. Our woods were as wild and feral as me and Haven were back then.
“You say you hate me, yet here you are. In my office, standing inappropriately close to someone who’s apparently nothing to you.” His head tilts the other way. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
“I do hate you.”
“Hmm,” he hums. “Is that why you’re shaking?”
Fuck.
He’s right.
My hands, my shoulders, my whole goddamn body is vibrating.
With anger. Not—
With anger. Because I’m fucking pissed off.
Rooke leans in, but I’m frozen in place, subjected to his roving gaze. For once, I don’t feel like a specimen.
I feel…wanted. Needed.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs, lips barely moving. “Your pupils are massive. And, more importantly…” His gaze drops slowly to my crotch, his voice slowing to a salacious drawl that makes my skin prickle. “Your cock is hard. It’s almost like…you want to fuck me.”
My face burns, but I can’t look away from his eyes. They’re just so fucking intense.
I manage a croaky, “Shut up,” but I might as well not have bothered, because he just keeps talking.
“That’s all you’ve been thinking about it, isn’t it? Every night. Every time you’re inside her.”
He steps past me, and my lungs hitch with a breath I should have taken hours ago. He turns, circling me as I stand rooted to the spot, caged in by…what?
Anticipation.
I can’t move, can’t fucking breathe…because I want to know what comes next.
His breath warms the side of my neck, causing goosebumps to break out over my skin. “You close your eyes and all you can see is me. All you can hear is my voice. Even when you’re filling up every inch of Haven’s tight little cunt, all you can think about is how I’d feel.”
“I said shut up!”
His lips brush my ear, a deeply inappropriate growl rumbling against the side of my neck. “Make me, boy.”
Fuck. What the fuck am I still doing here? I should leave.
But he’s right.
I’d just be thinking about him the entire time.
He laughs when I grab him by the collar and doesn’t even try to stop me as I back him up. But Jesus, the grunt he makes when I slam him against the bookshelf is going to live rent-free in my head for decades.
Books topple.