Chapter Five #3
My arms wrap around his head and through his silky dark hair that has dashes of grey, guiding him, silently pleading, praying he doesn’t reject me.
Another something between a growl and purr escapes him as he reaches between us, and pulls my shirt open, my buttons popping off, my bra is being tugged down and my breasts spill free and soon I feel a slick, hot wetness over my skin.
Sparks fly behind my eyelids when I realize he’s sucked almost the entirety of my tit into his mouth, bouncing my nipple on tongue, and I keep riding him.
I’m so aware of that feeling of being watched and for some reason, it heightens this feeling, like I’m the one that’s dangerous.
“Fuck, Raven. Fuck. Is this what you want? Hmm? You want me to suck your perfect nipples raw?” His husky voice, his leather and spice scent, even his harsh nibbles are intoxicating.
Yes, yes, yes. Please, God, yes.
I don’t answer, I just keep chasing my pleasure as his other hand pulls my thong to the side through my fishnets, tearing it off me, the slight burn hurts and yet feels so much better when he then grips my ass, pulling me open and I feel him against my aching clit.
He grips my ass harder, his tongue roaming from one nipple to the other, licking, sucking, biting.
Like he’s the hungriest man alive and I’ve offered myself on a silver platter.
I know my movements are obviously clumsy, and it’s like he knows I’m new at this because his firm grip on my hips is guiding me closer to the edge of this cliff I desperately want to jump off of.
The carpet beneath my knees burns me, thighs quivering and sweat covers my brow even in the chill of the restricted section like a fever, a side effect of my deranged lust and it’s so wrong and raw and I feel crazy.
I feel eyes on me like the ghosts in this library are watching, silently judging the soundless cries escaping me as my breath hitches while I ride this stranger, my professor .
Oh god, I belong back at Lorne Wood, under Doctor Archer's silver stare and care. Thinking of Doctor Archer makes my hips buck harder, so, so, so close but Maverick’s voice brings me back to him.
“Just a cliché brat doing things you aren’t supposed to, aren’t you, Raven?
Look at you, filthy little rich girl dry humping your professor in the library.
” His degrading words ring in my ear. They should piss me off.
But the way he guides me, like he’s teaching me what we both like, makes my eyes roll back, shivers skating through my bones.
I’m sick I’m sick I’m so sick.
Professor Harrington licks up my neck, biting roughly and then, “There you go, little slut. Take it. Be a good girl. Come for me. Now, Raven. Come for your professor like the horny little slut you are.”
As if I was waiting for his permission in my lust-driven frenzy, I detonate with a silent cry, both holding him and pushing away rubbing myself against him until wave of euphoria is gone and I’m so sensitive. I stand on wobbly legs. I don’t bother to help him up.
“Raven.” His voice is low and stern and I love it and I hate it but I’m too strung out on the fading tresses of my orgasm to care about how my name on his lips was a command and how my entire body wanted to heed to if it only meant he’d touch me again.
Without a glance back, I turn and run back to the secret book-door and run up the flight of stairs, my knees burn from the carpet and the muscles in my thighs ache but I keep going, falling a few times, barely catching myself.
When I reach the top step. I fix my shirt as best as I can, then my ponytail, grateful there’s a bathroom as you leave the library so I can fix myself a little better and throw my bookbag over my shoulder, crossing it over my body so it hides the missing buttons.
What is happening to me?
Once in the bathroom, I check my reflection, pupils dilated, cheeks flushed.
I’m going to have to change my shirt. I check my watch.
Good. I have just enough time to go back to the dorms and change.
I let out a shaky breath, ready to leave the library on nothing more than Bambi legs, book be damned.
Except I stay, crouched behind a bush until I see Maverick leave the building and I make my way back down to the place where I almost fucked my professor, and grab the weirdly textured book, shove it in my bag and run back to my dorm across campus, where I’m surprised to find a trio of very cute football players are waiting for me outside with cups of coffee in their hands.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Riordan asks, pointing at my shirt.
Chase hisses and Jonas says, “Do I need to call the cops?”
When I don’t respond, because I won’t respond, Jonas follows me into the building, past the common area where co-eds are mingling or studying, (or staring) down the corridor and into the safety of my room where I step into my walk-in, close the fucking door and redress into a clean shirt and change out of my ripped fishnets, tugging on the school approved knee-high socks.
When I step out, in a new shirt, panties, and fishnets, Jonas pulls me into his strong arms, enveloping me in a hug that’s not very friendly.
It’s possessive. It’s the kind of hug I always imagined Dr. Archer would give me.
I’m so fucked. I’m so fucked up. I’m letting him be kind after I’ve gone and dry humped my bully of a professor while thinking of Archer.
I’m the worst person in all of human history.
I don’t know I’m crying until I feel his thumb swipe under my lids. He kisses my temple, drags me to the bed and then has me sit sideways in his lap, crushes me to his chest and simply holds me. “I’m going to fucking maim whoever did this to you, baby.”
I could fall in love with Jonas Anderson, I really could. Except how could I ever tell him, to maim me ? That I did this to myself? I simply blink and kiss the corner of his lips.
And what does Jonas Anderson do?
He holds me tighter.
I could really fall for someone like Jonas Anderson… if a certain doctor and a sick professor weren’t occupying my head. Why did I like it? Why was it such a rush?
I stare at my book bag I had thrown haphazardly into my room, the lip of it open, the book and my laptop sticking out, gleaming like diamonds.
I need to learn to get my emotions under control.
I need to kick all three of these men to the back of my mind and continue on my path.
Nothing, and I mean nothing can keep me from finding the truth.
______
It’s later that evening, after Jonas and I have parted ways after eating in the dining hall, and I have my philosophy textbook open, my desk lamp on, Yo-Yo Ma playing low in my ear buds, that I can’t ignore the call of the fucking weird book anymore.
I’ve carried it around in my bag all day, the weight of it felt like I carried a boulder around.
I know the gravity of what’s written inside.
My thoughts weren’t on what was around or in front of me at all today and I know Jonas felt my distance.
I ate my dinner of roasted bird and veggies quickly in the dining hall with him and the twins and when he walked me back to my dorm, I was quick to say goodbye, closing the door in his face. I’ll apologize somehow tomorrow.
I finally bend and grab the textured book out, trailing my fingers up and over the spine, the title, the circular symbol with the triangle tips on the outside, a line slashing through each side of the triangle to connect it furthermore.
So many of the buildings off campus and around the US have this symbol like the stone masons.
Except this symbol isn’t just on old buildings.
No, this sigil is integrated, designed intricately to be hidden in plain sight.
The only way to see it is to know it - to know exactly what you’re looking for.
The only reason I know it, is because I’ve seen it time and time again everywhere we went as a family.
In every vacation home, every building, every person whose home we have ever visited for the last twelve years I’ve been a Monroe.
The way the binding is both rough and smooth under my fingertips confuses me.
I’ve never felt a texture used for binding on a book like this before and yet, it feels so familiar.
I take my thumb and rub it against the underside of my middle finger mindlessly over and over again while I continue to trace the binding.
The hair on the nape of my neck stand on ends. My stomach recoils and lurches, flipping my dinner as I realize what I’m feeling. I look at the pad of my thumb that’s now clamming and a shiver runs through me.
It’s skin .
I throw the book to the side, grab my trash can by my desk and almost empty the contents of my stomach into the waste bin.
But nothing comes out. Panting, I slowly deadpan to the vile book sitting atop my desk, beside my textbook, another shiver escaping me.
I get up, go to my ensuite bathroom, and wash my hands.
Gloves. I need gloves. I’m not touching that evil fucking thing again without any.
I look for the first aid kit I know Axel brought and rummage through it, grabbing a pair of non-latex gloves inside and slip them on, snapping them against my wrist as I make my way back to my desk.
I inspect the cover again, noticing what would be pores where hair follicles once were.
Who the fuck was this? What could someone have done to become the fucking cover of a book? Jesus. I shake my head, hold my breath, and finally get the ovaries to open it.
Pro Familia, Sanguinem
For family, we bleed.
The writing is in an ink that is as maroon as the walls in the stairwell to the restricted section of the library. Except this time, I have a feeling it really is dried blood. I flip to the next page and my eyes widen.
Dates starting in 1912. Beside them, names I recognize; Prescott, Cartwright, George, McDonald, Anderson, Monroe, Whitmore, Daniels, Bevans, Smith, Holmes, O’Connell, Cleary…
All besides names I don’t recognize. A shiver skitters down my spine, shimmying over my shoulders.
It’s a ledger.
A heaviness weighs over me as I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
It’s too late to go back now. All I know is I need to put this thing back as soon as I can.
Someone will be looking for this. I can’t take pictures of it; it’ll upload to the cloud.
For the first time, I’m so grateful Axel ordered me a home copy/scanner/printer machine and set it up for me before leaving so I wouldn’t have to use the one in the common area.
I take the book, go to the machine and the whirring begins as I copy the front of the ledger, let it print and then flip as far forward until I get to the 1950s. Sixty pages front and back before I’m done copying, my heart stops as I catch what’s written .
2019 – Raven Monroe – T. Prescott, A. Smith, J. Cartwright, T. Whitmore II, S. Hoover, A.
A. what ?
A . who ?
They were either erased or didn’t get to finish writing their name.
A . WHO?
The walls are caving in on me. Suffocating. The panic is in my throat. In my head. It’s blurry, blurry, blurry. Something I can see … nothing.
Can’t breathe.
I reach out, feeling and grab my phone from my desk on my way down to the ground, calling the only emergency number I have for moments like these.
Damon picks up on the second ring.
“Raven?” his voice wraps around me like a warm, silk blanket, the most comfortable blanket I’ve ever known. The video is on, his background is a landscape of trees. Trees I swear I recognize. He’s sweaty and I think he was running. “Raven, show me your face. I can’t see you. Are you okay?”
I tilt the phone to me. Letting his beautiful grey eyes see me in all my disheveled glory in pure panic mode. But he’s seen me at my worst and stayed, hasn’t he? Bound in a straight-jacket type of worst. This is most definitely not my worst.
“Okay. Okay, little bird.” Little bird . My heart cracks. “Did something happen?”
Yes, I found the names of my attackers. I make a face of pure agony because he’s not a fucking mind reader.
“Raven, do I need to call 911?”
I shake my head. No. They’ll take away the only evidence I have. The people here are connected. Can’t trust anyone. I need more proof.
He can’t hear my thoughts, I know this.
His eyebrows pop up in surprise. “Little bird, you’re communicating.”
I feel my eyebrows knit together. Little bird. I show him a soft smile through the screen.
“Did you have a panic attack? ”
I blink and look away and back at him.
“Take your meds. Take a sleeping pill. It’s late. Grab your anti-anxiety blanket. Self-soothe. You got this. Okay? Can you be a good girl and do that for me?”
I nod once.
“That’s my good girl. I’m going to stay on the phone with you. I need to see you take your meds, climb into bed and then we’ll hang up. I’m not leaving you alone in this, okay?”
His good girl. I’m his good girl.
I take him with me to the bathroom, set the phone up so he can see me, open my mirror that’s a medicine cabinet and grab one of each pill, grab the water bottle on my counter, gulp them down, and then show him, wiggling my tongue all around to prove I swallowed the pills like I would back at Lorne Wood under his care.
“So good, pretty girl. You did so fucking good for me. Now can you go to bed?”
I take him with me, turning the light off in both the bathroom and my room, the lavender sleep light immediately turning on at the lack of light.
I pull the anxiety blanket over my body, letting the weight of it settle over my bones, the pressure perfect, wrapped around me.
I pretend it’s him. I pretend it’s Jonas.
I even pretend, for a second, it’s Professor Harrington.
Damon stays with me the entire time, even when my eyelids grow heavy and I let myself fall into a somewhat dreamless slumber, he stays with me and in my dreams, I swear I can smell him, I swear he’s with me, praising me, touching me, trailing his fingertips in places I wish he would’ve touched when I was in his care.
When I was his patient.