Chapter 33 #3
"I’ve missed you!" Mia chuckled, her tone turning slightly more playful. "I have all this banter bottled up. I’m used to seeing your glorious face every single day—give me a break! Seeing you on the weekends isn't enough to satiate me anymore."
I sighed, leaning back in my library chair. "So, let me get this straight. Your solution to missing me is for me to make out with Carrie so you and Adrian can go home and fuck while thinking about us?"
"Exactly," Mia said, her voice full of pride. "See? You get it."
"You have a serious fucking problem, Mia," I sighed, though I couldn't stop the small, private smile from tugging at my lips.
As I hung up, I realised that as crazy as Mia’s suggestion was, the reality would be even more intense.
If Carrie ever caught someone watching us, or even suggesting it, I’d probably be locked in her bedroom for a month.
I checked my watch. Shit. It was already 10:30 a.m. Being here so early had completely skewed my sense of time; my seminar wasn’t until 11:45 a.m.
I packed my things with a newfound restlessness, my mind buzzing with Mia’s fucking ridiculous suggestion. I knew Carrie was in office hours until 11:00 a.m., so I made a detour, my heart doing a nervous little dance in my chest.
I walked past her open door first, playing it cool, and scanned the room.
Empty. No students, no prying faculty. I dipped inside, and my eyes landed on Carrie.
She was leaning over a stack of essays, the sunlight catching the sharp line of her jaw.
She didn't even look up; she just rolled her eyes, purposefully ignoring my presence as if I was nothing more than a minor distraction.
Oh, so we were playing the cold lecturer, were we?
A bratty impulse took hold of me. I wanted to shatter that composure. I closed the door behind me with a soft, deliberate click and leaned against it, crossing my arms.
"You'll never guess the conversation I just had with Mia," I started, my voice dripping with feigned innocence.
"Apparently, Adrian thinks we're both 'hot.' He told Mia that if we ever decided to put on a show for them—you know, a little kiss, nothing too scandalous—he’d be so revved up he’d practically tear her apart when they got home. "
I expected the icy glare. I expected her to tell me to grow the fuck up or to threaten me for even entertaining such a 'low-brow' thought.
Instead, Carrie froze. She slowly put her pen down and finally looked up at me.
Her eyes weren't angry; they were terrifyingly fucking dark, a predatory heat simmering in them that I wasn't prepared for.
She didn't scold me. She stood up slowly, her gaze raking over me with an intensity that made the air in the room feel ten degrees hotter.
"Is that right?" she murmured, her voice a low, dangerous vibration. She walked around her desk, stalking toward me until I was pinned against the door. "He thinks he gets to use the idea of us to fuel his own pathetic little fantasies?"
She reached out, her hand sliding up my neck to cup my jaw, her thumb pressing firmly against the bruise she had left there.
"Tell me, Alex," she whispered, her face inches from mine, "does the idea of being watched excite you? Because the thought of a man even imagining what I do to you makes me want to show you exactly why you belong only to me. In ways that would make your little friend's head spin.”
"I... I just thought it was funny," I stammered, my voice sounding thin and unconvincing even to my own ears. I was trying to be a fucking brat, trying to get a rise out of her, but I had accidentally poked a sleeping lion and realised I was trapped in the cage.
Carrie hummed, a low, melodic sound that resonated through her chest and into mine. She didn’t pull away; if anything, she moved closer, her body heat searing through my clothes.
"Well, darling," she said, her tone shifting into something smooth, dark, and utterly self-assured. "I have never, and will never, be intimidated by another man. If a boy wants to use the image of me to help him perform, that's his business."
She leaned in, her lips brushing the shell of my ear, sending a violent shiver down my spine. "But if my princess wants to be devoured over dinner... if she wants to be marked and handled while the world watches and envies what they cannot have... well, who am I to argue?"
I gasped, my breath hitching as my body fucking betrayed me completely.
My knees went weak, and a heat I couldn’t control pooled low in my belly.
This wasn't the reaction I had expected. I had thought she’d be jealous, possessive, perhaps even fucking disgusted.
Instead, she had leaned into it with a sophisticated, predatory confidence that was infinitely more terrifying—and a thousand times more arousing.
"And as for your little friends," she continued, her thumb tracing the line of my lower lip, "if they get off on witnessing the way you belong to me, then who am I to judge? I’ve always been a fan of the arts, Alex. And you? You are my greatest masterpiece."
I was breathless, my face burning with a shame I couldn’t hide. "Carrie... I didn't mean—"
"Shh," she silenced me, her eyes locking onto mine with a look that said she knew exactly how much I was struggling right now.
"You wanted to play the brat, didn't you?
You wanted to see if you could make me lose my cool.
" She smirked, a sharp, triumphant twist of her lips.
"Go to your seminar, Alex. Sit in that room and think about the fact that tonight, I might just take you out to the most crowded restaurant in the city and show you exactly what I'm capable of when I have an audience. "
I let out a broken, needy whimper, my head falling back against the door as Carrie’s words settled over me like a heavy, suffocating weight.
She didn't pull away; instead, she leaned into the sound, a look of pure, dark triumph dancing in her eyes.
This was way more than I fucking expected.
She was revelling in my undoing, soaking up my reaction like it was the only thing keeping her alive.