Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
DAPHNE
In the post-coital cuddle, Daphne finally told Celeste about her relationship with Alex.
She refused to ruin a perfectly good fucking with talk of her piece-of-shit ex, but with her muscles still watery from her lover’s interrogation tactics, she could open the old wound. Celeste made her feel safe.
Alex was intelligent. That was what hooked Daphne first. A teaching assistant for many of the harder high-level courses while also teaching a few classes of his own, he was equally drawn to Daphne’s intelligence.
Treated her like an equal instead of a student.
His pursuit of her was aggressive. In the early days, the charm was there, or maybe she wanted it to be.
She didn’t know he was married or had a track record for seducing students.
Daphne never thought she was that gullible.
That anyone pursuing her had to be serious to get over her oddities.
Not adding another notch to their belt. That was what she was to him, in the end: another successful conquest.
The problem came when he went to break things off. Perhaps he expected waterworks, or pleading. Clearly, he hadn’t known her as well as she believed. Answering his break-up statement with a shrug and nonchalant Ok set him off. His ego couldn’t handle her ambivalence.
The clap back was immediate. By the end of the day, her classmates were whispering nasty things within earshot.
Her roommate turned on her. The little tortures began.
He’d stirred up the college campus like a high school rumor mill, kicked a hornet’s nest he set loose on her.
And now, he had the audacity to treat her like a jilted lover open to a pity fuck.
Celeste held her through her recount of events, running human fingers through her hair. “I wasn’t sure if he was the one, but I think I got an inkling while chowing my way through your bitchy bullies.”
Daphne pinched her chin. “I’ve noticed.”
That made her lover’s brows snap together. In the weeks they’d been together, she’d gotten better at mimicking human emotions, or maybe they came more naturally to her after so much exposure. Daphne reached up to smooth her knotted brows. “What?”
“You noticed. You remember them, even though you weren’t there while I fed?” Something flashed through Celeste’s eyes. Her eyes wavered from baby blue to black pools, speckled with distant starlight. “Maybe someday you will be immune to my aura.”
The thought was one Daphne carefully folded and put away in a mental box, too nervous, too excited, to examine it now. Not even the conscious act of compartmentalizing the idea could stop the whisper of What if I could be with her forever?
First, she had a date night to plan.
Luring Alex to a potentially compromising situation was laughably easy.
Though she had deleted his number from her list of contacts months ago, it didn’t take much mental prodding to remember it.
She sent him an invitation to meet her in the sciences building for a late night “cram session” after the janitorial staff would be long gone.
She didn’t want them to get caught up in tonight’s festivities.
After once again disabling the camera to the labs, she went to set up, leaving the door unlocked behind her.
The familiar chemical scents bolstered her nerves.
It wasn’t fear or anxiety that fluttered through her stomach, but the dark excitement she normally kept buried deep because it unsettled others.
Alex didn’t keep her waiting long. He slipped into the lab, taking one final glance down the hall to make sure they were alone in the building before he stalked in her direction.
The sight of Daphne made him freeze. She’d fashioned herself into a lure, wearing nothing but a lab coat, carefully splayed open to reveal the curves of her breasts and the lace black thong that hugged her hips.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, that small slimy smile curling his lips while his gaze raked over her form. “I see you changed your mind. Couldn’t resist?”
Daphne didn’t trust herself to answer. A flash of familiar cold rage tingled down to her bare toes on the cool linoleum floor.
She crooked a finger, beckoning him closer while her other hand fiddled with the syringe behind her back.
The real challenge was keeping a neutral expression, continuing the illusion.
Luckily, Alex was too preoccupied by her body to notice the tightness in her jaw.
He crowded in front of her, bracing his hands on either side of the metal examination table she leaned against. Daphne waited, though her skin crawled when he began to nuzzle her shoulder.
The moment he stretched, exposing his neck, she struck, plunging the tranquilizer into his veins.
His heavy frame sagged against her. Daphne grunted at the sudden dead weight, struggling to maneuver his body onto the table, but after a sweaty five minutes, she managed to roll him onto it.
Selecting the fabric shears from her tray of tools, she cut him out of his suit, until he lay, nude and unconscious, on the dissection table.
Once she’d secured him to the table with a hefty number of zip ties and bungee cords, she waited for her date to arrive.
A dark smile curled her lips when Celeste’s arms slid around her waist. This was where the fun began.
Celeste pressed the curves of her body against Daphne’s back, hands slipping under the open lab coat to knead her breasts.
A tentacle curled up her thigh, stroking the lacy black material of her thong.
“Sugar, is this little black number for me? You spoil me,” Celeste purred in her ear, teasing her lower lips through the lace. Daphne shivered at the divine sensation, letting her head fall back against Celeste’s shoulder.
“Had to dress up right for date night,” she said, leaning back into the being who made her feel safe and cherished.
Daphne glanced down to find Alex awake, staring at her in wide-eyed horror while Celeste’s tentacles writhed in the open air behind her. He strained against his restraints, his cries muffled by the duct tape over his mouth.
Daphne held up a scalpel with a grin. “Ready for the main course?”