Chapter 2 Lachlan
LACHLAN
Istare down at her, this fragile, intoxicating creature who hasn’t run or even looked away. Who should absolutely know better.
She doesn’t. Or she doesn’t care.
Her breath is shallow, chest rising in soft, uneven waves. That mask shields half her face, but nothing can hide the desire in her eyes.
“I want to stay here with you,” she says.
That’s it. The dam breaks. I reach past her and turn the lock.
I kiss her again, harder this time, consuming her with everything I haven’t let myself want in too long. Her lips part on a gasp, and I take full advantage, claiming her mouth.
My hand tightens on her waist, dragging her against me. My fingers slide into her hair and I tug, just enough to tilt her head back. I want more of her mouth. More of the little sounds she makes when I take what I want. She gives in so easily, but not weakly. She's choosing this.
I didn’t come here for this. I never do. This place is for control, not chaos. For watching, not touching. I don’t chase women. I don’t fuck in the open. I don’t lose control.
But this one.
Something about her calls to every part of me I’ve kept locked down.
I break the kiss and lift her onto the nearby table. The wood groans under us, candles sputtering in their holders. Her dress rides up, barely covering anything, and I shove it higher, my palms sliding up her thighs. They're soft, quivering under my touch.
"Don't move," I command.
She freezes, her hands clutching the edge of the table. Good. Obedience looks fucking perfect on her.
I step between her legs, forcing them apart with my hips, and trail my fingers inward, teasing the edge of her lace panties. Heat radiates from her pussy, and I can feel how wet she is for me already.
"Spread your legs wider," I order, my eyes locking onto hers through the slits of my mask. "Show me what's mine tonight."
Her knees part hesitantly, making my cock twitch painfully against my zipper.
"Fuck, look at you," I rasp, hooking my fingers into the fabric of her panties and yanking them down her legs in one tug.
I sink to my knees between her legs, my hands sliding up her thighs. Her skin is warm under my palms, the muscle beneath trembling. She’s trying to stay still, but she doesn’t know what I’m about to do to her.
“Hold still,” I say right against the crease of her thigh. Then I blow a soft breath across her pussy, and she shudders hard, a broken whimper escaping her lips.
I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh, then another, closer this time. My hands tighten, spreading her wider, opening her fully to me.
I look up, just to see her masked face. Eyes glazed, lips parted, hands gripping the edges of the table.
Leaning in, I drag my tongue slowly through her pussy, savoring her. Her hips jerk off the table, a strangled gasp tearing from her throat.
I pin her with one hand to keep her steady. “I said hold still.”
She tries. I can feel the tension in her thighs as she fights the urge to move and chase the pressure. But I’m in control now, and she’s learning what that means.
I go slow, painfully slow, licking her in long, steady strokes. I take my time, letting her feel every inch of my tongue, every pass, every pause. When I circle her clit with the tip, her whole body tenses.
I groan against her cunt, dipping lower, then back up, flattening my tongue and lapping at her. I want to ruin her for anyone else, to make her forget every man who didn’t treat her like she was sacred.
And judging by the way she’s already trembling beneath my mouth, I’m getting close.
I drag my mouth away, grazing the inside of her thigh with my teeth, just enough pressure to make her gasp again. Her body jerks toward me, a helpless reaction she couldn't fake if she tried.
"You like that?" I groan against her skin.
I do it again, a little higher this time, close enough to make her squirm. She moans, and I bite once more, slower this time, leaving a mark she’ll feel when she walks tomorrow.
I soothe the bites with my tongue, slow licks that make her moan, then dive back in, sucking her clit into my mouth hard.
My tongue flicks relentlessly, circling, sucking, while two fingers plunge inside her.
"So fucking wet," I say, pulling back just enough to speak.
I add a third finger, stretching her, pumping rough and fast, then slowing to a torturous grind. My free hand roams up, pinching her nipple through the dress, twisting until she yelps.
I devour her like a feast, alternating rough suction on her clit with slow, languid strokes. Her thighs quake around my head, and I can feel how close she is.
"Come on my face," I order, fingers slamming in deeper, thumb rubbing her clit in circles. "Drench me, beautiful. Show me how dirty you can be."
She shatters, screaming, her body convulsing. Juices flood my mouth, and I lap it all up.
Rising, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, my cock throbbing painfully now. I wrap my hand around the back of her neck and kiss her slowly, letting her taste herself on my tongue.
"We're not done. Stand up. Take that dress off for me."
She slides off the table on shaky legs, reaching for the straps. Her fingers tremble and it makes me want her even more. The dress pools at her feet, leaving her naked except for the mask and heels. Her arms instinctively cross over her chest.
"Don't cover yourself," I snarl. "You're fucking beautiful. Hands at your sides. Let me look."
Her breath hitches, but she lowers her arms. She stands there, bare and trembling, but she doesn’t hide.
"Now get on the bed. On your back. Legs spread for me."
She obeys, climbing onto the mattress, her movements shaky but sure. She lays back, opens for me, and it’s the most gorgeous fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
I crawl over her, my body settling between her thighs as I pin her wrists above her head with one hand. She squirms but she doesn’t look away.
With my free hand, I unbutton my pants, never taking my eyes off her. I free myself, the thick length of me pressing against her thigh. Her breath stutters.
"Look at me," I growl, nudging her entrance with the head of my cock. "Feel how hard you make me?"
She nods.
I thrust in, burying halfway before her body clamps down around me. She cries out, and there's something raw in it. Something that makes me pause.
"This isn’t your first time, is it?"
"No," she breathes.
Grinding deeper, I give her time to adjust and take me fully.
"You’re doing so fucking good," I say. "Take me. All of me."
"Harder…. now... please," she whimpers.
I give her exactly what she asks for. My hips snap forward, driving deeper, harder, each thrust sending a jolt through both of us. She cries out, fingers digging into the sheets, her body arching to meet mine.
Somewhere in the motion, her mask slips. It tilts, then slides off entirely, falling to the mattress beside her.
She reaches for it, but I catch her wrist.
“No," I say. "Don’t hide from me."
I stare down at her, every inch of her flushed and undone beneath me. She’s fucking breathtaking. Not just sexy, not just gorgeous… fucking angelic. I forget everything except the way she’s looking at me, trusting me, giving herself to me without armor.
“The mask stays off. You’re too beautiful to cover up.”
Suddenly, her hands come up to my mask, fingers brushing the edge.
“Let me see you too,” she whispers. “I want to see your face.”
The words hit like a strike to the ribs. No one here sees me. Not the real me. Not the man under the mask. I shove her hands away. “No.”
Before she can speak again, I flip her onto her stomach, dragging her beneath me. I grip her wrists, pinning them at the small of her back with one hand.
She’s face-down now, ass arched high, and I drive into her again. My strokes are hard, fast, punishing. Not because I want to hurt her. Because I need to hold on to something before I break apart.
The angle is brutal and deep, and she cries out, pleasure and shock tangled together. I slap her ass, just once.
“This,” I grunt, fucking her harder, “this is what you get. My cock. Not my face. Understand? Now come again for me. I want to feel you soak my cock. Show me how this perfect pussy comes for me.”
And she does, screaming into the sheets. Her legs tremble as her pussy clenches hard around me. I keep going, thrusting through it, until I break too—filling her with deep, hot pulses.
But it’s not enough.
I pull out and flip her onto her back. She’s gasping, eyes glassy, still trying to catch her breath. I don’t wait, sliding back into her in one hard thrust.
“I’m not done with you yet. Not even close.”
I know I’ll never see her again. I can’t. I don’t let anyone see me. I’m too fucked, too far gone.
And she’s the only woman who’s made me lose control in years. Years since…
No. Don’t go there. Don’t fucking go there.
I shut it down. Focus. Drive into her again and again, and she scratches down my back, whimpering that it’s too much, that she can’t take it. But I know she can. And I need her to.
“I’m not done claiming you,” I rasp.
She moans for me, her body shattering again and again until she’s boneless beneath me, ruined and wrecked, marked in every way a man can mark a woman.
And me?
Still broken.
But for the first time in years, not entirely alone in the dark.
I stride across the campus quad, the autumn wind slicing through my coat.
I can’t shake her from my mind. The woman who let me have all of her. The way she took me, moaned for me, came completely undone beneath me.
Fuck.
I had her, until the knock on the door. Her worried friend came to collect her. She gathered her things, hurried out without looking back. I scared her off. Like I knew I would. And then she vanished.
Not that we could’ve been anything in real life. I don’t know her name. She doesn’t know mine.
She’s never even seen my face.
The university buildings rise around me, all ivy-covered brick and self-importance. A world away from the pulsing underbelly of the club where I lost control.
A mistake. A revelation. Both.
It’s been years since I’ve set foot in a lecture hall. Adjunct professor, a temporary gig, filling in for Professor Harlan, who bolted for a family emergency. His loss. My reluctant gain.
The dean called yesterday, practically begged.
Said my “expertise in criminal psychology” made me the ideal stand-in.
He didn’t mention where that expertise came from.
Before I consulted for law enforcement, I was law enforcement.
Sheriff in a small town no one had heard of until the human trafficking case broke wide open.
Girls disappearing. Locals looking the other way.
A sting operation that turned into a national headline.
My name was on the news for weeks. Hero.
Whistleblower. Trauma survivor. Depends who you ask.
What they don’t say is how it gutted me.
How it still does.
I said yes to this stand-in professor gig mostly because the real world’s knocking louder these days, and because hiding behind masks—literal and otherwise—can’t last forever.
Especially not after last night.
I broke my one rule: don’t touch.
The club isn’t my playground. It’s my vigil where I watch and protect. I make sure the wide-eyed girls dragged in by reckless friends don’t end up prey. No names. No faces. No entanglements. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
The psych building appears ahead, students swarming with coffee cups and backpacks, scattered like ants. I adjust my tie, smooth down my hair, and mold my expression into something neutral and professional.
This is the real me they get. Professor Lachlan Cain. Not a survivor—just a man who saw too much. A witness to the worst in people.
Still haunted by what I’ve seen.
No one here knows what I do at night. No one knows how badly I failed at detachment last night.
I push through the double doors and step into the classroom. Stale air hits me. Thirty-some students. Grad-level seminar: Deviant Behavior and Societal Controls.
Ironic, given mine.
I drop my briefcase on the desk, boot up the projector, and start scanning faces. Most blur together—eager, bored, half-asleep. Until…
Fuck.
Third row center. Notebook open. Pen poised.
Her.
Just her face—heart-shaped and devastating. Hair loose around her shoulders. Eyes wide. Lips I kissed raw now parted as she rifles through her backpack.
She’s dressed simply in a sweater and jeans, but it’s her. Unmistakably her.
She’s my student.
I grip the lectern, knuckles going white. My voice stays steady by force alone.
“Good morning. I’m Professor Cain, filling in for Professor Harlan.”
A pause. Her eyes meet mine.
I never took the mask off that night. Not once. But the way her expression shifts, sharpening from confusion to shock… I know she knows.
My cock stirs traitorously beneath the podium.
This job just became a slow, exquisite form of torture.
Because now I have to stand here, week after week, staring into the face I swore I’d never see again.
The face I worshipped in the dark.
The face I can never, ever have again.