Chapter 31
Thirty-One
Colson
When I creep past the front door at half past eleven, the house buzzes around me. The lights are out, Asher quiet and hopefully asleep in his basement bedroom, but my heightened senses pick up on every quiver and eddy in the ephemera that fills our home.
I took too much fucking kavish this afternoon, trying to keep my mind focused on work. Or maybe part of me wanted the thrum of the energies around me to drown out my thoughts about what I did earlier today.
All the same, bits and pieces float through the clamor. The rustle of Elodie Devine’s hair against my pant leg. The heat of her chest soaking into my thighs. The intoxicating little gasp that escaped her when I first grazed my fingers over her panties...
I jam the heel of my hand against my forehead, hard. The pressure pushes back the memories, but the buzz of ephemera blares louder.
I’m not getting to sleep like this. I’ve had to resort to chemical measures to knock myself out plenty of nights when I was less keyed up.
The floor groans faintly as I head to my bedroom off the living room, but Asher sleeps pretty deeply.
I made an excuse about needing to work particularly late tonight because every time I pictured him sitting across the dinner table from me, there was something I didn’t want to face in his expression.
Disappointment. Resentment. Radiants know what else.
If I don’t get a handle on myself, he might look at me and know just how far I crossed the line.
In my room, I fish the pill bottle out of the drawer in my scuffed side table and down one of the sedatives dry. It leaves an unpleasantly chalky taste in my mouth, but that feels like part of my penance.
I strip off my dress shirt and slacks carefully and sling them over the back of my chair. The high-end clothes I’ve hunted down at thrift stores and outlet sales theoretically should be dry-cleaned, but I do the best I can at home.
No Luminary student is going to sneer at the Beacon-educated professor for a shabby wardrobe, but there’s only so much I can afford to spend on that goal.
By the time I’ve washed my face and brushed my teeth, the pill’s effect still hasn’t kicked in.
I sprawl out on my bed in my undershirt and boxers, grimacing at the scratchy texture of the sheets and going through the familiar cycle of longing to splurge on bed covers as fine as my shirts and guilt that I’d consider sacrificing family funds for pure, selfish comfort.
I press my head back into the pillow and close my eyes. The buzzing energy gradually fades into a whisper, but my nerves keep humming. My fingers clench and twist at my sides.
The note of jasmine that laced the air when she bent over my lap. The satisfying slap of flesh and fabric against my palm. The subtle squirming I assumed was discomfort but really—
I suck a breath through my teeth with a hiss and roll onto my side.
The images follow me, crowding my head. That damned girl.
And she’s damned me. Why the hell did I ever run with her absurd suggestion? How could I have taken it that far? What was I thinking?
I wasn’t. She was there—and her smell—and the glint in her eyes—and something inside me just…
I don’t know how to explain it. I remember my body moving, the heated emotions gripping me, but it’s as if they directed me like a puppet—
No. That’s just a feeble excuse, isn’t it?
I did it. I violated one of my students, and I fucking enjoyed it while it was happening.
The knowledge slices through me like a blunt knife.
I close my eyes, but the blade only jabs deeper, scraping every nerve along the way.
Finally, I shove myself upright and grope under the bed for the wooden case that holds my meager art supplies. I don’t bother turning on the light. In the dim illumination that seeps through the window, my hand pulls the charcoal across a page of my sketchbook.
My hand moves as automatically as it did those wretched moments in my office.
Big eyes. Elegant nose. Subtle waves of hair. Those full lips...
I trace the line of Elodie’s jaw and the slope of her shoulders, the set of her mouth when she’s defiant and startled, one angle and then another, over and over, until I’ve poured out enough of the tension into the paper.
My hand falters. Exhaustion rolls over me.
I don’t even manage to get the charcoal back into its box before I’ve slumped into the pillow.
When I wake up, surfacing through a haze, paper crinkles around me. As always, the sedative leaves me a bit groggy even after sleeping. I blink several times before understanding sinks through my skull.
Over a dozen sheets torn from my sketchbook lie scattered on the bed. Hasty but immediately recognizable charcoal renderings stare back at me of Elodie Devine’s face, hair, back, her bare ass...
Shame scorches through my veins. I snatch at every paper within reach and heave myself up to gather the rest.
In my furor, they crumple between my fingers.
Footsteps creak on the other side of the door—Asher heading to the kitchen to make breakfast. The tension around my lungs clenches tighter.
If anyone saw this—the school administration, my brother—
A more distant memory flickers behind my eyes: walking into the garage at our old house and finding my parents scrambling amid a mess of plastic baggies and vials, leaves and seed pods littering the folding table.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Dad said, too fast, but in their case, the cliche was true. Their situation was actually much worse than it looked.
Asher will never have to know that. And he never has to know about the manic lust that possessed me yesterday.
I stuff the papers into my trash bin, resolving to burn them as soon as I can without my brother noticing and wondering why.
Our parents failed epically at parenting, so it’s my job to make sure he never has to worry about anything except his own future.
I approach the kitchen to find Asher doling out eggs onto two plates. He’s made mine hard-boiled the way I prefer. His gleams sunny-side-up. The crisp, doughy scent of toasted bread wafts into the air with the chime of the toaster.
More shame clogs my throat. “You didn’t need to do this.”
Asher shrugs and shoots me a smile that looks a little tighter than usual. “I couldn’t make dinner for you last night, so I figured we could at least have a good breakfast.”
Where the hell did my little brother get the idea that he needs to look after me?
It’ll only hurt his feelings to complain now that he’s done, though. I pour my coffee out of the pot he already brewed and sit in my usual spot.
Asher stays standing, his eyes unusually dark under the fall of his light brown hair. His hands squeeze the top of his chair.
“Yesterday,” he says abruptly. “What did you say to Elodie after class? She shouldn’t be punished just for making up a reading.”
Anger flares beneath my shame, reminding me of why I hauled the defiant brat into my office in the first place.
Why should he care what happened to her? She’s been nothing but a little shit to him for the past two weeks.
My voice turns clipped. “She used a classroom exercise to carry out a personal vendetta. Of course that requires consequences.”
Asher’s shoulders go rigid. “You know everyone hates those sessions. You hate those sessions.”
“And yet they’re required by the academy, and everyone else has managed to do them without spewing malicious lies. Why are you defending her? She was trying to hurt you.”
Unless she was telling the truth that I was her only target. I find that hard to believe.
Asher shakes his head with a short jerk. “I don’t think she was. I think... I saw something in her ephemera... It was hard to follow, but I’m pretty sure she’s dealing with something serious right now. It doesn’t seem right to pile more problems on her.”
My anger transforms into something with teeth, bared and ready to bite. “What kind of something serious?”
Who’s fucking with Elodie, and how quickly can I tear out their throat?
At the vehemence in my tone, Asher’s gaze twitches. “I—I don’t know. I can just tell she’s got a lot going on. So maybe go a little easier on her than usual?”
I clench my jaw. Of course it’s nothing but his instinctive sympathies turning her into a victim.
Asher just can’t help himself from chasing after every wounded stray he catches sight of, real or imaginary.
Why the hell am I getting so worked up over the idea of Elodie in trouble? Haven’t I been the one giving her the worst trouble she’s probably faced recently?
“I’m sure Elodie Devine is perfectly all right,” I say. “She has everything she could want handed to her every day of her life and no shortage of resources to sort out any problems that come her way. Don’t waste your time trying to protect her when she’d screw you over the second it suits her.”
Asher’s mouth tightens for a second as if he’s going to keep arguing. Instead, he sits down and picks up his toast to poke the corner into the runny yolk of his egg.
His silence feels almost as pointed as if he snapped at me. It keeps needling me with every second he keeps his mouth shut.
I gulp down the rest of my breakfast as quickly as I can and escape temporarily into the shower.
As the hot water batters my skin and the steam billows into my lungs, I close my eyes and exhale long and slow.
And the image of Elodie’s smooth, tan ass, her pale panties marked with a streak of unmistakable arousal, swims up from the depths I shoved it to.
I grit my teeth, but my dick has already risen to half-mast.
I reach for other fantasies I’ve played out in this stall, scenarios with faceless women twining their bodies with mine. It’s been too long since I had any real experiences—discreet hookups with drab prostitutes to scratch that bodily itch—to inform my imagination. Elodie’s features keep intruding.
My balls throb. Fuck, I have to get this lust out of me.
I don’t want a shred of it coming out after I leave this room. Not ever again.
I grip my erection firmly and stroke the shaft up and down. As the pleasure of the motion courses through my body, I see Elodie kneeling before me. Elodie’s pouty lips parting, her tongue darting out to lick the head of my cock.
I muffle a groan against my forearm, braced against the tiled wall. My other arm pumps harder.
Elodie clambering onto my lap, legs splayed around me. Elodie making those incredible little whimpers as she takes my cock into the slick, hot channel I only got to probe with gloved fingers. Elodie clutching my shoulder, my hair, as she bucks to meet me.
My release surges through me even faster than I expect. I come with a splatter against the tiles and an ecstatic rush that leaves me slumping into the wall.
As my dick goes limp in my hand, the spent desire congeals into a sickly sensation in my gut.
I should never have touched her in the first place. I sure as fuck shouldn’t be thinking about touching her more.
What the hell is wrong with me?
The question that’s gnawed at me so many times since I took my first steps to ensuring I earned my professorship wriggles through my brain again.
What if I’m not any better than my parents after all, just rotten in a totally different way?