Chapter Four
Pax
I adjust myself under True’s glare, tucking my hard cock into my waistband and making sure my shirt covers it.
“You’ve become way too familiar with her. You need to pull yourself together, Paxton. If you can’t do your duty, you will be removed from your assignment.”
“Yes, sir.”
He’s right. Vynessa gives me a single, tiny kiss on the cheek, her vanilla and cinnamon scent wrapping around me, her soft fingers safe in mine, and I forget everything I’ve been training for.
They told me I shouldn’t be the one living with her, but secrecy necessitated it.
I can handle myself. I have for my entire life.
I’ve managed to be her friend all these years, after all—just her friend.
When True turns away, I touch the warm spot on my cheek, sure her lips seared my skin, but it’s my imagination. There’s nothing there, nothing but the memory of those lips. I’ve thought about those lips a hundred times this summer, a thousand. And before that, millions.
“Should we really be leaving her in there alone?” I ask as I follow True into the largest liaison building on campus.
“She’s well-guarded,” True says, but the brusqueness of his tone makes me think that he wasn’t the one who made this decision. “I expect you to be my star student. You’re not getting any leniency in my classes.”
Is it just me, or is Frosty the Snow Dick even colder this morning than usual?
The guy is all business all the time, but there’s an extra snap in his tone that wasn’t there before breakfast. It’s possible he’s just in a bad mood, but I think it’s more than that.
I think he’s jealous. He will never know her the way I do.
No one will, but True doesn’t comprehend how much that fact has backfired on me. It’ll be my undoing.
I got to share a lifetime of memories with her, but they were all based on a lie. When she finds out, she will never forgive me.
The lie we’ve had between us is already coming apart. She’s been looking at me differently since I came home. Once, I thought I caught a glimpse of desire in her golden eyes…
But no. That was wishful thinking, and dangerous as well. Vynessa is not for me. No matter how I feel about her, I can’t act on it. I’m nothing compared to her.
I have to think of her like that now. Not as the girl I’ve been in love with all my life. Not even as a friend.
Untouchable.
I know that no matter my job title, we are friends, though. The dragon court, the entire royal guard, even the queen herself can never take that from us.
But I’m afraid they’ll try.
So if I can’t be what I want to be, at least I can be her friend.
I have eighteen years of practice at being just that.
I just have to keep playing my role. When it gets to be too much, when I can’t bear it and I think I’ll explode if my attraction to her can’t find release, I’ll do what I’ve always done.
Find some poor substitute for her, make her think I’m not interested in her.
I can’t be. I can’t afford to fall in love.
I can’t afford to be sloppy. No mistakes.
As soon as we arrive, the dragons are going to try to tear us apart.
If I’ve made even the slightest misstep, they’ll have reason to.
They’ll say we’re too attached. They might fear the influence I could have over her, but I know she’ll need all the guidance and true friends around her she can get.
So even though I’m not proud of what I’ve had to do to relieve my frustrations, I’m going to have to keep doing it.
Because being away from Vynessa is out of the question.
The amphitheater style room is full when we enter, and hungry eyes fix on True as he stalks to the front of the classroom.
It’s as if I’m completely invisible to the liaison women in here, even though they outnumber the men two to one.
Every pair of eyes is fixed on True as he unloads his bag onto a table and starts writing on the chalkboard.
Professor True, Introduction to the Dragon Court.
I find a chair in the back of the room and hook up the desk, then pull out a pen and parchment.
“Is it true that you’re rooming with Professor True?”
I turn to find a chick with blonde stick-straight hair leaning toward me. Her breasts are all but tumbling out of her top, and I force my gaze up to her expectant eyes. “Yes. I live with him.” I tap my pen on the desk. “Picks his nose.”
She giggles in a way where I can tell she doesn’t believe me.
Across the room, True gives me a warning glare, and I bare my teeth at him before focusing on the blonde.
“I’m Amber,” she says. “Where is your accent from?”
“Village of Nalo’Lan, ma’am.”
Her giggling erupts and spreads to the brunette beside her, and I know I’ll be getting a little relief, probably sooner rather than later.
“Alright, class. I’m not here to raise you, so if you’re talking when I’m lecturing, it means you don’t want to be here, and you should leave immediately.”
Lovely. Well at least I know True is as much of a dick at his job as he is in real life.