Chapter Seven
Vynessa
I regret chugging my drink by the time we’re halfway home.
I’m floating on a pleasant buzz, but I’m afraid I’ll get too careless with words and let something slip that will make our living situation just a tad awkward.
Like how it might be cool if they could let me sleep in their room tonight, maybe right between them.
Heat coils in my limbs as I walk beside Pax, holding his arm.
Now that I think of it, he’s hot too. Burning hot, and not just in the gorgeous way.
I swear, he must be putting off as much heat as a dragon flame.
“Are you okay?” I ask, pressing my free hand against his arm.
“You’re burning up. I think you have a fever. ”
“He’s fine,” True says, stepping closer to my other side and taking my free hand. Unlike Pax, his skin is blessedly cool to the touch.
“Look at me, being chaperoned by two handsome escorts,” I say. “I feel like the queen.”
Pax leans close to murmur in my ear. “You don’t look like her—thank fuck.”
“How do you know? Have you ever met the queen?” I tease.
Everyone knows the dragon queen never leaves her hidden palace, so of course that would be impossible.
No one but those at court have seen her in nearly a century, and most humans live as if she doesn’t exist. She’s never affected our lives, I know that much.
True squeezes my hand gently to his side, tugging my attention from Pax for a moment. “We’ve all seen pictures of her,” he says. “She’s in decline, that’s all. Still beautiful, but in a regal, ancient way.”
“So I’m beautiful?” I ask, grinning slyly at him.
He stares straight ahead, opening and closing his mouth as if choosing his next words carefully. “You’re full of the vibrant energy of youth.”
I snort and poke him in the ribs. “Because you’re so ancient,” I say with a laugh. “Wait… Did those girls call you professor? You don’t seem old enough for that. When you said you go to DLSA I thought you meant you were a student. What are you—twenty-four? Twenty-five?”
“I’m old enough to know better,” he mutters, extracting his arm from mine as we turn up the walkway towards our tiny, crappy house.
Something catches at my attention, and I turn to look back the way we came, but the sidewalk is empty.
Grey fog obscures the path beyond our walkway.
Still, I’m sure I saw a splash of red against the fog for just a second.
I’m being paranoid, of course. I’m imagining things. But I’m almost certain Sharp Tooth was at the bar too. I can’t figure out what that redheaded scholar is doing, but I swear he’s stalking me. I just don’t know why.
I shiver and pull my roommates closer as we hurry to the front door and inside. A chill climbs my spine, and now I really want to join them in their room. But they already gave me the big room, so I can’t encroach on the small space they share in our house.
Maybe it’s the alcohol, but I can’t sleep. I sit up reading, waiting for the exhaustion to claim me, but it takes hours. I’m not just buzzing with excitement and ale, I’m full of some strange energy that amasses in my stomach and makes my pelvis tingle.
I touch myself more than once, not just when I reach the salacious passages in the novel. I do it while thinking about True’s hand on my hip, his body against mine. About Pax not knowing I wasn’t wearing anything under my dress all night.
I find release four times, fingering myself until I’m sore, but it’s not enough.
I set aside the romance and take up some less stimulating material.
But even studying my history text is difficult, and I keep losing my place.
If I don’t sleep and I don’t do my reading homework, I don’t know how I’m going to face Professor Sinetar on Monday.
What will he do if I show up unprepared?
He already looks at me like he wants to eat me alive.
A delicious shiver passes through me at the thought, and the energy awakens in me all the more.
I wonder what the guys are doing next door, if they’re sleeping.
If they ever dream of me the way I dream of them.
I can feel them through the wall, their heat, their dominance.
Their gorgeous faces and strong, masculine bodies.
“For the love of the high priestess, what is wrong with me?” I moan, flopping back on my pillow, dropping my book off the side of the bed. It thuds to the floor, and I wince at the noise.
Seconds later, I hear footsteps crossing the floor in the next room. I thought the guys were sleeping, but someone taps softly on my door.
I’m only wearing a thin shirt and bloomers, but right now, I don’t care. I feel reckless and desperate in a way I don’t fully understand. But I know how to fix it.
“Pax?” I whisper, slipping from the bed and tiptoeing to the door in my bare feet.
The door creaks open, and one of True’s pale eyes peers back at me. “Are you unwell?” he asks. “I heard a noise.”
He seems to have made it his mission to look out for me during my first year at the academy. I wonder how many of my needs he’d be willing to satisfy…
Bad Vynessa!
What a ridiculous thought. He’s a professor. Not only that, the two scholar girls I’ve almost-sort of made friends with saw me hanging all over True, cozying up in his arms. Some reputation I’m getting at school.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the reputation were true, but it’s not.
True is cold as ice around me, and Pax was just flirting with another girl tonight.
He’s not interested in me, either. And Sinetar, despite his blatant disregard for student-teacher boundaries, hasn’t asked me out for drinks or done so much as touch me all week.
Holy dragon eggs, what I wouldn’t do to be completely, erotically demolished like that other professor though…
“I’m okay,” I say to True, deflating slightly. “I just dropped my book. Are you having trouble sleeping too?”
“I’m awake,” True says. “Want me to make you some hotcakes? Some food might help you sleep.”
The sweetness of the offer almost makes me tear up. “Okay.”
I follow him to the kitchen, trying not to let my eyes linger on the ridges of muscle of his back or the tight ass flexing in front of me as he strides ahead, his gait easy and confident.
He’s wearing a sleeveless undershirt to bed tonight, and I focus on his arms, their thick, corded muscles that could sweep me off my feet, toss me down on the kitchen table and—
“Chocolate?” he asks, turning around.
My face flames with the heat of a thousand dragons.
“Sure,” I mumble, scooting in at the table and settling in to admire his muscles while he cooks.
One bite into my second hotcake, and I have to admit that they’re much better than anything I’ve created thus far on ye old iron.
I smile at True in gratitude, since my feverish state of lust has faded some with the distraction of food.
“I don’t know if Pax told you that this is my favorite kind of hotcake, but this is my favorite kind of hotcake. ”
We move to the sofa after finishing, and I’m surprised True sits next to me, our legs brushing. When I curl up, True is practically holding me.
“Want to talk about why you can’t sleep?” he asks. Reaching up, his arm goes around me to the back of the sofa. He rubs his chin with his other hand, deep in thought. “Is it nightmares?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Literally the opposite of nightmares. I don’t know what’s come over me, honestly.”
“What’s the opposite of nightmares?” he asks before what I’m pretty sure is understanding passes his features. “That’s normal. Right? For someone your age…”
“I don’t know,” I mumble through my mortification. My face is so hot I swear the cool air inside the house is sizzling off it.
True’s body next to mine feels like cool as an ocean breeze.
Maybe his chill is what’s sizzling off me, not the air around us.
Meanwhile, that irrepressible fire is again igniting inside me.
Between being so close to True, inhaling his fresh masculine scent, and the fact that our conversation is edging on intimate, I’m getting turned on all over again.
“I’m actually really inexperienced with all of this,” I mutter, leaving out the words, You could fix that, True.
“That’s a good thing,” he says before rising and heading back to the kitchen, where I hear him knocking plates around as he starts to clean up.
What the demon lord is going on?
“Time for bed,” he calls.
I repress a groan of frustration and heave myself up. “Okay. Goodnight,” I call back, determined to sound as cool as him, even though I’m being eaten up by burning desire.
I flop down on my bed, seething with pent-up arousal. Once more, I reach under the covers, rubbing myself over and over, until I’m raw and swollen but satisfied enough to finally fall asleep.