by D. Laine
“What happened?”
I could have played it dumb, pretended I didn’t know what she was asking. But what happened the last time we saw each other had plagued me for far too long already. Though I couldn’t tell her everything, she deserved to know some of the truth. She could make an informed decision with some truth.
“You swore off bad boys,” I reminded her softly.
“And you are one?”
“I am,” I confirmed.
“So you were being considerate by not . . .” She trailed off with a shaky breath. Her fingers shook as she transferred the developed picture into the third and final tray. Again I moved with her as if we were permanently connected.
“I guess so,” I offered. My eyes trained on her hands, where they gripped the edge of the basin. I could move. I probably should back away, give her some space, but greed kept me firmly in place.
In an effort to distract her, I murmured into her ear, “So what are we looking at?”
She paused a moment before whispering, “I honestly don’t know.”
I chuckled deeply. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”
“No.” She sounded breathless, most definitely flustered.
“Nervous?” I couldn’t help myself when I pushed closer. With my chest pressed flush against her back, I dropped one hand to her hip to hold her against me.
“A little,” she sighed. “And also a little curious.”
With my free hand, I brushed aside the hair that had fallen free of its tie. My fingers tightened on her hip as I lowered my mouth to her shoulder. “About what exactly?” I caught the sliver of exposed skin between her shirt and her neck and gave it a soft kiss.
Her head rolled to the side with a sigh, exposing more of her neck for me. “About what it is that makes me want this. Makes me want you.”
I groaned against the side of her neck. “I can help you figure that out . . .” I nipped at her earlobe. “If you want me to.”
“I want.”
With that confirmation, I greedily took what she offered. To hell with being considerate. I licked, nibbled, and tasted my way up and down her throat, eliciting a chorus of soft moans and sighs to pass through her parted lips. Despite my impatience to finally claim her mouth with my own, I took my time to savor every inch of her supple neck. I glided up and over her jaw, steadily moving in the direction of her lips, like a man with all the time in the world.
Her head tilted to bring my destination closer. My lips brushed hers, just enough to make her groan in frustration. With my hands on her waist, I guided her toward me. She turned in my arms as I made a second pass over her lips. This time our mouths collided.
Her hands slipped under my arms, crisscrossing my back to hold me tightly against her. My rigid-as-stone hard on pressed between us, and I didn’t even care to deny it.
Her soft moans into my mouth only made me want to know what she would sound like when I was buried deep inside of her. I wanted to make her cry out my name, I wanted to make her fall apart around me, I wanted her like I’d never wanted another before her.
I hooked the back of her legs with my hands and pulled them around my waist. Her mouth dropped open with a gasp and I captured her tongue as I strode across the room to find something a little more practical than the basin she was currently pressed against.
Situated in the corner of the room was a standard school desk that should work. I couldn’t help but be excited by the prospect of playing out the stereotypical naughty school girl/bad teacher fantasy on that desk.
Surprisingly, Thea seemed just as excited as I was to make it happen, despite my self-proclaimed status as a bad boy. The moment I set her down on top of the desk, her curiosity trumped her own self-preservation, and she greedily ripped the shirt over my head.
“Oh, hell yeah.” I reached for the hem of her blouse as my mouth found hers again. My fingers grazed the smooth skin underneath, forcing her to moan into my mouth again. Her legs circled my waist, pulling me flush against her.
Her wandering hands made it a little difficult for me to get rid of the shirt in my way. But in a good way. I don’t think I had ever enjoyed the feel of hands on me this much before. She was everywhere—my chest, my back, my shoulders, my stomach. I stopped to savor it for a moment before I tore at her shirt again. I got it as high as her ribcage when a knock at the door halted my progress.
Thea’s mouth tore from mine. “Safe light is on!”
That phrase stopped whoever was at the door from entering. My gaze reluctantly drifted up from the exposed flesh beneath my hands to meet Thea’s wide eyes. My hands were frozen just centimeters from the holy ground that I desperately wanted to touch. I arched an eyebrow at her because I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to do now.
Thea’s head shook in frustration as a voice drifted through the closed door. “I have an assignment to finish for tomorrow. How much longer do you think you’ll be?”
“Um . . . I don’t know. I just started . . .”
I lowered my mouth to Thea’s neck, forcing her to toss her head back with a satisfied sigh.
While Thea continued a stunted conversation with the girl at the door, I did my best to distract her. Unable to resist what was in front of me—or trying to convince her to get rid of the unwanted visitor—I pushed her shirt higher, exposing her bra. My head dipped lower and I skimmed my lips over the silky fabric that sadly still covered her.
“Okay,” Thea breathed, answering something the other girl had asked. “Um . . .”
I brazenly captured her nipple through the thin material and bit down softly. Thea nearly tumbled off the desk before I hooked an arm around her waist to catch her.
“Are you alright, Thea?” the voice asked.
I chuckled, and Thea’s legs tightened around my waist—either pleading for me to continue, or begging me to stop. I couldn’t tell. But I wasn’t stopping until she told me to. With words. Because the noises that were coming out of her mouth right now sounded more like encouragement to my ears.
“I’m fine,” she breathed.
“You sure about that?” I mumbled as I shifted to give equal attention to her other nipple. The fabric still covering it didn’t conceal her response to my teasing. Oh no. Her perfect tits were at full attention.
“So how much longer are you going to be?” the annoying girl repeated.
“Um . . .” Thea hesitated, and I paused my assault to glance up at her with a grin.
Moment of truth. It was her call. I would put it all in her hands, though the answer I wanted to give couldn’t have been more clearly visible on my face. Or more pronounced in my pants.
Thea nibbled on her lip in deliberation as she studied me. Finally, she directed her attention to the door with a timid question. “Maybe . . . forty-five minutes?”
My eyebrows shot up, and I whispered, “Forty-five minutes?” She shrugged, prompting me to ask, “Who in the hell have you been with?”
Her eyes narrowed on me as the girl outside said, “I really can’t wait that long, Thea. It’s an important project . . .”
Thea threw her head back with a frustrated growl, and I tuned out everything else the other girl had to say. All that mattered was that whatever I had hoped to happen in this room—particularly on this desk—was not going to happen now.
The only satisfaction I gained in watching Thea slide out from beneath me and walk across the room was that she seemed just as irritated as I was—that and I got a nice view of her ass. Her frustration was evident when she swung the door open to let the other girl in.
“Thanks, Thea. I really—” The newcomer froze a few steps into the room as Thea shut the door. Her eyes widened when she spotted me pulling my shirt down over my abs. “Oh.”
Thea muttered something I couldn’t hear on her way to the machine behind me, and I flashed a smile at the new girl from my hiding spot behind the basin. I had to hide because, well . . . I still had a boner the size of the Grand Tetons in my pants.
“Morning,” I declared a little too loudly. My fake enthusiasm must have been audible, because Thea snickered behind me.
“I’m Rose.” The girl gave a shy wave before she set her bag on the desk that, a moment ago, I’d hoped to—
I had to stop thinking about that fucking desk. Otherwise I would never be able to move from my spot. I feared not even the dim light could hide the evidence of the fantasies racing through my head.
“I’m Jon,” I returned automatically as Thea came up beside me with another blank sheet of paper to dip into the chemicals spread out in front of me. She shot me a curious look and I shrugged.
“What’s your real name?” she whispered.
“Dylan.” She gave me a suspicious look, and I leaned as close to her ear as I dared. “My name is Dylan James Romero. Birthdate, 4-16-94. You already have my number. What else do you want?”
Thea grunted softly, a faint smile on her lips, as she glanced up at me. Her eyes trailed across my shoulders and chest with noticeable longing. Longing I understood completely—in a painful way. Blue balls were real, and I had them bad. It took all my strength to not do everything in my power to make the ache go away, and give her exactly what her eyes told me she wanted at the same time.
Standing beside her while she worked certainly didn’t help, but after a few more pictures were developed, I started to forget . . . and just enjoy her company. I stayed out of the way of Rose while she did her thing, and got into the rhythm of helping Thea once I got the idea of what to do.
It wasn’t hard. Developing pictures, that was. The mountain in my pants wasn’t going anywhere for a long time, as long as Thea was within sight.
Standing at the sink, rinsing off one of the many pictures she had developed, I saw something that finally worked to shut off the pain receptors in my groin. Instantly, I flipped into assassin mode. Shooting a glance over my shoulder to confirm that Thea was busy at the machine exposing another image, I lifted the picture that had caught my eye out of the water to get a closer look at it.
The image Thea had captured, at first glance, was nothing more than a nature shot—the colors surrounding the hot springs in the foreground and pool of water in the distance. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the figures standing amongst the thick vapors rising out of the ground that encompassed most of the shot. Professor Thompson and Kyle Davenport—the two known vessels in the group that day. The fact that they were together wasn’t alarming, but the way they were leaning together was.
They were obviously up to something, and appeared to be looking at something held between them. Could have been a simple student-instructor discussion over some stupid piece of rock, but I doubted it. Something was in the professor’s hand. Something I couldn’t make out clearly.
Asking Thea to enlarge it was out of the questions. Not without explaining why I needed to know what he was holding. I had to find another way to figure out what it was, and that left Jake and his freakishly ingenious ways.
Casting a glance over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching, I slipped the still-wet photograph into my pants pocket. I turned away from the sink at the same time Thea approached the basin. I glided up behind her and put my mouth to her ear.
“As much fun as this has been, I have to get going,” I whispered.
“I figured.” She leaned against me slightly, and I knew from the sigh that passed between her lips that she hadn’t forgotten about earlier any more than I had.
Even if I had something else that I needed to focus on right now, just being in her presence put me on a whole different level of awareness. I basked in the scent of her hair and something else that was just her. Hell, even the smell of these chemicals would turn me on if I were to ever get a whiff of them again.
“Oh, fuck,” I sighed against her neck.
“I wish.” Her ass tapped against the front of my pants, and I groaned.
I had never been more sexually frustrated in my life. It was a pain I desperately needed to end. “Maybe I can see you later?”
Her chin jerked toward me, bringing her mouth teasingly close to mine, and she smiled. I took that as a yes.
Peeking across the room to find Rose engrossed in something, I leaned forward to press my lips lightly to Thea’s. Just enough to remind us both of what almost happened in this room, and what eventually would happen. Just enough to get me through the next few hours until fantasy became reality.
Because once I got back to Jake with the photograph in my pocket, I was planning to find her to finish what we started.
14
“It doesn’t . . .” Jake tilted the photograph in his hand as if looking at it from another angle would help him see it better. “It’s not a bomb. I don’t think.”
“Too small,” I agreed. “If it is then it’s nothing but a pathetic pipe bomb. They won’t do shit with that besides blow themselves up. What caught my eye is this part right here . . .”
I tapped my finger against the picture to indicate the narrow tip on the black object in the professor’s hand.
Jake moved the photo closer to his face and nodded. “Looks like some sort of drill or something.”
“For digging?”
“Tunneling,” Jake mumbled to himself. His eyes took on the distant, glossy look they tended to when he was thinking too hard.
“Tunneling in Yellowstone? For what?”
Jake’s eyes snapped to mine. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be figuring out?”
“Well, yeah, but . . .”
“You’re too busy chasing that girl, Dylan.” Jake pushed away from the table. He was two seconds from entering full-on scolding mode, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
“Who in the hell do you think took that?” I jabbed a finger at the picture in his hand. “Besides, she’s being targeted by—”
“A vessel,” Jake cut me off. “I know. I also happen to know that he’s dead now, so you have no reason—”
“It’s more than that, Jake.” I slapped my hand down on the bedside table, nearly toppling the lamp. “There’s a reason he was so adamant about tagging her. For that matter, how had he not tagged her by now?”
“You sure she’s not?” he fired back.
“Positive, I—” I grimaced at the memory of the last girl I tried to hook up with that was a tag. “I got close enough. Thea’s clear.”
Jake shrugged as he made his way to the bathroom. “I don’t know, Dylan. Maybe she didn’t sleep with him. Not everyone is—”
“Like me,” I finished for him with a brusque nod. “Got it. What are you doing?”
He tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “Taking a leak, if that’s alright with you. Thought we could go snoop on the professor.”
“The kind of snooping that leads to a dead body by the end of the night?” Ideally, early enough that I still had time to meet up with Thea later.
I wished I had thought to ask what her schedule was for the rest of the day. Did she work tonight? Did she have a late class? I knew nothing. How pathetic would it look if I texted her to find out?
Unaware of my straying thoughts, my partner returned a sly smile of his own. “Depends on how chatty Mr. Geology is.”
As it turned out, Professor Thompson was a hell of a lot harder to pin down than most vessels. As a whole, they were reclusive and careful. This guy? Paranoia dictated his every move. Not that I blamed him since all his buddies were dropping dead all over town.
He knew we were here. He knew there were assassins closing in, but he didn’t know who we were, nor how close we were to him.
I reminded myself of this when I knocked on the door to the professor’s office. Glancing at the plaque glued to the wall, I double-checked the times listed for his “office hours” and consulted my watch. In my periphery, at the end of the hallway, Jake prepared to pounce. Hushed voices from the other side of the door prompted me to hold my hand out to Jake. The professor had company.
The door swung open and I peered into the calculating, caut
ious eyes of another student—one I vaguely recognized from the class I was in.
“Professor Thompson in?” I asked him. “I have a question about class and—”
“Come in,” a deep voice bellowed from inside the room. “You have ten minutes before I’m due in lecture.”
I shot a look over my shoulder before I entered the room. Jake shifted his feet and I nodded to let him know I had this. I could handle the professor—
But I wasn’t so sure about the three tags that surrounded him like some fucked up secret service detail. I glimpsed the telltale sign on the back of the neck of the student who had opened the door as he shut it behind me. My eyes swept the crowded room, skimming briefly over the other two students in the corner. Though I couldn’t see their necks, I didn’t doubt they’d been tagged as well.
“Pay no mind to them,” the professor told me with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They’re working on some research for me and won’t be a problem.”
I stepped up to the large mahogany desk, swallowing a few times to wet my suddenly dry mouth. The professor’s beady eyes watched me approach with barely restrained annoyance.
“What can I help you with, Mr. . . .”
“Um . . .” Quickly rising panic had caused me to temporarily forget. “Walters?”
“Are you sure about that?” Thompson peered up at me with a hint of amusement.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat and forced more confidence than I felt under the scrutiny of three tags that were hovering somewhere behind me. “I’m in your Monday, Wednesday, Friday class.”
“Ah. The one you missed this morning?”
“Yes. I had, uh . . . an emergency.”
“Of course.” The professor reclined in his seat and glanced over a sheet of paper in his hands. “Everything is in the syllabus. Why don’t you take a look at it, and catch up on the work you missed? I’ll accept it on Wednesday.”
I was dismissed. Considering I had just unknowingly walked into a room full of tags, I couldn’t have been more relieved. The plan Jake and I had crafted was shot. At this point, I didn’t give a damn about the plan. I was happy just to be permitted out of this room alive.
