“And…?” I cock my eyebrow at him, daring him to go on. I know I’m being needy, but I want him to say it.
“And it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” he says quietly, his eyes clear and earnest. “I’m sorry I was a dick. I should have behaved better. You don’t know how hard it was to see you two together.”
“Oh, really?” I ask. “I had to watch you take Blonde Bella to the ball.”
He swallows, his eyes darkening. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “I know you were enchanted. I don’t blame you. But it was still hard at the time.”
“Why?” Thorn asks, searching my face.
Shit. Now it’s my turn to give him the answer he needs, and I want to run away and hide. Mastering a sword—when I didn’t have a sword—was easier than this. But he answered my question. He admitted he liked me. I should be able to do the same. Because I do. I do like him.
But when I open my mouth, nothing comes. Suddenly, I feel faint. My palms break out in a sweat. My jaw clenches shut and refuses to open.
Thorn doesn’t push me or turn away. I wish he would even as I’m grateful that he’s giving me the time I need to come up with an answer.
“It was hard because…” I break off and swallow hard. Stupid answers fly through my head, answers that are easier than talking about my feelings. I told him I liked him before, when I was going on a rant about them not fighting in the car. But this is different. This is personal, and intimate, and terrifyingly vulnerable. And then the lamest thing I’ve ever said falls out of my mouth. “Because I didn’t have a date.”
Thorn nods, turns, and starts off toward my dorm again. I hurry to catch up him, my heart racing and uncertainty twisting in my gut. He admitted his feelings, and I didn’t. Somehow, that’s supposed to mean I won. But I don’t know what prize I get for it. I feel like shit now.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt.
“It’s okay,” Thorn says. “I know you like Rocco, and I want you to be happy, Jade. Even if it’s with someone else.”
For a minute, we walk in excruciating silence. Our footfalls on the path make the only sound. At last, when we’re almost to the dorm, Thorn speaks. “I have something for you.”
He reaches into the pocket of his blazer and hands me a soft silk bag with beaded tassles hanging from the bottom. My heart nearly stops. “Mom’s deck,” I gasp, snatching them and clutching them to my chest.
“You dropped it outside your father’s house.”
“What is it with you picking up things I drop and not telling me about it?” I ask, glowering at him.
“You’re welcome.”
“You couldn’t have given them back right after I dropped them?”
“I wasn’t sure they were yours,” he says. “I thought they might be, but we’ve not seen each other much since then. Are they important?”
“No,” I admit, then shake my head. “I mean, yes. They’re important to me.”
“I guess I knew that,” he says, his shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you when you said you dropped something. I think… I don’t know. I was pissed at you. Sorry I’m such a dick.”
“Thank you,” I say, too grateful to be pissed at him. “What are you, the keeper of lost things?”
He shrugs. “I saw them on the ground. I didn’t know if you or one of the vampires dropped them. And then you said you dropped a bag. That didn’t seem like the important part. It’s like calling a present ‘wrapping paper.’ So I told myself maybe they weren’t yours.”
“Did you look inside the bag?” I ask.
He gives me a funny look. “Yes.”
“These were my mom’s,” I say softly. “The cards she read as a psychic.”
He nods.
“Even though he blamed magic for what happened, my dad kept them after she was gone,” I say, my heart hitching in my chest. Now Dad’s gone, and I’m their keeper. I don’t know how much magic they really have, but that’s not the point.
“I left them as they were,” Thorn says. “I didn’t touch them. I just looked inside the bag.”
“Thank you.”
My mom was adamant about people not touching her cards when she was alive, but I’ve seen Dad rifling through them a hundred times since then. Still, I appreciate Thorn’s respect for a tradition held by psychics, people the magical community considers far below him.
“Do you think it means anything?” he asks.
“What?”
“The card on top,” he says.
“I didn’t look yet,” I whisper, my pulse pounding even harder.
“Do you want to know what it was?”
I want to look myself, but I can’t stand him knowing something I don’t. “What?”
“Some kind of chalice.”
I wrack my brain, trying to remember what that means. “Oh,” I say, disappointed.
“Do you want to be alone?” he asks as we reach my dorm.
“No,” I say, excitement building with each step I take. “But Thorn. That’s the only thing my father left in the entire house. And he left it in my room. I’m sure it means something. Let’s go read the meaning!”
I race up to my room, Thorn on my heels, and drag him inside. I carefully slide the cards out and lay the deck face down on the bed. My hands are trembling as I draw out the booklet my mother used to help her read fortunes.
“That’s not the card I saw,” Thorn says when I turn it over. “I saw the card that was already showing.”
“That’s the bottom of the deck,” I say, my breath catching in my throat as I stare at the card facing me. “That doesn’t mean anything. You draw from the top of the deck.”
“And that card means something?”
“It’s the Master,” I whisper, barely able to get the words out.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Silas,” I say, jumping to my feet. “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Thorn says, taking my hand. “Jade, are you sure? Darius questioned him, and he said Silas didn’t know anything. Are you saying Professor Darius is lying to us?”
“No,” I say firmly. “I’m saying Silas is.”
“There were people there who could read his mind.”
“I don’t know what happened, but I know my father left me this message,” I say. “We have to go there. It’s the only thing we have to go on.”
Thorn looks at me a long moment, and I know he thinks I’m crazy, but I don’t care. After a minute, he nods, his lips tight. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeat. “You’re going to go with me even though you don’t believe me?”
“It’s not about whether I think your father is there,” he says. “You believe it.”
“So?” I ask, planting a hand on my hip.
“So… I’m going with you.”
We stare at each other a long moment. “Thank you,” I say at last.
“But I’m not going to let you go charging in there, guns blazing,” he says. “If Silas really was lying, he must have some advanced magic at work to keep telepaths from knowing.”
“Really?” I ask, thinking of Topher and what he might know about me. “It’s that hard?”
“It’s easy enough to keep them out of your head completely,” he says. “It’s much, much harder to selectively keep them from knowing only one thing. If I ask you a question, your words can lie, but your mind is thinking loud and clear about the truth and how you’re hiding it. It’s almost impossible not to think about something once someone asks. And the harder you try not to think it, the more you think about it.”
“He couldn’t just think something else to distract himself?”
“It would be very difficult,” Thorn says. “If we’re going to go in there and accuse him, we need to be prepared. You need a plan of attack if he won’t let us in, a plan of escape if he won’t let us out. You need backup in case things go wrong, distractions in case he won’t tell you where your fathe
r is. And you need as much magic as you can get to counter what he and his cronies have.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding. I sink onto the edge of my bed, grateful to have such a level-headed sorcerer on my side. “Let’s do it. Let’s take the bastard down.”
Chapter Sixteen
“I need a power-up.”
“Jade,” Professor Darius says, glancing out into the hall behind me.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I ditched my guards.”
“You really shouldn’t do that,” he says with a frown. But he takes my arm and gently draws me into his apartment, closing the door behind me.
I lean back against it, biting my lip as I peer up and him through my lashes. He’s so close I can smell the spicy scent of his aftershave, the masculine aura about him making me tremble. “I shouldn’t have come to you?”
“It’s not safe to slip your guard,” he says, not stepping back from me. “He’s there to protect you.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know where I was going,” I admit. “I wanted to protect you.” My heart hammers in my chest as I watch his handsome face while he absorbs my words. I can’t believe I just said that, so blatantly admitting what I want.
“Jade,” he says, his eyes dropping to my cleavage. Before leaving my room, I searched my closet for the perfect dress for the occasion, settling on a red wrap with a V-neck that plunges so low I had to skip the bra. My nipples harden as he gulps, and I know I chose the right dress for seduction.
“Professor Darius,” I say, stepping forward and pressing my palm against his chest. His heart beats hard and fast against my hand as I smile up at him.
He covers my hand with his. “Is this really what you want? Just to increase your magic?”
“No,” I say. “It’s what I want because I want you.”
“You’re so young,” he says, gently stroking my cheek. “You haven’t even…”
“You’re right,” I whisper. “I’m a virgin.”
I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
“Does that turn you on?” I ask, smiling coyly up at him.
“Jade… We can’t.”
I press my body closer, my breasts grazing his chest. My nipples harden at the contact, straining against the thin fabric of my dress. I go up on tiptoes and let my lips skim the stubble on Darius’s sculpted jaw until they reach his ear. “I want you to be my first.”
He closes his eyes and inhales sharply. His hands land on my waist, his long fingers digging into my flesh. “What happened to waiting three years?”
“I don’t want to wait that long for the man I love,” I say. “I don’t want to learn from other people. I want to learn from you. You’re my teacher. Teach me.”
Darius’s eyes cloud with lust, and his lips descend on mine. He pins me to the door, his lips firm on mine. I sigh and melt against him. His lips caress mine, softly at first and then harder, firm and commanding. I wrap my arms around his neck and sway into him, moaning into his mouth. He slides his tongue between my lips, caressing mine. Heat shimmers through my body, melting down me and settling between my thighs.
After an endless kiss, I pull back, my breath coming quick through my swollen lips. “Take me to the bed,” I say, my voice husky with desire.
Darius scoops me up in one motion, his chocolate gaze never leaving mine as he carries me across the living room and into his bedroom. He lays me gently on the bed, shrugging out of his suit jacket before lowering himself onto me. “Are you on birth control?” he asks, propping himself on his elbow as he settles himself on top of me.
“No.”
“I’m clean,” he says. “I’ve been tested since my last relationship. I can wear a condom, if it makes you more comfortable, or I can use a little magic to make sure you won’t get pregnant.”
“You can do that?”
His full lips spread into a smile. “The perks of fucking a sorcerer.”
“Then let’s do that,” I whisper. “I don’t want to feel anything but you inside me.”
Darius lets out a low growl of approval, and I feel his cock throb against my thigh as he leans down to kiss me again. “Then I’ll fuck you raw,” he murmurs against my lips.
My clit throbs at his words, heat and wetness swelling my pussy as his tongue slides between my lips, plunging against mine. He grasps my hand, pulling it above my head and stroking my palm with his thumb while his mouth trails along my jawline to my throat. He licks my skin, pulling it between his lips, moving down the column of my neck to swipe his tongue against my collarbones. Shivers of pleasure race through me. Darius slowly draws my dress down over one shoulder.
“God, your tits are perfect,” he breathes, flicking his thumb across my nipples until they ache with hardness. “So fucking perky.”
“Let me have some fun, too,” I say with a smile.
I reach for him, but he grabs my other hand and pulls it over my head, holding them both in one of his. “I’m the teacher here,” he says. “You do as I order.”
“Yes, sir,” I say with a teasing smile.
He slides down the bed to take my nipple into his mouth. I gasp in pleasure, drawing my knees up around his body and arching my back as desire swells in my cores. My pussy aches for his touch, throbbing with every suck of his wet mouth against my flesh. He slides his free hand up the back of my thigh, pushing my dress up and moaning in pleasure when he finds my bare sex.
“You’re not wearing panties,” he says, his rough voice almost scolding.
“I came to be fucked, Professor,” I say, panting for more. “So fuck me.”
“Oh, baby,” he murmurs against my skin. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long. I’m going to do it right.”
He spreads my pussy open and slides his fingers through my wetness, coating them as he slicks them over my clit, circling it and stroking until I’m moaning aloud with every touch. I’m about to explode when he sinks his fingers into me, fluttering them against my walls. I cry out, arching up and clawing at him, raking my nails down his back as climax grips my body.
Darius flicks his tongue against my nipple in rhythm with the pulses throbbing through my pussy. When I finish, he slides his fingers out of me and into his mouth, sighing with pleasure at the taste.
“Spread your legs and let me go down on you,” he says, his voice hoarse but commanding. “I want to taste your cum.”
I part my shaking knees, feeling both vulnerable and powerful as he kneels and pushes my dress up around my hips. He lowers his lips to my freshly shaven mound, mouthing my lips open and tonguing my swollen clit. I cry out, still sensitive from the orgasm he gave me. He moans and sucks, nips and caresses me with his tongue until I go over the edge again, crying out his name as I tear at his sheets and lift my hips to his thirsty mouth.
At last, he slides up the bed and smiles down at me. “Ready for the final?”
“Give me all you’ve got,” I say, though I’m not sure I can take another orgasm. I might explode. I reach down and undo his pants, sliding my hand along his hard, hot cock. I wrap my fingers around it and squeeze, and Darius groans. Sitting up, I push him back on the bed and straddle him, tugging his pants down to reveal his thick, pink shaft.
“Show me how,” I say, peering up at him through my lashes. He wraps his hand around mine, helping me to stroke his cock until a drop of precum oozes from the tip. I smear it over the thick head, my mouth watering. I lean down and swipe my tongue over it, and Darius growls, his hands tightening on my arms.
“Get on your back and let me teach you a real lesson,” he says, his voice rough. In one motion he flips me onto my back. His body looms over mine, hardened with muscle and experience. I feel naïve and vulnerable under him, but at the same time, it sets me free. He’s in control, and I don’t fight it. I let him take control, and I know he’ll use it to give me pleasure I’ve never known before.
So, I let go. His mouth finds mine, commanding it and bending it to his will. His tongue explores my mouth, sliding over mine a
s he lowers his body to mine. I gasp at the shock of his hot skin on mine, grasping his tie and leaning up into his kiss. He pushes me back, taking my hands and holding them pinned beside my head, his strong fingers lacing with mine. He begins to roll his hips, the ridge of his bare shaft gliding through my wetness until I’m panting for more.
Professor Darius takes my hand, guiding it to his cock. “Put it in.”
A thrill races through me, and I spread my knees wide and press the thick head of his cock to my unopened flesh. I open myself for him, and he rests on his elbows, watching my face as he begins to press forward. My entrance strains to keep him out, but he doesn’t relent. An ache builds inside me even as a different pain builds with the pressure of his rigid cock demanding entrance. I gasp, biting my lip against the urge to tell him to stop. Just as I think it won’t fit, his cock breaks past the resistance and sinks into me.
I cry out, a soft sound that’s both pleasure and relief. His cock throbs inside me, and he groans and rolls his hips, opening a path deeper into me. A sharp pain pierces through me, and I cry out in pain this time. But the ache inside me is filled as his cock sinks deeper still, stopping only when he’s buried to the hilt in the grip of my sex.
“Tell me when you’re ready,” he says, searching my face. His warm eyes are filled with concern and a raw, white-hot lust that sends a shiver of delicious want straight to the center of me.
“Okay,” I say, panting through the swirl of pleasure and pain that’s gripping me in equal measure. Darius leans down and kisses me, his full lips caressing mine, giving me exactly what I need—a connection that is more than physical, that is comforting as well as passionate, familiar as well as erotic. As his tongue guides mine in a sensual rhythm, the pain inside me ebbs and is replaced with a hunger aching to be satisfied. At last, the desire for more, for friction, for the ache inside me to be eased, takes over.
“I’m ready,” I gasp, and he begins to move. At first, the size of his cock inside me strains against my walls, aching with each thrust. But soon, the pain is forgotten as pleasure rolls through me when he hits all the right places inside me. I moan out my pleasure with each thrust, and Darius answers with a growl of his own, slamming into me with such force I think I’ll explode. He fucks me harder and harder, pounding me into the bed, into submission, until I’m drowning in ecstasy. He pushes me further than I’ve ever been, higher and higher on the wave of pleasure. Suddenly, I can’t take it any longer.
Academy of Sorcery: Term 2: Fallen Master Page 14
