Assassin's Bride

by C. J. Scarlett

  She stepped towards him as it was obvious he would never make that move himself. If she wanted it, if she truly wanted him, she would have to move forward and get it herself. It was a clever way for the universe to test her. Did she really want this man? She could find out or she could let it go. She could free herself from the question or she could be brave enough to chase what it could mean.

  So, she chased.

  She was in front of him. He didn’t move. She placed a hand under his chin and lifted. His head moved without resistance, his eyes wide and scared as they looked into hers. She moved forward, placing her lips over his in a soft, chaste kiss. It was little more than a technical press of lips together. She just wanted to see what he’d do, if he would run. She pulled away to see his eyes had closed in the brief second they’d been connected and now they seemed to be stuck that way. In a look of blissful contentment, his lips still puckered slightly as if he hadn’t noticed she moved away.

  That was all the information she needed. She moved back in. This time he was ready for her. They met a little more feverishly. Their lips tugged and pulled at each other, moving with the grace of an ocean wave pulling against the ocean floor, dragging along it, pulling at it, and then cresting down and washing over it. His hands came up to her head, his fingers splaying out in her hair like tendrils, landmines burying themselves in the vast expanse of her locks. Her hands stayed in their spot, softly pressing against his jaw and chin, holding him in place without urgency but with firmness.

  Soon kissing wasn’t enough. She wasn’t sure who opened their mouth first, whose tongue made the first fearless journey across the border between them, but suddenly their tongues brushed each other and exploring opposite mouths. For all his harshness, his mouth was warm and soft. She dared to take his tongue in her mouth, sucking on it before biting down slightly and he let out a groan she felt throughout her entire body. It was a delicious sound and the vibrations across her skin were amazing. She wanted him to do that again; she wanted to hear that every day for the rest of her life, to feel it.

  She kept at her work, not noticing that her hips had started moving on their own, bumping at his. Her own groans slowly joined his and soon she felt her hands sliding from his jaw, down his chest and going lower and lower. She didn’t really have an endgame in mind. She just knew she wanted to touch him because that would bring the sounds out of him that she needed, and she still had that fantasy brewing about him and a bulge in his pants.

  But then his hand grabbed her wrist and lightly brushed her hand away. He parted their lips but didn’t release his grip on the back of her head or his hand on her own.

  “I want that, trust me,” he practically gasped out and she tried not to shudder. “But there’s—things complicating it.”

  “You turn me on.”

  She smirked. “I’m not sure I see the problem.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “I’m going to sound like an idiot or something, or like a twelve-year-old boy. But there’s some stuff that happens when I get… excited.”

  “I’m familiar with the male anatomy.”

  “No. I mean as—me. A shifter. How far into the theory have you delved when it comes to sex?”

  She felt herself heating up again. Oh. This was territory she wasn’t sure she’d be able to come back from if he insisted on talking about it further. She swallowed like it was the most difficult thing she’d ever done in her life.

  “Not too much,” she said. “I almost took a sexual therapy course in undergrad but…”

  She’d honestly been terrified to take the class and avoided it like the plague.

  “Well,” he cleared his throat. “A lot of people view the shifter form, the real form, hiding underneath all of this, as the true manifestation of a lot of things about that person. Ultimate happiness, ultimate anger, and ultimate… sexual drive.”

  Her mouth dropped open before she could stop it.

  “Do you mean that—when you, with a woman, you—you transform?”

  “God, no.” His eyes were wide and he gripped her shoulders tightly. “It’s nothing like that. I just get—things can be a little aggressive. Emotionally, maybe even physiologically, the dragon will come out in moments like that. I just want you to be sure before we go there.”

  Minus the shifter anatomy part of this, he did have a point. She didn’t necessarily like the idea of sleeping with a guy after the first date. No matter how hot he was or how fun it turned out to be.

  “Right,” she said. “Well, I think that’s smart.”

  “I can still stay,” he said. “And we can—continue. I just don’t want to go too far.”

  “I don’t think I’d be able to stop myself from not going that far.”

  She felt like an idiot for saying it. Now she sounded like the horny teenage boy. She couldn’t exactly stop herself, however. She wanted him. She didn’t realize just how much until he was in her arms and in her space, and she had him so close and right there. She felt like she might explode and blushed at the thought of relieving herself after he left. She wondered if he would go off and do the same.

  “Well, I asked you up for coffee,” she said. “We can do that.”

  “Coffee sounds good right now.”

  So, she did just that. She made them coffee and they went on talking like they hadn’t just made out in her kitchen and almost fucked against the wall. They talked politics and weather and what little she knew about sports. It was nice and easy all over again, just like things had been at dinner. She was relieved she hadn’t complicated this night by going too far before they were ready.

  Were they a ‘they’ already?

  They hadn’t discussed that part. The conversation was light and casual, and not at all about what they’d almost done. She felt like he might be actively avoiding it. But she pushed her paranoia aside and reminded herself that he was still here, he was still talking to her, laughing at her jokes and drinking her coffee. He’d had so many chances to run so far this night and hadn’t.

  But what did she want with him? If anyone found out, they would have a lot to answer for. She’d likely be removed from his class, if not the program. He might lose his job. It wasn’t illegal, it’s not like they were in high school. But it was unethical. They’d been out in public together though, people easily could see them at the restaurant together, laughing, drinking. People could see them on the way there too. They’d gone across campus and he hadn’t seemed to bat an eyelash at the possibility of there being consequences for that.

  But Erik had seen them. Would he assume something? He already was assuming something, based on the look on his face and how miserable he got when they left. Would he be that vindictive? She thought so. She’d need to take care of that, find a way to prevent him from trying to get Dr. Tekkin fired. For now, she kept that worry to herself as she saw him out the door. He gave her a long kiss on the cheek as he left, promising to talk more later in the week. She watched him leave and tried to ignore the girlish butterflies in her stomach.

  She went back into her apartment and checked her messages. She had a few from Trish asking if everything was okay, if she needed help, and then eventually joking, said she assumed she must be dead or banging him into the next century. Alessia rolled her eyes. Well, both of those were wrong but one was closer to the truth than the other.

  She smiled as she went back into her apartment, putting on music as she moved through the kitchen to clean things up. She could still feel his hands in her hair, his mouth against hers. She could still smell him, still feel that heat. She wanted to do it all over again, and do it right, and go as far as he would let her.

  Chapter 13

  Waking up the next day wasn’t unlike when she rolled out of bed on New Year’s Day. There was no real hangover involved. She had a bit of a headache from all the tequila and salty food she ate without following it up with the proper amounts of water, and she was more tired than she wanted to be since her sleep was restle
ss and filled with bouts of rather racy dreams of the professor and her. But what she felt that morning were consequences. New Year’s Eve was the time to kiss whoever she wanted, eat and drink whatever she wanted, and then deal with it on the morning of the first day of the year.

  That was her that morning; the first thing she thought of was how Erik had seen them, how they had not been anything close to careful with dinner last night, and everything awful that could follow that up. She sprung out of bed as if her hips were a well-oiled hinge. She stared at her clock to find she’d awakened five minutes before her alarm.

  “Shit.”

  She jumped out of bed and tried to think of the best way to deal with this. She’d gone on a date with her mentoring professor, there was no negotiating that at this point. She’d then proceeded to get fairly buzzed at dinner with him, invite him back to her apartment, and make out with him in her kitchen. She also very nearly got close to copping a feel and doing something entirely more adult. Only she and Dr. Tekkin knew that, but Erik, who was jealous and possessive, saw them together. It wouldn’t take much, just an inference, a suggestion that something unethical was happening, and she’d be out of the program, Dr. Tekkin would be out of a job. Everyone lost.

  So, her first order of business was talking to Erik. She had to find a way to talk about this with him without revealing everything that had happened. He was her friend, she believed that; first and foremost, he was her friend, no matter his feelings. She just hoped he believed that too. She fired off a text to him.

  Meet for coffee?

  She put her phone down and paced around. She poured herself a bowl of cereal, not caring for once how childish it looked to be a grown woman pouring herself a bowl of Apple Jacks. She needed the sugar and the comfort. She woofed it down and swallowed the remaining soy milk laced over with residue, turned a strange greenish brown. She checked her phone. No answer yet. He could still be asleep, he was kind of a late sleeper compared to her. He could easily just be waiting to roll out of bed just before his morning class.

  She drank some water, trying to calm the headache. She followed it with Tylenol and threw another couple of mouthfuls of cereal into her mouth. She paced some more. Still no answer on the phone. She should get ready, shower, do her makeup, and put on clothes. She needed to busy herself before she drove herself completely nuts.

  So, she went through the motions of getting dressed. She pulled out clothes to wear, and started her shower. She made it as cold as possible when she first stepped in, letting the shock and the chill go through her. It was a nice little reprieve. She turned it back to warm and then let herself get washed over in the hot water. She slowly massaged the shampoo into her scalp and ran her fingers through it like so many rakes to get all the soap and dirt and sweat and shame and fear out of it. Then she lathed it over in conditioner, massaging again to work the kinks out. She tried to calm herself with the smell of her lavender body wash as she moved it across her body. When she had nothing left to wash and she was getting pruny, she forced herself to turn the shower off and step out, wrapping herself in a towel and relishing at the chill in the air.

  She slipped her clothes on, telling herself she wouldn’t check her phone again until she was completely dressed. It was good to give herself a timeframe. Alessia did her best not to smudge anything as her somewhat shaky hands applied her makeup. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was the picture of confidence, ready for class and all sorts of other things that had nothing to do with sleeping with a superior professor who also happened to be part of a terrorist cell. None of that here, no, ma’am.

  Sure. Tell me when and where.

  He’d texted her back. She could hear how curt he was, even in the minuscule texts. This wouldn’t be easy. She wondered if she should invite him here, give them some privacy in case he got a little too loud and anyone overheard their situation. That would probably just be a slap in the face for him though, to be invited back for coffee to be begged not to tell the world that she may or may not have gone on a date with a professor the night before.

  She told him to meet her at Starbucks before their seminar. She wanted to work through whatever tension they had going there before they were surrounded by everyone else in their class. It wouldn’t translate well to work if they were ready to jump at each other’s throats in the middle of debating ethics for shifters in the workplace. He sent her back a message with an affirmative answer and she looked in the mirror, fixing her hair just a bit before stepping out her door to meet him.

  Did she look like someone who kissed someone last night? Was there a guilty tell for that? Was there anything for that like sex hair or hickies? She walked as if there was nothing wrong, nothing had happened. As far as everyone knew who met her eye as she walked across campus, she was just another grad student making her way to classes, already behind in grading papers for her students. Which was true, to an extent.

  She got to the Starbucks early and downed a shot of expresso as if it were Jack Daniels. It wouldn’t exactly have the calming effects, but at least she could wear it like battle armor. It was energy, it was something. She held onto the bitter taste of the espresso in her mouth like it was a hard candy or a stress ball. She looked up and saw Erik walking in, looking just as miserable as he had the last night. She tried not to panic, tried not to read too much into it. He sat across from her.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  He was quick and quiet already. She could work with it. Or work around it.

  “How have you been?”

  “You mean since we saw each other last night with your new older boyfriend?”

  Yikes. She winced, just a little bit. But she wouldn’t let Erik dictate the conversation. He was very good at things like that, making his voice heard, shutting other people down. She wouldn’t let that work here though. This was a conversation between friends, not a debate in class. She leaned forward to get closer to him. She felt like she had more control over the situation if he was closer.

  “Look,” she said. “He’s not my boyfriend. He was taking me out to dinner as an apology.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes!”

  She wasn’t technically lying on that part. Dr. Tekkin had taken her out to apologize. Not that Erik knew what he was apologizing for or the extent to which she let that apology go (very nearly to her bedroom), but the point right now was that he was assuming. He was assuming things that were true but he was doing it for the completely wrong reasons. He was jealous, she needed to sort that part out first.

  “Look, Erik, I like you, you’re my friend,” she said. “And I trust you but I also need to know you won’t go and do something stupid.”

  “You think I care about your little romance so much that I’d kill myself?” he asked with an exasperated laugh.

  She rolled her eyes. “Like go telling someone just to try to get Dr. Tekkin fired.”

  “Why? You want to protect him now?”

  “Did you tell someone?”

  “And what if I did? Is there a story people should know about?”

  “Erik.”

  She went from trying to be the understanding, patient friend to seeing red in a second. He was a jealous little boy, she decided. She’d known he had an attitude like this about him; he was the type of person used to being heard, used to getting everything he wanted in any given situation, used to being everyone’s favorite. And now he was second fiddle. He wasn’t even a fiddle really. Alessia had no intentions of ever having a relationship with him, despite what he would try to swing for her. She wanted to tell him that, to rip into him the truth of all that, and let him know how utterly wrong he had been to assume he could just have her.

  But he was still her friend and she couldn’t bring herself to purposefully hurt him, no matter how much she was sure he deserved it.

  “Erik, I don’t know what fantasy you cooked up in your head but you need to snap out of it,” she said.
“You’re my friend, a very good friend, but a friend. Even if I was dating someone, it wouldn’t be your place to be angry about it. Dr. Tekkin did something nice last night to make up for some unfortunate stuff that’s happened recently with class and our politics. Please don’t try to punish him because of some misplaced jealousy.”

  Well, it wasn’t exactly misplaced, but he didn’t need to know that right at this second. She looked at Erik and watched his eyes soften. He desperately tried to cling to his own anger, but it was slipping away from him at every second. She watched it disappear, dissipate, vanish from his face until it melted into nothing short of misery. She didn’t like hurting him, she didn’t want to hurt him, as much as she liked knocking him down a peg.

  “I didn’t tell anyone and I wouldn’t,” he sighed. “Honestly, doing that never even really crossed my mind.”

  “Good.”

  “So, there’s really nothing here?” he asked, his hands gesturing between the two of us.

  She frowned. “You’re my friend, Erik. Do we have good chemistry? Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I want to start something. I like you as my friend too much to chase after something as silly as that.”

  “You think something with me would be silly?”

  There they were again, the walls, the chip on his shoulder. He had the most fragile ego of any man she’d ever known and one day, she would do a long dig into his history to figure out exactly where that inferiority complex came from that manifested itself in the form of total asshole-ish behavior.

  “You know that’s not what I’m saying but please pick a fight if it makes you feel better,” she said, crossing her arms. “Chemistry isn’t something to ruin an established relationship over. We can have chemistry with anyone. I like you too much as you are to try for more.”

  “Don’t you think this should be a two-way decision since I’m also part of this hypothetical we?”