Dr. Cannon’s onyx gaze flows across the room as he hunts his quarry until I gesture toward the doors where Jack’s presence still lingers, a malevolent specter haunting the shadows.

“Ah yes,” he says as he pushes his chair back and stands, the ice cubes clinking against the glass as they slosh in his whisky. “Excellent idea, Dr. Roth. Have a lovely evening.”

I follow Dr. Cannon’s hunched shoulders as he weaves through tables and guests, but really it’s Jack’s form my gaze latches on to. We both know he can’t escape our boss now that he’s been spotted, and it’s common knowledge that he despises sweet-talking the old woman out of her cash.

A malicious smile blooms across my lips. I know he can see it. I feel the cold kiss of his eyes on my skin.

“Hey, Kyrie. Great speech. Congrats,” a voice says, replacing the empty space of Hugh’s absence. Brad’s hand drops on my bare shoulder as he takes the seat to my right. “Love the dress, by the way. I bet Donald Whitmore was ready to throw bags of money onto the stage.”

I barely resist an eye roll as Brad winks. “Thank you, Bradley. Having a good night so far?” I tip my head toward the glass of beer he takes a long draft from before I notice the look in his eyes as he follows movement across the room. It looks almost like suspicion, or concern. Maybe even a touch of fear.

I follow his line of sight, straight to Jack Sorensen.

Jack drifts behind Dr. Cannon on a winding path through the tables toward Mrs. Spencer. He doesn’t just walk, he stalks, like a panther hunting in long grass, his movement fluid but powerful, purposeful. Lethally beautiful, with his short dark hair and strong jaw and fluid grace beneath a sharp black suit. I shift my attention back to our table before he looks in our direction, and despite everything, it still nearly hurts to look away.

“Yeah,” Brad finally says with a brittle smile. He doesn’t sound convincing at all. When my interest in his reaction registers, he tries a little harder. “Yeah, what about you? Having fun?”

My eyes slide to Jack, his back turned as he and Dr. Cannon stop at Mrs. Spencer’s table. “You know me, Brad,” I reply as I savor every moment of tension creeping through Jack’s shoulders. “If I’m not having fun, I’m making it.” I knock back the rest of my glass and rise.

I become sucked into the swell of the evening, waves of conversation and glasses of champagne coursing through my veins. It cleanses me just a little, debriding a festering wound, leaving raw edges behind. But something else remains. A tiny thorn. A barb that burrows beneath skin, making its presence known every time it’s prodded….every time I catch sight of Brad.

That same look of trepidation from earlier seems to linger in his eyes. His fingers fidget around his glass. He struggles to converse with ease when usually it’s a mission to shut him up. Brad loves this kind of event. His easy smile and rugged professor looks make up for his academic mediocrity and his occasionally douchey comment. He’s often on the prowl for someone to fuck, and when I’m bored I sometimes oblige. But tonight he’s just…off.

“Everything okay, Brad?” I ask, my voice quiet enough that only he will hear. His eyes dart from where they’re caught on something across the room, but I’m able to follow the trajectory of his interest. I know he was just looking at Mrs. Spencer’s table where Jack still lingers, his back facing us.

“Yeah,” Brad replies. He pauses on a breath as though he wants to say more, but he raises his glass to his lips instead and takes a long sip.

“Are you sure something’s not bothering you?”

“I…” he trails off, draining the rest of his beer as his gaze flicks again toward Mrs. Spencer’s table. He glances at his watch.

He’s going to run.

It’s like blood on a trail. Like a deer crashing through the woods, trying to evade a wolf. Something is there. And I need to know what it is.

“I think I’ve had enough of this gala. Want to get out of here?” I ask, dropping a hand onto Brad’s knee beneath the table. His eyes widen and for the first time tonight, it feels like his attention is truly on me when he gives a slight nod. “I’ll go first and order an Uber. Give me ten and meet me outside.”

I flash Brad a bright smile and stand, saying a few goodbyes as I make my way to the exit. When I glance toward Mrs. Spencer’s table, Jack is gone.

Outside, the early November night is cool and clear, my breath fogging beneath the lamplight as I wait on the curb, my thin jacket draped over my shoulders. Brad doesn’t linger inside, fortunately, and joins me after ten minutes, opening the door of the Uber for me before heading to the other side of the vehicle. In twenty minutes, we’re pulling up to Brad’s home, a 1920s bungalow only a few blocks from my house.

I waste no time in going after what I want.

“What’s bothering you, Bradley?” I ask as I pull away from a kiss to gently push him down onto his bed, undoing the zipper of his dress pants and shimmying them and his briefs over his hips. I grasp his erection and he groans as I slide my grip down the shaft. “You seem distracted tonight.”

Brad hisses as I rake my fingernails over his balls. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice lost in a moan as I bend to lick the head of his cock, sucking it into my mouth. I swirl my tongue across the crown, my eyes never leaving his face as he tilts his head back. “Jesus, Kyrie.”

I take more of him into my mouth as the tension of the evening melts from his muscles. He eases into the pleasure of my touch, and I lavish him with licks and deep strokes and caresses. Brad’s breathing becomes ragged, his pulse pounding beneath my fingertips as I rest them on his inner thighs. When he seems centered on me I release him from my mouth, pumping his slick shaft as I reach for a condom in his nightstand.

“Better now, baby?” I ask when the condom is on and I lower myself onto his cock, grinding my hips for friction on my clit as Brad moans. “Tell me what’s bothering you. Let me take it away.”

I trail paths across Brad’s chest with my nails and pick up a rhythm of strokes, building my pleasure, scraping at a need that won’t be fully released. Brad’s palms find my breasts, calloused caresses roaming my flesh.

“The Bass Fields,” Brad says through gritted teeth as I reward him with deeper thrusts, spreading my legs wider. “Mason found discrepancies.”

My heart kicks into another gear and I fight to keep my rhythm undisrupted. “Mason? The master’s student?”

I hear Brad’s movement against the duvet as he nods in the dark. “First it was a body a few months ago. Donation records didn’t match with a body in that location. Mason couldn’t find the hyoid bone, though everything else was intact.”

A gentle laugh escapes my lips. I lean down to place a kiss to Brad’s neck. “You know that’s not definitive proof of anything, Bradley,” I whisper against his ear. “One of the other grad students might have messed up the records, or Madeleine might have entered the data incorrectly when she logged the locations. You know what she can be like.”

Brad’s hands roam my back. “That’s what I said.”

Something lingers in his words, hovering in the air between us. I push myself up and search the shadows of his face. “But?”

“A few days ago, Mason documented the pink teeth phenomenon on a male body. But he knew the man. Mason hadn’t told anyone, in case we prevented him from working on the body. It’s the last analysis he needs for his thesis. It was his uncle’s friend. He died in surgery.”

Surgery would definitely not result in asphyxiation, which would have caused the pink discoloration on the stems of the body’s teeth. And I do know a certain person who enjoys a good strangulation. Oh how naughty, Dr. Sorensen.

“The hyoid?”

“Intact.”

I hum a thoughtful purr, a thousand scenarios tumbling through my head. A familiar need churns low in my belly and I grind harder on Brad’s cock, pleasure unraveling with every thrust. I coo words of praise and sing Brad’s name until I come, and he drives his hips beneath me as he claims his own release. It’s over too quickly to feel anything more than a fading swirl of endorphins, and my heart rate already slows to a nearly normal rhythm by the time I’m climbing off Brad to rest at his side.