Not that I need the help.
Something dark and demonic is roiling beneath my ribs, clutching and scraping at my heart with every glimpse I get of David’s increasingly forward behavior toward Bria.
At first, it’s a hand on her arm. Later, I notice his fingers coiling around her wrist as he leans close to whisper something in her ear. My veins fill with lava when his palm on her mid-back causes her to flinch, and the idiot doesn’t notice. Her eyes dart to mine but flick away just as quickly. She downs her drink and says something to David and he takes her empty glass, wobbling a bit as he heads for the bar with a cocky smile. Bria then turns to Tida and another student who’s joined their group and says a few words before she leaves them, heading to a side door that leads to a small patio.
The swell of my need to follow her climbs my throat as though it will drown me. I try to swallow it down.
But I can’t.
I stride to the side of the bar, skipping the line as the students at the counter are distracted by their conversation, and get the attention of the bartender with forty dollars rolled between my fingers. He nods as he shakes a cocktail. I order a bourbon on ice and a grove and tonic, which he tells me is a nonalcoholic spirit. Interesting. So Bria is stone cold sober. This is probably a terrible idea, but I am not sober, and therefore I’ll worry about it tomorrow.
While David is caught in the line at the bar, I head across the room with my drinks in hand, dodging the gazes of students and faculty who might want to talk shop until I make it to the side door.
Bria leans against a railing with her back to me, lit by the dim patio lights strung overhead. Flowers cascade from hanging baskets above her, twisting in the warm breeze. She’s looking down at something in her hands. I can tell from the tension in her shoulders that she knows she’s no longer alone. Something about that makes my heart burn a little hotter.
“Escaping?” I ask as I stop at the railing, keeping a wide berth as I extend the drink toward her. “Grove and tonic, correct?”
Bria pierces me with one of those long, unnerving looks that gives none of her thoughts away as she accepts the drink with a nod of thanks. I notice she doesn’t change her position to mirror mine. She doesn’t make any gestures to welcome me, nor to push me away. Everything is locked beneath impenetrable layers. A growing part of me is desperate to take a hammer to them. “What would I be escaping from?” she asks.
I shrug and give her a dimpled smile, which she seems to find infuriating, judging by the way her eyes narrow. “Small talk. Political posturing. Social conformity. Or just a handsy lumberjack hipster.”
A faint smile passes across Bria’s lips as she twirls a white bloom between her fingers. “Says the tweed-turned-rebel professor hipster.” Bria’s gaze drifts down to my leather jacket, the flower still spinning in her grip as she takes a thoughtful sip of her drink. “Social conformity,” she echoes, dodging the subject of the touchy-feely lumberjack. “Do I not…conform?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“No. Not like you do.” Bria’s gaze seizes mine, dark and consuming and full of secrets. Her interest in my answer seems genuine, though I feel a thread of malice in it too. “Or do you, Dr. Kaplan? Maybe it’s all an illusion. Maybe you like to follow the rules on the surface, and break them all when no one is looking.”
The dimming light of dusk hides the blush that flares up my neck. I take a sip of my drink, the blurred warmth of my buzz making me bolder as I step closer to Bria. “What kinds of rules do you think I would break?”
Bria lets out a low chuckle that comes from the depths of her chest. “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”
My cock strains against my jeans. I ache to push her backwards until her spine is flush with the wall and whisper all the rules I’d love to break with her. I want to slide my hands over her body. I want to know if her pussy is wet, to know the sweet, hot taste of her arousal.
I swallow, my grip on my glass tightening. “You knew about Dr. Wells’s retirement,” I say instead. Bria turns her gaze away when she gives a single nod. “You were never going to meet with him about being your advisor, were you.”
“No. Only about being his TA for his Abnormal Psych class.”
I replay the conversation in her office, trying to recall Bria’s exact words. She didn’t lie, but I realize now that she must have used the opportunity to gauge how sincere I was with both my apology and the comments I’d made about her work. If I hadn’t really cared about either, I wouldn’t have implored her to steer clear of Wells.
“My uncle knows Dr. Wells,” Bria offers before I have the chance to inquire further. She looks pensive as she raises the flower to her nose and inhales the scent. “I knew before anyone else. But I meant what I said. Other options were open.”
I lean against the railing and tip my glass from one side to the next, the clink of the ice cube filling the silence. “I’m glad you went with Fletcher.”
Bria looks up at me then, a darkness fleeting across her face. It’s not the lightless, inhibited anger that I’ve seen in her before. No, this burns like a flare before it snuffs out. It looks more like…starvation. She swallows, nodding once before looking away. And then her expression shifts, and everything is neatly back in place as though a wave has just swept her thoughts clean. She drains her glass and straightens. “Thank you for the drink.”
Bria turns on her heel to start toward the door, but my hand darts out to stop her. My fingertips halt just shy of her wrist but I swear I can feel her warmth on my skin. She looks down at my hand and back up to my face as I clear my throat and level her with a serious gaze. “I wanted to ask you if you’d join me for dinner. In a professional capacity, of course.” Bria doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. I'm not sure she even breathes. “To discuss your work. And as an apology for the other day.”
Bria chuckles. The sound is a low, husky rumble in her chest, more like a growl than a laugh. But this is not the sound of amusement. Her eyes are lethal, capturing all light and devouring it.
“I’m afraid I must pass. I’m ever so sorry, Dr. Kaplan,” Bria says, her voice dripping with sarcasm through her saccharine smile. She drifts toward me, a shark slicing through the twilight gloom. She leans in close, her lips nearly flush to my neck. I fold my hand into a fist to stop myself from touching her. “I guess you’ll have to enter the organ trade after all. I’m sure your bestie Fletcher will start with a kidney. But if it were me, I’d go straight for the heart.”
Bria slides the stem of the flower behind my ear, and with the slightest graze of her lips to my cheek she leaves me standing alone in the growing dark.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt such desire and darkness, such regret and rage. I’ve never wanted to drag someone into the fire with me, to let the heat of it conquer and consume us both. Not like this.
…At least not until the moment Bria walks by the patio, her arm looped through David’s. She blows me a kiss when he’s not looking, and then fades away into the shadows between the lamplight.
I leave the party without another word, an inferno burning my blood to ash.
OceanofPDF.com
11
OceanofPDF.com
BRIA
Well. Last night was more fun than I expected.
No, not David. I took him to a club and promptly ditched him there. He’s a good-looking guy, in a wannabe survivalist kind of way. I’m sure he made out fine. Better than he would have if he’d stuck with me, anyway. I was starting to fantasize about ripping off his hands and shoving them down his throat.
