: Chapter 13

I watch as Dr. Kaplan stalks down the hall, catching up with Dr. Strom in a few long strides. He doesn’t look back when they head toward the elevator at the far end of the corridor, nor as he waits for it to chime its arrival. Even when the doors open and he slips inside, he keeps his gaze locked away from mine.

It’s not until the elevator closes and the gears whirl with its descent that I let out a long breath and lean against the wall.

My core aches with emptiness. Dampness and heat are gathered between my legs. I press my palm to my chest as my heart sings with excitement and I try to reason it back to a steady rhythm. You hate him. He’s a dick, remember?

My heart doesn’t listen. It only hears the echo of Kaplan’s voice. I’m trying not to break the rules, Bria.

I lean my head against the wall. The look of pain in Kaplan’s expression haunts the shadows of my closed eyes.

Why should I care? I don’t care. I don’t care that he was enraged, not at me, but for me. I don’t care that he stepped between me and David with his fists balled tight. Sure, I noticed the way his muscles bunched and coiled beneath his shirt, and the way he pinned me with a ravenous stare when we were alone. That was hot as hell. He’s beautiful. So is a sculpture. Or a sunset. I’m simply appreciating it, that’s all. That darkness I saw skimming his surface and peeking through his eyes is just very appealing to me, like catnip.

I need to do what Samuel told me. Cut the dead weight. Stay focused on my goal. I don’t need Kaplan or anyone else aside from Samuel. Even despite Kaplan’s proximity to information on Legio Agni, he could wind up being more of a dangerous distraction than a source of useful information. I don’t get the sense he’s the kind of person who will risk sharing details anyway, and what I’ve retrieved from his computer wasn’t that helpful. I’m close enough to the FBI, I don’t need to be sitting on their laps.

I open my eyes and push away from the wall with newfound determination. This energy I sense between Kaplan and me is only diluting my focus. It’s making me confused. It’s fucked with me enough. Just let it go.

I stride into the office as casually as I can manage. David looks up as I drop into my chair and comes over with my coffee.

“You okay?” he asks as he leans against my desk. I want nothing more than to put my headphones in and ignore him, but this is the social game I’m forced to play if I want to stay hidden in the world.

“Yeah, you?”

David nods as he scratches his cheek at the edge of his beard, the bristles crunching beneath his fingernails. I try to keep my eye from twitching in irritation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you and Dr. Kaplan were a thing.”

“We’re not.”

“I’m not sure he agrees.”

“It’s not just up to him,” I say with a shrug, trying to look nonchalant. “Besides, I think he’d do the same for anyone.”

David chuckles as he pushes himself from the desk. He tips his cup toward me in a salute. “Nah, Brooks. He wouldn’t. The man has it bad.”

I watch as David winks and turns away, then I put my headphones in and resolve to push those thoughts aside.

The day picks up momentum and passes in a blur. I have a few classes and several meetings scattered throughout the day. I work into the late evening, spending a few hours immersed in literature review before turning my attention to working up some viable essay topics for Dr. Halperon’s undergraduate Learning and Memory course. I check my email one more time just before I shut my computer down, and a new message comes through from Dr. Halperon.

I scowl at my watch as though it should become a time machine. It’s 9:28 p.m.. The library closes in thirty-two minutes. Dr. Halperon is scatterbrained enough to have forgotten about this all day, but she’s also sharp enough to know I’ll still be working on campus. The cathartic image of ripping her glasses off her face and shoving those fuchsia acetate frames down her throat pops into mind before I pack up my laptop and stride down the hall toward the library.

I look up the book details on my phone as I walk between buildings, headphones in, the hood of my coat up against the drizzling rain in a windless storm. By the time I make it into the warmth of the library, it’s 9:43 p.m. The two students staffing the reception desk shoot me a warning look, but I glare back and their eyes shift back down to the papers they shuffle across the worn desk.

I don’t see a single student on my way up to the third floor. I drift through the tall shelves until I make it to the row I’m looking for. Naturally, I find Digital Media and Cultural Memory on the shelf that’s just beyond the reach of my fingertips, even while standing on my tiptoes. My teeth grind together above the sound of the music filtering through my headphones. Fuck it, I’ll scale these shelves like a goddamn monkey if I have to. I’m not going to search for one of those round stools that are as rare as gold dust on the third floor.

I grip the edge of a shelf like I’m about to go bouldering when a large hand appears over my head and pulls my textbook off the shelf. A scent invades my nostrils. Bay rum. Bergamot. The slightest hint of spearmint.

My eyes narrow.

Kaplan.

I turn slowly and hold his deep brown eyes in a menacing stare as I pull one headphone free and then the other, pocketing them. He’s much closer than I anticipated in the aisle. I can feel his warmth in every breath that fans across my face.

My eyes slide to the book he holds aloft in his hand. An ascending tone echoes through the speakers mounted on the walls. Kaplan’s eyes shift upward as though he might see something in the recorded message warning that the library will be closing in ten minutes. I’m not sure if it’s a social convention or just…stupidity. For some reason, I catch myself hoping it’s the former. An unbidden ache coils low in my belly, and I loathe myself for taking a deep breath of the intoxicating smell of a man who might be looking around for a recorded voice from a stationary speaker.

When the message is over, Kaplan’s eyes drop to mine. There’s a brief flash of surprise when he finds me staring back at him with a look that can only be described as lethal. And then the hint of a cocky smile lifts one corner of his lips, bringing the shadow of a dimple out in his cheek. My ache becomes a burn, torching my chest with anger and my core with need.

“That’s my book,” I say.

He turns it to read the spine. “Asperson and Dahl. I don’t see Brooks there.”

“Give it to me.”

Something darkens in Kaplan’s eyes. His throat bobs as he swallows. His smile fades as his gaze flicks down to my lips before fusing with my eyes once more.

“Are you going to give me that book?” I ask.

“I haven’t decided.”

“Does it always take you this long to work something out?”

“Only when you’re involved, it seems.”

He leans a fraction closer and I stand my ground, but it takes more effort than it should. Not to keep from backing away, but to stop myself from moving closer. I’ve never felt a need this strong before, its pull overpowering me as though I’m nothing more than a metal fleck in the path of a magnet. The need to kill. The need to fuck. They’re like two planets crashing into one another, destroying the walls and barriers that hide my darkest desires. I feel like I’m struggling to keep hold of the beast that prowls behind them. “Run off with it then, why don’t you,” I challenge, squaring my shoulders. “Put it in your hipster leather satchel to go with your equally predictable tweed jacket and scurry off.”

Kaplan’s smile grows, the dimple deepens. His eyes drift across my face like he’s memorizing the smallest details, lingering for only a moment on the bruise beneath my lashes. He leans a little closer still, his nearness and heat radiant in the space between us. “Are you always so vicious?”

“You have no idea.”

There’s a long moment of utter silence. My heart claws up my throat and drums in my ears. My breath grows shallow as Kaplan’s smile dissolves and his rich brown eyes fuse to my lips. A coldness creeps up my arms, crawling, scratching, gooseflesh leaving a trail behind a phantom touch as though my skin is begging for his hands.

Kaplan’s grip tightens on the book. He leans closer. That scent of bergamot, I can almost taste it. My mouth waters as my eyes drop to the pulse that pounds in his neck.

“Maybe I want to see it,” Kaplan says, his voice low. He edges a step closer, his chest grazing mine with every inhalation. “Maybe I want to taste all that ferocity. Straight from the source.”

He takes another step forward. I let him push me to the shelves. My back is as rigid as the spines of books beneath it as Kaplan presses in closer, his eyes still soldered to my lips, his free hand caging me in as he grips the shelf next to my head.

The warning tone ascends above us. The recorded message drowns the sound of my pulse burning its quickened rhythm through my brain. The library will be closing in five minutes. Please proceed to the reception desk to check out any books. Thank you.

Kaplan meets my eyes. His gaze filters through mine, bounding between my blown pupils. “Just one taste,” he whispers.

An electric tingle skitters up my arms. I don’t move as he draws closer. Every shallow breath I take is flooded with his scent. It feeds the ache to touch, to be touched. But I keep still as my vision stays locked on his mouth.

Dr. Kaplan’s lips meet mine, a gentle press of warmth. Soft and silent, as though this moment is stolen, forbidden. His tongue runs across the seam of my lips, leaving behind the taste of sweet mint.

He pulls away.

“Is that what you thought poison would taste like?” I ask, the faint trace of a tremor in my voice that I’ve never heard before.

“No,” he says, a crease appearing between his brows as though his beast is chewing at his bones. His gaze traces the curve of my lips. The trail of his tongue’s caress hums in my skin. “It tastes one hundred times sweeter.”

Our eyes meet. I take one breath.

Then I grasp the collar of his jacket and crush his lips to mine.

A torrent of heat unleashes in my chest. I punish Kaplan with my kiss. He devours me with a desperation that meets mine. Our teeth clash. Our tongues invade each other’s mouths. Our lips mold and form together. We fight for air. We fight one another. A loud smack startles me and I pull back, but it doesn’t phase him. It was the book. He cast it to the floor so he could grasp my waist with firm fingers. He dives for my neck, layering searing kisses to my surging pulse.

“I feel compelled to tell you that I hate you,” I breathe as he bites and sucks on my skin. I start tugging the collar of his jacket off. “Just like I hate your leather satchel and your hideous tweed jacket that looks like it came from the hipster reject pile. If I could feel secondhand embarrassment for anyone, I would feel it for you.”

Kaplan’s dark laugh heats my skin as he nips my earlobe and a moan escapes my lips. “Good. I’ll wear it every fucking day. I’ll even sew suede patches on the elbows.”

I tug on the strap of Kaplan’s satchel and he pulls it over his head to drop it on the floor before pressing me into the shelves. He consumes me with his kiss. His hands flow under my sweater, the pads of his fingers tracing my ribs, the curve of my waist, the lace edge of my bra. He growls against my lips when I cup his erection as it strains against his jeans.

The overhead fluorescents flick off with a snap. The only light around us is the emergency exit at the end of the aisle and the lamplight filtering through the tall windows.

“They’re not going to check that we left?” I ask as we stare at one another. Kaplan’s eyes flash in the dim light.

“I guess not. Thank fuck.”

I grip his hair and pull his mouth to mine. He frames my face with heated palms and kisses me like he’s searching for the soul he’ll never find. Searching with his plundering tongue. With a bite that draws blood. With his heart pounding against my chest, begging for secrets from mine. I’ve never been so feverishly consumed. I’ve never devoured like this in return, molding my lips to his, pressing my body to his, desperate to be closer. Desperate to burn.

I shrug my jacket off as Kaplan tugs on the hem of my sweater and breaks the kiss to pull it over my head, cursing as he takes in the sight of my black lace bra in the minimal light, pulling the cups down to expose my tight nipples to the still air that’s scented with paper and glue and time. He covers my flesh with kisses as I rake my hands through his dark hair. He sucks one nipple into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue, circling the bud while caressing my other breast. I moan as the ache in my belly tightens like a fist. The need clenches deep inside, an emptiness that demands to be filled. Now.

Our kiss heats to an inferno as I undo Kaplan’s belt. “I’m clean. I have an IUD,” I whisper when I pull away. Kaplan’s breath is a ragged stream of sweetness, his palm hot against my breastbone. “Are you clean?”

“Tested last month. I haven’t been with anyone since,” he grits out as I tear the button free of its hole and lower his zipper.

“Then fuck me, Dr. Kaplan. Fuck me like you despise me as much as I hate you.”

A fierce intensity flashes through Kaplan’s eyes and then he dives at my neck, covering it with kisses and bites. I kick off one boot and then the other as he unfastens the button of my jeans and pulls them down my hips with rough and desperate tugs. I slide them off and when I straighten, he crushes me with another kiss, pushing my body harder against the shelves. One of his hands twines into my hair and the other travels down my body, tracing my breastbone, circling the small peak of my breast. And then it keeps going down, pressing the heat of his calloused palm against my ribs, down my stomach, lower, following the sharp edge of my hip bone, the firmness and softness of muscle and womb, down to the edge of my black lace thong. One finger follows the wavy hem to the soaked fabric, tracing a line across the cotton and pressing over my clit in a slow circle.

“Do you always get this wet for people you hate?” Kaplan whispers against my lips as his finger dips beneath the fabric and slides across my silken folds.

I swallow a moan as he circles my clit and nips my jaw. “Maybe I do.”

“Hmm,” he hums. His finger slips between my folds and into my pussy, and then his touch is abruptly gone. For a breath I feel bereft with need. But then I watch with predatory interest as he draws his finger up to his waiting tongue and licks the glistening arousal from his skin. “Funny. It doesn’t taste like hate. It tastes like lies.”

My heart rams against my chest. A wicked smile lifts the edge of Kaplan’s lips. I can just make out that dimple in the dim light.

“But don’t worry,” Kaplan whispers, his voice full of sex and seduction as he lowers his open jeans and his black briefs. He grasps the base of his erection, and then pumps once along the long, thick shaft. Precum glistens on the velvety tip. His other hand glides down my hip and to my thigh and he presses in close, raising my leg to rest behind his back as he centers his erection to my sex and pulls my thong to the side. “I’ll still fuck you like it’s the truth, even if I know it’s not.”

He grips my waist and slams into me to the base of his cock with one brutal thrust. A whimpering moan escapes me, some sound I’ve never made. My flesh stretches around him as he glides to the tip and thrusts in again, pushing my back up against the books. He does it again, a burst of pain and pleasure igniting my nerves with the invasion. He grips my ass and I hook my other leg across his back and he slams into me again, even deeper, filling me with thick heat. Another thrust and I cry out, his hand folding across my mouth.

“Shh, Ms. Brooks. You’ll scream for me, but not this time.”

Kaplan rails into me, unrelenting, untiring, slamming my back against the bookcase with every thrust, my legs tightening around his waist as he punishes me with pleasure. He takes one of my hands and guides it between us in a silent request to touch myself, and I press swirling circles to my clit in a rhythm that blends with his trusts. I hold on to his neck with my other hand and worm my fingers under his collar to dig my nails into his skin and he hisses with approval, taking his palm away from my mouth to grip the shelf above me. Books fall to the floor around us and he draws my head to his chest, protecting it from the heavy texts that fall to the floor like broken birds.

And those thrusts, they keep coming, like waves in a vicious storm, pushing me closer to coming undone. Every time he glides to his crown, I mourn the emptiness. When he fills and stretches me, I ache for release. He touches places that feel like they’ve never been truly touched, and my swollen channel clenches for more, fluttering around his length. His body burns with mine, the scent of mint and rum and bergamot warming with his heat, invading my senses. He kisses and bites and thrusts and this need, this magnetic need, it consumes, turning thought to ash. Turning me to flame.

I’m so close, every thrust pushing me to the precipice I’m ready to beg to fall over. I pull one of Kaplan’s hands from the shelf and place it around my throat, and he draws back without slowing the rhythm of his thrusts, a question in his hooded, lustful eyes.

“Like you mean it,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “Fill me with darkness. With you.”

Kaplan’s eyes flash as they dart down to my neck and back up again. He takes a deep, ragged breath. “Tap me on the shoulder three times if it’s too much.”

I glare at him through a menacing smile and tighten my grip around his. “I can take what you have to give, Dr. Kaplan.”

An equally wicked smile flickers across his lips. “Oh I know you can, sweetheart. Just look at how well you take me,” he says, and pulls out to the tip of his erection. He trusts in hard, burying his cock as deep as it will go. “All of me.”

I shudder a moan that slips beneath the vice waiting to tighten around my throat. I let my hand fall from his. “Then don’t hold back. Do it like I know you really want to. Like you’re going to kill me.”

I’ve just opened the cage of the beast behind his bones.

He growls. He squeezes his hand. There’s no hesitation, no tentativeness in his grip. He compresses his fist around my throat and the air constricts to a thin stream, my lungs burning after only a few strained breaths. His thrusts become wild, vicious, like he was holding back before.

“Say my name with the last of your breath,” he whispers against my ear as his grip tightens.

My core clenches, my orgasm within reach as my vision darkens at the edges. He thrusts, my back bruising against the books. “Kap—”

“No,” he grits out, squeezing harder. A choked sound claws itself from my throat.

“Eli,” I wheeze. It sounds both hateful and beseeching. “Eli…”

Kaplan thrusts deeper, faster, squeezes harder. He whispers into my ear like a wraith, following me into darkness, bewitching me, imploring that I say his name until there’s no air left, and still his voice is in my mind, demanding again, say it again.

My orgasm tears through me. It burns my nerves. It claims control of my muscles, bowing my back against the shelves, tightening my core around Kaplan’s cock as he pulses and spills surges of cum into the depths of my sex. My pussy clenches his girth and pleasure unravels up my center and through my hips and down my legs and up my arms and under my skin and everywhere. Just everywhere. My eyes water and the tears stream down my cheeks. Kaplan opens his hand, my lungs sucking in a deep breath in a baptism of air.

Kaplan leans against me, his shirt damp with sweat. I wish I could feel his skin, every inch, with nothing left between us. We only truly touch where we’re joined at the center, his cock still twitching inside me, and where his forehead rests on my shoulder, where his hand rests on my breastbone, his palm capturing the quieting beat of my heart.

We stay like this for a long moment, and he doesn’t ask if I’m okay. I’m glad for that. I think it would feel less real if he did. A beast feels no guilt for what it takes. It doesn’t doubt itself, or ask for forgiveness. I told him what to take and he took it, without hesitation or apology. And I don’t feel like I lost something in this moment. I feel empowered by letting go of my control.

I’m not sure how much time passes with me pressed up against the bookshelf when Kaplan slips out of my sex and I unwrap my legs from his waist to stand on my own once more, his hand still resting on my sternum as though asking me to stay. He steps away and looks around at his satchel and jacket, my clothes, and the books littered on the floor. His eyes drift back to his jacket and he gives me a strange expression that I’ve never seen, like amusement and resignation and desire rolled into some intoxicating warmth. “Stay right there,” he says, and pulls up his briefs and jeans. He sweeps the tweed jacket from the floor and gives me a meaningful look, keeping hold of my eyes as he tears the paisley lining free. He drops the woollen shell and kneels before me, balling the fabric in his hand and starting to clean away the mess gathered at the apex of my thighs.

“This is both a fitting and horrifying end to that atrocity of fabric,” I grumble, glaring down at the top of his head as he huffs a laugh, wiping the cum and arousal that drips down my thighs.

“I paid a small fortune for this jacket, I’ll have you know.”

“That’s a depressing thought,” I say as he lifts my leg, placing my foot on his thigh. The fabric in his hand slides gently across my swollen sex, my thong pulled to the side with his free hand. “My uncle could have hooked you up from Cedar Ridge. They’d pay you to take their old man clothes away.”

Kaplan laughs.

“I’m being serious. They’ve got bags of tweed. Not that I should be encouraging your erroneous clothing choices.”

“I don’t think my clothing choices have ever been described as erroneous before.”

“That’s because everyone has been lying to you.”

Kaplan laughs again. The sound flows from him easily, the breath it coasts on warming my skin. He places a kiss on my hip. His shoulders rise as he inhales and pulls away to continue his reverential strokes. It feels…sacred…in this place, in the quiet and the dark, surrounded by the scent of paper and ink.

“No one’s ever done this for me before,” I confess as he wipes my other leg.

“What, ripped apart their favorite jacket for you? I would suspect that’s not an everyday occurrence for anyone.”

“No. Taken…care…of me. Like this.”

Kaplan stills and looks up. I search those liquid pools of deep brown warmth in his eyes. There’s surprise there, and I think sadness too. It’s hard to tell in the dim light. I swallow and hold my shoulders straighter. My skin pebbles with the cooling sweat and the unexpected scrutiny in his eyes.

“Don’t start thinking I like you any more than I did twenty minutes ago. I don’t,” I say.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“Okay then.”

I narrow my eyes at him and Kaplan has the audacity to smirk. The urge to smash his face repeatedly with the heavy textbook of Memory: The Extended Definition rises, and I slowly pull my leg from his grip. I shoot him a final warning look and drift away to gather my clothes, pulling them on as he slides his ravaged tweed jacket onto his shoulders and makes a half-hearted effort to gather the scattered books. When I’ve shrugged on my coat, I scoop Digital Media and Cultural Memory from the floor and look down at Kaplan amidst the texts, a flicker of wariness creasing the space between his brows.

“That was fun. See you around, Dr. Kaplan,” I say, and surge forward to stride past him down the aisle.

“Fun…you’ll what?” I smile as I hear Kaplan’s satchel drag across the floor and his footsteps approach behind me just as I turn toward the stairs. “What the fuck?”

“What? I’ve got to get home.”

“Let me walk you to your car at least,” he says, quickening his steps until he meets my stride.

“I’m fine.”

“It’s dark.”

“I have functioning eyes. I noticed. But thank you for confirming they still work.”

“It’s not safe, you know what campuses can be like.”

“Yep. About the same as retirement homes.”

“Precisely my point. Let me walk with you.” I ignore Kaplan as we draw close to the stairs. “Bria—” he says, and grabs hold of my arm.

Instinct ignites my nerves.

I grasp Kaplan’s hand and wrench it backwards and twist, my grip merciless. There’s a tiny pop beneath my palm as a tendon sprains. He lets out a cry of pain and surprise and drops to his knees as I keep his hand turned back toward his arm.

“Bria what, exactly? Bria, it’s dangerous?” My head tilts as Kaplan looks up at me, pain etched across his features. I twist his wrist back a little further and smile when he squirms. I lean in closer, taking in one last breath of his scent. “You look good on your knees for me, Dr. Kaplan,” I whisper next to his ear.

“Bria—”

“Be careful out there in the night. You never know when you might run into someone dangerous.” I shove his hand away and stalk toward the stairs. When I look over my shoulder, Kaplan is still on his knees, holding his injured wrist to his chest.

“Better put some ice on that,” I call up the stairs as I descend out of view.

I turn from the front desk when I reach the main floor, bypassing the locked doors as I stride toward the nearest emergency exit. I pull the red handle of the alarm on the wall and then press the long, straight bar of the unused door. Sirens blare around me, muffling as the door closes in my wake, the silver mist of my breath rising around me in the cool rain as I hurry from the library, smiling into the dark.