Kept

by Cate Corvin

  Rationally I knew he’d already seen all of me naked, but it was so much different with his presence taking up all the space in the room. Just the heat of his gaze felt like a caress against my skin, igniting a fire everywhere it landed.

  “You have no room to be shy with me.” He gently gripped my wrists, but my muscles were locked in place. “There is no part of you that I don’t want to see, touch, or taste, Pet. Understand?”

  I nodded, my throat locked up tight.

  It wasn’t like every single member of the faculty had left. Anyone could come knocking at any second while I was mostly undressed on the Dean’s desk, and then it’d be over for all of us.

  “Relax, Pet. That’s an order.”

  Like his voice possessed the magic words, my muscles unlocked one by one, and the fear became nothing more than a trickle, mixing with the rising heat of lust.

  I lowered my arms and he slowly stripped away the last layer between myself and him, letting it drop to the floor. Not even a full beat passed between us before he was holding me again, his arms wrapped around my back while his mouth roved a trail down to my breasts.

  He swirled his tongue around one hardening nipple with a groan, biting down almost hard enough to hurt. It sent a shock through me and I gripped his shoulders with a gasp, digging my nails into his skin through the fabric of his shirt.

  Vincent lowered me against the desk until my hair was hanging off the edge, teasing my other nipple with slow strokes and almost-rough pinches as I writhed beneath him. I wanted to destroy a second shirt of his, rip it right off his body so I could feel the heat of him against me, but then he was moving lower, laving his tongue over my stomach.

  The heat of his tongue met my inner thigh, tracing the edge of my panties. He hooked his thumbs in them, pulling them down slowly like he was unwrapping a present and sliding them over my legs.

  One of his hands lay flat against my stomach, holding me in place as he kissed my thighs, slowly inching closer to my pussy with every wet, biting nibble.

  I ran my fingers through his hair, tracing the shell of his ear as he teased me. He was so close, his tongue just sliding over my clit before vanishing again, that my breath had hitched in a frustrated groan.

  On a whim, I wove my fingers through his hair in a rough grip and pulled his mouth to my pussy, unable to hold back a moan when his tongue slid over all of me. Vincent made a satisfied sound, growling when my fingers tightened their grip, but there was no more teasing. Like he’d been waiting for that single cue before he went any further, he devoured me now, swirling his tongue over the sensitive nub and sucking it between his lips.

  My hips almost rose off the desk when a jolt of white-hot pleasure shot me through me but he pushed down, flattening me out again and lifting my leg over his broad shoulder.

  His tongue slid against my lips, plunged inside while I squirmed. My daydreams hadn’t been even a tenth as amazing as he actually felt, the way he grazed me with his teeth, not hard enough to hurt, sharp enough to sizzle my nerve endings.

  I rose to meet him, riding against his mouth and keeping my grip on him firm. His fingers dimpled my thigh so hard I knew I’d have bruises on my leg by tomorrow morning to match the one he had to have left on my throat.

  I knew I’d stroke them the next time he ordered me to touch myself and remember the searing heat of his hands on me.

  My gasps were growing alongside the intense pressure in my clit, but a pair of footsteps echoed down the corridor outside his office door, slowing as they got closer. My heart skipped several beats in my panic.

  Almost immediately I seized up, prepared to scramble off his desk and hide under it if necessary, but Vincent’s arms clamped around me like iron vises, holding me in place. His tongue flickered over my clit when someone knocked on the door, the resounding booms like a death-knell in my ears.

  My heart was beating so fast I couldn’t hear anything besides the knocking hand and an unfamiliar voice calling for Professor Thayer outside.

  Perversely, the heat in my stomach grew, like the idea of being caught only built the excitement higher. If anyone unlocked that door, they’d find the Dean between my legs and everything on his desk swept to the floor.

  They knocked again, a hint of impatience to it, and Vincent wrapped his lips around my clit, sucking gently as he released my leg just long enough to slide two fingers inside me and curl them forward.

  I let go of his hair to slam my hand over my own mouth, gripping the edge of the desk as I shook through the orgasm. I would’ve sworn that actual stars burst in front of my eyes when I came, Vincent doing everything in his power to drag the moment out while I clenched around his fingers.

  My lungs were practically imploded from holding in my gasps and moans, and whoever was outside the door finally walked away, the click of their shoes as loud as gunshots until they faded from earshot entirely.

  Vincent kissed the soft patch of skin just above my clit when I’d stopped writhing and fighting his grasp, licked his fingers. When he stood up, his hair rumpled and shirt disheveled, I could only stare at him, taking deep, ragged breaths.

  I sat up too, automatically moving to shield my breasts with one arm, but he pushed my arm away.

  When he leaned in, I didn’t turn away. I kissed him back hard, savoring the sensation of his beard scratching my cheeks and chin and how he gripped me close to him.

  Knowing how close I’d come to lose everything had made the thrill of the forbidden that much more tantalizing. I really couldn’t claim to be better than them at all now.

  “Gabriel was right,” he said, his voice as ragged as my breath. “Delicious.”

  Knowing that they’d discussed me behind my back sent a flush to my cheeks. I broke out of his grasp, finding my underwear and pulling everything back on.

  He fastened my bra for me, and when I had my dress back in place, he combed his fingers through my hair, smoothing its wildness as much as possible. I had to look up through almost a foot of thin air at him, wondering what thoughts were swirling behind those dark eyes.

  “You can’t really mean that,” I murmured, still irrationally afraid someone was waiting outside his office door.

  “If I tell you something, I mean it, Pet.” He sounded almost irritable as he finished smoothing me out like a beloved… pet.

  Vincent’s eyes lingered on a spot near the base of my throat and I touched the purple mark there. “I’ll cover it with makeup,” I said, turning away. “No one will know.”

  No matter what violent explosion of emotion our meeting earlier had created, it was over now. The time had come to sink back into my old, familiar role as the mouse, always hiding.

  “No.” The Dean of Students lowered his head and kissed the spot, still faintly burning from his more punishing kiss earlier. “You’ll wear it as it is.”

  It wasn’t like I had too many low-cut shirts anyways. Someone would have to really search to find the mark.

  With anyone else, I might’ve laughed about them giving me a hickey. With Vincent, all the humor was gone. It wasn’t a bragging right to show off to other boys; none of them needed to show off. They knew they could have whatever they wanted, when they wanted it.

  For him, it was a mark of ownership. Even if no one else ever saw it, it was still there, written in red and violet on my skin.

  All that mattered was that it existed.

  I kept my hair down through my library shift to cover the mark Vincent had left on me. Fortunately, Mrs. Clarke was nose deep in Sense and Sensibility and barely spared me a passing glance, and most of the students who’d come in had the selective blinders of people who were on a mission and had no time for the library help.

  Rain was falling again when I locked up for the night and stepped outside. The soft patter of drops on my hood were my only company as I strode down the path to the parking lot, sticking to the soft pools of light cast by the iron streetlamps and shivering in my thin raincoat. It was still spring, but my hands were cold a
s ice from the sudden drop in temperature.

  A set of headlights flared up in the darkness and I paused mid-step. It wasn’t Rhett’s car, but a sleek charcoal gray Cadillac.

  Vincent got out of the car and opened the passenger door as I approached. “Get in, Pet.”

  My heart had lodged itself somewhere between its rightful place and my throat. The things they did… it was almost like they wanted to be caught fucking the scholarship girl.

  “Someone’s eventually going to see what you’re doing,” I said, keeping my voice quiet.

  Vincent gestured to the open door. “I don’t give a damn.”

  He didn’t need to order me any further. I ducked rain spilling from a pine’s branches and tucked myself into the car before I gave any passersby more time to watch this taboo action play out.

  The interior of the car was already warm and I held my hands up to the vents as he got in. Everything about the space cradled me, from the soft seat to the mouthwatering vetiver and musk scent of his cologne.

  Vincent reached out and wrapped one of my hands in his own and I almost sighed from the warmth of it. Anything I could’ve said was stuck in my throat.

  He probably didn’t want me to talk at all.

  When my fingers no longer felt like icicles dangling from my arms, he released me, one hand resting on the gear shift. “Explain what you meant by your mother, Jane.”

  I tucked my fingers between my thighs to keep them warm and looked out the window at the rivers of water pouring from the eaves of Bourdillon. So my answer to his text had been on his mind. “She has- had- cancer. It’s in remission, but she’s still so… fragile. I don’t know if she’s going to come back from it entirely.” My tone dropped as I gave voice to my worst fear.

  To my embarrassment, a hot tear welled up in the corner of my eye. I wiped it away surreptitiously, hoping that Vincent didn’t notice. He was so cruel and dominant in everything he did that a crying woman in his car would probably just irritate him.

  “You take care of her.” He didn’t phrase it like a question, like he already knew the answer. “On top of your studies and library internship.”

  I wasn’t going to point out that in-home care was beyond my reach. “Yes.”

  He made a soft noise of assent and put the Cadillac in reverse. The silence between us was strangely comfortable, like he drove students home every night.

  Of course he probably gave his last Pet rides, the acerbic voice of reason whispered.

  “Is that why you chose Bourdillon? For access to the Petersen Cancer Center.” His question broke that comforting silence, but his questions didn’t irritate me the way someone else digging into my business would have.

  “For more than that.” We left the glow of Bourdillon’s streetlamps for the dark, winding twist of the forest’s roads. “It was a large part of it, though. I thought as long as she had more time, she’d be able to see me earn a degree from a prestigious university. That was what she wanted, and I wanted her to be somewhere that… if the worst were to pass, she’d have only the best for her care.”

  There was a large part of me that was relieved that he didn’t give me the usual “I’m so sorry” platitudes that people said when there was nothing else to say. At first the support was nice, but after a while, when the worry was eating at my gut like a living creature, every condolence started to feel like Mom was already in the grave and people were preemptively mourning.

  He didn’t say anything else, and the way home was so much faster in a car, anyways. Less than a minute later the Cadillac rolled up in front of the glow of the cottage.

  I grabbed my bag and made to open the door, but Vincent reached out and took my hand again, stopping me mid-motion.

  He pulled me across the center console and tilted his head, catching me off guard in a kiss I hadn’t seen coming.

  I dropped the bag and the handle, cradling his face in my hands as I kissed him back, stars blossoming behind closed eyelids. I didn’t want to dwell on Mom or that this kiss was utterly forbidden, a one-way ticket to hell and a whole lot of trouble.

  All I wanted to do was drown in someone who was so much harder and more stoic than I’d ever be.

  I trailed my fingers through the thick beard that scratched my face, drinking up every flick of his tongue, and gasped against his lips when he wound a hand through my hair and pulled me closer.

  When we broke away, I was sure I had stars in my eyes. No matter what a bastard he’d been the first time I’d literally run into him, every little bit of hate I thought I could muster for him was melting into something else.

  He ran his thumb over my swollen lower lip. “Good night, Pet.”

  “Good night, Professor Thayer.” I swallowed, hoping the hammer of my heart wasn’t audible in the close confines of the car.

  The Dean caught my fingers before I left. “One more rule, Pet. When we’re alone together, it’s Vincent.”

  I managed to keep my smile hidden until I was in the cottage with the door shut behind me, and the sound of tires scraping gravel had faded outside.

  Chapter Twelve

  Despite the baby steps of progress I’d made with Vincent on Monday, almost a full week passed before I saw any of the Three Demons again.

  Rachelle was perfectly happy to fill my quietness with the news that all three of them were attending a conference, that her Victoria’s Slut-cret statue form was already coming along nicely, and that Sean had met a nice girl at the Grind Haus last week.

  The last bit of news gave me a bit of relief, but with my owners gone, I felt unnecessarily gloomy. The dichotomy of being torn between anger of knowing I’d been used, and the need I felt for them, was a deeper emotion than I was willing to ponder for long, but it still occupied most of my thoughts against my will.

  I threw myself into studying just to pass the time. No texts came, and I wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence.

  Friday morning came with a knock on the door only minutes before my alarm went off. I wrapped a robe around my shoulders and shuffled to the door, dragging a hand through the wild dandelion clock of my hair.

  A woman with a smile that was way too bright for six-thirty on a Friday morning stood on my porch, wearing pink scrubs and holding a white tote. “Good morning! Is this the Fawkes residence?”

  There was a van parked in the driveway. The gears of my brain were still clogged with sleep, and her smile somehow became even bigger, as though she could transfer some of her energy over to me. “I’m Dana Jones, from the Petersen Center’s in-home services department. Is Elizabeth Fawkes here? We just need to take care of a few things before I get started, but I’ll be stopping by every day…”

  She kept talking, but I tuned out the words for a second, completely wide awake.

  There was only one person who could be responsible for this.

  Dana had stopped talking and was smiling at me again, and I managed to pull myself together and invite her in.

  Mom was already stirring when I shut the front door, and Dana immediately made herself at home. I went in to help Mom out of bed, weak as she was in the morning, but Dana was already there, pressure cuff and clipboard in hand and introducing herself to my mother.

  Mom’s eyes shone in confusion when she glanced at me, and I found myself awkwardly standing in the doorway. I gave her a tight smile as Dana began her spiel again.

  “How is this possible?” Mom asked, but as Dana wrapped the cuff around her arm, there was a lightness to the set of her shoulders I hadn’t seen in a long time.

  Dana opened her mouth, but I cut her off. “I did some digging and found out that the scholarship clause has a medical necessity clause. It’s all taken care of, don’t worry.”

  I gave them both my own bright smile, and Dana shut her mouth again. All I could do was pray that she somehow didn’t have access to the name of the person who was paying for this.

  And it was all taken care of. I was sure Vincent would get his money’s worth out of me a
s soon as he returned, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel the tiniest bit bitter about it.

  If Mom had a professional caring for her, I was going to be the best damn Pet they’d ever had.

  I got ready for class as Dana conducted her first check-up, and kissed Mom on the cheek before I left. Mom patted my face, her eyes full of relief.

  For as much as I worried about her, she worried just as much that she’d eventually become a burden before she died, her own worst fear. Nothing I said could convince her that I would never see her as a burden, but Dana’s presence seemed to lift that worry entirely.

  My own steps felt lighter as I cut through the forest to Bourdillon, but I was dragged back to earth almost immediately as I mixed with the crowd traipsing through the Hall of Art.

  Gabriel Spears’ door was open. At least one of my Demons were back.

  He stepped out and leaned against the door frame as students filtered in, and like a laser-precise missile those crystal blue eyes landed right on me.

  I realized I was staring back even as I kept walking and forced my head forward again, but the tingling sensation of my tell-tale flush spread over my chest.

  To my disappointment, Rhett was still gone. Harrison, the professor who was originally meant to teach this class, was still at the podium when I arrived and slid into place next to Rachelle.

  Today she was wearing electric blue tasseled earrings that hung down past her shoulders like locks of hair. Sean was on her other side, and for once he didn’t give me his usual sidelong glance. His new girlfriend must’ve really been something.

  Even with Rhett gone, I cheerfully took notes all morning until the end of class. As soon as Vincent was back, I was going to throw my arms around him whether he liked it or not. No one had ever done something for me just because, and he had no way of knowing what a weight he’d lifted from us.

  Rachelle snapped her gum when the bells chimed the end of the first hour. “You’re awfully bright today, sunshine.”