Knowing I could’ve had those lips wrapped around my cock still plagues me when I’m near her. I was stubborn, to the detriment of sexual gratification. I thought I could push her into giving me what I really wanted from her. But she’s stubborn, too.
“Should impress you,” I say. “You being a fan of superheroes.”
“You’re no superhero. You could be a comic book villain, though.”
I exhale a small chuckle.
Arya Peralta is the dance team’s queen bee. And a world class diva. It’s nice to know I can still throw her off her game. At Granthorpe, I might be the only person who ever has. She is that bulletproof.
Most people at GU seem to think Eden Buchanan, blond heiress and the Lady Knights’ other captain, is the queen, but she’s not. Eden is a decent leader and a good mouthpiece for the group, but anyone who’s seen the women perform knows there is one dancer no one can take their eyes off. And in practice, there is one woman who eviscerates the others for being late or too hung over to give the choreography its due. Arya’s as tough on her peers as the football coaches are on the defensive line when it falls short of its capabilities.
My right hand comes to rest on my ribs where she shoved me. One of them—the one that got dented during the championship game—still throbs where she shoved the heel of her hand against it.
She’s right that she’s strong for a girl. But such a goddamned brat. No consideration given to the pounding I took on the field.
My left arm flexes as I shove the door open farther, so I can follow the women through it. My gaze drops to her thin silk pants. That ass. As high and round as a ripe peach. The girl is fucking fit, and my teeth ache from wanting to take a bite of her.
Not why she’s here, I remind myself.Or why you are.
I’ve got bigger concerns than a cock that keeps pointing toward a girl I don’t plan to touch.
My coverage of Casanova has turned personal. A woman Casanova abducted, Isobel Long, was a girl I’d fucked. It was a casual hookup, but there was nothing casual about me finding her naked body floating in the river near my loft.
He cut off her hair. There were bruises and cuts on her breasts and genitalia. And small crescent-shaped burns on her ass. Casanova tormented her and desecrated her body before he snuffed out her life. And then he dropped her in the water near enough to Foxgrove that someone associated with Granthorpe would find her.
He couldn’t have known she would wash up along the rocky shoreline next to the path an ex-lover walks every day. But it felt as though he delivered her to me as a taunt. As if saying, even while I’m investigating him, he can drop bodies on my doorstep with impunity. Son of a bitch. I want to find him in the worst way.
Initially, I planned to stay coldly objective. The way a good investigative reporter should. But looking at Isobel’s damaged, water-logged body and comparing it to my memory of her, of her smooth skin and long dark hair… Objectivity bled away in an instant. Whoever he is, Casanova made a mistake when he murdered a girl I slept with.
Before finding her body, I was dedicated to the story. Now, the story is secondary.
Whatever it takes, I'm going to find Casanova. And when I do, I’m going to end him, with extreme violence. He enjoys destroying women who can’t fight back? It’s time he met another destroyer.
My sore rib creaks as I move a cart that’s weighed down by a palette of printer paper and other supplies.
The Dispatch’snewsroom is overrun with people, and the noise grates on me. Normally Heinrich, the faculty editor, and I meet in the offices after everyone else is already gone. But keeping my identity under wraps is over now. At least in the newsroom.
Tonight, everyone’s eating and talking loudly, as though it’s a holiday party rather than a week into the new year.
Several people turn to stare at the three of us, with more attention than I’d like focused on myself. I’ve had more than enough of crowds over the past few months.
These days, with football season over, I’m looking for quiet. And I need it. I have my mission, and it’s going to take all my concentration.
“Declan brought food,” Reynolds says cheerfully.
She’s blond and cute, like a golden retriever puppy. And Heyworth, the co-captain of our championship football team, is obsessed with her.
Heinrich likes her too, so she’s leveraged her way into joining the paper’s Casanova coverage. In my opinion, keeping female reporters a safe distance from it was prudent. The campus serial killer follows our stories. I’m sure of it.
I glance over at the spread of food. I’m hungry and Heyworth’s personal chef never disappoints.
Last week Heyworth and Reynolds were on the outs, but apparently, he’s working his way back in, using the thing he’s never short of, money. Feeding the newsroom is an excellent tactic because Reynolds wants to gain acceptance. A waste of time, but to each his own.
As Arya Peralta sashays past me, the smell of her amber and musk perfume hits me again and drags me back to the night she proved her taste in men is as shitty as her hearing. No matter what she claims, I didn’t tell her she could appease me with oral sex.
My gaze drops to the perfect curve of her ass, which fills out the silk pants in a way that has my cock hardening like concrete. Her ass is the stuff of which wet dreams are made.
Yeah, her presence in the workspace is going to wreak havoc on my ability to concentrate on anything else. I grab a plate of food before following the women to Reynolds’s cluttered desk. I force my gaze to fix itself on Arya’s back where her sable hair sways above her spine. I would like to get a handful of that wrapped around my hand, so I could pull her hair while driving my cock—
