It seems Haven is truly alone.
Only two doors in the hallway are unlocked besides the bathroom. One is empty, the other isn’t.
Haven is sprawled over the floor on her back like a homicide victim, face slack, sleep shirt hiked up one side all the way to her ribs. I’m on my knees beside her in an instant, heart hammering inside my chest as I press my fingers to her throat.
She’s cold, but there’s a faint thrum under my fingertips, and her eyelids flicker at my touch.
Not dead, just lost in a medicated fog.
I scan the room, spotting a bottle of pills on Haven’s nightstand. I grab them, rattling the bottle. Still pretty full. Doubtful that she took enough to overdose.
Which means she’s fine, and I should leave.
I should fuckingleave.
But I don’t have a choice, do I?
I lift her from the floor, frowning at the weight. She’s heavier than she looks and ungainly in sleep, her head lolling against my shoulder, her legs tangling with mine as I stand.
A professor finding his student like this in her sorority room has only one reasonable course of action.
I should tuck her into bed and walk away.
But the hunger her limp body has summoned inside me disagrees.
As does my cock.
It stiffens against my zipper like it always does when she’s close. Even wrecked and barely conscious, she sets me burning.
Especially now, like this.
No arguing, no sneering. No attempts to turn my games back on me. She just sinks into me with the slow, helpless surrender I’ve been chasing from her since she walked into my class.
I lower her to the mattress. My hands should let go, but they don’t. One lingers at her waist, another flat against her belly until I feel the soft rise and fall of her breathing.
There’s no version of this that ends well for anyone.
But every time her belly rises under my palm, I get harder.
I picture myself leaving. Rising from her bed without waking her, closing the door behind me, pretending this never happened, that I was never here. Like I’m a respectable man, doing the respectable fucking thing.
But Haven Lee will never be respectable, and neither will I.
The dark in me craves the dark in her.
When I rise and go to the door, it’s not to close it behind me.
It’s to lock us inside.
Prey caged with predator.
Her…with me.
I stalk back to the bed like my namesake, sliding my knees onto the mattress beside her still form.
“What is it about you, Miss Lee, that renders me incapable of doing the right thing?” I growl as I brush hair out of her face.
A chill slithers up my spine when I feel hidden eyes on me.
