“Sorry,” I said while still looking at Rowan. Heat rushed to my cheeks. I stood quickly, my bathroom caddy clattering against the wall, plastic bottles knocking together. Embarrassment burned across my face.
Rowan rose more slowly, unhurried, unfolding from the floor with the kind of effortless grace that made him look even more out of place in the dormitory hallway. The fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows across the planes of his face. “Ready?” His gaze lingered on me a fraction longer than it should have, unreadable, before he turned towards my room.
The walk back was quiet, heavy with everything unsaid. His footsteps matched mine, steady, a shadow by my side. At my door, he paused with his hand braced on the frame. The wood creaked under his touch and I craved—in a momentary lapse of judgement—that it was me instead. He looked as if debating whether to speak.
His voice, when it came, was soft but it cut clean. “You act like claws make you avolchok, Violet. But all I see is a kitten hissing at shadows.”
My breath stuttered, words failing me for once. The air tasted bitter in my mouth.
He dipped his head, something close to a smirk tugging his mouth, then turned and walked away, leaving me seething in his wake.
I shut the door behind me, leaning against it with my pulse still hammering against my ribs, the metal handle cold against my palm. Rowan didn’t fight fair. He never had, which is why I was loath to accept he might be right when the next morning, the school had sent the entire campus an urgent email.
Student found dead in common area. Starting immediately, a curfew will be in effect.
Chapter 12
Rowan
By the time I made it to my apartment, I felt like the physical manifestation of blue balls. Violet’s spitfire defiance should have killed my desire. Should have reminded me she was off-limits, dangerous, Levi’s blood. Instead, it stoked the fire hotter.
I’d tucked my erection under my waistband, hoping the walk would kill my hard-on, but it didn’t work. If anything, my cock throbbed harder, pissed off at being ignored.
The apartment was far nicer than anything I had lived in during my first life. Polished hardwood throughout, stonework walls, and heated tile for the bathroom floor. The kind of place Charlie would pick: expensive, minimal, functional. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Atlanta’s shopping district, all glass towers and money. Too much glass for my taste. I had not trained much with guns before, but even I knew anyone with a scope could see straight in.
But the bed looked soft, the leather chair in the corner was worn in just right, and the locks were solid.
Good enough.
Charlie had found it fast. It had probably cost a fortune, but I didn’t dwell on that. I couldn’t afford my pride taking another hit after Violet’s jab about him “Splurging on his adoptee.” She had poked that wound without even trying. She was already under my skin, no matter how hard I had fought to keep her out.
I checked the time and saw1:30 a.m. So much for sleeping. I walked into the bathroom, stripped, and dropped my clothes on the floor. My cock sprang free, still hard as steel.
Her scent—rose, something dark and floral, somethingher—clung to my clothes from carrying her. My cock throbbed harder when I remembered her soft frame against my chest, her hair tickling my chin, her breath hot against my throat, right where my jugular pulsed. Dangerous, letting her that close. Letting hermouththat close.
The image of her freshly shaved cunt burned in my mind. I could still smell her, that faint musk when she had spread her legs wider in the hallway. How sweet would she taste? My mouth watered.
Fuck, I needed to stop. Violet was young and furious. . . chaos in human form.
Deep down I knew if I wrapped my hands around her throat, she would hiss and spit while smiling, daring me to squeeze harder. The contradiction was driving me insane. Infuriating and irresistible. Fucking perfect in the worst possible way.
Cold water shower. Now, I commanded myself. I set the knob to the coldest setting, stepped in, and hissed as the icy water sliced into my back.
I waited for the cold to kick in and tame my raging hard-on. I waited. . . then waited some more. Looking down at my still-hard cock, I realized cold water would not be enough. Nothing would ever be enough. I could argue all I wanted that desiring Violet was wrong, but my body didn’t care. Neither, apparently, did the part of my brain that kept replaying her spread legs, her smirk, the way she had looked at me. She knew exactly what she was doing.
I palmed the wall and gripped my cock, groaning as I stroked myself. My cock was heavy, aching from being hard for so long. The weight of it in my palm was thick and demanding. I stroked slowly at first, base to tip, letting the cold water beat against my back while heat coiled low in my gut.
I thought back to her dance. The curve of her spine. The flex of her thighs around the pole. The way her body had moved like sex given form, all controlled violence wrapped in silk.
I wanted to run my hands along those curves, trace my fingers to her pierced nipples, watch her squirm beneath me when I twisted thebarbells, then hear her sharp intake of breath as pleasure crossed the line into pain.
For someone filled with so much rage, I suspected she would respond to patience as punishment. Slow build. I would watch her, listen for her breath to hitch, map every response her body gave me. And when I wrapped my hand around her throat, she would lean into it like a dare.
My stroke quickened, palm slick now, cock pulsing in my grip. I imagined it: myvolchokon her knees, those soft pink lips stretched around my cock. I would hold her there, hand fisted in her hair, watching her eyes water as she struggled for air. Then I would pull out just enough to let her breathe before sliding back in, fucking her mouth while my cum dripped down her chin.
“Fuck,” I groaned, the word echoing off tile.
My balls tightened, drew up hard against my body. The orgasm built at the base of my spine, white-hot and inevitable. I stroked faster, rougher, chasing it until I came with a guttural sound that was half her name, thick ropes hitting the shower wall. My cock pulsed again and again, emptying itself while the cold water washed the evidence down the drain.
