When I creep past the front door at half past eleven, the house buzzes around me. The lights are out, Asher quiet and hopefully asleep in his basement bedroom, but my heightened senses pick up on every quiver and eddy in the ephemera that fills our home.
I took too much fucking kavish this afternoon, trying to keep my mind focused on work. Or maybe part of me wanted the thrum of the energies around me to drown out my thoughts about what I did earlier today.
All the same, bits and pieces float through the clamor. The rustle of Elodie Devine’s hair against my pant leg. The heat of her chest soaking into my thighs. The intoxicating little gasp that escaped her when I first grazed my fingers over her panties...
I jam the heel of my hand against my forehead, hard. The pressure pushes back the memories, but the buzz of ephemera blares louder.
I’m not getting to sleep like this. I’ve had to resort to chemical measures to knock myself out plenty of nights when I was less keyed up.
The floor groans faintly as I head to my bedroom off the living room, but Asher sleeps pretty deeply. I made an excuse about needing to work particularly late tonight because every time I pictured him sitting across the dinner table from me, there was something I didn’t want to face in his expression.
Disappointment. Resentment. Radiants know what else.
If I don’t get a handle on myself, he might look at me and know just how far I crossed the line.
In my room, I fish the pill bottle out of the drawer in my scuffed side table and down one of the sedatives dry. It leaves an unpleasantly chalky taste in my mouth, but that feels like part of my penance.
I strip off my dress shirt and slacks carefully and sling them over the back of my chair. The high-end clothes I’ve hunted down at thrift stores and outlet sales theoretically should be dry-cleaned, but I do the best I can at home.
No Luminary student is going to sneer at the Beacon-educated professor for a shabby wardrobe, but there’s only so much I can afford to spend on that goal.
By the time I’ve washed my face and brushed my teeth, the pill’s effect still hasn’t kicked in. I sprawl out on my bed in my undershirt and boxers, grimacing at the scratchy texture of the sheets and going through the familiar cycle of longing to splurge on bed covers as fine as my shirts and guilt that I’d consider sacrificing family funds for pure, selfish comfort.
I press my head back into the pillow and close my eyes. The buzzing energy gradually fades into a whisper, but my nerves keep humming. My fingers clench and twist at my sides.
The note of jasmine that laced the air when she bent over my lap. The satisfying slap of flesh and fabric against my palm. The subtle squirming I assumed was discomfort but really?—
I suck a breath through my teeth with a hiss and roll onto my side.
The images follow me, crowding my head. That damned girl.
And she’s damned me. Why the hell did I ever run with her absurd suggestion? How could I have taken itthatfar? What was I thinking?
I wasn’t. She was there—and her smell—and the glint in her eyes—and something inside me just…
I don’t know how to explain it. I remember my body moving, the heated emotions gripping me, but it’s as if they directed me like a puppet?—
No. That’s just a feeble excuse, isn’t it?
I did it. I violated one of my students, and I fuckingenjoyedit while it was happening.
The knowledge slices through me like a blunt knife.
I close my eyes, but the blade only jabs deeper, scraping every nerve along the way.
Finally, I shove myself upright and grope under the bed for the wooden case that holds my meager art supplies. I don’t bother turning on the light. In the dim illumination that seeps through the window, my hand pulls the charcoal across a page of my sketchbook.
My hand moves as automatically as it did those wretched moments in my office.
Big eyes. Elegant nose. Subtle waves of hair. Those full lips...
I trace the line of Elodie’s jaw and the slope of her shoulders, the set of her mouth when she’s defiant and startled, one angleand then another, over and over, until I’ve poured out enough of the tension into the paper.
My hand falters. Exhaustion rolls over me.
I don’t even manage to get the charcoal back into its box before I’ve slumped into the pillow.
When I wake up, surfacing through a haze, paper crinkles around me. As always, the sedative leaves me a bit groggy even after sleeping. I blink several times before understanding sinks through my skull.
