“I’m sure Elodie Devine is perfectly all right,” I say. “She has everything she could want handed to her every day of her life and no shortage of resources to sort out any problems that come her way. Don’t waste your time trying to protect her when she’d screw you over the second it suits her.”
Asher’s mouth tightens for a second as if he’s going to keep arguing. Instead, he sits down and picks up his toast to poke the corner into the runny yolk of his egg.
His silence feels almost as pointed as if he snapped at me. It keeps needling me with every second he keeps his mouth shut.
I gulp down the rest of my breakfast as quickly as I can and escape temporarily into the shower.
As the hot water batters my skin and the steam billows into my lungs, I close my eyes and exhale long and slow.
And the image of Elodie’s smooth, tan ass, her pale panties marked with a streak of unmistakable arousal, swims up from the depths I shoved it to.
I grit my teeth, but my dick has already risen to half-mast.
I reach for other fantasies I’ve played out in this stall, scenarios with faceless women twining their bodies with mine. It’s been too long since I had any real experiences—discreet hookups with drab prostitutes to scratch that bodily itch—to inform my imagination. Elodie’s features keep intruding.
My balls throb. Fuck, I have to get this lust out of me.
I don’t want a shred of it coming out after I leave this room. Not ever again.
I grip my erection firmly and stroke the shaft up and down. As the pleasure of the motion courses through my body, I see Elodie kneeling before me. Elodie’s pouty lips parting, her tongue darting out to lick the head of my cock.
I muffle a groan against my forearm, braced against the tiled wall. My other arm pumps harder.
Elodie clambering onto my lap, legs splayed around me. Elodie making those incredible little whimpers as she takes my cock into the slick, hot channel I only got to probe with gloved fingers. Elodie clutching my shoulder, my hair, as she bucks to meet me.
My release surges through me even faster than I expect. I come with a splatter against the tiles and an ecstatic rush that leaves me slumping into the wall.
As my dick goes limp in my hand, the spent desire congeals into a sickly sensation in my gut.
I should never have touched her in the first place. I sure as fuck shouldn’t be thinking about touching hermore.
What the hell is wrong with me?
The question that’s gnawed at me so many times since I took my first steps to ensuring I earned my professorship wriggles through my brain again.
What if I’m not any better than my parents after all, just rotten in a totally different way?
Thirty-Two
Elodie
Ihunch over the table, staring at the photograph. The woman in it is gazing at something off-camera with a warmth to her delicate face that I can feel just looking at her. The soft smile, the gentle cast of her eyes...
And she can’t be older than thirty.
My throat has gone dry. I swallow and then look up at Uncle Nik. “She’sthe next target?”
He stares down the blunt jut of his nose at me. “You know you can’t judge based on appearances. That woman wouldn’t spare a moment’s thought before hurting you. She’s giving no consideration to the thousands her actions are going to harm.”
I’ve always taken Nik at his word. But my targets before now have all looked the part in some way—a cruel set to their mouth, a haughty tilt of their chin.
I don’t know why my uncle would lie. It’s hard to imagine he and whoever he works with would go to this much trouble overa target who isn’t a major threat. But for the first time since my earliest assignment, my body balks.
Nik reads my hesitation without my saying another word. He sits down at the table across from me. The stark light overhead casts the angles of his face into a sharper contrast of highlights and shadows.
He speaks ever so gently. “Elodie, you know what’s at stake here. Both for human society and for you personally. Weneedyour glim in our service. If you can’t do this for us, I’ll have to inform your mother and your matches of all the things I’ve kept hidden as a courtesy.”
My throat squeezes shut. Mom, puttering around the house with shaky steps as the disease gripping her body charges along its awful course. My matches, waiting in our apartment to enfold me in tenderness and affection.
