Sexual adrenalin should be labeled as an addictive narcotic. Every time I touch that woman, the rush I get reminds me that I’m playing with fire. Scarlett can be a gateway drug back into the madness that took over my life for a couple of years.
I wonder if that’snotwhat this is, though. Am I mistaking the deep need to touch her, to have her close, and breathe in her scent as something unholy, or is this…
Gulp.
Is this love? Or something on that path?
My pulse is still wrecked. My body is on fire. My brain is a siren begging me to find her, smash down her door tonight, and fuck her until sunrise.
For a moment, the old solution whispers:Just one pill.Just one hit. Just one shot.
A fix is a cab ride away. I hunt dealers, so I know who is where to get me through this.
I stare at my door, knowing that in this mood, just a step into the hall could start an irreversible spiral. My foot moves an inch until the memory kicks in, of cotton mouth, hallucinations, of forgetting my own son’s face for several terrifying ten-second gaps.
Not again.
The demon I worked so hard to bury is fighting its way out. But it doesn’t have a taste for drugs this time.
It craves… Scarlett Ford.
Chapter 27
Cormac
October
The private medical library was my escape from the noise during my years at UCLA. The place where it’s just you and history. You either feel like a titan who can control it, or its messenger who follows the rules.
Now at Hamilton, it’s a place I often go to remind myself that I’mnotGod. I know what I know because of rooms like this.
My steps halt, seeing someone in there. And as luck has it, it’s Scarlett. But it’s not really a coincidence. She’s like me in many ways.
It’s been a week since she was in my office, on her knees, choking on my cock. It’s a movie I play over and over in my mind nearly every morning in the shower, where it ends with me spraying the wall with ropes of my cum.
I lick my lips, seeing Scarlett dressed in a long sweater, leggings tucked into boots, and her hair in that same high ponytail. I immediately imagine fisting it as I bend her over that library table and fuck her instead of shoving her underneath it.
Fuck, I can’t get her out of my mind. I’m in hell. I have to take a wife if I’m going to keep teaching.
Right now all I want is to put my face between the legs of my student and finally return the favor from that day in my office.
Her eyes dart across the pages she’s reading. Then, like she’s gotten a whiff of my cologne through the vents, she looks up. Recognition flashes across her face. Her cheeks blush, and God, I can still hear her request to just use each other for sex.
Professor withBenefits.
But I said no.
Her eyes are sad, she’s tired, and frustrated. God, I know that look. I know what every line on her face is from. Every blink. What every cup of coffee is trying to do. Stay awake. Fill your stomach. Ease a fix.
Without a word between us, she stands and opens the door for me.
My whole world is stripped down to this moment. No students watching. No baby crying from a cold. No Harrow needing me to kill someone.
And most dangerous? No pretense about this thing simmering between us.
“Morning,” I say quietly, the word pitched low enough that it won’t carry beyond the room.
“Morning,” she echoes.