Page 45 of Endless Anger (Monsters Within #1)

My nod is curt, and he pinches my nipple before bringing his hand to the back of my neck as if to keep me steady.

“You’re gonna come on my fingers, aren’t you?

” he asks, a teasing lilt to his voice despite its roughness.

“Gonna soak my hand and then walk out of here and go on your little date. You’ll be sitting in that auditorium or at dinner or wherever else you go tonight a sticky, needy mess all because of me, and he’ll be none the wiser. ”

His lips find my ear, grazing the shell, before he takes it between his teeth, nibbling lightly. One of my hands flies off the shelf, clutching at his bicep, his shoulder, anything I can to get him closer as elation starts to rain down my spine.

My orgasm collects at the base, spreading like honey through my thighs and culminating at my pussy. I taste my pulse in my throat and cling to him like I might die if I stop.

“O-oh,” I choke out, my forehead dropping to his chin. “Asher…”

Along with the rush of a climax, panic winds beside it, trying to lace its fangs into the euphoria. Air escapes me, and I struggle for a moment to separate the two and step out of my head, to allow my release at the hands of a man who has broken me before.

Paranoia and anxiety tell me it’ll happen again, but he’s making my body feel so good that I want to ignore it.

Tears well up in my eyes. I’m so pathetic.

“Let go, pup. I’ve got you. I’m not fucking going anywhere.”

His voice is a gentle caress, so at odds with the brazen, unbothered person who’s been at this school trying to force his way back into my life.

And it’s apparently all I need to push myself over the cliff, into a spiral of oblivion that has me writhing against his hand, grinding my clit so the sensations match.

I wrap my arms around his neck, my mouth opening on a silent scream as my pussy clamps down on his fingers, and drive my teeth into his shoulder.

“There we go,” he murmurs into my hair, a strain in his voice that mirrors my own desire. “Take whatever you need from me.”

I want to drink his blood. For our two beings to become one.

Instead, I bite down harder, willing his skin to break.

When I crest fully over that hill, my body deflates, the release taking tension and worry away with it.

This is the second time I’ve let him help me get off. Boundaries and lines be damned; evidently crossing them, even after almost two decades of friendship, isn’t such a big deal.

Asher’s lips skim my temple as he withdraws from me. I wince at the loss, ignoring the unease settling in the pit of my stomach .

He puts me down, albeit reluctantly, and pulls my shirt over my breasts after one last lingering look. Heat flares in his brown irises, enough to make my body tingle, as he lifts his arm and places his fingers on his tongue, sucking off the remnants of me.

My pussy throbs, my throat constricting when he gives a salacious grin.

Letting my eyes fall below his waist, I note the distinct outline of his erection, and I’m struck with the memory of rubbing myself on it and how he came from just that alone.

A tremor ripples in my voice when I speak. “Do you…I mean, I can?—”

He glances down at his crotch and then gives me a small smirk. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of myself while you’re off having fun with another man. It’ll help knowing you won’t be able to stop thinking about me, even when he’s buying you dinner or making you laugh.”

Heat simmers in my stomach. Shit. How am I supposed to concentrate with that image in my mind?

I continue staring at his lap. He steps forward, using his middle finger to tug my chin up.

“Seriously, Luce. I didn’t do that just so you could reciprocate.”

Releasing me, he moves back, and I snap myself out of the fog of arousal. With my feet now on the floor, I yank my skirt back into place, the hole he tore in my stockings making me feel a little exposed, even though my panties are still intact.

Once I’ve managed to taper my thoughts a bit, apprehension settles on my shoulders, weighing them down. Asher drags a hand through his hair, letting out a long breath, and I cross my arms over my chest to get a little distance from everything.

My toe taps of its own accord. “What changed?”

Confusion twists his features. “You mean?—”

“Between now and in that sunflower field. I… We could’ve done this then, but you rejected me. Why now?”

For a couple of seconds, he just looks at me, and I wonder if it was a stupid question. Maybe I should learn not to overthink and just live in the moment, but the only time I’ve ever been able to shut my brain off long enough to do that is when I’m with him.

That realization is preventing me from it now.

When we were kids, I could do it because there was no need to pretend. He didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone, so putting on a mask to hide my insecurities and overactive mind wasn’t necessary.

It didn’t stop the endless thoughts or the buzzing beneath my skin that made me want to constantly be in motion, but I could focus on other stuff too when I wasn’t occupied with being someone else.

I’d have thought our friendship breakup would’ve put an end to that sense of safety, but it’s almost like we’ve fallen right back into our old patterns.

With some lewd activities thrown in.

Those are new.

Taking a step toward me, Asher swoops in, gathering me into his arms once more. I go, because I am kind of stupid, and he kisses me again. This time, it’s slow, steady, and languid like we have all the time in the world, and I moan into the action, unable to help myself.

“I was an idiot,” he tells me, his tongue flicking across my upper lip as he draws back. “That’s not an excuse or really a very good explanation, but it’s the truth.”

“Well, I’m not sure what to do with that.”

Seeming sorry and vocalizing remorse are different things. Even if my heart wants to say fuck it and move on, a few kisses aren’t enough for absolution.

He sighs. “I know. I…I know it might not seem like it, but I do intend to earn your forgiveness. No matter what I have to do. I won’t stop until?—”

The lights above us flicker, and he cuts off, tilting his face toward the ceiling.

“It’s fine,” I say. “These lights are always going out.”

As soon as the last word leaves my lips, the entire floor becomes cloaked in thick darkness. We stay still for a few minutes, waiting for them to come back on .

“Avernia is way too expensive of a school for basic shit like this to not be maintained,” Asher grumbles, dipping his face into the curve of my neck.

Letting out a shaky breath, my body settles into a dull panic now that I don’t have the distraction of seeing his reactions. Instead, memories of the Primordial Forest weeks ago rush back in, and I can hear my roommate’s last moments.

I see her faceless corpse hanging in my dorm, along with another’s, and the school’s dismissal of everything.

“How long do they usually stay off?” Asher asks.

I purse my lips, yanking myself out of the impending spiral. “Depends on how mad the ghosts are, I guess.”

“ Ghosts? Are you saying they’re behind this?”

My eyebrow quirks, and I grab his head, pulling him away from my neck. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

“I’m not arrogant enough to think we’re totally alone on this planet. Besides, isn’t that what makes people human? The soul? Where do you think it goes when you die?”

“Wow. I didn’t think I’d live to see the day Asher Anderson cowered away from the supernatural. You didn’t believe in them when we were kids.”

“Which was naive of me?—”

A deafening crash near the entrance to the stairwell interrupts him. I jolt, pressing closer to his chest, my heart pounding as the noise echoes between my ears.

At first, we don’t do anything.

Then another crash ricochets through the air, splintering the quiet into a million little pieces. This one sounds more like an explosion, and the floorboards under our feet seem to groan with the force of it.

Asher untangles himself from me. I twist around, peering beneath the shelves; at this point in my college career, I’ve spent so much time up here that I’ve acclimated pretty well to viewing this level in the dark.

There’s no movement out by the glass cases housing the town archives or past that where the study tables sit in neat, untouched sections .

“We should go,” I whisper, tugging on the waistband of his pants.

His shadow turns, and I see his teeth in the very faint light spilling in from the stained glass windows. “Scared, pup, or just trying to get me to a secondary location so you can fuck my brains out?”

Embarrassment fans like flames over my cheeks, though I appreciate the effort to lighten the mood. Normally, that’d be a Foxe thing to do. “I have a date to get to, you know.”

“Ah, yes. With that kid from the quad. Will you be telling him about your time with me, or should I walk you to the Lyceum and take care of that for you?”

“I’m taking this one to the grave,” I whisper.

“Oh good. In life and in death then.”

I can feel his grin in my chest, but something catches my eye through several bookcases, by a couple of old leather armchairs. Three figures materialize in the shadows, but when I blink, they’re gone.

Nausea bubbles in my gut, discomfort ringing in my bones. “We need to get out of here.”

Asher doesn’t question it; he just grabs my hand and drags me into the bathroom, putting his shirt and jacket back on quickly.

The lights don’t come on in there either, so I’m convinced it’s a circuit breaker problem, although I don’t really know what that is.

Old buildings like this one, though, are bound to have electrical issues.

Surely the outage was just poor wiring.

Ghosts aren’t real, and there’s no one out to get us.

Right?

The crash, however, I don’t have a way to explain. Same with the random figures.

It isn’t lost on me that there were three of them, just like that night in the forest. Since foot traffic on this floor is practically nonexistent, especially this time of day, I can’t rationalize it any other way.

I hover close to Asher as he slowly leads us toward the stairwell, keeping a hand on the wall while he navigates with the light from his phone. My skin feels pinched, fraught with nerves and the aftermath of an orgasm .

He pushes the metal door open, holding it so I can pass. A motion-detecting emergency light kicks on, illuminating the area, but my legs don’t move.

Asher’s chin tilts, and he peers down at me. “You all right?”

I stare straight ahead at the landing beneath us.

Where a pool of dark red liquid covers the entire floor.