Page 16

16

CAM

The next week passed in a bubble of happiness. Penn and I spent almost every moment not in class together. We met for lunch, where Mallory spent most of the lunch period rolling her eyes at how disgustingly cute we were—her words. We sat together, thighs touching, in Newspaper every day unless Ever sent one of us out to research something. The second story in Penn’s feeder story was published, addressing the theory that feeding a concubus influenced the feeders emotions.

I’d given him Ryder’s phone number and my sister begrudgingly shared the numbers of a few of her regular feeders. I’d read it before he sent it off, and I’d been impressed by every word. He was an amazing journalist, laying out the theories and the counters to them succinctly and plainly. I’d caught a few people glaring at him the day the article came out, but no one seemed eager to confront him about it. It was already an improvement over the first one.

Though I did have to wonder a little if it was more the fact that I’d barely left his side.

Most people had been accepting of the fact that we were suddenly everywhere on campus holding hands. The fact that there were a few other mixed species couples roaming around the campus probably helped. It also probably helped that for the most part, I looked entirely human. Unless I was feeding, my eyes didn’t glow. I didn’t have any obvious traits most of the time, except for the natural glamour that I couldn’t turn off even if I wanted to.

We spent every night together, typically opting to stay in my dorm. We’d drawn a line about feedings. Well, I’d drawn a line about feedings. If we were going to have a relationship, I wanted to keep certain things separate. Which was really hard, because every time we slept together, the energy tempted me. I wanted to pull it into me, taste the difference of his orgasms. I knew how they tasted compared to the orgasms he got from my hand or my mouth, and every time he came deep inside me, I was practically salivating for a taste.

I didn’t give in, because that was the line.

I didn’t want every sexual experience between us to be about the exchange of energy. I wanted that one singular thing to stay about us. I don’t think Penn fully understood, but he didn’t push the matter beyond stating that he already felt high after every orgasm, so it wasn’t like it would make much of a difference if I took a little of that excess energy for extra nourishment.

Maybe one day I’d bend on that. I could already feel my resolve weakening every time we were together, tempting and pushing me.

“Do you think we could stay in my room tonight?” Penn asked one afternoon as we walked back to Karloff Hall.

I studied him carefully. “Something wrong?”

Maybe he was missing the human interaction, something that my roommates couldn’t offer. Besides, we weren’t really close. We all tended to stick to ourselves, to our own rooms, ships occasionally crossing in the common room when we’d hit the communal mini fridge for a bottle of water or to watch TV.

“No,” he assured me. “I just promised my suite mates that we could study together tonight, but I kind of don’t want to be away from you that long.”

I grinned as I leaned down to give him a quick kiss, pulling away before he had a chance to deepen it. We didn’t need to be making out beneath a tree on campus. Especially since I’d heard that there were dryads at Creelin. The last thing I wanted was to make out against a tree and have the tree make a comment about my form. That would be embarrassing for anyone, not just an incubus. It would just be more of an embarrassment for an incubus. We had a reputation to uphold.

“So do you mind hanging at my dorm tonight?”

“Not at all, babe. But I need to stop by mine to grab some books. Should probably get some studying done for my classes too.”

“Meet back at my room?”

I nodded. We separated at his floor. I watched him walk down the hall, eyes firmly trained on his ass. I might have hated being separated him for even a few minutes when we didn’t actually need to be apart, but I did love to watch him leave. I made quick work of finding my school books and told my suite mates that I’d be back in the morning. I got a single nod of acknowledgment and left the room.

I took the stairs down to Penn’s room and knocked. He let me in. His suite mates were all gathered around the small table in his common room, books spread out between them. “What are you guys studying?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.

“Math,” Penn answered as he took a seat on the couch. “You can sit wherever.”

I took the seat next to him, sitting crisscross applesauce with my knee touching his thigh. I rested my book bag on the ground, leaning against the couch. “I’d offer to help, but math is my worst subject. I’m not even taking it this semester.”

“Lucky,” Penn groaned. “Have you met my roommates yet?”

“No,” I admitted. I’d been in his room a few times, but most of the time, one of his suite mates let me in, and I just went to Penn’s room. I was too used to my own dorm situation where we didn’t really interact all that much. Maybe it had been kind of rude, since Penn’s room had a very different kind of vibe than mine.

“Okay, so that’s Ryan,” he said, pointing to the man directly in front of me. “And that’s Coop. We’re just waiting on Ethan. He’s not actually in the same class as us, but he’s a math genius, so have kind of lured him into being our unofficial tutor.”

“Yeah, my grades have gone up a lot since he started joining the study sessions,” Ryan informed me with a grin. “Just don’t tell him I said that.”

“Like you pointed out a few weeks ago, the walls aren’t exactly sound proof,” the other boy—Coop—pointed out. He sounded simultaneously amused and annoyed by the statement, even though he’d been the one that said it. I felt like there was a story there.

“That’s for sexy time noises. Not for a normal conversation.”

Okay, there was definitely a story there.

“It’s not a normal conversation when you talk as loud as Coop,” a new voice piped in. I turned around and saw who I assumed to be the final suite mate coming out of the hall where the bedrooms were.

“And that is Ethan,” Penn said with a grin. “Guys, this is Cam.” The smile on Ethan’s face melted off as he looked at me. I shifted uncomfortably on the couch. Penn’s hand fell onto my thigh, relaxing me almost immediately. My body curved toward his without thought. He turned and looked at Ethan. “My boyfriend.”

The description sounded pointed.

“So even after all that, you decided to date him?”

All what?

“I take it you haven’t read my latest article?” Penn’s voice was tense. There was an edge to it I wasn’t used to hearing, not even when he was stressed out about the whole… Oh. One of his roommates, maybe several of his roommates, had put the idea in his head.

I had to assume Ethan was the loudest voice in that camp.

“I read it, but I also noticed that most of the people you talked to were feeders.”

“You mean reliable sources of information who had experience in the subject matter?” Penn asked. The edge was still in his voice, and I could feel the tension radiating off of him. Or maybe that was just the way his hand was squeezing my thigh tight enough I worried he might leave a bruise. I reached down and covered his hand with mine.

“I mean biased sources,” Ethan countered.

Penn’s hand tightened on my thigh. I winced, and he loosened his death grip.

“May I ask you something?” I piped up, twisting my body to see him a little better. I felt a pull in my side. “And can you maybe come around the couch? I really don’t feel like straining my back to have a conversation.”

I heard either Ryan or Coop let out a small chuckle and watched the almost affectionate way Ethan rolled his eyes. The sentiment was slightly hampered by the dark clouds in his eyes.

He paused for a moment before nodding and walking around to stand in front of the television. Much better. “What do you want to ask?”

“Do you have a partner?” Ethan looked confused for a moment before he shook his head. Well, damn. It would have been much easier if he was seeing someone. “Have you ever had a partner?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed, “but we broke up when I transferred here. She didn’t want to do the long distance thing.”

“Not that hard,” Coop muttered under his breath.

“Not for everyone,” Ethan retorted before turning his attention back to me. “What’s your point?”

“When you started dating them, you liked them right?”

“Yeah,” he answered in a voice that sounded a lot like duh .

“And I’m going to assume that as things got physical between you, the emotions got deeper, right?”

“We spent a lot of time together. It wasn’t just that things got physical. We talked. We hung out,” he clarified.

“That’s the same for me and Penn. We liked each other, but we started to like each other more as we got to know each other. Yeah, the physical parts probably heightened our feelings, but it didn’t create them,” I explained, remembering the things my parents had said to me. “Otherwise, my old feeder and I would have been more than best friends, because he fed me for a hell of a lot longer than Penn has.” Penn’s grip on my thigh relaxed further. “And at least one of my sister’s feeders would’ve been down bad for her at some point. Which, to my knowledge, hasn’t happened.”

“So you’re saying that there’s no effect on a human from being fed on?”

“No,” I told him simply. “I’m not saying that. It does deepen it a bit faster, if the emotions are already there. But that’s because feeding is a really intense experience. The exchange of energy—it’s just really intimate. I can’t really explain it, because I’ve never been on the other side of it.”

“So, it does manipulate the way the feeder feels.”

“No,” I repeated again. “It might make some of the feelings a bit more intense a bit faster, but only if there’s already something there. It’s like putting Miracle-Gro on the emotional connection, but it won’t work if there aren’t seeds.” I drew in a deep breath and squeezed Penn’s hand, trying to offer him some relief for the tension radiating off of him. “I’m more than willing to talk to you about this more in depth later, if you want. Answer your questions.”

Ethan studied me curiously. “Why later?”

“Because Penn said you had to study, and I’m pretty sure Coop and Ryan don’t want to sit here and listen to explanations about concubi/human relations.”

“Not without popcorn,” Ryan commented dryly. I had to fight the urge to laugh. “But unfortunately, Coop ate the last bag of popcorn last night when he was having a movie date with his long distance girlfriend. So, while math is terrible, we should probably do that.”

Ethan nodded and moved closer to the table, still eyeing the spot where my knee touched Penn’s leg, where Penn’s hand rested on my thigh and my hand covered his. I offered him a small smile. “I appreciate how concerned you are about him, though. Sign of a great friend.”

A tentative smile formed on Ethan’s lips before he sat on the floor. The comment seemed to table the discussion, but I didn’t think it was over. He would probably have more questions, and as Penn had discovered, the information available to him probably wasn’t all that reliable. I wondered if Ryder would be willing to speak to him too, reassure him that there weren’t nefarious magical influences changing his friend. I would work on it too. I didn’t like the idea of someone that important to Penn thinking that I was taking advantage in some way.

I wanted Penn’s friends to like me.

While Penn and his suite mates studied, I stared blankly at my book while I tried to think of ways to prove to Ethan that this was real. Prove it to Coop and Ryan too, even though they’d not offered any commentary beyond bitching about the lack of popcorn. (Maybe I could earn points with them by bringing them popcorn the next time I came over.)

Penn and his friends studied for about two hours before we retreated back to his bedroom. He pulled up a streaming service on his laptop, and we laid down together on the bed.

We made it about five minutes into the first episode before he stopped paying attention. I could feel the weight of his eyes on me. “Yes?” I looked over at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Thank you,” he said after a moment. I must have looked confused, because after a few moments of silence, he began to elaborate. “For standing up for me with Ethan. I’ve never really had anyone care enough to make sure that I’m okay.”

My heart ached for the beautiful man beside me. I would fight armies for him. I would move worlds. I would find a way to climb into the sky and bring him back a star or the moon or whatever he asked. How could anyone get to know him and not feel the same way? There should be legions fighting to have the honor to stand up for him.

I didn’t say any of that; I just leaned in and gave him another quick kiss. “You don’t have to thank me for that,” I assured him. “Pretty sure it’s part of the boyfriend contract. Article seven, I think.”

Penn grinned and gave me a quick kiss in return. “No, article seven addresses nudity and acts performed best in nudity.”

“You sure about that?”

“Positive. I think you’re thinking about article eleven of the boyfriend contract. Thou must always stand up for your partner, even when they’re wrong.”

“I like how this ancient document is defaulting to gender neutral terms.”

“Gender neutral, but problematic sometimes,” he teased. “Pretty sure several of the articles actually use the term lover .”

“Not a fan?” He shook his head and I made a mental note of his preference. We hadn’t really bust out the pet names part of our relationship yet, but it would happen at some point. I didn’t want to ruin the moment when it did by calling him a something he hated. That would be the opposite of sexy. “Are there any pet names you do like?”

Penn cocked his head to the side before shrugging. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer before hitting play on the screen again. Another few minutes passed before he hit pause again.

“Yes?”

“I think I know what my next story is going to be about,” he informed me.

“What were you thinking?”

I felt him press a kiss to the back of my head as his arms tightened around me. “This time you’ve got to wait until it’s published.”

I let out a harrumph of displeasure. “That’s just mean.”

He laughed and pressed play on the laptop again. The sounds of the show filled the room, and his arms around my body filled me with a feeling more satisfying than all the energy in the world: comfort.