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18

CAM

A few nights after our first date, Penn and I slept away from each other for the first time since we started dating. It wasn’t for any negative reasons. Just that Penn needed to work on his next article: the one he hadn’t told me the topic of. He’d only promised me that it would be out in the next issue—once he finished shaping it up after Ever’s feedback.

That Friday, as promised, it was in the paper, several pages back. It was the same place every other story he’d written in his series had been, far enough back to not draw attention but not so far back that no one would read it. I flipped to the page immediately, driven by my curiosity. I knew I was going to be late for class, but I didn’t really care. I was dying of excitement, dying to know what had been the big secret.

What’s It Like Dating an Incubus

The headline caught my attention immediately. I began to read the article, taking in every word. It wasn’t long—probably less than 500 words. The few paragraphs was enough to capture me though, enough to tell me how much he cared about our relationship and wanted to normalize it. He talked about how it wasn’t the same as feeding. It felt completely different to him. He added in a few sentences referencing his fears, and at the very end, he stated that it was the same as dating anyone else. He then encouraged anyone with experience of dating a monster to send in their stories.

The call to action felt like change.

When I found Penn after our next classes, waiting at the same bench on campus where we always met, I couldn’t stop myself from charging at him and kissing him until we were both out of breath.

“What was that for?” he asked when he finally detangled himself from my embrace.

“Your article,” I answered with a cheek-aching smile. “It was amazing. Have you gotten any emails? Has anyone else reached out? Did Ever approve a series or something? About dating different monsters if you’re human? Are you planning on doing some kind of—”

He cut me off, putting a single finger against my lips. “Breathe, Cam,” he laughed. I bit his finger lightly in retaliation, which only made him laugh harder. “I am planning on doing a series. It’ll start with an expanded version of my article, and if people submit, then about once a month, we’ll feature other monster/human pairings. It’ll be a lot of work and research, but Ever said we’ve been getting a lot of engagement on my series so far.”

“Not always positive,” I grumbled, remembering the asshole who had him pinned against a wall after the first article. Every time I thought about it, I wanted to find that asshole and unleash every bit of rage I carried since that day. I felt the light tingle I got when an emotional reaction was about to cause some of my more monstrous traits to come to the surface and took a deep breath.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not still engagement,” he pointed out, “and Ever really likes the engagement. It gets more people reading the paper. He’s also asked me to cover the Halloween Ball.”

“Last year, he had a senior cover that. It’s a fluff piece, but it’s always front page. This year’s supposed to be even a bigger deal since we’ll have human students, not just the rare human guest. Plus the full moon…”

“I know. I was surprised when he offered the story to me.”

I hugged him tightly. I was so proud of him. I couldn’t believe that he was finally getting the praise he deserved for his amazing accomplishments. “That’s amazing, babe.”

His returning smile lit up his entire face. I noticed the little crinkles around his beautiful brown eyes, and I felt my stomach swoop. Everyone described my face as textbook perfect, but I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful face than Penn’s. Every part of it made me want to keep looking at him.

“That does mean I need a date to the dance…” he trailed off, his cheeks flushing a pale pink. He met my eyes meaningfully, a question unspoken there.

“You know, I don’t have a date for the ball either. My boyfriend hasn’t asked me.”

“Maybe he was hoping his boyfriend would ask him,” he joked, “but I guess since he hasn’t asked you yet, I can swoop in. Steal his moment.” He leaned in and gave me another quick kiss, barely a brush of our lips. I wanted to chase his lips, but I resisted. “Will you be my date to the Halloween Ball?”

I couldn’t fight it after that. I kissed him hard, pulling him closer. I slipped my tongue past the seam of his lips and lost myself in the taste of him until we heard a few cat calls. When we pulled away, we were both laughing, and his cheeks were red. “Was that enough of an answer for you?”

“Think I need to hear it. You know, preferring that hard evidence.”

“I’ll show you hard evidence,” I muttered with a grin. “Yes, Penn Leroy, I will go to the dance with you. I think we might need to go to class first though.”

“Or we could skip class and you could show me that hard evidence.”

That proposal was very tempting. I bit my bottom lip as I appraised my boyfriend. I didn’t have any tests today. Most of the classes were just lectures, and I had people that I could get the notes from…

I wrapped my arms tighter around him and pressed my lips against his again. I felt his reaction immediately. He kissed me harder, teasing me with his tongue, fucking it into his mouth, like it was a preview of what else he wanted to do. Yeah, class wasn’t happening. Not when we would have the entire suite to ourselves, and he was kissing me like this.

I pulled away and nodded slowly.

“I already knew the answer,” Penn teased. “Your eyes get a very faint glow when you’re starting to get really horny. Not like they get when you’re feeding, but…”

Did they really? Ryder had never mentioned it to me in all the years I’d fed from him. Of course, maybe it didn’t show to him. I’d never been as attracted to him as I was to Penn. Everything with Penn was heightened, intensified, different .

I felt Penn slip his hand into mine and tug me toward the dorm. I followed after him, knowing that there was nothing in this world better than what waited for us on the other side of my bedroom door.

We made it to Newspaper. Ever went over commentary that we’d gotten on that day’s issue already—emails that had been sent into his editor’s email and comments he’d read on the online stories. I felt a glow of pride when he stated that Penn’s story had the third most comments of the issue thus far. Every time he wrote an article for his incubus series, it managed to get in the top five. It was the engagement that kept Ever motivated to approve every single article he suggested now.

My boyfriend was becoming the campus expert on concubi, and soon he’d become the expert on interspecies dating. It was hot as hell. It turned out that competency was really hot. I’d never known I had a competency kink until that moment. It didn’t matter that we’d skipped class to hook up and missed lunch. The way he beamed with pride made me want to go another few rounds with him. The way everyone looked at him as Ever praised him made me want to take him back to the dorm and spend the rest of the evening praising him as well.

Sexually.

Instead, I sat in the newspaper room while Ever went over that day’s issue and gave out our assignments for the issue coming up in two weeks. We always had two assignments going at any time, because Ever liked to work ahead. He liked to give us time to get things together. As much as I complained about him, I did appreciate the fact that we were rarely in any kind of rush. Unless it was breaking news, which was not something that I had to worry about yet.

Penn already knew his: the Halloween Ball. I got assigned something on the sport’s beat. Maybe I should find a niche like Penn, something that would free me from the tedium of the articles I’d been assigned. First, student elections in a freshman dorm. Now, sports. I didn’t even like sports. I wondered if there’d be anyone willing to trade, but judging by the sympathy in several people’s eyes, I knew I’d only find silence if I asked.

I just had to suck it up.

I leaned into Penn, our shoulders touching. I could feel heat radiating from his skin. Maybe that was just the residual desire from hearing him being praised by someone who had been so cynical about him only two months ago. “Want to go to to a water polo game with me?” I whispered.

He grinned over at me. “I think I can suffer through water polo if it means saving you from having to deal with it on your own.”

God, he was amazing.

“You’re the best,” I chirped quietly.

“I know.”

“Are you boys done? Can I move on with assignments?” Ever asked suddenly, drawing eyes and snickers in our direction. We both looked like chastised children as we nodded. I really had thought we’d been quiet enough not to draw his notice, but I should have known better.

Ever didn’t miss anything in that room. If nothing else, he was good at what he did.

The rest of Newspaper passed quickly. Penn and I worked side by side as we worked on gathering working on our assignments. He told me that his next story was one of the more boring ones, but looking over his shoulder, he appeared to be doing research on something more interesting than my story. Of course, anything was more interesting than proposed remodels of one of the buildings. I had emails from several administrators to get through and answer, questions to draft, and interviews to set up.

Whoever claimed journalism was an interesting subject had clearly been lying. I just wasn’t sure if it was to themselves or the world. At least I had my answer on if this was the path I wanted to continue for the rest of my life. I also had a feeling that Penn had his answer too, if it was ever even a question for him. Even under the tedium of a boring article, he was focused and dedicated, drawing all of my focus and dedication to studying him instead of the dry as sand emails I was supposed to be reading.

It was even harder to focus on anything but the way Penn was studying when one of the emails had an attachment with the actual proposal. I knew I needed to read it for the interview, but that felt like a problem for later.

I pretended to work while spending most of the class looking at Penn until we were finally released.

As soon as we stepped outside, Penn bumped me with his shoulder. “Were you having trouble focusing in there?”

“Huh?”

“I could feel your eyes on me the entire time,” he commented. He grinned a beautifully mischievous grin at me. “It was very distracting.”

“Well, you make it hard for me to concentrate,” I informed him with a shrug of my shoulders. Was it my fault that he was distracting me by simply existing? I didn’t think so. That was very clearly on him. He looked really hot all focused like that. It reminded me of the intensely focused look he got when we were making love, like it was the most important task he’d ever encountered. I got chills just thinking about it.

“You’re distracted again,” he teased.

“Shut up.”

“Nope,” he refused, popping his p and smirking. “What’s got you all distracted?”

“Just thinking about the other times I’ve seen that focused look on your face.”

“Oh and when was that?”

I grinned and noticed the faint flush of pink on Penn’s face. He knew what I was saying, even without me having to say it. He caught the implication, and I felt that thing again. That certainty, a knowledge that kind of terrified me.

I was falling in love with him.