Page 6 of Riot House
Where Pax looks like an ex-convict with his tattoos, his shaved head, and his bizarre attitude, this guy—who can only be Dashiell—looks like a librarian. Dressed in a white button-down shirt and tight-fitting grey pants, the guy took care in getting ready before coming to class today. The thick black-rimmed glasses he’s wearing give him the air of someone who likes to read—a sweeping, nonsensical generalization, but the quick intelligence in his tawny hazel eyes seems to back up this theory. Like his eyes, his hair is more than one color: light brown from one angle, but when he turns his head to look at me, it transforms to dirty blond.
“Sorry, ladies. Pax doesn’t know how to behave himself around such beauty. He drank a little too much coffee this morning, too, so you’ll have to understand if he’s acting out a little.”
Oh, wow. English accent. Smooth as silk, Dashiell’s voice is immediately soothing. He holds himself with confidence and certainty, as if he’s sure of his place in the world and precisely how he fits into it. It’s a neat trick—the confidence thing. In a weird way, it makes him feel safe, whereas Pax feels entirely the opposite.
Carina squirms, eyes fixed on a stack of books on the other side of the room, carefully avoiding Dashiell’s gaze. Her reaction to Pax was open hostility, but now she seems to have shrunk in on herself, shutting down altogether.
“Carrie? You’re not going to introduce us to your new friend?” Dashiell purrs.
My new friend’s stiff as a board. She looks like she’s about to topple sideways off the couch, so I save her from replying. “You already know who I am. Wolf Hall isn’t exactly a big place. Plushejust called me by my name,” I say, eyes darting over to Pax. “I’m Elodie Stillwater. I transferred in from Tel Aviv. Father’s an army man. Mother’s dead. I’m into painting, music, and photography. I’m allergic to pineapple. I’m an only child. I’m terrified of thunderstorms, and I love flea markets. There. That enough information for you?”
I list off these random facts about myself with a smile on my face, but it’s saccharine sweet and false as all hell. Pax huffs out a breath of derisive laughter, while Dashiell’s response to my big speech is to turn his full attention on me, a slow, calculating smile spreading across his face. He’s quick and clever, this one. You can practically see the cogs whirring in his head as he files away the data I just supplied. Why, all of a sudden, does it seem like a huge mistake that I handed over those unimportant facts about myself?
“Pleased to meet you, Elodie Stillwater. It’s always nice to make a new friend. Maybe you’d like to come over to Riot House some time? We’d love to extend our hospitality to you.”
At the same time, two voices speak out, one rushed and urgent, the other audibly bored.
“She can’t!”“Not happening, Dash.”
The owner of the first voice, sitting next to me, flinches. I don’t think Carina meant to blurt out her objection so loudly. She looks sheepish as she takes my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. “You know she’ll get in trouble if Harcourt finds out,” she says.
On the couch, with his face still buried beneath a cushion, Wren Jacobi growls. “She’s not invited.” The way he says it makes it sound like a decree, an order passed down from on high that is expected to be observed.
Dashiell lets out a morose sigh; he sounds honestly disappointed. “Don’t worry, Stillwater. Jacobi changes his mind like he changes his socks. His current state of attire notwithstanding, of course. He’s usuallyverygood about changing his socks. I think that’s the thing I like most about him.”
“All right, class! Asses on a flat surface! Move, move, move!”
At the front of the room, a tall guy wearing a tight black dress shirt and a black pencil tie kicks out the wooden wedge that was holding the door open and boots the door closed behind him as he whirls into the room. In his mid-thirties, the guy is throwing off some heavy Clark Kent vibes. His jaw’s so sharp it looks like it could cut and draw blood. Dark, wavy hair, and dark eyes, I can see why half the girls in the room melt into their seats when they realize he’s arrived.
Doctor Fitzpatrick, my new English professor, is a stone-cold smoke show.
“Wren, cushion off the face, man. Sit the fuck up. You know the rules,” he commands, setting down a pile of papers onto a bookshelf. There’s a coffee cup in his other hand, which he drinks deeply from, the muscles in his throat working as he drains the contents of the cup in one go.
Miraculously, Wren drags the cushion from his face and heaves himself upright into a seated position. He glares daggers at Doc Fitzpatrick while he does it, but he complies.
This is unexpected. Very unexpected indeed. Wren gives off the impression that he doesn’t obey anyone. I certainly wouldn’t have expected him to obey an authority figure like an English professor.
Horrified, a number of things dawn on me in quick succession. It was so dark last night that I hadn’t gotten a proper look at Wren. In the light that had flared off the cherry of his cigarette, I’d reluctantly acknowledged the fact that he was good looking. But in the daylight, with the weak sun flooding in through the massive picture window right behind his head, I can see so much more of him now…and I’m so desperately, absolutely beyond fucking fucked.
He’s beautiful.
His black hair curls around his ears like it was painted onto his head, the artful strokes of a master’s brush. It’s thick and disheveled, and my fingers curl inwards of their own volition, wanting to feel the texture of it as I curl my hand into a fist.
His eyes are green, vivid and frighteningly bright. Jade—the color of fresh, new grass, and limes, and spring awakening after winter. They look borderline unreal. His mouth is unusual. His top lip is slightly fuller than the bottom, which should look odd on a guy, but Wren manages to make a sensual, feminine mouth look cruel.
I drink in the sight of him: the way his muscles shift between his shoulder blades as he braces himself on the edge of the leather couch and he pulls himself forward to lean with his forearms resting on the top of his knees. The way he smirks savagely when his quick eyes flit over the room and he catches a girl with braids looking at him. The way he steeples his fingers, all of him coming alive, like he’s just been activated, when Doctor Fitzpatrick says, “Okay, fuck ups. Listen close. I read your assignments, and they were very interesting. Very raw and emotional. Very real. And some…were just plain graphic.”
“What do you mean,graphic?” a girl sitting on an ottoman at the front asks. “The essay was on Victorian morality in English Literature.”
“Yes, Damiana. Yes, it was.”
Oh, great. I can only see the back of her head from where I’m sitting. I hadn’t realized I was in the same class as the viper from this morning.
Doctor Fitzpatrick rocks his head from side to side, turning back to his stack of papers; he shuffles through the stapled documents on the top until he finds the one he’s looking for. “This piece is titled ‘The Repressed Governess’and went four thousand words over our two-thousand-word limit. I’ve highlighted a number of sections that I thought were rather enlightening.” He makes a show of clearing his throat, then begins reading from the assignment.
“So innocent before, now she looked terrified. The fear in her eyes made his shaft harden in his pants as he prowled forward, intent on backing her directly into his trap. Her chest rose and fell so rapidly, her large breasts were in danger of brimming over the top of her corset. Nothing could be more titillating to him than the sight of her accidentally disrobed and made vulnerable before him. The anticipation rose in him now, as it always did when he was so close to accomplishing his nefarious goals. For months he’d labored, working on the governess, knowing her church, her faith, and her lunatic father would keep her from acting on her darkest desires. And still he hadn’t given up. He’d seen the wicked fire burning in her soul, and he was determined to unleash it and set it free.
“The governess cried out when her back hit the wall. She knew she was cornered and there was no way out. No sooner had she realized her situation than she accepted it, though. Her breath quickened further, this time from excitement. There was something to be said about relinquishing control of oneself to a monster in a black top hat, and now that he was fast approaching with such a look of menace in his eyes, the governess discovered that she wasn’t as afraid of her undeniable fate as she had first thought. She witnessed the threatening bulge of his staff, pressing against the front of his trousers. She saw the way he groped at himself, squeezing himself in the most lurid way, and surprised as she was, she knew that she was wet between her legs, her cunny slick with want as…”
