Page 160 of Drown Like Heaven
Micah
The classroom was quiet, the silence only interrupted by the intermittent turning of pages, scratching of pens, and clicking of calculator buttons. My eyes drifted continually to the back corner of the hall, landing on a head of long blonde hair bent over her exam, a blue pencil tapping softly on paper.
When she glanced up at the front and made eye contact with me, two splotches of pink appeared high on her cheeks. It was bad enough that I’d fucked her—and had no plans of stopping—but distracting her during an exam was deplorable. I busied myself on my laptop.
Typical human professors, I thought, would feel some measure of regret after having sex with one of their students. I didn’t regret it, though. If I was a better man, I might’ve waited until she was no longer taking my class, but I was not a better man and I did not want to wait.
She tucked her hair behind her ear, green eyes scanning the page while she thought. Her elbow was bent and pressed on the table, her head resting on her hand, fingers curled against her soft cheek. I shifted in my seat, stretching my legs as my cock twitched.
We were only halfway through the allotted lecture time, but I hadn’t made the exam too long, so a few people were alreadystanding up and walking their papers up to the front. I collected them into a messy pile, waiting for Dakota’s to join the stack. She remained bent over her exam, but she wasn’t writing anything anymore. Checking her work, maybe. Avoiding me, maybe.
I considered reaching into her mind to see how she was feeling, but I decided against it for now. I’d never used my aspect around her before. Eventually, she shoved all her stuff in her bag and hurried down the wide steps to the front, papers fluttering in her hand. I caught her eye as she handed them to me, trying to decipher her emotions.
She ducked her head and scurried out of the room. My watch glinted as I checked the time, then rested my palms on the desk again.
Usually, I would wait until after the exam period to grade, or I’d give the stack to my TAs—which I still planned on doing—but Dakota’s was calling my name.
I slid the sheets of paper over in front of me, my eyes scanning over her name at the top, written neatly next to her mailbox number. Most of it was multiple choice, except the two short answer responses at the end, so I was able to get through the first couple pages very quickly.
The sight of her pretty handwriting, her sketched equations in the margins, the careful way she circled her choices…
She didn’t miss a single question in the multiple choice portion, and I had a feeling she’d be fine on the free response as well.What a good girl. I didn’t create my exams with the aim of being impossible to do well on; I created them in a way that if you understood the review, you’d understand the exam. The focus of this course was on reports, not exams.
Mason had started sleeping at my house most nights, in the guest bedroom down the hall from mine. I didn’t enjoy having him around so often, but if Aamon was looking for opportunities, I’d prefer to eliminate as many as possible. Justthe other night, I’d had to kill a demon in my own backyard, which was inconvenient. Lucky I still kept my xiphos on me most of the time.
I wasn’t necessarily worried about regular demons breaking into my house and killing me, but their increased proximity implied something about Aamon’s. He was…different. It should’ve been impossible for a demon and an angel to procreate, but it’d happened, creating a monster gifted both demonic and angelic benefits. He wouldn’t be allowed in Heaven—but neither was I, for that matter. Not anymore.
By the time the last student handed me their exam, I was itching to leave the room. After gathering my stuff and straightening the stack of papers, I walked at a quick pace towards the elevators, then punched the button for the sixth floor.
I could sense Dakota in my office before I opened the door, and it made my blood surge. I unlatched the handle quietly, pushing into the room as my eyes caught on her sleeping figure. She was tucked into a ball on my couch. Her head was resting on a stiff pillow, her legs bent up, her phone laying flat on the end table next to the couch. Silently, I locked the door and paced into the room.
She didn’t stir as I knelt by her head, her dark eyelashes fluttering softly on her cheeks. Her exhaustion was evident in the way her limp body relaxed into the cushions, no tension or anxiety marring her expression.
She was beautiful.
A few stray hairs had drifted across her forehead and I was tempted to brush them away, to run my fingers through her hair and feel the softness on my palms. But given how she’d reacted the last time we’d been in a similar position to this, I decided against it. She’d probably be defensive and scared when she woke up; I didn’t need to be in her face when she did.
I pressed the button to turn on her phone, noting the timer she’d set to wake herself up. Only eleven minutes remained on the countdown, the seconds ticking away while she slept peacefully.
What do you dream about?
Would you tell me if I asked?
Yes. I’d make her tell me.
Thinking about that gave me peace, and I went to sit at my desk, never taking my eyes off her sleeping form. She wasn’t like Mason, not in all the ways I thought she might’ve been at first. He’d lied to me constantly, obscured the truth in twisted ways just because he could, kept everything he didn’t want me to know locked up in his brain—and there were a lot of things he didn’t want me to know. Even if I could decipher his emotions, I couldn’t figure out all his secrets, all his half-truths.
I could never have all of him, and it’d scared me back then.
Not now, though.
When Dakota’s alarm went off some minutes later, she stretched her arm out, eyes still screwed shut, slapping her palm around on the table until she could grab her phone and shut it off.
The second she noticed me, her mouth popped open with surprise.
“Fuck!” She sprung upwards, eyes wide on mine as she swayed on her feet, limbs still heavy with sleep. “Shit. I’m sorry, I’m—”
“Hey.” I went to her, looping an arm around her midsection to support her weight while her brain got some more blood back to it. She kept shaking her head again and again, stiffening in my hold. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
