Page 78 of Tempest

Tempest

The airin this room is thin, and I inhale it with a low whistle.

Ardyn sits diagonal to Miguel in a ridiculous yellow dress dotted with white flowers. Her posture is so immaculate. Her breasts are pushed up, rising and falling with her nervous heaves of breath. My eyes are drawn to those perfect mounds like she’s deliberately entrapped me before I get a hold of myself and go back to her face.

Big mistake because now I’m staring at rosy lips that beg for natural lip plumper. My dick concurs. And remembers.

“I asked you a question,” I say to her. There’s a deathly warning in my tone that wasn’t there a second ago. Probably because I didn’t expect to see her so close to finishing up Miguel’s last assignment in the basement. If it weren’t for his gruff voicemail demanding I see him immediately following the execution, I would’ve showered, glowered into my mirror, and come up with a distinct excuse to never stick my dick in Ardyn again.

Leave it to Miss Innocent to insert herself into my plans dressed in a damned sweetheart dress that silently begs me to rip to shreds.

Miguel smirks, reading the room, and I scowl while keeping my gaze locked on Ardyn’s.

She blanches but opens those perfect lips and answers. “Professor Rossi wanted to talk to me about last week’s essay. The one you graded.”

I raise a brow. “If you have a complaint, you should have brought it to me instead of wasting the professor’s time.”

Miguel pushes to his feet. “It was my idea.”

That gives me enough pause to change my point of view from Ardyn’s angelic glitter to Miguel’s cunning stare. “Oh?”

“It was an unfair mark, Tempest. You must know that,” Miguel says.

I lift one shoulder. One corner of my lips pulls up.

Ardyn sees my half-smirk and glares, crossing her arms under her breasts and pushing them up further.

“I thought it prudent to discuss your prior interactions with her to decide for myself if there remains any bias between you two.”

My attention steadies on my mentor. “Why would there be bias? I barely know her. My memories of Ardyn consist of annoying moments when she and Clover wouldn’t shut up.”

Ardyn’s shoulder blades hit the back of her chair like she was slapped. I hurt her by saying this, by virtually telling her that last night was as banal as my memories of her. It’s for her own good. She doesn’t need a guy like me in my life.

It’s better to frame it that way than by pondering whether I need a girl like her in mine.

“That may be true,” Miguel defers, “but your actions toward her indicate otherwise. I felt the need to gently question her on your tragic night together, which Ardyn graciously allowed.”

My stare grows sharper. An unyielding tingle spreads against the base of my spine in warning. “Why would that be? I drove up after the fact. Rescued the girls from the rubble.”

“Mm.” Miguel nods like I make a good point. If I didn’t have so much respect for the man, I’d lunge over the table and strangle him. What is he playing at?

As if sensing the shift in mood, Ardyn pipes up. “It doesn’t matter. It’s like I told Professor Rossi. I’m not able to remember much, so I doubt whatever … animosity … you might have toward me relates to my recall of how Mila died.”

Her last sentence strains her vocal cords, choking her. It urges me to throat punch Miguel for forcing Ardyn to push the image of Mila’s corpse forward in her mind before I remember I did the same thing to her last night. Worse, even. I forced her to relive her ten-year-old self. Then fucked the fear out of her.

I roll my shoulders back. Stare at the ceiling. Anything to quell the writhing beast inside me demanding protection of the damsel.

“I don’t have animosity toward you,” I say now, pinning Ardyn to her seat with a look. “I just don’t think you belong here. You can’t hack this class, and you will hardly get through your freshman year intact, what with your documented history. If you have a problem with how I’m proving that to you, that’s your issue. I’m merely doing my job.” I slide my heated gaze to Miguel before adding, “And I do it well.”

“That you do,” Miguel murmurs. I have no idea if this means he’s lowering his flag. If I have to guess, he’s not.

“Come with me, Ardyn,” I say.

Ardyn startles.

“My sister’s looking for you.”

There’s no room for argument. After one last glance at her professor, she rises and lifts her bag.

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