Page 41 of All My Broken Dreams

Robbie caressed the mother cat for a moment before lifting her kittens to her lap. The mewling balls of fur comforted her. She leaned against one of the four stone walls and stretched out her legs. Harry’s scarf had one of them tangled. Its tiny paw was caught in the weave.

Maybe the scarf wasn’t the best idea. Harry didn’t take it with him wherever he’d gone. Probably wasn’t cold enough. The scarf had been knitted for New York State winters by a craftswoman in Ithaca. Sarah gave it to her son when she thought he’d be attending Cornell University.

Harry had a trick up his sleeve. He fooled both of them with his disappearing act.

Robbie’s thoughts were pulled in a far more interesting direction.Deacon Wake.Sleeping with him was completely unexpected and probably the worst thing she could have done.

Probably.

After vowing she wouldn’t get distracted, she got distracted.

That thing he did with his tongue….. This morning when they woke up, he fingered her to climax and then used his two fingers to penetrate her. And the way he did it … he made it feel like she was being fucked so slowly, taking his time, watching her come for a second time….

They held each other’s gaze when he touched her; a moment that she would never forget. The connection betweenthem was heated, erotic … an orgasm all on its own. Like they were the only two people in the world.

His cock was massive. She only had one reference point to compare him to, but Deacon’s penis struck Robbie as being exceptional. He told her he was the usual size, that it was being with her that made him like that.

But he refused to have sex with her. Sexual intercourse. She knew they were having sex but the more they touched and groped each other, the more she wanted to have him inside her.

It was making her hot and crazy even now just thinking about it. Thinking about the moment he would stuff that hard cock inside her willing, wet vagina.

“Oh lord,” she breathed. “Gotta stop doing that, Robbie. You still have to walk home.”

She placed the kittens back in the box with their mother and got to her feet. The mother cat was snuggled in the folds of Harry’s scarf so it turned out to be a good call.

When she thought about Deacon and seeing him again, her anxiety nearly vanished. At least to the point that it didn’t interfere with her stepping into the street to find her way home.

Chapter Twenty-One

She had a set of keys to the building and Deacon’s flat. She could let herself in to wait for Mrs. Cameron to arrive.

There was nothing for breakfast but seeing as she was already out, she could stop in at Jimmy’s cafe and pick up some bacon and eggs to go. She wouldn’t feel comfortable eating alone in a crowd and. Deacon said the place filled up with students at eight o’clock.

A strange thing happened as she emerged from the narrow laneway and into the open side street. She thought it was her natural anxiety surfacing and prepared to meet it with the techniques her therapist had taught her.

But it wasn’t that. The sensation she had was of being watched. Robbie looked around, scanning the street but she was alone.

The feeling only got stronger as she made her way to the flat, forgoing breakfast at the cafe. By the time she was fumbling the key in the lock, Robbie had broken out into a cold sweat.

“It’s all in your head,” she told herself when she was safely on the other side of the door.

But when she entered Harry’s flat, the feeling returned. She had left the door unlocked yesterday so she could get back in, and she had got in to fetch Harry’s scarf this morning.

This was different. Something was different.

Robbie closed her eyes and opened them again to see it.

The mug was missing.

Deacon arrived at the Dining Hall ten minutes after receiving the summons on his phone. He had come through the kitchen, greeting the early morning staff who were in the middle of prepping the morning meal. Deacon poured a hot cup of tea and snatched a roll from the bowl on the counter.

“Professor Manderville is waiting for you in the Little Room with the others.” Mrs. Baird wiped her hands on her apron. “You can tell them from me, I don’t appreciate having the kitchen turned upside down at the last moment. They’ll get their breakfast when it’s ready and not a moment before.”

“I’ll tell them, but I don’t think the meeting will go long. Tea and coffee should do, Mrs. Baird.”

They were assembled in the Little Room, which was a private dining hall off the great Dining Hall where the student body took their meals. The Little Room began its life as a private chamber for faculty members to dine, but as the Academy grew, so did its staff and the room became too small.

Faculty dined at the Head Table, presiding over the student body. The room was left now for private functions and the occasional benefactor’s luncheon.

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