Page 18 of Tops
Fuck it.
“Yeah, let’s go. I even have an umbrella,” I said as I got up from the seat. Nik backed up as he folded my list and put it into his pocket. I had to stop in the middle of the room and look around to reorient which way I needed to go to get back. Directions had difficulty sticking in my mind unless I made the circuit a few times to hammer in the layout.
“Lost already?” Nik said, clearly amused with watching me struggle. He moved toward me, coming into the middle of the room until he stood right before me. He was slightly taller than me, but I didn’t have to strain to look up at him either.
The room seemed to heat, or maybe that was just my skin. It felt like a pile of embers set between us, and every time we moved toward each other, more of the fire burst to life. I was definitely fogged brain, panties soaked, level attracted to my professor.
“I’ll show you where your room is, Vanessa.” My name coming from his lips felt like vines set to entangle me. Reaching, grasping, twisting, tightening, keeping.
I gestured with my hand for him to lead the way. I didn’t fully trust myself to speak and risk something insane slipping out of my mouth, like asking if he was into threesomes with his business partners. Guess it really wouldn’t be a threesome anymore, more like a small harem at that point.
I followed him along, dutifully and silent, much like all his students had, as he led us down the hallway at the lab. My footsteps didn’t echo in this hallway as my bare feet softly padded against the tile, and I let Nik maneuver the labyrinth of hallways. He was taking me in an entirely different way than Tanner had.
We stopped at a wall in front of a large painting. Abstract, bold color choices in hard lines. My mother was better at describing art than I was, but I remembered a few things from when we walked through the art museum together after Dad died. Crafting new memories as an attempt to cover up the old ones.
Nik raised his hand to the painting, placing his palm flat on the exposed brush strokes. He pushed forward, and internally I cringed as I waited for the canvas to bend. Instead, the painting moved backward, along with the section of the wall it hung on. Moving on a track of some kind, the wall retreated and slid to the side to reveal a hidden room.
I wasn’t so sure I remembered all the twists and turns that got us to this wall, but I needed to be able to get back here. The painting I would remember, maybe that was why it was colored so boldly. Nik entered the space first before turning to see if I would follow. I felt more like Alice tumbling into Wonderland the past few days. It was my turn to decide if I would follow the white rabbit or stay bored and safe in my blissful ignorance. The hitman already took away that choice as I decided to follow Nik into the hidden room. There was no safety left outside the rabbit hole this time.
After I stepped into the small dark room, Nik moved in closer as his hand pushed the sliding doorway back into place. We were plunged into complete darkness, but I could sense the heat rolling off his body. Even in the dark, I was attuned to his every move. My breath caught in a paralyzing sense of anxiety while awaiting further directions.
I couldn’t see anything, but I knew Nik had stepped closer to me. I could feel his body’s energy resonating on the same wavelength as mine. His fingertips brushed across my neck as I inhaled sharply. A rush of heat flowed through my body from our point of contact.
A switch clicked from behind my head, and light filled the room. Nik was standing so close to me I could lick him if only I stuck my tongue out. He smiled at me as if my inner thoughts were narrating through a speaker, and he knew exactly what I was thinking. His hand pulled back slowly, fingertips sliding across my neck as he retreated, backing up his body to leave me shivering in his absence.
“You were standing in front of the light switch,” Nik said, leaving my head to reanalyze the past few minutes. Maybe I was reading too much into everything since Hannah put that ridiculous idea into my head. Plus, I really shouldn’t complicate things by sleeping with my protectors.
“This place is like a maze,” I said, smiling through embarrassment. “No matter how long I stay here, I don’t think I will ever get the hang of all these doors and hallways. The hidden doors are pretty awesome, though,” I rambled when the intensity of his gaze didn’t waver.
“I think you are underestimating yourself. You will be slipping through the hallways like a ghost in no time,” Nik said, giving me a softer smile that helped lighten the tone in this small space. The room we were in wasn’t any larger than a closet.
“Now, which way?”
“Do you see the lamp on the wall behind my head?” Nik said while gesturing with his eyes in which direction I should look. My gaze shifted to follow as I looked at the smooth wall behind him. There was a light anchored to the wall by a curved metal bar. “Pull down on the light, which will open the panel.”
“Where does that go to?” I asked, needing to know we weren’t about to pop out into a secret room inside my room. That was a bit too far.
“The bedroom hallway,” Nik said as one of his eyebrows raised. Even in the dim light, his soft blue eyes comforted me like the baby blue of a nursery blanket.
There wasn’t enough room to move around Nik, forcing me to step in closer to him as I reached over his shoulder to grab the bar. Standing inches apart, my fingertips brushed the metal, but I needed to get closer if I wanted to really grasp it. My toes shuffled forward as my arm strained to grow a little more. If my mom had enrolled me in dance classes to fix my balance issues rather than art class, maybe I wouldn’t have fallen into Nik’s chest as I lunged for the lamp.
I held on to the metal bar for dear life, much like I held on to the door handle as I fell into Tanner’s office. The metal shifted down, and I heard a click signaling I had opened the doorway. Nik’s hand had come up to my back to steady me when I fell, but now I was pressed chest to chest with him as his clean linen scent washed over me. Wrapped up in his arms, I was protected by walls of muscle. I knew he would be able to keep me safe. And maybe that was what I had been waiting for all these years. To feel safe for once.
Nik stood just inside the door to Hannah and my apartment. I didn’t bother to show him around as I went to work, grabbing my backpack to shove my stuff into. I would have to pull my old bag out of the closet to fill it with clothes.
I rushed around, remembering things like toothbrushes and toothpaste. Didn’t want to live with a bunch of attractive men without proper hygiene. Mentally, I thanked Nik for suggesting this little outing and giving me the chance to grab what I needed. My spare bag didn’t leave a lot of room for clothes, so I needed to make smart decisions. While Bottoms might have been temperature controlled, the rest of New York would be getting cold here soon.
I threw my winter coat onto my bed to remind myself to put it on before we left. I would just wear both coats for the walk back. By the time I walked back into the apartment’s main room, I had looked like an overstuffed marshmallow. Items were stuffed into the pockets of my coats, and a backpack was slung over each shoulder.
Nik looked up at me as I entered. Then he smiled, and my entire body flushed with heat. On second thought, maybe the heat was because of the coats.
“Thought you only had a few things to grab. If I had known you needed a suitcase, I could have just brought the car,” Nik said teasingly as he started to walk toward me. First, he took the backpacks from my shoulders, slinging them onto his back easily. Then he started pulling down the zipper of my winter coat.
I watched his hand on the pull, moving slowly. Each inch of my jacket he revealed felt like my bare skin. When the zipper was finally free, it felt like a cool rush of air wrapping itself around me. I sheepishly looked up to meet Nik’s gaze, finding him regarding me as if I had nothing on either.
I could fuck him here in my bed.
I shook my head no to the intrusive thought, but it also seemed to break the tension between Nik and me. He pulled back, releasing my coat. “You can take that off too, and I will carry it. Less likely to get mugged if your pockets aren’t bulging,” he said, extending his hand.
