Chapter 184: Rain Check on the Acid*

Blair pulled the towel off her head.

Jasper stood at the edge of the third basin with his hands in his pockets, watching the bubbles rise and burst.

"No," she said.

He laughed, delighted, and held out his hand to her across the room.

Behind the bed, the curtains stirred.

They both turned. Cold air rolled across the stone, and the fire leaned away from it.

The curtain swept aside, and Professor Feron stepped down off the window ledge into the playroom.

His wings were out, black and enormous in the firelight. They brushed the bedposts as he folded them. There were burrs on his coat and something dark and wet on his sleeve that definitely wasn’t water.

"Professor," Jasper said warmly. "That was locked."

Jack’s eyes went around the room once: the bed, the steaming basin, the acid, the towels scattered on the stone. Then they found Blair, her dripping hair, her blackened cuff, and stopped.

She stood up. She wasn’t sure why.

Jack didn’t look at Jasper. "Ms. Willows."

"She’s my guest." Jasper smiled. "We were about to play a game."

"Then you’ll play it another time." Now Jack looked at him.

Jasper studied him. Then Blair. Then Jack again, and something lit up behind his eyes.

"Professor Feron," he said. He looked from Jack to Blair and back again, slowly. "Who can’t stand humans. Out at one in the morning, climbing through windows for one."

Jack didn’t answer.

"How very dedicated." Jasper pressed a hand to his heart. "Sweetheart. You never tell me anything."

Blair said nothing.

Jasper sighed and waved at the acid as if it had let him down. "Fine."

He walked to her, took her chin in his cold fingers and tipped her face up to the firelight. His thumb rested just below the cut on her lip. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Jack.

"Nine o’clock," he said. "Don’t forget."

He let her go and turned to Jack with his brightest smile. "I’d show you out, Professor, but you seem to have your own way."

Jack held out his hand.

Blair crossed the room and took it. He pulled her against his chest, one arm hard around her back, and stepped up onto the ledge.

Five floors of dark opened under her shoes.

"Hold on," Jack said.

She held on.

He stepped off. Her stomach dropped. Then his wings cracked open above them and the fall turned into wind, and Blair pressed her face into his coat and didn’t look until her feet touched stone.

Behind them, her coat was still lying on Jasper’s floor.

* * *

The radiator in Jack’s office clanked twice and began to tick.

He dragged his chair in front of it, pushed her into the seat and crouched to unlace her shoes. Lake water ran out of them. He set them under the radiator side by side.

"Arms up."

She hesitated. Then she lifted them, and he peeled the wet sweater over her head and dropped it on the floor. The burnt cuff left a black smear on his fingers. He looked at it, then at her left hand, unmarked, and said nothing.

He took both her hands in his and began to rub them.

"Tell me," he said.

So she did, starting with the note under her door.

"I brought the form," she said. "The lake has it now."

His hands didn’t stop. "You never read the name."

"No."

"And you went alone."

"It said to come alone."

"So you did what a stranger’s note told you." His voice was very calm. "Who put you in?"

"Someone."

"Ms. Willows."

"It’s handled."

"By whom?"

Blair looked at the radiator. "Me."

Jack’s thumbs went still on her knuckles. He found the heel mark on the right one and traced it once, the way Jasper had, and his jaw went tight.

"How long were you in the water?"

She could have said a while.

"Twenty minutes."

He didn’t move. The radiator ticked. Somewhere in the walls a pipe knocked and went quiet.

"You’re not shaking," he said at last.

"I’m a little cold."

"You should be dead."

Blair bit her bottom lip.

He looked up at her then, from the floor. His eyes went to her left hand, the one that had come out of the burnt cuff without a mark, and back to her face.

"Twenty minutes," he said quietly, as if he were writing it down.

He let go of her hands and sat back on his heels.

"I left my work tonight, Ms. Willows. I climbed through a student’s window," he started. "For you."

"Thank you," Blair said.

"I don’t want thanks."

She knew what he wanted. She had known since he pushed her into the chair.

He waited.

"Yes, Professor."

He stood and unbuckled his belt.

Blair slid off the chair onto her knees. The radiator was warm against her bare back.

He freed himself and wrapped a fist in her wet hair. Not pulling. Just holding.

He was already hard. Blair stared at him, her face hot, and didn’t know where to put her hands.

"Open."

She opened her mouth and took him in. He was hot and heavy on her tongue, and he tasted of salt and skin. She went slowly, unsure, her hands braced on his thighs, taking a little more each time.

She drew back to breathe and licked along the underside of him, base to tip, slowly, because she wanted to see what he would do. His fingers flexed in her hair.

She did it again. Then she closed her lips around the head and sucked, gently, and heard him let out a breath through his nose.

"Hands," he said.

She didn’t understand until he caught her wrist and moved it, wrapping her fingers around the base of him and holding them there under his own. He showed her once. Then he let go and let her do it, her hand and her mouth moving together, wet and slow, while the radiator ticked behind her.

"Eyes up."

She looked up. He was watching her the way he had a minute ago, bright and intent.

Her face burned. She kept looking anyway.

His jaw clenched. He brushed his thumb along her cheek, where it hollowed around him. His hand tightened in her hair, and he began to set the pace. Steady. Deeper, until her eyes watered and she made a small sound around him, and his breath caught. It was the only sign he gave.

Her knees ached on the floor. Her jaw ached. Heat pooled low in her stomach anyway, and she pressed her thighs together and hoped he couldn’t see.

He saw. One corner of his mouth curved.

"Good girl," he said, low.

She moaned around him without meaning to, and his hips stuttered. The pace went ragged. For a few strokes he wasn’t patient at all.

He came with his fist in her hair and his head tipped back, one hard breath through his teeth. She swallowed. He held her there a beat, then let her go.

He fastened his belt, lifted her back into the chair and wrapped his coat around her. It smelled of cold air and smoke. He tucked it closed under her chin with both hands and held it there a moment longer than he needed to.

Then he went to the window.