Chapter 190: That’s Number Four*

Jack had the engine running when she came out of the tower.

He pulled away before her door was fully shut. The city slid past, dark and wet.

"Well?" he said.

Blair held the cuff of her left sleeve closed in her fist. "He said I stopped screaming. Then I laughed."

Jack looked at her. It was a long look for a man taking a corner.

"Did you," he said.

It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer it. She didn’t mention the cards either. "That’s all he told me."

Jack only hummed in response.

Her phone was a hard square against her hip. She took it out and opened the four texts she had slept through.

video room

still here

hollis found me. told him i was studying film. he believed me. he’s a fucking idiot

ok. see you on the steps

She read the last one twice and put the phone away.

Jack parked in the dark corner of the faculty lot and left the engine running.

"Go," he said.

* * *

Daemus was still on his cushion. The thermos lay on its side, empty. He stood when he saw her coming up the hill, and his ears came up with him.

Then his eyes went to her left hand, still closed around her sleeve.

"Where?"

She turned her wrist over and pushed the cuff back an inch. He looked at the small red bite for exactly as long as it took his ears to go flat. Then he pulled the cuff down again himself.

"Okay," he said.

He tucked the cushion and the thermos under one arm.

"So. I made a list."

"How long is it?"

"Long." He took her hand and pulled her up the steps. "We’re only doing number one tonight."

"What’s number one?"

He bent at the top of the stairs and told her in her ear.

Blair stopped walking.

"Daemus. That’s the girls’ washroom. People use it."

"Not after midnight."

So they waited.

Daemus sat on her bed with his back to the wall, listening. Blair sat at her desk with the Treaty commentary open to a page she had already read, her right sleeve down over her fingers.

Down the corridor, the washroom door banged.

His ear turned toward it.

"Toothbrush," he whispered.

Slippers went past Room 204 and faded. A door shut. The washroom door banged again.

"Different toothbrush."

"You can’t tell that."

"This one’s electric."

Blair put her face in the book so he wouldn’t see her smile.

"How many people live on this floor?" he asked.

"Too many."

He sighed and let his head fall back against the wall.

At twenty to one the corridor went quiet and stayed that way. Daemus looked at her. She closed the book.

* * *

The washroom was cold and white and smelled of bleach. Six shower stalls ran along the back wall behind plastic curtains. Daemus pulled her into the last one and turned the tap all the way.

The pipes knocked in the wall. Then the water came, loud and hot, and steam rose around them.

He reached for her sweater. She pulled it over her head herself, fast, and dropped it on the bench outside the curtain with the rest of her clothes. Her right hand closed into a fist against her thigh.

Daemus didn’t notice. He was looking at the rest of her.

He stepped in after her, and the stall stopped being big enough for anything. She backed up until the tile was cold against her shoulder blades and laid her right hand flat against it behind her.

He kissed her.

It was slow at first, his mouth careful on the healing side of her lip, then not so much. The water ran over his shoulders and down between them. He tipped her chin up with two fingers and opened her mouth with his, and his tongue slid against hers, warm and unhurried, until her knees went loose. His other hand spread over her ribs, then her waist, then her hip, holding her to the wall.

"Still whatever I want?" he said against her mouth.

"Yes."

"Good."

He kissed her jaw, then her throat. He bent lower and took her nipple into his mouth, and the heat of it after the cold tile made her gasp. He did it again to hear the sound. Then he moved to the other one, slowly, his tongue circling until her fingers were knotted in his wet hair.

He came back up to her mouth. His hand moved down her stomach and between her legs, and he groaned when he found how wet she was.

"Bunny."

He circled her clit with two fingers, slowly, watching her face. Her breath stuttered. He did it again, a little harder, and her head tipped back against the tile.

"There?"

"There," she breathed.

He slid one finger into her, then two, and curled them. Blair’s mouth fell open. He kept his thumb on her clit and his fingers moving, steady and patient, and the water covered the sound she made.

He reached behind her for her other hand.

She slid her left arm around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers, and he forgot about it.

She was hot all over. She could feel him against her hip, hard and heavy, and she reached down for him.

He caught her wrist.

"That’s number four," he said. "Hands off."

"What are two and three?"

He grinned and crooked his fingers, and she forgot the question.

The washroom door banged.

Blair froze. So did Daemus. His ears swung toward the curtain.

Slippers crossed the tile. A tap squeaked on at the sinks. Someone started brushing her teeth and humming, off-key.

Blair stared at him in horror.

Daemus looked back at her. Then, very slowly, he moved his fingers again.

She grabbed his shoulder. He didn’t stop. He didn’t speed up either. He kept the same slow, deep stroke and the same pressure from his thumb, his eyes on hers the whole time, while the humming went on six feet away through one sheet of plastic.

Her legs started to shake.

She pressed her open mouth to his shoulder to keep quiet. He bent his head to her ear.

"Let go," he whispered. "I’ve got you."

She came with her teeth against his skin and her right hand flat on the tile behind her, shuddering and silent, while he held her up and stroked her through every last wave of it.

The tap at the sinks shut off.

Slippers crossed the floor and stopped at the door.

"Night, Blair," Nora said.

A pause.

"Night, Blair’s boyfriend."

The door swung shut.