Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels Page 37

  “Well, she wants—”

  “I, say I. She is you, you are her.”

  “I want Kurt,” she said, gesturing to her co-star.

  “So why don’t I see that?” I said. “Why can’t I see that you want him?”

  “I’m afraid to want him,” she said. “He’s... not good for me. I’m hiding it.”

  “Too complicated,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You can’t act that,” I said. “You need an objective. Remember the exercise in class. You want to do something to Kurt.”

  She made a confused face. “I don’t...”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Moss. I know this is very hard for you. I know that you’ve never had to do any kind of real theater.”

  She clenched her jaw.

  “Since you can’t figure it out on your own, I’ll tell you. And I’ll use small words, so that you’ll be sure to understand.”

  “Fuck you,” she whispered.

  I raised my eyebrows. “What was that?”

  She looked away.

  “See me after rehearsal, Miss Moss.”

  She folded her arms over her chest.

  “This is your objective. You want him, but you don’t want to want him. So you want to get rid of him. I want you to start the entire scene over, and I want you to get rid of him.”

  I turned on my heel and stomped back to the directing table.

  “That was good,” said Harper. “Getting rid of him? That opens the whole scene up. Thanks.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Why do you hate Teagan so much, though?” he said.

  I massaged the bridge of my nose. “Run your scene, Mr. Cannon.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Teagan

  I hated Professor Carter Alexander. Hated him. I was tempted not to talk to him after rehearsal. So I’d sworn at him. He’d deserved it. He was such an asshole. He kept saying all those horrible things about me in public. I was a bad actress. I was stilted. Now I was the village idiot?

  I wanted to punch him.

  I wanted to walk out on him without giving him the satisfaction.

  But I stayed. I stayed because, no matter what, I wanted an excuse to talk to him alone. And now we had one. Handily.

  The theater emptied of people. Harper asked me if I wanted him to wait for me, until I was done talking to the professor, but I said I didn’t. He told me not to take anything that Professor Alexander said personally. I promised I would try.

  Finally, it was only me and him.

  He was sitting next to the director’s table, which was about three rows up in the bank of risers. He was watching me. He’d been watching me the whole time.

  I mounted the steps and climbed up to him. I intended to start screaming at him, to let him know just how angry I was. Instead, I flung myself into his lap, pressing my lips against his.

  His arms came around me. He sighed into my mouth.

  I pulled back. “You have to stop insulting me in public.”

  “I insult everyone in public.”

  “Not like you insult me, you don’t.”

  “I’m sorry.” He turned my head roughly and pressed his lips against the sensitive skin just under my ear. “My God, Miss Moss, do you have any idea how distracting your neck is?”

  Shivers went through me. I threw my head back, my breath catching in my throat.

  His lips trailed down my neck and over my shoulder, his voice a throaty whisper in between kisses. “When I’m near you, Miss Moss, all I can do is look at you. And I am ruined by your beauty.”

  I gasped. His mouth was driving me crazy.

  He pushed my shirt farther down my shoulder, baring the top of the strapless bra I was wearing. “I’m certain everyone else can see how badly I want you. So maybe I overcompensate a little bit. I could never make them believe I was indifferent to you. But if they thought I hated you...”

  “You call me names as a cover, so that we can keep making out?”

  His fingers traveled over the top of my breast, dipping into my cleavage. “Well, I guess that’s one way to put it.”

  I snatched his chin, forcing him to look me in the eye. “So, you don’t mean it? You don’t think I’m stupid?”

  “Of course not.” He kissed me.

  I wrenched away from him. “Maybe I am, though. I keep making out with you.”

  “There is that.” He slid his hands under my shirt.

  I sucked in breath at his touch on my bare belly.

  His hands moved up over my ribs. “To be fair, I don’t try very hard to stop it, which doesn’t make me seem extraordinarily intelligent either.”

  I stopped his hand. “What?”

  “Not because of you—you’re exquisite—but because you’re my student.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That isn’t very smart of you, is it?”

  He shook his head. He was so tempting. His eyes were so blue. I wanted him. I fingered the edge of his shirt.

  “Miss Moss,” he breathed.

  I grasped it, tugged it over his head, and bared his chest. I ran my hands over him. His skin was soft and smooth, but there was a solid warmth radiating below the surface. Professor Alexander wasn’t muscle bound or athletic, but he was lean and nicely shaped. His shoulders were broad, and his waist was tapered, and he was every ounce as magnificent as he had been in my dream.

  He shut his eyes. His breathing was labored. “We need to be careful. Kissing is one thing, but we were too close to... other things happening last time.”

  I was kissing his chest, running my fingers over his pecks. “You’re right. I don’t want it to go that far.”

  “That would be bad.” He pushed me back.

  For a second I thought he was really going to stop me, but instead, he yanked my shirt over my head. “Oh, God, Miss Moss. You make me insane.” He cupped my breasts through my bra.

  I moaned.

  He peeled the cups down, exposing me. At the touch of outside air, my nipples stiffened. He rubbed his thumbs over them.

  Pleasure thrummed through me. I felt a tightening between my legs. I closed my eyes. “We need to stop, don’t we?”

  “Uh huh,” he breathed. He pinched one of my nipples.

  I cried out. That felt so good. So, so good.

  With effort, I reached out and took hold of his wrist. I pushed his hand away from my breast.

  He groaned. “Cover yourself, or I’m going to—”

  I pushed the cups of my bra back up. I found my shirt and shrugged back into it. I turned to see him putting his shirt on as well.

  I stumbled down the steps, putting several feet between him and me. “This can’t keep happening, Professor.”

  “No, it can’t,” he said. “We have to stay away from each other.”

  “Do you want me to drop out of the play?”

  “Absolutely not.” He looked horrified. “You’re far too good an actress to give up this role.”

  “I thought I was stilted,” I said. “I thought I only got the scholarship because of my assets.”

  “I didn’t mean any of those things I said.”

  “You didn’t?” I wasn’t sure I believed him.

  “You do have positively fantastic... assets.” His gaze strayed from my face, taking in my body.

  It felt like I could feel the places he was looking at me. I closed my eyes. “Stop that.”

  “We can’t be alone together again,” he said. “I can’t trust myself otherwise. I won’t be able to stop.”

  “Neither will I.” I nodded. “Okay, good. We won’t be alone.”

  “Keep our distance,” he said.

  I took another step away from him. “That’s the only smart thing to do.”

  “Exactly.”

  So, why was I feeling so disappointed?

  * * *

  Carter

  “You’ll need to remove your clothing,” said Adelaide. She was standing in the doorway to the bathroom in my house.

  I was pushing
aside the shower curtain, since she said we needed to perform this prerequisite to the ritual in the bathtub. I turned back to her, a little alarmed. “All my clothing?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I realize this is going to be a bit awkward for both of us, but we’re adults, and we do what we can in the service of the society.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “So strip.”

  I pulled my shirt over my head. “Anything for the society.”

  “Anything to become rich and powerful, actually, isn’t it, Carter?” Her voice was biting. “I’m not sure you realize how much this ritual will demand from you.”

  I tossed my shirt on the floor. “Maybe you’re jealous because the ritual demands that a man be a vessel for the power, and you don’t meet the requirement.”

  She snorted. “I don’t want the power. I want the society to have the half of it that it needs to continue, but I wouldn’t be filled with the great serpent’s magic for all the tea in China.”

  She was showing her age. Who said that anymore? I unbuttoned my jeans. “I don’t see what the downside would be.”

  “Don’t you?” She glared at me. “It’s not a striptease, Carter. Get on with it.”

  My hand rested on my zipper. “Could you maybe turn around or something?”

  She gave me a withering look. “I’ve seen you naked before.”

  Right. I took a deep breath. I unzipped my pants. Then I pushed everything off as quickly as I could. I had to sit on the toilet to take off my socks. “So, what is the downside to getting all the power?”

  She had actually averted her gaze. “It will devour you. You saw what happened to Armstrong.”

  There. No socks. Completely naked. “Armstrong was sentimental. I’m not.”

  I stood up.

  She eyed me. “Yes, I suppose you’ve got a massive hard on thinking about raping that poor girl while she screams.”

  Raping? Screams? I flinched. But I tried not to let it show. “Massive, huh? Thanks.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Into the tub.”

  I stepped into it and sat down. “What does it do to the girl anyway? The ritual?”

  “It takes her power,” she said, setting several vials of liquid on the lip of the bathtub. They were strange colors—green, day-glo purple, murky yellow.

  “And that makes her scream?” I thought of Teagan in pain. I didn’t like the thought of it, I had to admit. “It hurts?”

  “It’s like sticking an apple corer into her brain, Carter. The ritual cuts everything out.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Sucks her dry,” I murmured.

  “Exactly,” she said. “Lie back.”

  “There isn’t another way to do it?”

  She gave me a funny look. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “No reason.” I took a deep breath. I lay back.

  “All right, I’m going to begin now,” she said. “Please don’t interrupt me, no matter what happens, or we’ll have to start over from the beginning. And don’t let me forget to leave the tinctures with you. After we do this, you’ll need to drink a shot glass of each every morning to get your body ready to absorb the power.”

  I nodded my assent.

  She dipped a finger into the green liquid. She made a mark on my forehead, one on my chest, and one just above my pubic hair.

  Then she took the other two bottles of liquid and started to pour them over me. She began to chant.

  But I couldn’t hear what she was saying, because the minute the liquid touched my skin, it burned.

  I clenched my teeth against it, struggling not to make a noise.

  The liquid began to form a strange, blue smoke. The smoke rose off of my skin in lazy tendrils that curled around each other like snakes.

  They writhed and coiled around my naked limbs. Where they touched me, it seared my skin. I twisted and fought, trying to keep away from the pain, trying to get up. But Adelaide reached down and grasped my shoulders, holding me in place. She kept chanting.

  I couldn’t stop myself. I yelled in anguish.

  And when I opened my mouth, the serpents dove into it, burning their way down my throat, burrowing into me, deep inside.

  * * *

  Teagan

  Harper sat down next to me on the other bed in his room. He leaned in close to look at my script. “I’m thinking that in that scene, you’re almost like afraid of him.”

  I pulled back. I’d been hanging out with Harper more and more, and he kept doing stuff like this, getting close to me for what seemed like innocent reasons. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Harper. I did. And Professor Alexander and I had agreed to keep away from each other. So there shouldn’t really have been a problem.

  But...

  I don’t know. I just wasn’t quite feeling it. I didn’t want to kiss him.

  And that meant that there really wasn’t any future there for the two of us. I knew that now. But he really liked me, and I didn’t want to make things weird between us.

  “Um, I just remembered that—”

  “Stop.” He pulled away from me. “This is the third time you’ve run out on me the minute I try to get close to you. I can take a hint, Teagan.”

  “You can?”

  “Yeah, I’m moving too fast.” He smiled. “I promised you a date with white tablecloths and romantic music, and here I am trying to move in on you in my dorm room like some kind of frat dick. I’m sorry.”

  Well, that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking, but it bought me some time.

  “The thing is, with this show right now, I don’t have time to take you out,” he said. “It’s all I can think about.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m busy too.” Maybe I’d develop the desire to kiss Harper. Over time.

  “Actually, it’s probably better.” He sat up. “If you and I were to get involved, it could damage the director-actress relationship we have. It might make the play worse.”

  I nodded. “It might. It really might.”

  “Okay, then, it’s settled. We’ll wait until after the play wraps, and then we’ll go on a date—a real date—and I won’t try anything again until then.”

  I smiled. “That works for me.”

  “Good,” he said. “I mean, maybe some part of me was wishing that you’d say I was crazy and you’d start ripping off my clothes, but I’m a twenty-two-year-old guy, so I kind of wish that would happen all the time.”

  I laughed. Harper was funny. He was sweet. He liked me. Why couldn’t I make myself like him back? “I still should probably go. I do have a big test in my chemistry class on Friday, and I haven’t studied enough.”

  “Go study,” he said. “I’m so sorry you’re still taking general studies classes like chemistry. Life is so much cooler when you get into the upper levels of your major.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I said. Taking nothing but acting classes all the time? It sounded perfect. I got off the bed. “I’ll see you at rehearsal tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I bet Carter’s going to be there.”

  “You think?”

  “He hasn’t been in over a week. He’s due back.”

  “Why do you call him by his first name behind his back anyway?”

  He snickered. “Because he hates it, and because he’s a dick.”

  I nodded. “Well, you’re right about the dick part. He’s a complete jerk.”

  “Whatever he says to you, I swear to God, ignore it.”

  “I will,” I said. Maybe he wouldn’t say anything horrible. It could happen.

  I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

  “Bye Teagan,” Harper called after me.

  “Bye.” I shut his door.

  So, I’d have to see Professor Alexander again. Nothing would happen between us. We’d managed to make it through a rehearsal last week without even looking at each other. But just thinking of him made my clothes feel tight. I thought about his gorgeous chest, running my fingers over it. I thought about his hands on my breasts.


  I closed my eyes.

  Bad to think about that. Bad.

  “What are you doing coming out of Harper’s room?”

  I knew that voice. It was Reba, the bitch who hated everything I did. She was standing in front of me, arms folded over her chest.

  “You’re out to take everything from me aren’t you?” said Reba.

  I sighed. “I’m in Harper’s play. For senior seminar. And I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

  “Oh, you don’t, do you?”

  “No.” I tried to push past her and go back to my room, but she blocked my path.

  “You can’t have Harper too. You have the scholarship. You leave him alone.”

  “He’s my director,” I said. “I can’t not see him.”

  “You can stay out of his room.”

  I held up my script. “We were running lines. What do you care, anyway?”

  “He’s mine,” she said. “Harper is mine.”

  “That’s funny, because he seems to be under the impression he’s single.”

  “Stay away from him,” she said. “Or I will teach you a lesson.”

  “What?” I said. “What does that even mean?”

  “You keep messing with Harper, you’re going to find out,” she said, moving out of the way and letting me by.

  I swept past her and seethed all the way back to my room. What was her problem? What right did she have to treat me like that?

  Nell was watching TV. “What happened to you? You look pissed.”

  “Reba Keir saw me coming out of Harper’s room.”

  “Oh, God,” said Nell. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s a little tightly wound.”

  “A little?”

  “She and Harper used to date. He broke up with her, because she’s, you know, insane, but she still has it bad for him.”

  I collapsed onto my bed. “Great.”

  Nell gave me a sympathetic smile. “Sorry. She’s not that bad when you get to know her. And she’s a really good actress. I think it’s because she lives in a world of heightened emotion all the time.”

  I groaned.

  “Cheer up,” she said. “There’s a party tonight.”

  * * *

  The party was a theater department tradition, according to Nell. They threw several of them throughout each year, out in the woods behind Slayton Hall, my dormitory. There was a natural sort of amphitheater out there—actually just a bowl-shaped valley that had been set up with old railroad ties for seats. Nell said that as far as she knew, no one ever did actual plays out in this amphitheater, but that at the last theater party in the spring, people always put together an impromptu show mocking everything from the plays they’d put on that year to the professors to the students. And that was performed in the amphitheater.