Chapter 167: He’s Stealing My Rules*

The library let out at closing. Blair walked back to Dormitory G past the fountain and didn’t look at it.

Daemus was sitting on the floor outside Room 204.

His back was against her door and his legs stretched halfway across the corridor. His hair was still damp from the rink showers. His hockey bag sat beside him, and he was playing Breakaway with the sound off. Two girls in bathrobes were stepping over his ankles to get to the washroom.

"Sorry," he told each of them, without looking up. "Sorry. Long legs."

Then he saw Blair, and the phone went into his pocket.

"There you are."

"How long have you been here?"

"Not long." He stood up all at once, and the girl coming back from the washroom flattened herself against the wall. "An hour. Not long."

Blair unlocked the door. He went in first.

He checked the window latch. Then he got down on his stomach and looked under her bed, and then under Heather’s.

"Daemus."

"One second." He sat back on his heels. "Okay. No fish."

She shut the door and turned the key twice. He watched her do it.

"Rules check," he said. "One. No fish."

"No fish."

"Two. Did you eat?"

"I had an apple."

He looked pained. "That’s not eating. That’s a fruit." He dug in the side pocket of his bag and tossed her a protein bar. "Three. Did anybody bother you?"

Blair sat on her bed and turned the bar over.

"Killian," she said.

Daemus went very still on the floor.

"Where?"

"The back stacks."

"Did you say my name?"

"No."

"That’s the whole rule, Bunny. That’s the only part of the rule."

"He didn’t do anything." She picked at the wrapper. "He said Jasper eats what he collects. And that if I go, I shouldn’t eat anything Jasper serves."

Daemus stared at her.

"Don’t eat," he said slowly. "That’s my rule two. Backwards." He pointed at the door, and through it, presumably, at the Royal Faction House. "He’s stealing my rules now."

Blair laughed into her protein bar.

Then his face changed. "If you go," he repeated. "Why does he think you’re going?"

She didn’t answer. He got up and sat beside her, and the bed frame creaked under him. She rolled her shoulder where it had hit the shelf. He noticed.

"What’s that?"

"I hit a bookshelf."

His eyes narrowed. "He pushed you into a bookshelf?"

"The librarian’s cart scared me," Blair said. "Then I hit a bookshelf."

He looked at her for a second as if he were deciding whether he was allowed to be angry at a cart. Then he held out his hand.

"Lie down."

"Daemus..."

"I’m not doing anything. Coach makes us do this for each other after games." He considered. "With more sweater, usually."

She lay on her stomach across the narrow bed with her cheek on her folded arms. Her sweater and the shirt under it were on Heather’s bare mattress. Daemus knelt on the floor beside her, because the bed barely had room for her.

His hands were warm. He found the knot in her shoulder on the first try and pressed his thumb into it, slowly, until it gave. Blair made a sound into her arms that she hadn’t meant to make.

"See?" he said. "Professional."

His thumbs moved down either side of her spine. Then his hands reached the clasp of her bra and stopped there.

"Can I?"

She nodded into her arms. He unhooked it and drew the straps off her shoulders, and cool air touched her bare back.

He didn’t go back to rubbing. He bent his head and kissed the top of her spine instead, just under her hair.

Blair went still.

His mouth moved down. He kissed slowly, open-mouthed, his breath warm on her skin. Her fingers curled into the blanket. Somewhere between her shoulder blades his tongue touched her, and she pressed her face harder into her arms to keep quiet.

The walls of Dormitory G were very thin.

He kissed lower. Then he stopped.

His mouth stayed just below her left shoulder blade. She felt his thumb come up beside it and move over the skin there, once, slowly. Then across to the other side, to the matching place.

Blair knew exactly where his thumb was.

Rain’s fangs had gone in there. She remembered the weight of the snake and the fire in her back, and nothing after. For weeks she had twisted in front of the washroom mirror to look at the wounds. Pink and raised. Then flatter. Then pale. Then she had stopped looking, because there was nothing left to look at.

She had taken those fangs for him.

His thumb moved over the smooth skin one more time.

She waited for the question. Her heart pounded against the mattress. She had half an answer ready.

Daemus didn’t ask.

He bent and kissed the place under her left shoulder blade. Then the place under the right. Gently, as if something were still there.

Then he kept going down.

Blair let out a breath that shook.

He kissed the small of her back. Then his hands slid under her hips and turned her over, carefully. He looked down at her, flushed and bare to the waist on her narrow little bed, and his silver eyes went dark.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," she whispered.

He kissed her mouth first, deep and slow, one hand braced beside her head. Then her throat. Then her breasts, taking his time, his tongue circling her nipple until she arched off the mattress and had to bite her own wrist.

At the waistband of her skirt he stopped and looked up.

"Bunny."

"Yes."

"I didn’t ask yet."

"Yes," she said again, and he huffed a laugh against her stomach.

He drew her skirt and underwear down her legs together and dropped them on the floor. Then he pulled her by the hips to the edge of the bed and hooked her legs over his shoulders.

The first stroke of his tongue was slow and flat, all the way up. Blair’s whole body jerked.

He did it again. Then he settled in, unhurried, his hands spread wide on her thighs to hold them open, and licked her like he had all night and meant to use it. When he found her clit he closed his lips around it and sucked, gently, and she grabbed a fistful of his hair.

"Daemus..."

He hummed against her. She felt it everywhere.

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. It didn’t help. Small sounds kept escaping her, and every one made him growl, low and pleased, which made it worse. He slid one finger into her, then a second, and curled them while his tongue kept the same slow rhythm. Her heels dug into his back.

Through the wall, somebody turned their radio up.

He was relentless and patient at the same time. Every time she tightened, he eased off, just slightly, until she was shaking and her hips were rocking up against his mouth on their own.

"Please," she breathed.

He gave her what she asked for.

She came with her hand clamped over her mouth and her thighs locked around his head. He held her through it, licking her softly until she twitched and pushed weakly at his forehead.

He rested his cheek against her inner thigh, breathing hard.

After a while he climbed up and squeezed in on his side between her and the wall. He pulled her half on top of him.

She reached down for the waistband of his sweatpants. He caught her wrist.

"If you touch me," he said into her hair, "this bed breaks. And then the whole floor comes to look."

"The whole floor already heard."

"That was the radio."

She laughed against his chest. She could feel him smiling against the top of her head. His hand moved up and down her bare back, slow, and came to rest under her shoulder. It stayed there.

Blair looked at the line of his throat in the lamplight.

"Daemus," she said. "I..."

He went quiet under her. Waiting.

The words were right there.

"I’m going Friday," she said.

His hand stopped moving on her back.

For a long time he didn’t say anything. She listened to his heart under her ear, slow and heavy, and waited for him to sit up and argue and be right.

He didn’t.

"Fine," he said finally, into her hair. "But you come home."