Supernatural Academy: Year One (Supernatural Academy #1)(77)

We stopped dancing, but we didn’t move apart. If anything, we were pressed even closer.

“But I’m already in it,” I reminded him.

He shook his head. “We don’t know anything yet. You might even be more important than any other Atlantean … beyond me.” His nose brushed across mine as he brought his face closer. I breathed him in, the scent, remembering his taste from last time. His next words jolted me. “I can’t resist you any longer.”

My tongue darted out to try and moisten my lips. “Then don’t.”

Asher’s mouth crashed into mine and I moaned against his lips, our tongues moving together. He tasted like … everything. Life and air and water.

Elemental.

Primal.

He pulled me into him, lifting me up. I wanted to wrap my legs around him, but I wasn’t high enough to easily do that—he was just holding my weight, a few inches off the ground.

“Higher,” I moaned.

He tightened his hold, and I almost sighed as my legs finally settled around him. Our mouths never parted. I wanted to kiss him forever. It started to rain at some point, but I barely even noticed the cold droplets scattering across my heated skin. We were technically inside a magical building, but it rained all the time in here. The water was clean and almost identical to normal rain.

Asher kept one hand under my ass while the other tangled in the hair at the back of my neck. His hold was firm, and I wanted him so badly that my head was spinning. As more rain fell, I tilted my head back to stare up into the darkness above, letting the water soak my face. Asher’s lips landed on my throat and my eyes fluttered shut at the sensation of him pressing kisses along my jawline, the scruff of his five o’clock shadow scraping across sensitive skin.

I knew we were drawing attention. I could feel the eyes on us.

But I didn’t care.

He pulled my lips back to his, and I groaned, needing more. “Let’s go,” I said softly.

One last kiss and I was back on my feet. Asher kept a hand on me until I was steady on my heels. “You want to leave?” he murmured huskily. “But this is only our second date…?”

I glared, or tried to; I was too aroused for angry emotions. “If we count all of our movie nights and shared meals, we’ve had fifty dates.”

His grin was fierce, his eyes predatory as he threaded our fingers together and started to lead me through the crowd. Mostly everyone parted for him, which was finally coming in handy, but someone stepped into his path just before we left the dance.

“Asher,” the guy said. I was pretty sure he was a vampire, but maybe also a shifter. He was huge. “We need your help with something.”

Asher shook his head. “Find someone else,” he rumbled. Now, if he’d spoken to me in that “don’t fuck with me” tone, I would have found someone else. But the vamp was either brave or stupid, because he pushed. “Come on, man. This requires the use of water magic. It’s a bit of a situation, and … there’s an animal involved.”

That made me feel bad. I popped my head around Asher—who was shielding me with his body. “Go and help,” I said. “You can’t let an animal suffer. I’m not going anywhere.” The night was still young. As was the weekend, if everything went according to plan.

Asher held my gaze, then let out a long breath. “I’ll be right back,” he said. As I started to nod, he moved fast, pressing his lips to mine, and then another kiss to the corner of my mouth.

It took me like five minutes to even realize he was gone, because my head was all fucked-up with lusty thoughts. I lost track of everything and everyone when Asher was around.

Just as I was about to shuffle off the main path to stop blocking everyone, two familiar bitches stepped in front of me.

“Hello, Maddison,” Kate said, almost conversationally. “I think it’s time we addressed this issue between us.”

I crossed my arms, sending mental SOSes to Asher. “I don’t have an issue with you, Kate. I really don’t care about you at all. I just want to live my life. Run along and live yours too. There’s no reason we have to hate each other.”

Her face creased as she blinked confusedly. She appeared to be more than a little shocked by my current “let it go” attitude. Chellie, who had been watching her friend with concern, shook that off and turned anger on me.

“You pushed us too far.” Face-to-face, I was concerned by the state of her pupils. I knew drugs when I saw them, and this chick was on something heavy. She reached out and shoved me … or attempted to. I saw it coming and sidestepped, and she let out a frustrated scream. Her next screech was loud and out of control: “I’m about to show you what happens to chicks who touch things that don’t belong to them!”

Kate, recovered from her shock, stepped into me. “Asher is mine,” she hissed. “He’s always been mine, and when he’s finally ready to settle down, he will choose me. Not a magicless human bitch.”

Kate had let her feelings for Asher turn into something dark and obsessive. I mean, I got obsession when it came to the Atlantean, but she could clearly no longer differentiate reality from fantasy.

Without warning, she swung out at me, and again, it was only my reflexes and relative sobriety that gave me a chance to dodge her palm. But it turned out she hadn’t been aiming to slap me. Her hand skimmed across my face, droplets flinging with it. The rain had stopped, so I knew it had to have come from Kate, and then a strong bitter taste hit my lips.