Chapter 9: The Fifth Power

We stood in the dark with her legs still around my waist and listened to the elevator.

It rose through the building.

I could hear its cables, and the man standing inside it.

It passed the twentieth floor, the twenty-fifth, and it stopped on twelve.

"He's gone to the club," I said. "He's getting a drink."

Adrienne stared at me. "How could you possibly know that?"

"I'll tell you."

"You'll tell me now."

"There's a bedroom behind that door."

She looked at the door at the back of the office, and then at me.

"I don't like you," she said.

The ring went hot on my finger, hotter than it had since the night it fit.

The heat ran up to my ears, and her heartbeat came into my head.

It wasn't a sound this time.

It was a shape, and the shape of her words didn't match it.

I smiled.

"That's not true," I said.

"What?"

"You said you don't like me. You do."

"You can't know that."

"I can hear it," I said. "It's the fifth thing the ring does. It knows when someone's lying."

Her mouth fell open.

"Say it again," I said.

"I don't..."

I tilted my head.

She stopped.

"You asshole," she whispered, and kissed me so hard my back hit the door.

The bedroom was dark and cold and smelled like cedar.

She pulled my hoodie over my head and threw it behind her.

I got her shirt open with clumsy fingers, and the buttons were small and I didn't care.

She was warm and pale, in plain white cotton, and she laughed when my hands shook.

She was twenty years old and she took the lead like she knew exactly what she wanted.

"Slow down," she said.

"You said that on purpose."

"I said it to see if you would."

I did, and then I didn't.

I laid her back on the bed and kissed down her stomach until she was gasping.

When I got her jeans off she was already wet, and my fingers slid into her without effort.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Campus Saga: Superpower Teen from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.