SWNOVELS Nocticadia: Chapter 25
My pulse throbbed in my ear, as I climbed off the Nocticadia bus to Emeric Tower. While Spencer prattled on beside me, talking about some campus event coming up, I ignored him, my mind glued to the visual of me touching myself in public.
What the hell was I about to do?
I’d touched myself before, but only a couple times, and never outside of piles of blankets and pillows. I’d always been too nervous of Conner walking in on me, so the sessions had always been quick, and rarely ever satisfying.
Earlier, I’d stumbled upon some blog offering tips for how to create one of the videos without drawing a lot of attention. Tips for masturbating in public–that was what my life had become.
The blog had advised not wearing underwear beneath a skirt, to avoid the awkward task of having to pull them down or push them aside while filming. So, I chose a skirt that reached my knees and spent an hour walking around my room while trying to banish the absolutely unnatural vulnerability of having my nether region uncovered. I hated the feeling of being naked. Even after showers, I felt the need to dress quickly, so the cool air breezing up my skirt as I walked to class sent a chill up the back of my neck.
The bad kind of chill.
We made our way into the lab, and I scurried to my desk, donning my lab coat, as usual. My mind wound over how to logistically carry out the task, and I frowned, trying to imagine holding the camera between my legs with one hand.
Two hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars. The easiest two hundred dollars you’ll ever make.
My whole body trembled as I settled onto my stool and spread my knees apart in the little alcove cut into the desk. Thankfully, drawers boxed in either side of me, and in as subtle a movement as I could muster, I removed my camera, while the other students took their seats, and glanced down to press the camera app. After shifting it to video, I snagged a glimpse of Spencer quickly turning away.
Please don’t let him watch me the whole time.
It was bad enough thinking about doing the unthinkable in the middle of class. But to have Spencer’s eyes on me the whole time would make it absolutely miserable. In an effort to keep with the school girl theme Jayda had mentioned, I’d worn my gray plaid skirt that fanned out at the hem.
When Ross finally arrived, and all of the students had settled in, my pulse hammered harder. The worst part was over–showing up to class without underwear. According to the website, all I had to do was record for two minutes.
Two minutes, one hundred twenty seconds, two hundred dollars, I reminded myself.
Exhaling a shaky breath, I pressed play and positioned the camera between my thighs, holding it there. As Ross launched into his lecture, I swallowed a gulp, breathing hard through my nose.
C’mon, Lilia. Two minutes.
Camera lodged between my knees, I assured it was positioned correctly, and pushed it closer, up my thighs. From the bottle clipped to my bag beside me, I took a quick squirt of hand sanitizer and cleaned my hands as thoroughly as possible. Then, resting one arm against the tabletop, I slid my other hand up my skirt, wincing when my fingers met my bare flesh.
Oh, God. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
One deep breath, and I moved my finger up and down my seam, my thigh muscles clenching on contact. Swallowing a gulp, I kept my eyes on Ross, who went on, giving a recap of last week’s lab, and as he talked, I kept on with the gentle strokes. Up and down. Up and down. Acclimating myself to the task.
Thirty seconds down.
My mind scrambled to process what the hell I was doing, and when it finally caught up to reality, something shifted inside of me. A slippery wetness slid across my fingertips. In the dull black benchtop, a face came to mind. Copper eyes. Deep voice. Stern brows.
“My apologies for interrupting.”
My gaze snapped toward the front of the room, where Professor Bramwell strode in like a dark knight, in his black shirt and slacks beneath a stark, white lab coat.
A tickle low in my stomach had me shifting in my seat, as he took his place at the front of the room. I pulled my hand away from my sensitive flesh, resting my soaked finger against my inner thigh, where I attempted to wipe the fluid away.
“I’m seeing a slight reduction in larvae, and I believe the issue is that you’re squeezing the forceps too hard when you transport the adult worms to the tank.”
As he went on to describe how to delicately handle the parasite, I watched his hand movements, focusing on his fingers and tuning out the topic. They were the perfect length. Not too thin, but not too thick, either. Perfect enough to imagine them buried inside of me.
Oh, God, stop.
Without much thought, I found myself mindlessly brushing my finger over my seam again. Unlike earlier, when Ross had lectured, I couldn’t look away from Professor Bramwell. His deep voice caressed my ear, sending a shiver across the back of my neck. I kept my eyes locked on those hands as he spoke and imagined rough palms over my skin.
Before I could stop myself, the fantasy took root in my mind, and I plunged my finger in and out of me. A tenacious need curled in my belly. Muscles stiffened.
My thighs shook, as he continued to address the class, and I lost myself in the vivid fantasy of him fingerfucking me. A glance around the room showed no one, not even nosy Spencer, looking at me.
Once I could get past the reality of what I was doing, and accepted it? Contrary to my initial thoughts, it was thrilling, the game of quietly bringing myself to climax in a room full of people.
I panted as I focused on Bramwell with enough intensity I noticed the slight scar at his neck, peeking up from his collar. My fingers plundered with greed, so wet that the fluids leaked down my thighs.
My muscles tightened. Tighter.
Bramwell’s eyes landed on me then.
I sucked in my bottom lip, panting hard through my nose, trying to keep a poker face while my body shook in chaos. A cramping ache seized my hand where it was bent at an odd angle, and I fought to keep the upper part of my arm from moving while my fingers went to town.
An insatiable need to climax coiled low in my stomach.
I needed it.
The tension inside of me wound so tight, the phone slipped.
En route to the floor, it smacked one of the drawer handles with a clattering thwack that echoed through the room, before it bounced out of reach.
A zap of horror shot through me, and I scrambled from my seat to pick it up.
In my panic, I didn’t notice the lecture had quieted, and Ross had taken over again, until shiny, black shoes stepped into my periphery and I followed the length of the black slacks upward to find Professor Bramwell’s disapproving stare. My eyes shot to the phone, still recording, and I prayed he wouldn’t look down.
I recalled Spencer’s words on the first day, how he didn’t like to be recorded and would confiscate the phone, if he found evidence of it. As a distraction, I held that scornful gaze far longer than I wanted to.
Please don’t look.
My heart caught in my throat when he glanced down at it.
I bent further to swipe it up, but not before he snatched it first.
The blood drained from my face. No, no, no. Please!
While Ross continued to speak to the class, who didn’t seem to notice the chaotic scene going on at the back corner, Professor Bramwell leaned into me.
The feel of him being so close, his delicious cologne snaking its way down my throat, and his warm cinnamon breath against my cheek, shot my pulse into a frenzy. “Tell me you aren’t recording my classes, Miss Vespertine.” He spoke low, but the depth of his voice tickled my senses.
Swallowing past the dryness in my throat, I shook my head. “I’m not,” I whispered.
“The NDA you signed gives me permission to confiscate your phone, if I suspect that you are.”
Alarms blared inside my head as the scene played out like a terrifying nightmare. “Please don’t.”
“Then, you will delete whatever you were recording in front of me. Right now.”
A quick glance at Spencer showed him staring over his shoulder at the two of us, a quizzical frown wrinkling his face.
“And if you confiscate it? What will you do? Delete it yourself?”
“I’m not legally allowed to look through your phone, Miss Vespertine.” He leaned in even closer, and God help me, it took the willpower of a freaking nun not to turn and confirm how close his lips were to mine. “That would be an invasion of privacy. Grounds for consequences.”
Gaze glued to the black benchtop, I breathed through my nose to stifle the shaky panting breaths clogging my throat. “But you would still ask me to delete the recording after?”
“I would be more inclined to trust you to do it yourself, if you were willing to turn over your phone. You’re either guilty, or you’re not.”
I didn’t have much choice. If I deleted it in front of him, he’d surely see the video of my pussy, right in his face. No doubt, I’d get kicked out of his class, and possibly the university. If I allowed him to take the phone, there was a chance he’d see it, anyway, but then he’d have to admit to having watched it. It boiled down to confessing what I’d done, or playing into the lie.
“Take it. I wasn’t recording intentionally. I dropped my phone and the record button accidentally went off. But if you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to take my phone.” Damn near sweating, I waited for the guy to call my bluff and ask, if it was so innocent, why not just show him?
Straightening, he stood over me in that authoritative stance of his, jaw flexing as if he were grinding his teeth right then. “Very well. I’ll return it at the end of the lab.”
The moment he walked away, I let out a shaky breath and returned to my seat.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!
As if life couldn’t get any shittier, I faced the possibility that my phone wouldn’t have locked right away and he’d watch the mortifying video, and of course, not say a word about it. Humiliation flared in my cheeks, and I wanted to collapse with the exhaustion of having to stress about that on top of everything else. Would he search for a reason to fail me? Or say to hell with invasion of privacy and view it, anyway, then turn me in for indecency?
Either way, my chances of finding out more about his research had just slipped through my hands.
Literally.
Another glance toward Spencer showed him flicking his brow, as if to ask what had happened. With a subtle shake of my head, I turned away from him, my eyes burning with tears while anger rose up into my throat. He wouldn’t have understood. None of them understood the desperation. Especially not Bramwell. I hated their perfect, little, privileged lives, where all they had to think about was what designer purse to pair with their outfit the next day.
Stop it, Lilia, my head chided. Just stop it.
I reluctantly dragged my attention back to Ross, desperate for distraction, but the monotony of his lecture only threw me back into the visuals of Bramwell watching what I’d done. All he’d have had to do was tap the screen to keep it from locking within that first two minutes. Would he have bothered? The questions battering my skull were endless.
My only saving grace might’ve been the man’s reputation. If the rumor behind the scars I saw on his neck were true, then surely he would never risk the accusation of another scandal with a student.