Chapter 50: Shining Knight or Damon-Bradley History

And here entered the hero.

Who needed Bad Convenience when you had guys like Bradley Ashcroft III volunteering to manufacture disasters for free?

Damon moved before Bradley’s second foot even finished losing its argument with gravity. Silent Step made his body feel ridiculously light, every reaction arriving half a second before he needed it, and the next he was already at Charlotte’s side...

...He caught Charlotte cleanly in his arms:

Damon’s arm swept around her; low at the waist, his fingers spreading possessive against the small of her back and yanked softly and sensual her sideways out of Bradley’s path, so softly she could see it happen in real time as he swept in a princess save.

He then pulled her into him, and the momentum spun them both until Charlotte’s balance simply gave up, her body tipped backward into a deep dip, making her spine bow over his forearm like it had been carved to fit there.

Her big round chest arched up and the shirt went tight across it... Damon discovered God had a system too, and it was showing off!

One of his legs planted behind him and one of hers slid out, searching for ground, finding nothing, the over-the-knee sock flashed that strip of bare thigh as her skirt shifted an inch higher than decency allowed.

Her hips pressed against his thigh... both of them noticed buh neither of them moved.

It looked like the final pose of a dance that felt like the first thirty seconds of a mistake.

Bradley stumbled through the empty space she’d vacated and nearly ate pavement.

Charlotte never saw it.

Her eyes were stayed locked on Damon.

His cap had died somewhere in the motion —ma honorable sacrifice — and his dark hair hung loose over his forehead as he bent over her. Close. Close enough that his breath moved over her mouth when he exhaled which would’ve been weird but her was soul snatched and that Manly Scent...

His other arm now cradled her from waist to shoulder blades, muscles drawn tight as a cable, and his other hand cupped the base of her neck, with his palm flat against her hot skin, fingers buried in the soft hair at her nape.

This is the first women he’d ever held so close... her body was so sift, she self so good and Damon was getting hard from just holding such a hot body and she didn’t seem to mind him?

Was he seeing that right?

Charlotte was fairly certain, now that she was paused in reality had never been touched like that by a student... not to mention in such a heroic pause.

Her pulse hammered under his thumb. He counted it to six beats in the first two seconds.

Her heart was racing and her body shivered slightly.

Weak Point Highlight, the glorious bastard, was still doing its job and red points lit up across his vision like a constellation designed by a pervert — her neck, the hollow behind her ear, her upper back, the dip of her waist, the unbearably soft give of her sides of her boobs — and two of his fingers found their marks and he pressed onto them:

"Mmm~"

Charlotte made a sound... it was half gasp, half something she would deny under oath but her lips parted around it and her lashes fluttered once.

It vanished under the noise of forty freshmen and Bradley’s creative swearing.

Damon heard every atom of it.

’Well. Hello there.’

He didn’t move his fingers that pressed onto her points and he just held them exactly where they were with the pressure steady, and her whole body gave the tiniest tremor against his arm.

’Oh, sweetheart. We’re just getting started.’

For two full seconds, Charlotte Ainsley’s world shrank to one catastrophic problem: Damon bowed over her, close enough to count lashes, dark hair falling forward, one arm locked around her like a shackle she didn’t want unlocked while his hand cradled her neck — and his fingertips rested precisely on two spots that were sending slow, hot sparks straight down her spine to places she was actively refusing to think about; she had nearly moaned.

Her breath came shallow and quick and her chest rose against the straining shirt buttons with every one of them.

His eyes dropped to her mouth and stayed there.

Charlotte felt the look land like a touch, and her lips — traitorous, professional reputation be damned — parted a fraction wider.

The green of her eyes had gone huge, pupils blown, not with fear but with something much more dangerous like feeling a sudden and fleeting attraction for the student and pleasure that he’d caused for two seconds.

Damon nearly laughed out loud.

’Knight in shining armor. Damsel in distress. Swept off her feet, back arched, pulse sprinting, thighs pressed together like she’s holding a secret. This system isn’t cheating. This system is a co-conspirator.’

Then he noticed something even better.

Charlotte was gripping his shirt.

At some point her hand had knotted into the cotton over his chest sometime during the fall, and her fist clenched tight, knuckles pressed flat against the muscle underneath, and she was still holding on — long past the point where the fall justified it and where anything justified it except the simple fact that she wanted something to hold.

He could feel the heat of her through the shirt. Her knuckles flexed once. A tiny, unconscious squeeze.

’She’s anchoring herself. On me.’

Damon’s gaze dropped to her hand, slow, deliberate, making absolutely sure she watched him notice.

Charlotte followed his eyes down and a blush hit her like a detonation on her cheeks, throat, the upper bare cleavage of her chest where it disappeared into the shirt, all of it flooding pink in a wave he could watch happen.

She ripped her hand back like the cotton had burned her.

’Oh, that’s so cute.’

For a woman whose tits had nearly deleted his knowledge of the word "orientation," the rest of her was turning out to be criminally undersold and she was is fucking adorable. The way she’d melted over his arm and made that moan sound, the grip and the way she was still breathing too fast, lips soft, eyes flicking between his mouth and his eyes like she was trying to solve him.

Professional Charlotte Ainsley had a melting point, and it was sitting under his two fingers on the side of her neck.

And he hadn’t even moved them yet.

Bradley’s voice crashed in like a brick through a stained-glass window:

"Shit, Ms. Charlotte, I’m sorry. I tripped."

’I will end you. There were at least five more seconds of that coming and you ruined it. Just because you built me the opportunity doesn’t mean you get to ruin the best part.’

Damon brought Charlotte upright slowly — decently slowly with his forearm flexing under her shoulders, her body unrolling against his, inch by inch, her chest dragging up his front with a friction neither of them acknowledged and both of them memorized.

Her hair had fallen across her face but Charlotte didn’t fix it but her chest was rising and falling a lot faster than a near-collision explained, and when she found her feet she was standing close enough that her skirt hem whispered against his thigh.

She didn’t step back.

He celebrated quietly.

His hands settled on her waist just to steady her, obviously, pure chivalry, a public service — and Weak Point Highlight lit up one more spot, low on her waist, right where her shirt tucked tight and the warmth of her radiated through the cotton.

His palm pressed it... for some reasons, Charlotte went rigid an she didn’t hate it, she instead then leaned; a tiny helpless tilt of her hips toward the pressure of pleasure before she caught herself, lips pressing together hard, and her green eyes flicking away, pretending with everything she had that absolutely nothing had just happened.

Her breathing disagreed. Loudly.

"Careful," murmured Damon, low and with care he’d never showed to anyone so it was only for her and he was so close enough that the words touched her cheek with that scent she found unable to get enough of. "The ground’s aggressive today."

Encouraged, his thumb moved once against her waist on her ero point ; a ghost of a stroke, deniable and unforgivable.

Her breath stopped and she looked up at him.

’Good,’ he thought, already walking away like an innocent man. ’She’ll feel that for the rest of the tour.’

Damon let go.

Mostly.

He stepped half in front of her before facing Bradley, close enough that one side of his body still shielded Charlotte from him.

And that was when Bradley finally got a proper look at Damon’s face.

He stopped and his easy grin disappeared so quickly it was almost funny. One cautious step went backward, then another, before Bradley seemed to remember there were forty people standing around him and forced himself to stop retreating.

"V-Viremont?"

Two boys several feet behind Bradley reacted almost at the same time; one straightened immediately and the other took a short step backward before catching himself.

Damon noticed all three.

Bradley’s eyes snapped toward them, and the look he gave them was sharp enough to carry an entire conversation without anybody opening their mouth: "Why the fuck didn’t either of you tell me Viremont was here?"

One of the boys gave the tiniest irritated shrug: "We didn’t fucking know he was here either."

The second boy looked away completely.

Damon almost smiled.

Whatever history sat between the four of them, apparently none of the three had forgotten it. And judging by the way Bradley had just backed up twice while his boys suddenly discovered an intense interest in not attracting Damon’s attention, none of those memories were particularly fucking pleasant in their memory.