A/N: Thanks for reading and to those of you who've told me you're enjoying the read. It is really great of you to take the time to do so.
Chapter 7
Raven met Phillip a week later. She was still busy stewing about her seeming inability to reconcile arousal and concentration when she bumped into him, literally.
"Oh God. I'm sorry." She said, immediately bending down to pick up the papers scattered across the first floor hallway where Charles's office was located.
"No, I'm sorry. I was really excited and I wasn't paying attention, and oh I think I ruined your lunch." The man gestured to the brown bag Raven had been carrying that now contained spilled soup and a bunch of soaked croissants.
"It's not a problem." Raven said, shaking her head.
"No, there's no excuse for my clumsiness, really. The least I can do is replace your lunch?" He was about twenty years old and cute, in a non-conventional way.
Charles was waiting for her, hungry and eager to tell her about whatever he'd been working on. She bit her lip and smiled at the stranger. "Ok, I'll come."
He bought her a sandwich at a cart and they sat on a bench and ate while he told her about his latest chemistry class. He was smart and tended to get carried away with his own brilliant ideas, gesturing a lot with his hands and lecturing to her as though he was teaching a class. Raven liked him and she blushed as she realized she just might have a type.
When they finished, she bought another sandwich from the vendor and walked back towards the science building. Phillip looked questionably at her food but walked her back anyway, asking her questions about her job and complimenting her on her cute American accent.
"Well Phillip, thanks again. It was nice to meet you." Raven said, taking his hand and shaking it.
"Nice to meet you, Raven." He agreed, blushing as she experimentally brushed her thumb over the back of his hand.
Charles's timing was perfect as always. "I thought I heard your voice out here. I'm famished! What'd you bring me?" He grabbed the purse off of Raven's shoulder and began digging through it nonchalantly as he walked back into his office.
Phillip looked at her, hurt. "Oh, I didn't-" he began.
Raven glared at the back of Charles's head. "No, no. Come here." She tugged on his arm and pulled him into the office. "This is just Charles." She explained. He appeared unmoved. "My brother."
She watched Phillip's face shift and his expression melt and she suddenly understood exactly why Charles introduced her that way. No one else could understand what they were to each other and this, it was so much easier.
"Oh ok. Well maybe I'll see you around again soon." Phillip's smile was bright as he walked back out of the office and down the hall.
She turned to Charles. He was seated back at his desk, cardigan unbuttoned, sandwich already half consumed, and he was flipping the pages of his textbook again.
She rolled her eyes at his single-mindedness. She turned back to her purse, digging around for the cookies she had stashed in there for him as well. She looked up in surprise as Charles spoke.
"See, told you that you were stunning."
She did see Phillip around again after all. He was sitting in that same hallway reading through notes when she and Charles barreled in laughing late the next night. Charles had just turned in the final draft of his paper and he was driving her nuts recounting the flaws he knew his professors would see in it and Raven had talked him into a movie to shut up him and his nerves. She then had somehow talked him into letting her pick it. As a result, instead of a pretentious foreign film, they'd stuffed themselves with popcorn while watching a monster movie. When it was over, Charles had insisted he needed another book from his office, and he spent the entire walk to campus quoting the scientists mockingly and then explaining why they were inaccurate.
Phillip stumbled through an awkward hello when he caught sight of her and Charles looked surprised, his arm dropping from around her waist. Charles pushed her towards Phillip before slipping inside his office and locking the door behind him.
"Traitor." She muttered, absolutely certain that Charles was on the other side of the door listening.
In the end, she and Phillip arranged to meet for lunch the next day with minimum awkwardness and Charles bustled her back towards their apartment shortly thereafter. On the way, he slipped his hand through hers, intertwining their fingers and squeezing her palm.
"Phillip seems like a good guy and you deserve that. You deserve everything in the world, everything good. You deserve to be so happy." He said quietly.
"Thank you." She returned quietly.
He took a deep breath. "You're the most important person in the world to me." He began again haltingly. "You are everything to me. You're the only person who loves me and you're the only person I love. And being that person just know, I'd never let anyone hurt you." He paused. "Not even me."
"Charles-" Raven began cautiously.
He smiled at her a little sadly. "He's a good guy." He repeated. He brought her hand up to his palm and kissed it. "Let's go home."
So Raven dated Phillip. He was nice and polite and absolutely worshipped Charles. The three seemed to spend evening after evening together laughing uproariously. She probably shouldn't have been surprised. Everyone loved Charles. Why would her first boyfriend be any different?
Well, if he were her first boyfriend. It was hard to tell. He held her hand when he led her to her seat in a restaurant and when he walked her home. But Charles did that too. Phillip pressed closed mouthed kisses goodnight to her that didn't feel much different from the ones Charles typically offered her before bedtime. The one time she'd opened her mouth against Phillip, he'd blushed furiously and fumbled backwards, mumbling out an excuse. She would have been offended had she not also caught sight of the shadow of an erection tenting his pants.
She found his reaction thrilling. Phillip was shy and maybe a little old fashioned and she could tell he found her daring and maybe even occasionally inappropriate. It made her feel like a bad girl in the best way. When they went out she wore short skirts and was sure to cross her legs just so, delighting as she waited for Phillip (or sometimes even Charles) to notice. She loved the way the gaze lingered, half acknowledged.
Raven had never before realized the power of her female sexuality. Each averted gaze, each nervous shift, each instance of quickening breath fed her ego. She brushed her arms and her thighs against Phillip when they sat next to each other and she thrust her chest forward whenever he leaned into her body. She drank in his embarrassment, but even more, the desire she saw underneath those blushes. Even nice guys couldn't control their emotions all the time. Charles had taught her that.
Ultimately though, a boyfriend who was playing hard to get was frustrating. Teasing was entertaining, sure, but it didn't come close to satisfying the burning fire of curiosity inside of her.
Her nighttime experiments had become more than habitual. She seemed to spend every night with her nightgown hitched up and her fingers sticky, and she was left itching and on edge most of the time. She wanted so badly to be touched, to feel the hard press of an erection between her hips again. But Phillip wouldn't even stick his tongue in her mouth.
It seemed like the hundredth time Raven, Charles, and Phillip had drank a few rounds at the pub (well cola for her under Charles's watchful gaze). Charles was presenting his dissertation in the morning and had insisted on an early evening so they headed home well before last call. As had already become custom, Charles bid them adieu on the front step to say their goodnights and had gone inside. As he always did, Phillip leaned forward to put an arm around her waist and kiss her sweetly.
Raven had spent most of the night squeezed in between two hard male bodies that had gotten progressively friendlier as the evening progressed. Phillip had draped a casual arm around her shoulder and Charles, in fact, had even spent the last hour with his hand on her thigh beneath their table. She was understandably keyed up. "Come inside." She whispered against his lips.
"What?" Phillip's voice was loud in the dark and Raven sighed.
"Nevermind." She said. "I just thought you might want to come in."
Phillip blushed. "We're not married though."
Raven's arousal immediately melted away as she was bombarded with images of baby diapers and casseroles and herself in an apron. "Ok, good night."
Phillip looked confused. "Good night!" he said to her retreating back.
Raven sighed again as she closed the apartment door behind her.
"What's wrong?" Charles asked, looking up at her from where he was stretched across the couch with a book on his chest. "Did Phillip do something?"
Raven flushed in embarrassment and irritation. "No, he definitely didn't do anything. Not at all." she grumbled.
Charles laughed. "And that's bad?"
"I dunno." She said with a shake of her head. Raven dropped her jacket on the floor and kicked off her heels before stretching out beside Charles on the couch, sliding her hands up his chest and resting her chin over them.
"Well cuddling is always good I suppose." He wrapped an arm around her back, his fingers gently pulling on her blonde curls. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
She shook her head again. "Read to me."
Charles chuckled. "You don't think you're getting a bit old for that routine?"
She lifted her head. "I'd still get in bed with you every single night if you'd let me." She winked.
He blushed furiously and shifted. "Raven-"
"Don't tease me then." She returned. "And read."
Charles cleared his throat and began his book again.
Though he started somewhere in the middle, it took Raven only a paragraph to recognize the book. He'd read her Frankenstein probably half a dozen times when they were growing up, usually in October to set the mood for Halloween. The scary passages had always given her an excuse to snuggle close to him and bury her face in his neck but truthfully Raven had always felt empathy for the monster, never fear.
Tonight though, she heard but didn't listen, letting her best friend's voice wash over her, the words blurring together. His fingers had stopped pulling at her curls and were now stroking absently across her neck and over her ear lobes in the particular way she had always loved. She closed her eyes and wriggled around like a contented cat, murmuring her appreciation with a grunt. She felt his chuckle reverberate in his chest.
Raven giggled back and swung a leg over his hip to snuggle him even closer to her. She froze as her long lean thigh came in contact with the hard heat of a straining cock. Charles gasped, his recitation faltering only momentarily as he reached down to push her leg away from him.
"Er hem" He cleared his throat. "But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be realised. What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. It is true we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another."
She rolled her eyes at his denial and experimentally pushed slid her leg back up, brushing over his groin gently and smiling triumphantly when his erection jerked in response.
"Raven!" he hissed.
She bit her lip. "Just. . .keep reading."
He looked at her warily but began to recite again. Raven pushed herself up onto her knees and carefully straddled him, settling herself gently over him so that the crotch of her underwear was pressed against the bulge in his trousers. He took a sharp breath but she didn't move any further and he began to stutter out the lines of the book again.
Raven took a few deep shuddering breaths to steady her nerves but her heart only beat more quickly, her fingers shaking on her spread thighs. They were both unnaturally still, seemingly afraid that breathing too heavily might break the moment. He reached the end of a chapter and paused.
"Keep going." She croaked out. The press of his cock against her had made her dripping wet and she could feel how soaked through her panties were. She knew that if and when Charles made her move that she'd leave behind a wet spot on his trousers and her face burned red at the thought.
Charles began another chapter and at the same time, agonizingly slowly he began to rock his hips upward. Raven gasped and instinctively leaned forward slightly, bracing one palm against his chest as she rotated her hips to meet him. Charles gulped and the barest trace of a grin chased across his lips. Encouraged, he immediately quickened his pace, seeming to tune out Raven's small panting breaths as he continued to read. Raven rocked more quickly in response, pressing her hips down to his as she rolled her hips in a small circle. "Fuck." She hissed.
Raven swore she felt his erection swell even more beneath her at her curse and she moaned. Charles grabbed her by the hip to steady her and pushed himself hard against her, snapping his hips like he was really truly fucking her. He pronounced the words of the story in a sharp staccato rhythm. "I. swear. By the. Sun. and by the. Blue sky. Of. Heaven."
"More." She bit out.
Charles dropped his hand from her hip and moved to push up the fabric of the front of her skirt. He brushed his thumb against her through her panties and cursed at the feeling of how wet she was through the fabric.
"Yes. Please." Raven whimpered.
Taking a deep steadying breath, Charles began to circle her clit slowly, applying only light pressure. Raven squirmed against his fingers.
He began again. "and by the fire of love that burns my heart"
"Not enough." She whined loudly, placing her hand over his to try and guide his fingers to ease the ache.
Charles looked up at her through hooded eyes, seeming to search her face. "Fuck it." He finally declared, throwing the book aside and grabbing her by the hips to flip them over. He spread her legs wide as she landed on her back and pressed himself between them, thrusting against her roughly. Raven moaned and grabbed him by the head, curling her fingers into the hair on his neck and pulling him down to look her in the eye, their faces only inches apart. She felt his warm breath ghosting over her lips and Raven desperately wanted to kiss him again.
Just then, Charles slid his hand between them again to toy with her clit once more, pinching it softly as he thrust up and into the v of her legs, the rough feel of his fabric chafing her thighs.
Raven felt a painful tightening deep in her stomach and she began to shake. This only seemed to encourage Charles who kept up the rhythmic pace against her underwear and began to suck at her neck. "Good girl." He murmured. "Feels good, right? Just a little bit more. Come on. Let go. Let go."
All of a sudden Raven felt her body seize up and she spasmed hard a few times as a wave of pleasure pulsated through her. It was hard to describe but it left her gasping and more relaxed than she could ever remember feeling.
Charles was laying gentle kisses across her breastbone when she opened her eyes again. "Hello." He said with a smirk, tongue darting out to lick a strip across a blue scale. She shivered at the sensation before tensing.
"Wait, I'm blue." She cried, struggling to sit up.
Charles held her down. "That you are. I think you turned the second you orgasmed. Fascinating, isn't it?"
Raven looked small and uncertain. "You're not disgusted?"
Charles laughed. "Flattered if anything. The last time we, you know, I thought you turned because I'd frightened you. But I watched your face the whole time. You definitely didn't look frightened." He paused and considered. "Though turning blue for Phillip might not be a great idea."
Raven blushed and then felt sick as an echo of something she recognized as guilt washed over her. "Right."
Charles looked hesitant. "Are you ok?"
She nodded. "I am."
"Ok." He kissed her gently, chastely, on the lips and stood. "I'm gonna get in the shower. Take care of this." He gestured vaguely down to the comical jut of his erection in his trousers and blushed.
Raven couldn't help the giggle that escaped. "I could" she offered vaguely.
He shook his head. "It's fine. I think we've had quite enough excitement for tonight and I have to get up for the big day tomorrow anyway."
Raven nodded. "That's right, Professor."
He blushed again, shaking his head. "Good night."
Her yellow eyes followed him as he walked into the bathroom. She wasn't sure how or why things had shifted but when it came to Charles, Raven suddenly felt like the possibilities were endless.
