Chapter 417: 417 | Professor Monroe’s Practical Exam
Addison’s breath caught. Her chest rose and fell faster against the black lace that struggled to contain it.
"You’re not here just because you want to save me." I leaned closer. Close enough that my lips brushed her ear when I spoke. "You’re here because you want someone to take the weight off your shoulders. To make the decisions for you. To tell you what to do instead of having to figure everything out yourself. You’re exhausted from being strong all the time. From being the scary one. The violent one. The one who keeps everyone else at arm’s length because getting close means getting hurt."
"That’s not." She swallowed. "That’s not true."
"Isn’t it?"
My free hand found the clasp of her bra. A simple hook and eye mechanism that gave way under my fingers without resistance. The fabric loosened across her chest and she inhaled sharply, her body tensing as gravity took over and the strapless construction began to fail.
"I see you, Addison." I pulled the bra away and let it drop to the desk beside us. Her breasts spilled free, pale skin and dark nipples already hardening in the climate-controlled air of the imaginary classroom. Larger than they’d looked contained by the lace. Fuller. The kind of body that made people forget how to speak. "I see the girl who reads shojo manga with her best friend and dreams about dramatic confessions. I see the poet who writes about darkness because she’s afraid of the light. I see the woman who wants so badly to be loved that she’s built walls around herself to protect against the disappointment of never being enough."
Her lower lip trembled. Just slightly. Just enough.
"You’re enough." I kissed her forehead. "You’re more than enough."
She made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob. Her hands came up to grip my shoulders and her nails dug in hard enough to hurt, anchoring herself to my body like I was the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly turned liquid.
I kissed the corner of her eye where mascara had started to run. I kissed her cheekbone. Her jaw. The spot just below her ear where her pulse hammered against thin skin. She shivered with each contact, tiny tremors running through her body like aftershocks.
My mouth found her breast.
The sensation of my lips closing around her nipple made her gasp. Her fingers tightened in my hair, pulling me closer rather than pushing me away, and the permission implicit in that motion made something warm bloom in my chest that had nothing to do with the System.
She tasted like skin and salt and something faintly sweet that might have been her perfume or might have been something else entirely. I traced circles with my tongue while my hand cupped her other breast, feeling the weight of her settle into my palm. She arched her back, pushing more of herself toward my mouth, and the whimper that escaped her throat was nothing like the aggressive woman who’d stormed into my hospital room demanding answers.
This was the real Addison. The one beneath the armor. The one who wanted so desperately to be touched and held and cherished that she’d built an entire personality around being too dangerous to approach.
Essence Extraction activated without conscious thought.
The warmth that spread through her body was immediate and visible. Her pale skin flushed pink from her chest to her hairline. Her nipples hardened further against my tongue and palm. And something else happened, something the System had promised but I’d never fully believed until this moment.
She started to lactate.
The first taste was sweet. Richer than anything I’d experienced with Naomi or Belle, carrying undertones of something darker and more complex. Like honey mixed with espresso. Like midnight and cherries and the moment before a storm breaks.
[You drink a mouthful of milk from a Silver-tier target. As a result, you get 50 points!]
[FIRST SESSION BONUS ACTIVE]
The notification blazed across my vision but I barely registered it. Addison was making sounds that went straight to my hindbrain, wordless vocalizations of pleasure and shock and something that sounded almost like relief. Her hips moved against me in small unconscious circles.
"What." Her voice came out broken. Fragmented. "What is. Oh god. What are you doing to me?"
I didn’t answer with words. I answered by drinking deeper.
Her essence flowed into me like liquid gold. Each mouthful added to my lifespan counter, the numbers climbing from one day to one day and six hours to one day and twelve hours. The death clock that had been counting down toward zero started counting up instead, buying back the time I’d sacrificed to kill a dimensional guardian.
[You drink a mouthful of milk from a Silver-tier target. As a result, you get 50 points!]
[LIFESPAN: 1D 18H 22M]
Addison’s back arched so sharply I thought she might pull a muscle. Her legs wrapped around my waist and pulled me closer, her body acting on instinct while her conscious mind tried to process sensations it had no framework for understanding.
"Don’t stop." The words came out somewhere between a command and a plea. "Please. Whatever you’re doing. Don’t stop."
I switched to her other breast. Fresh essence, different somehow. Slightly sweeter. Carrying emotional notes I couldn’t quite identify but which hit my tongue like the first bite of a perfect dessert.
[You drink a mouthful of milk from a Silver-tier target. As a result, you get 50 points!]
[LIFESPAN: 2D 0H 14M]
Two days. I’d bought myself two days just from what I’d consumed so far, and Addison showed no signs of running dry. Her body produced essence like a wellspring, and each time I drank she seemed to overflow with more.
"This is." She gasped. Shuddered. Her nails left scratches down my back that would probably still be there when the healer finished with me. "This is insane. This is completely insane. How is this. How are you making me feel like this?"
I pulled back just enough to answer.
"Magic." I grinned at her through lips wet with her essence. "Literal actual magic."
She laughed. It sounded drunk. Happy. Like someone who’d been carrying a weight for years and had finally been allowed to set it down.
"Teach me more." She pulled me back toward her chest. "Professor Monroe. I’m a very dedicated student. I want to learn everything."
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