Free Particles of Obsession (A Shadow of Death Romantic Suspense Book 2) by Charlotte Raine Page B

about you. I trusted you enough to tell you how I felt and what I wanted to happen with those other students. I’d never tell those kinds of things to Dr. Zimmer. He couldn’t ever understand me the way that you do. He’s not like us. We both have that bit of darkness in us and he doesn’t, so even if I was in love with him, we wouldn’t be compatible. He would reject me and I could never be happy with him. It’s always been you. You will always be more important to me than he is.”
    He crossed his arms over his chest, turning away from me.
    “Then, we’re not going to go see your professor,” he said. “I don’t want you see him again.”
    “I have a class with him next semester,” I said.
    “You need to drop out of that class,” he said. “In fact, with how unhappy classes are making you, I think it would make sense for you to drop out of college completely. You had mentioned that you were thinking about it. You’re not even sure how you’re going to pay for your books and shit next year.”
    I nodded. When I had mentioned that to him, I had been at a low point—grades lower than I had expected, no recognition in any of my classes, and the one friend I had made here had dropped out after her father died, but it did make sense. I came here to get experience—a degree in English with a concentration in creative writing wasn’t going to exactly open up doors for me in the job market, so my intentions were purely to learn, absorb, and expand my mind with new concepts. But, honestly, I hadn’t learned anything. Everything in college had been busy work and I felt like I was keeping my nose to the grindstone for a useless piece of paper they would hand to me at graduation, where my parents wouldn’t even care enough to show up.
    “I will absolutely do that if you think that’s what’s best for me,” I said. “All I care about is you. I just…you know how I felt about these other students. They’re trash, but they’re treated like treasures. It has nothing to do with my professor.”
    He set his hand on my shoulder and slid it up to my neck. With his fingertips pressing against my skin, he pulled me closer to him, kissing me so hard that it felt like he was still angry and trying to leave a circle of bruises around my mouth.
    He pulled down his jeans and boxers in one movement. He grabbed me around the waist and carried me over to the sofa. He dropped me onto it and quickly draped himself over me, his kissing more insistent than before. He yanked up my white dress—the hem of it draping itself over my throat—and pushed inside of me. I closed my eyes. He would never be able to see I had my eyes closed the whole time because his face is pressed against my chest, rubbing between my breasts with each thrust.
    It would never be like this with John Zimmer. He would kiss me into tiny, joy-filled pieces and then put me back together. I just had to make him see that.

Chapter Seven

Mira
    T here are two police cars in front of Costume Artillery . I can see Detective Macmillan, but not Detective Stolz. She could be busy with searching for me, but I can’t be certain. I pull my hood up and get closer to Macmillan.
    “The costume shop closes during the winter,” Macmillan says to another officer. “This was a good place to kill somebody.”
    “This is the fifth student murder in the last two weeks,” the officer says, shaking his head. “You’re certain that this Alex Shirokov was the one who murdered Glassman and Pine?”
    “Yeah, all the evidence was in his secret apartment, along with Andre Fortier’s body,” Macmillan says. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
    “Do you think it could be Solano?”
    I wince at my name, taking a few steps back.
    “No,” he says. “I mean, killing Shirokov makes sense, but why would she kill this girl?”
    “Maybe she was involved in a way that we don’t know yet,” the officer says.
    I wander away from the two of them. So, there’s a girl’s body in