Never Fall in Love Again: A Forbidden Student/Professor Romance, page 1
Never Fall in Love Again
A Forbidden Student/Professor Romance
Violet Broadbridge
Copyright © 2023 by Violet Broadbridge
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Published by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
Contents
Author’s Notes
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
Never Fall in Love Again is an erotic novel and may be inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18.
This story contains content and references that might be troubling for some readers, including, but not limited to, sexually explicit content, violence, kidnapping, crime, death, suicide, and alcoholism.
Please be mindful of these and any other possible triggers before you continue reading.
Prologue
Damien
After another long day at the bureau, I finally get home around midnight and pull my car into the driveway of our little one-story home. The sputtering engine comes to a stop, but I sit in the car for a few extra seconds, just looking up at the house. It was in near-perfect condition when we bought it, but now the light blue siding is a little dingy, and the wood framing around some of the windows is beginning to crack and split in some spots. I’ve been promising Sara for weeks now that I’ll get around to fixing things up, but I’ve just been so busy with work recently that I haven’t had the chance to follow through. Sara never brings it up though, despite the fact that I’m sure she’s bothered by all of my empty promises.
The moon is high in the sky already, and it’s much later than I said I’d be home, but I can see a warm yellow light glowing from inside the living room window. I always tell her not to wait up for me, but I can’t deny that I love seeing her face at the end of the day—especially on days like today.
I reach for the jacket that I tossed haphazardly onto the passenger seat when I left work, folding it over my forearm before getting out of the car. My leather shoes hit the stone walkway, and the sound of my steps seems louder in the quiet of our sleeping neighbourhood, so I try my best to be light-footed as I walk up the front porch steps.
I fish inside my pocket for my keys, hooking the keyring with my middle finger before pulling them out. I unlock the door and carefully push it open, trying to make sure my keychain doesn’t hit the metal handle and cause a stir in the silence, but the hinges squeak as the door slowly swings inward. I wince and take a mental note to oil the hinges—I’ll add it onto the list of home repairs I need to do once I have the time.
The dim light from within the house floods the dark porch as I step over the threshold, and I can hear the TV in the living room. It sounds like it’s playing some kind of infomercial where the host is way too expressive and excitable about whatever garbage they’re selling. I close the front door gently behind me and slip off my shoes before walking toward the sound.
The only thing that’s illuminating the room aside from the TV on the far wall is the Buffet lamp on the end-table next to our brown Chesterfield couch. From the archway I can only see the back of the couch and at first glance it looks like the room is empty, but as I walk further in and lean over the back cushions, I find Sara lying on one of the decorative throw pillows. She’s curled up like a cat with her legs tucked up to her chest, and she’s wrapped herself snuggly in a pink knit blanket. I can’t help but smile at how content and comfortable she looks as she sleeps, and I lean down over the cushions and plant a kiss on the side of her forehead.
Her light blue eyes flutter open, and when she looks up and sees my face, she smiles sleepily and stretches her arms in the air, reaching up at me like a tired child. The fabric pattern of the couch is imprinted on her cheek, and if I had to guess, I’d say she’s been asleep here for a while. She rubs her eyes with her fingertips and blinks a few times as she slowly sits up.
“Mm, what time is it?” she asks mid-yawn.
“Late,” I smile, smoothing down her frizzy black curls with my palm. She wraps her hand around the back of my neck and pulls me down lower for a kiss. I sigh when she pulls her lips away from mine. “How come you’re not in bed?” I ask, laying my jacket over the back of the couch cushions.
She stretches out her legs as she sits up. “I don’t know… after I put Claire to bed, I started watching some TV, but I guess I dozed off,” she says, reluctantly standing up from the couch. She folds up the knitted blanket that she had draped over her and sets it down on the armrest before looking back up at me. “How was work?”
I sigh and rake my fingers through my already tousled hair. I can feel the crumbly remanence of the hair gel that I put in this morning, but all of its stiffness is long gone now, and wavy strands are hanging over my forehead. Sara can probably tell from my reaction that my day wasn’t great, and she walks around the couch, wrapping her arms around my waist from beside me.
“They found another kid today… down by the river,” I say quietly as I slip my arm around her back and rest my chin on the top of her head.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on a stressful case at work. I didn’t want to give Sara all the details, but it’s been all over every local news station. She’s smart, and she connected the dots herself when the FBI got involved in the case and I started working a lot later than usual.
“I saw that on the news earlier,” Sara frowns as she pulls away from me and walks to the fridge. She pulls a beer bottle out of the fridge and pops the top off with the bottle opener magnet that we keep on our freezer door. “Are they sure it’s the same guy?” she asks as she walks back to the living room and hands me the bottle.
I take the beer and nod before I take a sip. “Same M.O.,” I tell her. “Feels like every time we get close, he slips right between our fingers…”
Since late December last year, kids have been going missing from all over the city. They noticed a pattern after the first three kids were all found dead exactly seven days after they were taken, and the FBI was called in to investigate. The team I’m on has been assigned to the case since then, but it still feels like we’re often a few steps behind this guy. It's been about three months since the murders started, and the boy found in the river today is the thirteenth victim. With every kid we lose, it only hinders everyone’s moral. It honestly feels like we haven’t made any progress lately.
Most serial killers follow some sort of distinct pattern; their victims usually share some kind of similarities, or they take them from a certain type of place where they feel they’ll have the most control. This guy, however, is way too random to profile. He kidnaps kids, but their ages don’t seem to matter to him. He’s taken toddlers as young as two and kids as old as seven, and they all come from different ethnic backgrounds and their families are all from different social statuses. They’re taken from public places like parks and malls, but also places that are supposed to be safe for kids, like schools and their own front yards.
The only thing that connects all of these kidnappings and murders together is that the kids are always found exactly a week after they’ve gone missing—all drained almost completely of their blood. Their bodies are left in secluded or abandoned locations, posed so that they’re lying on the ground with their hands crossed over their chests as if they’ve been laid to rest in a coffin. The way the kids are posed, and the draining of their blood has persuaded the locals to nickname the killer ‘the Vampire’.
“I hope you catch this guy soon,” Sara whispers. “I can’t imagine what all of those families are going through… losing their kids like that.”
I brush her hair back from her face and kiss her forehead. “Try not to think about it too
“I know you will; it’s what you do,” She smiles softly and stands on her toes as she grips the collar of my shirt to pull me closer to her. “I’m going to go to bed,” she says, giving me a quick kiss on the lips. “Don’t stay up too late, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper.
As she lets me go and walks past the front door and down the hallway, I watch her hips sway in her little flannel shorts. I consider following her right then and there to the bedroom, but I can tell she’s exhausted and I could also use some time to wind down before heading to bed.
If he sticks to his timeline, another kid will be taken within the next twenty-four hours. The chief wants everyone to be ready for the call when the next kid goes missing so we can try to avoid losing another one, so I feel like I can’t let myself really relax tonight. I sit on the couch and change the channel to the news as I sip my beer. Of course, the only story that any channel is reporting these days is about the case.
“More tragic news in Thornberry today as four-year-old Grayson Thomas’s body was found under the Northland River bridge. Grayson is speculated as the thirteenth victim of the Vampire, but the police have not yet confirmed this information.”
I sigh and sink into the couch as I listen to the reporter. We always tell them not to give these people names because it just makes them more confident and powerful, but they never listen—something about putting a name to a killer catches people’s attention. Every local news outlet is talking about the Vampire now like he’s an old urban legend, but he’s not supernatural; he’s just a fucked up human being.
“With the Vampire still roaming through our streets, locals are terrified to take their eyes off of their children. The police are asking that we stay vigilant, but everyone has the same questions on their minds: Who is the Vampire, and when will the children of Thornberry be safe again?”
Honestly, I’ve been asking myself those questions too. I feel like I’ve been wracking my brain for weeks on end trying to find a way to take this guy down. Wherever he goes, he leaves no traces behind, and he doesn’t seem to want anything from the kids’ parents like money either. We can only assume he’s doing this because he’s a sociopath who just gets off on this kind of thing, but unfortunately, that doesn’t help track him down at all.
Once I’ve drank the last of my beer, I turn off the TV and the lamp before standing up from the couch. I walk quietly to the kitchen with the empty bottle, placing it gently into the bottom of the recycling bin next to the fridge so it doesn’t make any noise.
When our daughter, Claire, turned four last December, she started sleeping in her own room for most of the night. She sleeps through the night for the most part, but sometimes noises will still scare her awake and she’ll try to climb into bed with Sara and me. She’ll come into our bedroom and tug on my hand to wake me up. Sara is always telling me to try and take her back to her own bed, but the scared look on her face is enough to melt my heart. I usually end up raising the comforter for her to climb under and she’ll squeeze herself between the two of us.
She knows I’ll always protect her; she’s my baby girl, no matter how old she gets.
After I lay the bottle flat in the recycling bin, I step in front of the fridge and open the door, browsing the shelves for some leftovers. It looks like Sara made roast chicken legs and rice earlier today, and she’s wrapped up my plate in plastic wrap, leaving it on the top shelf for me to find. I haven’t been home as much as I’d like to be recently, but she understands why; it’s hard to pull myself away when there’s so much at stake.
As the light from the fridge illuminates the dark kitchen, I hear the distinct sound of glass shattering. I straighten my back and jerk my head toward the recycling bin. My first thought is that the beer bottle I put there must have broken somehow, but it’s still completely intact exactly where I placed it. I close the refrigerator door carefully and quietly before I walk toward the hallway in search of where the noise could have come from.
Maybe Sara knocked something over—like a glass of water or a picture frame from her bedside table?
I freeze in place when our bedroom door opens, and Sara pokes her head out into the hall. She meets my eyes as she clutches her fuzzy white robe closed against her chest.
“Damien?” she asks in a whisper. “Did you break something?”
“No…” I say, picking up my pace as I turn down the hallway to Claire’s bedroom. I have this feeling in my stomach that’s telling me to hurry—and I’ve learned to trust my gut.
So, I run.
I can hear Sara’s footsteps following behind me until I reach Claire’s bedroom door. My fingers wrap around the doorknob, and I turn it quickly, pushing it open rougher than I intended to and making it bounce off the rubber door stop on the bottom of the wall. My heart stops when I see the glass shards scattered across the carpeted floor by her window.
A single windowpane is broken at the bottom, and the latch has been unlocked, leaving the window swinging open in the late-night breeze. The small toddler-sized bed is empty, and her purple quilted comforter is sprawled across the foot of the bed; like it was ripped right off of her.
“Claire!”
Sara’s ear-splitting scream echoes through the open window and out into the street. She turns and runs down the hall and I follow her to the front door as she wails Claire’s name over and over. The neighbours have turned on their porch lights and some have come outside in their slippers and housecoats to see what’s going on. Sara is running barefoot down the street, asking anyone and everyone that she encounters if they’ve seen even a glimpse of our little girl.
I’m too deep in shock to have any kind of reaction, so I put myself into work mode, pulling my phone from my pants pocket and dialling 9-1-1. The world feels like it’s spinning around me, making me nauseous, but I try to look around for something—anything—that might lead us in her direction. There are no suspicious cars parked on the street, and none of the neighbours seem to know what’s going on either.
She’s just vanished—exactly like all the other kids.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the operator asks when the line finally connects.
“This is FBI Agent Damien Clarke. My daughter was just taken from my home,” I say, trying to remain calm as I give her my address. “Please, send Chief Trevor Morgan, immediately.”
“Sorry, Agent Clarke, Chief Morgan is out on another call,” she tells me. “I can send another unit to your location—”
“No, I need the Chief!” I tell her sternly. “Tell him that this could be related to the recent murders.”
I can hear her breath hitch through the phone speaker. “You mean… the Vampire?”
“Yes, please hurry!” I say before hanging up.
Without another thought, my fingers start dialling my friend Spencer’s number. He’s an officer, and we used to be partners when I worked on the police force. The line only rings once before Spencer’s voice comes through.
“Damien? Little late, isn’t it?”
I can hear his car’s engine in the background, and I figure he must be driving home from the police station.
“Spencer…” My voice starts to crack as I finally let my emotions come out. “It’s Claire, she…”
“I’m on my way,” he says without hesitation. “Stay where you are.” I hear the sound of his car revving its engine before he hangs up. In the distance, I can also hear police sirens quickly approaching.
When I finally come to my senses and look around for Sara, I spot her a few houses down. One of our neighbours is holding her tightly as she sobs on her knees in the middle of the sidewalk. I run to her side and our neighbour backs away to give us some space. She’s shaking on the cool pavement, so I lift her up off her knees and pull her into my chest.
I can feel her cries of pure heartache penetrating through my skin and rattling my bones.
“She’s gone, Damien…” Her voice is hoarse and dry from screaming, and I hold her close to me, trying my best to keep it together for her.
