Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

I'm dreaming.

I must be dreaming.

I'm on the bed, and the room is so dark. Cold air comes in through the open window, bringing in the scent of cedar and sea and tobacco.

I'm naked, staring at the ceiling, strong, warm hands gripping my hips as they pull me to the edge of the bed.

"Such a pretty pussy," a gravelly voice says from between my legs. "Such a tight little cunt for such a dirty fucking whore."

I blush, hot, his words making me as wet as his tongue as he glides it up between my thighs. I want him so badly I want to tear my skin right off.

"Tell me what you want, Syd," the man says, blowing on my clit until my legs clamp the side of his head. "Want me to lick your sweet cunt until you almost come and have to beg me for it? Get you so wet that you're squirting in my face? Or is that no longer enough to satisfy you? No. You want my cock shoved up that tight little hole, even though we both know it won't fit."

I groan, lifting my hips off the bed, the cool air washing over my body and turning my nipples painfully hard, though it does nothing to quell the fire under my skin.

"I want…" I whisper, voice hoarse, unable to put into words all the things I do want. I want him to degrade me, I want the fear his words bring me, I want that release from all my beliefs. I want his cock and his hands and his tongue. "I want you to tell me to shut the fuck up and take it like a filthy slut."

An amused grunt. He raises his head, and I raise mine.

I meet his eyes, a dusky blue grey, a gaze that stares right into my soul.

"That can be arranged," Kincaid murmurs, giving me a deviant smile.

Adrenaline floods through my body at even the thought of it until everything goes fuzzy and eventually black.

Then there is nothing.

Nothing but need, and want, and?—

A blaring alarm makes me jolt upright. Panicked, I look around for the source and smash my hand on the alarm clock beside my bed until it silences.

I let out a shaky exhale. Holy fuck. I press my fingers against my neck, my pulse racing. I can't tell if it was the dream that has my heart leaping or the hella loud alarm clock.

Probably a little of both.

It was a dream, wasn't it?

I lift up the covers, almost expecting to be naked, but of course I'm still in my fungi pajamas. Morning light is streaming in through my window, a window that is closed.

I remember now. Before I went to bed, I saw Kincaid standing beneath it, smoking a cigarette and staring up at me.

Had that been a dream too?

You should hope it was a dream , I tell myself as I get out of bed, walking over to the window and glancing at the cedar through the window, the light dim and grey. The last thing you need is your professor creeping on you.

And yet, the idea of it makes my pussy throb between my legs, though I'm going to have to blame that residual arousal on the dream.

I shake my head and glance at the clock. Six thirty a.m. We have class right after breakfast, which is at eight. What I need more than anything is a shower, preferably a cold one.

I grab my toiletry bag and a towel and poke my head out into the hall. I hear some rustling in the rooms, but one of the showers at the end is open, so I scurry down to claim it before someone else does.

The shower is nice and spacious, but I'm not in it for long until I hear a knock at the door.

"Five-minute limit," an unkind voice says. Immediately, I know it's Clayton.

I sigh and start getting the conditioner out of my hair without making a mess. It's purple, meant to counter the brassiness in my dark blonde hair. A travel size I stole from Target in a moment of poor desperation.

I get out of the shower and back into my pajamas just as he's knocking again, not about to risk going past Clayton in just a towel.

When I open the door, he's leering at me.

At my breasts, specifically. I keep a tight hold on my towel.

"I was hoping it was you," he says, barely meeting my eyes.

I scowl as I walk past him, giving him a wide berth, my hair dripping down my back.

"Hey, I think we got off on the wrong foot," he yells after me.

I ignore him. I don't want to make any trouble for myself, considering my position here, but if he continues this shit and gets even remotely close to sexual harassment, I'm reporting his ass.

I get back to my room, lock the door, and get ready. I shake the encounter with Clayton off, but my thoughts keep going back to Kincaid, to the dream. Had he really been standing underneath my window? I remember I was about to turn off the lights, and as I walked past the window, the burning ember of a cigarette caught my eye. The dream felt real in the moment but doesn't feel real now. It's faded away the way that dreams do. But him smoking beneath my window? That does feel real.

And so what? I think as I find a small blow dryer in the bathroom cupboard. He can't wander around on a smoke break? He probably wasn't even staring at me—it's not like I saw his eyes. It's not like I even know it was Kincaid. It could have been anyone.

But if anything, that thought makes it worse.

When my hair is dry, I spend a moment marveling at my reflection. That purple shampoo really did the trick because my hair looks a few shades lighter, a honey blonde now, making the blue in my eyes look saturated. I run my fingers over the sides of my face, focusing on my jaw, which has always been on the wider side, thanks to my incessant teeth grinding and clenching, but I guess that face yoga I did last night on my masseters did the trick because my face looks slimmer too. I feel like this is the first time I've really had a good, hard look at myself in the mirror. Some days I just sort of gloss over my reflection, like I'm too afraid to see myself, see who I really am.

But I force myself to look now. And I'm surprised to see a different version of myself looking back. Someone older, and hardened, and hopefully wiser.

Someone who definitely shouldn't want their new professor watching her through her window at night.

At breakfast, I eat with Lauren, Justin, and Munawar, who is so far keeping to his promise of wearing a different fungi shirt for each day because today he's wearing one with happy cartoon mushrooms that says We Will Literally Feast On Your Corpse . For some reason, I've lost my appetite, still full from the dinner last night, but I drink enough coffee to drown a horse.

The morning is warm, the sun bright somewhere behind the morning fog that sticks close to shore, sliding between the trees as we walk to the learning center. There's chatter amongst the students, a little more lively and comfortable than yesterday after everyone has gotten to know each other some. I stay close to Lauren since I can feel Clayton's gaze behind me and do my best to ignore it.

As we enter the building, Kincaid is leaning against the desk beside the whiteboard, his arms folded. He's dressed in slim-cut charcoal jeans and a black dress shirt that shows off the build of his muscular but lean upper body, not to mention he's rolled up his sleeves to his elbows. The trifecta is complete: his forearms are magnificent.

He meets my eyes for one electric moment, then moves his gaze on to the next person.

"Please take a tablet from the stack to your left," he says, his gruff voice tickling my spine. My dream had done such a fine job of mimicking him I'm already blushing.

I grab a tablet and follow Lauren to the table where we sat yesterday.

"The tablet is yours for the duration of your stay here," he informs us.

"Sweet, I can check my email," Munawar says.

"But of course, there will be no Wi-Fi for you to connect to," Kincaid continues, a slight curve to his mouth.

"Barbaric," Munawar mutters under his breath.

"At the end of your time here, you'll be able to transfer all your data to your computers back at home, so no work will be lost," Kincaid goes on. "I know we have a diverse group of students here from a variety of schools, working on different projects, so I hope the tablet will suffice. If you require something with more data, we can loan you a MacBook."

He unfolds his arms and picks up a textbook from his desk, taking out a pair of dark-framed glasses from his shirt pocket, slipping them on. The movement reveals a tattoo peeking beneath the edges of his sleeves, something like black feathers. My heart leaps.

"Glasses and tattoos," Lauren whispers as she nudges my arm, as if I'm not already blatantly staring at him. "No sign of a wedding ring either." She pauses and lowers her voice even more. "Not that I would ever condone sleeping with the professor."

I glance at her, and she gives me a playful wink. Jealousy unravels inside of me like a viper, sharp-fanged and completely unexpected. As if I have any claim to him just because I had that dream. Besides, I have been down this road before, and it only brought me shame and pain, and not the good kind.

Kincaid clears his throat, eyes down as he thumbs through the pages. "You're all here at the Madrona Foundation because you offer something of value—advancement in neurobiological research. While most of you are focused on mycology and lichenology, some of you are here from the marine sciences angle, but the outcome is the same. You are here to either discover new properties in species already classified, whether it be in the average oyster mushroom or strand of bull kelp, or to discover new species in a world that is nearly untapped."

He glances up at us. "How many of you applied for the program because of our advances in Alzheimer's research?"

I put up my hand, along with most of the students.

"That's what I thought," he says. "It's hard not to hear of the progress that we've been making here and not want to be a part of it. But the advancement was a happy accident, like most things are in science. We already knew that hyphae and mycelia showed decision-making capabilities. We knew that mycelia exhibited spatial recognition, learning, and short-term memory. And we knew that Hericium erinaceus , or lion's mane, had shown promise in neurological studies, enough so that it's been popping up in supplements that promise to make you smarter. Among its active compounds, only erinacine A had confirmed pharmacological actions in the central nervous system. Admit it, you've all tried that sludge they market as mushroom coffee. It works, but it's fucking awful. I'll stick to my espresso, thank you."

Kincaid gives us a wan smile and allows a few titters and murmurs in the room. "But despite the advances, we had yet to isolate the fungi's own intelligence from its compounds," he goes on. "Until one day, we did." He pauses, glancing down at his textbook and adjusting his glasses. His eyes close for a moment, frowning as if lost in thought. Then he opens them. "As you all know, to the detriment of your student loans, mycology is underfunded across the board. Most scientists are scrambling for breakthroughs, never able to raise enough funds for research. When Madrona discovered Amanita excandesco , the funds needed to properly study it became available. The Johnstones took a huge gamble in diverting their capital and interests away from an ecological observatory to one where mycology and other taxonomy could be used in pharmaceutical studies. It's more than paid off. The research being done in that building over there"—he nods in the direction of the lab—"is close to changing the world. Cures for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and even neurodevelopmental disorders such as ADHD and OCD, are at our fingertips. With what we've learned studying Amanita excandesco , we can now apply the research to many other organisms, and that's where you come in."

"But who says people with ADHD need a cure?" I blurt out.

His attention snaps to me, a strange look burning in his eyes. "I take it you have ADHD," he says calmly. He doesn't wait for me to confirm it. "Many take medication for it. Many would like to function as a neurotypical. This would be no different than taking prescribed stimulants, except, in theory, you would be able to take it once, and you'd be forever changed."

"Sounds good to me," a girl called Noor says. "I can barely remember to take my meds as it is."

But what if you lose the essence of who you are? I think, but I manage to keep it to myself because I'm sure the last thing Kincaid wants is for his speech to be derailed. I know it can be dangerous to think of ADHD as a superpower when so many people are clearly disabled by it, and the neurodivergent community is not a monolith, but even so, the idea of having it wiped away—for good—makes me pause.

"You said that Madrona discovered the fungus," Munawar says to him. "It was on your property here, was it not?"

He nods. "It was. Dr. Everly Johnstone discovered it while foraging."

"How did you know then that it possessed the same attributes as lion's mane?"

Kincaid shrugs. "A hunch, I suppose." Then he turns his focus back to his book. "Now, I'd like to list the types of fungi you'll likely find while you're here. I'm sure you've all seen Chlorociboria aeruginascenes , or blue stain fungus, painting the sides of the cedars out here," he begins and then launches into a very long list of all the fungi we'll encounter.

I write it all down on the tablet, doing my best to focus on my notes and not on Kincaid, though I have a hard time not trying to figure out what his tattoo is of, if he has any others hidden on his body, what he looks like naked. In my dream, I only had an impression of his form, and like most dreams, the details have completely washed away.

When class finally ends, I know I should leave the room along with Lauren and everyone else, but I linger behind. I feel pulled to Kincaid in ways I can't explain (okay, he's smart, and he's fucking hot, and maybe that's enough).

I stop by his desk, where he's gathering a few textbooks in his hands.

"Kincaid," I say.

He glances up at me and takes off his glasses, slipping them back into his pocket, his posture straightening. "Ms. Denik. I hope you didn't take offense to what I was saying." His voice is strained, and though he's staring into my eyes, he's unreadable.

I shake my head, feeling strangely off-balance around him. "I thought you were going to call me Syd," I say, but he continues to stare at me, his throat bobbing as he swallows. "Anyway, no. I didn't take offense. The idea just bothers me for some reason."

"Something I'd like to talk to you about during our sessions," he says, holding his books to his chest. I stare at his large hands splayed across the covers, the veins on his forearms. The fact that we'll have one-on-one sessions both thrills me and intimidates me. I want to be alone with him, but the idea that he'll be poking around in my brain disturbs me. I want to stay a secret to him, shadowed and mysterious.

Yeah right , I tell myself. Like you've ever been shadowed and mysterious to anyone.

He continues to stare at me, enough that his grey gaze seems to unearth the ground beneath me. "Can I help you with something in particular?"

Oh, right. I didn't even have a reason for wanting to talk to him.

Or did I?

"Were you spying on me last night?" I ask, immediately wincing at how that came out. "I mean, I saw you last night outside my window. Seems you were staring up at me."

The corner of his mouth lifts. "I was."

"Oh?"

"Not the spying part, but I was outside the main lodge. I often have a walk before I turn in for the night. Checking for bears. Clearing my head. I suppose I happened to stop outside your window. I'll try to be more mindful next time."

"No," I say quickly. "No, it was fine, I just…"

"Thought I was spying on you," he fills in, giving me a quick smile. "Just what every professor needs."

"I wouldn't mind," I say.

God, what the fuck is wrong with me?

I expect him to laugh, but instead his expression darkens, enough that my blood runs cold. "I think you would mind very much," he says, his tone hard. Then he clears his throat, and his brow softens. "Is that all?"

Why am I stalling? I've already made things uncomfortable, but it seems I can't leave his side.

"Amani," I can't help but say. "There was a girl on my plane named Amani."

"Amani Farrokh?"

"I guess. I haven't seen her since I arrived."

He nods, his lips twisting in a somewhat apologetic smile. "Amani left early this morning on the first plane out. She wasn't feeling well."

I stare at him, blinking. "Wasn't feeling well? Is she okay?"

"I'm sure she'll be fine," he says. "Homesickness, I think. It can present itself in different ways."

"But she seemed fine last night."

The muscle in his jaw ticks, his gaze sharp. "You saw her last night? Where?"

"I was at the gazebo, and she came running out of the bushes. Told me to hurry up or I'd be late for dinner."

His pupils dilate, like a black hole in the fog. "Are you sure?"

I frown. "Well, yeah I'm sure. Are you trying to make me feel crazy or something?"

"No," he says quickly, shaking his head. "No, I would never disregard your thoughts. It's just surprising. Everly acts as the compound's nurse, and she had given her a sedative and put her to bed early. I suppose Amani could have gone for a walk after…" He trails off, mind going over something. "Anyway, this morning, she was ready to go back home. It was good to see she was making the right choice."

Something churns in my gut. Perhaps coffee on an empty stomach. "But she seemed so excited and happy to be here."

"This happens more than you know," he says sternly. "Every year, at least one student goes back. The isolation can be too much."

"Even with your weekly counseling?" I remark.

"I'm a psychologist, not a magician," he says. "Some minds are stronger than others. There is no shame in that."

"And my mind?" I can't help but ask. "Do you think it's strong enough?"

He studies me for a moment, something warm, close to affection, coming through his cold exterior. "I think that remains to be seen. But if I had to take a gander already, I would say yes. Shall we?"

Kincaid gestures to the door, and I follow him as he opens it for me. We step out into the late-morning fog.

"I'll see you later, Sydney Denik," he says to me with a faint smile before he disappears into the mist.