“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
We glared at each other, the air between us crackling with thinly veiled frustration before Jules’s shoulders slumped and she dropped her highlighter to rub her face.
My irritation fizzled at the simple action. I blew out a long breath, unable to keep up with the day’s wild rollercoaster of emotions.
“Bad day at work?” she asked.
My laugh lacked humor. “You could say that.”
I didn’t talk about the downsides of my work unless it was with someone else in the field. Nothing brought down the mood faster than saying hey, so someone died on my watch today.
But the pressure from earlier was building in my chest again, and I needed to relieve it before it drove me crazy.
“I lost someone today.” I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, unable to face Jules as I admitted my failure. “She was seventeen. Got hit by a drunk driver.”
It felt weird saying the words out loud. I lost someone. It sounded so generic. People lost toys and house keys; they didn’t lose lives. They had lives wrenched from them, stolen by the cruel hands of an unforgiving god.
But that didn’t roll off the tongue quite as nicely, I supposed.
A soft hand covered my own. I stiffened and kept my eyes on the ceiling, but the knot in my chest loosened a smidge.
“I’m so sorry,” Jules said softly. “I didn’t—I can’t imagine…”
“It’s fine. I’m a doctor. It happens.”
“Josh—”
“And you?” I interrupted, twisting my head to look at her. “What happened? Don’t give me that bull about allergies again, either.”
“I do have allergies.” Several beats passed before she admitted, “It’s possible I’ll have to…do something I’m not proud of. I promised myself I would never do it again, but I might not have a choice. I just…” A hard swallow shifted the delicate lines of her throat. “I don’t want to be that person.”
It was vague as hell, but her distress was palpable and seeped through my skin into places it had no business touching.
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is,” I said. “As long as you didn’t murder anyone or set anything on fire.”
“Wow. The bar really is in hell.”
A small smile touched my lips for the first time that day. “At least it’s warm down there.”
Jules snorted out a laugh. “If only I had your optimism.”
“You can only wish.” I angled my head toward the small reference library located off the main library. “So, still want to fuck?”
Nothing turned a crappy day around like a good fuck.
Plus, between her inadvertent sleepover and the brief lowering of our guards just now, we were edging too far from the rules of our pact. It was time to bring it back to what it was supposed to be about: sex. Quick, transactional, and mutually satisfying.
Judging by the rigid lines of Jules’s neck and shoulders, she needed a physical release as much as I did.
She responded by gathering her notes and stuffing them in her backpack. We left her textbooks on the table—I highly doubted anyone would want to steal a tome on corporate law—and walked as casually as we could into the reference section.
I led us to one of the stacks that didn’t fall under the gaze of the security cameras before I pinned her to the shelves and molded my mouth to hers. It started chaste, almost clinical—a way for us to forget our troubles and nothing else.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about how exhausted she’d looked, or how comforting her hand had been over mine, and before I knew it, the kiss softened into something more…not tender, exactly. But understanding.
It was our first non-angry kiss, and it felt nicer than I expected.
I cupped her face and traced my tongue over the seam of Jules’s lips until she opened for me. God, she tasted incredible, like heat and spice and sugar all rolled into one.
I’d always been a chocolate guy, but cinnamon was fast becoming my new favorite flavor.
Her arms snaked around my neck, and her soft sigh whispered down my spine and settled somewhere low in my stomach.
“Think we can forget about our shitty week for a while?” she whispered.
Fierce protectiveness welled in my chest at the touch of vulnerability in her voice, but I forced it back down.
We were only together for sex. Anything else was off the table.
“Sweetheart, in a few minutes, you’ll forget your own name.”
I sank to my knees, my mouth tipping up at the surprise in her eyes. Our last few times had been rough and deliciously filthy, but today, I was in the mood for a different kind of feast.
I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her underwear and pulled them down beneath her skirt. “Might want to cover your mouth, Red.”
That was the only warning I gave before I spread her thighs and dived in, alternating between gentle licks and long, hard pulls on her sweet little clit.
I groaned. She tasted even better down here. Most women thought men wanted them to taste like berries or lavender or whatever, but if we were eating pussy, we wanted to taste pussy. That was the whole fucking point.
Jules fisted my hair with one hand when I pushed two fingers inside her. I pumped them in and out slowly while I continued teasing her clit. It was swollen and tender, and when I grazed my teeth against it, her soft cry arrowed straight to my cock.
I forced myself to keep the rhythm soft for a while longer before I increased the pace and intensity, sucking and finger fucking her until her arousal dripped down my hand and her thighs. I lapped it all up, drunk from the taste of her. Forget food and water. I could subsist on Jules forever.
I pulled my fingers out replaced them with my tongue, eager for more.
Jules shook around me. She fisted my hair harder with a muffled cry, and a second later, her juices flooded my tongue.
Fuck.
My senses swam with her scent, and when she squirmed, trying to inch away from me, I gripped her hips and forced her to remain still.
“Josh…” My name fell out as a whimper, also muffled.
My blood surged when I lifted my head and saw she’d clamped her free hand over her mouth to soften her moans. The prettiest rose shaded her cheeks, and tears glittered in her eyes from the suppressed force of her orgasm.
My cock threatened to punch a hole through my jeans. I loved hearing her sweet screams, but there was also something so fucking hot about seeing someone hold back when you knew all they wanted was to explode.
“I’m not done yet, Red.” I gave her clit another languorous lick. “You don’t want to interrupt a man before he’s finished eating, do you?”
Jules responded with another moan.
I returned to my meal, licking and sucking and tongue fucking her with abandon. By the time I was done, I had to hold her up with one arm as I rose to my feet.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and savored the lingering taste of her. My blood pounded with arousal.
I wished we had time for another round, but we were already pushing our luck. No one had stumbled on us, but the smell of sex permeated the air, and it wouldn’t take an errant passerby to piece two and two together.
“I’ve always wanted to defile the library,” Jules mumbled, clinging to me in a way she never would’ve outside sex.