“Must be a pretty long list.”
“One item,” he replies. “Very specific.”
The way he’s looking at me wakes up my skin, my bloodstream, my want. “Too bad it’s not going to work out for you guys,” I say.
“And I’m sorry to hear about you and Shepherd.” His eyes flash. “I thought you two had a nice time.”
“Oh, I did,” I say. “Just turns out a nice time isn’t what I really want right now.”
He stares at me, eyes blackening, and I hope I’m as legible to him now as ever, that he knows I’m done brushing off this thing between us. Scratchily, he says, “And what is it you want, Stephens?”
“I just . . .” Now or never. I feel like I’m readying myself for a skydive. “I want to be here with you and not worry about what comes next.”
He steps closer, my heart whirring as he invades my space. “Nora,” he says gently.
“It’s okay if you don’t want that,” I say. “But I’m thinking about you way too much. And the more space I try to put between us, the worse it is.”
His lips twist; his eyes glint. “So you’re trying to get this out of your system?”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But maybe I also just want something that’s easy for once.”
His brow lifts, teasing. “Now I’m easy?”
Yes, I think, to me, you are the easiest person in the world. But I say, “God, I hope.”
Charlie laughs, but it fades quickly and his gaze drops to the side. “What if I already know this can’t go anywhere,” he says, “no matter how much we might end up wanting it to?”
“Is there someone else?”
His eyes lift, widened. “No. It’s nothing like that. It’s just that—”
“Charlie,” I say. “I told you. I don’t want to think about what comes next. I’m not even sure I could handle that right now.”
He studies me, his jaw working. “Are you sure?”
“Completely,” I say, and mean it. “If you want, I’ll even sign a napkin.”
I’m not sure which of us started it, but his mouth is on mine, warm and hungry, his hands running down my sides and back up my front, taking in as much of me as he can at once. No hesitancy, no politeness, only want. My fingers twine into his shirt as he hauls me against him, closing every gap we can find.
Within seconds, he’s yanking my blouse out of my skirt and his hands are up the front of it, so perfectly rough and warm that the silk is unbearable by comparison. A desperate sound twists through me, and he spins us around, pushing me onto the table, hiking my skirt up my thighs so he can step in against me.
I pull him to me, arching into his touch. His fingers curl around the back of my neck and knot into my hair, his teeth on my throat.
“We can’t do this in a library,” I hiss into his mouth, though my hands are still moving, skimming up his back beneath his shirt, nails scraping his skin and leaving goose bumps.
He murmurs, tone chiding, “I thought you didn’t want to worry about the rules.”
“When it comes to public indecency, it’s less of a rule and more of a federal law,” I whisper.
His lips move down my throat, one hand sliding under me to tilt my hips against his, positioning his length against me. Oh, god. “That only counts,” he says, “if we take our clothes off.”
The sound I make couldn’t be much less sexy or more dying-feral-animal. “And to be clear,” I get out, “you’re okay with the fact that we’re working together?”
He kisses along my collarbone, his voice all gravel. “We both know you won’t go easier on me for it.”
“And what about you?” It’s completely absurd that I’m keeping up the charade of having a totally normal conversation while my palms are flattening on the table behind me and my body is lifting unsubtly, making it easier for his mouth to brush under the collar of my shirt.
“I have no interest in going easy on you, Nora,” he says.
My fingers snake into his hair, drag down his neck, his pulse humming under my touch. My mind feels like it went straight through a shredder and into a kaleidoscope. His fingers skim up the inside of my thigh until they can go no higher, his eyes watching the progress with an almost drunken sheen.
My knees fall open for him. His jaw tightens as he runs his hand over me, featherlight at first and then with more pressure. His fingers slip under the lace, my hips lifting into the motion, no sound in the room but our ragged breath.
“You have the red splotches, Nora,” he teases, drawing his lips over my throat. “Are you mad at me?”
“Furious,” I pant as his mouth drags lower, one of his hands working the top buttons of my blouse loose. He tugs my bra down until the cool air meets my skin.
“Tell me how I can make it up to you,” he murmurs against my chest.
I arch back to give him more of me. “That’s a start.”
He draws me between his lips and I try not to cry out when a low groan rumbles through him. His hand is under my skirt again, his breath catching against my chest. “You fucking undo me,” he says.
I pull him closer, needing more of him. We’re more or less flat on the table now, the inside of my thigh against his hip. I bury my mouth against his throat to stifle the sounds he’s drawing out of me.
I feel totally out of control, and what’s more, I can see how much he likes seeing me like this, and it’s only fanning the flame. I want to be out of control. I want him to see me like this and know he’s the reason why. His hand roams down my side until it reaches the spike of my heel, hitching my leg higher, coiling it around his hips as we try to get closer.
If we had anywhere more private to go, we’d already be gone.
“I want to go down on you so badly,” he rasps into my mouth, my heart spiking.
“I want go down on you,” I tell him.
He gives a low laugh. “Everything’s a competition with you.”
I slip my hands beneath his waistband, all of my focus narrowing to the feeling of him, the sound of his breath turning jagged when my grip tightens, his hips shifting to let me have more of him.
I have never enjoyed this so much. I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed this, period, but I’ve also never seen Charlie so uninhibited and I’m drunk on the power.
“God,” he says, “I need to be inside you.”
Everything in me pulls taut. “Okay.” I nod furiously, and he laughs again.