Page 332 of The Winslow Brothers

She ducks into my office and tries to shut the door, but I’m there, just in time to smack it back open, step inside and close and lock it behind me. She swallows deeply as she meets my eyes and lifts her chin.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” I ask, dispensing with any kind of pretense that one or both of us doesn’t know what’s going on.

“I’m getting my stuff so I can—”

“No,” I interrupt with a shake of my head. “Not that. In class, Rachel. The panties. What in the hell are you trying to pull?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tries to refute, turning to my desk to gather her belongings but coming up way short when I grab her elbow and spin her back around.

“Bullshit. You know what you were doing. What I want to know is what you expected to come of it? Do you want me to fuck you right here? Is that what you want?”

Her chest swells with the escalation of her breath, but she works diligently to maintain her innocence otherwise. “I was just messing around.”

“Fuck that, messing around. The hidden panties? That was messing around. You taking your jacket off and tilting your tits toward me every time I breathe? Messing around. Even taking back the underwear and stepping into them while you were standing right here in front of me? Messing around. But that shit you pulled in class today was more than messing around, Rach. And a man like me? If you’re not careful? I’ll take it as a challenge. Is that what you want?”

I step toward her one, two, three paces, until our chests rub together with panting breaths. She has fire in her eyes—the kind that screams in opposition to everything I’ve just said, just so she can be right on principle.

But she’s not saying shit because she knows I’m right. She wants me just as badly as I want her, and sheknowsplaying with the bull this closely always gets you the horns. She knows it because she’s an expert in hundreds of years of literature, just like me.

It’s human nature. Eventually, the band of tension breaks. Always. She pushed me so I would be the one to snap it faster.

I look from her eyes to her lips, and right then, in that very moment, I know it’s going to happen. Despite all the shit that says I shouldn’t, despite very nearly hating each other as much as we like each other, I’m going to feel the flesh of her lips under mine if it kills me.

Ihaveto. I have to know what she tastes like.

“I’m not kissing you,” she whispers.

“I’m not kissing you either,” I murmur back, the edge of my lips grazing the skin of hers. It’s a bald-faced lie, and I know it. That’s what makes it so fun.

“I’m not,” she says again, a last-ditch attempt to hold the line, but her face moves closer to mine.

I don’t bother with another leg of denial on my end. Instead, I push my lips to hers, an action that ignites an inferno that even Dante isn’t prepared to handle.

Pushing and pulling and breathing and squeezing, the two of us are like animals, grasping for every piece of flesh we can find and fighting for dominance over the kiss. Her tongue toys with mine to shove them both back into my mouth, but I take control, tasting the corners of her pretty little mouth and committing them to memory.

I reach down and grab the slinky fabric of her skirt, scooting it up the flesh of her thigh and putting my fingers to the sweet heat between her legs. She’s on fire, completely soaked, her whole engine burning with arousal from her game.

“You want me,” I say, pulling back from her mouth just enough to make sure she hears me and then nipping at her throat. She moans; what she doesn’t do is contest my assertion.

I stroke the thin fabric with two soft, teasing fingers, and my cock hardens as she pushes herself into my hand to get more pressure. I give it to her. One strong stoke, followed by another, until her back arches against my hand and her weight falls into me.

I rub the line of the panties’ edge and crook just one finger to find my way under. Soft, warm flesh and a small dusting of hairare smothered in arousal. Immediately, my finger is coated, and I have to add another.

She feels so good, so fucking warm and wet, and my hands shake with the urge to rip her fucking panties off, but everything comes to a screeching halt when a loud pop sounds in the hallway. It startles us enough that a foot-wide space opens up between us. There’s a laugh and a scuffle as the student moves on, likely having dropped their book and picked it up, but the sweet, mesmerizing fog of moments ago is gone.

In its place? The undeniable realization that we’re about to dance over a mark in the sand that can’t be put back. An actual sexual relationship between us might be prohibited by the university; however, if not, it would certainly be frowned upon by her father.

We shouldn’t be doing this—I, personally, shouldn’t be considering it at all.

“I should go,” Rachel whispers, her breathing still ragged and her lipstick noticeably smeared across her face.

I nod and back away—the only two actions I can manage at this moment. Our it’s-just-fun-and-games secret has taken a sharp turn toward dirty and forbidden. My heart is still pounding, and the sound of it whooshes in my ears. I want her so bad, I can hardly see straight.

She grabs her belongings from the desk, and the stack of papers for grading she came to my office to get in the first place, and scoots around me without a word.

I sink into the chair behind my desk and drop my head into my hands.

Only two piercing questions come to mind in the silence of this space—in the smell of aging books and years of hard work and the feel of an antique wooden desk chair gifted to me by my weakness’s father.

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