Reaching behind her, I shoved everything I could reach off the desk. Books, jars, and other library junk crashed to the floor, plumes of dust swirling into the rays of light surrounding us. Every librarian alive probably just woke up in a cold sweat.
Our lips met again. I slid my hands up her nightgown. Her thighs were so soft, I let out an almost pathetic groan. She shivered, shifting closer, smiling against my mouth. With frantic fingers, we helped each other free of our clothing.
“We could be in one of your books,” she whispered. “Library sex seems like a thing people with pebbly nipples do. This must be like a dream come true for you.” She pressed her lips tight, eyes dancing.
I grinned. “It would be something like,His tongue worshiped her heaving bosoms, suckling one pebbled peak after the other. Her silky flesh writhed and undulated against his steely,incrediblymuscled body in response to his ministrations. He knelt before her sweet love canal—”
“It’s not a fjord, Bryce.” Courtney dissolved into giggles.
“Shh, respect my craft.” I raised my voice over her snorts.“You could say the noble, and impressively well-endowed duke, knew a thing or two about fording fjords, and as a result, was skilled in the art of… fjordplay.”
Courtney covered her ears. “La, la, la, stop it! I’m not listening!”
I smiled, letting my gaze drift over her. “Good. I’m done talking.”
CHAPTER 34INWHICHI SPEAKATLENGTHABOUTTHEUNSPEAKABLETHINGSWEDIDINALIBRARY
COURTNEY
Holding my gaze, Bryce dropped to his knees before me.
My vision swirled. His hands coaxed my legs apart, mouth trailing kisses up my thighs. When he nipped the side of my knee, I yelped, swatting the back of his head.
He laughed, his hot breath against my inner thighs, tickling sensitive skin. I gasped at his touch, my hand winding in his hair. My world narrowed until all I could focus on was the swirl of his tongue, the feel of his lips, the gentle pressure of his teeth. He gave before I asked, coaxing me higher and higher. My hips rocked, and he let me follow each sensation. When I fell, I didn’t think of the fragile pieces of my soul. I thought only of him catching me.
Standing, Bryce pushed his hand lightly against my chest, guiding me to lie flat on the desk. He crawled up after me, pulling my legs around him as he went, kissing me long and slow, his mouth soft and warm from my skin, his eyes feverish. He whispered steamy nonsense into my ear, and goose bumps tickled along my neck. With each murmured assurance about how goodI was, how perfect, how right, I let myself go, losing myself in his fantasy, letting myself believe him.
A pleasant shiver went through each of my nerves, a warm feeling of absolute happiness radiating behind my ribs. Orange light tinged my eyelids, and I opened them to find the magical glow around my skin brighter than ever. Ribbons of it swirled from my body and coiled around Bryce, twining and mingling with his own blue light.
I hooked an ankle around Bryce’s hip, pulling him closer. He searched blindly for the condom, hand sweeping across the desk, sending ancient texts fluttering through the air. And then he found it, and he was whispering into my ear, asking me if I was sure, and I was pulling him tighter and nodding because I, the girl who wanted Nothing, also wantedhim.
Bryce touched his forehead to mine and held my gaze through that first breathless, pleasure-filled moment. He moved slowly at first, and I arched back, relishing the sensations.
“You’re so pretty,” he whispered, breath ragged against my neck, and I burst out laughing.
“You talk so much shit,” I gasped, “and now all you can say is ‘You’re so pretty’?” It was ridiculous and somehow ridiculously sexy.
He rocked into me. “If you keep laughing and wiggling around like that, this is going to last about five more seconds.”
That only made more giggles bubble up. He was the most precious human I’d ever encountered, and it made me… furious and confused and blissfully happy. That he, of all people, could make me feel like this. I felt free. Free of all expectations. Free to be myself.
Bryce paused, propping his hands beside my head, drawing back to look down at me, a dryReally?expression on his face that made me laugh harder.
Looking at him made it worse, so I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deeply.
Bryce peeled my hands away from my face, pinning them on the desk. He shook his head, mouth cracking into a smile. Then he laughed, and when he laughed, it made me wonder why we spent so much time not laughing. It was stupid, him inside me, and us laughing over nothing, but that only made it funnier.
The tendrils of blue energy swirled off his skin like early-morning fog over still water. It tickled over my skin like butterfly kisses. Our laughter faded as the magic wisps melted into the golden light around us, vaporizing and mingling with streams of sunlight, opaque with dust.
As he began to move again, he smirked at me, but it was a nice smirk. “Youlikeme.” The words were slow and teasing.
“You likeme.” I sighed back dramatically.
He laughed and swung me up, sliding me to the edge of the desk and hooking my hands around his neck. “You can’t take any part of me seriously, can you?”
“Do you have a problem with how I’m taking you?”
“God, no,” he managed weakly.
