Page 72 of Research with Rivals
He seemed cautious, so I moved our hands to his chest, knowing the closeness helped me feel it. His shirt was buttoned, though, leaving no room for me to ensure our clasped hands touched skin. Without much thought, I undid the buttons at the top.
“Evelyn…” His voice was more growl, now, than I was used to. It halted me in my tracks, even though I was two buttons deep and moving toward the third, my fingers stealthily exploring him as they moved.
We were still flush against each other, and it occurred to me that something hard pressed against my stomach. It hadn’t been there before.
“Evelyn,” he said again. I looked up at him through long lashes. Gods, he was beautiful. “My focus is elsewhere.”
He didn’t meet my eyes, like maybe he feared he’d let me down.
“We know what to try next. We shouldn’t do it when you’re distracted. It’s an acceptable outcome for tonight.” I rose on the tips of my toes again to bring my lips to his.
That was all the encouragement he needed. His hands were beneath my thighs, and he lifted me to him. My legs wrapped around his torso again with no hesitation. His kiss wasn’t soft and exploratory like last night. This was Ambrose Yarrow at his most demanding. His lips quested with singular focus. Mine parted, wanting him closer—wanting him to achieve all his goals. A moan slipped from me as his tongue advanced, and I rocked against him.
“Evelyn,” he hissed again. But he didn’t appear to have anything else to say. The strength of his arms held me in place, and his tongue slid against mine with unyielding strokes. I met each one with a challenge, leaving us both breathless and smiling.
He kissed behind my ear—sucked and licked his way to the center of my chest, where our hands were intertwined. All the while, he walked us backward toward the bed.
Fear flooded me. Fear that once he laid me down on the mattress, like he had yesterday, all this would end. Wanting Ambrose terrified me. Even when I knew he wanted me, too. Wanting Ambrose would surely lead to disappointment.
But why focus on the future when this—now—felt so right? The part of me that didn’t want him to stop overtook the fear of the future. When his steps paused, I clung tighter and pulled his mouth back to mine to make my intent clear.
With a huff, we fell to the bed. His chin was on my chest as he looked up at me, his gaze half-lidded. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to stop unless you tell me to.”
How had I ever thought him dismissive and uncaring? He was so observant, so in tune with my thoughts. It was a heady thing to be the focus of this particular researcher’s attention.
“I think we should continue.”
He chuckled, but there was an exhale in it, a release of tension, like maybe he needed to hear that.
“The way you take notes should be studied,” I said on a gasp. His hand ran the length of me, and his mouth moved to my breast. I arched into him as he lapped at me through my shirt. My curse only meant he noted my response and increased the pressure. Then he latched his teeth around my peaked nipple beneath the shirt. “Your attention to detail is exquisite.”
“With the right subject, I can be very motivated,” he said, moving to the other breast.
I kept going. He’d said so much earlier, so much I had yet to respond to. I wanted him to know that I studied him, too. “I love that you can’t help but share your ideas with me. Like they’re just sitting there, ready to burst from your brain, but you won’t discuss them with others. No, you wait until we have a confrontation, then let them casually slip out.”
He lifted momentarily to peel my shirt away. “Noticed that, did you? It’s not worth discussing with others. No one else will find the one piece I’m missing like you will. Call it expediency.”
His mouth met mine again in a low groan, and his hand roamed my skin when he laid us back down. This exploration was detailed and all-encompassing. He mapped my curves like he’d have to sketch them later, and he’d fail the test if he forgot a single one.
“Nothing about this feels expedient,” I mumbled, mostly to myself as he buried his nose in my neck.
“No … you are the one sentence in the book that makes it all make sense. The one that perfectly proves a theory and neatly ties up all the loose threads but I had to read a thousand pages to find.”
I sucked in a breath while his fingers slid down my side, peeling back my leggings. My body was alight with the heat of our connection, of every flick of his tongue and every inch his hand quested toward my center. But I knew it was his words that ignited the flame deep within me.
“I’d read a thousand more if that’s what it took to find you.”
It was no hardship for him, of course. He loved what he did. But it stole my breath to realize he considered me with the same tender dedication.
I interrupted him then, and brought his lips back to mine. I needed to pour a little of what I felt, a little of what I still tried to communicate, back into him. If wanting things was standing on the very edge of a cliff, verbalizing my wants was jumping off andhoping I wouldn’t splatter. Speaking my desire was the scariest part.
It isn’t so scary with him.
Then his fingers circled my center, teasing, building, stoking, but depriving me of the friction I desperately craved.
“I’ve been dreaming about this for weeks,” he confessed.
I swallowed. The words wouldn’t come. Still, I offered him something real, something true. “You are the most stubborn, most attractive, most intelligent male I’ve ever met, and sometimes when I find you in the stacks, I just want to shove you against them and work out our differences with my tongue.”
