Chapter 21 #3
She nods. “When I was touring, I did all this traveling, but I never really had a chance to explore. I wanted to take back something from everywhere I went, but nothing too touristy. I wanted something unique.”
“So…salt and pepper shakers.”
She laughs, and the sound smacks a shovel right into his chest. “Yep. I’d go to a thrift shop, and eventually it became an obsession.
I love the creativity. I could be having a terrible time, but kitschy salt and pepper shakers would always make me happy.
” She points to a pair of tiny wooden clogs.
“Those are from Amsterdam. The bald chef and the giant hat are from Italy—those are probably in my top five.”
Her eyes are bright, and she’s not even bothering trying to hide her giddiness. Almost like her expression when he busted out the Slice-o-Matic 3000—too cute for his dwindling self-control.
Ramona clearly likes nice things. But she loves little things, too—this collection, her penchant for reading product reviews. Despite the way she closed herself off from the world, she’s someone who’s capable of finding joy just about anywhere.
And it makes him want to seek out the joy, too.
She closes the glass door, turns back to face him. “So, have I lost all mystique for you, now that you’ve seen the grandma collection? Or was it the wasting away on my sickbed that did it?”
Nick just blinks at her. It’s obvious, isn’t it, how badly he wants to gather her in his arms and bury his face between her thighs? She has to know the effect she has on him.
Unless she truly doesn’t. Unless he’s put such a wall between them, convinced this couldn’t possibly be anything but that frenzied hookup in his office, and then those few stolen minutes in the empty apartment.
And beyond that, some sort of fractured friendship that was always going to be against the faculty code of conduct.
“Wilder.” He sinks his teeth into his lower lip, like that slight pain can keep the desire at bay. “You don’t have to play these games with me. The joking around, the innuendo.”
Her face flushes with embarrassment. “Shit. Sorry. I—I get it. You don’t think of me that way anymore.”
She turns to leave the room, hair tossed over her shoulder, but he reaches for her arm to hold her in place. She pauses. Gazes back up at him, cheeks still red.
The idea of her thinking he doesn’t have feelings for her, even after all he’s confessed, all the time they’ve spent dancing around it…he can’t handle it. Especially after opening up to her. Taking care of her.
Because he loves being needed—but he craves being wanted.
“I can’t stop thinking about you that way. I’ve tried, and it just never seems to take.” He runs a finger down the crook of her elbow. The refrain of we can’t, we can’t, we can’t has never been fainter. “You think I don’t want you? I’ve been at your house since yesterday morning.”
“Well, it’s a nice house.”
He draws her closer, leaning down until his breath scrapes her ear.
“Ramona. You think I’m not lying awake at night, wondering if you taste as good as you feel?
” The way she reacts makes him feel drugged.
The urgent rise of her chest. The part of her lips.
A soft little sigh when his mouth brushes the top of her ear.
This girl who’s always in control loves it when he takes charge—he sees that now.
“Or that I’m not losing my mind every single time you touch me?
Dreaming about kissing you, and holding you, and being inside you—and feeling devastated when I wake up? ”
Now the blush travels down her neck, her pupils blown wide. He wants to follow that pretty shade of pink all the way down her body. Find where it ends.
“I dream about you too, professor.” She places a hand on his chest. The way she calls him that shouldn’t make him hard, but it does, and she must be fully aware of it.
Maybe she’s saying it on purpose, trying to give him an out he isn’t going to take.
“But I don’t want to put your job at risk, and—”
She breaks off with a sharp exhale, distracted by the fingertips that land at her waist. The thumb pressed to her hip bone. With the way her lashes flutter, he can see she’s waging an internal battle.
The word job might as well be in ancient Sumerian for how foreign it is right now.
“What do you dream about?” he asks.
“Locking the door to your office. Taking off your glasses and unbuttoning your shirt.” Then, in a near whisper: “Finally being able to make you come.”
Jesus. He’s hanging on by the world’s thinnest thread.
“When I see you in class,” he continues, voice shredded, “I’m worried it’s written all over my face.
That anyone can see how badly I want to take you to bed.
” He drags his thumb lower, until it dips right beneath her waistband.
“Sometimes I think I might stop breathing unless I can have you in any way you’d let me. ”
He senses it the same second she does—the shattering of their resolve. The rush of giving in.
“Then fuck it,” she says with a fistful of his shirt. “Have me.”