Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
I’d been planning this for days.
That was the thing no one would’ve expected from me—the guy who lived in the moment, who never thought past the next game or the next girl. But here I was, mapping out the layout of the library like I was planning a fucking heist.
The archives section tucked on the far side of the fourth floor was rarely used by students. I’d scoped it out twice already, noting the security camera blind spots and the fact that the nearest study cubicle was around two corners and down a hallway.
Now I was standing in the library lobby, watching Ava walk through the entrance doors, and my chest did that thing it had been doing lately. That squeeze that felt like someone had wrapped a fist around my insides and wasn’t letting go.
She spotted me and smiled, and fuck if that smile didn’t hit me like a slapshot to the sternum every single time.
“Hey,” she said, stopping a careful two feet away from me. It was close enough to talk, but far enough that no one would think twice about it. We’d gotten good at this—the public distance, the casual friendliness that hid everything burning underneath.
“Hey yourself, Sunshine.” I kept my voice light and my posture relaxed, so I wouldn’t give away my excitement. Or get caught by nosy staff before I’d had my way with Ava. “Ready to hit the books?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Since when do you voluntarily suggest studying?”
“I’m a changed man. Very academically motivated.”
“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t buying it for a second, but she also wasn’t walking away. “And this sudden dedication to education has nothing to do with whatever you’ve been texting me about all day?”
I’d sent her a series of increasingly suggestive messages throughout the day, ending with
Meet me at the library at 7. I have plans for you.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I started walking toward the stairs, knowing she’d follow. “Come on. I found us a quiet spot.”
“A quiet spot,” she repeated, falling into step beside me. “In the library.”
“Very quiet. Very…private.”
Her cheeks flushed pink as understanding dawned, and the sight sent a bolt of heat straight through me. God, I loved making her blush and knowing I was the one who put that color in her cheeks and that anticipation in her eyes.
We climbed to the fourth floor, passed through the main reading room where a handful of students hunched over laptops and textbooks, and then I led her deeper into the stacks. By the time we reached the archives section, we were completely alone.
But there were still people on this floor, and sound traveled through this place, which meant it was perfect for what we were about to do.
I pulled her around a corner, into an alcove formed by two shelving units that created a hidden pocket of space.
“I thought I’d give you a do-over.”
Her breath caught. “A do-over of what?”
“Remember the item where you have to be quiet so you don’t get caught?” I braced one hand on the shelf beside her head, leaning in close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her skin. “The party didn’t count. You were too loud.”
“That’s because you were—” She stopped, biting her lip.
“I was what?”
“You know what you were doing.”
I grinned. “I do. And I plan to do it again. But this time…” I dropped my voice to barely a murmur, my lips brushing the shell of her ear.
“You have to stay completely silent. One sound, and someone might hear. Someone might come investigate. And then I’d have to stop.
” I nibbled her earlobe. “But I won’t want to stop, Sunshine, not this time.
I want to feel your tight little cunt pulse around my thick cock until we both come. ”
She shivered against me, and I felt it everywhere. “You’re evil.”
“Maybe.” I pulled back just enough to look at her flushed face, her eyes dark with want and her lips parted. “But you like it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
I kissed her then, because I couldn’t not kiss her when she looked at me like that.
The kiss was soft at first, tasting her, relearning the shape of her mouth like I hadn’t kissed her a dozen times already.
She melted into me immediately, her hands fisting in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer.
The thing about kissing Ava was it never felt like enough.
Every kiss made me want more—more of her taste, more of her sounds, more of the way she pressed her body against mine like she was trying to crawl inside me.
I’d kissed a lot of girls in my life. None of them had ever made me feel like I was drowning and coming up for air at the same time.
I deepened the kiss, my tongue sliding against hers, and she made a small sound in the back of her throat.
I pulled back immediately. “Ah-ah. What did I say?”
Her eyes fluttered open, dazed. “That was barely a sound.”
“Still counts.” I traced my thumb across her lower lip, swollen and wet from my mouth. “You want to try again? Or do you want to give up already?”
Fire sparked in her gaze. There she was—the competitive streak she usually kept hidden under all that careful control.
She claimed she didn’t have a competitive bone in her body, but that wasn’t quite true.
It might not be as fierce as mine and Drew’s, but she definitely had it in her. “I don’t give up.”
“Then prove it.”
I kissed her again, harder this time, more demanding. My hands found her waist, then slid lower to grip her hips, pulling her flush against me so she could feel exactly what she did to me. She gasped into my mouth but swallowed the sound before it could escape.
Good girl.
I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought it, and something about that made me even harder.
My fingers found the hem of her shirt, slipping underneath to trace the soft skin of her stomach.
She shivered but stayed silent, her hands moving from my shirt to my shoulders, nails digging in through the fabric.
I kissed down her jaw, her neck, that spot below her ear that always made her squirm.
“Liam.” My name was barely a breath against my hair.
“Shh.” I nipped at her pulse point. “Quiet, remember?”
She nodded frantically, and I rewarded her by sliding my hand higher, cupping her breast through her bra. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip so hard I thought she might draw blood.
Christ, she was going to kill me. The sight of her trying so desperately to stay silent, every reaction playing across her face because she couldn’t let it out through her voice—it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. Especially when I’d just gotten started.
I wanted more. Needed more.
I reached for the button of her jeans, pausing with my fingers on the metal. “Yes?”
She nodded again, her chest heaving.
“Words, Aves. I need words.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Please, yes.”
I undid her jeans and slipped my hand inside, finding her already soaked through her underwear. The discovery made me groan before I could stop myself, and she shot me a look that was half reproach, half smug satisfaction. Fuck, I loved how wet and ready she always was for me.
“Now who needs to be quiet?” she breathed.
“Touché.” I stroked her through the damp cotton, watching her face contort with the effort of staying silent. “But I’m not the one being tested right now.”
I pushed her underwear aside and sank two fingers into her wet heat. Her mouth fell open in a silent cry, her inner walls clenching around me like a vise. I pumped slowly, curling my fingers to hit that spot I’d memorized weeks ago, the one that made her lose her mind.
She grabbed my wrist—not to stop me, but to hold on. Her other hand was clamped over her own mouth now, muffling the whimpers she couldn’t quite suppress.
“You’re so wet,” I murmured against her ear. “So fucking wet for me. You’ve been thinking about this all day, haven’t you? Sitting in class, pretending to take notes, when really you were thinking about my hands on you. My mouth on you. My cock inside you.”
A high-pitched sound escaped through her fingers, and I stilled.
“What was that?”
Her eyes were wild, desperate. She shook her head.
“I think someone needs something in her mouth to keep her quiet.” I withdrew my fingers, glistening with her arousal, and brought them to her lips. “Open.”
She obeyed, sucking my fingers into her mouth, tasting herself on my skin. The sight nearly undid me. I watched her tongue swirl around my knuckles, her eyes locked on mine, and knew I couldn’t wait anymore.
“Ava.” My voice came out rough. “I’m gonna bury myself so deep inside you, you’ll feel me for days. Turn around.”
Understanding flickered across her face, followed by a look of relief. We’d done everything but this—oral, hands, foreplay that left us both wrecked and wanting. I’d been holding back this final step, telling myself it was because I wanted to take things slow, wanted to make sure she was ready.
But that wasn’t the real reason, and I was too far gone to lie to myself anymore.
The real reason was that I’d been too chickenshit to have sex with her in a bedroom.
Location had never mattered to me before, but with Ava, a bedroom meant something. It meant intimacy, vulnerability, the kind of emotional nakedness I’d spent my whole life avoiding.
But here, in the dusty archives of the library with the risk of discovery hanging over us—this was different. This was risky, sure, but it was the right kind of risk. Physical, not emotional. This was sex as thrill-seeking and as something that could be filed away as just another wild story.
I pulled a condom from my wallet—I always had one on hand—and pushed my pants just past my butt. I didn’t want to drop them all the way, just in case we did in fact get caught. I slid the condom on and then shimmied Ava’s jeans over her toned ass and down to her knees.
“Fuck, you look so good bent over for me.”
I could stare at her like this all day, but we were on borrowed time and I wasn’t kidding when I’d said I needed to be inside her.
I positioned myself against her soaking slit.
“Last chance to back out,” I said, even though I might actually die if she said no.
In response, she pushed back onto my cock and I thrust forward, filling her in one move.
We both sucked in a sharp breath, but didn’t dare make any other noise.
The sensation of being inside her nearly brought me to my knees.
She was tight and hot and absolutely fucking perfect, and it took every ounce of self-control I had not to come on the spot.
Her walls gripped me like she never wanted to let go, and I had to bury my face in her neck just to breathe while my hands gripped her hips, holding on for dear life.
“Goddamn,” I groaned, the word muffled against her skin. “You feel unreal,” I whispered.
She was trembling in my arms, her hands gripping the shelf so tight her fingers were turning white.
“You okay?” I was worried I hadn’t gotten her ready enough. But then she nodded and shushed me. Ah, she was bound and determined to succeed at this so she could cross it off her list.
I started to move, slowly at first, so she could adjust to my girth.
But I quickly lost the battle for restraint.
Something primal took over, some base instinct that demanded I claim her, mark her, make her mine in a way that could never be undone.
I thrust deeper, harder, holding on to her hips like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth.
The bookshelf creaked ominously where she gripped it. Somewhere in the distance, a door opened and closed, but neither of us stopped moving. Her body had found a rhythm with mine that was making spots dance at the corners of my vision.
I angled my hips to hit a different spot, and her whole body seized. Her orgasm built and her inner walls started to flutter around my cock as I drove into her relentlessly, chasing that peak with her.
“Come for me,” I breathed against her ear. “Come for me, Ava. I want to feel you fall apart.”
She grabbed my hand and brought it over her mouth just as she shattered, her mouth open in a soundless scream, her body convulsing around me in waves.
The sight of her—the feeling of her—pushed me over the edge right behind her.
I buried myself to the hilt and came so hard I saw stars, my release pulsing into her while I buried my face in her shoulder to muffle my own low groan.
We stayed like that for a long moment, breathing hard, bodies still joined, my chest to her back and my mouth at her neck.
“I think I passed that time,” she said, glancing back at me, her cheeks flushed rosy and a blissed-out smile on her face.
I glanced around, confirming we hadn’t attracted any unwanted attention, then looked back at her. She was looking at me like no one ever had before, like I was special and someone worth keeping, and it made that fist around my insides squeeze tighter, higher up than it had ever been.
This is what you wanted, I reminded myself. A risky hookup in a semi-public place. Nothing intimate about it.
But as I helped her pull up her pants and then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear that had come loose during our activities, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just made everything infinitely more complicated.
Because the truth was, no matter where we were or how risky the location, being inside Ava had felt like coming home.
And that scared me more than anything else in my life ever had.
“Come on,” I said, wrapping the condom in a napkin I’d brought and pulling up my pants before taking her hand, leading her back toward the main part of the library. “I think we’ve traumatized enough periodicals for one evening.”
She laughed again, squeezing my fingers, and I let myself hold on to her for just a little longer than necessary.
Just until we got back to the part of the library where other people might see.
Just until I had to let her go.