Chapter 12
In an instant his lips are on hers, and Nick’s not sure who closed the distance first, only that he’s so fucking glad that space no longer exists. Her body snaps to his, his hands on the sides of her face to draw her close. Closer.
He shouldn’t want her like this. Can’t want her like this, and yet each slide of her mouth convinces him that maybe he can.
Then her back hits the door, and all rational thought leaves his mind.
Kissing Ramona is heady and inelegant. She grabs fistfuls of his shirt, lets him press her harder against the door. Opens her mouth against his. He could get addicted to the rush of her breathing, the low moan in her throat when he sinks his teeth into her lower lip.
He’s not sure he’s ever had a first kiss quite like it.
He even lets himself do what he’s been dying to since that first day—bury his hands in her hair. Fuck, it’s phenomenal. Thick and soft, and there’s just so much of it.
“You like my hair, professor?” she asks, and he manages a groan that’s only half-human.
It’s deeply wrong. Thoroughly inappropriate. The most out-of-character thing he’s ever done.
And he can’t stop.
Ramona takes control, and maybe that’s what this is going to be—a dance of power between them. She walks them back, back, until they’re right up against his desk, and he has to suppress a smile when he realizes what she’s doing.
In one swift motion, he whirls them around, her ass at the edge of the desk, keeping his mouth fused to hers while he shoves things out of the way.
Papers, office supplies—why the hell does he need a three-hole punch; when’s the last time he owned a binder?
—all of it gets pushed to one side. Some of it drops to the floor.
Nick has never considered himself particularly smooth, especially not over the past year. But when he lifts her onto the desk and she inches herself backward, creating the perfect space for him between her legs, he wonders if he’s only been saving it up for this moment. Waiting for her.
He’s barely had enough time to fantasize about this since she mentioned it last night, and now he fears all his fantasies have been wasted. Because the way she looks up there, swollen mouth and lush mane of hair, the rapid rise and fall of her chest…he swears under his breath.
“Just like you imagined?” she pants. Widening her legs. Drawing him close. A notebook flutters to the ground.
“Better. So much better.” His glasses are still on, he realizes as he kisses along her jaw while her hands explore his lower back, beneath his shirt.
He almost doesn’t want to pause to take them off, just in case it gives either of them time to come to their senses.
And he doesn’t want to miss a single detail.
“You knew exactly what you were doing,” he says against her throat, “showing up in that skirt.”
Her smile is lethal. “Did it work?”
This girl may very well be the death of him.
Doesn’t sound like a terrible way to die.
What the hell is happening? a voice presses, but he’s too far gone for logic. She said it herself—they barely know each other. And yet every single one of his senses feels like it’s been asleep for years, and Ramona is the most alluring alarm clock.
He trails his hand up her leg, beneath the hem of her skirt. Smooth, soft skin. The curve of her knee. She wraps her legs around him, her heels digging into his back a little too hard, but he finds he doesn’t mind the pain.
Ramona Wilder is someone who gets what she wants.
And right now, inexplicably, what she wants is him.
So he wants her right back, rucking up her skirt, rocking his hips to hers, the hard ridge of his jeans finding the silk of her panties.
And…oh. That’s—that’s what euphoria must feel like.
He barely recognizes the rough, choked sounds falling from his mouth, wonders if she feels the same about the stream of obscenities she lets out when he hits what must be exactly the right spot. So he does it again.
He bends to kiss her neck. God, she tastes sweet everywhere. “Can I—?” he asks, mouth on her collarbone, fingertips poised on the top button of her shirt.
“Yes. Please.”
That’s all the permission he needs, going for her buttons with frantic, clumsy fingers.
Once he gets her shirt open, he has to pause for a second, forehead tipped to hers.
Because fuck, she has beautiful breasts, full and round and spilling out of the cups of her demi bra, brown nipples pushing against the sheer pink fabric.
If he is in fact going to die today, he wants to savor every moment.
The first place he kisses is the pattern of freckles above her right breast. That’s about all the restraint he has left.
Then he presses his mouth to one nipple, his thumb working the other through the fabric of her bra.
She sighs as he tugs down the lace to give himself better access, and then might actually whimper as he sucks her nipple between his teeth.
She’s so goddamn vocal, it’s surreal—as though every small thing feels incredible.
With the way his head is spinning, he’s not sure how he’s still standing. And while he wants nothing more in this moment than to bring her to the edge and then tip her over, he’s not sure if he deserves it. Because surely, he’s not this good.
Then slowly, something changes. He can sense her body tightening, and when she looks up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, she gives him a slight nudge away from her chest as she stretches a hand toward his jeans.
“Do you want me on my knees?” she asks in this breathy register he’s never heard from her.
“Do I—what?”
“Do you want me on my knees,” she repeats, without a question in her voice this time. “If you’re going to come, you can do it on my tits or my ass, but just not on my face, please.”
Nick just looks at her. Takes a moment to readjust his glasses.
He can barely process the words, let alone understand them.
The sultry way she asked him sounded like she was playing a character.
There was something mechanical there, almost like—like she’s said this before. Like someone didn’t respect it.
When he doesn’t respond, her expression morphs to horror.
“Oh god,” she says, hand covering her face. “I completely ruined the moment, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have just assumed, I’m sorry. I—I can go.”
What kind of lowlifes has she been with? Does she just assume whatever this is centers on his pleasure only? That hers is an afterthought?
“No, no,” he says, and he wants to hold her.
He reaches forward to lift her hand from her face, wanting desperately to show her she has nothing to be ashamed of.
Kisses her palm, and then the red apple of her cheek.
And then abruptly worries that might be too intimate, contrasted with how frenzied they just were.
“It’s not that—that I don’t want that.” He swallows hard, choosing his words carefully.
“I just…I’d like to touch you first. If that’s okay. ”
“Oh,” she says in a small voice. “Sure. Yeah.” But she doesn’t exactly sound eager. She continues, as though trying to talk herself into it: “But I should warn you…I’m not very easy.”
A smirk. “I didn’t think you were.”
The next time she kisses him, tugging his chin closer, it feels heavier, somehow.
“You’re sure?” he says against her mouth, and she nods.
“I’m sorry—let’s just ignore all that weird stuff I said.”
And he can do that, even if it makes him ache a little, the fact that her first impulse was to focus solely on him.
He wants to tell her that he’d sooner be the one on his knees—that it’s precisely what he pictured when he fell apart last night.
She melts back into him as he trails his hand up her leg again and gives her thigh a squeeze.
Drags her closer to the edge of the desk. He’ll go slow with her. Tease her.
“Is this okay?” he asks as he traces the seam of her panties. He can feel her, damp and needy. But he won’t keep going unless she gives her most enthusiastic—
“Yes,” she says against his neck.
With one finger, he pushes aside the fabric that seems just as barely-there as her bra. Fuck, she’s already so wet—he has to swallow back a thousand desperate sounds. She feels incredible like this, warm and slick and opening up for him. Unreal.
He gives her long, focused strokes along her lips as she clenches her fists in his shirt. Bites out her exhales. She said she isn’t easy? Then he’s going to work his absolute hardest.
“How’s that?” he asks when he brushes her clit, the feathering of his fingertip drawing out a sigh.
“A little faster.” When he adjusts his speed, she throws her head back, exposing the curve of her neck. He puts his mouth right there. “That’s—that’s perfect.”
God, he’s pretty sure he could come just like this, with his hand inside her panties.
He’s never felt more out of control, more overwhelmed—by the scent of her, the feel of her, the stunning, filthy sounds she makes.
He slips a finger inside her, savoring her moan before he goes a little deeper.
And then deeper still. Her hands, clutching the fabric of his shirt like she could rip it apart at any moment.
They find a rhythm, this slight roll of her hips while he keeps his thumb pulsing on her clit.
“I—I’m close,” she says, seeming to surprise herself.
He quickens his pace. His cock strains against his jeans, heart slamming his rib cage. Never has he been more set on achieving a goal in his entire goddamn life. “Christ. You feel…” Even while he’s fumbling for a word, she lets out a faint whine, as though anticipating the praise. “…so good.”
She deserves a better adjective, and he’s almost embarrassed by how elementary this one is, but he loves what it does to her all the same.
Lashes lowered, hair a mess, shirt open while she rides his hand, her bra doing absolutely nothing to contain her breasts.
If they get another chance at this, he’ll read her a whole thesaurus.
When he gives her a second finger, she shudders around him. Then she’s tightening her grip on his collar, pressing her face to his chest. He’s harder than steel, but he can’t focus on anything but Ramona. His free hand on the back of her neck, twisted in her hair.
“Please,” she says, and he cannot believe Ramona Wilder is spread for him on his desk and begging.
“Ah. So you can be polite sometimes.”
That’s what does it. A gasp tears from her throat as she hides her face in his shirt—and fucking hell, that has to be the prettiest sound he’s ever heard.
She’s trembling against him. Working to catch her breath.
He might as well be cresting that wave with her, his hand on the back of her head, keeping her steady with soft strokes of her hair.
He’s certain he’ll hear that sound again and again when he’s alone in bed tonight.
Eventually her breathing slows, but she keeps her face buried, almost as though she isn’t ready to look at him yet. And that’s okay. He’ll let her take her time, even if he wishes he could have watched her.
When she finally lifts her head, she looks absolutely devastating. Her cheeks are flushed deep red, and her shy, satisfied smile aims a kick at his heart.
She tugs him forward to kiss him hard on the mouth, her hand dropping to the front of his jeans. He groans at the contact.
“Ramona,” he manages, distantly aware it’s the first time he’s called her by her first name.
And then there’s a knock on the door.
Nick springs away from the desk like he’s about to get caught—well, with a student half-undressed in his office.
Ramona snaps her legs together, lowers herself to the floor. “Oh—shit,” she says, rushing to button her shirt.
The door isn’t even locked—the realization hits him like a fifty-ton anvil.
Oh shit isn’t enough to convey the gravity of the situation. At lightning speed, he works to tidy his desk, pushing papers back into place, picking up the three-hole punch and then immediately dropping it, his hands are so shaky. Ramona’s in the corner fixing her hair.
“Just a second!” he calls out. “Just—finishing an email!”
Right. Those very important emails that require total privacy and frantic shouting.
“No worries, I’ll try you again later,” a voice calls back, cheery and completely unassuming.
And even as the footsteps fade, as the two of them exhale and attempt to relax, the reality of it all sinks in.
What they just did.
What someone could have seen.
What it would mean for his job.
“I should go,” Ramona says, picking up her giant tote bag.
“You don’t have to—” he tries, because despite the massive reality check, he doesn’t want it to end like this. Doesn’t want her to feel like she did anything wrong.
“I do.” Her gaze flicks around the office, as though to confirm that everything is back in order. Even her hair looks somehow purposeful in its state of gorgeous disarray. “This was…” Not finding a word for it, she lets the sentence hang there, unfinished.
He wants to rewind to five minutes ago. When she was breathless on his desk and nothing else seemed to matter.
“Enjoy my paper,” she says. “I really think it’s my best work.”
And with that, she’s out the door.
It’s only later, once he’s packing up his books for the day, that his fingers touch delicate lace.
She tucked her panties in his messenger bag.