7. Chapter 7
7
B astian stood with his back to me, his head bowed toward the door and his voice low. “I came here for—” He ran his fingers through his hair and turned to face me. His short, dark hair had a slight curl to it that looked enticingly roguish when unkempt. “Well, right now, I really don’t give a fuck,” he said.
He prowled across the room, shedding the last fragments of his familiar, somewhat bashful academic persona. Last night, I had only seen flashes of the confident, commanding man who now approached me. My gut told me he had been hiding before. Hiding all along. This was the real Bastian, raw and unfiltered.
I held absolutely still; the prey caught in a predator’s sight. The desk still hid my lower half from Bastian’s view, but based on the dark desire burning in his eyes, he knew exactly where my unseen hand was and what I had been doing just a moment ago.
Bastian rounded the desk and stopped behind my chair. I would have sworn I could feel his body heat as he stood behind me, his aura of virile sexuality cocooning me.
“Mmm,” he hummed, his voice deeper and rougher than before. “I thought so.”
He placed his hands on my shoulders and leaned over the back of my chair, grazing his fingertips down my right arm. His touch was a gentle tease. Goosebumps formed on my skin, trailing after his fingers as his hand traveled over my elbow, down the length of my forearm, and over the back of my hand to delve into my underwear.
My mind finally caught up with what was happening. This was where we worked , and technically, I was Bastian’s superior! Panic fluttered in my chest.
“Bastian,” I said, his name a breathy whisper. “I don’t think—” I cleared my throat. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Bastian leaned over the chairback and raised his other hand to my throat, gently holding me in place as he nuzzled aside the mahogany waves I had gathered back in a ponytail. He traced his nose along the edge of my jaw, breathing deeply.
“You smell like sex,” he whispered, and need pulsed against my palm as his breath brushed my skin.
Bastian’s hand slid lower, covering mine. He applied gradual pressure, slowly, gently grinding the heel of my palm against my swollen, sensitive clit. His fingertips glided over my knuckles and followed the line of my fingers to where they disappeared into my soaked core.
“You’re so fucking wet,” he groaned, teasing my entrance.
I sucked in a shivering breath when he sank two fingers inside me. His thicker fingers added to mine, stretching me blissfully. I rocked my hips against his hand as his forearm flexed, pushing his fingers deeper into me.
“Holy fuck,” he groaned, withdrawing his fingers, then thrusting them back into me.
I moaned involuntarily, savoring the feel of Bastian stretching me. He curved his fingers over mine, seeking the secret place inside me that would drive me wild. His palm pressed against the back of my hand in a slow, rhythmic rocking motion, stimulating my swollen bud. He was creating tantalizing sensations that quickly built to staggering intensity.
I sucked in a shaky breath and held it, hovering on the brink of what promised to be a mind-shattering orgasm. And from the way Bastian carefully checked the press of his hand against mine and alternated between teasing the rim of my entrance and curving his fingers to rub the sweet spot deep inside me, he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
“Bastian, please,” I gasped. I was already unraveling, and he’d barely been in the office for two minutes. What would it be like to actually be with him?
I was no virgin and certainly no saint. I had been in love once when I was sixteen and living on the street, but I hadn’t been with anyone since then. Since Wes. Since what happened with the other boys. Since the baby . . .
I gripped my pendant and squeezed my eyes shut. I wouldn’t think about that right now. I would not think about any of that.
“Look at me.” Bastian’s words yanked my attention back to the here and now, to him and the delicious sensations he was drawing out of my body.
I opened my eyes and turned my face toward his.
Bastian’s mouth hovered a hairsbreadth from mine. “Stay with me,” he breathed, echoing my words of the previous night.
“I’m here,” I whispered. I wanted to forget the past. And to stay here, in this moment, with Bastian . . . Hell, I needed to be here. To experience this.
Without warning, Bastian’s hand stilled. “Do you want me to fuck you?” he asked, his voice a rough purr. When I said nothing, he added, “I can feel you hesitating. Tell me what you want, Sophie. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, and I hope you know I would never— never— hurt you.”
Still reeling from the emotional whiplash of my past attempting to waylay my present, and clutching desperately onto the pulsing near-orgasm tightening my abdomen, I whimpered. It was the only response I could manage, given the circumstances.
Bastian removed his hand. “It’s all right if you’re not ready,” he whispered and straightened behind me. “I’ll be around when you are.”
I watched him round my desk and head for the door. If I let him leave, I would probably finish myself off, thinking about him touching me. It would be boring and typical, and my body ached for something beyond that. I yearned to be filled. By him.
Hell, I had been imagining him fucking me mere minutes ago. Now, I had the chance to experience my fantasy in real life. Only a moron would turn this opportunity down.
“Wait,” I said as Bastian reached for the doorknob, my voice more than a little hoarse.
He paused with his hand resting on the knob, but he didn’t turn to face me. It was impossible not to admire the fit of his jeans over his trim hips and tight ass or the way his sweater, charcoal gray today, hugged his broad shoulders. My attraction to him was undeniable. Even before last night, before the club and the dancing and the dreams, I had wanted him.
I just hadn’t considered that he might want me too.
I opened my mouth, then closed it again and swallowed. “I . . .”
“What do you want, Sophie?” Bastian asked, glancing over his shoulder.
I inhaled deeply, then forced the words out before I could stop myself. “I want you to fuck me, but—” I hesitated, then blurted, “Do you have a condom?”
Bastian’s dimple appeared with a wicked little twist of his lips, and he turned around. “Yeah,” he said. The bulge in the front of his jeans suggested my generous estimation of his size in my dream hadn’t been far off, and anticipation throbbed in my core.
He stalked forward and removed his glasses, setting them beside mine on the desk, then planted his hands on the surface and leaned in. “Take off your pants and sit that pretty ass right here,” he said, straightening and patting the edge of the desk.
Never one to enjoy being told what to do, I hesitated, but only for a second. I wanted him inside me so badly that it physically hurt.
Standing, I slipped my feet out of my sneakers and pushed my jeans over the curve of my hips and down my thighs. I pulled first my left leg free, then my right, and laid them over the arm of my chair. Tentatively, I rounded the desk to approach Bastian.
Our dynamic had completely shifted by the time I stopped in front of him. He wasn’t that much taller than me, maybe six feet to my five-nine, but he was throwing off such intense sexual energy that I felt dwarfed by his presence. He stepped backward, allowing me just enough space to slide in between his body and the desk.
I leaned back and gripped the edge, then hopped up to sit. I crossed my ankles and held my knees together, feeling suddenly shy in front of Bastian despite him having just had his hand stuffed down the front of my pants. But this was the most any man had seen of me since . . .
Again, I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my face away. I would not think about the past. I refused to ruin this with those wretched memories.
Bastian’s gentle fingers curved around my jaw, and he angled my face back toward his. My eyelids fluttered open as he brushed away a tear that had broken free and was trailing down my cheek.
For a long moment, he just gazed down at me, like he was reading my past in my eyes. Like he sensed my heartbreak. My secret agony. I could only imagine how many red flags were going off in his mind. If she cries at the thought of being with you, run.
I sucked in a shaky breath and licked my lips, intending to apologize.
“Don’t,” Bastian said, his eyes searching mine, then dropping to my lips. “I’m the one who should say sorry for taking so damn long to do this.”
“To do what?” I whispered.
He leaned in, closing the distance between us. The first touch of his lips against mine was careful, cautious, reassuring. He deepened the kiss, teasing my lips apart. Our breaths mingled, and his tongue delved into my mouth, coaxing mine out. He tasted like mint and vanilla, with just a hint of coffee, and the soft scratch of his faint stubble sent shivers cascading over my skin, from my neck down to my knees.
I opened my legs, and Bastian shifted closer. He traced the waistband of my underwear before slipping his hand back down the front and expertly finding my most sensitive of places. He rubbed my swollen clit with a gentle but relentless motion.
I was panting by the time he broke the kiss. He placed his other hand on my sternum and pushed me backward until I reclined on my elbows on the desk. For a long moment, I watched his hand move in my underwear because it was so fucking hot. But it felt even better than it looked, and I quickly surrendered to his skillful touch and let my elbows slide out so I could lie back on the desk.
“Oh my god,” I panted, arching my back and rocking my hips against Bastian’s hand. An explosive warmth was gathering in my belly. Building. Expanding. “I’m going to come, Bas. I’m going to come.”
“Do it,” he said, rubbing my clit harder and faster. I barely registered the clink of a belt buckle being unfastened or the feel of him pulling my underwear down over my hips.
I hissed in a sharp breath, and my insides erupted with pleasure at the exact moment Bastian gripped one of my thighs, guided my leg around his hips, and thrust the full length of his massive erection into me. Stars burst across my vision, and I cried out, my arms reaching and my hands grasping, knocking papers and desk supplies onto the floor as my inner muscles clenched and spasmed around his thickness. My nerve endings electrified, and pleasure spread out from the core of my being in cascading waves.
“Shhh,” Bastian murmured as he pulled out and slowly reentered me. He gripped my hips, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, and repeated the motion, thrusting back into me harder. “We don’t want . . . anyone to come. . . and check on you.” His words came out in breathy grunts, emphasizing each of his hard thrusts, and the rough sounds only escalated my pleasure.
I desperately hoped Carla, the intern who was manning the Special Collections help desk today, had her earbuds in. Otherwise, the rhythmic groan of the desk beneath me, not to mention the sounds I couldn’t seem to contain, would be a dead giveaway as to what was happening in my small basement office.
Impossibly, the telltale pressure of an impending climax built deep within my core again . I couldn’t believe it. I had easily just had the best orgasm of my life, and I was pretty sure I was about to come again.
“Don’t stop, Bas,” I moaned, clasping my hands around his wrists. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop . . .” The words flowed from me as my fingernails dug into his skin.
Bastian slowed his pace, and I wrapped my legs around his hips, locked my ankles over his firm ass, and rode him from below.
Bastian’s grip on my hips tightened, and he pressed me down on the desk so he could control the pace. “Not yet,” he gasped. “I want this to last. I’ve wanted you . . . needed to be inside you . . . to make you come . . . for so long.”
His words made up for his slowed pace, and I teetered on the precipice of blissful oblivion. A throaty moan escaped from my lips. Bastian’s steady rhythm faltered, and he rammed into me.
I was so close. So unbearably close.
Taking advantage of his momentary lapse in control, I raised my head off the desk and locked eyes with Bastian. The most animalistic lust I had ever seen filled his gaze.
“Fuck me,” I ordered, my voice oddly resonant. “Make me come.” I repeated the words over and over again, my head falling back and my voice turning more guttural as Bastian obeyed my desperate request and resumed the earlier pounding.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the mounting pleasure snapped within me, and in a moment of absolute bliss, a second orgasm engulfed the world. My vision faded to white, and the relentless waves of pleasure became my entire existence. I gasped as my inner muscles spasmed and clenched around Bastian. He pumped into me two, three, four more times, each thrust more forceful than the last.
“Oh fuck ,” he growled, losing his rhythm completely while he reached his release. He buried himself in me as deep as he could go and remained locked in that position for dozens of thundering heartbeats.
As the intensity of his orgasm eased, he let go of my hips and leaned over me on the desk, holding himself up with trembling arms. I relaxed my legs, and Bastian rested his forehead on my shoulder as we both drifted back down from the incredible high. He turned his head, kissing my collarbone, then my neck.
“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice filled with awe.
My breath hitched, and I squeezed my eyes shut. Wes used to say that, to thank me—after. Like I was doing him a favor, when all I was doing was showing him how much he meant to me. I couldn’t help but feel like I had just betrayed him. This was the first time in eighteen years. The first time since . . . since . . .
Thoughts of the past chilled me to the bone, and I shivered, goosebumps crawling over my skin.
“It’s okay, Soph.”
My next breath lodged in my throat, and my entire body stiffened. Bastian hadn’t spoken those words. The voice had belonged to a dead man. A voice I hadn’t heard in nearly two decades. Wes’s voice.
“You did what you had to do to keep our boy safe,” Wes said. “I was with you the whole time, Soph. The whole time. I’ll always be with you, but it’s time to let me go. Live , firefly. You have to let yourself live.”
I grasped the pendant hanging from a chain around my neck, Wes’s pendant, and wrapped my fingers around it, even as I refused to open my eyes. Refused to look toward the corner of the room. Refused to see if Wes was standing there, another ghostly silver specter like the hallucination of my sister had been the night before.
My breathing, which had slowed as Bastian and I rested after the intense coupling, picked up with a vengeance. Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t get any oxygen, like I was trying to catch my breath on the moon.
What if Amaya hadn’t been a sleep paralysis hallucination? What if she had really been there? I knew next to nothing about the gifts of a living vampire. Only the females of my kind had powers during our first lives, as the male children of a living vampire were born human. For all I knew, seeing ghosts was one such gift, if such an ability could even be called a gift.
Bastian shifted above me, positioning his elbows by my shoulders and brushing the flyaway strands of hair that had escaped from my ponytail away from my face. The backs of his fingers gently caressed my cheeks and along my jaw. “Sophie?” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch. “Are you okay? Did I—” He hesitated. “Did I hurt you?”
My chin trembled, and I turned my face away from his inquisitive gaze, not to mention his tender touch. I hadn’t cried more than a few silent tears in years, but here I was in my office, half-naked, sexually sated, and about to have a full-on emotional breakdown.
Softly gripping my chin, Bastian turned my face back toward him. “Sophie? Please, say something.”
I shook my head as tears spilled from the corners of my eyes and streamed across my temples. “It has just been a really long time since—” My breath hitched, and my words caught in my throat. “I haven’t been with anyone since . . .” I trailed off with a tremulous breath.
Bastian lifted his hips off mine enough that his waning erection slipped free of my body. He moved one of his arms lower so he could ease his hand between our bodies. His thumb traced along the narrow ridge of the six-inch scar running horizontally across my lower abdomen.
“Since this?” he asked softly.
My eyelids flew open, and I was shocked to see the sympathy lighting Bastian’s features. I nodded, not yet trusting my voice.
Bastian withdrew his hand and settled himself back between my legs. His fingertips trailed up the side of my body under my shirt, and he curved his hand possessively around the side of my ribcage. The touch was more comforting than sexual, like he was reassuring me he was still here, that he wasn’t planning on going anywhere.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head, but then I blew out a breath. I could practically hear Wes telling me to finally let someone in, but this was different from a moment ago. This was a memory of his voice, whereas I would have sworn I had actually heard him earlier.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, risking a glance at the corner of the office where I had heard Wes.
Nobody was there. Of course not, because it hadn’t been real. It couldn’t have been.
I looked at Bastian and offered him a shaky smile. “Maybe,” I said. I glanced down at our half-clothed bodies, pressed together in the most intimate of ways, and heat suffused my neck and cheeks. “But, um, maybe not like this?”
A faint, rueful grin curved Bastian’s lips. He leaned in and kissed me sweetly, lingering to trace the curves and lines of my face with his gaze, then pushed up and stood. He picked up the box of tissues we had knocked onto the floor and pulled a few out to wipe the insides of my thighs. He used a few more tissues to clean himself before pulling up his underwear and jeans.
I pushed up onto my elbows as he crouched to retrieve my discarded underwear and gazed up at me. I could only imagine the picture I cast, sprawled on the desk, naked from the waist down and utterly disheveled. Based on the way Bastian’s eyes darkened with renewed desire, he liked what he saw. He shifted so he was close enough to guide the small garment over both of my feet and stood, dragging my underwear up my legs. I lifted my butt off the edge of the desk so he could pull them all the way up over my hips.
Bastian planted his hands on the desk on either side of my legs and leaned in, kissing me deeply before shifting his lips to my ear and whispering, “You should probably put your pants on.” His faint stubble tickled my cheek. “The longer you lay here, like this . . .” One of his hands slid under my shirt, his fingers forming to the curve of my waist, and a low satisfied growl rumbled in his chest, reigniting my desire.
Cheeks heating, I cleared my throat and sat up the rest of the way. Bastian stood, but he didn’t back away. The hand on my waist drifted lower, kneading my hip, and he gazed down at me with such intensity that it made my breath hitch. It wasn’t just desire or lust. It was something more. Something with substance beyond the physical.
I raised a hand to press against the side of his face and traced his lips with the pad of my thumb. I stared into those golden starbursts in his irises, watching his pupils slowly expand to swallow the lighter area.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice hushed.
The corner of Bastian’s mouth quirked. “For fucking you?” he asked, his eyes glittering. The way he said it, not to mention the way he seemed so sure he would do it again, made everything in my belly contract with remembered ecstasy. The things this man could do to me with only a few words and a heated look were astounding. He chuckled. “Trust me when I say it was my pleasure.”
“No,” I said, pulling my hand away from his face and lowering my gaze. I fiddled with his belt, guiding the end back through the buckle. “Not that I don’t appreciate that , as well.” I glanced up, meeting his eyes for a single heartbeat. “But for understanding,” I said, returning my attention to his belt. “Most guys would have run away at the first sign of tears.”
“Most guys are assholes,” Bastian said.
I finished with his belt and looked up at his face. “But not you.”
His dimple appeared as a small smile curved his lips. “I have my moments.”
I scooted forward, and Bastian backed up to let me stand. I found my jeans in a heap on the floor behind my desk and quickly slipped back into them, then retrieved my glasses and put them on as well, despite the way they blurred the world. A moment later, I relented and removed them again. For whatever reason, I no longer needed them. I wasn’t going to continue to punish myself with stubbornness just as the headache from wearing them earlier had eased.
“So, what’re you doing now?” Bastian asked.
Combing through my hair with my fingers, I glanced down at the splayed stack of transfer requests on the corner of my desk. “Oh, you know, just working through an endless pile of paperwork.”
“Coffee break?” Bastian suggested. When I hesitated, my stare lingering on the pile of transfer requests, he promised, “I’ll help you with this after.”
“Okay,” I said after a moment. “I’d like that.” I meant it. I wanted to know more about the library intern who had crashed through my heavily constructed barriers.
I slipped my sneakers back on and grabbed my purse from its usual spot atop the short bookcase behind my desk, settling the long shoulder strap crosswise across my body. “Did you have somewhere specific in mind?” I asked as I moved to join Bastian at the door.
“The coffee stand upstairs?” Bastian suggested.
Technically, the coffee stand was in the Suzzallo Library, but since the Allen Library had been connected to the older building when it was constructed, everyone who worked here considered them one and the same.
Bastian reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open, letting me pass through to the hall ahead of him. “Then we can come right back down here and get down to business.”
I eyed him sidelong, catching his double meaning. “I have to get through these transfer requests,” I said.
“I’ll behave,” Bastian said as he shut the door. “Promise.”
I studied him through narrowed eyes, weighing his sincerity, but there was no way the warmth that spread through my chest when I looked at him—and when he looked at me—would let me turn him away. Shaking my head and laughing under my breath, I turned and started down the hallway.
Bastian caught my hand as he fell in step beside me, threading his fingers between mine.
My heart skipped a beat, and I glanced down at our joined hands, fighting the instinct to pull away. I wasn’t used to such casual intimacy. But his hand felt too good, too strong and sure, for me to let go.
So I offered him a slight smile, and we continued on our way.