Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
“You broke them first.” As she said it, he reached up and grasped the hand she was using to stroke his jaw.
His grip on her arm was strong and firm, but it didn’t hurt, and she liked it.
With his other hand, he grabbed a fistful of her shirt and pulled her closer toward him.
Her knees knocked against the edge of the couch between his spread legs.
She gasped as his fingers snaked up the back of her neck and into her hair.
“Whatever we start here we can’t finish here,” she said in a breathy voice.
His hand moved from the front of her shirt to the crook of her hip, settling her between his legs.
“We have to check on the decoction in half an hour.”
Maggie didn’t understand how she could still be wound so tight after the weekend they had, but he had already spun her into a frenzy with just his words. And now his touch, featherlight brushes of fingers over parts of her body that were definitely not office appropriate.
He grabbed the muscle of her thigh, her skirt riding up until she could see the soft indents of his fingers in her skin, and guided one leg and then the other over his until she was straddling his lap.
Maggie’s knees sank into the soft couch, and as he looked up at her, he brought his lips to her ear.
“Is this okay?” he asked, checking in as they pushed the boundary they had set earlier.
In response, she held his face in her hands, bringing her mouth to his.
There was no urgency in their kiss, only soft, long strokes of her tongue against his.
His fingers traced her spine as the kiss built.
“I am beginning to see the appeal of the fainting couch,” he moaned into her neck as he trailed kisses down toward her breasts.
She held on to the back of the couch, arching her back to give him more access while his hands continued to roam her body, grasping at her hips to keep her seated on his lap.
Then his hand moved over to the pocket of her skirt, and he grabbed the paper sticking out of it.
Distracted by the work he was doing at her neck, her breasts, she did not see him start to unfold Dot’s note until he stopped what he was doing to read it.
She squealed and managed to squeak, “That’s not your business!
” But he already had the note open with a cocky grin on his face.
She still tried to grab it, but Arthur deftly hooked his arm around her waist and laid her down on the couch until he was on top of her.
“Dot seems to think you’ve done well for yourself,” he said, practically preening.
“She’s in her nineties, not dead.”
“So you do think I’m attractive,” he said, as if he’d made some shocking discovery.
She rolled her eyes. “You know you are.”
“Maybe. But I like to hear you say it.”
She reached up and cupped his cheek. He leaned into the touch, a soft and intimate gesture that made Maggie’s chest constrict.
“Your good looks have been driving me to distraction since the day the pall fell,” she admitted.
“I couldn’t get any work done because I kept staring at your stupid hair and your shoulders and your forearms and—”
He interrupted her rambling by dipping his head down and kissing her, softer still.
“Do you remember my welcome reception?” Arthur asked when he came up for air.
Maggie tilted her head in confusion. “Sure. I was there.”
“You were.” He dragged his thumb along her bottom lip, slightly swollen from when he’d sucked it into his mouth just moments ago.
“You were wearing this same skirt.” His fingers grazed the hem.
“And when you came up to me, you had this lovely smile on your face. That was the first time I noticed your lips. The first time I wondered what it would be like to kiss you.”
“That was before—”
“Well before Beltane, Maggie.” His fingers at the hem of her skirt rose higher, gripping the curve of her ass.
His touch couldn’t distract her from what he was saying, though.
He remembered what she was wearing that day?
Gods above, she didn’t know how to feel.
“You didn’t get flustered when you talked to me.
You didn’t ask about my research.” As he spoke, he hiked her leg farther over his hip.
“In fact, you barely said ‘Hello, welcome,’ before you went back to talking to Dahlia.”
“You liked me because I was rude?”
He smirked. “Maybe. A little.” His hips dipped into hers, just enough that it felt scandalous. “Then I went to your community lecture.”
She shot up, nearly colliding with his head, but he dodged out of the way. “You did?” She was incredulous. “The one I gave in October?”
He nodded, easing her back onto the couch. “That’s when I fell in love with how you think.” Maggie tried not to think about that word, not here in their office, not with him between her legs. She swallowed as he went on. “I went to the library and read some of your research.”
“Stop, this might be the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said with a soft laugh. “You’d better not be lying just to get me to fuck you in this office.”
He leaned down, and she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he began reciting something in her ear. “Hand in hand, walking through eastern fields of gilded yarrow—” he whispered, nuzzling her neck as he said it.
“Are you for real?” He ignored her. That was her translation, the one she had been working on for years.
“The near autumn sun anoints your brow in a shining crown,” he went on, each word perfectly recited.
“Furrowed there, in deep grooves like wounds, are tomorrow’s sorrows.
Bury my body, love.” The next words were swallowed as he kissed her neck, her ear.
Maggie felt like she was short-circuiting from this revelation, from the way he was lavishing her skin with his mouth.
“You read my translation of Branagh’s Aubade?” she asked.
“What you’ve published of it, yes. It’s beautiful.”
Maggie wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, kissing him again, her fingers trailing along the hard line of his belt.
This time, she pulled his lip into her mouth, biting it lightly, and he sank farther into her, their clothing nothing but frustrating friction between them.
“I went to your community lecture, too,” Maggie admitted.
He didn’t stop kissing her as he asked, “And what did you think?”
“I was spectacularly annoyed that you were as brilliant as advertised.” He laughed dryly. “It’s not fair how accomplished you are.” He nipped her ear, and she squirmed beneath him. “In all facets of life,” she added, gasping.
“There is only one thing I care about being good at right now,” he said as he played with the stretchy waistband of her skirt.
Even as her hips tilted up toward him, she said, “Don’t forget the rules.”
He returned to safe territory, tracing circles over her clothing. “Are you sure you want me to remember the rules, Maggie?” he asked in his wicked voice, the one that could persuade her to do almost anything if he just growled her name.
She squirmed beneath him, hating the rules she’d invented. The door is locked, she reasoned. Campus might as well be empty. There aren’t even any summer classes running right now.
She opened her mouth to give in, when the timer they had set earlier went off. Arthur smiled, as if he’d known all along they were coming close to the time, and gave one last slow stroke of her spine, one last lingering kiss, before they stood to return to the botany lab.