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But then he rolled her underwear to her knees, tongue lapping a slow strip between her folds. ‘Like this?’

Juniper nodded, fingers curling in his hair as she closed her eyes.

‘I need you to say it, Juni. Tell me if this is okay. That you’re okay.’

It surprised her, this sudden cautiousness, enough that she felt less like she was dangling on the edge of the cliff and more like he was about to catch her as she stepped off a low ledge. She was safe. She could say no and he’d step away. Only she didn’t want to. ‘Yes. Yes, it’s more than okay.’

He inserted his fingers again, beckoning against her G-spot. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out, yanking at his hair until he matched her force both with his fingers and his tongue. Right as her climax approached, dragged closer by the sounds of his frantic mouth against her wet pussy, a rustle outside left her jolting.

She nudged him away with her foot, losing her own balance in the process in an effort to pull down her skirt.

Just in time, because the door swung open to reveal Luc in the hallway, blinking slowly. ‘Gross,’ they said with perfect nonchalance, and then shut the door again.

‘Shit, Aiden.’ Juniper tugged her underwear up, wincing when it hit her wet, pulsating core, before rearranging her crumpled skirt.

On the floor, Aiden looked like he’d just woken from a dream, dazed as a deer in headlights. His stubble was slick with Juniper’s juices, which almost left her changing her mind and letting him ravish her again, but fuck, this wasn’t her. She didn’t have sex in a near-stranger’s bedroom at a house party – with Aiden Twatface Whittaker of all people. What had Luc seen? Too much, probably, considering her knickers had been tangled around her bloody ankles.

She felt empty without Aiden’s fingers inside her. Empty, unsatisfied, and maddened, but the humiliation overpowered even her writhing ache for release. She tried not to look at him as she assigned her boobs back to her admittedly flimsy bra, not even when he stood to touch her wrist.

‘Juni…’

‘This shouldn’t have happened. It didn’t happen, okay?’

‘Well, I think it did.’

‘Nope! Didn’t happen.’ She rushed out of the room before he could argue further, refusing to allow reality to set in.

Even if, when she got home later that night, the ghost of his mouth still lingered in all the wrong places, and she found her fingers much less satisfying than his.

11

Aiden watched the rain patter against the windows of the library, the dreary bruised sky matching his mood perfectly. He’d been both dreading and anticipating this meeting with Juniper since he’d woken up to go for a run at the crack of dawn this morning, only it looked like he’d been stood up. Between that and still having no idea of what to focus on for his part of the collaboration piece, that familiar black cloud was hovering just over his head again.

It didn’t help that he’d been left high and dry on Saturday night. One minute, Juniper had been his. The next, she’d been distant as ever, leaving him alone with a hard on that no amount of cold showers could have fixed. By the time he’d gone back downstairs, she and Tilly had gone, and Luc had been eager to disappear, too.

Aiden didn’t know what he was doing. Of all the people at that party, why was she the only one he’d wanted?

And why didn’t she want him at all?

She had, momentarily. But like her moods, it had been fleeting. So fleeting it barely felt real, especially now that she was obviously avoiding him.

He slammed his laptop shut, giving up on waiting. It had been half an hour, and she couldn’t blame fire alarms or geese this time. She was wasting his time. And she had the gall to say it was him who wasn’t trying.

Just as he began to pack up, the heavy thuds of boots disrupted the tranquillity. Juniper dashed out of the lift and straight towards Aiden.

A little too late.

He sat back down, throwing his bag on the floor again. ‘What time d’you call this, Hodge?’

‘I know. I’m late.’ She blew out a tired breath and slumped into the chair opposite, laying out her belongings on the table.

‘That’s okay. I accept your apology.’ He leaned lazily back in his chair, tugging on the ends of his rain-knotted hair. If she could act indifferent, so could he.

And yet it still stung when she refused to acknowledge his words, focusing on getting her notebook and pen ready. ‘So, did you properly decide on your theme, yet?’

‘That’s it? Nothing about how our little sexcapade was cut short this weekend?’

Juniper shushed him with a tight hand around his mouth, glancing around as though worried someone would overhear despite the fact that they were in a quieter corner of the massive library. It reminded him of the one at Elmington, stacked with more textbooks than any ceramicist surely needed, with a domed roof that might have poured in daylight if there was any to be found. The shelves and stair railings were all elegant dark mahogany, the storeys marked by balconies on each floor that spanned the perimeter of the building.