Page 22

FOURTEEN

SHANE

I hadn’t meant to stay this late.

The pool of light from my desk lamp was the only thing keeping the darkness of the library at bay. Most of the building had emptied out hours ago, and yet here I was, still scribbling notes into my journal like the fate of my degree depended on it. Which, to be fair, it sort of did.

I blinked at the open textbook in front of me, the words blurring into one another until I realized I’d been reading the same sentence for the third time.

Something about emotional regulation and pre-performance anxiety.

Ironically fitting, considering the slight prickle of nerves crawling down my neck.

I had told Patrick I’d meet him at the bar tonight.

Just a casual hangout. Nothing big. Except now it was past nine, and my phone, long forgotten on silent mode, blinked with notifications.

I cursed under my breath and ran a hand through my hair.

A shadow fell across the table.

I flinched. My heart did a weird, startled twist before I even looked up. When I did, it was him.

Patrick.

Towering, grinning, and beautiful. He was wearing that black hoodie with the little rip in the collar, the one that drove me crazy for no good reason. And he had his hands in his pockets like he hadn’t just scared the hell out of me.

“Jesus,” I said, pressing a hand to my chest. “You can’t sneak up on me like that.”

He tilted his head. “You ghosted me. I thought maybe you got hit by a bus.”

“So you came to the library,” I said.

“It could have been one of those book carts, to be fair,” Patrick said.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes. “God, I haven’t even showered or changed my clothes. I’m sorry. I lost track of time.”

Patrick shrugged and pulled out the chair across from mine, sitting like he owned the place. “I figured. You always look kinda cute when you’re in panicked nerd mode.”

I gave him a withering glare that had zero effect. His grin just widened.

“You didn’t have to come all the way here,” I said. My voice was soft, embarrassed. I felt gross, still in the same jeans I’d worn to his afternoon practice, my shirt slightly rumpled, hair sticking up in the back.

“I wanted to see you,” Patrick said simply. His voice was so calm about it, so sure, like that was the most natural thing in the world.

He looked around the quiet floor, eyes flicking from the empty desks to the shadows between shelves. “We don’t have to go to the bar. I’d be happy just sitting here, watching you bite your pen and mutter to yourself.”

I laughed under my breath and stood, stretching. “Tempting, but no. We should go. Give me five minutes. Help me reshelve some of these books?”

“Of course, Professor.”

I rolled my eyes as I gathered the stack of texts on sports aggression, resilience, and emotional fatigue.

Patrick scooped up the rest without effort, following me to the back of the library.

The rows were dark but familiar, quiet except for the faint hum of the heating system and the dull thud of our footsteps on the carpet.

We reached the right shelf. I began sliding books into place, fingers brushing worn spines.

Patrick moved beside me, sliding his stack into the middle shelf without much precision. I was about to scold him when he stepped closer. Too close.

The footsteps I’d half registered earlier paused somewhere at the far end of the aisle.

And then he did it.

Patrick’s hand landed against the bookcase beside my head. His body pressed into mine. One smooth, defiant motion. The kiss came fast, hard, and hungry. His mouth crushed against mine with the kind of heat that left no room for thought. My spine hit the shelf behind me. I gasped against his lips.

His hands weren’t roaming, weren’t greedy. Just his mouth, his weight, and the absolute surety in the way he kissed me like he couldn’t wait another second.

And God, I didn’t care, either.

I kissed him back, harder than I meant to. I wrapped a hand behind his neck and pulled him down. I could taste mint and adrenaline. My knees wanted to give in. My pulse pounded behind my eyes.

He pulled away just barely, forehead pressing to mine. His breathing was rough. So was mine.

We stared at each other in the silence.

Somewhere far off, a door creaked. A janitor? A late-night straggler? I didn’t know.

“That was insane,” I whispered. I could barely speak. My lips were swollen. My hands trembled slightly.

Patrick just smiled. A little dangerous, a little dazed. “Totally worth it.”

I looked down, catching my breath.

“We said we wouldn’t risk that,” I said. “Someone could’ve walked right by.”

“But they didn’t,” he said.

I grabbed his hoodie and kissed him one more time, quick and aching. “Forget about the bar. Come home with me,” I whispered against his mouth. “Not the bed. I want you on the floor. All night.”

Patrick groaned softly and grabbed my hand. “Lead the way.”

We left the books where they were.

Patrick waited for me as if only a minute had passed when I stepped out of the bathroom. He spun around in my desk chair, his chest rising a little faster at the sight of me.

I didn’t think I would ever get used to it—someone looking at me like I was a wonder.

Like I was that hot. But he bit his lip as I crossed the room in nothing but a towel, and he grabbed my hips with both hands, planting his sexy lips against my stomach and dragging them down.

“I’ve been waiting for this the whole day,” he said.

Then he shot me a guilty look and smiled.

“And riveting, intellectual discussions, of course.”

I snorted and pressed my hand against the back of his head. “Would you rather have that?”

Patrick’s lips pursed when I caught him lying. “Must we?”

I shook my head. “I had enough academic work for today. Make me forget everything about it.”

Patrick rose to his feet, still holding my hips, and leaned in.

“That, my darling, is my specialty.” He leaped at me, burying his face in the crook of my neck, making me yelp in surprise, and kissed me with such passion that it felt like I was catapulted out of this galaxy.

Wherever it was that I landed, I wanted to stay there.

It only took him half a minute to heat up in the way that was still so unfamiliar and jarring to me.

It was as though I still believed I would wake up and discover it had all been a dream.

But Patrick kissed me heatedly and untied my towel, sending it on the floor and grabbing my bare ass with both hands.

I hadn’t expected him to want me with such fervor, but he did.

He grabbed me and groped me and pulled me so tight that I could feel how hard his muscles were under his hoodie.

His hands held my ass while he kissed my neck and bit my ear.

Then, in a display of unchecked lust, he slipped his hands lower and lifted me off the ground.

I cried out in surprise, but Patrick was a steady monolith, strong and stable, perfectly capable of lifting me up.

My legs curled around Patrick’s waist, my ass resting on his abdomen and crotch, and my head tilting down to kiss him. I couldn’t do anything about the smile that stretched the corners of my lips while I kissed him, but I could feel him smiling, too.

Patrick’s hands supported me very bluntly on the bottom of my butt. He held me there while I wrapped my arms around his neck and shoulders. We kissed harder, my blood simmering, then boiling with lust I had nowhere to spend. It glimmered within me, trapped, built up, threatening to shatter me.

“On the floor?” Patrick asked, then kissed me again.

“Yeah,” I said, short of breath.

He set me down, then swept his hoodie up and over his head.

The light of the reading lamp was the only one on in the room, giving us a soft glow and a whole range of warm shadows.

When Patrick reached for his belt, I slid down, falling to my knees.

A week after our first time together, I hardly counted myself as experienced, but I moved with growing ease and confidence.

I undid Patrick’s belt and opened his pants, then pulled them down his legs together with his underwear. I didn’t want it to be slow and romantic. Not tonight. I was needy, craving him like someone craved a powerful drug. Right now, I would have said and done anything just to get a taste of him.

Patrick had no price for it. He offered himself willingly, and I took him. My lips closed around the tip of his hard cock before his pants were down to his ankles.

A visible shudder passed through Patrick’s chest as I leaned in and impaled myself on his long dick, taking him to my throat and failing to take him any deeper.

I gazed up at him. It was not intentional, but I knew I wore a pleading, needy look on my face. My eyes were on him, begging him to take me, to use me, to pleasure himself with my body however he liked.

Patrick’s eyes were glowing like blue ice with a fire burning deep within. He put his hands on the back of my head and threaded his fingers, then swung his hips back and fucked my mouth in the only right way: without mercy.

The flavor of Patrick’s precum soaking into my tongue, the scent of his musk crawling into my nose, the sound of his restrained grunts and throaty purrs flickered around me, sparking an unquenchable thirst in me. It was a fire you couldn’t contain. It was a tsunami of desperate, devastating desire.

I slapped my hands on Patrick’s butt and pulled him into myself, though my head bobbed back by stubborn instinct. I inhaled through my nose and moaned against his dick. I took him, forcing my throat to open and failing again, only constricting it around the tip of Patrick’s cock.

But the ripples of pleasure were unmistakable on his face and his body. The shudders that tensed his abs and the tremors around his mouth and eyes gave me confidence.