Kaplan meets my eyes. His gaze filters through mine, bounding between my blown pupils. “Just one taste,” he whispers.
An electric tingle skitters up my arms. I don’t move as he draws closer. Every shallow breath I take is flooded with his scent. It feeds the ache to touch, to be touched. But I keep still as my vision stays locked on his mouth.
Dr. Kaplan’s lips meet mine, a gentle press of warmth. Soft and silent, as though this moment is stolen, forbidden. His tongue runs across the seam of my lips, leaving behind the taste of sweet mint.
He pulls away.
“Is that what you thought poison would taste like?” I ask, the faint trace of a tremor in my voice that I’ve never heard before.
“No,” he says, a crease appearing between his brows as though his beast is chewing at his bones. His gaze traces the curve of my lips. The trail of his tongue’s caress hums in my skin. “It tastes one hundred times sweeter.”
Our eyes meet. I take one breath.
Then I grasp the collar of his jacket and crush his lips to mine.
A torrent of heat unleashes in my chest. I punish Kaplan with my kiss. He devours me with a desperation that meets mine. Our teeth clash. Our tongues invade each other’s mouths. Our lips mold and form together. We fight for air. We fight one another. A loud smack startles me and I pull back, but it doesn’t phase him. It was the book. He cast it to the floor so he could grasp my waist with firm fingers. He dives for my neck, layering searing kisses to my surging pulse.
“I feel compelled to tell you that I hate you,” I breathe as he bites and sucks on my skin. I start tugging the collar of his jacket off. “Just like I hate your leather satchel and your hideous tweed jacket that looks like it came from the hipster reject pile. If I could feel secondhand embarrassment for anyone, I would feel it for you.”
Kaplan’s dark laugh heats my skin as he nips my earlobe and a moan escapes my lips. “Good. I’ll wear it every fucking day. I’ll even sew suede patches on the elbows.”
I tug on the strap of Kaplan’s satchel and he pulls it over his head to drop it on the floor before pressing me into the shelves. He consumes me with his kiss. His hands flow under my sweater, the pads of his fingers tracing my ribs, the curve of my waist, the lace edge of my bra. He growls against my lips when I cup his erection as it strains against his jeans.
The overhead fluorescents flick off with a snap. The only light around us is the emergency exit at the end of the aisle and the lamplight filtering through the tall windows.
“They’re not going to check that we left?” I ask as we stare at one another. Kaplan’s eyes flash in the dim light.
“I guess not. Thank fuck.”
I grip his hair and pull his mouth to mine. He frames my face with heated palms and kisses me like he’s searching for the soul he’ll never find. Searching with his plundering tongue. With a bite that draws blood. With his heart pounding against my chest, begging for secrets from mine. I’ve never been so feverishly consumed. I’ve never devoured like this in return, molding my lips to his, pressing my body to his, desperate to be closer. Desperate to burn.
I shrug my jacket off as Kaplan tugs on the hem of my sweater and breaks the kiss to pull it over my head, cursing as he takes in the sight of my black lace bra in the minimal light, pulling the cups down to expose my tight nipples to the still air that’s scented with paper and glue and time. He covers my flesh with kisses as I rake my hands through his dark hair. He sucks one nipple into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue, circling the bud while caressing my other breast. I moan as the ache in my belly tightens like a fist. The need clenches deep inside, an emptiness that demands to be filled. Now.
Our kiss heats to an inferno as I undo Kaplan’s belt. “I’m clean. I have an IUD,” I whisper when I pull away. Kaplan’s breath is a ragged stream of sweetness, his palm hot against my breastbone. “Are you clean?”
“Tested last month. I haven’t been with anyone since,” he grits out as I tear the button free of its hole and lower his zipper.
“Then fuck me, Dr. Kaplan. Fuck me like you despise me as much as I hate you.”
A fierce intensity flashes through Kaplan’s eyes and then he dives at my neck, covering it with kisses and bites. I kick off one boot and then the other as he unfastens the button of my jeans and pulls them down my hips with rough and desperate tugs. I slide them off and when I straighten, he crushes me with another kiss, pushing my body harder against the shelves. One of his hands twines into my hair and the other travels down my body, tracing my breastbone, circling the small peak of my breast. And then it keeps going down, pressing the heat of his calloused palm against my ribs, down my stomach, lower, following the sharp edge of my hip bone, the firmness and softness of muscle and womb, down to the edge of my black lace thong. One finger follows the wavy hem to the soaked fabric, tracing a line across the cotton and pressing over my clit in a slow circle.
“Do you always get this wet for people you hate?” Kaplan whispers against my lips as his finger dips beneath the fabric and slides across my silken folds.
I swallow a moan as he circles my clit and nips my jaw. “Maybe I do.”
“Hmm,” he hums. His finger slips between my folds and into my pussy, and then his touch is abruptly gone. For a breath I feel bereft with need. But then I watch with predatory interest as he draws his finger up to his waiting tongue and licks the glistening arousal from his skin. “Funny. It doesn’t taste like hate. It tastes like lies.”
My heart rams against my chest. A wicked smile lifts the edge of Kaplan’s lips. I can just make out that dimple in the dim light.
“But don’t worry,” Kaplan whispers, his voice full of sex and seduction as he lowers his open jeans and his black briefs. He grasps the base of his erection, and then pumps once along the long, thick shaft. Precum glistens on the velvety tip. His other hand glides down my hip and to my thigh and he presses in close, raising my leg to rest behind his back as he centers his erection to my sex and pulls my thong to the side. “I’ll still fuck you like it’s the truth, even if I know it’s not.”
He grips my waist and slams into me to the base of his cock with one brutal thrust. A whimpering moan escapes me, some sound I’ve never made. My flesh stretches around him as he glides to the tip and thrusts in again, pushing my back up against the books. He does it again, a burst of pain and pleasure igniting my nerves with the invasion. He grips my ass and I hook my other leg across his back and he slams into me again, even deeper, filling me with thick heat. Another thrust and I cry out, his hand folding across my mouth.
“Shh, Ms. Brooks. You’ll scream for me, but not this time.”
Kaplan rails into me, unrelenting, untiring, slamming my back against the bookcase with every thrust, my legs tightening around his waist as he punishes me with pleasure. He takes one of my hands and guides it between us in a silent request to touch myself, and I press swirling circles to my clit in a rhythm that blends with his trusts. I hold on to his neck with my other hand and worm my fingers under his collar to dig my nails into his skin and he hisses with approval, taking his palm away from my mouth to grip the shelf above me. Books fall to the floor around us and he draws my head to his chest, protecting it from the heavy texts that fall to the floor like broken birds.
And those thrusts, they keep coming, like waves in a vicious storm, pushing me closer to coming undone. Every time he glides to his crown, I mourn the emptiness. When he fills and stretches me, I ache for release. He touches places that feel like they’ve never been truly touched, and my swollen channel clenches for more, fluttering around his length. His body burns with mine, the scent of mint and rum and bergamot warming with his heat, invading my senses. He kisses and bites and thrusts and this need, this magnetic need, it consumes, turning thought to ash. Turning me to flame.
