I’m so close, every thrust pushing me to the precipice I’m ready to beg to fall over. I pull one of Kaplan’s hands from the shelf and place it around my throat, and he draws back without slowing the rhythm of his thrusts, a question in his hooded, lustful eyes.

“Like you mean it,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “Fill me with darkness. With you.”

Kaplan’s eyes flash as they dart down to my neck and back up again. He takes a deep, ragged breath. “Tap me on the shoulder three times if it’s too much.”

I glare at him through a menacing smile and tighten my grip around his. “I can take what you have to give, Dr. Kaplan.”

An equally wicked smile flickers across his lips. “Oh I know you can, sweetheart. Just look at how well you take me,” he says, and pulls out to the tip of his erection. He trusts in hard, burying his cock as deep as it will go. “All of me.”

I shudder a moan that slips beneath the vice waiting to tighten around my throat. I let my hand fall from his. “Then don’t hold back. Do it like I know you really want to. Like you’re going to kill me.”

I’ve just opened the cage of the beast behind his bones.

He growls. He squeezes his hand. There’s no hesitation, no tentativeness in his grip. He compresses his fist around my throat and the air constricts to a thin stream, my lungs burning after only a few strained breaths. His thrusts become wild, vicious, like he was holding back before.

“Say my name with the last of your breath,” he whispers against my ear as his grip tightens.

My core clenches, my orgasm within reach as my vision darkens at the edges. He thrusts, my back bruising against the books. “Kap—”

“No,” he grits out, squeezing harder. A choked sound claws itself from my throat.

“Eli,” I wheeze. It sounds both hateful and beseeching. “Eli…”

Kaplan thrusts deeper, faster, squeezes harder. He whispers into my ear like a wraith, following me into darkness, bewitching me, imploring that I say his name until there’s no air left, and still his voice is in my mind, demanding again, say it again.

My orgasm tears through me. It burns my nerves. It claims control of my muscles, bowing my back against the shelves, tightening my core around Kaplan’s cock as he pulses and spills surges of cum into the depths of my sex. My pussy clenches his girth and pleasure unravels up my center and through my hips and down my legs and up my arms and under my skin and everywhere. Just everywhere. My eyes water and the tears stream down my cheeks. Kaplan opens his hand, my lungs sucking in a deep breath in a baptism of air.

Kaplan leans against me, his shirt damp with sweat. I wish I could feel his skin, every inch, with nothing left between us. We only truly touch where we’re joined at the center, his cock still twitching inside me, and where his forehead rests on my shoulder, where his hand rests on my breastbone, his palm capturing the quieting beat of my heart.

We stay like this for a long moment, and he doesn’t ask if I’m okay. I’m glad for that. I think it would feel less real if he did. A beast feels no guilt for what it takes. It doesn’t doubt itself, or ask for forgiveness. I told him what to take and he took it, without hesitation or apology. And I don’t feel like I lost something in this moment. I feel empowered by letting go of my control.

I’m not sure how much time passes with me pressed up against the bookshelf when Kaplan slips out of my sex and I unwrap my legs from his waist to stand on my own once more, his hand still resting on my sternum as though asking me to stay. He steps away and looks around at his satchel and jacket, my clothes, and the books littered on the floor. His eyes drift back to his jacket and he gives me a strange expression that I’ve never seen, like amusement and resignation and desire rolled into some intoxicating warmth. “Stay right there,” he says, and pulls up his briefs and jeans. He sweeps the tweed jacket from the floor and gives me a meaningful look, keeping hold of my eyes as he tears the paisley lining free. He drops the woollen shell and kneels before me, balling the fabric in his hand and starting to clean away the mess gathered at the apex of my thighs.

“This is both a fitting and horrifying end to that atrocity of fabric,” I grumble, glaring down at the top of his head as he huffs a laugh, wiping the cum and arousal that drips down my thighs.

“I paid a small fortune for this jacket, I’ll have you know.”

“That’s a depressing thought,” I say as he lifts my leg, placing my foot on his thigh. The fabric in his hand slides gently across my swollen sex, my thong pulled to the side with his free hand. “My uncle could have hooked you up from Cedar Ridge. They’d pay you to take their old man clothes away.”

Kaplan laughs.

“I’m being serious. They’ve got bags of tweed. Not that I should be encouraging your erroneous clothing choices.”

“I don’t think my clothing choices have ever been described as erroneous before.”

“That’s because everyone has been lying to you.”

Kaplan laughs again. The sound flows from him easily, the breath it coasts on warming my skin. He places a kiss on my hip. His shoulders rise as he inhales and pulls away to continue his reverential strokes. It feels…sacred…in this place, in the quiet and the dark, surrounded by the scent of paper and ink.

“No one’s ever done this for me before,” I confess as he wipes my other leg.

“What, ripped apart their favorite jacket for you? I would suspect that’s not an everyday occurrence for anyone.”

“No. Taken…care…of me. Like this.”

Kaplan stills and looks up. I search those liquid pools of deep brown warmth in his eyes. There’s surprise there, and I think sadness too. It’s hard to tell in the dim light. I swallow and hold my shoulders straighter. My skin pebbles with the cooling sweat and the unexpected scrutiny in his eyes.

“Don’t start thinking I like you any more than I did twenty minutes ago. I don’t,” I say.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“Okay then.”

I narrow my eyes at him and Kaplan has the audacity to smirk. The urge to smash his face repeatedly with the heavy textbook of Memory: The Extended Definition rises, and I slowly pull my leg from his grip. I shoot him a final warning look and drift away to gather my clothes, pulling them on as he slides his ravaged tweed jacket onto his shoulders and makes a half-hearted effort to gather the scattered books. When I’ve shrugged on my coat, I scoop Digital Media and Cultural Memory from the floor and look down at Kaplan amidst the texts, a flicker of wariness creasing the space between his brows.

“That was fun. See you around, Dr. Kaplan,” I say, and surge forward to stride past him down the aisle.

“Fun…you’ll what?” I smile as I hear Kaplan’s satchel drag across the floor and his footsteps approach behind me just as I turn toward the stairs. “What the fuck?”

“What? I’ve got to get home.”

“Let me walk you to your car at least,” he says, quickening his steps until he meets my stride.

“I’m fine.”

“It’s dark.”

“I have functioning eyes. I noticed. But thank you for confirming they still work.”

“It’s not safe, you know what campuses can be like.”

“Yep. About the same as retirement homes.”

“Precisely my point. Let me walk with you.” I ignore Kaplan as we draw close to the stairs. “Bria—” he says, and grabs hold of my arm.

Instinct ignites my nerves.

I grasp Kaplan’s hand and wrench it backwards and twist, my grip merciless. There’s a tiny pop beneath my palm as a tendon sprains. He lets out a cry of pain and surprise and drops to his knees as I keep his hand turned back toward his arm.

“Bria what, exactly? Bria, it’s dangerous?” My head tilts as Kaplan looks up at me, pain etched across his features. I twist his wrist back a little further and smile when he squirms. I lean in closer, taking in one last breath of his scent. “You look good on your knees for me, Dr. Kaplan,” I whisper next to his ear.