Then she felt the mattress dip, and the sound of something being placed on the nightstand. She slowly blinked awake, disoriented in the dim light of the room. Adam was sitting on the side of the bed, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Hi.” She smiled.

“Hey.”

Her hand reached out to touch his thigh through the pants he’d never managed to take all the way off. He was still warm, still solid. Still there.

“How long did I sleep?”

“Not long. Maybe thirty minutes.”

“Hmm.” She stretched a bit against the mattress, arms above her head, and noticed the fresh glass of water on the nightstand. “Is that for me?”

He nodded, handed it to her, and she propped up on her elbow to drink it, smiling in thanks. She noticed his gaze linger on her breasts, still tender and sore from his mouth, and then drift away to his own palms.

Oh. Maybe, now that they had sex—good sex, Olive thought, amazing sex, though who knew about Adam?—he needed his own space. Maybe he wanted his own damn pillow.

She returned the empty glass and sat up. “I should move to my bed.”

He shook his head with an intensity that suggested that he didn’t want her to go, not anywhere, not ever. His free hand closed tight around her waist, as if to tether her to him.

Olive didn’t mind.

“You sure? I suspect I might be a cover hog.”

“It’s fine. I run warm.” He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “And according to someone, I look like I might snore.”

She gasped in mock outrage. “How dare they? Tell me who said that and I will personally avenge you—” She yelped when he held the icy-cool glass against her neck, and then dissolved into laughter, drawing up her knees and trying to twist away from him. “I’m sorry—you don’t snore! You sleep like a prince!”

“Damn right.” He set the glass on the nightstand, appeased, but Olive remained curled up, cheeks flushed and breathing hard from fending him off. He was smiling. With dimples, too. The same smile he’d smiled into her neck earlier, against her skin, the one that had tickled her and made her laugh.

“I’m sorry about the socks, by the way.” She winced. “I know it’s a controversial topic.”

Adam looked down at the rainbow-colored material stretched around her calves. “Socks are controversial?”

“Not socks per se. Just, keeping them on during sex?”

“Really?”

“Totally. At least according to the issue of Cosmopolitan we keep at home to swat cockroaches.”

He shrugged, like a man who’d only ever read the New England Journal of Medicine and maybe Truck-Pushing Digest. “Why would anyone care one way or the other?”

“Maybe they don’t want to unknowingly have sex with people with horrible, disfigured toes?”

“Do you have disfigured toes?”

“Truly grotesque. Circus-worthy. Antithetical to sex. Basically a built-in contraceptive.”

He sighed, clearly amused. He was struggling to hold on to his moody, broody, intense act, and Olive loved it.

“I’ve seen you in flip-flops multiple times. Which, by the way, are not lab compliant.”

“You must be mistaken.”

“Really.”

“I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Dr. Carlsen. I take the Stanford environmental health and safety guidelines very seriously and— What are you—”

He was so much larger than her, he could hold her down with one hand on her belly as he wrestled her out of her socks, and for some reason she loved every moment of it. She put up a good fight, and maybe he’d have a couple of bruises tomorrow, but when he finally managed to take them off, Olive was out of breath from laughing. Adam caressed her feet reverently, as though they were delicate and perfectly shaped instead of belonging to someone who ran two marathons a year.

“You were right,” he said. Chest heaving, she looked at him curiously. “Your feet are pretty hideous.”

“What?” She gasped and freed herself, pushing at his shoulder until he ended up on his back under her. He surely could have unseated her, giant that he was. And yet. “Take it back.”

“You said it first.”

“Take it back. My feet are cute.”

“In a hideous way, maybe.”

“That’s not a thing.”

His laugh blew warm against her cheek. “There’s probably a German word for that. Cute, but exceptionally ugly.”

She bit his lip just enough to make him feel it, and Adam—he seemed to lose that grip he always had on himself. He seemed to suddenly want more, and he flipped them until she was underneath him, turning the bite into a kiss. Or maybe it was Olive herself, since her tongue was licking his lip, exactly where she’d made it sting.

She should probably tell him to stop. She was sweaty and sticky, and should excuse herself and go take a shower. Yes, that sounded like good sex etiquette. But he felt warm and strong, positively glowing. He smelled delicious, even after all they’d done, and she couldn’t help getting sidetracked and letting her arms loop around his neck. Pulling him down.

“You weigh a ton,” she told him. He made to move up and away, but she wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him close. She felt so safe with him. Invincible. A true slayer. He turned her into a powerful, ferocious person, one that could destroy Tom Benton and pancreatic cancer before breakfast.

“No, I love it. Stay, please.” She grinned up at him, and saw his breathing speed up.

“You are a cover hog.” There was a spot at the base of her neck that he’d found earlier, a spot that made her sigh and arch up and melt into the pillow. He attacked it like it was his new true north. He had a way of kissing her, half cautious and half unrestrained, that had her wondering why she used to think of kissing as such a boring, aimless activity.

“I should go clean up,” she said, but didn’t make a move. He slid down, just a couple of inches, just enough to get distracted by her collarbone, and then by the curve of her breast. “Adam.”

He ignored her and traced her jutting hip bones, and her ribs, the taut skin of her belly. He kissed every last freckle, as though to store them up in his memory, and there were so many. “I’m all sticky, Adam.” She squirmed a little.

In response, his palm moved to her ass. To keep her still. “Ssh. I’ll clean you up myself.”

He put his finger inside her and she gasped, because— Oh God. Oh. Oh God. She could hear the wet noises down there, from herself and his own come, and he should be disgusted by this, and she should, too, and yet—

She wasn’t. And he was groaning, as if the satisfaction of having made a mess of her, inside her, of knowing that she’d let him, was a heady thing for him. Olive closed her eyes and let herself go under, feeling him lick the skin between her thigh and abdomen, hearing low moans and gasps coming out of her own mouth, sliding her fingers in his hair to grip him more tightly against her. She was definitely clean by the time she came, slow contractions that swelled in large waves and had her thighs shaking around his head, and that was when he asked, “Can I fuck you again?”

She looked up at him, flushed and hazy with her orgasm, and bit her lip. She wanted to. She really wanted to have him on top of her, inside her, chest pushing her into the mattress and arms snaked around her body. That feeling of security, of finally belonging that seemed to get more intense the closer he got to her.

“I want to.” Her hand came up to touch his arm, the one he was holding himself up on. “It’s just—I’m just sore, and I—”

He immediately regretted asking. She could tell by how his body stilled before he got off her, as if to not crowd her, as if to give her space she didn’t want.

“No,” she panicked. “It’s not that—”

“Hey.” He noticed how flustered she was and bent down to kiss her.

“I do want to—”

“Olive.” He curled around her. His cock rubbed against her lower back, but he instantly angled his hips away. “You’re right. Let’s go to sleep.”