There is a split second of insecurity, he thinks. A short moment of hesitation when he can tell that Olive is thinking of covering herself. Her back nearly hunches, Adam can almost smell the panic between them, and he’s ready to put a stop to this, right now. But then her shoulders square, like she’s decided that she doesn’t mind showing him her body after all, and…

Okay.

Yeah.

So it’s been a long time for him. Years, he’d guess. Not since grad school, and even then he never quite… There was about a decade or so, in which Adam thought he’d had just enough sex in his life to know with the utmost

certainty that he wasn’t interested in having any more. No real reason for it, just… no. And then—Olive. He almost laughed in his office, at being asked to be secretive about dating other women. At the reptilian, greedy part of his brain, thinking: Are there any? I thought it was just you.

“Do you remember it?” she’s saying, and her breasts. Her small, beautiful tits. The long dip in the center of her stomach. Her toned, smooth legs. He wants to tuck her underneath him for safekeeping. For months.

“Remember what?” he asks, absent, transfixed. His own voice sounds distant.

“Our first kiss.”

“I want to keep you in this hotel room for a week,” he murmurs, because it’s the truth. Can he touch her? He’ll stop if she tells him to. But. “For a year.”

He’s losing track of time. Missing beats. Not out of control, but getting bolder. He splays his hand against her back, brings her closer to his mouth, arches her up like an offering, and he misses a bit of what comes after because it feels that good. He doesn’t want to be rough, but the noises Olive is making are spellbinding, breathless moans and sharp inhales.

Then her muscles tense. It’s sudden, and he feels the second it happens, like a bucket of ice over his head. He immediately pulls back. “This okay?”

She’s in her head about something. Her expression is far away, and as much as his cock hurts, something switches in his brain. He wants to lick her tits, yes, but he wants to reassure her more.

He sets his hand on her hip, thumb swiping back and forth on her hip bone, trying to look at her face. “You’re tense. We don’t have to—”

“I want to.” She sounds scared. A little defensive. Definitely in her head. “I said I did.”

“It doesn’t matter what you said. You can always change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

She’s stubborn. She’s stubborn, and he likes that about her, just like every other damn thing, but this… He’s just not willing to risk moving this along if she’s having any doubt. So he squeezes his cock till near pain and stops.

Slows down. Brings her into himself, rests his forehead on her sternum, matches his breathing with hers, feels her arms form a loose loop around his neck, lets himself smell the sweetness between them. It takes several moments, but she slowly softens, relaxing into him. First pliant, her nose rubbing softly against his hair, then restless. Eager all over again.

Holden and his stupid, supremely idiotic questions. Of course Adam is in love with Olive, of fucking course. And that’s why this is nice, too. Just being with her. Near her. A little painful, maybe, but a whole lot nice.

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” he says against her skin. His fingers are tracing the elastic of her panties—cotton, green polka dots. He’s going to steal them once they’re done. He’s going to build a shrine for them. Do unspeakable things with them.

“I know I’m not doing anything,” Olive says, something reedy in her voice,

“but if you tell me what you like, I can—”

“My favorite color must be green, after all.”

She’s wet already. Adam cannot quite believe it, so he presses his thumb to her panties, just to make sure. But once his finger is there, he cannot help himself. He moves the tip up and down between her legs, over and over. He wants to remember this moment. Store it for later. Archive it in his DNA.

“Do you . . . Do you want me to take them off?”

Yes. But no. This underwear is probably all that’s between her and Adam begging her to let him fuck her. Better on for now. “Not yet”

She squirms, impatient. “But if we—”

He pushes the cotton to the side because he cannot help himself, and that’s a mistake. She looks ready. Ripe. A perfect piece of fruit. He wonders if it means that he could fuck her now. That it could be fast, a little messy, and she’d still be okay. She’d take it. She’d enjoy it. He’d make it good, hopefully. Maybe. If he remembers how. If he doesn’t blow it in twenty seconds. If he doesn’t blow it right now, just looking at his fingers trace her glistening pussy, circle around her clit, disappear between her plump folds, and she’s wet, she’s really fucking wet, wet in a way that makes it easy to lie to himself and pretend that it’s him she wants, not just anyone who’ll take her mind off a shitty day. He watches her arch up, close her eyes, let out a low moan, exhale in something that is so obviously pleasure. Adam strokes himself and knows it, that he’s going to come just from looking at her.

“You are so beautiful.” He can’t remember ever saying it to a woman before

—why state obvious facts—but with Olive the words burst out of him. “May I?” he rasps against her nipples when finds her entrance, not quite sounding like himself, and the second his finger is inside her he—

“Fuck.” It’s a tight fit, which makes his cock twitch even harder. His vision darkens to black spots. For a few seconds he can feel his heartbeat drumming in his ears, pleasure stabbing in his loins. He forgets about everything that’s not Olive, everything that’s not the places where he’s touching her. She feels like the best thing that’s ever happened to him, but better. And then… Then she’s moving. Squirming while impaled on his

finger, in a way that broadcasts very little enjoyment, and the wave of pleasure that was about to crash right into him, it abruptly recedes.

Adam freezes.

“Hey. Shh.” This is not really working—him in her. So he tries to still her hips, and when that doesn’t do the trick he grazes her clit again with his thumb, hoping it will help her soften. She whimpers, closes a hand around his arm with trembling fingers. Her nipples are hard little pebbles and she seems to like it, seems to breathe faster and break into a sweat and maybe want more—but she stays just as tight. “It’s okay. Relax.” He tries to stretch her. Work his finger in a little deeper. See where he can go. She’s wet inside, really wet, and it shouldn’t be this difficult, he doesn’t think.

Problem is, he cannot read her. Not consistently. Granted, he has very little recent experience, and even less clarity of mind with Olive grinding against his hand. She lets out soft groans, deep breaths, but then she’ll wince, claw her nails into his biceps, and that’s putting the brakes on pretty quickly for him, the idea that she might be in any kind of pain. “Does it hurt?” he tries to ask. She shakes her head, but a second later he sees her flinch. “Why are you so tense, Olive?” he asks, distracted, staring at his finger inside her.

“You’ve done this before, right?”

It’s a stupid question, and he instantly wants to punch himself for asking it.

Of course, she’s done this before—look at her. She’s not like Adam. She probably does this—

“Um, a couple of times. In college.”

Adam goes still. His mind empties, then blanks. Then the enormity of what is happening hits him like a freight train, and he gently pulls away, shaking his head.

This is… no. No. It’s a mistake. She clearly doesn’t take sex lightly, which means that she deserves to have it with someone… better. Someone else.

Someone who’s not this much older than her, who never failed her friend’s dissertation proposal, who doesn’t need to set an alarm for one AM to remember to stop working and go to sleep. Someone who didn’t spend the last several years pining across lecture rooms, someone who doesn’t picture her when he—