The Librarian Principle (33 page)

With lidded eyes she watched him, his broad back flexing as he held himself above her. His teeth grazed the delicate flesh. Liese moaned; the sight of him looking so primal coupled with the feel of his mouth drove her to the edge, dangling her from a precipice she couldn’t wait to drop over.

She slipped her hand between their bodies to unbutton his pants. Yanking down the zipper, she shoved them down his thighs, along with his boxers. She wasn’t interested in any more preliminaries. She needed him moving inside her, eradicating the anxiety that had consumed her.

“Eager, aren’t we?” Ryder teased, his lips at her neck, her chin, the corner of her mouth. She turned into his kiss, and he withdrew, leaving the barest amount of space between them.

“I want you in me.” She spoke with urgency. Her hand closed around his shaft, stroking up. Her fears and longing collided, making her nearly frantic with need. She didn’t want to think about the uncertainty of the future, about how intense her feelings had grown for him. All she wanted was to feel.

Ryder’s eyes closed, his lips parted, and he exhaled slowly. When they opened, his expression grew dark. “Do I need to restrain you so I can take my time?”

Liese’s grip on him tightened at the mention of restraints. She’d considered buying those fuzzy handcuffs, but hadn’t had time yet. The idea of relinquishing control elicited both fear and exhilaration. She wanted to give herself over to Ryder in such an intimate way, but allowing him to dominate her touched too closely on the depth of her feelings for him.

“You don’t have anything to restrain me with.” Liese taunted, arching against his hold on her.

“I have a tie and a belt.” He smiled as her lips parted, pausing before he continued. “And I’m certain if I looked hard enough I could find a pair of pantyhose.” His hips eased forward, his erection sliding in her grip.

“I’ve already come twice. Why would you need to take your time with me?” Liese countered, stroking down and then up again, brushing her thumb over his swollen tip.

“Because—” Ryder groaned and reached between them, prying her hand away. He threaded his fingers through hers and pressed the back of her hand to the sheets. “It’s been far too long since I’ve had you in a bed. I want it to last as long as humanly possible.” She felt the thick ridge of him against her pelvis.

“We could always have sex again in the morning,” Liese suggested, squirming but getting nowhere now that she was trapped under his weight.

“Oh, I plan to have sex with you again in the morning, and possibly in the middle of the night—more than once, if you’ll allow it.”

Liese gave up the fight, melting into the bed as his lips found hers in a liquefying kiss. She didn’t try to touch him, even when his hands moved from hers to skim along her body. She gave herself over without reservation. And when he finally entered her, he stayed close, their bodies flush, his lips pressed to hers. He moved slowly, taking his time as he’d promised.

Liese woke up at five-thirty in the morning to find Ryder’s arm draped over her waist, his hand nestled between her thighs, and his fingers twitching as he nuzzled into the crook of her neck. His breath tickled her shoulder every time he exhaled. All was well until the alarm on his phone interrupted the moment, blaring an annoying pop song.

“I’m going to kill my sister for messing with my phone again,” Ryder grumbled in a sleep-heavy voice. He rubbed his stubbly jaw against her shoulder and followed with his lips.

She laughed, then moaned when Ryder’s hard-on pressed against her lower back.

They’d had sex twice last night, which should have been enough to abate her need for him. He’d taken his sweet, dirty time with her at first. Later, after they’d gone downstairs to devour the takeout they’d abandoned at the front door, he’d deposited her on the counter and fucked her into oblivion.

“Why is your alarm set for such an ungodly hour?” Liese pressed back against him. Ryder’s hand, still snugly situated between her legs, clenched around her inner thigh.

“So I can get inside you again before I have to leave for work. What other reason would there be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you wanted to make me breakfast in bed?”

“Oh, I’ll make you breakfast in bed, all right.” He rolled her onto her stomach, covering her body with his. She wriggled under him, and he grunted out an expletive as his cock slid along the cleft of her ass.

He reached over her, grabbed his phone from the nightstand, and silenced it. “That’s better.” He sighed and rested his weight on top of her again.

Liese hummed an affirmation, punctuating with a swivel of her hips. Ryder swept her hair over her shoulder to kiss her neck. She turned her head toward him, but her position didn’t leave much room for movement. She could barely catch his profile in her peripheral vision.

Ryder’s lips moved over her shoulder and down her spine. The weight of his body left her, and his hands stroked down her sides to her hips, skimming the curves of her bottom. He kneaded the supple skin, his thumbs grazing the crease, and the warmth that spread through her body shocked her. Trusting Ryder to make her feel good, she allowed sensation to take over and relaxed into his touch. She could hear his breathing quicken and feel his erection jump on the back of her thigh.

Just when Liese thought she couldn’t handle any more of his gentle, teasing touch or the soft sweep of his lips between her shoulder blades, he stopped. The absence of touch became just as overwhelming as the softness. Then his hand came down on her backside with a loud slap, leaving a hot sting in its wake. Liese shrieked and bucked, her struggle useless; his weight rested on her thighs, securing her beneath him.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.” Ryder sounded anything but apologetic as he ran a hand over the place he’d just spanked. Of course he followed the request for forgiveness with another smack, and another and another until Liese was breathless. Her position made her vulnerable, but she trusted him to anticipate her limit. The promise of pleasure allowed her to relinquish control in a way she’d never been able to with anyone else.

He circled her entrance and slipped a finger inside, adding another and yet another. He penetrated and retreated over and over until she came to the brink of an orgasm, unable to fall.

Liese closed her eyes, no longer straining to see him. Instead, she allowed herself to give in to the ecstasy he teased out of her. Her soft moans must have encouraged him, as he nudged the head of his cock to where his fingers had been exploring. He pushed forward slowly—so slowly that the expectation of fullness was an excruciating torture. When he was fully seated inside her, he covered her body with his. Then he slid one of his hands between her body and the sheets. Palm facing up, he wrapped his fingers around her shoulder, anchoring him to her.

“I’d like to spend an entire week with you in my bed,” he whispered against her neck as he began to move, his thrusts achingly controlled.

“I can check my calendar; I think I have one free soon.”

Ryder’s husky laugh was followed by a groan. His legs remained on either side of hers, keeping her confined beneath him. The position made her feel much fuller, her sensations more intense. The exposed feeling remained, and heightened even, as he moved inside her. She’d always been of the mind that the most intimate sexual encounters had to be face to face, but Ryder had shattered that notion. With his mouth beside her ear whispering charged words of desire, she felt more connected than ever. He shifted his knee to nudge her legs apart, spreading them enough to penetrate deeper, go harder, move faster. Warmth settled low in her belly, gradually suffusing her entirely. She clung to the burgeoning sensation, ready to come undone.

He snaked his other arm around her waist and hauled her up onto her hands and knees. Now Ryder slammed into her from behind, holding her hips to keep her from falling forward as he picked up momentum. He sat back on his knees, taking her body with him, crushing her to his chest. She straddled his thighs, her knees on either side of his, but not touching the bed. The balls of her feet rested near his calves, but she abandoned the need to find footing, given how securely Ryder held her.

One palm found her breast and squeezed, while the other moved down over her pelvis. He slapped her clit lightly and then rubbed a slow circle as he ground into her. She moaned his name in a plea, aching for a release that promised to shatter her nerves.

The hand on her breast came up to brush over her throat, his fingers tangling in her hair. He turned her face toward his and captured her lips. “I’m going to come,” he warned, sucking on her bottom lip.

“I’m right there with you,” Liese reached around and grabbed the back of his neck, keeping their mouths fused.

He pulled out all the way to the tip, leaving her empty before he filled her one last time. Her legs locked down, hips shifting in time with his deep thrust. The release she’d been after tore through her as Ryder shuddered, his own orgasm overtaking him. He exhaled a fevered breath against her cheek, his tense body enveloping her.

Liese let her head drop against his shoulder, her body contracting and releasing as she rode out the aftershocks. “Oh, God.” She sighed.

“I know it’s a difficult distinction since we have such similar qualities . . .” Ryder held her limp body to his. “However, I’d like it if you at least got my name right in the throes of passion.”

Liese smacked his thigh. Well, she tried to smack him, but her hand barely obeyed the command to move. “Get over yourself.”

She rose to her knees, her thighs wobbling from the strain, and broke the connection between their bodies, a sensation she didn’t much like. But her feelings for Ryder were spiraling out of control, and she needed to rein them in. She joked to keep the intensity of her emotions at bay.

“I’m going to have a shower; feel free to join me if your ego can fit through the door.” She slid off the bed on jelly legs and attempted to saunter to the bathroom to cover her near inability to walk.

She smiled when she heard Ryder’s feet hit the floor. He grabbed for her hand and spun her into his arms. Head bowed to hers, he pressed a lingering, close-mouthed kiss to her lips. He didn’t try to deepen it, which for some reason made it more intimate.

“I wish we had more time to talk,” he said.

“Talk? About what?” Liese’s throat tightened. More than once in her life she’d been the one to initiate a “talk.” Typically it didn’t mean good things.

Ryder must have picked up on her panic. “Nothing bad,” he assured her, pressing another soft kiss to her lips. “I wanted to talk to you about the holidays, that’s all. Now isn’t the time, though.” He inclined his head to the clock on her nightstand, his eyes raking over her. “Didn’t you request help in the shower?”

Ryder left her house just after seven, giving Liese time to center herself. She wanted to feel reasonably normal before she went to work, but she found it impossible not to experience some level of paranoia after a night with Ryder. She knew the second she walked into the building she’d begin to postulate all the ways she might reveal their secret. She remained amazed they’d managed to get away with it for this long, given all the ways they’d slipped up.

She needn’t have worried about worrying, however. Blake dogged her as soon as she pulled into the parking lot. He trailed her to the library, talking a mile a minute about what they still needed to do for the play opening this afternoon. She didn’t even have a chance to go to her mailbox before the first bell rang.

Her morning consisted of several frantic calls from Blake regarding last-minute details. He fretted over whether the costumes would be dramatic enough, and whether the set was too minimalist. Liese assured him they would balance each other out, having been the one to help design them in the first place. She also had to deal with students desperate to sign out research texts and novels. One grumpy teenager informed her of the importance of getting a head start on studying for midterms, which took place soon after they returned from the holidays.