“Do you want my tongue on your pussy?” he asks me.

I nod desperately in anticipation. Slowly, too slowly, he lifts my legs and lowers them down on either of his shoulders, his head between my legs, so I can feel his hot breath on my skin. I know I’m wet when I feel the juices trickle out of me. I close my eyes, aching for that feeling, and it’s like he knows it, because he takes his time, timing his assault for when I’m most desperate. There’s no tentative tasting, no nibbling. With no warning, he plants his open mouth, full, on my core.

It’s too much. I cry out.

I bring my hand to my mouth to silence myself, but he reaches up and grabs it, holding it rigid against my belly. “No.” His command is low and growling, startling me. “Don’t be quiet. You don’t have to be quiet here. I want to hear every little sound you want to make, Addison.”

He takes his time, drawing out every little motion. He moves his hands to my thighs, spreading me apart. His hot wet tongue slides slowly up the crease of my folds. My head falls back against the headboard, and I whimper with a combination of relief and delight. He licks upward, slowly, fully, from bottom to top, his tongue darting in and out of me. I gasp, and my hands instinctively want to fly to my mouth. It’s everything I can do to obey him and keep them on my belly. Then he digs in with his tongue, pressing against the nerves of my sensitive nub.

I moan. “Oh, god, Cain . . .”

His tongue circles my clit and pushes inside me, wrapping his arms around my thighs and caressing my ass. It’s setting a fire alight inside me, something wild and unstoppable. It’s building, and I’m shaking as he takes me to the brink of ecstasy, only to pull away, leaving me gasping in frustration. It’s like he knows I’m close, and wants me to beg for it.

I open my eyes to look at him, and it’s that same wolfish look . . . he’s playing with me. As frustrating as it is, I want it to continue. Those liquid blue eyes meet mine, his mouth wet with my juices. “Please, Cain. Please . . .”

“What do you want?” His voice is a low rumble. “Say it.”

“Make me come.”

He attacks my clit again, his tongue relentless, flicking my clit, bringing me close again. I teeter on the edge, and I feel release so close. I arch against him, meeting his tongue, wanting more and more of his tongue on me. I’m panting and writhing now, and it he stops now, I might kill him. He’s sucking it, pulling on it gently with his teeth, and I grab the edge of the cushions to keep my hands out of my mouth. I’m so close, the fire inside me an inferno, consuming everything in its path.

And then he inserts a finger into me, and I lose it. “Oh, god . . .Cain . . .”

The orgasm rips through me, and I come so hard my breath and all sense of time and place leaves me. It’s just him, and me, and this amazing feeling. He suckles my clit deeply as I scream aloud, throwing myself forward. I come, and come, and come.

“You taste so sweet,” he says, sitting back on his haunches.

I’m not done. I reach for him. I want him naked, on me. I want as much of his skin against mine, right now. “Fuck me,” I say, shameless.

“Hold on,” he says, standing up, contemplating.

“What, you don’t want to?” I ask.

He leans forward, capturing my face in my hands. He kisses me, almost gently. I thrust my tongue desperately into his mouth, wanting him to take control and command me. God, I want him so badly I take in a shuddery breath.

His gaze rakes down my body. “You don’t ever have to ask if I want to fuck you. The answer will always be yes.”

He scoops a hand under my legs, dragging me to him. He runs his hands over my front, cupping my breasts. He kisses my neck, and his fingers delve between my legs again as his eyes find mine. “You’re wet. Are you ready, Addison?”

I nod. “Are you?”

“I’ve wanted this the second I met you.” I hear a packet rip, feel his hand withdraw from my core, and I watch him slide a condom on one-handed. I watch him guide his cock to my entrance. A gentle nudge. I want more so I push back against him and feel him enter me, filling me.

I gasp and hang my head as he pushes into me, inch by inch, stretching me. Oh, god. He’s so huge. I thrust back against him, wanting more, wanting every inch he has.

“Addison, you’re so fucking tight and sweet,” he breathes into my skin. He plants his hands on my hips and pulls me closer to him. He’s flush against me, his hips against my thighs. “I’m not hurting you?”

“No,” I murmur. I’m so the opposite of hurt that I nearly giggle. “This is amazing.”

He slides out, leaving just the tip inside me, and then plunges in, deeper. I let out a cry. He hesitates then. “You sure it’s okay?”

“I like it,” I tell him. “As fast and hard as you can.”

He lets out a surprised groan. I know he likes things rough, and what do you know, I like that, too? He does it again, his tip nestled in my entrance, then thrusts in harder. Soon he’s pounding into me, making me whimper with every thrust, but I love it. It’s so intense, so animal, so wild, so free. I push against him as he slides in deep, getting into a rhythm, feeling my breasts sway and his hands dig into my hips. Whatever he’s hitting inside me, it’s a chord that has never been struck, ever. Another orgasm is building inside me, and somehow I know it’ll be even fiercer than the first one.

The rhythm increases to a frantic pace, and my hovering climax crashes down around us.

He must be able to sense it. “Come, Addison.”

“But I want you to . . .” I protest.

“Don’t worry about me,” he growls, and the second I have his permission, I come, hard, so hard that my scream is loud enough to rock the walls and I’m surprised the bed doesn’t break.

Groaning, he lifts me and tips me so that now he’s hovering above me. Now, I can see his face, have his entire body pressed flush against mine. His cock continues to drill into me, not missing a beat as he kisses my neck. I wrap my legs tight around him, and our eyes lock. His muscles flex and tighten, and crashes into me, growling, rough and hard and so like Cain. His body is jerking and raw, his fingers digging into my skin. It’s amazing, unlike anything I’ve ever known, watching a man like him, lost completely in me.

When he quiets, he draws himself out slowly. I stroke his back, running my fingers down the contours of his body, to his ass. He rolls off me, onto the mattress, breathing hard. “Fuck.”

We’re both covered in a light sheen of sweat. I feel so happy for the first time that I drift off to the most satisfying of sleeps for maybe an hour, and when I stir from my dreams, without opening my eyes, I know something is different.

I can smell him, that woodsy, citrusy aftershave, permeating my every pore, as if I’d bathed in it. Well, I had, I’d bathed in him last night, as I’m quite sure he’d left no part of my skin unexplored by his tongue and hands. Other than that, I can still feel the pressure of him inside me, stretching and filling the deepest part of me. My chin has been rubbed raw by his stubble, and those fierce, demanding kisses. Ordinarily, it’d be uncomfortable, but as I snooze contentedly, feeling his body beside me, I really can’t think of a more welcome pain.

Then I notice the sound of keyboard keys clicking somewhere behind me, which draws me right out of that lull between awake and asleep.

When I do open my eyes, the room is dark, save for a dim blue light permeating the room.

I roll over and am surprised to see Cain sitting up next to me in bed, his laptop propped on his thighs. He has a pen clamped between his lips and is furiously tapping away on the keys.

“Are you grading papers?” I ask, looking up at him. He’s wearing nothing but his round spectacles, the soft glow of the computer screen reflecting in them. It also illuminates his chiseled chest, with a smattering of cinnamon hair, and the disheveled hair flopping in his face. He’s so damn sexy that it almost takes my breath away.

“Nope,” he murmurs, still typing. He pulls the pen out and scribbles a note on a small pad that’s next to him. Then he looks over at me, as if noticing me for the first time. “Hey.”

I feel a twinge of annoyance. Had he forgotten about me? “What are you writing?”

Is it my imagination, or does he angle the computer screen away from me? It’s almost as if he’s hiding something, but what could he be hiding from me? It’s not like he has any reason to lie to me. He says, “Did I wake you?”

What, is he avoiding the question? I prop myself up on one elbow and lean over to read what has gotten him so captivated. It’s a word document. I only make out a couple words when he snaps the laptop shut. I pull back, surprised. So he is hiding something. “What, I can’t see?”

He shrugs. “Nope.”

I pout. “What are you like, a spy? Is it top secret plans for a nuclear weapon?” When he doesn’t answer, I joke, “Oh, so you’re corresponding with other girls in class, too? I’m not special?”

He shakes his head. “No, I—“

“Other boys, then?”

“Addison,” he says, in a calm, authoritative voice that immediately makes me contrite. “You know what it is. I told you, I sold a book to St. Martin’s Press. And I’m on deadline.”

“Oh.” I’m confused. That doesn’t sound like something so private. “Okay, fine. Then why won’t you let me –“

“Because.” He opens his mouth and twists it like he’s trying to think of how to word his answer. Finally, he says, “I just can’t,” then sets the laptop down on the night table.

He pulls off his glasses and sets them down, too, and when he looks at me, my mind stretches out, and suddenly I shiver with realization. I’m no longer a virgin. I’ve had sex with this man. He’s been closer to me than anyone has.

And yet, he still won’t let me look at his fucking computer. “You were typing like a man possessed. Did I inspire you?”

I blurt the question, and the second I do, I flash back to a picture I have in my bedroom at home. It’s of my mom, sitting with baby me in her lap, smiling in a way I never see now. She’s reading a bound manuscript. My father’s. I think that, long ago, she used to be his muse, and he’d share his stories with her first.

Immediately, I’m embarrassed. I’d meant it as a joke, of course. I’m not anywhere close to being his muse, obviously. But before I can backtrack, he nods seriously.

My heart thrums.

Then he says, “It usually does.”

It. Oh. He meant sex. So, he’s inspired by sex. That’s probably why he sought it out from his agent. Why he seeks it out from me. So he can get his deadline met. Somehow, I feel cheap. “Are you almost done with it?”

He snorts. “Hardly. I’m on Chapter Sixteen,” he says.

“Hmm. You need to have more sex, then.” And here he thought he was a sex machine, with the way he was getting it on with his agent in the parking lot.

He nods and tugs on the sheet I have wrapped tightly and modestly over my breasts. “I have no objections.”

I tug back, crossing my arms tighter, and pout. “Maybe I don’t like to be used.”

He lets out a laugh. “Who’s using who? I thought you were using me for the education.”

Well, that is true, I suppose. I had schemed this whole thing in a rather businesslike way, telling him I only wanted his fucking services so I could finally lose my V-card. Still, Cain Hill doesn’t strike me as the type of person who ever gets used. “I’m too innocent to do that, as last night must have proven.”

He gives me an incredulous look. “It did no such thing.”

My mouth opens slightly. “Was I . . . good?”

He leans closer to me, as if he’s going to impart a great secret. “Only good sex inspires me, Addison,” he murmurs.

Good sex? So I’d been good? I knew he was good, making everything feel just right. No, that’s an understatement, he made me feel amazing, so much so that my entire body is still buzzing in places he’d awoken hours before. But I thought he was just helping me through my awkward first time, with hopes that I’d get better next time. Was it possible that for all my stumbling and nervousness, he’d still found me sexy?

Now he’s staring at me—well, mostly at the way I’m trying to cover my breasts as if they’re something he’s never seen before—and he’s looking wolfish and amused, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Change the subject, Addison, I warn myself before I can blush. I motion to the laptop. “Well, when do you think you’ll finish?”

He thinks. “If I do the rest of the book at the rate it took me to write the first sixteen chapters?” He shrugs. “Honestly, never.”

I tilt my head at him, not comprehending. “Writer’s block?”

His eyes lazily trace their way down my body. He reaches over and gives the sheet one easy pull, letting my breasts spill out, suggesting I never had any control in this situation whatsoever. He rubs the pad of his thumb over one nipple, and it pebbles instantly. I love it, the way he touches me, like he owns me. Maybe he does. Right now, it feels like he does, because I’d do anything he asks of me.

When he settles down next to me, his skin grazes mine, warm and welcoming, making me want him again. “You could say that. I wrote the first three chapters in college. Then I didn’t write again for ten years.”

My mouth drops. “Why not? Don’t tell me you had no good sex in all that time.”

We’re now facing each other on the bed, inches apart, our heads propped up on pillows. He’s still tracing the skin of my areola absently. “I wrote those three chapters when I was in college, dating a woman I’d known since high school. All that time, she’d known I wanted to be a writer. It was all I ever talked about, my passion.”

He takes a deep breath. “Fast forward to our senior year. I proposed. The second I did, she decided my being a writer wasn’t enough for her. She insisted I get a job as a stockbroker in New York City, where her father worked.”

My jaw drops. “You, a stockbroker?”

“I know. So there I was, making shitloads of money, and completely fucking dead inside. I did that for two years, until I couldn’t anymore and I quit. I told Layla I needed to pursue writing.” He shrugs. “At that point, she told me that there was no way it could work out. So we went our separate ways. I went to Stanford to pursue my MFA, and she moved to New York permanently and married one of her father’s stockbroker friends.”

He’s relaying all this so emotionlessly it’s easy to believe it could’ve happened to someone else. It was a long time ago, but there’s something that sticks in my mind. Something he’d said earlier. I’ve done the love thing, Addison, a long time ago, when I was your age. And trust me when I say, it’s brutal, and it fucks everything up.

As unconcerned as he seems now, he’d loved her. And she’d wounded him.

I knew he wasn’t made of ice. Maybe his heart is frozen over, but thaw it, and there’s a man under there that could love. That could love me.

I nudge away the thought and add, rather dumbly, “Well, you’ve got to pursue your passion. I learned that from Creative Writing 101.”

One corner of his mouth quirks up in a semi-smile. “That’s what she did. Hers, obviously, was money, and she was convinced I’d be a starving artist if I continued with writing.” He smirks. “She isn’t that far off. I’ll be honest with you. I’m poor as shit, Addison.”

“I don’t care about money,” I blurt, then feel stupid. It’s not like he’s looking for a Layla replacement, Addison. He’s just out for a good fuck.

He continues on. “I tried to pick up the book again while I was in grad school but her lack of faith had fucked me in the head. In college you think anything is possible. In the real world you learn that’s a load of shit.”

He blinks, and I can see the moment it dawns on him that I’m one of those wide-eyed dreamy college students, because he clears his throat. But he doesn’t backpedal. He just presses his lips together, and I know what he’s thinking: You don’t know yet, but you will.

“Thank you, Obi Wan,” I finally say to him.

He rolls over me, pinning me to the mattress. His cock is hard against my abdomen, and instantly, that heat low in my belly ignites, and I’m wet again.

“Are you sore?” he asks me.

I shake my head. I’d expected so much pain, but there’d been hardly any. He’d made it all so easy, so natural. “What, do you need more inspiration?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll inspire you,” I tell him, a gleam in my eye. “On one condition.”

“And that is?”

“You let me read your book.”

He gives me an exasperated look for just a flash. Then he dips his head, and I feel the pressure of his hands on my knees. He spreads my legs apart, slides his torso into the open space there, and drives into me ruthlessly, making me gasp.

He pulls out, and before I can feel the emptiness, pushes deeper into me, groaning. But he doesn’t answer. Now, I do my best to tilt my hips off the bed, meeting his thrusts in a way that feels good, until we work up a rhythm and our skin is damp with sweat.

He grabs handfuls of my hair and kisses me deeply when he comes. I love it, that moment of weakness when he shatters apart, his every muscle trembling and pulsing. I think it might be my favorite part.

When he finishes, we stay still, locked in our tight embrace, for a long time. It’s not what I expect from a man like him, someone who fucks women as indiscriminately as he undoubtedly does, but it doesn’t matter. I like it. Even if this isn’t real, it feels like he’s putting in the effort to make this night special.

He peels himself away from me and looks out the window. The sky is lightening.

“I’ve got to go.”

I know he does. I have a breakfast with some Harvard med school professors and alumni at eight, and Hobson will be at my door at precisely seven to escort me there. If he happens to see Cain, leaving my penthouse room? My life would be over, plain and simple.

I sit up, watching him dress, pulling his starched white dress shirt on over his defined, muscular back, thinking it’s a sin to cover such beauty. As he’s tying his tie, he looks at me and says, “When can we do this again?”

Again. Yes, that’s what I want. An again. Though I told him I wouldn’t get attached and move on easily, I’m not ready for this to be the end.

My stomach lurches as I realize that the end is coming. Maybe not now, but it is coming. He doesn’t do love, or relationships. And don’t forget, you told him you didn’t want that, too, I remind myself.

Why did I tell him that?

Whatever it is, I tell myself, just enjoy it now. I steel myself and say, “Library again? Next Friday night?”

He leans over the bed and kisses me. “Fuck yes.”

That seems so far from now, though. I wonder how I’ll survive. Suddenly, everything from the real world intrudes and I remember just what is happening back home. My mother is angling for his job, and she doesn’t even know the half of what we’ve done. “Are you going to talk to the Dean?”

He nods. “I have a meeting with her Monday morning. I could tell from her email she isn’t happy with me.”

I swallow. “I’m sorry,” I say, because really, it’s my fault he’s in trouble. Even if he chose trouble for himself, it wasn’t this kind of trouble.

“Don’t be,” he breathes, staring into my eyes.

Then he pushes off the bed and grabs his briefcase off the chair. He deposits his laptop inside, then reaches in and pulls out a white packet of papers, which he tosses on the bed. There are only six words on the front page: THE OUTSIDE WORLD by Cain Hill.

His book.

I look up at him, heart in my throat.

He gives me an indifferent shrug. “Those are the first twelve chapters, anyway. Enjoy.” Then he throws his jacket over his arm and strides out the door, without hesitation, without another look.