She didn't think. Her hand found the lock and turned it. The click was louder than it should have been—too final, too deliberate—and when she turned back, he was already reaching for her.
His mouth found hers again, rougher now, all the restraint from before burned away. One hand slid into her hair, gripping at the roots, tilting her head back. The other found her hip and pulled. She stumbled into him, and he walked her backward until her spine met the edge of the desk.
The wood was cold through her thin shirt. She gasped against his mouth, and he swallowed the sound.
Papers slid. A pen rolled and dropped—she heard it hit the floor somewhere in the dark beyond the desk lamp's yellow cone. She didn't look. Her hands were on his chest, then his shoulders, then the back of his neck, pulling him down to her as she arched back against the scattered files and forms.
He braced one hand beside her head. The other found the button of her jeans.
His fingers worked it free with a precision that made her breath catch—not fumbling, not rushed. Deliberate. Like he'd thought about this. Like he'd planned exactly how he'd undo her, one button at a time, and was making himself feel every second of it.
The zipper hissed down. The sound of it, low and metallic in the quiet office, sent heat flooding through her belly.
"Marcus." His name left her mouth without permission.
His jaw tightened. She felt his fingers still against her hipbone, pressing hard enough to bruise. Then his forehead dropped to hers again, and the sound he made—low, scraped raw, almost pained—told her everything. He wasn't in control. He'd stopped pretending he was.
She arched up into him, letting her hips press against the hard length straining through his trousers. His breath broke. The desk lamp wobbled, throwing wild shadows across the wall behind him.
She watched his face in the unsteady light—the muscle jumping in his jaw, the dark of his eyes swallowing everything. She wanted to see what he looked like when he broke completely. Wanted to be the reason he did.
His hand slid beneath the fabric of her jeans, palm hot against her skin. And stopped.
He held there, breathing hard, fingers curled against the edge of her underwear. Waiting. Asking without words. The lamp steadied. The papers lay still beneath her. And Claire realized the question was hers to answer.
Her hand found his. She pressed her palm over his knuckles, fingers curling around the ridge of his hand, and pulled downward.
His breath stopped. Not caught—stopped. She felt it in the stillness of his chest above her, the sudden absolute tension in every muscle. His dark eyes searched her face, looking for doubt, for hesitation, for the moment she'd change her mind.
She didn't look away.
His fingers moved. Past the damp cotton, past the place he'd been holding, down until the rough pad of his middle finger found the slick heat of her. The sound that escaped him—something between a groan and a name she couldn't quite hear—vibrated through her ribcage.
"Claire." He said it like a warning. Or a prayer.
She was soaked. She'd known it—had felt the ache building since the first kiss, the wetness soaking through her underwear—but feeling his finger slide through it, feeling him discover exactly how much she wanted this, sent heat flooding up her throat and into her cheeks. She gripped his wrist and held him there.
His forehead pressed harder against hers. The lamp cast his shadow huge and wavering across the far wall. She watched his jaw work, watched the muscle jump and settle, watched his dark eyes squeeze shut and then open again—wanting to see her. Wanting her to see him.
"Two years," he said. His voice was wrecked. "Two years I've—" He didn't finish. His finger traced the shape of her, slow and deliberate, learning her with the same precision he'd used on her buttons. She gasped and her hips rolled up into his hand.
"Then don't stop now."
His mouth crushed hers. Not gentle. Not restrained. His finger pressed inside her—just the tip, just enough to make her thighs tighten and her back arch off the scattered papers—and she felt his cock pulse against her hip through his trousers, hard and straining. She wanted it. She wanted him. She wanted to feel him fall apart inside her and know she was the one who'd done it.
His thumb found her clit. She cried out against his mouth. The desk lamp flickered once, twice, and then the bulb blew with a soft pop—plunging them into darkness lit only by the cold moon through his office window.
She didn't care. In the dark, his breathing was louder. His fingers were braver. And Claire realized, with a clarity that made her dizzy, that this was only the beginning of how far she'd let him go.
The phone on his desk buzzed.
A low, mechanical rattle against the wood—a sound Claire had heard a hundred times in administrative offices, the same indifferent vibration that meant paperwork, logistics, someone on the other end who needed a signature or a decision. It cut through the darkness like a blade of fluorescent light.
She stiffened. Her fingers tightened on his wrist.
But Marcus didn't stop. His thumb circled her clit, slow and deliberate, the rough pad of it dragging through slick heat, and the sound that escaped her throat wasn't a word. His middle finger pressed deeper—another half-inch, another stretch that made her hips roll up into his hand—and the phone kept buzzing. Insistent. Mechanical. Impossible to ignore.
"Marcus." She meant it as a warning. It came out breathless, fractured, half-moan.
"I know." His voice was gravel against her temple. His forehead pressed harder, pinning her in place, and she felt the tension in his shoulders where her free hand had found its way to the fabric of his jacket. Every muscle locked. Every nerve on the phone and not on the phone, on the heat of her around his finger, on the way her thighs were trembling against his hips. The buzzing stopped.
Silence. Just their breathing. Just the moonlight silvering the scattered papers and the dark shape of him above her.
Then the phone started again.
This time the vibration skittered closer—he must have left it near the edge—and in the pale light she saw the screen light up, a cold blue rectangle reflecting off the wall. Campus Security. The words glowed there, impossible to miss, and still he didn't pull away. Still his thumb worked her, steady and patient, drawing tight circles that coiled something low in her belly until she bit her lip hard enough to taste copper.
"They'll come looking," she managed. Her hips bucked without permission, grinding against his hand, and the sound he made was less than a word—a grunt, punched out of him, his cock twitching against her hip through his trousers.
"Let them."
His finger curled inside her. Found something. Pressed. Claire's back arched off the desk and her hand flew up to grip his shoulder, her nails digging into the wool of his jacket, and the phone buzzed a third time but it was distant now, a sound from another world, a world where she wasn't spread across her dean's desk with his hand inside her and his breath ragged against her throat.