Flynn's jaw worked. The hand cupping her jaw slid back into her hair, fingers threading through the messy bun, and for a breath he just held her there—green eyes searching her face like she was a text he'd translated a thousand times and still couldn't quite read.

"Three years," he said, voice gravel. "You've been waiting three years."

She opened her mouth to answer, but his other hand found her waist—broad palm spanning the curve of her hip through the oversized sweater—and whatever retort she'd been building died in her throat.

"So have I."

His grip tightened. He turned her in one motion, no hesitation now, the library stacks blurring as he spun her to face the shelf. Her palms caught the spines of ancient texts—leather worn smooth, gold lettering pressing into her skin—and then his chest was against her back, solid and hot through the wool of his shirt, and his mouth was at her ear.

"Hands on the shelf," he said. "Don't move them."

She braced herself, fingers curling around the edge of a folio. His hands left her body and she heard the rustle of fabric—him shrugging out of his unbuttoned jacket, letting it drop. Then his fingers found the hem of her sweater, dragging it up her back, and she arched without thinking, letting him push the fabric higher until it bunched above her shoulder blades.

He didn't take it off. Just left it pooled there, her back exposed, and ran one knuckle down the length of her spine. Slow. From between her shoulder blades to the dip above her ass.

She shivered. "Flynn—"

"Shh." His hands moved to her hips, thumbs hooking into the waistband of her jeans. He worked the button free, tugged the zipper down, and the sound of it—teeth separating, loud in the silent library—made her thighs clench. He peeled the denim down, taking her panties with them, the air cool on skin that had been trapped beneath layers all evening.

He knelt.

One shoe, then the other. He unlaced each with deliberate care, slipped them from her feet, set them aside. Her jeans followed, puddled around her ankles, and he lifted each foot free until she stood in nothing but the sweater bunched at her shoulders and the glasses still perched on her nose.

Naked. Completely naked, ass bare to the climate-controlled air of the Egyptology stacks, and he was behind her, still clothed, still breathing slow and measured.

He didn't touch her. Not yet. She felt him standing—his shadow blotting out the dim emergency lights, the heat of him inches from her skin—and then nothing. Just silence. Just the faint hum of the ventilation system and her own pulse thudding in her ears.

"Flynn?"

"I'm looking." His voice had dropped to something she'd never heard before. Reverent. Hungry. "Let me look."

She gripped the shelf harder. Her ass was on display—every curve, every dimple, every inch of the body she'd spent years hiding beneath oversized sweaters and self-deprecating jokes. And he was looking at it. At her. Not in spite of the weight but because of it, because she was soft and full and real and she could feel his gaze like a physical weight on her skin.

His palm settled on her right cheek. Warm. Rough with calluses from excavation tools and sandstone. He squeezed—not gentle, not tentative, but like he'd been waiting to get his hands on her and wouldn't apologize for it.

"You have no idea," he said, his thumb tracing the underside of her curve, "how many times I've imagined this."

"Tell me."

"Faculty meetings. Office hours. Every time you raised your hand in lecture." He squeezed again, harder, his fingers digging into the meat of her ass. "Every time you bit your lip while you were translating. I'd sit there and think about getting you alone. Getting you like this."

His other hand joined the first, both palms mapping her curves, spreading her cheeks, thumbing the crease where thigh meets ass. She pressed her forehead against the spines in front of her and let herself be handled.

Then he leaned in and pressed his mouth to her left cheek.

Not a kiss. A kiss was delicate. This was lips and breath and a hint of teeth, the scrape of stubble against skin that had never been kissed like this. He moved to the right cheek and did it again—softer this time, almost tender, his mouth lingering like he was memorizing the taste of her.

"Beautiful," he murmured against her flesh. "Every inch of you."

He shifted behind her, and she heard the creak of his knees as he lowered himself to the floor. His hands slid from her ass to her thighs, guiding her stance wider, and then his breath was hot against the back of her cunt and she forgot how to think.

His tongue was broad and flat and hot, and when it dragged up the length of her cunt—from clit to the slick divide—Ivy’s knees buckled.

“Flynn.”

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t, with his mouth full of her, his tongue pressing deeper now, parting her folds, lapping into the wet heat he’d been smelling through denim since he’d first dropped to his knees. She tasted like salt and copper and something sharp and sweet that made his cock throb against the seam of his trousers.

He groaned against her flesh, and the vibration traveled up her spine. Her fingers curled into the folio, knuckles whitening, and she pushed back without meaning to—grinding her cunt against his mouth like she’d done through her jeans, only now there was nothing between them but the stubble burning her inner thighs and the wet sounds of his tongue working her open.

“Oh god,” she breathed. “Oh god, that’s—”

His hands spread her cheeks wider, thumbs digging into the crease where her ass met her thighs, and he angled his head to get deeper. His nose pressed against the swell of her, and his tongue speared inside—one slow thrust that made her gasp and buck and clutch the shelf so hard a book tipped loose and thudded to the floor.

Neither of them stopped.

He pulled back just enough to drag the flat of his tongue over her clit, and she made a sound she’d never made before—raw, guttural, torn from somewhere in her chest she’d kept locked since the first time she’d seen him lecture. His tongue circled, slow and deliberate, tracing the hood, flicking at the sensitive bundle of nerves until her thighs were trembling and she couldn’t remember why she’d ever been self-conscious about the width of her hips.

“You taste,” he said, voice muffled against her cunt, “exactly like I knew you would.”

He sucked her clit into his mouth, gentle at first, then harder when she cried out and fisted a hand in her own hair. His stubble scraped the tender skin of her inner thigh, and she was dripping now—could feel it slicking his chin, her own wetness cooling on her thighs, and she didn’t care. Didn’t care that she was naked in the Egyptology stacks with her professor’s tongue inside her, didn’t care that anyone could walk past the locked doors and hear her moaning his name.

His right hand left her ass and moved between her legs. One thick finger traced through her slit, gathering wetness, and then he pressed it inside beside his tongue—slow, letting her feel every knuckle, every callus, every inch of the hand that had graded her papers and corrected her translations and now was buried in her cunt.

“Yes,” she hissed. “Yes, right there, don’t stop—”

He added a second finger, stretching her, and she bore down against the intrusion, wanting more, wanting everything, wanting the fullness she’d only ever imagined late at night with her own hand between her legs and his name caught in her throat. His tongue kept working her clit while his fingers curled inside her—finding the spot that made her vision blur and her glasses slide down her nose.

“Look at you,” he murmured, the words vibrating against her. “Taking my fingers so well. So wet for me.”

She couldn’t answer. Could only hang onto the shelf and let him fuck her with his fingers, let his tongue draw circles around her clit, let the pressure build low in her belly until she was gasping with every thrust. He crooked his fingers and her whole body seized—back arching, hips grinding back against his face, the sweater still bunched uselessly at her shoulders.

“I’m—” she started, but the word broke apart into a moan as he sucked hard on her clit and pumped his fingers faster. “Flynn, I’m going to—”

He pulled his mouth away just long enough to say, “Come on my face, Ivy. Let me feel you.”

Then his tongue was back—lapping, circling, sealing around her clit—and his fingers drove deep and she shattered. Her orgasm rolled through her in waves, cunt clenching around his fingers, thighs shaking, a cry tearing from her throat that echoed off the ancient texts and the scarred oak tables. He didn’t stop—fucked her through it, tongue gentle now, fingers still buried inside her as she rode out the aftershocks.

When she finally sagged against the shelf, forehead pressed to the leather spines, he eased his fingers from her cunt and pressed a kiss to the small of her back.

“I promised you my fingers,” he said, voice rough and reverent. “But I’m not done with you yet.”

She turned, slow, her body still humming from the aftershocks, and caught the front of his shirt in both fists. The fabric bunched at his collarbones, and she pulled—not hard enough to drag him off balance but hard enough to make him understand. She wanted him close. Wanted him standing. Wanted to see his face when she told him what she wanted next.

He rose on his knees first, then to his feet, unfolding that barrel chest and those broad shoulders until he towered over her, and she had to tilt her chin up to hold his gaze. His green eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, and his lips were slick and swollen and she could taste herself on them when she kissed him.

She did. Rose on her toes and pressed her mouth to his, open and urgent, tasting the salt of her own arousal on his tongue. He groaned into her, hands finding her hips, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh above her hipbones. She bit his lower lip, tugged, felt him shudder.

"I want to see you," she said against his mouth. "All of you. Not just your hands and your mouth." She stepped back, just enough to look at him, and let her hands fall to the waistband of his trousers. "I want to see what I've been dreaming about for three years."

His breath caught. She saw it—the way his chest stopped mid-rise, the way his jaw tightened. Then he reached for her wrists, gentle but firm, and guided her hands to the buttons of his shirt instead.

"Undo them," he said, voice low. "Slow."

She worked the first button with trembling fingers. Then the second. The third. Each one revealed a strip of skin, a patch of dark hair, the swell of his chest. By the fourth button she could see the hollow of his throat, the sharp line of his collarbone, and she pressed her lips to the exposed skin before she finished.

He tasted like sweat and soap and the faint musk of old books. She dragged her mouth across his chest as she worked lower, unbuttoning with one hand while the other splayed flat against his stomach, feeling the muscles jump under her palm. When she reached the last button, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders and let it fall.

He was beautiful. Not in the lean, sculpted way of magazines—but real. Broad and solid, with a dusting of gray in the hair on his chest and a softness at his middle that spoke of late nights and good food and a body that had lived. She wanted to press her face into his sternum and breathe him in.

So she did. She stepped into him, pressed her cheek to his chest, and felt his arms close around her, one hand cradling the back of her head. His heart was hammering against her ear.

"Ivy," he said, and his voice cracked on her name.

She looked up. His eyes were bright, his jaw working, and she realized with a jolt that he was holding himself back—that every second of restraint was costing him something. She reached down and undid his belt, the button of his trousers, the zipper. His cock sprang free, thick and hard, the head already slick with anticipation.

She wrapped her hand around him. He was hot, heavy, and he pulsed against her palm as she squeezed gently.

"I want this," she said. "I want you. All of you. For as long as you'll let me have you."

He exhaled—a long, shuddering breath that sounded like surrender—and let his forehead drop to hers.

"You've had me," he said. "Since the first day you walked into my lecture hall. I just didn't know how to tell you."

She kissed him again, soft this time, and then she lowered herself to her knees.

She didn't make him wait. Her lips parted and she took the head of his cock into her mouth—just the tip at first, letting her tongue trace the ridge, the salt-slick of his arousal coating her tastebuds. He was thick enough that her jaw ached immediately, a dull stretch she welcomed, and when she looked up at him through her lashes his head had fallen back, the cords of his throat standing out like rope.

"Ivy." Just her name. Torn from somewhere deep.

She took him deeper. Let her tongue flatten against the underside, let saliva pool and slick his shaft as she worked her mouth down inch by inch. Her hand stayed wrapped around the base—what she couldn't fit, not yet, maybe not ever—and she stroked in counterpoint to her mouth, finding a rhythm that made his hips twitch forward before he caught himself.

He was holding still for her. She could feel it—the tremor in his thighs, the way his hands had fisted at his sides, the desperate control in every exhale. Professor Flynn Ashworth, who could lecture for three hours without notes, who could translate Middle Kingdom hieroglyphs off a photograph, who had eaten her cunt until she screamed—was shaking because her mouth was on his cock.

She hollowed her cheeks and sucked hard.

His hand flew to her head—not forcing, just holding, fingers threading through the mess of her bun. "Fuck," he breathed, and the profanity in his voice, in that voice, sent a pulse of heat straight between her legs. She was still naked from the waist down, still wet from his mouth, and she pressed her thighs together as she took him deeper, letting him feel the back of her throat.

She pulled back, gasped a breath, then licked him from root to tip—a long, slow stripe that made his cock jump against her tongue. She circled the head, dipped into the slit, tasted the salt-bitter of pre-cum and wanted more. Her hand pumped him steadily while her mouth worked the sensitive underside, tongue tracing the thick vein that ran the length of him.

"You're going to—" He didn't finish. His grip on her hair tightened, then released, like he was fighting himself. "Ivy, you're going to make me come, and I don't—" A shudder wracked through him. "Not yet. Not like this."

She didn't stop. She wanted to feel him fall apart—wanted to taste him on her tongue, swallow him down, take everything he had to give. She sucked him deep again, let her throat relax, took him until her nose brushed the dark hair at his base and her eyes watered and she couldn't breathe and didn't care.

His hands closed on her shoulders and pulled her up—firm, decisive, but not rough. She made a noise of protest around his cock, and he groaned, a sound that was half-laugh and half-agony.

"I mean it." He guided her to her feet, one hand cradling her jaw, thumb brushing the wetness at the corner of her mouth. His cock was still thick and heavy between them, slick from her spit, the head flushed dark. "Two more minutes of that and I'd be spilling down your throat instead of inside you."

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, chest heaving, glasses sliding down her nose. "And that would be bad?"

He laughed—the surprised, boyish sound—and pressed his forehead to hers. "That would be over. And I've been waiting three years to be inside you. I want it to last." His thumb traced her lower lip, still swollen from the stretch of him. "I want to feel you come around my cock. Not my fingers. Not my mouth. My cock."

Her breath caught. She could feel the words in her sternum, in her cunt, in the pulse beating frantic in her throat.

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. His green gaze was steady now—no tremor, no restraint, just the full weight of his attention, the same focus he'd give a fragile artifact or a text he'd spent years translating. "So I need you to tell me, Ivy." His voice dropped. "How do you want to be fucked the first time?"

Ivy's breath was still uneven—her chest rising and falling against the bunched fabric of her sweater, her bare thighs slick where she'd pressed them together. His question hung in the air between them, heavy as a held breath. She could feel the weight of it in her cunt, the way her body answered before her mind could catch up.

"Tell me," he said again, softer this time. His thumb traced the line of her jaw. "What have you been dreaming about for three years?"

She swallowed. The library was silent around them—no hum of ventilation, no distant footsteps, just the two of them and the lamplight and the smell of old paper. She'd imagined this moment so many times she'd worn grooves into the fantasy. But saying it out loud, with his cock still slick and hard against her hip, felt like stepping off a ledge.

"You," she said. "Always you. But not just this." She gestured at the space between them—his bare chest, her naked thighs, the books scattered on the floor. "I dreamed about waking up next to you. Making coffee. Fighting about whose turn it was to grade papers." A laugh caught in her throat. "I dreamed about you reading in bed with your glasses on and your hand on my hip, not even thinking about it, just—there. With me."

His expression shifted. Something raw moved behind his eyes, and his hand on her jaw went still.

"But the other dreams," she continued, and her voice dropped, "were not that tender." She met his gaze and held it. "I dreamed about your hands. Your mouth. I dreamed about you bending me over your desk and taking me until I couldn't remember my own name. I dreamed about your fingers inside me while I tried to answer a question in class. I dreamed about your cock in my throat. In my cunt. I dreamed about you making me beg."

He exhaled—a slow, shuddering sound—and his grip on her jaw tightened, just slightly. "Which one do you want first?"

"The one where you bend me over." She didn't hesitate. "I want you behind me. I want to feel you looking at me before you touch me. I want to know you're seeing all of me—every inch you've been pretending not to notice—and I want to hear you want it."

Something broke in his face—not restraint, not control, but the last thin membrane of hesitation. He kissed her once, hard, and then his hands were on her waist, spinning her before she could draw breath. Her palms hit the cool wood of the shelf, fingers curling around the edge of a leather-bound volume, and she felt him behind her—the heat of his chest, the thick press of his cock against the curve of her ass.

"Like this?" His voice was gravel and smoke against her ear.

"Yes." The word came out as a gasp. "Exactly like this."

His hands left her waist. She heard him drop to one knee behind her, felt his fingers close around her ankle—gentle, deliberate. He lifted her foot, removed her shoe, set it aside. Then the other. His palms slid up her calves, her thighs, until they reached the waistband of her pants—still bunched around her knees from earlier, forgotten in the heat of her mouth on his cock. He tugged them down, over her ankles, and tossed them aside.

She was bare now from the waist down. Completely bare. The air of the library was cool on her thighs, her cunt, the backs of her knees. She felt exposed in a way that made her pulse thunder in her throat.

He didn't touch her. Not yet. She could feel him standing behind her—could hear his breathing, rough and uneven—and she knew he was looking. The weight of his gaze was a physical thing, trailing down the curve of her spine, over the swell of her ass, the thick of her thighs, the place where she was already wet and waiting.

"Ivy." Her name was reverent. "You are—" He stopped. Started again. "I've been such a fool."

"Tell me what you see." Her voice shook, but she didn't turn around. "I need to hear it."

His hands landed on her ass—both palms, broad and warm, cradling the weight of her. He squeezed, gently at first, then harder, his fingers digging into the soft flesh. "I see a woman I've been starving for. I see curves I've imagined gripping while I fuck into you. I see skin I want to mark with my teeth." He leaned down, and she felt his breath hot against the small of her back. "I see the most beautiful thing in this library. In this university. In my entire goddamn life."

She pressed her forehead to the shelf and bit her lip to keep from sobbing.

His lips found her left ass cheek—a kiss, soft and deliberate. Then her right. She felt the scratch of his stubble, the warm pressure of his mouth, and then the sharp, bright sting of his teeth grazing the flesh before he soothed it with his tongue.

"Three years," he murmured against her skin. "Three years I could have been doing this." He kissed lower, trailing his mouth down the curve of her ass, and then his hands were spreading her, opening her, and his breath was hot against the wet, aching center of her.

"Hold on to the shelf," he said. "And don't let go."

Her fingers curled around the shelf edge until her knuckles went white. The wood was cool and smooth under her palms, waxed by decades of custodial hands, and somewhere in the stacks behind her a clock ticked—the old analog one above the reference desk, the one that had been five minutes slow since her first semester. She could feel him behind her. Not touching. Just there. His breath was a warm ghost against the back of her thigh, and the anticipation was so sharp it felt like a blade held just above her skin.

She turned her head.

It was a small movement—just her chin dipping toward her shoulder, her glasses slipping down her nose, her dark eyes finding his over the curve of her own bare ass. And there he was. Flynn Ashworth. On his knees. His green eyes were dark in the lamplight, pupils blown wide, and his chest was rising and falling like he'd been running. His hands were still braced on his thighs, fingers spread, and she could see the tension in his shoulders—the way he was holding himself back, holding himself still, waiting for her to give him something.

Their eyes locked.

Three years of stolen glances. Three years of him looking away first, of her pretending not to notice, of his gaze lingering on her in the lecture hall and then snapping back to the whiteboard like he'd been burned. All of it collapsed into this—his face open, unguarded, his mouth slightly parted, his silver-threaded hair disheveled from her fingers. He wasn't the professor now. He was just a man on his knees, looking up at her like she was the answer to a question he'd been asking his whole life.

"Hi," she whispered. The word was absurd and perfect and exactly what she meant.

A sound escaped him—half-laugh, half-sob—and his hands lifted from his thighs, reaching for her. "Hi."

She didn't look away. She held his gaze as his palms found her ass again, spreading her open, and the vulnerability of it—the exposure, the trust, the way his thumbs traced the edges of her—made her breath catch in her throat. She was completely bare to him. Every inch. The stretch marks on her hips. The dimples at the base of her spine. The soft, heavy weight of her thighs. And he was looking at all of it like it was a temple he'd just discovered after a lifetime of digging through sand.

"You're shaking," she said. His hands were trembling against her skin.

"I know." His voice was rough. "I've wanted this so long I can't—" He stopped. Swallowed. His thumb traced the curve where her thigh met her ass, and she watched his jaw tighten. "I can't believe you're real."

"I'm real." She pressed back into his hands, just slightly, and saw his eyes flutter closed for half a breath. "And I'm still waiting."

His eyes opened. Met hers again. Something shifted in his face—the last shadow of hesitation burning away—and then he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the base of her spine. The kiss was slow and deliberate, his lips warm against the tender hollow just above the swell of her ass, and she felt it all the way up her back, in her shoulders, in the nape of her neck.

She gripped the shelf harder and let her head drop forward, breaking the eye contact because she couldn't hold it anymore—couldn't watch him worship her and keep breathing at the same time. His mouth moved lower. Over the curve of her left cheek. Then her right. Open-mouthed kisses now, wet and hot, his stubble scratching deliciously against her skin. His hands were still holding her open, thumbs spreading her, and she could feel how wet she was—could feel the slickness cooling in the library air, could feel herself dripping down her inner thighs.

"You smell—" He broke off, pressed his nose into the crease of her ass and inhaled deeply. "God, Ivy. You smell like everything I've ever wanted."

She whimpered. Actually whimpered—a sound she'd never made in her life—and pushed her hips back toward his face.

His tongue found her.

Not tentative. Not questioning. His mouth sealed over her cunt from behind and his tongue pushed inside her in one long, slow stroke, and she felt it everywhere—in her clit, in her belly, in the soles of her feet. He groaned against her flesh, a vibration that traveled through her, and then his tongue was moving—lapping at her, drinking from her, tracing the length of her slit over and over until her thighs were trembling and her grip on the shelf was the only thing keeping her upright.

"Flynn—" His name came out broken, a gasp, and she felt his hands tighten on her ass in response, pulling her harder against his mouth. His tongue circled her entrance, then pushed deep again, and she could hear the wet sound of it—obscene and perfect in the silence of the library. He ate her like he was starving. Like three years of hunger had finally been given permission to feast.

He pulled back just enough to speak, his breath hot and damp against her soaked flesh. "Hold on to the shelf." His voice was wrecked. "I'm going to make you come on my tongue, and then I'm going to make you come on my fingers, and then—" He pressed a kiss to her clit and she jerked against his mouth. "Then I'm going to give you what you asked for."

She didn't answer. She couldn't. She just held on to the shelf, pressed her forehead to the spine of a leather-bound volume of Egyptian grammar, and let him consume her.

Her hips answered before she could form the thought—pressing back, grinding against the wet heat of his mouth with a demand that needed no words. His groan vibrated through her, his hands tightening on her ass, pulling her harder against his face. She felt the ridge of his nose press against her, felt his tongue spear deeper, and she rode his mouth with the same desperation she'd been swallowing for three years.

The shelf bit into her palms. Somewhere in the stacks, the old analog clock kept ticking—five minutes slow, forever behind—but time had stopped meaning anything. There was only his tongue. Only the obscene, wet sounds of him eating her like she was the last meal he'd ever have. Only the way he moaned into her cunt like he was the one being devoured.

"More—" The word scraped out of her throat, raw and wrecked. "Flynn, more—"

He gave her more. His tongue found her clit and circled it, slow and deliberate, and she saw white behind her closed eyelids. Her knees buckled. He caught her—one arm wrapping around her thigh, holding her up, keeping her spread open for him. His other hand was still on her ass, thumb tracing the edge of her, and then she felt him shift, felt his tongue push lower, licking into her entrance in long, flat strokes.

"You taste—" His voice was muffled, broken, his mouth never fully leaving her. "I could live here. Right here." He sealed his lips over her clit and sucked, and the sound she made wasn't human.

Her glasses slid down her nose, fogged and useless. She let them fall—heard the soft clatter of them hitting the shelf, rolling, dropping to the floor. She didn't care. She couldn't care about anything except the pressure building low in her belly, the tension coiling tighter and tighter with every stroke of his tongue.

"Don't stop—" She was begging now, and she didn't recognize her own voice. "Please, Flynn, please don't—"

"Never." He pulled back just enough to speak, his breath cold against her soaked flesh. "I'm never stopping. I'm going to stay right here until you come down my throat. And then—" His tongue dipped inside her, once, twice, and she sobbed. "Then I'm going to do it again."

She felt him smile against her cunt. Actually felt the curve of his lips, the scratch of his stubble, the smug, reverent satisfaction of a man who'd just discovered his true vocation. And then he was eating her again—faster now, hungrier, his tongue pushing inside her and then dragging up to her clit and then circling, circling, circling until she couldn't breathe.

"I'm—" She couldn't finish the sentence. The coil in her belly was too tight, her thighs trembling, her grip on the shelf the only thing anchoring her to the earth. "I'm going to—"

"Yes." His voice was a growl, his hands spreading her wider, his mouth never stopping. "Give it to me. Come on my tongue, Ivy. Let me taste it."

He sucked her clit hard—hard enough to make her cry out, a sound that echoed through the empty library and bounced off the vaulted ceiling and came back to her doubled—and then his tongue pushed inside her as deep as it could go, and she shattered.

Her orgasm ripped through her like a wave she'd been holding back for years. She felt herself clench around his tongue, felt the gush of wetness against his mouth, heard him groan in triumph as he drank her down. Her body arched, her back bowing, her hips grinding against his face in a rhythm she couldn't control. His name tore out of her throat—"Flynn!"—and it was a prayer and a curse and a confession all at once.

He didn't stop. He kept his mouth pressed against her, his tongue still moving, gentler now but still there, still drinking, still coaxing every last shudder out of her until she collapsed against the shelf, gasping, spent.

For a long moment, the only sound was their breathing—hers ragged and raw, his just as uneven, hot against the back of her thigh. The lamplight flickered. The clock ticked. The dust motes danced in the slanted afternoon light, suspended and spinning, and Ivy Castellano pressed her forehead to the spine of an Egyptian grammar and tried to remember how words worked.

"Ivy." His voice was hoarse, utterly wrecked. She felt his lips brush her hip, her ass, the base of her spine—soft kisses, almost reverent. "Look at me."

She turned her head. Her hair had come loose from her bun, sticking to her cheeks, her neck. Her face was flushed, her eyes wet. She looked down at him—Flynn Ashworth, still on his knees, his mouth glistening with her, his green eyes dark and wild and full of something that looked terrifyingly close to love.

"I promised you my fingers," he said, and his voice cracked on the last word. "But I need—" He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing, and she watched him struggle to find the words. "I need to be inside you. Not yet." He clarified quickly, his hand finding her thigh, his thumb stroking the soft skin. "Not like that. Not until you say. But I need—" He pressed his forehead to her hip, his shoulders shaking. "I need to feel you."

She reached down, her fingers threading through his silver-threaded hair, and pulled his head back until he was looking up at her. His eyes were wet. She didn't mention it. Didn't need to.

"Then feel me," she said.

His forehead stayed pressed to her hip for three heartbeats. She felt the heat of his breath through her skin, felt the slight tremor in his shoulders, and she kept her fingers tangled in his hair—holding him there, letting him hide, letting him find whatever he needed to find.

"Flynn." She said his name low, not demanding—just present. Just here. "How do you need me?"

He exhaled against her hip. A long, shuddering breath that seemed to carry three years of isolation out of his body. When he lifted his head, his eyes were wet but his jaw was set—the jaw of a man who'd translated burial chambers and catalogued mummies and never once let a student see him falter. Until now. Until her.

"I don't—" He stopped. Swallowed. His thumb was still stroking her thigh, a rhythm he didn't seem conscious of. "I've spent so long not needing anyone. Not letting myself."

"I'm here." She kept her voice steady, even though her legs were still weak from what his mouth had done to her. "I've lost count of the orgasms you've given me tonight, and I'm still standing here asking—what do you need? Tell me. I want to give it to you."

His eyes searched her face. The lamplight caught the silver at his temples, the creases at the corners of his eyes, the wet shine of her on his lips. He looked wrecked. He looked beautiful. He looked like a man who'd been drowning for decades and just realized someone was holding out a hand.

"I need to touch you." His voice cracked on the word touch. "Not just—not just my mouth. I need my hands on you. I need to feel you around my fingers. I need to watch your face while I—" He broke off, his jaw working. "I need to see what you look like when it's my hands making you fall apart."

She reached down and took his wrist—the one still resting on her thigh—and lifted his hand to her mouth. She pressed a kiss to his palm. Then his fingers. One by one. She tasted herself on him, salt and sweet, and watched his eyes go dark.

"Then touch me," she said. "However you need."

He rose. Not quickly—his knees had to be aching from the hard library floor—but deliberately, his body unfolding to its full height, and suddenly she was looking up at him again. His broad shoulders blocked the lamplight, casting her in shadow, and his hand was still cradled against her mouth. She released his wrist and let her arms fall to her sides.

His free hand found her hip. Squeezed once—a grounding pressure—then slid up her side, over the swell of her ribs, the curve of her breast still covered by her sweater. He didn't try to remove it. His focus was lower. His focus was exactly where she wanted it.

"Turn around," he said. Not a command—a request, rough and urgent. "I want to feel you from behind. The way you were."

She turned. Gripped the shelf again—the same leather-bound grammar, the same scarred oak—and pressed her forehead to the spine. Her naked ass was level with his hips now, her thighs still slick, her cunt still swollen from his tongue. She felt exposed. She felt powerful. She felt like a hieroglyph—a symbol waiting to be read by the only man who'd ever bothered to learn her language.

His hand landed on her ass. Not a slap—just a palm, warm and heavy, covering the fullest part of her right cheek. He held it there for a long moment, and she heard him exhale slowly through his nose.

"You have no idea," he said quietly, "how many times I've imagined my hands on you. Just here." He squeezed, and she felt the pressure radiate through her. "During lectures. During office hours. During faculty meetings. While you were sitting three rows back, taking notes, and I was supposed to be talking about burial practices. All I could think about was this."

His other hand joined the first. Both palms now, spanning her ass, his thumbs tracing the underside of her cheeks. He kneaded her flesh slowly—reverently—like he was memorizing the shape of her, the weight of her, the way she filled his hands.

"I've never—" He stopped. Pressed his thumbs into the crease where her ass met her thighs and held them there. "I've never let myself want someone like this. Not since my divorce. Not since—" A rough exhale. "Not since I decided it was easier to be alone than to fail."

She turned her head just enough to see him over her shoulder. His face was half-shadowed, his green eyes fixed on his own hands—on the way her flesh yielded to his grip. "You're not failing," she said. "You're here. You're touching me. That's not failure."

His eyes lifted to meet hers. And then his right hand slid lower—over the curve of her ass, down, down—until his fingers found her cunt from behind. She was still soaked, still open, and when he pressed two fingers against her entrance she gasped and let her head drop forward again.

"Tell me if it's too much." His voice was barely a whisper. His fingers didn't push inside—just rested there, warm and steady, feeling the heat of her. "Tell me if you need me to stop."

"Don't stop." She pushed her hips back, trying to draw him in. "Flynn, please. I need you inside me. However you want. Just—"

He slid one finger into her. Slowly. Deliberately. She felt every knuckle, every callus—the texture of a man who worked with his hands, who handled artifacts and ancient stone and now her. She clenched around him and heard him groan.

She pressed back. Her hips rocked into his hand, a silent, urgent request, and his finger slid deeper—the knuckle, the callus, the heat of him filling her where she was still wet and open from his mouth. She heard herself make a sound, something between a gasp and a whimper, and her fingers tightened on the shelf.

"More," she breathed. Not a demand—a plea. "Flynn, please. I can take more."

He didn't answer with words. His free hand pressed flat against her lower back, grounding her, and then a second finger was pushing into her, stretching her wider. She felt the burn of it—not pain, just the ache of being filled beyond what she'd expected, her body yielding to him inch by inch. His fingers curled inside her, finding a place that made her vision blur and her knees buckle.

"There," she choked out. "Right there. Don't stop."

"I won't." His voice was rough, sandpapered, and she felt him lean closer—his chest almost touching her back, his breath hot on her neck. His fingers moved inside her, slow and deliberate, and she could hear the wet sound of it, the slick slide of his knuckles against her cunt. "I've got you. I've got you, Ivy."

Her name on his lips—like that, wrecked and reverent—made her clench around him. He groaned, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest, and his thumb found her clit. Just the pad of it, pressing in a slow circle that made her whole body jerk.

"You're so—" He stopped, his thumb still moving, his fingers still buried inside her. She felt his forehead drop to her shoulder, his breath ragged through the fabric of her sweater. "I can feel you. Every time you tighten. Every time you—" He broke off, and she felt him shake his head against her shoulder. "I don't have words for this."

"Try." She turned her head, her cheek pressed to the spine of the book, and looked at him over her shoulder. His face was half-hidden, his jaw clenched, and she could see the sweat on his temple, the flush on his neck. "You're a professor. Use your words, Flynn. Tell me."

He lifted his head. Met her eyes. His fingers never stopped moving—slow, deep, the heel of his hand pressed against her ass—and she watched him struggle to find language for something that wasn't academic, wasn't ancient, wasn't anything he'd ever let himself name.

"You're hot," he said finally, and the word was almost a revelation. "Inside. And wet. And so goddamn tight around my fingers that I can't—" He thrust deeper, curling his fingers again, and she gasped and pushed back against him. "I can't think. I can't breathe. I can't remember a single thing I've ever known except this."

She pressed back onto his fingers again, harder this time, and his name fell out of her mouth in fragments—"Flynn, Flynn, Flynn"—and she didn't care how desperate she sounded. Didn't care that she was bent over a library shelf, completely naked from the waist down, begging her professor to fuck her with his fingers. She'd been waiting three years. She was done pretending she didn't want this.

"Tell me something," she said, and her voice was steadier than she felt. "When you look at me like this—" She pushed back again, taking his fingers deeper. "—what do you see?"

His hand stilled. For one heartbeat. Two. She felt him pull back just enough to look at her—really look at her, his eyes travelling from the messy bun on her head down the curve of her spine, over the swell of her ass, her thighs, the place where his fingers were still buried inside her.

"I see—" He stopped. Swallowed. His free hand came up to trace the curve of her hip, his callused palm rough against her soft skin. "I see someone who's been hiding. Not from me—from herself. From what she wants." His thumb stroked her hipbone, a gentle counterpoint to the stillness of his other hand. "I see a woman who's spent so long believing she's too much—too smart, too loud, too big—that she can't see what's right in front of her."

"What's that?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Me." His fingers moved again—a shallow thrust that made her gasp. "On my knees for you. Desperate for you. Wrecked for you." Another thrust, deeper. "I see everything, Ivy. Every curve. Every inch. Every scar and stretch mark and secret you think you're hiding. And I want all of it."

She felt tears prick at her eyes—not from sadness, but from the unbearable weight of being seen. Truly seen. By the one person she'd spent years convinced would never look at her this way.

"Then take it," she said. "Take all of it. I'm not hiding anymore."

His response was immediate. His fingers pulled out of her—slowly, deliberately, leaving her empty and aching—and then both his hands were on her ass, spreading her open, and she felt his mouth on her again. From behind this time. His tongue tracing the seam of her, lapping at the wetness that coated her thighs, finding her clit and sucking hard.

She cried out—a sound that echoed through the empty library, bouncing off the high ceilings and the dusty stacks and the ancient papyri that had probably never heard anything like this. She pressed her forehead to the shelf and let herself feel it: his mouth, his hands, his need for her that matched her need for him. Three years of wanting, and this was where it had led—to a man on his knees behind her, eating her from behind like she was the most sacred thing he'd ever tasted.

Her hand left the shelf. Reached back—blind, trembling—and found his hair.

Silver at the temples. Thick through her fingers. She gripped it like an anchor, like the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid and hot and utterly unrecognizable. His groan vibrated against her cunt, and she felt the sound in her teeth.

"Don't stop." She pulled his hair harder than she meant to. "Whatever you do, don't—"

He didn't. His tongue flattened against her, broad and wet, lapping from her clit to her entrance and back again. Slow. Patient. Like he was translating something ancient and precious, something that deserved reverence and time. She arched her back, pushing into his mouth, and felt his hands tighten on her ass—holding her open, holding her steady, holding her like he was afraid she'd disappear.

She wouldn't. She couldn't. She was pinned here, bent over this shelf, her sweater bunched at her shoulders and her glasses fogged and her cunt spread open for a man who'd spent three years pretending he didn't want her. And now his mouth was on her like prayer.

His tongue found her clit—the tip of it, flicking—and she bucked. Her grip on his hair tightened. Her other hand splayed flat against the bookshelf, knocking a volume loose, and she heard it thud to the floor somewhere behind her. She didn't care. Flynn's name came out of her in fragments again, a stutter of syllables that wasn't language anymore.

"That's it," he murmured against her. The words vibrated through her, hot breath and wet mouth and the scrape of stubble on her inner thigh. "Let me hear you, Ivy. No one's here but us."

She sobbed—one sharp, involuntary sound that surprised her. She hadn't cried in years. Not when her father left. Not when her thesis advisor told her she'd picked a dead field and should consider something more practical. Not when she'd looked in the mirror at 2am and catalogued every inch of herself she'd been taught to hate. But this—his mouth on her, his hands on her, his voice telling her to be loud—this broke something open.

"Flynn." His name tasted different now. Richer. Like she'd been saying it wrong her whole life and only just learned the correct pronunciation. "I need—"

"Tell me." He pulled back just enough to speak, his lips still brushing her swollen flesh. His breath was hot and wet and uneven. "Tell me what you need, and I'll give it to you. Anything. Everything."

"Your fingers." She pushed back against him, trying to find friction, trying to find pressure. "And your mouth. Both. I don't—I can't choose."

He laughed—that surprised, boyish sound—and then his mouth was on her again. His tongue pressed flat, and at the same time, two fingers slid inside her. Not slow this time. Not tentative. He filled her in one smooth thrust, curling up, finding that place again, the one that made her vision go white at the edges.

She screamed. It echoed off the high ceilings, bounced off the papyri and the leather-bound grammars and the bust of some long-dead pharaoh who'd probably never imagined his tomb would one day house this—a woman bent over a shelf, a man on his knees behind her, both of them making sounds that weren't words.

His fingers thrust deeper. His tongue worked her clit in circles—fast, then slow, then fast again—and she felt the rhythm building in her, a pressure that started low in her belly and spread outward. Her thighs shook. Her knees threatened to buckle. She gripped his hair with both hands now, holding herself up, holding him in place, holding onto the only thing that made sense in a universe that had suddenly inverted.

"I'm—" She couldn't finish. Didn't need to. He knew. She felt him double down—fingers curling harder, tongue pressing firmer, his free hand sliding up her spine to press between her shoulder blades, grounding her. Anchoring her. Keeping her here, in her body, even as her body started to come apart.

"Let go," he said, and the words were muffled against her flesh. "I've got you. Let go, Ivy."

And she did.

Pleasure hit her like a wave—no, like a wall. Sudden and total and devastating. Her cunt clenched around his fingers in spasms she couldn't control, and she heard herself make sounds that weren't human—sobs and gasps and his name, over and over, Flynn Flynn Flynn, a litany, a prayer, a hieroglyph she'd been carving into her chest for three years and only now could read aloud.

He didn't stop. His mouth stayed on her through every pulse, his fingers stayed buried inside her through every aftershock, and when she finally went limp—forehead pressed to the shelf, breath ragged, tears wet on her cheeks—he withdrew slowly. Gently. Pressing one last kiss to her swollen, oversensitive flesh before resting his forehead against her ass.

She heard him breathe. Felt him tremble. Realized, distantly, that he was shaking as hard as she was.

She had to catch her breath first. Had to remember how lungs worked, how language worked, how a body that had just come apart could reassemble itself into something capable of speech. Her forehead stayed pressed to the cool wood of the shelf, her glasses fogged and useless, her sweater bunched under her armpits, and behind her—still trembling, still breathing hard—Flynn knelt with his forehead against her ass like a supplicant who'd just witnessed a miracle and wasn't sure he was allowed to look yet.

She felt his exhalations on her skin. Hot. Uneven. His hands were still on her hips, but looser now, like he wasn't sure if he should let go or hold on tighter. She didn't want him to let go. She wanted him to never let go. She wanted him to stop trembling and fuck her until she couldn't remember her own name.

"Flynn." Her voice came out ragged, scraped raw from screaming. She pushed back against him—just enough pressure to feel his stubble scrape her ass, to feel the wet heat of his mouth still there, still ready. "I need—"

"Tell me." The words were muffled against her flesh. He hadn't moved. His lips brushed her as he spoke. "Anything, Ivy. Anything you need."

"Your cock." She said it without hesitation. Without shame. She'd spent three years being ashamed of wanting him, and she was done. "I've had your mouth. I've had your fingers." She pushed back harder, grinding against his face, and felt him groan into her. "I had your cock in my mouth—briefly—and I want it back. I want it inside me. I want you to fuck me."

He pulled back. Just an inch. Just enough that she could feel cold air where his mouth had been, and she hated that inch more than she'd ever hated anything. His hands tightened on her hips—possessive now, desperate—and she heard him swallow.

"Ivy." Her name came out of him like a warning. Or a plea. She couldn't tell which. "If I—if we do this, I'm not going to be gentle. I've been—" He stopped. Laughed that boyish, broken laugh. "I've been dreaming about this for three years. About you. Under me. Around me. I'm not going to last. I'm not going to be—"

"I don't want gentle." She turned her head, pressing her cheek to the shelf, and looked back at him over her shoulder. He was still on his knees behind her, his green eyes dark and wrecked, his mouth still wet with her, his shirt hanging open from where she'd pulled it free, his belt unbuckled and dangling. He looked like a man who'd been unmade. She wanted to unmake him further. "I've had three years of gentle. Three years of you looking at me like you wanted to devour me and then pretending you didn't. I'm done pretending. Fuck me, Flynn. Hard. Now."

He rose to his feet behind her—she felt him unfolding, felt the heat of his body as it pressed close along her spine without quite touching. His hands slid up from her hips to her waist, then higher, pushing her sweater up further until it bunched beneath her breasts. She felt his belt buckle brush her ass—cold metal against her flushed skin—and then his mouth was at her ear.

"You had my cock in your mouth." His voice was gravel and smoke. "I can still feel it. Your lips. Your tongue. The way you looked up at me while you—" He stopped. Shuddered. "I almost came in your mouth, Ivy. Right there. Looking at you on your knees with my cock between your lips—"

"Then don't come in my mouth." She pushed back, grinding her ass against the front of his trousers, feeling the hard length of him through the fabric. He groaned, a sound that vibrated through her spine. "Come inside me. Fill me up. I want to feel it. I want to feel you."

His hands left her hips. She heard the sound of his belt sliding free—the leather hiss, the buckle clinking—and then the rustle of fabric as he shoved his trousers down. She didn't turn to look. She stayed bent over the shelf, her ass presented to him, her cunt still slick and swollen and aching from his mouth, and waited.

She felt his cock press against her—the heat of it, the weight of it—and her breath caught. He was thick. Thicker than she'd imagined. The head nudged against her entrance, slick with her own wetness and his spit, and she felt herself clench in anticipation. Ready. Desperate.

"Tell me if it's too much." His voice was strained, tight. She could feel him holding back, trembling with the effort of not just slamming into her. "Tell me to stop, and I'll stop. Tell me to slow down, and I'll—"

"Flynn." She reached back and found his hip, her fingers digging into the hard muscle there. "I've been waiting three years. Shut up and fuck me."

He laughed—that surprised sound again—and then he pushed inside her in one long, slow, devastating thrust.

She pushed back. Hard. Her ass met the flat of his hips and she heard him gasp—a raw, punched-out sound that had nothing to do with the professor she'd watched lecture for three years and everything to do with the man who'd just buried his cock inside her.

"Ivy—"

"Deeper." She didn't recognize her own voice. It was low. Commanding. A voice she'd never used before tonight. "I said I wanted you to fuck me. Not hold still."

His fingers dug into her hips. Hard enough to bruise. She hoped they bruised. She wanted to wake up tomorrow with the proof of him on her skin, wanted to sit in his lecture hall and feel the ache of his grip every time she shifted in her seat. She wanted him to see her wince and know why.

He pulled back—just the first inch—and her body screamed at the loss. Her cunt clenched, trying to hold him, and she heard him curse under his breath. The word was filth. Guttural. Not a professor's word. A man's word.

"You feel—" He stopped. Swallowed. His forehead dropped to her shoulder, and she felt his breath hot through her sweater. "You feel like I imagined. For three years I've been imagining this, and I was wrong. You feel better."

"Then stop imagining and move." She pushed back again, grinding against him, and the angle shifted—he slid a fraction deeper—and she saw white sparks at the edges of her vision. "Oh god. Yes. There. Right there."

His laugh was wrecked. "You're demanding."

"You have no idea." She reached back with one hand, found his ass, and pulled. "Fuck me, Flynn. Now."

He pulled back—further this time, until she felt the ridge of him at her entrance—and then he thrust. Hard. Not gentle. Not slow. The shelf creaked under the force of it, and she heard books shift, and she didn't care, didn't care about anything except the stretch of him inside her and the sound he made—a groan that started somewhere deep in his chest and vibrated through her spine.

"Yes," she gasped. Her glasses fogged completely. She couldn't see. She didn't need to see. "Again. Do that again."

He did. Harder. Her breasts swayed under her bunched sweater, nipples scraping the fabric, and the friction was almost too much. Almost. His hands slid from her hips to her waist, then higher, spreading across her ribs, and she felt the calluses on his palms catch on her skin. Artifact hands. Hands that had touched things three thousand years old, and now they were touching her.

"Ivy," he said, and her name was a prayer in his mouth. "You're so—"

"Don't." She didn't want adjectives. Didn't want beautiful or gorgeous or any word that felt like a lie. She wanted his cock. She wanted his breath on her neck. She wanted the shelf biting into her hip and the smell of old paper and the sound of his belt buckle hitting the floor when he'd finally kicked his trousers free.

He didn't argue. His next thrust was deeper, angled different, and it hit something inside her that made her choke on her own breath. Her fingers scrabbled at the shelf, knocking a book to the floor. Neither of them flinched at the sound.

"There," she managed. "There, there, don't stop, don't—"

"I've got you." His mouth found her ear. His hips found a rhythm—rough and uneven and desperate, the rhythm of a man who'd been starving and finally been given permission to feast. "I've got you, Ivy. Let me—"

His hand slid down her belly. Lower. His fingers found her clit—still swollen, still oversensitive from his mouth—and she bucked against him so hard her feet left the floor for a half-second. Her ass slapped against his hips. The sound was obscene. Perfect.

His fingers circled her clit—slow at first, then faster, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. She felt the pleasure building low in her belly, coiling tight like a spring wound too far. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Just breath. Just the wet slap of his hips against her ass and the creak of the shelf under her grip.

"Like that," she managed. "Right there. Don't—don't stop—"

He didn't stop. His fingers pressed harder, his cock driving deeper, and the combination was unraveling her from the inside out. She felt herself clench around him—involuntary, desperate—and heard him curse behind her. The word was filth. Unacademic. Hers.

"God, Ivy. You're so—" He stopped himself. Smart man. She'd told him no adjectives. His hips stuttered, lost the rhythm for a half-second, and she felt the tremor in his thighs where they pressed against the backs of hers. He was close. She could feel it in the way his cock thickened inside her, in the way his breath came harsher and faster against her ear.

"Don't come yet." The words came out of her mouth before she'd decided to say them. Commanding. Sure. A voice she'd never heard herself use. "Not until I—"

His laugh was a broken thing. "You're going to kill me."

"Not until I come first." She pushed back harder, grinding against his fingers, against his cock, taking him deeper than she'd thought possible. The shelf bit into her hip. She didn't care. The book that had fallen was somewhere underfoot. She didn't care about that either. The only thing that existed was the pressure of his fingers on her clit and the stretch of him inside her and the sound of his breathing going ragged behind her.

"Then come." His mouth was at her ear, his voice a growl. "Come on my cock, Ivy. I want to feel it. I've been waiting three years to feel it. Let go."

His fingers pressed harder—circling, stroking, relentless—and something inside her snapped. Not broke. Opened. The coil in her belly released all at once, and she was coming, clenching around him, her cunt pulsing in waves that radiated out through her thighs and up her spine and into the back of her throat. She heard herself cry out—a sound she didn't recognize, high and broken and his name tangled up in it—and she didn't care. Couldn't care. Her fingers dug into the shelf so hard she felt a splinter slide under her nail.

He held still inside her while she came, letting her ride it out, letting her clench and pulse around him. His fingers kept moving on her clit—gentler now, softer—drawing out every last tremor until she was shaking and gasping and unable to form words.

"There," he murmured against her ear. "There you are. That's what I wanted. That's what I've been imagining every night for three years. You, coming apart for me."

She couldn't speak. Her legs were trembling. The shelf was the only thing holding her upright. She felt his cock still hard inside her, still thick, still ready, and the knowledge that he'd held back—that he'd waited—sent another aftershock through her. She clenched around him involuntarily and heard him hiss.

His hand left her clit. Slid up her belly, across her ribs, and then his fingers were under her chin, turning her face toward his. She blinked up at him—glasses still fogged, vision blurred—and found his green eyes dark and burning and fixed on hers.

"Ivy." He said her name like it was a question. Like everything that came next depended on her answer. His hips pulled back—just a fraction—and she felt the loss like a wound. "I need you to tell me. Is this—are we—" He stopped. Swallowed. His jaw tightened. "Tonight. Is this tonight? Or is this more?"

She stared at him. His cock was still inside her. His hand was still on her chin. The lamplight caught the silver in his hair and the sweat on his brow and the desperate, hungry, terrified hope in his eyes. He wasn't asking about orgasms. He wasn't asking about positions. He was asking whether she'd still want him when the sun came up.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. Not from the sex. From the question.

She swallowed. It took two tries. "Flynn—"

His thumb brushed her jawline. Waiting. His cock was still hard inside her, still stretching her in a way that made thinking impossible, but his eyes were patient. Green and steady and holding hers like she was the only thing in the library worth decoding.

"I want more." The words came out raw. Scraped. Like they'd been stuck somewhere in her throat for three years and were only now fighting free. "I've been wanting more since the first lecture. Before that. Before I even knew what your voice sounded like. I've been—" She stopped. Swallowed again. Her glasses were still fogged. She couldn't see his reaction, and that was almost easier. "But if tonight is all you can give me, I'll take it. I'll take whatever you—"

His mouth cut her off. Hard. Not gentle. Not careful. His hand slid from her chin to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the damp hair that had escaped her bun, and he kissed her like she'd said something that broke him. His tongue pushed past her lips, and she tasted coffee and need and something desperate she couldn't name.

He pulled back just far enough to speak, his forehead pressed against hers, his breath ragged. "No."

The word hit her chest like a stone.

"No," he said again, softer this time, and his hand tightened on her neck. "You don't settle for whatever I can give you. You don't take scraps, Ivy. Not from me. Not from anyone." His hips pulled back—an inch, no more—and she felt the loss like a wound opening. "I want what you've been dreaming of. The breakfast table. The late nights. The arguments about verb conjugations in Middle Egyptian. All of it. I want—" He stopped. His jaw worked. The muscle at his temple jumped. "I want to stop being alone. And I want to stop being alone with you."

She stared at him. The fog on her glasses was finally clearing, and she could see his face—the crease between his brows, the flush on his cheekbones, the way his mouth was still wet from her. He looked terrified. He looked like a man who'd just translated a curse and was waiting for the tomb to collapse.

"Three years," she whispered. "I've been dreaming about you for three years, and you're telling me you want—"

"Everything." His voice cracked on the word. "I want everything. I want to take you to dinner and watch you correct the waiter's pronunciation of couscous. I want to fall asleep with my head on your stomach while you read terrible mystery novels. I want to wake up at three in the morning because you've stolen all the blankets, and I want to be grateful for it. I want—"

"Flynn." She put her hand on his chest. Over his heart. It was pounding. "You're still inside me."

He blinked. Looked down at where their bodies joined. Looked back up at her face. His laugh was startled and broken and beautiful. "I am. I'm giving you a speech about breakfast tables, and I'm still—"

"Deep," she said, and clenched around him deliberately. Watched his eyes go wide. "You're still deep inside me, and you're talking about blanket theft."

"Ivy." His hand tightened on her neck. His hips twitched—an involuntary thrust, shallow and desperate. "I'm trying to be romantic."

"You're succeeding." She pushed back against him, taking him deeper, and felt the tremor run through his thighs. "You're also making me want to cry, and I don't cry during sex. So maybe finish your speech so I can kiss you again."

His forehead dropped back to hers. His breath was warm and uneven. "I don't have a speech. I just—I've been alone for a long time. And I didn't mind it. I thought I didn't mind it. But then you walked into my lecture hall in that ridiculous sweater with the hole in the sleeve, and you corrected my translation of a Third Dynasty offering formula, and I—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I couldn't stop thinking about you. About your voice. About the way you fidget with your glasses. About how you snort when you laugh and then look embarrassed, like joy is something you're not allowed to feel."

"I do that," she whispered.

"I know. I've been watching." He pulled back—further this time, until he was almost out—and then thrust back in, slow, deliberate, filling her completely. "I've been watching for three years. And I'm tired of watching. I want to be the reason you laugh like that. I want to be the reason you stop apologizing for it."

He was still inside her. Still hard. Still waiting. And something in his eyes had shifted—the terror receding, replaced by something hungrier. Something that wanted to hear it again.

"Say it." His voice was rough. Low. His hand on her neck tightened just enough to make her pulse jump against his palm. "What you said before. About wanting more. Say it again."

She licked her lips. Her mouth was dry. Her glasses were crooked. She didn't fix them. "I want more."

His hips pulled back—slow, so slow she felt every inch of the withdrawal—and then thrust forward again, filling her in one deliberate stroke. Her breath caught. Her fingers scrabbled against the shelf.

"Again." His forehead pressed to hers. "Slower this time."

She couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. He was buried to the hilt, and his hand was on her neck, and his eyes were burning green in the lamplight, and he wanted her to speak. Wanted her to say it while he was inside her, while she could feel every thick inch of him stretching her open.

"I want—" She had to stop. Swallow. His cock twitched, and she felt it deep, and the word came out broken. "—more."

"Good." He didn't move. Just stayed there, buried, letting her feel it. "Again."

"I—" Her voice cracked. She clenched around him without meaning to, and his jaw went tight, the muscle leaping under his skin. "—want more."

His mouth found her jaw. Not kissing. Just resting there, his breath hot and uneven. "Again."

She was shaking. Her thighs trembled. Her cunt pulsed around him, and he still wasn't moving, and the restraint was tearing her apart. "I want more," she whispered, and this time it wasn't broken. This time it was steady. Certain. Like a fact she'd finally translated.

He pulled back. Thrust in. Deeper this time, harder, and she felt the shelf groan under her grip. "That's it." His voice was a growl against her skin. "That's what I needed. To hear you say it while I'm inside you."

She turned her head. Caught his mouth with hers. Kissed him hard, open-mouthed, no finesse—just need. His tongue pushed past her lips, and she tasted the coffee from hours ago, the desperation, the three years of silence finally breaking.

He broke the kiss first. Pressed his forehead to her temple. His hips started moving—not fast, not rough, but steady. Deep. Each stroke complete, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in until she felt him in her throat.

"Ivy." Her name came out strangled. "I'm going to—"

"Don't pull out." The words were out before she knew she'd thought them. "I want—" She couldn't finish. Didn't need to.

His rhythm faltered. His hand left her neck, slid down to her hip, gripped hard enough to bruise. "Are you—"

"I'm sure." She pushed back against him, taking him as deep as she could, and heard the sound he made—half groan, half something sacred. "Flynn. Come inside me. I want to feel it."

That broke him.

His thrusts turned ragged. Desperate. His hand on her hip pulled her back onto his cock with every stroke, and his breathing went to pieces against her ear—short, sharp, shattered sounds that were almost sobs. His other hand found hers on the shelf. Fingers lacing through hers. Holding on.

"Ivy—" Her name was the last thing he said before his hips slammed home and stayed there, pressed deep, his whole body going rigid against her back. She felt the first pulse of his release—hot and thick and so deep she imagined she could feel it in her belly—and then another, and another, each one accompanied by a sound from his throat that she'd never heard a man make before. A sound like relief. Like surrender. Like coming home.

His knees buckled first.

One moment he was braced against her, still buried deep, still pulsing with the last aftershocks—and the next his legs gave out, and she felt the full weight of him sag against her back. She caught herself on the shelf instinctually, her palms flat against the scarred oak, but he was already sliding, already taking her down with him, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her into the collapse.

"Flynn—"

They hit the floor together. It wasn't graceful. His shoulder clipped the shelf on the way down, sent a shower of dust motes spinning into the lamplight, and she landed half on top of him, her hip against his stomach, her legs tangled with his. He was still inside her—or had been until the angle broke them apart—and the sudden emptiness made her gasp.

Then he started laughing.

It was the same laugh she'd heard earlier—startled and boyish and cracked right down the middle—but now it was breathless, giddy, the laugh of a man who'd just given a speech about breakfast tables while buried inside his student and then collapsed on a library floor. His chest heaved under her. His hand found the back of her head and pulled her face into his neck.

"I'm sorry," he managed, between gasps. "I'm sorry, I meant to—I was going to be smooth about it. Carry you somewhere. Lay you down like a civilized person."

She propped herself up on her elbows. Looked down at him. His hair was a disaster, his glasses were gone—she didn't remember when he'd lost them—and his face was flushed, sweaty, split open with a grin she'd never seen before. He looked ten years younger. He looked wrecked. He looked like hers.

"That was—" She had to stop. Swallow. Her throat was raw, and she realized she'd been the one making those sounds, those half-sobs she'd heard him echo. "Flynn. That was amazing."

His grin widened. "Amazing."

"Don't fish for compliments. You know what you did." She dropped her forehead to his chest. His shirt was still mostly on, rucked up around his ribs, and his skin was hot and damp and smelled like sex and sandalwood. "We should do it again. Soon. Maybe after—" A yawn cracked her jaw. "—maybe after a nap."

His laugh rumbled through his chest and into her skull. "A nap."

"A short one." She pressed her lips to his sternum. Tasted salt. "You wore me out. Congratulations. You've successfully fucked your student into needing a recovery period."

His arms tightened around her. One hand slid down her spine—slow, proprietary, mapping the curve of her back—and settled on her bare ass with a possessiveness that made her breath catch all over again. "We're stuck here another five hours."

"I know."

"There's time for a nap." His thumb traced the swell of her ass. Slow. Lazy. The touch of a man who'd earned it. "There's time for a lot of things."

She lifted her head. His green eyes were soft now—still hungry, she could see it banked behind the exhaustion—but soft. The terror was gone. The desperate edge. What was left was something steadier. Something that looked like the beginning of a promise.

"Five hours," she said. "Then what?"

His hand stilled on her ass. His jaw worked. For a moment the professor was back—the one who calculated consequences, who maintained proper standards, who'd spent three years inventing reasons to stand near her desk. But then his hand tightened, pulled her closer, and the man who'd just come inside her and confessed to wanting breakfast tables said, "Then I take you home. My home. And I make you breakfast."

She blinked. Her glasses were crooked again. She didn't fix them. "That's a very confident assumption."

"It's not an assumption." He reached up—slow, giving her time to pull away—and gently straightened her glasses. His fingers brushed her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "It's a promise. You've been translating me for three years. You know I don't break those."

The ache in her chest—the one that had lived there so long she'd stopped noticing it—cracked open. Not painfully. Like a door swinging wide. Like a room she'd been afraid to enter finally filling with light.

"Okay," she whispered. "Breakfast."

"Breakfast," he agreed. Then he pulled her head back down to his chest, wrapped his arms around her, and let the silence settle. The library creaked around them—old wood, old paper, old secrets. The lamp still burned its warm circle on the table. His heartbeat was steady under her ear.

She was still naked. Still sticky with him, with herself. The floor was hard and cold and probably filthy. None of it mattered.

"Hey," she murmured, already half-asleep. "Flynn."

"Mmm."

"Next time I want your mouth on me. The way you promised."

His laugh was a low vibration in his chest. "Next time. Absolutely. I have a very detailed plan."

"Of course you do." She smiled against his skin. "You're a professor."

His hand found her hair. Stroked once. Twice. His breathing slowed. "Sleep, Ivy. I'll wake you when it's time."

She didn't answer. She was already gone—drifting on the steady rhythm of his heart, the warmth of his body, the impossible certainty that when she woke, he'd still be there.