The sheets were a catastrophe—tangled and damp and half on the floor—but neither of them moved to fix them. Ivy lay tucked against Flynn's side, her cheek on the wide plain of his chest, one leg thrown over his thigh. His hand rested on the curve of her hip, thumb moving in slow, idle strokes that had nothing to do with starting anything and everything to do with not wanting to stop touching her.

Morning light came through the window in a wide yellow bar across the bed, heating the small of her back. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. The coffee they'd made hours ago had gone cold in the kitchen.

"You ever think about going back?" Ivy asked, her voice muffled against his skin.

"Back where?"

"Egypt."

His thumb stopped. Started again. "Every day."

She lifted her head to look at him. His green eyes were on the ceiling, but he wasn't seeing plaster. He was seeing sand. She recognized the expression—had worn it herself, staring at textbook plates of the Valley of the Kings during long nights in the graduate carrel. "Not just to visit," she said. "To work."

"A dig?" He made a sound—half laugh, half something softer. "I haven't been in the field since my postdoc. Fifteen years ago. You get tenure, you get comfortable, you tell yourself teaching is enough." His hand slid up her hip, settled at the dip of her waist. "It's not enough."

"So why don't you?"

"Because it's easier to want something than to lose it again." He said it without self-pity—just a fact, delivered in the same tone he used to date pottery shards. "I loved it out there. The heat. The dust. Waking up at four a.m. to beat the sun, brushing sand off a wall painting no one's seen in three thousand years." His chest rose and fell under her cheek. "I was good at it. And then I came back, and I got divorced, and I told myself I'd go again next season. And the season after that."

Ivy pushed herself up on one elbow. Her hair had escaped the bun hours ago and hung in a tangled curtain between them. "You're not that old, Flynn."

"Thank you." Dry. But his mouth twitched.

"I mean it. You could still—"

"What about you?" He turned his head on the pillow, meeting her eyes. "You're the one with a thesis to finish and a career to launch. You want to run a dig someday?"

She didn't answer right away. The question landed somewhere deeper than she expected—not the polite career-day version she'd answered for advisors and classmates, but the real one. The thing she let herself imagine at three a.m. when the fear of failure was quiet enough to let hope through. "I want to be the one who finds something," she said finally. "Not just translates what someone else dug up. I want to be there when the trowel hits stone and you know—you *know*—no one's touched this since they sealed the tomb."

Flynn's hand came up, pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered at her jaw. "You will be."

"You don't know that."

"I've read your work. I've watched you in class." His thumb traced the line of her cheekbone. "You don't just want to find something—you want to understand it. That's rarer than you think."

She kissed him. Not because she meant to, but because his face was right there and his hand was on her jaw and he was looking at her like she was a primary source he'd already memorized. His mouth opened under hers, soft and unhurried, the kiss a question she hadn't asked out loud.

When she pulled back, his eyes were darker. "What?" he said.

"Nothing. Just—" She bit her lip, caught herself doing it, stopped. "You really think I could run a dig?"

"I really do."

She settled back against his chest, and after a moment his hand found her hip again. The light had shifted—higher now, whiter. Outside, a lawnmower started somewhere down the block.

"So," Ivy said, her voice lighter now, deliberately casual, "you asked me what I fantasize about. Career stuff. Egypt stuff." She let the pause stretch, felt his thumb still against her skin. "What about the other kind?"

Flynn's thumb resumed its path along her hip bone, a slow arc that might have been absent if she couldn't feel the pressure change with each pass. He didn't answer right away. She watched his face—the way his jaw worked, the slight furrow between his brows that meant he was translating something in his head.

"The other kind," he repeated.

"Unless you don't have any." She kept her voice light. "Which would be disappointing, given—" she gestured vaguely at the tangled sheets, their bodies, the whole situation "—everything."

He laughed, a short exhale that moved her head on his chest. "I have them."

"But?"

"But I've spent three years being your professor. There's a muscle you develop. It's atrophied now, apparently, but it's still—" He stopped. Started again. "I don't know how to talk about this without feeling like I'm taking something I shouldn't."

Ivy propped herself up on her elbow. His hand slid from her hip to the small of her back, settling there like it belonged. "Flynn. You were inside me two hours ago. I think we're past that."

His green eyes met hers. Something flickered there—reluctance, hunger, the ghost of the man who'd spent three years correcting papers he'd already read just to be near her. Then it broke. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"You want to know what I think about when I'm alone in this house, at night, and I can't stop myself?" His voice had dropped. Not the professor's voice. The one from the library. "I think about you on my desk. In my study. Pushed back against the wood with your legs over my shoulders and my face buried in your cunt until you can't remember your own name. I think about—" He paused, his throat working. "I think about restraints. Your wrists. Something soft. And taking my time. Hours. Making you wait. Making you beg."

Ivy felt the words land in her belly and spread downward. She didn't look away. "What else?"

"I think about bending you over the arm of the couch in my office. The one with the cracked leather. I think about hiking your skirt up and taking you from behind while you grip the armrest and try to stay quiet because there are grad students in the hall." His hand tightened on her back. "I think about you riding my thigh. Just my thigh. Grinding down until you come apart, and I don't touch you anywhere else. I just watch."

"God," she breathed.

"You asked."

"I did."

She was wet again. Just from his voice. The specificity of it—the cracked leather, the grad students in the hall, the way he'd said *hours* like it was a promise. She pressed her thighs together under the sheet and saw him notice. His nostrils flared.

"Your turn," he said.

"I already told you. The dig. The discovery. The—"

"Ivy." He shifted beneath her, turning onto his side so they faced each other, the sheet slipping to his waist. His cock was half-hard against his thigh. He didn't seem self-conscious about it. "Ask me what you really want to know."

Ivy held his gaze for three heartbeats. Four. The question he'd asked wasn't the one she'd been dodging all morning—it was the one she'd been dodging for three years. Not what do you want but what are you afraid to say out loud.

She could give him the safe answer. The thigh-riding, the desk fantasy, the version of herself that wanted to be taken apart. All true. All incomplete.

"There's something," she said. Her voice came out smaller than she meant it to. "Something I've never told anyone. Not because it's—" She stopped. Swallowed. "Because saying it makes it real. And if it's real, I have to admit I want something I don't know how to have."

Flynn's hand moved from her back to her shoulder, his thumb finding the hollow above her collarbone. He didn't speak. Didn't push. Just waited, his green eyes steady on her face.

"It's not about positions," Ivy said. "Or locations. Or any of the—the mechanics. It's about—" She pressed her palm flat against his chest, felt his heart beating under her hand. "You know how in old Egyptian art, the hieroglyphs for abstract concepts are always these concrete things? The glyph for love is a hoe and a mouth and a man with his hand to his face. The glyph for want is a man reaching toward something he can't quite touch."

Flynn's brow furrowed. "You're stalling with Egyptology."

"I'm contextualizing."

"You're stalling."

She laughed, a breath that wasn't quite humor. "Fine. I'm stalling." She shifted, sat up fully, the sheet pooling around her hips. The morning light caught the curve of her belly, the stretch marks on her thighs. She let him look. "I fantasize about waking up next to you. Not the sex—I mean, yes, obviously the sex—but the morning. The part after. You making coffee. Me stealing your sweater because mine's in the other room. Arguing about whose turn it is to get the paper."

She could feel him listening with his whole body. Still. Attentive. Like she was a text he was translating.

"I fantasize about coming home to you," she said. "Not a night. Not a weekend. Home. Your books on the shelf next to mine. Your toothbrush in the holder. The sound of your key in the door and my whole body going there he is." She pressed her palm harder against his chest, as if she could push the words into his ribcage. "I fantasize about you reading in bed while I grade papers, and you keep looking over at me like you're doing now—like I'm something you're still discovering—and it's just... Tuesday. It's just Tuesday, and you're there, and I'm there, and we're not sneaking or hiding or counting hours."

Her voice cracked on the last word. She didn't try to hide it.

"I want the boring parts," she said. "I want the grocery list on the counter and your handwriting next to mine. I want you to be the person I tell the stupid things—the dream I had, the thing my mother said, the article I read that made me think of you. I want to know what you look like when you're sick. When you're frustrated. When you've been grading for six hours and your eyes are tired and you need someone to tell you to come to bed."

Flynn's jaw tightened. His hand was still on her shoulder, but his fingers had curled, the lightest pressure, like he was holding himself back from pulling her down against him.

"And the sex—" She let out a shaky exhale. "The sex is part of it. Of course it is. But it's not the point. The point is after. The point is that I want to be the woman who gets to keep you. Not borrow you."

"Ivy." His voice was rough. Gravel and glass, like it had been in the library.

"I know it's too soon to say any of this. I know we've had one night and one morning and you're still my professor for three more days and there are about fifty ways this could go catastrophically wrong." She met his eyes. "But you asked what I fantasize about. That's it. That's the fantasy. Not being alone anymore. Not either of us."

For a long moment, Flynn didn't move. Then his hand slid from her shoulder to the back of her neck, and he pulled her down against his chest in one motion, her cheek pressed to the wiry hair over his sternum, her body half-draped across his. His other arm came around her back, solid and warm.

"Tell me," he said, his voice vibrating through his chest into her ear, "what the hieroglyph for want looks like again."

"A man reaching toward something he can't quite touch."

"That's not us." His lips brushed the top of her head. "You're touching me right now. I'm touching you."

"The reaching part is still true."

"Then keep reaching." His hand traced down her spine, slow, deliberate. "I'm not going anywhere."

His hand slid from the small of her back, over the curve of her hip, and settled on her thigh. The sheet had pooled at her hips, so his palm met bare skin—warm, callused, spreading his fingers to cover as much of her as he could. Ivy sucked in a breath through her nose but didn't pull away.

"In my office," Flynn said, his voice a low rumble against her cheek. "When I told you what I wanted to do. The leather chair. The door locked. You on my thigh until you couldn't think straight."

"I remember."

His thumb traced a slow arc on the inside of her thigh, an inch from where the heat was already gathering. "You said it was true but incomplete. And I told you—"

"That you want the complete version." Ivy lifted her head from his chest, propping herself on her elbow so she could see his face. His green eyes were darker now, the pupils blown wide despite the morning light through the window. "You also said I wasn't ready for it."

"I said I'd make you ready." His hand didn't move. Just rested there, heavy and patient, the weight of it a question he wasn't going to ask twice. "You've been thinking about it."

She had. In the gaps between the domestic fantasies and the confessions, the image had lodged itself behind her ribs—her straddling his thigh in that cracked leather chair, his hands on her hips, his voice in her ear telling her to take what she needed. She'd imagined the sound her wetness would make against his skin. The way his jaw would tighten watching her.

"Tell me what you imagined," she said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt.

Flynn's fingers curled, just slightly, pressing into the soft flesh of her thigh. "You. Straddling me in that chair. No underwear. The leather cold under your knees." His thumb moved again, closer now, tracing the crease where her thigh met her hip. "Me, still fully dressed. You, taking your time because you know I'm watching everything. The way your mouth opens. The way your eyes go unfocused when it's good."

Ivy's cunt clenched on nothing. She was already slick, had been since his words in the kitchen, and now she could feel herself dripping onto the sheet beneath her.

"You'd start slow," he said. "Finding the right angle. My hands on your hips but not guiding—just feeling you move. And when you found it—that spot where the pressure hits exactly right—you'd make a sound I haven't heard yet. Something I'd spend the rest of the week trying to get out of my head."

"You've thought about this."

"Faculty meetings. Department dinners. Every time you raised your hand in lecture." His voice dropped lower, rougher. "Ivy Castellano riding my thigh while I'm supposed to be discussing tenure requirements. That's what I was thinking about."

She shifted against him, her inner thigh brushing the back of his hand. He was half-hard again, his cock stirring against his thigh, and she could feel the heat radiating off his skin. "You want to do it now."

"I want a lot of things." His hand slid higher, his thumb finally—finally—brushing the edge of her pubic hair. "What do you want?"

Ivy looked at him. The gray at his temples. The lines around his eyes that deepened when he was fighting a smile. The way his chest rose and fell under her palm, steady but shallow, like he was holding himself back from something. She'd spent three years wanting this man in fragments—a look across a lecture hall, a brush of his sleeve against her desk. Now he was asking her to take what she wanted, and the question itself was a kind of undressing.

"I want to hear you say it again," she said. "The part about my mouth opening."

His nostrils flared. "Your mouth opens. Just a little. Like you're surprised by how good it feels, even though you knew it would. And I'm sitting there in my tweed jacket, losing my mind, pretending I'm not counting every one of your breaths."

"You're not touching yourself."

"No."

"Just watching."

"Just watching. Until you're close. Then my hands tighten on your hips and I—" He stopped, his jaw working. "And I pull you down harder. Faster. Because I can't wait anymore."

Ivy swung her leg over his hip in one motion, the sheet falling away, and found herself straddling his thigh before she'd fully decided to move. His leg was solid beneath her, the muscle tensed, and when she settled her weight against him the pressure was already almost too much. She was so wet she left a slick smear on his skin.

Flynn's hands found her hips. Not guiding. Just there, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh above her hipbones.

"Like this," she said. It wasn't a question.

Flynn's hands stayed on her hips, his thumbs pressing circles into the soft flesh there. He was watching her with an intensity that made her feel like she was the only thing in the room—the only thing in the world.

"Like this," she'd said. And now she was here, straddling his thigh, the weight of her body pressing down against the solid muscle beneath her. The sheet had fallen away completely, pooling around her knees, and the morning air was cool against her flushed skin.

Flynn's jaw tightened. "Just like that." His voice was low, rough, the words dragged out of him. "Now tell me what you want."

Ivy's breath caught. She could feel herself leaking onto his skin, the slick heat of her arousal making the glide inevitable. "I want to move."

"Then move."

She did. A slow, experimental roll of her hips, finding the angle where the pressure landed exactly right. Her cunt clenched, a pulse of heat that made her gasp. Flynn's hands tightened on her hips, his fingers digging in just enough to feel.

"That's it," he said. "Find it."

She rocked against him again, slower this time, letting the friction build. Her clit was swollen, aching, and every shift of her weight sent a jolt of pleasure through her. She could feel his thigh muscle tense beneath her, could feel the heat of his skin through the slickness she was leaving behind.

"I want to watch you come like this," Flynn said. His voice was steady, but his eyes were dark, hungry. "On my thigh. No rush. Just you finding what you need."

Ivy's hips stuttered. The fantasy—the one he'd described in his office, the one she'd replayed in her head a hundred times—was happening. She was straddling him, riding his thigh, and he was watching her with that look that made her feel seen in a way she'd never been seen before.

"You're so wet," he said, his thumb tracing a line down her hip, stopping just short of where she needed him. "I can feel it. You're dripping onto me."

"Flynn—"

"I know." His voice dropped, a growl that vibrated through his chest. "I know what you need. But I want to see you take it first."

She rocked harder, faster, chasing the pressure. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, her head falling back as the pleasure built. His hands guided her, not controlling—just there, steady, a point of contact that kept her grounded.

"Look at me."

She did. His green eyes were fixed on hers, and in them she saw something that made her chest ache—want, yes, but also wonder. Like he couldn't believe she was real.

"You're beautiful," he said, and the words hit her like a physical blow. "Do you know that? You're so fucking beautiful."

Ivy's rhythm broke. She pressed down harder, grinding against his thigh, and the pressure hit exactly right. Her mouth fell open, a sound escaping her that she'd never made before—a high, broken whimper that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her chest.

"There it is," Flynn breathed. "That sound."

His hands slid up her back, pulling her closer, and she buried her face in his neck as the pleasure crested. Her hips moved in short, desperate circles, and she felt herself clench, felt the heat spread through her like a wave breaking.

"That's it," he said, his voice soft now, almost reverent. "Let go. I've got you."

She did. The orgasm rolled through her, a slow, deep pulse that seemed to last forever. Her body trembled against his, her fingers digging into his shoulders, and she heard herself moan his name against his skin.

When she finally stilled, her breath came in ragged gasps. She was slick with sweat, her thighs trembling, and she could feel the evidence of her pleasure cooling on his skin.

Flynn's hand came up to cup the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair. "You okay?"

Ivy nodded against his neck, not trusting her voice.

"Good." He pressed a kiss to her temple. "Because I'm not done watching you."

She stayed there, face pressed to the heat of his neck, her thighs still trembling against his. The aftershocks kept coming—small, involuntary clenches that made her breath catch and release against his skin.

Flynn's thumb traced slow circles at the base of her skull. "You're still shaking."

"I know." Her voice came out raspy, muffled against his throat. She could feel his pulse there, steady and slow, and the rhythm of it was anchoring. "Give me a minute."

"Take as long as you need." His other hand settled on her lower back, warm and solid. "I'm not going anywhere."

Ivy let herself go boneless against him. Her weight pressed him into the mattress, but he didn't shift, didn't try to adjust her. Just held her there, his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek. The sheet was somewhere down by their ankles now, and the morning light was coming through the window in long golden rectangles across the bed.

"Tell me something," she said, still not lifting her head.

"Anything."

"Another one. A fantasy."

She felt his breath stop. Then start again, slower. His thumb paused at the base of her skull.

"You want me to—"

"Yeah." Ivy pulled back just enough to look at him. His green eyes were dark, pupils still blown wide, and his jaw was rough with stubble she hadn't noticed before. "You told me the thigh thing. That was good. What else do you think about?"

Flynn exhaled, a soft laugh that wasn't quite a laugh. "You're going to make me confess everything, aren't you?"

"Only the good parts."

"You started this," Flynn said, his voice low. "You asked."

"I did."

His thumb resumed its slow circles at the base of her skull. "There's one I've had for a while. Longer than the thigh thing."

Ivy shifted against him, her thigh pressing against his hip. "How long?"

"Two years. Maybe more." He exhaled, and she felt the warmth of it against her forehead. "You wore this blue sweater to class once. Cashmere, I think. It kept slipping off your shoulder."

"I remember that sweater."

"You spent the whole lecture pulling it back up. And I spent the whole lecture wanting to pull it down." His hand slid from her skull to her shoulder, his fingers tracing the curve of it. "I couldn't stop thinking about it. What you'd look like over my lap."

Ivy's breath caught. She pulled back to look at him, and his green eyes were waiting for her—dark, steady, watching.

"Over your lap," she said.

"Yeah." His hand stayed on her shoulder, thumb pressing into the muscle there. "Naked. Bent over my knees. And I'd just—" He stopped, his jaw tightening.

"Just what?"

"Bring my hand down. Hard. Right here." His palm slid down to the curve of her ass, and she felt him cup her there, a firm, possessive grip. "And watch you jump. Feel you jump. Every time my hand landed, you'd jerk against me, and I'd feel it."

"Against your—"

"My cock." The word landed between them, blunt and heavy. "You'd be squirming on my lap, and I'd be hard underneath you, and every time I spanked you, you'd grind down on me without meaning to. Just your body reacting."

Ivy's face flushed hot. She could feel it spreading down her neck, across her chest. "And you'd just—keep going?"

"Until you couldn't take it anymore." His hand was still on her ass, his fingers pressing into the soft flesh. "Until you were begging me. For more, for less, for anything. I'd make you say it."

"Say what?"

"What you wanted. Exactly what you wanted." His voice had dropped to that gravel register, the one that made her stomach clench. "I'd make you use the words. Cock. Cunt. Fuck. No hiding behind euphemisms, no academic language. Just you, over my lap, telling me what you needed me to do to you."

Ivy's hips shifted without her permission, a small, involuntary movement. "You've thought about this a lot."

"I've thought about it so much I could tell you the exact shade of pink your skin would turn after the fifth slap." His thumb traced the curve of her ass, slow and deliberate. "I'd start slow. Not too hard. Just enough to make you feel it. Then I'd increase. One. Two. Three. Each one a little harder than the last. And after every one, I'd rub the spot I just hit. Feel the heat under my palm. Feel you squirm."

Ivy swallowed. The sound of it was loud in the quiet room, a dry click in her throat that she felt all the way down. She was still looking at him—those green eyes, that rough jaw, his hand still cupping her ass like it belonged there—and the word was already forming on her lips before she could think about it.

She nodded.

Flynn's eyebrow lifted. Just one, a slow arch that made her stomach drop and tighten at the same time. His thumb stopped its lazy tracing and pressed into the flesh of her ass, a question mark written in pressure.

"Yes," Ivy said. The voice that came out wasn't one she recognized. It was raw, scraped clean of sarcasm and armor and three years of careful distance. Just need, laid bare. "Yes, now. Please."

The word hung between them. Please. She never said please. Not like this. Not with her whole body leaning into it, her hips already shifting against his thigh like they were trying to find the angle before her brain caught up.

Flynn didn't move for a long moment. Just watched her, his pupils still dark and wide, his breath coming slower now. Deliberate. Like he was memorizing the exact shape of her saying yes.

"Come here," he said finally. His voice was gravel and quiet command. He moved his hand from her ass to her hip, guiding her off his thigh. "Up. Over my lap."

Ivy's body obeyed before her mind could catch up. She pushed herself up, the morning air cool on her flushed skin, and then she was moving—awkward and graceless and not caring at all—until she was draped across his thighs. Her belly pressed against the heat of him. Her breasts flattened against the sheet beneath them. And her ass, bare and exposed, was exactly where he'd described.

She felt him shift beneath her, adjusting his legs to take her weight. His left hand settled on the small of her back, a warm, grounding pressure. His right hand found her ass again, palm flat against the curve of it, and she could feel the calluses on his fingers from handling artifacts. Rough against her softness.

"You tell me if it's too much," Flynn said. His voice had dropped to that register again, the one that made her cunt clench without permission. "You say stop, I stop. You say slower, I slow down. You understand?"

"Yes." Her voice was muffled against the mattress, her cheek pressed to the sheet.

"Good." His palm left her skin, and she felt the absence like a held breath. "First one's just to feel it."

The sound came before the sensation—a sharp crack in the quiet room—and then heat bloomed across her right cheek. Not pain, not exactly. Just heat, spreading outward from where his hand had landed, and then the sensation caught up and she jerked against him.

Exactly like he'd said she would.

His palm was back on her skin immediately, rubbing slow circles over the spot he'd just struck. "There," he murmured. "Feel that?"

She felt it. God, she felt it everywhere—the heat radiating outward, the pressure of his hand soothing what he'd just done, the hard ridge of his cock pressing against her belly through the sheet. He was already hard. Already leaking, if the damp spot against her skin was any indication.

"Again," Ivy said. The word came out hoarse. "Harder."

Flynn's hand stilled on her ass. "Harder?"

"You heard me."

He laughed, a low sound that vibrated through his thighs and into her belly. "I did. I just wanted to hear you say it again." His palm lifted. "Count for me."

The second slap landed on her left cheek, harder than the first, and Ivy gasped. Her hips bucked against his lap, grinding down on him without meaning to, and she felt his cock twitch beneath her belly in response.

"Two," she managed.

"Good girl." His hand was already rubbing the spot, soothing the sting. "Again?"

Ivy nodded against the sheet. "Please."

His hand lifted. She heard the air part. Then—crack. Heat bloomed across her right cheek again, sharper now, and she gasped. "Three."

His palm soothed, rubbing slow, deliberate. The sting melted into something deeper, something that coiled low in her belly. Her hips rocked without permission, her cunt clenching around nothing.

"Good girl." His voice was rough. "You're counting so well."

She felt his hand leave her ass. Then his fingers traced down, down, between her thighs. Ivy's breath caught. His knuckles brushed her inner thigh, and then—oh, God—his fingers slid through her folds. Wet. Slick. She was dripping, and he found it, his fingertips parting her, one dipping inside for just a heartbeat before withdrawing.

Ivy whimpered.

"So wet," he murmured. "All this from getting spanked?" She felt his hand move back up, spreading her own arousal over her heated skin. The contrast—cool slickness against the burn—made her shudder.

"Four," he said, and his hand cracked down again, this time on the slicked skin. The sound was different. Wet. The sting sharper, somehow more intimate. Ivy's hips bucked, and she ground against the air, her clit throbbing, untouched.

"Four," she managed.

His fingers were between her thighs again, two this time, sliding through her sex, coating themselves. She could hear it—the wet sound of her own arousal, obscene in the quiet room. He spread it over her other cheek, the left, where the skin was still pink and humming with heat.

"Look at you." His voice was awed. "Your ass is glowing, and your cunt is so fuckin' wet you're dripping down my thigh." He pressed a slick finger to her entrance, just barely inside, and Ivy clenched around nothing. "You want my fingers inside you, don't you?"

"Yes."

"After." He pulled back, and she groaned. "I promised you a spanking, and you're going to take it. Then I'll give you my fingers. Maybe my tongue. Maybe my cock. But first—count."

The next spank landed on the crease where her ass met her thigh, and Ivy cried out. "Five."

He didn't soothe this time. Another crack, same spot. "Six." Tears pricked her eyes, but she was grinding, grinding, the ache a steady pulse in her cunt. His hand found her wetness again, spreading it over the fresh welts, and the sting turned liquid, turned into molten need.

"Good girl. Take it." Slap. "Seven." He was relentless now, three in quick succession—left, right, left—and Ivy was counting through gasps, her body a live wire. "Eight. Nine. Ten."

His palm stopped, cupping both cheeks, squeezing. The heat was everywhere. Her skin felt incendiary, and her cunt was clenching rhythmically, desperate for something to grip. He leaned down, his mouth close to her ear. "You came on my cock last night, and you're going to come again, just from this. I can feel you dripping on me." He pressed a thumb against her tailbone, a steady pressure. "Next time—cry out when you come. I want to hear it."

His fingers plunged into her cunt without warning—two, deep, curling. Ivy screamed, her orgasm ripping through her from nowhere, her thighs trembling, her ass burning under his palm. She ground back onto his fingers, riding them, her release coating his hand.

He held her through it, his thumb tracing the seam of her ass while his fingers worked inside her, drawing out every pulse. When she finally stilled, he pulled out slowly, and she heard him bring his fingers to his lips.

"Perfect," Flynn said, his voice thick.

Ivy watched his hand rise to his mouth. His fingers—still slick with her, glistening in the light from the window—disappeared between his lips. He sucked them clean, one by one, his green eyes closing for just a beat. The sound was wet. Deliberate. She could hear his tongue working between his knuckles, chasing the taste of her.

Something in her chest cracked open. Not gently—violently. A hinge giving way after being held shut too long.

She moved before she knew she was moving. Her body twisted, the sheet falling away, and she swung one thigh over his lap. Flynn's eyes snapped open. His hands found her hips on instinct—callused palms gripping the soft flesh above her hipbones—but he didn't stop her. Didn't speak. His cock was still hard, still slick at the tip, pressing against her inner thigh now as she settled across him.

"Ivy—"

She reached down between them and wrapped her fingers around him. He was hot. Thick. The skin soft over the hardness, and when her thumb brushed the wet head, his whole body jerked beneath her. His hands tightened on her hips.

"You just had your mouth on your fingers," she said, her voice rough, "and I'm supposed to wait?"

Flynn's jaw tightened. His throat moved as he swallowed. "You're not supposed to do anything except what you want."

She positioned him at her entrance and paused. Just the tip of him pressing into her wet heat, not yet inside. Her cunt clenched around nothing, aching with emptiness. She could feel how slick she was—how ready—and she let him feel it too, holding him there against her opening, letting the head of his cock grow wetter from her arousal.

"This," Ivy said. "This is what I want."

And she sank down.

Not fast. Slow. Deliberate. Every inch of him stretching her open, filling her from below, the angle different than before—deeper somehow, his cock pressing against places inside her that made her breath catch and hold. Her eyes locked on his. She watched his mouth fall open, watched the way his brow furrowed, the way his hands slid from her hips to her ass, pulling her down the last inch until she was fully seated.

She felt full. God, she felt so full. Her cunt stretched around him, gripping, and when she clenched deliberately, his head fell back against the headboard.

"Fuck," he breathed. "Ivy."

She didn't move. Not yet. She stayed there, impaled on him, letting her body adjust to the thickness of him, letting him feel her—the heat, the wetness, the way her inner walls fluttered around his cock. His chest was rising and falling hard beneath his shirt, and she pressed her palm flat against it, feeling his heartbeat through the fabric.

Then she rolled her hips. Once. A slow grind that dragged him against her front wall, and Flynn made a sound she'd never heard from him before—a broken groan, low and guttural, his fingers digging into the flesh of her ass.

"Again," he said. Not a command. A plea.

She did it again, slower this time, her clit pressing against his pubic bone with the motion. The friction sent a jolt of pleasure up her spine. She leaned forward, her forehead finding his, and his breath was hot against her lips. She could smell coffee. Sandalwood. The salt of his skin.

His mouth found hers. The kiss wasn't gentle—it was hungry, his tongue pushing past her lips, and she met him there, licking into his mouth while her hips kept rolling, kept grinding, the wet sound of her cunt sliding on his cock filling the room. His hands moved up her back, pulling her closer, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers threading into his hair, gripping.

His mouth left hers and found her throat. He licked a long stripe up the column of her neck, his tongue tasting her sweat, and then he sucked—hard—on the spot where her pulse beat beneath the skin. Ivy gasped, her hips bucking, the grind stuttering.

"Mark me," she whispered. "I want to see it tomorrow."

He did. His teeth scraped her throat, then bit down—not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to leave a bruise. She felt the bloom of heat, the sharp ache, and she clenched around his cock in response. He groaned against her neck, his hips thrusting up into her from below, and the rhythm shifted—deeper now, harder, his hands gripping her waist and pulling her down as he pushed up.

Ivy retaliated. She ducked her head and found the cord of his throat, the place where his pulse hammered against the skin. She licked it first—the salt of him, the faint scratch of stubble—and then she sucked, hard, drawing the skin between her teeth. Flynn's entire body shuddered. His cock twitched inside her.

"Jesus," he rasped.

She released him and pulled back just enough to look at his face. His eyes were dark, the green nearly swallowed by black. His lips were parted, wet from kissing her, and there was a flush spreading down his neck. He looked wrecked. She felt wrecked. And they were still moving—slow, grinding, the slide of his cock in and out of her now a steady rhythm that made the bed creak beneath them.

His hands slid up her back and pulled her flush against his chest. Her breasts pressed against the hard plane of him through her thin shirt—she was still half-dressed, she realized, still wearing the oversized sweater from this morning, and somehow that made it filthier. His cock buried deep inside her while she was still dressed. While he was still half-dressed. The desperation of it, the need that hadn't let them pause long enough to strip—

"Closer," Flynn said against her ear. "I need you closer."

She wrapped her arms around his neck tighter. Her thighs squeezed his hips. Their chests were pressed together, her nipples hard against him, and when she ground down on him, she felt him everywhere—in her cunt, against her clit, his breath in her ear, his hands on her spine, his cock swelling inside her with every stroke.

"Like this," she whispered. "Just like this."

His mouth found her throat again. Her mouth found his. They kissed and bit and licked at each other's necks, trading marks, trading heat, while her hips kept moving—slow, so slow, the grind never stopping, the pleasure building low in her belly. She could feel him holding back, could feel the tension in his thighs, the way his hands trembled against her back.

"Don't stop," she said against his skin. "Whatever you do—don't stop."

Her lips found the shell of his ear. Not kissing—brushing, the way a breath brushes a flame before the fire catches. His skin was hot beneath her mouth, salt-sweet with the sweat of the last hour, and when her tongue darted out to taste the crest of his earlobe, his cock pulsed inside her. She felt it. Deep. A throb that answered her before his voice could.

"Ivy." Her name a rasp. A question.

"I've been thinking," she whispered, and her hips rolled forward, slow, dragging the wet heat of her cunt along his length until her clit pressed against the hard bone of his pelvis. She held there. Let him feel the clench of her around nothing. "About what I want you to do to me."

Flynn's breath came out hard through his nose. His hands moved up her back, fisting the fabric of her sweater. "Tell me."

She pulled back just enough to look at him. His green eyes were dark, the lids heavy, his mouth swollen from kissing her. The mark on his throat was deepening to a bruise—her mark—and the sight of it made her cunt tighten around his cock. He groaned.

"I want you to take me somewhere no one can hear me scream." She said it against his mouth, her lips shaping the words against his. "Outside. Under the sky. I want you to bend me over the hood of your car on some back road in the middle of nowhere and fuck me until I can't walk straight."

Flynn's hips bucked up into her. Involuntary. Desperate. His cock drove deeper and she gasped, her forehead dropping to his shoulder.

"Jesus Christ, Ivy."

"I want the sun on my back and your hand in my hair and the risk that someone might drive past." She was rocking into him now, little pulses of her hips that made the headboard knock against the wall. "I want to feel the wind on my skin where you've been inside me."

His hand came up and fisted in her chestnut hair, the messy bun long since undone, and he pulled her head back so he could see her face. The bite on her throat throbbed. "On the hood of my car."

"Or against a tree. Or on the ground in the dust. I don't care." She licked her lips. "I want you to come inside me under an open sky."

Flynn's other hand slid down to the small of her back, fingers pressing into the dip above her ass, and he guided her into a rhythm. Slow. Deep. Every thrust measured, deliberate, like he was already imagining the scene she'd painted. Like he was fucking her there already.

"What else?" His voice was wrecked, barely a whisper. "Tell me what else."

"I want you to put me on my knees in the sand." She was panting now, the words coming between breaths, between the slide of his cock inside her. "I want to suck you off with the stars coming out and nothing around us but silence and your hands in my hair and the taste of you in my throat."

Flynn made a sound—low, guttural—and his forehead pressed into the hollow of her throat. His breath was hot and uneven against the bruise he'd left there. She felt his teeth graze her skin. Not biting. Just… promising.

"We could do that," he said. "We could drive out to the desert. Tomorrow. Tonight." A kiss pressed to her collarbone. "Whenever you want."

"I want." Ivy tightened her thighs around his hips and ground down hard, making him hiss. "I want all of it. I want you to blindfold me in the backseat. I want you to spank me in a field where the only witness is the moon. I want—"

He kissed her. Hard. His tongue pushing into her mouth, swallowing the rest of her words, and she kissed him back with the same hunger, the same desperation. Their bodies were still moving, still fucking, the wet sound of her on him filling the quiet room.

When he broke the kiss, they were both breathing like they'd run a mile. "You're going to kill me," he said. "You know that? You're going to absolutely fucking kill me."

Ivy smiled. Slow. And then she leaned in, her mouth an inch from his ear, and whispered: "Not before you make good on every single one of those promises."

Ivy didn't answer with words. She unfolded her arms from around his neck, planted her palms on the mattress on either side of his hips, and leaned back. The shift in angle drove his cock deeper, and they both gasped—her at the fullness, him at the sudden tight clench of her cunt around him. Her sweater rode up, bunching under her breasts, and the cool air of the bedroom kissed her stomach, her thighs, the slick heat where their bodies joined.

Flynn's hands found her hips. His fingers pressed into the soft flesh there, not guiding—just holding. His green eyes tracked her movement with the focused intensity of a man translating something ancient and dangerous. "What are you doing?"

"Showing you." Ivy's right hand left the mattress and slid down her own belly. Slow. Deliberate. Her fingers traced the stretch marks on her stomach, the curve of her lower belly, and then lower still—to the place where her cunt was stretched around him, wet and swollen and aching. Her middle finger found her clit. She pressed down, a tight circle, and the sensation ripped through her like lightning.

Her hips bucked. His cock moved inside her with the motion, and Flynn's groan was low and wrecked. "Ivy—"

"I want you to watch." She circled her clit again, slower this time, her breath catching in her throat. "I want you to see what you do to me. What I think about when I'm alone." Her dark eyes met his. Held them. "What I thought about every night for three years."

Flynn's jaw tightened. The muscle in his temple jumped. But he didn't move—didn't thrust, didn't take over. He let her set the rhythm, let her ride the slow grind of her own fingers against her clit while his cock stayed buried deep inside her. His hands on her hips trembled.

"Tell me," he said. His voice was gravel. "Tell me what you thought about."

Ivy's fingers moved faster. The wet sound of her touching herself filled the quiet room, mingling with the creak of the bed and the harsh rasp of their breathing. "I thought about you bending me over your desk after class. Pushing up my skirt. Not even bothering to take off your jacket." She circled her clit, pressed down, and her cunt fluttered around him. "I thought about your hand in my hair, pulling my head back while you fucked me from behind. Your mouth at my ear, telling me how long you'd wanted this."

Flynn's cock throbbed. She felt it—the surge of blood, the pulse of want—and it made her bolder. Her fingers worked her clit in tight, relentless circles, and her hips started to move, riding him in short, desperate pulses. "I thought about you on your knees for me in the stacks. Not through my jeans. Bare. Your mouth on my cunt. Your tongue inside me. Making me come on your face while I tried to stay quiet."

"Fuck." The word was torn from him. His hands tightened on her hips, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, and he started to thrust up into her—shallow, involuntary jerks of his hips that matched the rhythm of her fingers. "Ivy, fuck—"

"I thought about you coming inside me." Her voice was a whisper now, ragged and breathless, and her fingers were flying over her clit, the pleasure building low in her belly, coiling tight. "The first time. In the library. I felt you let go, and I thought—finally. Finally, he's mine." Her eyes locked on his. "You are mine, aren't you?"

"Yes." No hesitation. His voice broke on the word. "Yours. Ivy, I'm—"

She didn't let him finish. Her back arched, her thighs clamped tight around his hips, and she came—her cunt clenching around his cock in rhythmic, desperate pulses, her clit throbbing under her own fingers, a cry ripping from her throat that was half his name and half something wordless and ancient. Her entire body shook with it, her chest heaving, her skin flushed dark pink from her chest to her cheeks.

Flynn watched her. Every second. The way her eyes squeezed shut, the way her mouth fell open, the way her fingers kept moving, drawing out every last tremor. And when her orgasm finally eased, when her body went loose and trembling above him, his control snapped.

He moved fast—faster than a man his size should be able to move. One arm wrapped around her waist, the other braced against the mattress, and he stood, lifting her with him, his cock still buried deep inside her. Ivy yelped, her arms flying around his neck, her legs locking behind his back. He turned, pivoting on the balls of his feet, and then she was on her back on the bed, the soft duvet swallowing her, and Flynn was above her, his broad shoulders blocking out the morning light.

"My turn." His voice was a growl. He hooked his hands under her knees and lifted, pushing her legs up and back until her ankles crossed behind his head. The angle was obscene—her thighs pressed against her chest, her cunt utterly exposed, his cock still slick with her and poised at her entrance. He looked down at the place where they were about to join, and something raw and hungry crossed his face.

"Hold on," he said. And then he fucked into her.

Not the slow, grinding rhythm of before. This was hard. Deep. Relentless. His hips slammed against the backs of her thighs, the sound of skin on skin loud and wet and filthy in the quiet room. Ivy cried out—a high, desperate sound—and her hands fisted in the sheets, in his hair, in anything she could reach. He was everywhere. His cock driving into her, filling her completely with every thrust. His chest pressing her thighs down, pinning her in place. His mouth at her throat, her jaw, her lips, kissing and biting and groaning her name.

"You wanted me to watch," Flynn rasped against her ear, his hips never slowing. "I watched. I always watch. Every time you walk into my lecture hall, I watch. Every time you push your glasses up your nose, I watch. Every time you bite your lip because you're thinking too hard, I fucking watch." He drove into her harder, the headboard slamming against the wall. "And now I'm going to fuck you until you forget your own name."

Ivy's legs tightened around his neck. Her cunt tightened around his cock. And she looked up at him—green eyes wild, dark hair falling across his forehead, the bruise she'd left on his throat—and she smiled. Wrecked. Breathless. His.

"Promise?"

Her hand found his wrist before the word finished leaving her mouth. His pulse beat against her palm—fast, erratic, nothing like the steady professor she'd watched lecture for three years. She guided his hand up, over the swell of her breast, the damp heat of her throat, until his fingers rested against the bruise he'd left there. The one she'd trace in the mirror later, pressing down just to feel the ache.

"Here," she said. "Right here."

Flynn's fingers spread. His palm cupped the column of her throat—not squeezing, just holding. The heat of his hand was a brand, a claim, and his green eyes went dark as he looked down at where he held her. At the pulse jumping under his thumb. At the way her breath caught, shallow and wanting.

"Ivy." Her name was a rough thing, scraped out of him. His hips were still driving into her, but slower now—each thrust deep and deliberate, like he was memorizing the feel of her cunt around him from this angle. Her legs still hooked over his shoulders. Her body still folded under his weight. And his hand on her throat, heavy and warm and terrifyingly tender.

"I used to dream about this." She swallowed, and he felt it—the movement of her throat against his palm, the shift of muscle and tendon. "Not just the sex. This. Your hand right here. The way you'd look at me after. Like I was something you'd been searching for."

His thumb traced the edge of her jaw. "You were. You are." He leaned down—still fucking her, still buried deep—and pressed his mouth to her forehead. Her temple. The corner of her eye where a tear had slipped free without her permission. "I didn't know what I was searching for until you walked into my lecture hall with your messy bun and your sarcasm and your glasses sliding down your nose."

"My glasses." A laugh caught in her throat, half-sob, half-giggle. "That's what did it for you? My glasses?"

"Everything did it for me." He kissed the bridge of her nose, right where her glasses usually sat. "Your laugh. The one you try to hide. The way you bite your lip when you're translating. The way you argue with me in front of the whole class and make me work for every point." His hips rolled, a slow grind that made her gasp. "The way you feel right now. Hot and tight and perfect around my cock."

Ivy's hands came up to frame his face. Her thumbs traced his cheekbones, the silver at his temples, the rough stubble along his jaw. "I'm going to fall in love with you," she said. The words came out before she could stop them—raw and honest and terrifying. "I'm already halfway there. You know that, right?"

Flynn's hand tightened on her throat—just slightly, just enough to make her pulse jump. His eyes, those impossible green eyes, held hers without flinching. "I'm counting on it."

He moved then. Not the hard, driving rhythm from before, but something slower. Deeper. His cock sliding out until she was empty and aching, then pushing back in inch by excruciating inch until she felt him in her chest. His hand stayed on her throat. His eyes stayed on hers. And every thrust was a promise—that he'd still be here tomorrow, that he'd make her breakfast, that he'd argue with her about burial practices and kiss her in the stacks and hold her like this, like she was precious, like she was his.

"I've been alone a long time," he said, his voice cracking on the word alone. "I forgot what this felt like. Having someone in my bed. In my house. In my—" He stopped. Swallowed. His thumb stroked the hollow of her throat. "In my life."

"You're not alone anymore." Ivy's legs tightened around his neck, pulling him deeper, closer. Her cunt clenched around him—deliberate, rhythmic, a counterpoint to his slow thrusts. "You have me. You have me, Flynn."

He kissed her. Not hard, not desperate—soft. Tender. His mouth moving over hers like he was learning the shape of it, like he had all the time in the world. His hand slid from her throat to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in the damp hair at her nape, and he drank her in like she was water and he'd been dying of thirst.

When he broke the kiss, they were both trembling. "I want to take you back to Egypt," he said, the words spilling out like a confession. "Not just for a dig. I want to show you the temple at Karnak at dawn. The Valley of the Kings when the tourists are gone. The way the stars look over the desert—nothing between you and the sky but sand and silence." He pressed his forehead to hers. "I want to watch you fall in love with it the way I did. The way I'm falling in love with you."

Ivy's breath caught. Her heart hammered against her ribs—she could feel it in her throat, in her cunt, in the tips of her fingers where they pressed into his skin. "You're falling in love with me?"

"I'm already there." He pulled back just enough to look at her, and his eyes were wet. Wet and green and so full of something she didn't dare name. "I've been there since you corrected my translation of the Book of the Dead in front of thirty undergrads and didn't even apologize."

"I was right."

"You were right." A laugh—that surprised, boyish sound—broke out of him. "You're always right. It's infuriating. It's—" He kissed her again, quick and fierce. "It's everything."

Ivy pulled him down, her arms wrapping around his shoulders, her legs unlocking from behind his neck to wrap around his waist. She held him close—his weight pressing her into the mattress, his cock still hard inside her, his heart beating against her chest like a second pulse. "I love you," she whispered into his ear. "I've loved you for three years, and I was so sure you'd never want me, and I—"

"I want you." His voice was a growl, fierce and certain. "I want you in my bed and in my kitchen and in my office after hours. I want you at faculty dinners, terrifying the adjuncts. I want you in Egypt, in the desert, on your knees in the sand just like you said. I want—" He pulled back, looked down at her, and something shifted in his face. Something vulnerable. Something young. "I want to stop being alone. Will you let me stop being alone?"

Ivy touched his face. The silver at his temples. The lines around his eyes. The mouth that had been on her cunt and on her throat and on her lips, whispering promises she'd been afraid to believe. "Yes," she said. "Yes. I'll stay. I'll stop being alone with you."

Flynn closed his eyes. A breath shuddered out of him—relief, release, something that had been held too long finally let go. And then he started to move again, slow and deep, his cock sliding home with every thrust, his forehead pressed to hers, her name a prayer on his lips. "Ivy. Ivy. My Ivy."

"Yours." She arched up into him, meeting every thrust, her cunt clenching, her body singing. "Yours, yours, yours."

He came with her name in his mouth and her throat under his hand and the morning light gold on the sheets. She felt it—the pulse of him inside her, the slick heat of his release, the way his whole body went rigid and then soft, collapsing into her like a man who'd finally found somewhere safe to land. And she held him through it, her fingers in his hair, her lips at his temple, whispering the words she'd been holding for three years.

"I love you. I love you. I love you."

They lay there afterward, tangled together in the sheets, the sweat cooling on their skin. Flynn's head rested on her chest, his ear pressed to her heart, one hand splayed across her stomach. Ivy's fingers traced lazy patterns on his back—a cartouche here, an ankh there, hieroglyphs of want and belonging.

"We should probably move," she said eventually. "Eat something. Shower."

"No." His voice was muffled against her skin. "Staying here. Forever. This is my life now."

Ivy laughed—that startled snort she could never quite suppress—and Flynn's shoulders shook with his own quiet laughter. Outside, the morning sun climbed higher, spilling gold through the bedroom window. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. A floorboard creaked. The ordinary sounds of a life being lived, a house being filled.

"Okay," Ivy said, threading her fingers through his hair. "We stay. Forever. But you're making lunch eventually."

"Eventually," Flynn agreed. He pressed a kiss to the soft curve of her belly, right above the stretch marks. "Eventually, I'll make you lunch. Eventually, I'll take you to Egypt. Eventually, I'll do every single thing I promised." His hand found hers, fingers lacing together. "Right now, I just want to hold you."

Ivy closed her eyes. The weight of him on her chest. The ache between her thighs. The pulse in her throat where his hand had been. And for the first time in three years, she stopped wanting. Stopped aching. Stopped dreaming of a life that wasn't hers.