What Happens at Con

by Cathy Yardley

  Ani knew that she could be attracted to Alpha-holes. Was this what this was?

  Abraham stretched her out on the bed, taking off his shirt and temporarily short-circuiting her brain. “You’re thinking too much,” he pointed out, his copper beard stretching over his wide grin. “It’s all right, baby. I’m going to take care of you.”

  Baby. She liked the endearment, even though she didn’t generally. “I can take care of myself,” she said, just because the idea was so weird for her.

  He took off his pants next, and she saw him in all his naked glory – those muscles, and good God, that happy trail of reddish brown that led to one of the most magnificent cocks she’d ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

  “I like doing things for you,” he rumbled. “And I know how hard it is for you to let me. But let me, baby. Please?”

  Oh, gah. This guy made her brain leak out of her ears. Did she stand a chance against him?

  She reached down, pulling up the hemline of her T-shirt and whipping it over her head, leaving her in only a salmon-colored bra.

  She saw the moment his pupils dilated, and his breathing went short.

  “You are so insanely beautiful,” he said, and just like when he’d said it before, she shivered. Probably the way he said it, almost reverently, not a glib ploy to get her into bed. He had to know they were headed there anyway. Nothing was going to stop her from having him now, or stop her from giving herself over to the pleasure she knew he could provide for her.

  He reached down, slipping her jeans off of her legs, leaving her only in underwear. Then he stretched out on top of her, his cock teasing at her panties, his mouth moving between her breasts, his beard tickling at the edges of her bra. She arched a little, encouraging him, then sighing heavily as he finally got the hint and took one cloth-covered nipple into his mouth. She angled one leg around him, his hardness coming into closer contact with her wetness as he sucked more intently, dampening the fabric around her breast with his searching tongue.

  “Abraham,” she moaned, her hips rolling and stroking him. His cock felt hard and hot and glorious against her, and she wanted more. “Please.”

  He chuckled against her skin, then reached behind her, undoing the clasp and removing the bra. He pulled back. “You’re usually in a hurry, you know that?”

  “I know what I want,” she said.

  He slipped his fingers in the waistband of her panties, slowly, torturously dragging them down her legs as her hips bucked slightly. “There is something to be said for going slow,” he murmured.

  “You’re a guy,” she said. “Never in the history of guydom has one ever said, ‘I’d much rather go slow.’ At least, not in my experience.”

  “Well, then, it’s time you learned,” he said, rubbing first one arch of her foot, then the other. Considering she’d been on her feet a lot lately at the lab, it felt like heaven, and all the sexy hormones that had been driving her like a whip slowed down slightly, savoring the sensation.

  “You’re going to make me fall asleep again,” she warned him, even though there was a soft sigh of contentment in her voice.

  He stopped, and she almost whimpered. “Well, we can’t have that,” he joked. Then he kissed her calf, then the pit behind her knee… her thigh. She braced herself for him moving to her pussy, but instead he backed off, kissing her other leg, trailing light licks towards her center.

  “Abraham,” she murmured frantically, her body writhing as he slowly built her up again. How could he be so patient, so goddamned forbearing, while she felt like she was going through a slow-building inferno?

  “Hurry,” she said, almost angry, until she saw that slow smile cross his face, one that made her stomach go fluttery, not just with sexual nerves, but with a feeling of… well, she wasn’t sure what she was feeling.

  He opened a drawer in the nightstand, pulling out a condom, putting it on. His eyes barely left hers. “Do you know why I’m going so slow with you?” he asked.

  Unable to speak, she shook her head.

  “Because this isn’t just sex, Ani. We’re in a relationship, okay? I’m not letting you treat this like some hit-it-and-quit-it, or pretend it is in your head. I don’t know what we have, but it sure as hell isn’t quick. Or temporary,” he added.

  She started trembling a little. “You don’t ‘let’ me do anything,” she said instead, even as she struggled not to be overwhelmed by the complicated morass of emotions swamping her.

  He laughed, notching himself between her legs. “No, I don’t,” he said. “You are one of the most independent women I know. Which may be why I feel so much for you. Why I want you so badly. Why I… oh God.”

  With that, he slid in. She was wet enough that there was no friction, although he was large enough that the progress was still slow as she accommodated his size. She bit back a gasp.

  “Baby,” he breathed. “Oh, God, you feel so fucking good.”

  It was like a sexual tango, perfectly choreographed and sensual as hell. He leaned up on his arms, his hips moving to shift that cock of his inside her, stroking against her G-spot before retreating, circling slightly so her whole body shook and her clit got equal attention. He moved with deliberate precision and masterful grace, like an engineer crossed with an artist.

  She clutched at his back as an orgasm blindsided her. She let out a yell, her body trembling. When she got her bearings again, his gray eyes were glittering, and his smile was broad.

  “That’s one.”

  “Oh, no. We’re not doing a marathon. I will get hungry eventually,” she said, smiling back at him. She nudged him. “Flip over. It’s my turn to be in control.”

  “This isn’t about control,” he said, in that low, sexy-growly voice. “This is about… ahhh, God.”

  She lowered herself onto his stiffness, doing a slow body roll of her own. She saw his eyes roll back in his head.

  “What was that you were saying?” she inquired sweetly as she pulled up almost all the way, then slowly but firmly glided down the length of his erection.

  He muttered something incoherent, his hands holding her hips, fingers digging in to pull her to him.

  “Slow, right?” she asked, relishing the power she was feeling, and the ability to heighten the pleasure for both of them.

  He grimaced. Then, to her surprise, he nodded, even though sweat was beading his brow.

  “Because you are worth it,” he ground out.

  She stopped, then kissed him, deep as he was buried inside her. He laced his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck, then lifted his hips to meet hers, lifting her off the bed.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you, Abraham,” she whispered against his mouth.

  She pulled back enough to see him blink at her. Then she swiveled her hips, tripping her own spot, and feeling the slow beginnings of an orgasm start to build. She moved her hips faster, and she felt him starting to lose control beneath her. He sat up, clutching her to him. She wrapped her legs around him, and their bodies slapped together as he pierced her over and over.

  She tilted her head back and cried out as the next orgasm hit her, more powerful than the first. She felt it echo yet again when his body shuddered, and he lost control, losing himself inside of the condom inside her.

  After a long minute, he let go of her, giving her kisses along her jaw, down her neck, along her shoulder.

  He didn’t say anything about what she’d admitted, she noticed. But he was the one who was pushing for a relationship.

  “You hungry?” he said finally. “Because even though it might not be a marathon, I think that later we’ll probably be up for a few more laps.”

  She chuckled, but her stomach clenched a little. Had she gone too far, too fast?

  Had she made a huge mistake?

  Please don’t be an asshole, she thought. Please, please.... be as invested as I am.

  It felt weird, but cool, to wake up with Ani in his bed.

  They had breakfast. Using what he had a
round, he made her Denver omelets. While he missed bacon, it still felt awesome to have a meal with her, to watch her glowing and laughing as she talked and ate. Then they took a shower together, which was even more awesome, especially when they got to the part where she wrapped her legs around him and he had her against the cool tiles.

  She needed to work on her proposal, and he knew that it was important enough that he had to be smart enough to let her go handle her business. “I wish you could stay,” he said, knowing damned well that she couldn’t. This was her career, and it was important, both to her, and honestly, to the world. What kind of a dick would he be if he kept her at his house so they could… what, watch movies or something? Have more sex?

  “I wish I could stay too,” she said, kissing him gently. “But I’m running out of time as it is.”

  “I know, I know,” he agreed. He watched as she sighed, her dark brown eyes going even darker. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I think I’ve got the proposal defense itself down, honestly. Even on a shorter timeline,” she said. “But I’ve gone over it for so long, so many times, I think I’m losing perspective.”

  He nodded. “I know what that’s like,” he said. “After a certain point in a game, you wonder if you’ve got too much feature creep or if it’s awesome or it really just sucks. Usually like a pendulum: it’s awesome! it sucks! It’s awesome! It sucks!”

  She laughed, leaning up, and nodding. “That’s it. Of course, if Dr. Peterson is an asshole, it’s not going to matter of it’s awesome, and that’s got me worried.”

  Abraham sat up, incensed. Someone was messing with his woman. Every protective response in his body was on high fucking alert.

  “He bounced my friend Linda out of the program already by cutting her TA hours and dumping them on me.” Ani’s eyes were bright with upset. “I wanted to give them back, but he wouldn’t hear it. Linda really needed the money, so she took a part-time job, and then just couldn’t keep up with the demands of the work and her proposal. I found out that she’s quit the program. I couldn’t talk her out of it.”

  “Somebody needs to talk to this guy.” Abraham bristled. “This is bullshit. Can’t you go over his head? Can’t she?”

  “If you’re lucky, you could go to a dean or something... but the dean might not want to deal with it, either. especially if this is the sort of thing that has been happening for a while. Like, habitually.”

  Abraham gritted his teeth. “So they just let this shit ride?”

  “It could be worse in the eyes of the administration, I hate to say.” She sighed. “He could be plagiarizing. He could be keeping students back so they could do his dirty work, so he can maintain funding. He could be actively trying to fuck the female students. Instead, he’s doing sneaky shit to fuck them over, because he thinks women are too hysterical, emotional and unreliable to be in a lab setting.”

  Abraham felt pissed. “I don’t know anything about labs, but you are one of the most kick-ass, least hysterical women I’ve ever met,” he said.

  “You thought Tessa wasn’t up to snuff...”

  “Jesus, am I ever going to live that down?”

  She stared at him for a long minute until he squirmed.

  “What?”

  “You don’t get to just brush off something because you feel uncomfortable,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “You were a jackass when it came to Tessa. You didn’t believe in her. You were belittling. I don’t care if you were that way with men too, you were insulting,” she said, with her hand up. “So just because you feel differently about her now doesn’t mean that you don’t have to hear about it anymore now that you’re friends with her or whatever.”

  “I just don’t see why rubbing my nose in it is going to make anything better,” he said, knowing full well he sounded surly. “How long am I supposed to pay for this?”

  “That’s the thing. I am not bringing this up to punish you or whatever. I was bringing it up to make a point, and you instantly made it about you.”

  He straightened, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “This guy is like you used to be. He doesn’t think I can cut it. He thinks he’s perfectly justified in doing what he’s doing. And he thinks that, if he bounces me out, he’s strengthening the program.” She shrugged. “So you can say that it’s shocking that they let this shit ride — but how long did they let Tessa stay moldering in audio?”

  He blinked, trying to counter her logic. “Tessa never told anyone she wanted out,” he said, but knew that wasn’t true. She let Adam know immediately, as soon as one of their engineers left. “And she never put herself forward.”

  “Granted, she could’ve been more assertive. But she was doing quality work, and none of you paid attention to it,” Ani said. “When she did put herself forward, as you say, you could’ve been more open to it, as well. The whole culture’s messed up.”

  He frowned. He didn’t want to admit that she had a point, but again: she was the least hysterical person he knew. And what she was saying made sense, as much as he hated that the thought.

  “All I’m saying is, it’s easy to say that my adviser’s the problem, but the problem’s just there, you know?”

  Abraham felt disturbed. “So that’s it? You just hope that he doesn’t screw you over?”

  “That’s pretty much it,” she said. “What would you do?”

  Abraham grimaced. “Probably beat the shit out of him.”

  “I’ll keep that option in reserve,” she said, and kissed him.

  Chapter 10

  Ani straightened up, smoothing any wrinkles out of her clothes before going to Dr. Peterson’s door. She’d been thinking about the conversation she’d had with Abraham all day. She was going to have her proposal defense in one week. Was she simply deluding herself? She’d been working so hard, both on his menial shit and her own work load. The proposal itself was golden, she knew that. But what if he torpedoed her?

  Abraham was many things, but he was direct. Maybe she needed to be more direct. Maybe he’d respect her more if she was.

  She knocked on the door.

  “What?”

  Not an auspicious start, she thought, as she entered. Then she walked inside. “Your calendar showed this was office hours, and you didn’t have anyone waiting,” she said, hating that her voice sounded so submissive. I hate taking up your time.

  “What is it?” he said, his voice still displeased.

  “I wanted to talk to you about my proposal defense.”

  His eyebrow went up. “Don’t tell me. You need more time, and you want to push out the deadline.” He sighed. “Why am I not shocked?”

  His instant assumption slapped at her. “No! No,” she continued, modulating her tone when both his eyebrows went up and his gaze bored into her. “I am ready. I’ve been working hard on it.”

  “Oh?” His voice held a note of skepticism. “So why are you in here?”

  I want to find out if you’re going to screw me over. Oh, why had she thought this was a good idea?

  “I had some concerns,” she said slowly.

  “Concerns,” he echoed, gesturing to a chair and leaning forward.

  She wished she could stay standing — sitting across from him felt too much like a child being reprimanded — but she took the chair he’d motioned to. “I appreciate you making me your TA, but I hated taking the position from Linda, who was consequently no longer able to stay with the program.”

  He frowned. “I don’t see what any of this has to do with your proposal defense, Miss Ani.”

  “Jeffrey has also been giving me the bulk of the grading,” she said, plowing forward. “And I can’t help but notice that of the experiments you’ve been assigning, over sixty percent of the lab work, plus about seventy to eighty percent of the cleaning and grunt work, has fallen on my shoulders.”

  There! She had statistics. She had hard facts. He couldn’t refute that.

  Instead, he leaned back, looking like a fucking Bond vill
ain. “I’m sorry. I was under the impression that you were doing well with your proposal defense?”

  “I am,” she said, seeing the trap, but too late.

  “So what difference does it make what percentage I assign you?” he said, and the metaphorical trap snapped shut. “You can obviously handle the work. Others can’t, or I have other things for them to do. I would think you’d find that flattering, that you’re trusted with this, even after the stupidity with the pipettes.”

  She gritted her teeth. “But...”

  “Or is this an equity thing? An equality thing?” He huffed out an impatient breath. “You women want equity, but when you’re treated as equals, you complain that you’re being handled unfairly. There are times when some students will bear the brunt of the work. Especially students new to my program. They don’t complain about it. And they get rewarded in time as new students come into the program.”

  Hazing, she thought. Institutionalized hazing. But at the same time, she’d bet her right arm that his “hazing” was focused almost entirely on women.

  “And yet you seem to feel that you’re being treated poorly,” he said. “I must say, this doesn’t reflect well on your ability to work with the team moving forward.”

  She felt a cold ball of ice in her stomach at his words.

  “I promise, I will take all of this into account with the proposal defense,” he said quietly. The threat was clearly present.

  She nodded, then got to her feet. She just had to survive through the damned presentation, she thought, gritting her teeth. Then, she’d be able to get out from under his maniacal reign.

  As she got up, he stopped her. “Miss Ani.”

  She turned. “Yes?”