“If you want to.”
“You’re so perfect, you’re driving me insane.”
Her insides opened to him without warning. They welcomed and pulled at him until he bottomed out, until he was wedged deep and stretching her to a point that should be breaking, but just made her feel filled, sealed, perfect.
They both exhaled. Olive lifted a hand, closed it shakily around Adam’s sweaty nape.
“Hey.” She smiled up at him.
He smiled back, just a little. “Hey.”
His eyes were opaque, like stained glass. He moved inside her, just a hint of a thrust, and it made her entire body clench around him, until she could feel his cock twitch and pulsate inside her, like a drum. Her head fell to the pillow, and someone was groaning, something guttural and out of control.
Then Adam pulled out, pushed back in, and they annihilated the no-sex rule. In the span of a few seconds his thrusts went from tentative, exploratory, to fast and all-eclipsing. His hand slid to the small of her back, lifting her into him as he piled in, and in, and in again, rubbing inside her, against her, forcing pleasure to vibrate up her spine.
“Is this okay?” he asked against her ear, not quite managing to stop.
Olive couldn’t answer. Not past the sharp hitch of her breath, the way her fingers dug desperately into the sheets. Pressure built again inside her, swelled large and consuming.
“You have to tell me, if you don’t like it,” he rasped. “What I’m doing.” He was eager, a little clumsy, losing control and slipping out of her, having to nudge his cock back inside; he was out of focus, but so was she, too flooded by how good he felt, how stupefying the pleasure, how smoothly he slid in and out. How right this felt.
“I—”
“Olive, you have to—” He stopped with a grunt, because she canted her hips and clenched around him. Gripping him harder, sucking him deeper.
“I like it.” She reached up to fist her fingers in his hair. To catch his eyes, make sure he was paying attention as she said, “I love it, Adam.”
His control poured out. He made a crude noise and shuddered, pumping hard and muttering nonsense into her skin—how perfect she was, how beautiful, how long he’d wanted this, how he would never, could never let go of her. Olive felt his orgasm soar, the blinding, scalding pleasure as he trembled on top of her.
She smiled. And when new shivers began to roll down her spine, she bit Adam’s shoulder and let herself go under.
Chapter Seventeen
HYPOTHESIS: When I think I’ve hit rock bottom, someone will hand me a shovel. That someone is probably Tom Benton.
Olive drifted off after the first time, and dreamed of many strange, nonsensical things. Sushi rolls shaped like spiders. The first snowfall in Toronto, during her last year with her mother. Adam’s dimples. Tom Benton’s sneer as he spat the words “little sob story.” Adam, again, this time serious, saying her name in his unique way.
Then she felt the mattress dip, and the sound of something being placed on the nightstand. She slowly blinked awake, disoriented in the dim light of the room. Adam was sitting on the side of the bed, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Hi.” She smiled.
“Hey.”
Her hand reached out to touch his thigh through the pants he’d never managed to take all the way off. He was still warm, still solid. Still there.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Not long. Maybe thirty minutes.”
“Hmm.” She stretched a bit against the mattress, arms above her head, and noticed the fresh glass of water on the nightstand. “Is that for me?”
He nodded, handed it to her, and she propped up on her elbow to drink it, smiling in thanks. She noticed his gaze linger on her breasts, still tender and sore from his mouth, and then drift away to his own palms.
Oh. Maybe, now that they had sex—good sex, Olive thought, amazing sex, though who knew about Adam?—he needed his own space. Maybe he wanted his own damn pillow.
She returned the empty glass and sat up. “I should move to my bed.”
He shook his head with an intensity that suggested that he didn’t want her to go, not anywhere, not ever. His free hand closed tight around her waist, as if to tether her to him.
Olive didn’t mind.
“You sure? I suspect I might be a cover hog.”
“It’s fine. I run warm.” He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “And according to someone, I look like I might snore.”
She gasped in mock outrage. “How dare they? Tell me who said that and I will personally avenge you—” She yelped when he held the icy-cool glass against her neck, and then dissolved into laughter, drawing up her knees and trying to twist away from him. “I’m sorry—you don’t snore! You sleep like a prince!”
“Damn right.” He set the glass on the nightstand, appeased, but Olive remained curled up, cheeks flushed and breathing hard from fending him off. He was smiling. With dimples, too. The same smile he’d smiled into her neck earlier, against her skin, the one that had tickled her and made her laugh.
“I’m sorry about the socks, by the way.” She winced. “I know it’s a controversial topic.”
Adam looked down at the rainbow-colored material stretched around her calves. “Socks are controversial?”
“Not socks per se. Just, keeping them on during sex?”
“Really?”
“Totally. At least according to the issue of Cosmopolitan we keep at home to swat cockroaches.”
He shrugged, like a man who’d only ever read the New England Journal of Medicine and maybe Truck-Pushing Digest. “Why would anyone care one way or the other?”
“Maybe they don’t want to unknowingly have sex with people with horrible, disfigured toes?”
“Do you have disfigured toes?”
“Truly grotesque. Circus-worthy. Antithetical to sex. Basically a built-in contraceptive.”
He sighed, clearly amused. He was struggling to hold on to his moody, broody, intense act, and Olive loved it.
“I’ve seen you in flip-flops multiple times. Which, by the way, are not lab compliant.”
“You must be mistaken.”
“Really.”
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Dr. Carlsen. I take the Stanford environmental health and safety guidelines very seriously and— What are you—”
He was so much larger than her, he could hold her down with one hand on her belly as he wrestled her out of her socks, and for some reason she loved every moment of it. She put up a good fight, and maybe he’d have a couple of bruises tomorrow, but when he finally managed to take them off, Olive was out of breath from laughing. Adam caressed her feet reverently, as though they were delicate and perfectly shaped instead of belonging to someone who ran two marathons a year.
“You were right,” he said. Chest heaving, she looked at him curiously. “Your feet are pretty hideous.”
“What?” She gasped and freed herself, pushing at his shoulder until he ended up on his back under her. He surely could have unseated her, giant that he was. And yet. “Take it back.”
“You said it first.”
“Take it back. My feet are cute.”
“In a hideous way, maybe.”
“That’s not a thing.”
His laugh blew warm against her cheek. “There’s probably a German word for that. Cute, but exceptionally ugly.”
She bit his lip just enough to make him feel it, and Adam—he seemed to lose that grip he always had on himself. He seemed to suddenly want more, and he flipped them until she was underneath him, turning the bite into a kiss. Or maybe it was Olive herself, since her tongue was licking his lip, exactly where she’d made it sting.
She should probably tell him to stop. She was sweaty and sticky, and should excuse herself and go take a shower. Yes, th
at sounded like good sex etiquette. But he felt warm and strong, positively glowing. He smelled delicious, even after all they’d done, and she couldn’t help getting sidetracked and letting her arms loop around his neck. Pulling him down.
“You weigh a ton,” she told him. He made to move up and away, but she wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him close. She felt so safe with him. Invincible. A true slayer. He turned her into a powerful, ferocious person, one that could destroy Tom Benton and pancreatic cancer before breakfast.
“No, I love it. Stay, please.” She grinned up at him, and saw his breathing speed up.
“You are a cover hog.” There was a spot at the base of her neck that he’d found earlier, a spot that made her sigh and arch up and melt into the pillow. He attacked it like it was his new true north. He had a way of kissing her, half cautious and half unrestrained, that had her wondering why she used to think of kissing as such a boring, aimless activity.
“I should go clean up,” she said, but didn’t make a move. He slid down, just a couple of inches, just enough to get distracted by her collarbone, and then by the curve of her breast. “Adam.”
He ignored her and traced her jutting hip bones, and her ribs, the taut skin of her belly. He kissed every last freckle, as though to store them up in his memory, and there were so many. “I’m all sticky, Adam.” She squirmed a little.
In response, his palm moved to her ass. To keep her still. “Ssh. I’ll clean you up myself.”
He put his finger inside her and she gasped, because— Oh God. Oh. Oh God. She could hear the wet noises down there, from herself and his own come, and he should be disgusted by this, and she should, too, and yet—
She wasn’t. And he was groaning, as if the satisfaction of having made a mess of her, inside her, of knowing that she’d let him, was a heady thing for him. Olive closed her eyes and let herself go under, feeling him lick the skin between her thigh and abdomen, hearing low moans and gasps coming out of her own mouth, sliding her fingers in his hair to grip him more tightly against her. She was definitely clean by the time she came, slow contractions that swelled in large waves and had her thighs shaking around his head, and that was when he asked, “Can I fuck you again?”
She looked up at him, flushed and hazy with her orgasm, and bit her lip. She wanted to. She really wanted to have him on top of her, inside her, chest pushing her into the mattress and arms snaked around her body. That feeling of security, of finally belonging that seemed to get more intense the closer he got to her.
“I want to.” Her hand came up to touch his arm, the one he was holding himself up on. “It’s just—I’m just sore, and I—”
He immediately regretted asking. She could tell by how his body stilled before he got off her, as if to not crowd her, as if to give her space she didn’t want.
“No,” she panicked. “It’s not that—”
“Hey.” He noticed how flustered she was and bent down to kiss her.
“I do want to—”
“Olive.” He curled around her. His cock rubbed against her lower back, but he instantly angled his hips away. “You’re right. Let’s go to sleep.”
“What? No.” She sat up, frowning. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”
He was struggling, she could tell. Trying to hide his erection. Trying not to glance at her naked body. “Your flight was early this morning. You’re probably jet-lagged—”
“But we only have one night.” One single night. One night for Olive to suspend the outside world. To avoid thinking about Tom, and what had happened earlier today, and the mysterious woman Adam was in love with. One night to forget that whatever feelings she had for him, they were not mutual.
“Hey.” He reached up, pushing her hair behind her shoulder. “You don’t owe me anything. Let’s get some sleep and—”
“We have one night.” Determined, she pressed her palm on his chest, straddling him. The cotton of his pants was soft against her folds. “I want the whole night.” She smiled down at him, forehead against his, her hair a curtain between them and the outside world. A sanctuary of sorts. He gripped her waist like he couldn’t help himself, pulling her against him, and oh, they fit so well together. “Come on, Adam. I know you’re old, but you can’t go to sleep just yet.”
“I—” He seemed to forget what he was about to say the moment her hand slid inside his pants. His eyes closed, and he exhaled sharply, and—yes. Good. “Olive.”
“Yes?”
She kept on sliding down his body. And tugging at his pants. And he made some half-hearted efforts to stop her, but he didn’t seem to be fully in control, and in the end he let her take his remaining clothes off. She pulled her hair back and sat on her heels between his thighs.
Adam tried to look away and failed. “You are so beautiful.” The words were low and hushed, as though they’d slipped out of his mouth. Loose and unbidden, just like everything else about this.
“I’ve never done this,” she confessed. She didn’t feel shy, probably because this was Adam.
“No. Come here.”
“So it probably won’t be any good.”
“You—Olive. You don’t have to. You shouldn’t.”
“Noted.” She pressed a kiss against his hip, and he groaned as though she’d done something special. As though this was beyond anything. “But if you have any wishes.”
“Olive. I’m going to—” Grunt. He was going to grunt, a rumbling noise coming from deep in his chest. She ran her nose on the skin of his abdomen, seeing his cock twitch with the corner of her eye.
“I love the way you smell.”
“Olive.”
Slowly, precisely, she wrapped her hand around the base of his erection and studied it from underneath her eyelashes. The head was shiny already, and—she didn’t know much, but he seemed close. He seemed very hard, and above her his chest heaved and his lips parted and his skin flushed. He seemed like it wouldn’t take much, which . . . good. But also, Olive wanted her time with him. She wanted so much time with Adam. “Someone has done this to you, before? Right?”
He nodded, like she’d expected he would. His hand fisted the sheets, trembling slightly.
“Good. So you can tell me, if I mess it up.”
She said the last word against the shaft, and it felt like they were oscillating, vibrating at some short-wave frequency that burst and shattered when she touched him for real. Before parting her lips on the head of his cock she looked up at him, gave him a small smile, and that seemed to do him in. His back arched. He groaned, and ordered her in hushed tones to please, give him a moment, go slow, not let him come, and Olive wondered if his spine was melting into the same liquid, scalding pleasure she’d felt earlier.
It probably couldn’t have been more obvious, that she’d never done this. And yet it seemed to turn him on beyond belief. He clearly couldn’t help himself—he thrust forward, threaded his fingers in her hair, pressed her head down until her throat was tight around him. He groaned, and talked, and caught her eyes, as if constantly fascinated by the way she was looking up at him. He slurred raspy words, mumbling, “Olive, yes.” “Lick the . . .” “Take it just—deeper. Make me come.” She heard praises and endearments come out of his mouth—how good she was, how lovely, how perfect; obscenities about her lips and body and eyes, and maybe she would have been embarrassed, if it hadn’t been for the pleasure spilling rich from both of them, overflowing their brains. It felt natural, to have Adam ask for what he wanted. To give it to him.
“Can I—?” Her teeth grazed the underside of the head, and he grunted abruptly. “In your mouth.”
She only had to smile at him, and his pleasure looked nuclear, pounding through him and washing over his entire body. What Olive had felt earlier, white-hot and just shy of painful. She was still sucking gently when he regained control of his limbs and cupped her cheek.
“The t
hings I want to do to you. You have no idea.”
“I think maybe I do.” She licked her lips. “Some, at least.” His eyes were glazed as he stroked the corner of her mouth, and Olive wondered how she could possibly be done with this, with him, in just a few hours.
“I doubt it.”
She leaned forward, hiding a smile into the crease of his thigh. “You can, you know.” She nibbled on the hard plane of his abdomen and then looked up at him. “Do them.”
She was still smiling when he pulled her up to his chest, and for a few minutes they managed to sleep.
* * *
—
IT REALLY WAS a nice hotel room, she supposed. The large windows, mostly. And the view of Boston after dark, the traffic and the clouds and the feeling that something was happening out there, something she didn’t need to be part of because she was here. With Adam.
“What language is that?” it occurred to her to ask. He couldn’t quite look at her face, not with her head nestled under his chin, so he continued to draw patterns on her hip with his fingertips.
“What?”
“The book you’re reading. With the tiger on the cover. German?”
“Dutch.” She felt his voice vibrate, from his chest and through her flesh.
“Is it a manual on taxidermy?”
He pinched her hip, lightly, and she giggled. “Was it hard to learn? Dutch, I mean.”
He inhaled the scent of her hair, thinking for a moment. “I’m not sure. I always knew it.”
“Was it weird? Growing up with two languages?”
“Not really. I mostly thought in Dutch until we moved back here.”
“How old was that?”
“Mmm. Nine?”
It made her smile, the idea of child Adam. “Did you speak Dutch with your parents?”
“No.” He paused. “There were au pairs, mostly. Lots of them.”
Olive pushed herself up to look at him, resting her chin on her hands and her hands on his chest. She watched him watch her, enjoying the play of the streetlights on his strong face. He was always handsome, but now, in the witching hours, he took her breath away.
The Love Hypothesis Page 26