With the next twist of her wrist, his answering grin died, and the muscles in his jaw jumped. She raised her brows, waiting for verbal permission.
“Go ahead and play, Nina.” His voice was rough but resolute. “I’m all yours.”
So she did, for endless minutes, until he was sweating and groaning her name. Then she hitched herself higher, notched his cock in place, and sank down on him, inch by inch, as he helplessly clutched her thighs and arched beneath her in pleasure.
When his hips met hers, they both inhaled sharply. Stretched full and aching for friction, she tipped her head back, rocked her hips, and moaned.
“Nina.” His voice drew her attention, and she glanced down to see him smiling up at her. He took her hand. Laced their fingers together. “If ...”
She began to move on him. “Yeah?”
That breathiness in her voice wasn’t something she’d ever heard before. Then again, she’d never come that hard before either, much less fucked the man of her fantasies in the back room of a repainted Weenie on Wheels. And maybe, with someone else, being this spread open and exposed in such an unromantic setting might pluck at her long-latent insecurities.
With William, though? She didn’t feel vulnerable. She felt like a freakingqueen.
“If heaven exists, I hope it feels this fucking good,” he told her, the words ragged.
When she laughed in pure joy, he tugged her hand to his mouth. Kissed her palm. Kept smiling sweetly up at her.
Then Dr. William Dern—frustrated academic; her colleague and longtime crush; the sexiest damn elf on this planet or any other—gripped her hips, braced his feet, and earned his freaking halo.
An indeterminate amount of time later, Nina raised her head from his chest and met William’s half-lidded gaze. “Why weren’t we doing this all semester?”
“I don’t know what was holding you back,” he told her, his voice rumbly with exhaustion, “but I didn’t want to be the sort of guy who leaps on a new female colleague as soon as she sets foot on campus.”
“Some people do that?”
“Professor Grundall.” His lip curled. “He calls each year’s incoming faculty his ‘fresh hookup supply.’”
“Yuck.”
“Exactly.” He yawned. “But to be fair, the moment I heard about a possible opportunity to spend a month with you in a cramped penis-mobile? I wasthere, CV in hand, ready and eager to assume my new elf name.”
“And thank goodness forthat.” She let her head flop back down on his shoulder. “Even once we were both aboard the penis-mobile, though, you didn’t make your move.”
“I wanted to.” He rubbed his face and uttered a heartfelt groan. “Oh, god, how I wanted to. But the second we stepped into this monstrosity, I realized I shouldn’t.”
Her brows drew together. “Why the heck not?”
“Because you were essentially trapped with me, Nina.” His palm returned to her back and stroked slowly up and down her spine. “Whenever I told you how I felt, I wanted you to be able to say no and leave, not be stuck in a big metal tube with some dude propositioning you.”
“Yeah. If I’d turned you away, that would’ve been awkward for ...” Her jaw cracked in an enormous yawn of her own. “For both of us.”
He nodded. “And maybe frightening for you, given how poorly some guys take refusals. I was worried you might say yes simply to protect yourself.”
Such a sweet man.
She patted his chest clumsily, her eyelids drifting shut. “I would have said yes, but only because of the enormous crush I’ve had on you for months. Not out of fear or self-protection.”
In the ensuing silence, she started to doze off.
Only to startle when William spoke again. “Why didn’tyousay anything?”
“Um ...” She nudged her cold nose into his neck and slung a leg over his. “I guess I just didn’t think you were interested?”
In her current state, it was the best answer she could offer.
“How is that possible?” His befuddlement sounded genuine. “According to Claudia, even if I’d followed you around all day with a sign reading ‘Please accept my deep and abiding nerd-love, Nina,’ I couldn’t have been any more obvious about my feelings.”
