Page 31 of The Professor's Wife

I opened my mouth, but he continued, his eyes bright with that quiet conviction he carried like a second pulse.

“Or the sky just before sunset, when it goes molten for a minute and everything looks like it’s been dipped in gold.” He shook his head, almost amused. “Orange isn’t ugly, Daze. You just haven’t seen the right version of it.”

I looked over his face, my smile thoughtful now. “You’re such a musician, Tristan. I was talking abouttheseflowers. You can’t convince me they are beautiful—”

His fingers suddenly dug into my ribs, silencing my words. I shrieked and tried to escape, but he caught me easily. His hand closed gently around my jaw, turning my face toward his.

His mouth captured mine, silencing my laughter as he thoroughly ravaged my lips.

“I need another educational experience,” he murmured against them. “Learning this beautiful body of yours.”

I smiled softly. “Learn away, Tristan.”

The second time, I couldn’t look him in the eye.

I kept mine closed. Determined not to feel that strange moment again, I turned onto my stomach, offering him a different view.

Tristan, ravenous as he was, didn’t seem to notice.

He didn’t ask me to look at him again.

He took me with my stomach pressed against the mattress, covering my entire body with his.

I had spent too much of my life feeling small, and I had never once liked it.

But under Tristan, that smallness felt different.

Almost intoxicating.

He carried a kind of power that didn’t reduce me. It wrapped around me, steady and protective, as though his strength made space for me instead of diminishing me.

It startled me.

He fucked me hard and took his time. I took every thrust greedily. I needed his fullness. Needed him to keep going. Even with him buried inside me, even at the cusp of pleasure, I was terrified to my bones of what I was feeling. It couldn’t be right. No one took a stranger to bed and felt an out-of-body experience like that, did they?

Drunk on him, on the delicious buildup toward another devastating explosion, some visceral part of me screamed for more. My body gripped him tightly, refusing to release him until the pleasure broke through me again. After I came down from my third orgasm, I lay spent with my back to him, staring dazedly at a spot on the wall.

Tristan’s arm curled around my waist. He pulled me into his muscled chest.

His hand found the center of me and cupped me completely. I felt his hot breaths at the back of my neck. Felt him hardening against my back.

“It’s agony, isn’t it?” he rasped.

My mouth parted.

“Every time I think you’ve drained me dry, I touch your skin and can’t stop myself from wanting more.” His arm tightened around me. “Do you feel it, too?”

I stared into the dim room.

“Yes,” I whispered.

His hold tightened.

“Good.”

CHAPTER FOUR

TRISTAN