Page 105 of The Stranger

All the fingers. All inside me.

My hips rise as his tongue swipes my clit, my hands grasping his hair as he engulfs it with his lips. Sucking. Swirling. Flicking. The sensations feel enormous, and my cries echo around the room. This is so intense, my whole body electrified as his fingers and tongue work again and again.

“Please!” Please more? Please stop? I can barely think, held together as I am between the desk and this very bad decision. “God, Luc!” It’s not even a plea—the noise is pure relief as he whispers his praise, a spill of rasping heat of yes and a good girl and you taste so fucking good falling from his lips.

I come so hard my teeth rattle, but he doesn’t slow. And I don’t ask him to as his tongue licks and laves, keeping up the divine kind of pressure that draws out in waves. My muscles lock, my knees, the keening noise I make raw and primal. It’s almost ugly. But it’s real. And I need it. God, I need it.

A minute or a year later, a bird screeches in the sky, and the spell inside the room flexes under the weight of a reality that feels too bright.

Luc’s smooth cheek rubs against my inner thigh, and I shiver at the press of his lips. “The angels must’ve had a hand in making you.”

Did he say that in English or French? I can’t process as I shakily sit straighter, drawing my legs together as the wet pleasure between my thighs grows cool.

I frown at the window, reality and fantasy at odds. I don’t like it.

“The terrace is walled,” Luc offers, reading my expression again.

“That’s no guarantee of privacy,” I murmur to myself.

“True.” But he looks amused. “I wonder if that would have mattered.”

I shuffle my bum squeakily across the desk—I die at the sound—and out from under him. “Of course it matters. I’m not like that. You—you don’t know me.”

“I know what you like.” His expression is so shockingly sure that I do a double take.

“That doesn’t mean anything.” I catch a glimpse of myself in the window, my shirt askew. Nipples still hard enough to take out an eye. “Sex doesn’t mean anything.” I pull the sides together, unable to look at him suddenly. “I can’t believe I let this happen again.” My voice sounds hard, though I’m mostly angry with myself.

“I thought… last night.” He stands, his eyes careful as they follow me.

“Last night shouldn’t have happened. This shouldn’t have happened. Please don’t ask to see me alone again because I won’t.”

He cants his head. “Until next time.”

At first glance, looks unbothered, casually leaning back against his desk. But there’s something about the action that seems forced.

“There won’t be a next time.”

Somewhere outside, a lawn mower starts up, and I think of the staff milling around the grounds dressed in dusty green overalls. The thought of being seen again makes my skin feel clammy.

“Primrose.” The way he says my name, it’s like he’s mildly disappointed. “No one is forcing you into this.”

“I know that.” Just as I know I shouldn’t be here. But when I’m next to him, it’s like all my good sense just falls out of my head.

“Do you think you don’t deserve to know the pleasure of sex?”

“I know I do.” I know that now. “I’m not broken.”

“No, you’re not. Not for me.”

My answer is an unhappy-sounding laugh as I swipe up my shorts. First, he pushes me out of the door, then I let him lift me to the kitchen countertop and go to town on me. And now this, on his desk—with his children milling around!

I am so angry with myself right now—and angry with him.

“I suppose it’s time to test that hypothesis,” I mutter, stabbing my legs into my shorts.

“Hypothesis?” I glance up as he rises from the desk as I imagine Poseidon would surge from the sea. Except Poseidon’s shirt wouldn’t look like it’s spent time at the bottom of the ocean’s laundry basket. “Test it how?” he demands.

I continue fastening my shirt, taking care to match each pair; button to correct buttonhole. No mean feat when his angry tone feels like a finger curling inside me. Why, I don’t know. I tuck my shirt into the waistband and take a moment to smooth the hair from my face. Then I force myself to look at him. Oh, man, he looks pissed.