Page 12
The library is blissfully empty when I slip inside, save for one familiar shadow lurking in the periphery. Candlelight flickers against the tall shelves, shadows stretching long and thin across the stone floor. The storm rattles the windows, demanding entrance, but the hush inside feels almost holy.
He is waiting, of course. Leaning against an oak table, beard just a little longer than he tends to keep it. His eyes catch mine, and my blood warms, soothing the ache that’s grown cold in my chest.
“Calista.” His voice is low, thick, brows pitched as he pushes off from the table to stride toward me. “Are you well?”
“No.” I shake my head, memories flash through my skull in a painful array of blood red. He cups my cheeks and my muscles slacken against him. “No one is well, Alastair. It’s one loss after another, and with little explanation in sight. And to make matters worse, the students can’t even leave this place of quiet torture to share the holidays with loved ones because of this godforsaken storm.” My voice cracks, and I wrap my arms around his waist for leverage.
He brushes my hair from my forehead, tilting my head back to gaze into my eyes. “Tell me what you need and I’ll provide it,” he whispers.
“You.” One single word, and as soon as it’s past my lips, the space between us collapses, tension building and shattering all at once and I fall into it, allowing him to numb my pain with every stroke of his tongue. His mouth finds mine, urgent, aching, desperate in a way that makes my chest splinter.
The shelves dig into my back as he presses me into the books. His hands roam—my face, my waist, pulling me closer until I am dizzy with need for him.
I twist us around until he’s the one pinned against the stacks, my hands roaming greedily over his chest before my fingers curl into his collar and fumble with his buttons. I barely make it through two before impatience wins. My hands slip beneath his suspenders instead, tugging them away from his chest and letting them snap back into place.
His answering groan disappears into my mouth, and somewhere beside us, a book works itself loose and crashes to the floor.
His hands sweep down my sides and grip my ass, hauling me up his body until my legs lock around his hips. He carries me toward the winding staircase without breaking our kiss, taking the steps with me wrapped around him, my arms cinched around his neck and my fingers buried in his hair.
By the time we reach the top floor, his shirt is half-undone, his suspenders crooked from my impatient hands, and whatever composure either of us had downstairs has been thoroughly abandoned.
He lowers me into my favorite reading chair beside the window before sinking to his knees between my legs. One suspender has slipped from his shoulder, the other still stretched taut across his chest, and something about the disarray of him sends another thrill through me.
Especially when those stormy eyes lift to mine, wicked amusement glittering in them as that lopsided smirk curls across his plush lips.
“May I suffocate between these thighs?” he asks, tugging on the waistband of my skirt as he drags it down my legs, heat pooling between them.
“Well, if you must,” I agree with a chuckle that feels too light for how these last days have gone, but I want to slip into the light with him like I would the pages of a book, allowing pretty words and even prettier images to carry me off from the terrors of my mind.
He releases a hungry growl, dropping my skirt beside him and grabbing hold of my legs, hoisting them over his shoulders as he tugs my slick entrance toward his mouth. His gaze grows dark, peering up into mine with feral need written across his expression as he looks between my legs.
“No panties, Calista?”
“Alastair, that’s not quite right, is it? I have on pantyhose, don’t I? It’s written in the name.”
He shakes his head, lids clenching shut as if searching for composure he lacks. When his eyes burst open, I know I’m in for the best time.
His finger glides over my center before hooking beneath the sheer black fabric and tearing it open, baring my aching core. He slips inside me, and my back bows instantly, my body clenching around him as ragged breaths heave from my chest and a coil of tense heat winds tighter low in my belly.
“You’re so fucking beautiful, Dr. Ravenna,” he murmurs, dipping his head, warm breath mere centimeters from my center. “And this pussy?” He ducks his chin, tongue swiping through my slick folds, and I keen against him, my thighs tightening around his cheeks. “You’re perfect here too.”
He focuses his ministrations on my clit, swirling his tongue over the swollen bundle of nerves, nipping at it when he adds a finger. He stretches me to a blissful rhythm, groaning as he eats me alive like I’m his favorite meal and the last he’ll ever have.
“Yes, just like that, Professor,” I cry out, my head thrown back in sheer bliss. Sparks shoot up my spine, the burn of his beard on my most sensitive spot creating such a lovely contrast. It isn’t hard to fall apart when the man I love looks like he’ll devour my every cry, holding me together as I shatter beneath him, ready and waiting to pick up the pieces when he’s done.
My moans are met with his enthusiastic grunts and the slurping of his mouth on me as he drives me over the edge, blackening my vision in the undercurrent of my release.
“That’s it, Dr. Ravenna, give me every drop,” he murmurs, tongue buried deep inside me, drawing out the aftershocks of my release.
I slump against the maroon chair, my body, once pulled taut like a bow, now relaxed like warm rubber.
“Bravo, Professor Ignatius. You’re just as good a student as you are a teacher,” I praise, a small, sated smile written across my lips.
“You’ve been very gracious in your teaching methods, Dr. Ravenna,” he says with a smirk, unbuttoning his shirt and allowing it to slip down his shoulders and fall to the wood beneath us. “Five years of hard work has gotten me to where I am today.”
“How do you feel about a second lesson?” I ask, quirking a brow. “I’m rather eager to be filled—with knowledge, of course.”
The clink of his belt coming undone liquifies my bones as he shifts my legs off his shoulders, climbing to his feet. A large bulge presses against his slacks, threatening to break free if not released in haste.
