The hospital was right next to Thayer’s campus, so it didn’t take me long to reach the science library, formally christened the George Hancock Library after a long-dead donor and informally known as SciLi. It was a hidden gem tucked on the third floor of the biology building. Whereas Fulton, the school’s main library, was always packed during exam time, SciLi was quiet year-round.
The walk gave me time to push lingering thoughts of Tanya’s death to the back of my mind. Being outside the hospital and surrounded by smiling, chattering students made it easier. It was like I’d stepped onto a movie set where I could pretend to be the person I wanted to be instead of the person I was.
When I arrived at SciLi, there were only a handful of students scattered throughout the space. Walls of books stretched two stories toward the double-height ceiling, interrupted only by massive stained-glass windows set at regular intervals. The glow from the green glass desk lamps mingled with the sunlight to cast a warm, hazy glow over the hushed sanctum.
The thick emerald carpet muffled my footsteps as I walked toward the back, where Jules sat by herself.
“Working hard, I see,” I said when I reached her. A tall stack of textbooks sat next to her ever-present caramel mocha, and loose sheets of notes and index cards covered every inch of the oak surface.
“Someone has to.” She raised her head, and alarm pinched my chest when I noticed her puffy, red eyes.
“Were you crying?”
What the fuck were they doing over at the law school? I was pretty sure study materials weren’t supposed to make someone cry unless they were tears of frustration, and Jules wasn’t the type to lose it over academic stress.
“No.” She tapped her highlighter against her notebook. “I have allergies.”
“That’s bullshit.”
We kept our voices low since we were in a library, but everyone was so zoned out and we were so far from the nearest person it didn’t matter much.
Jules’s tapping picked up speed. “Why do you care? I called you for sex, not a heart-to-heart.”
“I don’t care.” I dropped into the chair next to her and lowered my voice further. “But I’d rather not fuck a crying woman unless you’re crying from pleasure. Any other kind of tears is a turnoff.”
“Charming.”
“Would you rather I get turned on by others’ distress?” I slipped into our banter with shocking ease, considering my day in the ER, but when I was around Jules, everything else ceased to exist.
For better or for worse.
“I don’t have the energy to argue with you today, okay?” she snapped, her voice lacking some of its usual fire. “Either fuck me or leave.”
My brief flare of good humor evaporated. Normally, I wouldn’t hesitate to take her up on her offer of sex, but today wasn’t normal.
“Newsflash, Red, you’re not the only one who has shitty weeks, so stop acting like you’re so fucking special,” I said coldly. “This is a mutually beneficial arrangement. It doesn’t mean you can call me and expect me to come running to service your needs like a fucking gigolo.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
We glared at each other, the air between us crackling with thinly veiled frustration before Jules’s shoulders slumped and she dropped her highlighter to rub her face.
My irritation fizzled at the simple action. I blew out a long breath, unable to keep up with the day’s wild rollercoaster of emotions.
“Bad day at work?” she asked.
My laugh lacked humor. “You could say that.”
I didn’t talk about the downsides of my work unless it was with someone else in the field. Nothing brought down the mood faster than saying hey, so someone died on my watch today.
But the pressure from earlier was building in my chest again, and I needed to relieve it before it drove me crazy.
“I lost someone today.” I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, unable to face Jules as I admitted my failure. “She was seventeen. Got hit by a drunk driver.”
It felt weird saying the words out loud. I lost someone. It sounded so generic. People lost toys and house keys; they didn’t lose lives. They had lives wrenched from them, stolen by the cruel hands of an unforgiving god.
But that didn’t roll off the tongue quite as nicely, I supposed.
A soft hand covered my own. I stiffened and kept my eyes on the ceiling, but the knot in my chest loosened a smidge.
“I’m so sorry,” Jules said softly. “I didn’t—I can’t imagine…”
“It’s fine. I’m a doctor. It happens.”
“Josh—”
“And you?” I interrupted, twisting my head to look at her. “What happened? Don’t give me that bull about allergies again, either.”
“I do have allergies.” Several beats passed before she admitted, “It’s possible I’ll have to…do something I’m not proud of. I promised myself I would never do it again, but I might not have a choice. I just…” A hard swallow shifted the delicate lines of her throat. “I don’t want to be that person.”
It was vague as hell, but her distress was palpable and seeped through my skin into places it had no business touching.
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is,” I said. “As long as you didn’t murder anyone or set anything on fire.”
“Wow. The bar really is in hell.”
A small smile touched my lips for the first time that day. “At least it’s warm down there.”
Jules snorted out a laugh. “If only I had your optimism.”
“You can only wish.” I angled my head toward the small reference library located off the main library. “So, still want to fuck?”
Nothing turned a crappy day around like a good fuck.
Plus, between her inadvertent sleepover and the brief lowering of our guards just now, we were edging too far from the rules of our pact. It was time to bring it back to what it was supposed to be about: sex. Quick, transactional, and mutually satisfying.
Judging by the rigid lines of Jules’s neck and shoulders, she needed a physical release as much as I did.
She responded by gathering her notes and stuffing them in her backpack. We left her textbooks on the table—I highly doubted anyone would want to steal a tome on corporate law—and walked as casually as we could into the reference section.
I led us to one of the stacks that didn’t fall under the gaze of the security cameras before I pinned her to the shelves and molded my mouth to hers. It started chaste, almost clinical—a way for us to forget our troubles and nothing else.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about how exhausted she’d looked, or how comforting her hand had been over mine, and before I knew it, the kiss softened into something more…not tender, exactly. But understanding.
It was our first non-angry kiss, and it felt nicer than I expected.
I cupped her face and traced my tongue over the seam of Jules’s lips until she opened for me. God, she tasted incredible, like heat and spice and sugar all rolled into one.
I’d always been a chocolate guy, but cinnamon was fast becoming my new favorite flavor.
Her arms snaked around my neck, and her soft sigh whispered down my spine and settled somewhere low in my stomach.
“Think we can forget about our shitty week for a while?” she whispered.
Fierce protectiveness welled in my chest at the touch of vulnerability in her voice, but I forced it back down.
We were only together for sex. Anything else was off the table.
“Sweetheart, in a few minutes, you’ll forget your own name.”
I sank to my knees, my mouth tipping up at the surprise in her eyes. Our last few times had been rough and deliciously filthy, but today, I was in the mood for a different kind of feast.
I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her underwear and pulled them down beneath her skirt. “Might want to cover your mouth, Red.”
That was the only warning I gave before I spread her thighs and dived in, alternating between gentle licks and long, hard pulls on her sweet little clit.
I groaned. She tasted even better down here. Most women thought men wanted them to taste like berries or lavender or whatever, but if we were eating pussy, we wanted to taste pussy. That was the whole fucking point.
Jules fisted my hair with one hand when I pushed two fingers inside her. I pumped them in and out slowly while I continued teasing her clit. It was swollen and tender, and when I grazed my teeth against it, her soft cry arrowed straight to my cock.
I forced myself to keep the rhythm soft for a while longer before I increased the pace and intensity, sucking and finger fucking her until her arousal dripped down my hand and her thighs. I lapped it all up, drunk from the taste of her. Forget food and water. I could subsist on Jules forever.
I pulled my fingers out replaced them with my tongue, eager for more.
Jules shook around me. She fisted my hair harder with a muffled cry, and a second later, her juices flooded my tongue.
Fuck.
My senses swam with her scent, and when she squirmed, trying to inch away from me, I gripped her hips and forced her to remain still.
“Josh…” My name fell out as a whimper, also muffled.
My blood surged when I lifted my head and saw she’d clamped her free hand over her mouth to soften her moans. The prettiest rose shaded her cheeks, and tears glittered in her eyes from the suppressed force of her orgasm.
My cock threatened to punch a hole through my jeans. I loved hearing her sweet screams, but there was also something so fucking hot about seeing someone hold back when you knew all they wanted was to explode.
“I’m not done yet, Red.” I gave her clit another languorous lick. “You don’t want to interrupt a man before he’s finished eating, do you?”
Jules responded with another moan.
I returned to my meal, licking and sucking and tongue fucking her with abandon. By the time I was done, I had to hold her up with one arm as I rose to my feet.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and savored the lingering taste of her. My blood pounded with arousal.
I wished we had time for another round, but we were already pushing our luck. No one had stumbled on us, but the smell of sex permeated the air, and it wouldn’t take an errant passerby to piece two and two together.
“I’ve always wanted to defile the library,” Jules mumbled, clinging to me in a way she never would’ve outside sex.
A laugh bubbled in my throat. “Defile might be too strong a word, though I suspect they’d revoke my library access if anyone finds out what happened.”
My cock pulsed, eager for its turn, but when she reached for my belt buckle, I grasped her wrist and placed it back by her side.
Confusion creased her brow. “But—”
“I’ll take care of it later. Don’t worry about it.”
“Josh, that looks painful.”
It was painful. I was so hard it was fucking excruciating. But a sick part of me reveled in it.
The pain reminded me I was still alive.
“You need a release too,” Jules pointed out, and I knew she wasn’t just talking about an orgasm.
“I’ll take care of it,” I repeated. Walking out with a boner the size of the Washington Memorial would be awkward as fuck, but the other people in the library had looked so zoned out I wasn’t sure they’d notice. “Don’t want to push our luck.”
“Right.” She closed her eyes, her breaths slowing.
Lazy silence swirled in the air.
Today was a complete one-eighty from the type of sex we usually had, but sometimes you needed hard and fast; other times you needed long and languid.
Besides, I could eat Jules out for days and not get tired of it.
My eyes lingered on her delicate features and rosy flush for a second longer than they should’ve.
On impulse, I said, “You want to go with me somewhere next Saturday? It’s not a date,” I clarified when her eyes popped open. “The hospital is having its annual all-staff picnic and I know the nurses will try to set me up like they do every year. Figured I’d preempt it by bringing a fake date.” I emphasized the word fake.
Jules’s brows rose. “That’s against the rules of our arrangement.”
Yeah, I fucking knew. I wasn’t sure what possessed me to ask her when I could’ve brought any number of casual female acquaintances, but reason flew out the window whenever Jules Ambrose was involved.
It was damn infuriating, but since I couldn’t do anything about it, I might as well lean into it.
“Rules are meant to be bent.” I shrugged. “Look, if you ever need someone to pretend to be your date, I’m game. It’s easier than asking some random person.”
When Jules continued to hesitate, I added, “There’ll be free food.”
A beat passed before she said, “I could make it work.”
“Good. I’ll text you the details later.” I turned to leave, but her soft, tentative voice stopped me.
“Josh. Are you going to be okay?”
I stilled. A strange lump formed in my throat at her unexpected concern before I swallowed it. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.” I threw her a quick smile over my shoulder. “See you next Saturday, Red.”
After I left the library—where no one noticed my hard-on, thank God—I went straight home and poured myself a glass of Macallan. The shit was expensive, but it’d been a birthday gift from Alex. I’d rationed it out over the years, saving it for my biggest celebrations and shittiest days.
I finished my first glass and poured myself a second one. I didn’t touch my erection. Instead, I sat in my living room and leaned my head back against the couch, listening to the silence.
Seeing Jules had provided a surprising measure of comfort, but the momentary lightness I’d experienced in the library had already drained away.
I tossed back the rest of my drink and savored the burn of whiskey sliding down my throat.
In that moment, it was the only thing keeping me warm.
