The Love Hypothesis

“No. But we should do . . . other things.”

He frowned. “You don’t like this?”

“No. Yes. Well, I’ve never . . .” The line between his eyebrows deepened. “But I’m the one who put you up to this, so we should do things that you are into, and not stuff for me . . .”

This time it was the flat of his tongue against her clit, pressing just enough to make her clench and exhale in a rush. The tip was circling around it, which—such a small movement, and yet it sent her hand straight to her mouth, had her biting the fleshy part of her palm.

“Adam!” Her voice sounded like someone else’s. “Did you hear what I . . . ?”

“You said to do something I’m into.” His breath was hot against her. “I am.”

“You can’t possibly want to—”

He squeezed her leg. “I can’t remember a moment I didn’t.”

It just didn’t feel like standard hookup fare, something this intimate. But it was hard to protest when he looked spellbound, staring at her, at her face and her legs and the rest of her body. His hand was large, open over her abdomen and holding her down, inching higher and closer to her breasts, but never close enough. Lying like this, Olive was a little embarrassed of how concave her stomach was. Of the way her ribs stuck out. Adam, though, didn’t seem to mind.

“Wouldn’t you rather—”

A nip. “No.”

“I didn’t even say—”

He glanced up. “There isn’t anything I’d rather do.”

“But—”

He sucked on one of her lips with a loud, wet noise, and she gasped. And then his tongue was inside her, and she moaned, half in surprise, half at the feeling of— Yes.

Yes.

“Fuck,” someone said. It wasn’t Olive, so it must have been Adam. “Fuck.” It felt incredible. Otherworldly. His tongue, dipping in and out, circling and lapping, and his nose against her skin, and the quiet sounds he made from deep in his chest whenever she contracted, and Olive was going to—she . . .

She wasn’t sure she was going to come. Not with another person in the room touching her. “This might take a while,” she said apologetically, hating how thin her voice sounded.

“Fuck, yes.” His tongue swiped the entirety of her, a long, broad stroke. “Please.” She didn’t think she’d ever heard him quite this enthusiastic about anything, not even grant writing or computational biology. It kicked the whole thing a few notches higher for her, and it got worse when she noticed his arm. The one that wasn’t cupping the cheek of her ass and holding her open.

He hadn’t taken himself out of his pants yet, that Olive could see, and wasn’t that unfair, since she was all splayed open for him. But the way his arm was shifting, how his hand was moving up and down slowly, that was just unbearable. She arched further, her spine shaping a perfect curve as the back of her head hit the pillow.

“Olive.” He leaned back a few centimeters and kissed the inside of her shaking thigh. Took a deep breath with his nose, as if to hold the smell of her within himself. “You can’t come yet.” His lips brushed against her folds as his tongue dipped in again, and she squeezed her eyes shut. There was a liquid, burning heat blossoming in her tummy, spilling all over her. Her fingers clawed at the sheets, grasping for an anchor. This was impossible. Unmanageable.

“Adam.”

“Don’t. Two more minutes.” He sucked on— God, yes. There.

“I’m—sorry.”

“One more.”

“I can’t—”

“Focus, Olive.”

In the end, it was his voice that ruined everything. That quiet, possessive tone, the hint of an order in the low rasp of his words, and the pleasure broke over her like an ocean wave. Her mind snapped, and she was not wholly herself for seconds, and then minutes, and when she had a sense of the world again, he was still licking her, except more slowly, as if with no purpose but to savor her. “I want to go down on you until you pass out.” His lips were so soft against her skin.

“No.” Olive fisted the pillow. “I—you can’t.”

“Why?”