The Secret (Winslow Brothers 3)

But she’s not saying shit because she knows I’m right. She wants me just as badly as I want her, and she knows playing with the bull this closely always gets you the horns. She knows it because she’s an expert in hundreds of years of literature, just like me.

It’s human nature. Eventually, the band of tension breaks. Always. She pushed me so I would be the one to snap it faster.

I look from her eyes to her lips, and right then, in that very moment, I know it’s going to happen. Despite all the shit that says I shouldn’t, despite very nearly hating each other as much as we like each other, I’m going to feel the flesh of her lips under mine if it kills me.

I have to. I have to know what she tastes like.

“I’m not kissing you,” she whispers.

“I’m not kissing you either,” I murmur back, the edge of my lips grazing the skin of hers. It’s a bald-faced lie, and I know it. That’s what makes it so fun.

“I’m not,” she says again, a last-ditch attempt to hold the line, but her face moves closer to mine.

I don’t bother with another leg of denial on my end. Instead, I push my lips to hers, an action that ignites an inferno that even Dante isn’t prepared to handle.

Pushing and pulling and breathing and squeezing, the two of us are like animals, grasping for every piece of flesh we can find and fighting for dominance over the kiss. Her tongue toys with mine to shove them both back into my mouth, but I take control, tasting the corners of her pretty little mouth and committing them to memory.

I reach down and grab the slinky fabric of her skirt, scooting it up the flesh of her thigh and putting my fingers to the sweet heat between her legs. She’s on fire, completely soaked, her whole engine burning with arousal from her game.

“You want me,” I say, pulling back from her mouth just enough to make sure she hears me and then nipping at her throat. She moans; what she doesn’t do is contest my assertion.

I stroke the thin fabric with two soft, teasing fingers, and my cock hardens as she pushes herself into my hand to get more pressure. I give it to her. One strong stoke, followed by another, until her back arches against my hand and her weight falls into me.

I rub the line of the panties’ edge and crook just one finger to find my way under. Soft, warm flesh and a small dusting of hair are smothered in arousal. Immediately, my finger is coated, and I have to add another.

She feels so good, so fucking warm and wet, and my hands shake with the urge to rip her fucking panties off, but everything comes to a screeching halt when a loud pop sounds in the hallway. It startles us enough that a foot-wide space opens up between us. There’s a laugh and a scuffle as the student moves on, likely having dropped their book and picked it up, but the sweet, mesmerizing fog of moments ago is gone.

In its place? The undeniable realization that we’re about to dance over a mark in the sand that can’t be put back. An actual sexual relationship between us might be prohibited by the university; however, if not, it would certainly be frowned upon by her father.

We shouldn’t be doing this—I, personally, shouldn’t be considering it at all.

“I should go,” Rachel whispers, her breathing still ragged and her lipstick noticeably smeared across her face.

I nod and back away—the only two actions I can manage at this moment. Our it’s-just-fun-and-games secret has taken a sharp turn toward dirty and forbidden. My heart is still pounding, and the sound of it whooshes in my ears. I want her so bad, I can hardly see straight.

She grabs her belongings from the desk, and the stack of papers for grading she came to my office to get in the first place, and scoots around me without a word.

I sink into the chair behind my desk and drop my head into my hands.

Only two piercing questions come to mind in the silence of this space—in the smell of aging books and years of hard work and the feel of an antique wooden desk chair gifted to me by my weakness’s father.

What in the holy fuck am I doing? And how the hell do I stop?

Rachel

I sink down in the tub until every part of my body but my nose and mouth are under water. I breathe in air and wallow in the feeling of drowning at the same time.

What in the hell is wrong with me? Why, when it comes to Ty Winslow, do I not know when to stop?

I mean, sure, I’ve always been a bit of a limit pusher or a ball buster or a stubborn biotch who has to cut her own path in life no matter how much easier the one already cut would be, but this is the kind of behavior that gets you a padded room and daily meetings. Nearly fucking the professor you’re TA’ing for when your very serious dad is the head of the department and specifically warned you against it? It’s damn near self-sabotage.