The Love Hypothesis

Then Adam pulled out, pushed back in, and they annihilated the no-sex rule. In the span of a few seconds his thrusts went from tentative, exploratory, to fast and all-eclipsing. His hand slid to the small of her back, lifting her into him as he piled in, and in, and in again, rubbing inside her, against her, forcing pleasure to vibrate up her spine.

“Is this okay?” he asked against her ear, not quite managing to stop.

Olive couldn’t answer. Not past the sharp hitch of her breath, the way her fingers dug desperately into the sheets. Pressure built again inside her, swelled large and consuming.

“You have to tell me, if you don’t like it,” he rasped. “What I’m doing.” He was eager, a little clumsy, losing control and slipping out of her, having to nudge his cock back inside; he was out of focus, but so was she, too flooded by how good he felt, how stupefying the pleasure, how smoothly he slid in and out. How right this felt.

“I—”

“Olive, you have to—” He stopped with a grunt, because she canted her hips and clenched around him. Gripping him harder, sucking him deeper.

“I like it.” She reached up to fist her fingers in his hair. To catch his eyes, make sure he was paying attention as she said, “I love it, Adam.”

His control poured out. He made a crude noise and shuddered, pumping hard and muttering nonsense into her skin—how perfect she was, how beautiful, how long he’d wanted this, how he would never, could never let go of her. Olive felt his orgasm soar, the blinding, scalding pleasure as he trembled on top of her.

She smiled. And when new shivers began to roll down her spine, she bit Adam’s shoulder and let herself go under.

Chapter Seventeen

HYPOTHESIS: When I think I’ve hit rock bottom, someone will hand me a shovel. That someone is probably Tom Benton.

Olive drifted off after the first time, and dreamed of many strange, nonsensical things. Sushi rolls shaped like spiders. The first snowfall in Toronto, during her last year with her mother. Adam’s dimples. Tom Benton’s sneer as he spat the words “little sob story.” Adam, again, this time serious, saying her name in his unique way.

Then she felt the mattress dip, and the sound of something being placed on the nightstand. She slowly blinked awake, disoriented in the dim light of the room. Adam was sitting on the side of the bed, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Hi.” She smiled.

“Hey.”

Her hand reached out to touch his thigh through the pants he’d never managed to take all the way off. He was still warm, still solid. Still there.

“How long did I sleep?”

“Not long. Maybe thirty minutes.”

“Hmm.” She stretched a bit against the mattress, arms above her head, and noticed the fresh glass of water on the nightstand. “Is that for me?”

He nodded, handed it to her, and she propped up on her elbow to drink it, smiling in thanks. She noticed his gaze linger on her breasts, still tender and sore from his mouth, and then drift away to his own palms.

Oh. Maybe, now that they had sex—good sex, Olive thought, amazing sex, though who knew about Adam?—he needed his own space. Maybe he wanted his own damn pillow.

She returned the empty glass and sat up. “I should move to my bed.”

He shook his head with an intensity that suggested that he didn’t want her to go, not anywhere, not ever. His free hand closed tight around her waist, as if to tether her to him.

Olive didn’t mind.

“You sure? I suspect I might be a cover hog.”

“It’s fine. I run warm.” He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “And according to someone, I look like I might snore.”

She gasped in mock outrage. “How dare they? Tell me who said that and I will personally avenge you—” She yelped when he held the icy-cool glass against her neck, and then dissolved into laughter, drawing up her knees and trying to twist away from him. “I’m sorry—you don’t snore! You sleep like a prince!”

“Damn right.” He set the glass on the nightstand, appeased, but Olive remained curled up, cheeks flushed and breathing hard from fending him off. He was smiling. With dimples, too. The same smile he’d smiled into her neck earlier, against her skin, the one that had tickled her and made her laugh.

“I’m sorry about the socks, by the way.” She winced. “I know it’s a controversial topic.”

Adam looked down at the rainbow-colored material stretched around her calves. “Socks are controversial?”