Page 250 of The Professor's Wife

His nostrils flared with the breath he took. Then he stepped aside.

I entered the room. The door shut behind me, followed by the quiet click of the lock. When I turned around, he still hadn’t reached for me. If anything, he was keeping his distance all over again.

But his eyes wove a different story.

His gaze moved slowly over my white dress, my bare shoulders, the sandals I had walked half the city in. When he looked at my face again, something dark and hungry had settled into his eyes.

He wanted me to come closer. He wanted to touch me. I moved to him, stopping close enough I could see the tired lines around his eyes. I wanted to brush them away because I knew it was me that put them there.

Tristan’s hand rose to my jaw. His thumb moved once across my bottom lip, grazing the tender place he had bruised the day before. I trembled. He felt it. He breathed harder. I stopped breathing entirely. I stared into his eyes, and he could see what I wanted—what webothneeded.

I’d barely pushed out his name when his mouth came crashing down on mine.

Hours later, back inside Oliver’s house, I showered my body thoroughly, but there were marks on my flesh. Especially between my legs. Along my inner thighs where Tristan had nibbled and sucked. My face flamed, knowing there was nothing I could do about them.

There were no other visible marks, but my face looked different. My cheeks were perpetually pink, my lips puffy, my eyes lit up and glassy.

“Do you like that?” he’d growled, seated at the edge of the bed as he pulled me between his thighs.

His hands moved beneath my dress, sliding slowly up the backs of my legs while his mouth pressed against my stomach through the fabric.

I moaned, unable to speak.

He pushed my dress higher, exposing more skin with every kiss. His mouth moved lower while his hands gathered the material around my waist.

“Tell me.”

“Yes,” I breathed. “I like it.”

He turned me and lowered me across the mattress, but instead of climbing over me, he remained at the edge of the bed.

His eyes moved over me as he drew my underwear slowly down my legs.

The hunger in his face made my body clench, but there was something else beneath it. Relief, maybe. Like he’d spent the entire night believing he would never see me like this again.

He pressed his mouth to the inside of my knee.

Then higher.

Oh, my God.

My cheeks flushed at the memory. Every part of me burned. My core tingled from the reminder of his touch.

He tasted me like he knew every intimate part of me.

There was nothing hurried about it. He listened to every sound I made and then found the exact movement that would drag it from me again.

My fingers disappeared into his damp hair.

“Tristan, please.”

His eyes lifted to mine. “Please what?”

“Don’t stop.”

A rough sound moved through him.

His mouth returned to me, harder now. His fingers slid inside me while his tongue circled my clit, and my thighs began to shake around him.