Page 125 of Deep End

“I’m a Swede. We handle bluntness well.”

I fully planned to make a camgirl-worthy number of sex noises, just to annoy her, but fell asleep while Lukas brushed his teeth, and woke early the following day as he slipped from under the sheets.

“Practice,” he said, pressing a scratchy kiss into the corner of my throat. “Go back to sleep, Scarlett.”

I next see him when we meet to update Zach on our progress. I get to the library ten minutes early, but show up to the study roomlate—because Lukas finds me in the lobby, grabs my wrist, drags me into one of the single-person restrooms, and spends a pornographic amount of time with his head between my legs. His tongue is flat against my clit, his shoulder broad under my thigh, and . . .

He doesn’t let me come.

“Please.” My chest is heaving. “Please.”

He presses one last, feathery kiss against the top of my cunt. With horror, I watch him rise to his feet and lick his lips. He gently pulls up my joggers and wipes a solitary tear off my cheek.

“Go in first,” he says. He pats my ass lightly, like I’m an unruly pet in need of guidance, to treat with a firm but affectionate hand. It’s extremely condescending. I shouldnotbe turned on by it.

“But I want to—”

“No, Scarlett.” He doesn’t sound particularly authoritative about it, because there’s no need for posturing. He’sthatconfident.

I swallow. Ask, petulant, “Why don’t you go first?”

He points at the front of his pants.

“Oh.”

What’s remarkable is how otherwise unaffected he looks. I’m about to either shatter in a million pieces, or thaw into a syrupy puddle—jury’s deliberating.

“I could sneak into the next-door bathroom and make myself come,” I threaten resentfully.

“You could,” he acknowledges. “But you won’t.”

“I—you have no idea what I’m going to do.”

His smile is . . . really sweet, actually. And so is the way he pushes my hair back from my forehead before pressing a kiss in themiddle of it. “You’ll do what I say, and we both know it. Or at least,Iknow it.” All my frown does is coax him into smoothing the little vertical wrinkles between my eyes with the pad of his thumb. “You’re fucking adorable, Scarlett.” He tilts my chin up. Another kiss, this time on the tip of my nose. “It makes me want towreckyou.”

The following hour in the study room is misery. I try not to fidget, especially while Zach asks me questions about my plans for the holidays, whether I’ll stay in town,hit me up if you want to get coffee. His words drift in and out, devoid of meaning. I show my neural network, still fever hot and breathless.

“The accuracy is thirty percent higher than what I got,” Lukas says, wholly focused on the data. “Scarlett, that’s a masterpiece.” He sounds impressed and happy that the model I created exists, and I wonder whether the bathroom ever happened. Maybe I hallucinated it. I was never about to come. His grunts were never muffled into my cunt. Healthcare professionals will come to take me away.

But the meeting ends—You have my number, right, Scarlett? Yup, Zach. Thanks for everything and happy holidays—and Lukas heads straight for the bathroom. I follow him, just a step behind. Don’t wait for the door to close to snarl, “I can’t—”

He presses me against it with a hard push, his body hot against mine. “I don’t know why it’s such a turn-on that you’re so much smarter than me, but every time we have a project meeting, I have to go home and jerk off until my dick is raw.”

“I’m not that smart—”

“Shutthe fuckup, you brilliant, beautiful genius.” He kisses me deep and hard, first on the mouth, then lower, and he must know that I’m stretched to the brink, because he doesn’t tease. He bites. He licks. He sucks. In less than twenty seconds, my orgasm is ripped out of my spine, and I crush my moans against my own palm.

“Thank you,” I pant when I can talk. His face tucks against my belly, a sweet, delicious sting. “Thank you, I—”

He’s not done, though. Barely started. He buries his mouth in my cunt and licks it all up, humming his approval. It starts again. Finger in his hair, I try to push him away, but he won’t quit, and I come and come until I’m pleading with him to give me a break, and he just rumbles, “You can bear it for one more minute. One more. For me.”

I can, and it hurts in the sweetest possible way. When he’s done, I expect him to turn me around and bend me over. Instead, he remains on his knees, presses his unshaved cheek against my hip, inhales my scent, and starts moving his arm in rhythmic strokes.

It takes a moment for the meaning to sink in. “I—I . . . Lukas?”

He kisses my abdomen and looks up at me, eyes infinitely blue.

“I can . . .”

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