Page 142 of Give & Take

I walk her backward, sliding my hands onto her shoulders, looming over her so she has no choice but to go with me. “You know,” I say, “so you can help them teach their husbands how to fuck them properly.”

Lana’s eyelids flutter slightly. “Raphael,” she says, finally finding her voice. “I don’t know the first thing about opening a business.”

“I could help you.”

“Youdon’t know the first thing about opening a business.”

“Maybe. But you know what I do know?”

She lifts a brow, as if waiting.

“I know how to research. I know how to become obsessed with something, to stay up all night learning every aspect of it.”

We’ve reached the back wall now. There’s nowhere else for her to go.

I slide my hands up her neck, cupping her jaw. “You know what else I know?”

“What,” she breathes.

“I know how to fuck you properly.”

Lana lets out a little whimper. “Raph,” she says. “That may be so. But you’re not staying.”

I bend down and hover just above her lips, inhaling her scent. “What if I did?”

Her hands rise up, flattening against my chest.

And she shoves me away. “You’re not staying,” she says, her voice surprisingly hard.

Heat rises in my chest. “And what if I did,” I repeat.

“I won’t let you.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

She blinks.

“I’m an autonomous adult, Lana. I get to make the decisions about my life.”

I step forward again, bracing my arms around her, giving her space to slip under them if she wants. Or stay with me, if that’s what she wants. The metaphor doesn’t escape me.

She grabs my arms.

But she doesn’t move.

What does that mean?

“You can’t just quit your doctorate,” she says, her voice furious.

“You’re right, I can’t.”

“You have to teach a class there! That was the deal, so long as you were working on your dissertation and?—”

She gasps, shoving at me. “You finished it!” she says, shoving me back, or trying to. I take a step back for her.

“Yes.”

“You still have to defend it.”

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