“Yup.”
“Why?” I asked his abs, unable to drag my attention higher. They looked as tight as my drumhead. Tighter, maybe. My fingers itched to find out.
He glanced behind him at the discarded cotton. “Because I took it off.”
I pinched my eyes shut for a minute and tried to find my lost equilibrium. “Yes, but why is it off?”
“Oh.” He smiled. “Because I took it off.”
I wanted to scream. Or kiss him. One of those.
He held a chip up to my mouth, and I accepted it automatically, my tongue swiping at the salt on the tip of his thumb that lingered on my lower lip. He tasted better than any potato.
His eyes darkened with intent, and I pulled back, using my sandwich to create a barrier between us. “Laird,” I warned, my attention hopelessly lost in the flex and stretch of his muscles as he retreated to his side of the bed, “I have to study tonight.”
“Right. Equations. Mapping boundaries and finding the edge. Let me know if you need any help. Otherwise, I’ll just be over here. Studying anatomy. My test is on the musculoskeletal system. Memorizing the names of what forms all those curves and dips. Looks like our subjects aren’t quite so different after all.”
I want to map his boundaries.
My eyes must have telegraphed my thoughts because he smirked before raising a pointed eyebrow. “Now who’s thinking about things other than studying?”
I blamed my dry mouth on the chips. “Likewise. If you need help, let me know.”
“I may take you up on that. In a strictly academic sense, of course.”
“Of course,” I echoed faintly, my eyes glued to where his obliques dipped beneath the waistband of his gym shorts. My favorite muscles of his. The ones I fantasized about licking.
But, true to his word, after dinner was over, he settled in at the other desk and studied on his laptop, completely ignoring me. I was torn between being annoyed at him for being able to tune me out, and grateful that he was taking me seriously when I said I needed to study.
By quarter to midnight, I’d waded through as many practice problems as I thought I could handle without my brain turning into absolute mush.
I stopped, stretched my arms above my head, then padded to the spare bed to retrieve my brownie. I’d been saving it as a reward for finishing.
Laird glanced over, a banked hunger in his gaze as it raked down my body. “That offer earlier to help me. It still on the table?”
Surprised, I nodded around a mouthful of chocolate. “Of course,” I answered, holding my hand in front of my face to hide the fact that I was talking with my mouth full.
“Stay there,” he ordered. Scooping up his computer, he settled on the mattress behind me and brushed my damp hair over my shoulder until the side of my neck was bared to him. I was nestled between his legs, framed by his strong thighs, the heat of his naked chest warming my back through my shirt. With one finger, he traced a slow path down the curve from my ear to my shoulder. “The muscles here have terrible names for such a sexy place.” The stubble on his chin caught me off guard as he pressed his mouth to my skin, and I giggled before the sound morphed into a low moan in response to his tongue.
I forgot about the brownie. I forgot about everything except what he was doing to me in that instant.
“The sternocleomastoid and the platysmus.”
Laird tugged on the loose neckline of my shirt until it slipped over one of my shoulders. His lips swept along the newly exposed flesh, and a spark zinged down my spine while my arms erupted in goose bumps.
“The deltoid.”
His strong hands massaged my back, thumbs digging into the stubborn knots along my shoulder blades, tight from the weight of the snare.
“Then there are the muscles of the rotator joint. Supraspinatus, infraspinatus, subscapularis, and teres minor.”
I whimpered and tipped my head back to rest on his chest. His hands swept down my torso, brushing the sides of my breasts and causing my nipples to bud.
“Latissimus dorsi.”
He traveled back up my spine, rubbing out all the tension from the week. Tingles spread to my scalp, that same addicting feeling I’d gotten after someone played with my hair when I was younger.
“A trio of muscles here, remembered with the mnemonic I love spines. Iliocostalis, the longissimus, and the spinalis, from superficial to deep.”
Laird was thorough when he studied. After he finished with my back, he barely paused before reaching around to my pec major and pec minor, his hands cupping and kneading my bare breasts under my shirt. I melted beneath his expert touch, heat simmering between my thighs. When he rolled my aching nipples between his fingers as my breasts swelled to fill his palms, a moan escaped my parted lips, but he didn’t linger nearly as long as I would’ve liked.
He continued his journey southward, his palms skimming down my stomach, and he rattled off more names as his fingers followed the flare of my hips.
“The sartorius starts here,” his thumb pressed just below my hip, “and wraps around the front to the inner thigh before finishing just below the knee.” He mapped the distance, his fingers so close to my damp panties I held my breath. “It’s the longest muscle in the body, and damn if it doesn’t cover some of the best ground too.”
Laird retraced his path, his fingers pushing aside my tiny sleeping shorts and flirting with the lace edging the thin cotton between my legs.
“Except for the gracilis. That one might be my favorite. It connects down here,” he drew a soft circle on the inside of my knee, his voice deeper, rougher than before, “just behind the sartorius, but it’s a little more direct. It runs right up the inner thigh until it runs out of leg. A straight pathway to heaven.”
He demonstrated, and this time, he didn’t stop until his palm cupped me fully. I dug my nails into his hard thighs and arched my back, wordlessly asking for more. One long finger traced my seam, and I bucked against him.
“I think it’s my favorite too,” I whispered raggedly.
“I’m thinking I need to study that one a little closer.” His lips closed around my earlobe and I shuddered.
“Wouldn’t want you missing”—and my breath hitched as his thumbs hooked the waistband of my shorts and pushed them over my hips—“that one on the test.”
After he memorized the path with his hands, he slid to his knees on the floor and retraced his steps with his tongue.
And I lost the ability to think altogether.
The heat from his mouth ripped a harsh exhale from my throat, and I rolled my hips in response. The mere sight of his dark hair between my thighs was enough to have me panting. I don’t know why, perhaps just from my past experiences, but I didn’t expect a guy like him, who could have his choice of girls servicing him at a moment’s notice, to put my pleasure first. But, fuck, that dark glow in his green eyes when he peeked up at me erased any doubt I had that he was just going through the motions. It was the look of a man who was finally getting something he’d been denied for far too long. Bold and greedy, but tinged with a certain softness I’d never seen before.
His hands closed around my waist, dragged me to the side of the bed, and settled my thighs over his shoulders, before slipping lower to cup my ass. There was no time to feel shy or embarrassed or self-conscious, because his tongue swept away everything except for an achy restlessness.
He licked me, traced my opening, learned all my most intimate secrets. And all I could do was fist his hair in my hands and pull him closer, his name the chorus to the incoherent chant I mumbled, curses and pleas forming the verses.
When he sucked on my clit and hummed a primal sound deep in his throat, it sent me over the edge, and my thighs closed around him like a vise, my toes curled and tense. He continued, the suction and the flutters of his tongue relentless as I hovered in that place of blinding ecstasy, suspended between heaven and earth.
When my fingers loosened their grip on his dark strands, he lessened the intensity, but didn’t stop. It wasn’t until I’d said his name for the third time that he lifted his head, his face smeared with my release.
“Laird,” I repeated, scooting his direction, until he had no choice but to sit back on the floor. I followed him, straddling his lap, my wet core throbbing anew as his hard cock rose against me beneath the thin barrier of his shorts.