by Olivia Dade
“Good.” The corners of her lips indented as her smile turned mischievous. “I only have one complaint about this picture, Mr. Burnham.”
“What’s that, Ms. Wick?” Fuck, he loved that expression on her.
“Well, unless you count the corpse on the table…” Bending at the waist, she studied his drawing. “There’s no crime here.”
He bumped into her, hip to hip, and it wasn’t an accident.
“On the contrary. A crime has most definitely occurred.” Holding out his free arm, he displayed the pencil smudges on his pristine button-down. “Sartorial assault. Attempted murder of my shirt.”
Her giggle rang through him, vibrating and joyful as a chime.
“I’ve changed my mind.” She turned to face him. “The crime is that your stick figures aren’t kissing, and neither are we.”
“That was what I wanted for my reward,” he told her. “A kiss from you.”
More than his next breath. So much his chest ached.
If they kissed, though, he’d need to keep hold of himself until she was willing to take it further. Until they had privacy and time and a comfortable bed nearby.
“You want a kiss?” She tipped her chin upward, a mute challenge in her bright, sharp eyes. “Take it, then.”
So he did.
Seven
Poppy’s mouth was a revelation beneath his. Soft, warm, eager, sweet with mint.
She must have brushed her teeth between periods, just in case this happened, his rational brain deduced, before his rational brain entirely left the premises.
He took it slow, exploring every corner of those wide, plush lips, her sweet face cupped in his hands as she leaned back against her desk and he stepped into the cradle of her body. The electric charge of the contact dizzied him, buzzing in his ears as she opened her mouth for his tongue.
Her lower lip was trembling between his, its inner surface slick, and suddenly his hand was buried in her hair, twisted below one of those adorable buns, and he inhaled with a gasp before swooping down to kiss her again. Their tongues tangled, and he was sucking on hers, and she was making little sounds in her throat that seared a path straight to his cock.
“Hold on,” she panted. “The door—I need to lock it, and maybe wedge a chair—Shit, Simon—”
She tore herself from his arms and half-ran to the door, locking it, before yanking down the shades over her windows.
“Which chair do you think—” she began, and he couldn’t stand it any longer.
He caught up with her partway to the door, removed the student chair from her hands, hauled her close, and backed her into the nearby wall, her mouth open under his even before her shoulders hit the shelves.
Her tongue chased his this time, swirling and exploring until he saw nothing but light behind his eyelids. She shoved up his shirt, yanking it free from his pants, and splayed those capable artist’s hands on his hot back, and he lurched against her in reaction.
Both his own hands were tangled in her hair now, angling her head so he could drag his open mouth over her jaw and down the pale length of her neck, then back up. Her short nails bit into his back as he licked the curve of her ear.
“You wore a dress today.” He bit her lobe, and she moaned. “For me?”
Her frantic little nod, he rewarded with another fevered kiss.
When he raised his head again, she clutched his hips and whispered, “Wanted to look pretty for our last day together.”
“You’re always pretty. Always.” Disentangling his right hand from her hair, he reached for the hem of that flirty, silky dress. “And this isn’t our last day, but—”
Oh, a dress was so much easier than jeans, and her thigh was so soft and dimpled and warm under his palm.
With the hand still buried in her hair, he tipped her head to meet his gaze before exploring further. Higher. “Okay?”
“Yes.” Her throat worked as she swallowed, and he sucked at the spot. “Yes, please.”
Her cheeks were flushed now, her lips as swollen as he’d imagined, and he wanted to watch her come with an agony of desperation he’d never experienced before.
“Look at me,” he rasped. “Look at me as I touch you.”
She wet her lips and nodded as much as she could with his fist in her hair, and then he was pulling her cotton panties down those lovely thighs, just far enough so he could explore her without any obstructions.
He palmed her sex, and her head thumped against the shelves as she gasped, but she held his stare. Her hair was coarse between her legs, her flesh slick and hot, and he couldn’t wait.
He wouldn’t.
Her eyes went hazy with the first stroke of his fingertips, her mouth parted for each rapid inhalation. She was so soft, plump and delicate against his hand, and so responsive to each light, exploring pass over her flesh. Her back arched, the breath seemingly punched from her lungs as he brushed his forefinger over her clit, and he watched her pupils expand with each gentle circle, each rub.
Her shaking thighs spread further, and her cheek was hot against his as he whispered in her ear, “Does that feel good, Poppy?”
“Yes.” When his finger sank inside her, her breath hitched. “God, yes.”
He drew back enough to watch her swallow and half-close her eyes when he fucked her with one finger, then two. And when he used that slickness to circle her clit again, only his hand in her hair kept that heavy-lidded gaze on his.
She was moving against him, grinding, panting, her face flushed.
“Cover my mouth. Your hand.” It was a desperate gasp, her brows drawn as if in pain. “Simon, I’m—”
As soon as he freed his hand from her hair and pressed it over her mouth, she moaned against his palm once, then again, and came hard.
Her legs quaked and her flesh pulsed against his fingertips, and he worked her until the very last spasm of pleasure eased, watching her face turn slack, her expression beatific. Sweaty wisps of hair clung to her temples, and her buns had entirely ceased to exist. She was gripping his bare shoulders—had she unbuttoned his shirt at some point, or had he?—so hard she might leave bruises.
At that moment, nothing else existed but her pleasure and his savage satisfaction at having given it to her. Nothing. Not the danger of what they’d just done, not the fierce throb of his cock.
When she was still, he lowered his hand from her mouth so he could kiss her hard, and she returned the embrace with equal heat.
Then, somehow, his pants were down around his thighs, and so were his boxer-briefs, and she was the one pressing him up against the shelves. Before he could muster a single coherent word, her strong, pale hand wrapped around his dick and stroked.
He made a strangled sound deep in his chest and jerked against her.
When her hand stilled in response, he almost wept.
“I’m sorry, Simon. I should have asked.” She touched his cheek. “May I?”
His only response was his hand atop hers, setting it back in motion as she grinned up at him. When she paused to slip her hand between her legs, then resumed gripping his cock with slick fingers, he thunked his head against the shelves hard enough to bruise.
Each squeeze of that capable hand raced up his spine like a line of fire. Lighter fluid set aflame, flaring with such immediate heat, he was surprised his hair wasn’t singed.
“Look,” she murmured, and he set his forehead to hers as she grasped his neck with her free hand. Together, they watched her pump his dick, his panting breaths and low groans gathering in the space between their mouths.
Helplessly, he was fucking her fingers now, the nape of his neck sweaty. She was squeezing there too, holding him steady, making him watch, tugging his hair until he was so overwhelmed by sensation he whimpered.
His hands were on her breasts, on that amazing, generous ass, roaming as if she might leave at any moment, as if he needed to touch all of her at once.
He was making too much noise, he knew it, but he couldn’t—he couldn’t—
With one final squeeze, one more ounce of pressure against the underside of his cockhead, one more lungful of turpentine and musk and sweat, he bucked his hips and buried his face in the damp crook of her neck and sank his teeth into her flesh and came with a muffled shout, jerking hard with every spasm.
She stroked him through it, her grip gentling, her murmur soothing.
When he could see again, when he could stand without her support, he registered what they’d just done. What he’d just done.
If anyone unlocked her classroom door, there was no mistaking the situation.
They were propped against the shelves along one wall. Her panties were still around her knees, and his pants and boxer-briefs rested just below his ass. His shirt was unbuttoned, gaping open, and it wasn’t only paint and glue staining her dress now.
If his expression resembled hers at all, they both looked pink and dazed and well-fucked. Her hair bore the marks of his hands. They smelled distinctly of sex. And the pink imprint of his teeth on her pale skin…
That, honestly, was the only thing he regretted.
“Did I hurt you?” He touched the mark carefully, mouth pinched tight. “I’m sorry.”
As always, her smile dazzled him. “I’m not.”
“Good.” He pressed his lips to that mark, then her temple, her cheek, her nose, her round chin. “After we clean up, may I come home with you?”
“Yes.” Her fingertips on his own cheek were tender. “Yes, Simon.”
When he kissed her again, her mouth sweet and soft beneath his, he found once more what he’d discovered the previous night. The certainty he’d been seeking. The solution to his final mystery. The answer to a problem that wasn’t really a problem—not when her heart ached for him the same way his ached for her.
In her presence, one plus one didn’t equal two. The two of them weren’t a sum, or a product, or even an exponent. Nothing that mundane. Nothing that obvious or simple or safe.
He wouldn’t have unraveled so quickly, so thoroughly, for obvious or simple or safe.
No, he and Poppy together made an entirely irrational number, expansive and infinite.
And for the first time, he was delighted there was no known end.
Epilogue
Poppy was doodling during a faculty meeting again.
Simon tried to focus on the suit-clad consultant droning at the front of the cafeteria, but how could he? Under the table, Poppy’s warm knee pressed against his, and he inhaled paint and sweat and grass with every breath, since she’d taken her students outdoors that day. Her buns hovered mere millimeters above her ears.
They both knew his instinctive response to that.
Even after eight months together, those drooping coils made him want to bury his fingers in her soft hair and drag her mouth up to his. He might not be able to explain the reaction, but it was a constant. A fact as reliable as the multiplication tables he’d memorized as a child.
Her doodling was detrimental to his concentration too. He kept glancing over to see what she was drawing, no matter how vigorously he scolded himself for his lapses in attention.
The clean white expanse of her notebook page now featured the bare outlines of…something. An animal. The creature perched with odd stiffness upon a board or slab, its eyes slightly crossed and its head tilted, as if—
Ah. As her distraction of choice, she was sketching the rodent on display in her den, that unmistakable and unfortunate victim of ill-considered taxidermy.
Simon’s first morning in her home, she’d introduced him to her lumpy, asymmetrical roommate with a formal little bow and swirl of her hand, as if the three of them were meeting at a royal ball of some sort.
“Simon Burnham, please meet Barry,” she’d said. “Barry, please meet Simon. I believe the two of you have a great deal in common. Namely, a tendency toward silence and stiffness.”
If she hadn’t been stroking a hand over Simon’s ass at that very moment, the gesture an unmistakable, loving caress, he might have been offended.
Instead, he’d snorted. “Why Barry?”
After one last squeeze of his backside, she’d retrieved her coffee from a side table and taken a sip. She appeared to be contemplating her answer.
Finally, her shoulder lifted in a desultory shrug. “He looks like a Barry.”
He’d had to smile at that, because—yes. The sentiment was precisely Poppy. And that misbegotten animal did sort of look like a Barry, if Simon squinted hard enough.
“What is Barry?” It had pained him to ask, but he needed to know. Was Barry a furry, hunched rat? A chipmunk who’d seen better centuries? A rodent creature of myth and legend, descended from a truly cursed gene pool? “For that matter, why is Barry?”
Because Simon didn’t mean to be rude, but he couldn’t imagine plonking a horrific specimen like Barry in his own living room.
Her brow had crinkled, but she was grinning at him, amused by his discomfiture. “Why is Barry? Is that an existential question, or are you confused about his presence in my home?”
“The latter.” Although he could definitely make an argument for both interpretations.
“To answer your first question, Barry is a squirrel,” she’d told him. “I bought him from a pawn shop around ten years ago, I think.”
Good to know. Part of the rodent family, as he’d expected. Maybe an inbred cousin of the squirrels he spotted scurrying across school sidewalks every day?
“As far as why I bought him in the first place…” She’d paused, her smile fading. “I mean, look at him.”
Together, they’d turned to contemplate Barry.
“No one else was ever, ever going to buy him. He was just going to sit there, collecting dust in the window, until the day someone tossed him in the trash.” Her lips pressed together. “And he seems…sad, doesn’t he? Lonely?”
Again. Precisely Poppy.
In response, he’d gently removed the coffee cup from her hand and placed it on a coaster. Then he’d gathered her in his arms and kissed away the blooming ache in his chest.
The first time he’d laid eyes on Barry, he’d known Poppy would have a reason for displaying the creature in her home. A good one.
She did. Of course she did. For all her love of murder and mayhem, her heart was as soft and warm as the enveloping, pillowy duvet on her bed. He also suspected she’d empathized with that lonely squirrel in the pawn shop window more than she might like to admit.
Hell, after that conversation, he’d empathized with the rodent too. To the point where he kind of didn’t mind Barry’s presence in his daily life, and maybe—when Poppy wasn’t around—muttered an occasional quick hello to the third member of their household.
Sometimes. No more than once per morning.
Poppy truly was capable of performing miracles.
She’d stolen his heart, when anyone would have told her he didn’t have one. She’d inspired him, a man who loved order and rules, a man who’d been alone virtually all his life, to move in with her after only three months together.
It was madness. Color and clutter and violent crime in miniature. Near-constant noise. Off-key singing in the sunshine of her work room as she carefully depicted blood splatter, while he sat with a book in his brand-new club chair, feet propped comfortably on an ottoman.
Then, inevitably, it was her arms around his shoulders, her breath in his ear, his fists in her hair, then his mouth between her legs. She didn’t complain about his silence then, and she certainly didn’t bemoan his stiffness once they’d tumbled onto her mattress.
It was warmth in the darkness and laughter in the light.
He’d never been happier in his life.
This dream he kept having, the one he’d had again last night—this vision he hadn’t been able to shake, not for a single minute all day—was abject foolishness, and he really should be paying attention to the speaker, but—
He nudged Poppy’s arm with his legal pad.
She glanced up from d
etailing the sparkle in Barry’s crossed eyes, her brow adorably puckered in concentration. Settling his thigh more firmly against hers, he wrote a note on his paper, beside the neat rectangular pyramid he’d doodled earlier.
Want to play Hangman?
As soon as she read the question, she huffed out a quiet laugh and flipped to a fresh page in her spiral-bound notebook.
Of course, Mr. Burnham, she jotted in her looping script.
He hesitated, then added, May I choose the phrase?
Normally, he’d let her go first, but…not this time.
She waved him on with a tiny, subtle gesture, and he carefully drew the gallows and blank spaces beneath, the spaces she’d try to fill by guessing letters, one by one.
Her first choice: an S. There were none of those in his phrase, so he needed to start sketching his stick-figure person. A head within the loop of rope.
According to the normal rules of the game, he supposed that person should be Poppy, perhaps indicated with buns on either side of her circle head. But even within the context of an innocent child’s game, he didn’t want to imagine her at risk.
He drew his own head instead. A circle with a squiggle of dark hair on top.
When she registered that choice, her eyes went soft, and her knee slid against his thigh so sweetly. With a single fingertip, she skimmed the back of his hand before dropping hers to her lap.
He was sweating now, his breath short, and for once, the reaction wasn’t due to lust. It wasn’t even due to the somewhat ghoulish sight of his stick-figure head within a noose.
It was nerves. Pure nerves and adoration.
More guesses followed. A. T. N. E. B. R. Slowly, the letters began filling in his chosen phrase, and his drawing sprouted arms and a torso. In a burst of uncharacteristic whimsy, he added buttons down that torso to indicate his usual shirts, even including a striped tie for the hell of it.
_ARR_ _E_
