My Future Self Called to Save My Ruined Life novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Demo Day

His mouth tasted like burnt lab coffee.

I didn't care.

I got a fist in the front of his flannel shirt and held on.

His other hand slid into my hair.

He walked me back one step, then another, until the edge of my desk hit the backs of my thighs.

I'd spent three years kissing a man who kept one eye on his phone.

Nolan kissed me.

His thumb ran along my jaw, and my knees went soft before I'd decided anything.

I pulled him down by the flannel and opened my mouth under his.

His hand found the small of my back, under the hem of my shirt, warm and flat on my bare skin.

I gasped into his mouth.

He stopped an inch away.

"That noise," he said.

"Was a good noise, Nolan. Make me do it again."

He laughed, shaky, and dropped his forehead against mine.

"I've wanted to do that since you rebuilt your thesis," he said.

"You told me I couldn't write a loop."

"I said I'd see." He was breathing hard. "I saw."

"And?"

"And I've sat twelve feet from you for five months pretending to read logs."

"I noticed you never scrolled."

"You noticed."

"I notice everything about you. It's very inconvenient."

He kissed me again, harder, and lifted me onto the edge of the desk.

I hooked my legs around the backs of his knees and pulled him in until there was no room left between us.

He groaned my name against my neck, and I felt it all the way down.

Somewhere down the hall, the elevator dinged.

We both jumped.

It was only the night guard, doing his rounds with a flashlight.

He looked at me sitting on my desk and Nolan standing between my knees.

"Evening," he said, and kept walking.

Nolan laughed into my hair.

He walked me home across the quad at midnight.

At the door of Pell Hall he kissed me again, slower, under the light.

I backed him against the brick and kissed him until he had to grab the door handle.

"Come up," I said against his mouth.

He closed his eyes.

"Not tonight."

"That didn't look like a no on your face."

"It isn't a no." His thumb moved along my bottom lip. "An hour ago you put your whole inheritance on one button. Your hands were shaking."

"They're shaking now for a different reason."

"That's what I mean."

He held my face in both hands.

"When I come up those stairs, I want it to be because you want me. Not because tonight was huge and I happened to be standing there."

"I'm not going to be one more thing you said yes to on a strange night."

"Friday," I said.

"What about Friday?"

"I'll have slept. I'll have checked the fund. And I'll still want you up those stairs."

The breath went out of him in a laugh.

"Ask me again Friday," he said.

He didn't come up that night.

I lay in my narrow bed and didn't sleep until three.

On Friday he walked me home again, and I didn't ask on the step.

I took his hand and pulled him through the door.

My key missed the lock twice.

The key went in.

I closed my door behind us.

I got a fist in the front of his flannel, the way I had in the lab, and pulled him in.

He took his glasses off and set them on my desk.

"Ask me," he said.

"I'm asking. Stay."

"Yes."

I pushed the flannel off his shoulders.

It hit the floor behind him.

He let me.

I pulled the faded T-shirt up and off and dropped it on top of the flannel.

Then I stopped and looked at him.

Nolan Sayer, who ran the lab like a man holding a door shut against a flood, stood in my small room with his chest bare and his hands at his sides, waiting for me.

"You're mine tonight," I said.

"I said yes."

"I'm claiming it."

"You don't have to claim it. You asked. I stayed."

"Fair."

I put both hands on his shoulders.

I pushed.

He stepped back once, twice, until the back of his knees found my narrow bed.

He sat down hard, gray eyes up on mine, and I climbed over him.

My knees bracketed his thighs.

I took his face in both hands and kissed him, and this time I set the pace.

Slow.

Deep.

His hands came up to my hips and stayed there, not pulling, not directing, just holding on.

I ground down once, and the sound he made was low and rough.

"You've thought about this," I said against his mouth.

"Every night since the lab."

"Show me."

His fingers found the button of my jeans and flicked it open.

He dragged the zipper down.

I lifted up enough to work them off, and he watched me do it.

I pulled my shirt over my head.

I wasn't wearing anything under it.

"Jesus, Lindsay."

"You said you'd see."

"I'm seeing."

I pushed him down onto his back.

He went.

I unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his jeans, pulled them off with his boxers in one motion.

His cock was hard, flushed, and the sight of it made my cunt clench.

I climbed back over him and took him in my hand.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth.

His hips jerked up.

"I've been hard since you pulled me through the door," he said.

"I felt it."

"I know you did."

I stroked him slowly, watching his stomach tighten, watching his hands fist in my sheets.

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