I fumble with my own jeans until I'm free. I can't wait.
I grip his hips, positioning him, and thrust up.
Sam cries out, a sharp, broken noise that I swallow with my mouth. He clamps down on me, tight and hot, and the sensation is so intense I see stars.
The chair groans ominously.
"You're brilliant," I tell him. "You're so fucking smart."
Sam whines, his eyes rolling back. "Devan..."
"Say it," I demand, hitting that spot inside him that makes his toes curl. "Tell me you know how smart you are."
"I know," he sobs, clutching my shirt. "Fuck—I know—!"
He comes with a muffled shout into my shoulder. I bury my face in his neck.
We stay like that, panting. The air conditioner hums. Sam goes limp against me.
"We are..." he wheezes, "going to get kicked out of school."
"Worth it," I say.
"All we have is a half-finished proposal and a bag of chips."
"And a breakthrough," I remind him, kissing his sweaty temple.
"And a breakthrough." He lifts his head, blinking at me. "That was... educational."
"Very," I say.
This room is going to smell like us for a week. Someone else's problem.
I look at the whiteboard.
It's a mess. But in the center, where we combined our ideas, it's clear. It's strong. It's better than anything I could have done alone.
I've spent my whole life thinking intelligence was a solo sport. That I was a fortress, and other people were just distractions. But looking at that board, seeing Sam's wild colors mixed with my rigid structures...
I don't want to beat him.
I don't want to win the internship if it means he loses. I want to workwithhim.
"We should finish the abstract," Sam says, pulling me from my thoughts. He's back in his seat, looking rumpled but focused. He pops a peanut butter cup into his mouth. "If we grind for another hour, we can sleep Sunday."
By 1 a.m., the proposal is done.
"We did it," Sam whispers, staring at the final PDF on the screen. "Holy shit, Devan. We actually did it."
"It's good," I say. "Really good."
"It is," a voice says from the doorway.
We both jump.
Professor Foster is standing in the doorway. He's wearing a tweed coat and holding a stack of papers.
Does he know? Can he smell it?
