I have no reason not to share this with him. “Reed was a mistake,” I answer, pulling back enough so that I can look him in the eyes and tell him all about my poor decision-making. “I’m not going to make excuses. He was an assistant professor when he started at the university, and we became friends.”
“Doctor Crowne,” he says in a teasing tone, knowing where I’m likely heading with this.
I shrug a shoulder and stifle my smile. I’m not proud of it, but I’m also human and need to remember that sometimes. I watch as his fingertips draw along the lines of my palm. “We had worked late, and he told me he had a crush on me, and I was...” I release a heavy breath, knowing how this is going to sound. I haven’t told anyone about what happened with him. My sisters knew I liked Reed back then, but I never mentioned what transpired. “It felt good to have someone interested and bold enough to say it. I was in my early thirties, having only ever been with one guy, and I was thinking maybe this is it. Maybe this is my love story, the one I didn’t let myself believe I was going to ever have.”
That feeling with Reed was so different than what I’m feeling with Julian now.
“Why did you think you wouldn’t have that?” he asks curiously, his eyebrows slightly pinched and his hand closing around mine.
“I was never the one who got the guy. My sisters smiled, and men fell all over themselves. My mother would call someone an asshole, and that asshole would be walking out of her room the next morning. But I’m just not built that way.”
He quirks an eyebrow. “Easy?”
When I give him a leveling look, he chuckles. “I just mean that most men see someone smart and complex, a beautiful woman who intimidates them, and they decide they’re not man enough to put in the effort.”
“Maybe.” I smile at the way he so easily made me see it as a them problem and not my own.
“I didn’t feel very good about what we did. I had a moral crisis thinking about how I was in a position of authority. And I mistook friendship and the attention of a guy as something I should act on. I wanted to take it back. But he said he was fine with being friends.” Pausing, I recall the days after. The semesterwas ending, and I didn’t see him again until he showed up in Nashville at the symposium...” I clear my throat. I don’t want to think about the dark stuff. I want to shove it back into its box and feel normal just for a little while longer.
The sound of propellers breaks the moment, pulling our attention to the airfield below. A small, double propeller plane moves forward down the landing strip, readying for takeoff. I always held my breath watching this part as I quietly cheered on its pilot as the distance between its wheels and the ground grew wider. This spot on the hill has two extremes—complete silence, as if the air is settled and waiting for the next plane, or it’s so loud that the ground vibrates and the sound of the propellers or turbines erase whatever you were thinking about.
I smile as the plane on the strip picks up speed and moves toward the blinking red lights that line the concrete. The sound grows louder and the breeze swirls up just as its wheels lift. My hair whips at my face, my heartrate skyrockets, and the rush of watching it take off has me leaning back and laughing, turning my body to look behind me as it sets off to wherever it's headed. The science of aerodynamics is fascinating, but watching it without the logic behind it feels like witnessing magic. I shake my head at the way that would sound if a scientist said that out loud.
When I push my hair away and steal a glance at Julian, he’s still watching me. I wonder if he’d been looking at me the whole time.
A smile or maybe curiosity plays out on his lips like he just heard what I was thinking. His gaze flicks down to my mouth again, making the smile I had and the question of whether he saw it or not, completely falter. It’s a fleeting moment between us, both knowing what we want and the spike of courage to give in to it.
“That might be one of my favorite things to watch,” I say with a shy smile.
His fingers glide along my neck and into my hair, when he says, “Mine too.”
I sway closer, unsure if he means the planes, or me. The warmth of his palm pulls me to his lips with measured urgency. As our mouths meet and lips taste, our tongues collide effortlessly. It’s carelessly wet and driven simply by the need for more of each other. Climbing into his lap, I pull my skirt higher so I can straddle my legs around his. Julian’s fingers move from my hair, down my back, helping my skirt higher so I can sit where he wants me. I loop my arms around his neck and tease my fingers into the hairline at the back of his head. His arms wrap around me so tightly that I rock forward.
A small breath escapes my lips as a groan rumbles from his chest. I want to feel it and hear that again. I roll my hips.
“Crowne,” he growls my last name, like he’s warning me.
I smile against his lips and nip at them in response.
“It’s too easy to get lost with you,” he says, moving his mouth to my neck, finding a spot just below my ear and dragging his teeth against it. It makes me shiver, pulling a needy and pleading moan from my throat, and my hips grind harder. I know exactly what he means.
He shifts his weight, holding me close as he lifts us up and changes our positions. My back meets the blanketed ground as he moves his body off to the side of me. He ignores the piece of his hair falling forward as he says, “I’ve been trying to remember the taste of you.” Nipping at my lips, he kisses me so passionately I feel fucking dizzy. My fingers delve into the hair at his nape as he leans forward and bites along my still-covered breast. He practically growls as he pulls away, shifting his weight back to kneel in front of me. With his eyes on mine,hair disheveled, his fingers toy with the hem of my skirt that’s already ridden up to my hips.
“Keep going,” I breathe out as my thighs rub together.
His gaze never leaves my face as he slowly shoves it higher up one side, then the other, repeating until it’s bunched up around my waist. The moment he catches a view of my panties, he licks his lips. His thumbs trace along the seam and then dip inward along the creases of my skin.
“That wet spot, right here...” he says, brushing his thumb over my clit. I whine at the sensation, which has a smirk tugging at his lips. “It makes me want to rip these right off of you. Clean up your pussy with my tongue and make a mess of it all over again.”
Holy shit.His words roll through me like a prequel to the orgasm I know he’ll deliver. “I should probably let you do that then,” I rush out, as if I’m out of breath.
Humming, he nods in a way that shouldn’t be so sexy, looping his thumb around the front of my panties and pushing them to the side. Shifting forward, he drags his tongue along my pussy's lips the same as I remember, with enough pressure that they part as he licks up my slit achingly slow until he reaches my clit, closing his mouth around it and sucking. The sounds he makes meet the whoosh of air that expels from my chest and out my mouth with a groan. His other thumb moves lower as his grip on the material tightens, and with a twist, he rips my underwear clean off.
Gasping, my hand reaches into his hair, gripping it with the same force that his tongue and lips work me. He pushes my left thigh up, holding me open as he teases me. I tilt my head to look at him between my legs. Pulling on his hair, I urge him to lift his face, wanting to see my arousal all over his mouth, and when he does, I’m met with his intense eyes and then a playfulsmile surrounded by glistening wet lips as he says, “Fucking delicious.”
He bites at my inner thigh, forcing a laugh to bubble out of me as I ease up on his hair. With a groan against me, he shoves my ass up higher, moving his head left and right as the flat of his tongue rubs exactly how I need. The pressure and warmth that keeps building along my body from the backs of my knees to the tips of my fingers is going to have me crashing, I know it. But still I want more.
“Tell me, Crowne. Go ahead, ask for it,” he says between breaths and licks. “You can demand my fingers,” he adds, just before his teeth graze my clit and then suck it between his lips. He moans at the way I grip his hair, my other hand moving between buttons and over the cups of my bra to play with my breast and nipple. I want to come so badly and to make it last all at the same time.
