Page 21 of Home for the Holidays

“Was waiting for you,” I mumble, before burying my face in her neck.

She cards her hands through my hair, fucking herself on my cock. My cock jerks inside of her, desperate to go on.

“I’m a big girl, Jake,” she says. “I can handle it.”

Giving her another soft kiss, I find the angle I need. Fucking into her tight, wet heat, I take what she’s offering, take what I need.

Pleasure starts at the base of my spine, sending zaps of sensation through me. My entire body is alight with fiery pleasure. With a roar, I let myself finally let go.

And when I do? Fireworks.

My cock jerks deep inside of her, filling the condom separating us. I wish there was nothing between us.

Collapsing on the bed beside her, I blindly pull off the condom, tie it off, and deposit it on the nightstand. Reaching for her, I pull her into my arms and press my face into her hair.

“Okay,” Rachel says, exhaling heavily.

“Okay?” Is that a performance evaluation?

“We’re definitely doing that again,” she decides.

The teenager inside of me wants to pump his fists and do a happy dance.

Instead, I say, “Okay,” and pull her closer.

She might not know it, but I’ll do anything for her.

nine

. . .

Rachel

Jake is still asleep when I crawl out of his bed around two o’clock in the morning, and his door is closed when I get up and leave for work at eight.

I don’t know what to think. A lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours. Between moving, the hockey game, and an epic fuck-fest, I don’t quite know what to do with myself.

So I bury myself in work. It’s almost the end of term, so I’m finalizing the exams I’ll set for my undergrads and reviewing the work my grad students are doing in the lab.

When I decided to be a nuclear physicist, I knew I’d be tied to academia to fund my research, but I didn’t realize how much the balance tilted toward teaching rather than conducting my own research. I didn’t really think it through. The scales will hopefully tilt the other direction as I move up the academia ranks, but there’s no guarantee. I don’t know if I even want to try to tenure. Probably should have before I spent thirteen years and thousands of dollars pursuing a doctoral degree.

There’s a knock on my office door frame, and I look up to see Jake looking delicious in a Grizzlies hoodie, holding two coffee cups.

“Hey,” he says, a wide smile on his face.

“Hey. I didn’t realize you knew where I worked.” I keep my tone carefully neutral so I don’t burst into an enormous grin.

In all the years together, Erik never once visited me at work.

Not that Jake and I are together. He’s a friend. My new roommate. He’s not my long-term partner in a committed relationship where I thought we both wanted the same things and I’m being strung along for six years.

Guess I’m still bitter.

When this casual fun with the gorgeous hockey player with incredible stamina is over, I might need to spend some time alone before hopping into another relationship.

“You mentioned you taught at MIT. The nuclear physics department isn’t that big here,” he teases.

It’s the largest physics department in the country.