Max stepped forward and bent to kiss me, starting with the corner of my mouth, humming at the contact and smiling.

“I’m following your rules, but it does mean I’m hard all the time. I deleted the video, but I’ll admit I regret it. You’ll let me take some more pictures tonight?”

It took so little from him to make me feel like I was no longer solid, but turning into a warm, honeyed ooze. “Yes.”

He gave me a smile that made me fear for a beat that I’d handed a slice of my soul to the devil. But then he kissed my jaw, whispering, “You know I’d never show anyone. I despise the idea of another man seeing you like this. When you leave me, the next poor bastard will need to figure out all on his own how to please you.”

“When I leave you?”

He shrugged, eyes wide and clear. “Or end this. However you choose to describe it.”

“I half wondered this Friday if you’d simply not text. If that’s how it would end.”

“I think that’d be pretty shite,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “If either of us wants to end things, let’s have the courtesy to say it, right?”

I nodded, surprisingly relieved. I suspected that even though I’d made the deal with myself to keep this about sex, if it ended I would still miss it—miss him. Not only was Max an amazing lover, he was also fun.

But he was a player, and took this just as seriously as I did . . . which is to say not at all.

“Now that that’s settled . . .” He turned me to face the stacks. Reaching around me, he opened the book, flipping to a specific passage, and then moved my hand to hold it open. With him pressed behind me and a shelf in front, I felt completely hidden, like I was buried in this hulking man. Or maybe sheltered.

“Read,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. “Start there.”

He indicated with his fingertip that I begin at a paragraph partway into a chapter. I didn’t know what was happening, who was narrating. But I understood it didn’t matter.

Wetting my lips, I read, “ ‘When he and Louise met, they immediately went off together. Antonio was powerfully fascinated by the whiteness of her skin, the abundance of her br**sts, her slender waist. . . . ’ ”

Max’s hands ran up beneath my dress, over my hips, across my stomach, up to where he cupped my br**sts.

“Fuck, you’re soft.”

One of his hands smoothed down my side and between my legs, teasing at my wetness.

It was work to focus on the plain English in front of me, but I kept reading. Max moved his hands away, clearing my head for only a beat, because behind me, I could feel him shifting, could hear the click of his belt as he unlatched it. I barely processed the words as I said them, instead listening to the sounds of him behind me.

Could I do this? This wasn’t a wild dance floor, with strobing lights and writhing bodies; this wasn’t an empty restaurant and his hand under the table. This was the most famous public library, full of rare volumes, marble flooring . . . literary history. Since entering the building we hadn’t even spoken at full volume. And we were going to have sex? It was one thing to imagine it, another to be standing here about to actually do it.

I was nervous.

Hell, I was terrified. But I was also buzzing, every neuron firing, my blood pumping wildly in my veins. My words faltered as I read.

“Focus, Sara.”

I blinked down at the book, struggling to push my attention to the words on the page.

“ ‘Everything made him laugh. He gave one the feeling that the whole world was now shut out and only this sensual feast existed, that there would be no tomorrow, no meetings with anyone else—that there was only this room, this afternoon, this bed.’ ”

“Read that again,” he growled and then lifted my skirt. “This room, this afternoon, this bed.”

Just as I was about to speak, and without any warning, he slid right inside me, so wet was I that he hadn’t even really had to tease, stroke, or pet me. He just had to give me a book, the briefest teasing touches, and the sounds of him undressing. I groaned, wishing he could find a way to push all of him entirely inside me. I was convinced that being ripped in two by him would be the best pleasure I’d ever known.

“Quiet,” he reminded me, moving back and then into me slowly. He was so hard, so long. I remembered the sharp sting when he’d taken me roughly on all fours last week in front of the mirrors. I remembered how I dreaded and welcomed every brutal thrust. When he caught my face in my orgasm on a hundred different mirrors, he’d completely come undone. More than anything, seeing him like that had been the climax of my night.