Private Research: An Erotic Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

have educated conversations with him about something that so obviously was of interest. In fact, I’d done a bit of that when we’d first met, which was the only reason I had any idea what investment banks and hedge funds did, what quantitative analysis entailed.
    But no more. In another few minutes, I’d slink out of this bed and back into my clothes. As much as I’d enjoyed these last hours, I’d leave this night and Sebastian behind. I had no need to fill my brain with details that didn’t matter.
    What did matter? I reached out and rested a fingertip on his hip, stroked the hollow there, and then down, skimming the muscle, deliberating if I wanted another round. Good-bye sex.
    “You have time for the gym,” I teased, pointing out his lean physique.
    “There’s a twenty-four-hour room in the building,” he said with a slight laugh.
    It wasn’t much of a deliberation. Of course, I wanted sex again. My body now knew what it was like to have his inside it, to be stretched and fitted to him, to wrap legs around hips. I wanted more. I’d accepted this one night with him as a fitting punctuation mark, a comma between my old life and my new, and I had no doubt I should make the most of it.
    I closed my hand over the awakening length of his penis. I yearned to know the feel of him in my mouth, but not when he likely still tasted of sex and latex. He hardened under the movements of my hand and then shifted over me, parting my legs with his knees. His fingers eased open my flesh, searching for a readiness that was there. He paused for a new condom and then, no foreplay, no lingering touches, simply Sebastian inside me, moving, and me reveling in it.
    We didn’t talk or make a sound other than the heaviness of our breaths. I arched against him, searching for the friction that I craved. He stopped, pulled out, and rolled onto his back, bringing me with him.
    We still didn’t speak as I lowered myself on him, enjoying that sharp sensation anew from this different angle, and then his fingers were on me, touching me as we moved, manipulating me perfectly.
    I would never have imagined I’d be here, Sebastian inside me, after everything that had happened. I’d told myself I was done with sleeping around and trying to prove to myself that I was worldly and unafraid. But apparently this, this finale, was what I needed to set my life back on track. Except there would be no finale if I kept thinking.
    I focused on Sebastian instead, on the texture of his skin under my fingertips, on the smooth thrusting, the sounds of growing pleasure, the echo of that inside my body. He leaned up, mouth closing over one of my nipples, and I gasped. Electric. Sharp.

 
    Chapter Three
    D ARKNESS. W ARM TH OF covers and lingering dreams that I didn’t want to leave. But something niggled at me, a sense that I had to be awake, that I had things to do. I stretched my body in luxurious denial. And hit a leg. A warm, hairy . . .
    Sebastian.
    The previous night came back to me in a rush. I was wide-awake with no idea what time it was. With the window shades tightly drawn, I could only tell that there was a hint of light beyond, filtering through. Had I slept away one of my few precious days here in England? Disgust prompted me out of the bed despite the niggling desire to see if what had been so amazing at night, after several drinks, was equally powerful in the sober day.
    I searched in the dim light for my clothes. Found my jeans. I was fairly certain my sweater, tank, and bra would be in the living room. What I couldn’t find was my underwear. I needed more light. Instead, I stole from the room and went to the bathroom to put myself in some semblance of order.
    In the bright light of the bathroom, I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked . . . not just bed rumpled from the night, brown hair hopelessly tangled, but fucked. No, not just fucked . . . since I’d had more than my fair share of sexual encounters over the last two years, but