While she floated on a cloud of hormone-induced bliss, he took advantage of her inability to concentrate on much of anything and flipped her onto her back. Again, she almost flopped onto the floor, but he caught her and hauled her back beneath him. Without asking for her assistance, he found his place between her legs and drove himself inside her again.

  Of course. He hadn’t finished. And now when he began thrusting, her body responded as it had a few minutes ago and the night before and as it likely would every time they coupled. He gazed down at her the entire time, while his cock created the most divine chaos in her pussy. Again, each stroke against her inner walls produced a friction that made her wetter and wetter. Again, he probed so deeply she could almost believe he meant to split her in two. Her clit, still so sensitive from her last orgasm, came to life, promising another climax and another for as long as he could continue.

  “Not feeling quite so in charge now, are you?” he asked.

  “What is it with you and talking during sex?” she answered.

  “I’m on top now. Admit it.”

  “That’s just a position. One of many possible.”

  “Oh yeah?” He moved harder and faster, rattling the bed with the force of his movements. She should have found it intimidating, but the total possession freed her. She had no responsibility now. She could simply lie back and take what he offered.

  Or she could if her hips didn’t rise up to meet his thrusts, if her hands didn’t clutch at his shoulders, if she didn’t taste the skin at the base of his neck. She closed her muscles around his shaft again, just to feel him shudder as he brought them both to the very edge of reality.

  Just when it seemed that neither of them could take any more, he raised himself up on his fists to get a different angle of penetration. From this position, she could run her hands over his chest and watch his face. He wouldn’t be engaging in any more repartee for a while. The contortions of his face told the story of a man past his limit and well on the way to climax.

  The position also brought his pelvis into greater contact with her most sensitive spot. Her vision blurred and she arched into him as the pressure built inside her, but still, she couldn’t look away from him.

  When his moment arrived, he threw back his head and let out a roar of triumph. Then she was climaxing with him, singing out, as the contractions hit. They came together for long seconds, the tension rippling off them and in the end, leaving them drained.

  This time, he drifted down onto her, and she took his weight gladly. After all, having the air crushed out of your chest was little to have to pay after all that delicious sex. She even found the strength to stroke his back, making geometric patterns with her fingertips in the satin that was his skin.

  After what seemed like minutes but was probably no more than one, he groaned and flopped onto his side. His arm hugging her ribs, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “Nice.”

  “Very nice,” she corrected. Although the words hardly did justice to what they’d just shared.

  “I hope you learned a lesson from that.”

  “What lesson might that be?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “That when it comes to sex, the male eventually ends up in the driver’s seat.”

  “Actually, I learned a different lesson entirely.”

  He didn’t answer with words, but his arm tensed against her torso.

  “If you didn’t notice, Professor Hersch, I just had two orgasms to your one.”

  SHE WAS STILL in his bed when Nolan woke up in the morning. How they’d managed that without one or both of them ending up on the floor was a mystery. Well, maybe not a total mystery as she’d wrapped her arms and legs around him and he might have done a bit of wrapping himself. In any case, he unwrapped himself now. Carefully, so he didn’t wake her up. As delightful as the tangle of limbs felt and as easily as his cock could stiffen in anticipation of more play, he wasn’t prepared for a repeat of the brief conversation they’d had just before falling into a sated sleep. For that, he needed a few minutes to gather his thoughts, and he needed some coffee. Dark and strong and lots of it.

  As silently as he could manage, he removed his robe from the hook on the back of the door, shrugged into it, and left the room. As he tugged the door quietly behind him, he listened for any sound that she’d awakened. None greeted him, so he took a deep breath and lowered his shoulders to more or less where they belonged, and went to the kitchen.

  While the coffeepot gurgled away, he did his best to gather his thoughts in hopes of figuring out a way to deal with the situation. Graduate students slept with each other quite a bit, but then, they were young and unattached. Plus, the far-flung nature of what few jobs they could find when they finished made long-term relationships iffy. Once professors got to the level of tenure, they didn’t usually mess around with each other. It wasn’t so much because they were stodgy as because, by then, they’d usually settled down into happy marriages. He’d thought his had been happy, in any case.

  This . . . well . . . thing he’d gotten himself into with Gayle Richards gnarled his gut because she’d added a whole extra layer to the sex. She was using it to make a point. They’d fought for years about their theoretical work, and now she had this to hold over his head. By her own admission, she planned to sit in his lectures and give him the evil eye if he said something she didn’t approve of.

  For a moment, his mind could even picture her, sitting in the back while he delivered a paper. He’d have just finished with his conclusions, and the question-and-answer session would follow. During a lull in the discussion, she’d rise from her chair—wearing something loose that buttoned up to her chin and made her look like an old-lady schoolmarm—lift her finger, and point at him. Then in an authoritative voice that carried throughout the hall she’d declare, “But on the night of such-and-such a date in that cabin in the redwoods, I had two orgasms to your one.”

  He groaned and leaned against the counter. She wouldn’t do that, of course. No woman in her right mind would make a public declaration like that, no matter how angry he’d made her. He was going to think about it every time she was in his audience, though, and she knew it. She also knew that, no matter how arrogant a jerk he might appear to be, he’d never do anything to embarrass her.

  And on top of all that . . . the pièce de résistance, the check and checkmate . . . he had no way of backing out of her game. Anything he did to withdraw only proved that she was right and he couldn’t match her sexual demands. Even arguing that he might not want to match her sexual demands meant by definition that he wasn’t as all-consumed by lust as she was.

  The only way he could win outright would be if she suddenly decided she wasn’t interested in jumping his bones any longer. She hadn’t shown any inclination in that direction so far, and there wasn’t likely anything in the cupboard that he could put into her coffee to dampen her enthusiasm. So his only choices were to admit defeat or to try to keep up with her.

  After the last drops of coffee sizzled into the carafe, he opened an overhead cabinet and grabbed two mugs and the sugar. Great. His early-morning autopilot now included her. After setting what she’d need aside, he poured himself a cup and stood drinking it. Even the caffeine did nothing to help him figure a way out of this predicament.

  The predicament appeared at the door to his room. Completely naked and curved in all the right places, she raised her arms above her head and stretched. “Great night. I slept like a log.”

  That was a lie, and not only did he know it but she knew that he knew it. They’d fought all night for territory in that small bed. Still, he wouldn’t dignify the lie with a rebuttal, so he continued leaning against the counter and sipping his coffee.

  “You made coffee,” she said. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

  “Very funny.”

  She approached the coffeepot, even though he stood no more than a foot away. She seemed to take absolutely no notice of the fact that she wasn’t wearing any clothing, but his member noticed. In fact, it readied itself to stand up and take notice. She still carried the heat from the bed around her, combined with the scent of sex the two of them had created. Add the visuals—the slope of her breasts and the stiffness of her nipples—and she added up to the very image of a well-bedded woman.

  Right now, though, she paid more attention to the coffee than she did the man who’d put out so much energy to give her those orgasms. She poured a full mug and added an obscene amount of sugar to it. After searching in a drawer for a spoon—at least he hadn’t anticipated her every single need—she stirred and then took a sip.

  “Not bad,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  She turned, showing off her ass, and went into her room. Not so much as a kiss or a thanks for a job well done. She didn’t even pat him on the head as she surely would have a pet dog. He’d worked his butt off to give her pleasure, and this was his reward. Utter disregard.

  After a moment, she re-emerged, wearing her robe, and headed toward the bathroom.

  “What if I wanted a shower?” he called after her.

  She stopped. “Do you?”

  “Yeah, maybe. Eventually. I wouldn’t want the smell of me to drive you out of the cabin.”

  “That’s really sweet of you, Hersch. I’ll tuck that tender declaration right next to my heart.”

  Enough of this crap. He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at her. “I think we know each other well enough to use first names, don’t you?”

  She lifted one shoulder. She wouldn’t even spend the energy to give him a full shrug. “We’ve always known each other well enough. I prefer last names.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” he said. “It’s going to make for great pillow talk, don’t you think? ‘Spread your legs for me, Richards. I’m going to come, Richards. I love the way you eat my cock, Richards.’ “

  “Did you like that?” she said. “I enjoyed doing it.”

  “Of course I liked it. All men like oral sex. The subject isn’t fellatio. It’s how we talk to each other.”

  “You talk the way you want, and I’ll talk the way I want,” she said. “In the meantime, I need a shower, and my coffee is getting cold.”

  He waved a hand at her. “Go on, then.”

  “Want to join me?” She gave him a wicked grin. “We could save some water.”

  “Never mind.”

  “Okay, you stay out here and pout. I’ll just be a few minutes.” With that, she went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  Nolan stood staring at it for a moment. Pouting, was he? Perhaps. No one had gotten the upper hand on him since Annie had announced out of the blue that she couldn’t live with only half a husband and she was leaving him to find someone who loved her more than he loved his job. Well, he’d never married this one, and he hadn’t taken a vow to cherish her. He didn’t have to put up with any nonsense from her, and he wasn’t about to.

  So he took her invitation and followed her into the bathroom, but not to shower with her—to hell with saving water. He was going to have this out.

  Chapter Four

  THE BATHROOM DOOR was the only one inside the cabin with a lock, but Nolan soon discovered she hadn’t thrown it. Inviting him, or taunting him? Either way, he went to the toilet, put down the top, and sat on it.

  The room wasn’t much larger than some closets, barely holding the toilet, a tiny sink, and a bare-bones shower stall. Nothing separated him from a full view of Gayle except for a yellow plastic shower curtain with a daffodil pattern. She grabbed it as she stuck her head outside.

  “Change your mind?” she said.

  Her dark curls clung to her face and neck, dripping water over her shoulders. She wore no makeup, of course. Now that he thought back, he’d never seen her in makeup. She didn’t need it with her clear skin and large eyes. And her mouth: that certainly didn’t need enhancement. Her lips curved in the most delicious ways, especially the full lower one.

  Right now, her lips were pursed as she stared at him, rather the way one studied an experiment subject. But then, that’s what she considered him, wasn’t it?

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Really?” she said. “About what?”

  “About this game you’re playing.”

  “I’m not playing. I’m serious.” She ducked back into the shower and started humming something. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have any particular tune or rhythm. Maybe he’d finally discovered the one thing she wasn’t good at—singing. As the water splashed and she continued making toneless faux-music sounds, that yellow shower curtain kept fluttering as if offering him a bouquet of plastic daffodils. Occasionally, he’d catch the outline of an elbow or a hip. One serious misstep on her part, and he’d have a complete view of her. But then, maybe she’d intended it that way.

  “I’m not going to continue with your challenge,” he said. “I’m a man, not an animal, and I have some choice in the matter.”

  “Oh, really.” She stuck her head out again. “So your assertion that we ignore the primacy of our DNA at our peril no longer stands?”

  “I couldn’t have said anything like that.”

  “Hersch, Wilson, and Baumgarten, two thousand ten,” she countered.

  His research paper in the journal they all read. She was honestly going to stand there, naked in the shower, not six feet away from him and cite journal articles? “I didn’t mean that literally.”

  “So, in the conclusion of your latest book, you weren’t speaking literally when you said that society was organized on evolutionary principles, including different roles for men and women?” she said.

  Damn, he had said that, hadn’t he? It had sounded so good at the time, so profound. The book had received excellent reviews, although one or two “feminists” had objected to some of his conclusions, as if they took great pleasure in deliberately misunderstanding him. Professor Gayle Richards chief among them.

  “And then, there was that reception where you declared that we were all receptacles for genetic material and the main purpose of our existence is to perpetuate the species,” she said.

  “That was a joke, for heaven’s sake.”

  “A lot of people weren’t laughing,” she said. “A lot of people don’t like to think of themselves as receptacles.”

  “I enjoy goading people. It makes for stimulating discussion.”

  “Well now I’m goading you.” She whipped the shower curtain back into place, disappearing behind it—almost. “If you want to have any further discussion you’re going to have to come in here.”

  He ought to leave. He’d taken enough from her. She could think whatever she wanted about the challenge she’d set for him. She wouldn’t dare tell anyone what she’d done . . . er . . . make that what they’d done. His nightmare fantasies about her raised finger and her public accounting of orgasms aside, she couldn’t exactly proclaim to the world that she’d dared a colleague to keep up with her sexually and he’d refused. She’d make herself a laughingstock.

  That settled, he went to the door and even got as far as putting his hand on the knob when he realized his feet weren’t going to take him away. No matter how much she irritated him, she still had a body that could get his motor running. His engine had been idling ever since she’d appeared at the door to his bedroom and stretched her arms over her head, pointing her nipples right at him. His mind might be happy asserting his dignity and free choice. His libido had other ideas.

  In the end, he shrugged out of his robe, pulled aside the shower curtain, and joined her. She glanced over her shoulder to acknowledge his presence, and then tipped her head up in to the spray. She was holding the soap in her hands, working up a lather. After she put it back in its dish, she spread the bubbles over her breasts and massaged them into her skin. At the angle he was facing, he could only truly make out one breast, but that was more than enough to bring his cock to full attention. She continued, squeezing her flesh between her fingers and then tugging gently on the nipple until she’d made it into a hard, little point.

  “Do you always do that when you shower?” His voice faltered on the last word, and it came out almost like a croak.

  “I want to be clean.”

  “Then you’ll want to be clean everywhere, won’t you?” he asked.

  She bit her lip and nodded. The perfect coquette. Who would have guessed she had that in her repertoire?

  “Want me to take over?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  Still standing behind her, he retrieved the soap from its dish and worked it between his palms until he’d filled his hands with lather. Then he ran his hand over her shoulders and down her back. He’d never thought much about that part of a woman’s body being sexy, but Gayle Richards’s was. Supple and graceful, with a furrow down the center. He kept making bubbles and smoothing them into her skin, even massaging her muscles with the tips of his fingers.

  She sighed and stretched. “Let’s exchange back rubs sometime.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” When he got to her ass, he lathered his hands and then set the soap aside. He palmed her buttocks, savoring the curves. She was the perfect combination of firmness and softness. Sweetly rounded and only inches from his cock. When he pressed his swollen member against her, its ruddy color made a striking contrast with her pale skin.

  She’d admitted to goading him, and he could always use that as her permission, or at least as an excuse. So holding one buttock in each palm, he squeezed them around his member and pumped his hips. Slick from the soap and hot water, she felt like a hot pussy as he thrust. With each move, the head of his member appeared from between her cheeks—an erotic image in its own right.

  “Having fun back there?” she said.