Forced Proximity (Bluebell House Duet Book 1)
Forced Proximity: Chapter 28

The next week was shockingly normal, if I could consider the shift in dynamics with the guys normal by any standard. We ate together at lunch every day even though the tension was thick—not between us but from everyone else in the room. The guys’ respective friends were confused at best—irate in some cases—to discover the new arrangements, but Andrew smoothed it all out by blaming the dean.

And that was the weirdest part: I knew he was just blaming the dean, and that made me question the whole suspicious forced-proximity situation that saw the six of us living together in the first place.

Friday afternoon I made my way to the library to pull some research books for my Applied Economics assignment. For a change, none of the guys were shadowing me. I’d just had a class with Haze—which I had quietly been looking forward to—then he’d been called aside by his chemistry professor. Brodie and Connor were at home, according to Brodie’s texts, and Andrew…well, I didn’t give a flying fuck where Andrew was. Probably getting his dick sucked in the girl’s bathroom again.

Humming quietly along to the music in my earbuds, I gathered a selection of books and carried them upstairs to a dark, quiet corner, where a huge table sat blissfully vacant. Smiling to myself, I got set up with my laptop and the huge stack of books.

After an hour, the small of my back ached from the hard wooden chair, so I lifted myself up to stretch. I groaned at how tight it was and braced my hands on the bookshelves to get a better stretch. Would it kill the library to put a cushion on their chairs?

“Fancy meeting you here,” a familiar voice commented just moments before warm hands clasped my waist. “Sore back?”

I moaned, leaning back into Ethan’s touch. “Yes…those chairs aren’t ergonomic in the least.”

He shifted his grip until his strong thumbs rubbed my tight muscles and my eyes basically rolled back in my head. I wanted his hands somewhere else…

“Ethan,” I sighed as he grabbed the skirt of my dress, bunching it in his fist. I didn’t even waste time turning around, just craned my neck and met his mouth in a harsh clash of desperate need.

We’d been carefully keeping our distance at home for a bunch of reasons. Connor’s disdain was uncomfortably right up there as one of the biggest deterrents, even though I’d never admit it out loud. My conflicting feelings about Brodie—and a little bit Haze—had me too twisted up in guilt to spend every night in Ethan’s bed.

That didn’t mean I hadn’t been thinking about it, though. When his tongue met mine, I nearly combusted with pent-up desire.

“This is dangerous,” I murmured against his kisses, turning in his arms as he boxed me in with the bookshelves. “What if⁠—”

“Shhh,” he cut me off, a sexy grin playing over his lips. “So long as you’re quiet, no one will ever know.” More dizzying kisses, then he hiked up my skirt. “Can we be quiet, Lilith?”

Holy shit. Was he seriously proposing more than just a few sneaky kisses in the campus library? I nodded, not wanting to stop kissing long enough to give a verbal reply. Instead, I tilted my hips into his touch, quivering as he stroked my throbbing core through my thin panties.

“Thank fuck,” he uttered on an exhale. “I’ve been going out of my damn mind all week, watching Brodie’s hands on you during class…” In a quick motion, he tugged my panties clean off my ass and I stepped out of them as he cupped my pussy.

Anxiety about potentially getting caught tangled all up in arousal as I unbuttoned his jeans with shaking fingers and he found my clit. “Shit, Ethan…” I gasped at the intense sensations zapping through me from his touch.

“Shhh,” he chuckled. “You’re in a library, Lilith. You’re meant to be quiet.” Then he winked, and it was way too sexy for his own damn good, so in retaliation I wrapped my hand around his hard length and gave a squeeze.

A strangled moan escaped him and I grinned. “Shhh, Ethan, you’re in a library.”

His answering smile was everything. We both quieted one another by kissing again, and when he lifted me, I wrapped my legs around his waist without hesitation. It was a tight squeeze as his dick slid into me, pinning me to the shelves at my back, but he was kind enough to swallow my gasps and moans with more of those addictive, drugging kisses of his.

“Holy hell,” he whispered, breathless as he moved his kisses to my jaw. His hips rocked, thrusting that thick cock of his deep inside me. “Eve…Lilith…”

Teasing, I clamped my hand over his mouth, grinning cheekily despite the fact that I was about to orgasm faster than I’d ever managed during penetration alone. My head tipped back against the books, my eyelids fluttering as he fucked me harder.

Thank the damn stars this shelf was secured against a wall or the whole thing would have come down and caused a domino effect. As it was, we knocked countless books to the floor and cared nothing for potential damages as Ethan removed my hand from his mouth and pinned my wrists above my head.

“I so badly want to make you scream right now,” he confessed in a dark whisper. “But we can’t get caught, so be a good girl and bite your lip while you come, okay?”

I nodded frantically, already gasping and sweating as my pussy tightened around his length. He thrust hard another couple of times and then I broke. My vision darkened and my ears rang as fireworks exploded in my core, and I only remembered at the last moment to clamp my lips shut and not scream Ethan’s name in euphoria for all the library to hear.

He whispered a few choice curses, burying his face in the crook of my neck as his hips jerked. He came at the same time, filling me up and sealing us together with hips flush to mine.

“Fuck,” he breathed, lips against my earlobe as we both gasped for air. “If you can believe it, I didn’t actually come here to do that.”

I chuckled quietly, sweat dripping down my spine as he gently lowered me back to the floor. “No? Why not? It’s part of the reason I chose this corner to study in.”

Ethan took a step back, shooting me a sexy glance as he fixed his jeans. “I wondered.” He bent down to swipe my panties from where I’d kicked them, then knelt to help me step into them. It was obscenely intimate, him slowly drawing the lace up my legs and over my ass. Then the way he teased a finger over the crotch, where it was already growing wet with his cum…positively filthy. I nearly orgasmed again right then.

“You look…so fucking delicious right now, Lilith,” he murmured, reluctantly rising back to his feet and cupping my face in his hands. “Your lips are flushed and pink, your pupils are all blown out with arousal…I could get hard again just looking at you.”

“Don’t.” The snapped response didn’t come from me, and I jerked my gaze past Ethan to where Andrew stood with arms folded and an expression like ice. “Unless you want to get fired and kicked off campus grounds, in which case, by all means, don’t let me stop you.”

My jaw dropped. “How long have you been standing there, you creep? Did you watch us?”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed and his jaw ticked. “Fair’s fair, Evelyn.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a pervert!” I exclaimed, brushing my hands down the front of my dress to make sure I hadn’t slipped a tit out or something. My face was positively flaming as I hurried to gather up my laptop and study notes from the table.

“Takes one to know one,” he snarked back, utterly shameless. “Besides, you two were far from subtle. Anyone with half a brain could tell someone was fucking back here, you’re just lucky it was me and not some do-gooder willing to go screaming about Professor Sullivan taking advantage of a student.”

My hands shook as I stuffed my shit back into my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “Go to hell, Andrew. Stop threatening Ethan’s job.” I made to storm out, but he blocked my exit with his hand braced against the shelf.

“Or what?” he taunted. “I could get him fired like that.” He snapped his fingers in my face, making me jump. “And you couldn’t do a damn thing about it. In case you forgot, the NDA only extends to the house, not the library.”

Anger bubbled up in my chest and my eyes narrowed. It irritated the hell out of me that I needed to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, because he clearly thought that gave him some sort of intimidation advantage.

“Eve, ignore him,” Ethan said softly, his hand on the small of my back. “He’s full of shit.”

I wasn’t so sure, but short of threatening him right back—and I had nothing of substance to use—I could only resort to name-calling. “You’re just salty because Laura won’t let you rail her in the library,” I accused, refusing to let him have the last word. “Maybe if you weren’t so worried about creasing your pants, you’d actually get off more often.”

His eye twitched, and I suspected I’d hit a nerve. That was good enough, so I shoved past him and hurried out of the library before our little argument could turn into a whole scene. The moment I stepped out into the late-afternoon sun, guilt rippled through me at the mess I’d just left in the library. Books everywhere, all over the floor and table. Hopefully Ethan would pick them up?

I pulled out my phone to text him, just in case, and breathed a sigh of relief when he assured me he had it handled.

Connor and Brodie were on the sofa when I got home, battling it out on the Xbox with some first person shooter that immediately got ditched when I called out a quick hello. My plan had been to head straight up to the bathroom and rinse away the evidence of my little study session, but Brodie was quick to call me into the living room to chat.

“Uh, I just need to…um…get changed. Give me five minutes?” I evaded, taking a step closer to the stairs.

Brodie instantly vaulted over the back of the couch and closed in on me with a suspicious look on his handsome face, his eyes raking over me. “Where have you been, Evie babe? And with who?”

My eyes widened. Was it that obvious? “I was just studying at the library.”

His eyes rolled. “Ah. I see. Ethan.”

Crap. I guess it was that obvious. Before I could escape to shower, Brodie grabbed my wrist, hauling me back to him and kissing me so thoroughly my knees turned to jelly.

“Don’t forget our date tomorrow night, Evie babe. I wanna be the one that puts that look on your face.” He nipped my lip between his teeth, then released me with a wink.

What was I doing again? Oh right. Showering. Because of the cum slick in my panties, courtesy of my sexy professor. Right.