Page 237 - The Love Hypothesis

It took her breath away, all of it. The low, guttural tone of his voice, the

thick ridge under her fingers, the enraged, hungry note in his eyes. He
pushed her hand away almost immediately, but it already felt too late.
It wasn’t that Olive hadn’t . . . the kisses they’d exchanged, they were

always physical, but now it was as if something had been switched on. For
a long time she’d thought Adam handsome and attractive. She’d touched

him, sat on his lap, considered the vague possibility of being intimate with
him. She’d thought about him, about sex, about him and sex, but it had

always been abstract. Hazy and undefined. Like line art in black and white:
just the base for a drawing that was suddenly coloring on the inside.

It was clear now, in the damp ache pooling between her thighs, in his
eyes that were all pupil, how it would be between them. Heady and sweaty
and slick. Challenging. They would do things for each other, demand things

of each other. They would be incredibly close. And Olive—now that she
could see it, she really, really wanted it.

She stepped close, even closer. “Well, then.” Her voice was low, but she
knew he could hear her.

He shut his eyes tight. “This is not why I asked you to room with me.”
“I know.” Olive pushed a black strand of hair away from his forehead.

“It’s also not why I accepted.”
His lips were parted, and he was staring down at her hand, the one that
was almost wrapped around his erection a moment ago. “You said no sex.”

She had said that. She remembered thinking about her rules, listing them
in his office, and she remembered being certain that she would never, ever

be interested in seeing Adam Carlsen for longer than ten minutes a week. “I
also said it was going to be an on-campus thing. And we just went out for

dinner. So.” He might know what was best, but what he wanted was
different. She could almost see the debris of his control, feel it slowly erode.

“I don’t . . .” He straightened, infinitesimally. The line of his shoulders,
his jaw—he was so tense, still avoiding her eyes. “I don’t have anything.”
It was a little embarrassing, the amount of time it took for her to parse

the meaning of it. “Oh. It doesn’t matter. I’m on birth control. And clean.”
She bit into her lip. “But we could also do . . . other things.”