Beautiful Stranger

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, everyneuron 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.
    We were at the end of a darkened row, but I could hear the faint sounds of someone else a few stacks down. I bit my lip as Max slid his hand around my hip and between my legs, teasing my clit.
    “Keep reading.”
    I felt my eyes go wide. Was he serious? If I gave my throat permission to make any sound, I couldn’t be held responsible for what came out. “I can’t,” I squeaked.
    “Sure you can,” he said, as if he’d suggested I simply take a deep breath. His fingers swept across my clit again, teasing. “Or we can stop.”
    I threw him a dark look over my shoulder and ignored his silent laugh. I had no idea where I’d left off, or what was happening in the story other than Antonio ripping off Louise’s dress but leaving on some giant, heavy belt. I could barely find my breath, but I began reading again in a tight, stuttering cadence that seemed to make Max crazy. His fingers dug into my hips and he swelled inside me.
    “Please . . . ,” I begged.
    “Christ,” he gasped. “Keep going.”
    Somehow, I strung the words together, and the passage grew heated and wild. So descriptive. Her wetness was “honey.” The man sucked and tasted every single place on this woman’s body, probing into her and teasinguntil I started to feel heavy with her want and mine. To my horror, I could feel my own wetness going down my thighs, sliding between us with the force of his movement.
    Max shuddered behind me, losing both patience and rhythm. He seemed unable to move his hand from where it gripped my hip, and I suspected the other held his phone, taking pictures.
    “Sara. Fuck . Touch yourself.”
    I carefully pinned the book open with one forearm and reached between my legs, rubbing. I’d been so swollen, so heavy with the weight of my orgasm pressing down on me that I began to come within only a few seconds. The last of my words came out broken.
    “ ‘ . . . thought she . . . would go in-sane . . . with a hatred and a j-oy . . . ’ ”
    When my muscles stopped trembling, he thrust hard into me a few more times and then stilled, stifling his groan with his mouth pressed to my neck.
    The room was completely silent, and I realized I had no sense of how loud we’d actually been. I’d whispered every word I read, I knew. But when I came, had I made some other loud noise? I lost myself so completely with him.
    He pulled out of me, releasing a quiet grunt, and a