Free Brutally Beautiful by Lynne Connolly

she didn’t. Hadn’t thought of it, concentrated on keeping lookout.
    “Did you enjoy that?” he murmured against her ear.
    “Yes.”
    He lowered her skirt. Her panty hose must be a mess. Now his smile was caring, all soft. “Okay?”
    “Yes, I think so.” She glanced around wildly. “Where’s the condom?” she whispered. For answer, he opened his hand and showed her a scrunched handful of tissues.
    “I’ll dump it in the bathroom,” he said. “Did you think I’d use it as a bookmark?”
    The reminder of where they were made her look around wildly. But nobody had arrived; nobody had seen them. “Do you do this often?”
    “First time.” He moved away, giving her space to clean herself up as best she could. She took off her shoes long enough to dispose of her wrecked panty hose and then put them on again. She had a spare pair of pantyhose in her desk drawer at work, although she’d never have guessed she’d have to use them in circumstances like this.
    Her mind dotted between practicalities and the reality of what they’d just done. Fucked in the stacks. Shit, they’d actually done it. And she’d come. Wildly, gripping him until he’d come too. He seemed the same. The look he affected for work didn’t seem much different with a few extra creases. He held out his hand, and she went to him. “Have you had lunch?” he said, as if they’d merely been discussing the poetry of—who was it? Tennyson. She nodded dumbly. She hadn’t, but she wanted time to think, time on her own.
    Shit, she’d done it with a poetry professor in the library. Well, a near professor.
    That still boggled her mind most of all. The poetry bit.

Chapter Six
    While he found it hard to resist Gen, Nick had other reasons for fucking her brains out: to stop her thinking and to find out if she enjoyed what he did. It had been insane, what they’d just done. He wasn’t kidding when he’d told her anyone could have come and seen them. If anyone had realized what they’d been doing, he’d only have had his ability to fast-talk to get out of the situation. If he lost his job, he’d lose his application for citizenship, because the promise of the professorship and his work here kept him legitimately in this country. Well, almost legitimately. Nobody had noticed that he hadn’t obtained his documents and passport through the usual channels.
    One thing nagged him, something he needed to work out. How had she known to find him here? Had Odell said something? No, that man was so discreet even Nick didn’t know everything about him. It wasn’t him. Nick couldn’t remember saying anything about where he worked either. She’d said she was studying for a degree. Was it here? Coincidence? Over the years Nick had become skeptical of coincidences, but it wasn’t out of the ballpark. A lot of students lived in and around Brooklyn, and she could be one of them. Her little apartment certainly suggested a lack of funds, but it was furnished well, and the clothes she wore weren’t cheap or the kind students went for. A skirt suit suggested a job. Full-time or one of the part-time fillers students took to pay their way? Still, it was a good suit, the creases he’d put in the fabric dropping out already. Nick had an eye for quality. He’d needed it, once upon a time.
    He was looking at it now, and he didn’t mean her clothes. His instincts told him if he explored further, he’d find her honest, but he couldn’t afford to let everything rest on his instincts. He hadn’t survived for the last five years without examining everyone who tried to get close to him or had power in his life. It had hurt to let other people control his fate—and he’d had more of that recently than ever before. His lecturers when he’d first come over here had done it, then the people he did menial jobs for, flying under the radar while he established his credentials, then the head of his department. So often he’d been offered opportunities to slip back to