Chapter 6: Library Tryst
The silence of his room the next morning was a solid thing. Jaxon lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, Maya’s warmth a fading imprint on the sheets beside him. She’d slipped out before dawn, a ghost in the gloom. The memory of her phone glowing with those threats was a cold knot in his stomach, right beside the hotter, more possessive memory of how she’d felt coming apart in his arms.
His own phone buzzed on the nightstand. A campus-wide email about midterms. A text from the Head Resident about a plumbing issue on the third floor. The mundane world was reasserting itself, demanding he step back into his uniform: Jaxon Cole, Responsible RA.
He showered, the water scalding his skin. He dressed in clean jeans and a grey sweatshirt. He looked at himself in the mirror. The face that looked back was familiar—the clear eyes, the easy-going set of the jaw. It felt like a mask. Underneath, the currents were darker, choppier. Leo Garza. The name was a lit fuse.
He spent the morning doing rounds, fixing a clogged sink, smiling at residents. His mind was elsewhere, running maps. He knew the security camera blind spots in Emerson Hall. He knew the schedules of the campus security patrols. He knew how to find people who didn’t want to be found. The rebellious streak he’d kept chained for years was testing its locks, finding them frail.
He found her in the library that afternoon. It was a calculated guess. She’d mentioned a poli-sci paper. The Stacks were her preferred haunt—quiet, labyrinthine, easy to disappear.
The air was different here. Still and dense, thick with the smell of decaying paper and dust. A single flickering fluorescent tube buzzed over aisle 7B, History & Political Theory. He turned the corner and there she was, tucked into a carrel at the dead end, a fortress of books around her. She didn’t look up as he approached. She was pretending to read, her highlighter poised, but her eyes weren’t moving.
He didn’t speak. He pulled out the chair opposite her and sat. The carrel was a tight space. His knee brushed hers under the small table. She flinched, then stilled.
For a long minute, they just looked at each other over the pile of books. Her amber eyes were shadowed, the confidence he was used to seeing there was brittle, a thin veneer. He saw the faint, purpling mark on her wrist where his belt had been. A possessive thrill, dark and unwelcome, shot through him.
“You’re not studying,” he said, his voice low, barely a whisper in the sacred quiet.
“Neither are you.” Her voice matched his, a husky challenge.
He held her gaze. Then, slowly, he slid his hand under the table. His fingertips found the soft inside of her knee, then traced a path up her thigh, under the hem of her loose sweatshirt, over the fabric of her leggings. She didn’t stop him. She let out a shaky breath and parted her legs, just an inch. An invitation.
His hand cupped her heat through the thin material. She was already warm. He pressed the heel of his hand against her, applying a firm, circular pressure. Her eyelids fluttered. She bit her bottom lip, a sharp, white pinch of flesh.
“People can see,” she whispered, but her hips tilted infinitesimally into his touch.
“No one’s here.” His fingers found the waistband of her leggings, slipped underneath. She wasn’t wearing anything else. His fingertips met wet, silken skin. “Fuck, Maya.”
She didn’t answer. Her head dropped forward, her curls obscuring her face. Her hand shot out under the table, gripping his wrist, not to push him away, but to hold him there, to press his fingers harder against her. He obliged, parting her folds, finding her clit already swollen and eager. He rubbed it in tight, slick circles. Her breathing hitched, became audible. A soft, choked gasp escaped her.
He stood up abruptly. The chair legs screeched on the linoleum. The sound was a gunshot in the silence. He grabbed her hand, pulling her up. Her books were forgotten. He led her, wordless, deeper into the stacks, away from the open study area, into the narrow, twisting aisles where the books were older, covered in a finer layer of dust.
The air was cooler here, the light dimmer. The aisle curved, creating a hidden alcove where the shelves met the outer wall. He pushed her back against the cold metal, the bound spines of forgotten diplomatic histories digging into her shoulder blades. His mouth came down on hers, a hard, claiming kiss that tasted of coffee and desperation. She kissed him back fiercely, her hands fisting in his sweatshirt.
He broke the kiss, breathing heavily. “Turn around.”
She obeyed, turning to face the shelves, her palms flat against the metal. He moved behind her, his body crowding hers. With rough, urgent hands, he yanked her leggings and underwear down to mid-thigh, exposing the pale, perfect curves of her ass. The cool air made her shiver. He unbuttoned his jeans, freeing his cock, already hard and throbbing. He spat into his palm, twice, slicking himself with a crude, wet sound that was obscene in the library quiet.
He positioned the head of his cock at her entrance. She was dripping wet, her slickness making the push easy. He didn’t tease. He shoved into her with one deep, solid thrust, burying himself to the hilt in her tight, clutching heat.
A ragged moan tore from her throat, too loud. He clamped his hand over her mouth, his fingers pressing into her cheeks. “Quiet,” he hissed into her ear, his own voice strained.
He began to move. Slow, at first. Deep, grinding strokes that pushed her against the shelves with each inward drive. The metal framework groaned in protest, a low, rhythmic complaint that synced with their movement. The sound of their bodies meeting, the wet, filthy slap of his flesh against hers, was amplified in the tight, tomblike space. He fucked her with a focused, relentless intensity, each thrust a silent scream against the world, against Leo, against the rules that plastered his name on every door.
His hand stayed locked over her mouth, feeling the vibrations of her muffled cries. Her cunt was a slick, tight fist around him, pulsing with each drive. He could feel her orgasm building, a gathering storm of tension in her thighs, in the clench of her internal muscles.
“You gonna come?” he gritted out, his breath hot on her neck. “Come on this cock. I want to feel it.”
She nodded frantically against his palm, a frantic, jerky motion. Her body began to convulse, a series of sharp, uncontrollable shudders that squeezed his cock with breathtaking force. Her silent scream vibrated through his hand. He watched, mesmerized, as the muscles in her bare ass tightened and quivered with the force of her release.
It was too much. The sight, the feel, the raw, illicit setting. His control shattered. He fucked into her through her climax, his strokes becoming shorter, harder, brutal. A wave of pure, blinding pleasure tore up his spine. He yanked his hand from her mouth and bit down hard on the meat of his own forearm to stifle his roar as he came, pumping his release deep inside her in hot, pulsing jets.
He collapsed against her, his forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, his cock still lodged inside her, twitching with the last aftershocks. Their breathing was the only sound, loud and ragged in the dusty silence. The smell of sex and sweat and old paper filled the alcove.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. He gently pulled her leggings back up. She turned, leaning back against the shelves, her face flushed, her lips swollen. She looked wrecked. Beautiful.
He tucked himself away, fastened his jeans. They stood there for a moment, not speaking, the enormity of what they’d just done settling around them.
“He texted again this morning,” she said quietly, not meeting his eyes. “A photo. Of me. Walking to class.”
The cold knot in Jaxon’s stomach turned to ice. “Show me.”
She handed him her phone. The photo was taken from across the quad. It showed her, backpack slung over one shoulder, hair a dark cloud. It was recent. Today. The message below it read: Pretty. Remember who you belong to.
Jaxon’s vision tunneled. The careful, responsible part of him was screaming about protocols, campus police, documentation. The other part, the part that had just taken her against a library shelf, saw only red.
He handed the phone back. “Does he live on campus?”
She shook her head. “Off-campus house. On Derby Street. I… I have the address.”
He nodded, his mind already working, plotting. Derby Street. He knew it. A street of rundown rentals, mostly students. “Give it to me.”
“Jaxon, what are you going to do?”
He looked at her then, and the mask was completely gone. What she saw in his face made her breath catch. It wasn’t the friendly RA. It wasn’t even the fierce lover. It was something older, simpler, and utterly ruthless.
“I’m going to explain the new rules,” he said, his voice lethally soft. He leaned in, kissed her once, hard. “Go back to your room. Lock the door. Don’t answer for anyone but me.”
“Jaxon—”
“Go.” It wasn’t a request.
She went, gathering her things from the carrel with trembling hands, casting one last, wide-eyed look at him before disappearing around the corner of the stacks.
Jaxon waited until the sound of her footsteps faded. He pulled out his own phone, brought up a campus map, then a less official app—a group chat from his swim team days, used for sharing parties and, occasionally, other things. He typed a quick message.
Need a favor. Non-official. Derby Street. Tonight.
The replies started pinging in almost immediately.