The Dare Collection October 2018. Nicola Marsh
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broad category, obviously, and my specialty is significantly narrower because I’m primarily concerned with—”
“I will take that as a yes.”
“—human sexuality in cultural contexts. I’m specifically intrigued by the particular intersection—”
“Professor. Control yourself.” And there was that curve in his mouth again, which meant that when she obeyed him it felt like some kind of caress. She didn’t understand that, either, but it made that humming thing inside her grow deeper. Louder. “I don’t want to debate your thesis. I’m sure it’s fascinating. What specifically intrigues me is that you live and breathe sex in your work, yet seem singularly disposed to take the joy out of it. Why is that?”
“I don’t think I do that at all.”
“I have known you for a few hours and already I understand that you think sex is in many ways a chore, that you think chemistry comes and goes and cannot be depended upon. You think men cannot control their penises and you have a great many strange ideas about what any man is capable of in the course of an evening. You seemed astounded that I made you come at all, much less over and over again.”
Margot felt as if she’d fallen, hard, knocking all the air out of her body. “I think you’ve read me wrong.”
He lifted his shoulder, then dropped it, and even as she struggled for breath, it was impossible not to notice how beautiful he was and, worse than that, how she could feel him in parts of her body that she’d never paid all that much attention to before.
“Who have you been sleeping with?” he asked in that same mild tone.
And ordinarily, of course, Margot would have been outraged at a question like that. A person’s sexual history was no one else’s business, unless she chose to share it of her own volition. But something about the way Thor had asked the question kept her from reacting like that.
His tone was so...cool. His gaze was clinical.
It was exactly what she should have wanted. She couldn’t understand why she didn’t like it much.
“I never pick men up in bars while drunk, if that’s what you mean,” she heard herself say. “Not that I’m suggesting that there’s anything wrong with that. I support sex positivity in all its forms. Everyone should be able to enjoy sex wherever they find it, in whatever way they like it, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone and assuming they’re able to voice their explicit consent.”
“Everyone should be able to do these things, yes. Of course. But you do not.”
She didn’t. She’d never really enjoyed sex that way, with the kind of cheerful merriment that she thought she should have, but Margot didn’t know why it made her uncomfortable to say so. Out loud, anyway.
To Thor, who had made her come over and over and over with what even she had to admit had seemed a lot like reckless abandon.
“I’ve had partners, Thor. I just met them under different circumstances.”
“How mysterious. Did you grow them in a lab somewhere?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. I spend most of my time on university campuses, after all. I’ve met most of the partners I’ve had through academics in one way or another.”
“I see. You are usually seized with a sudden passion while flipping through piles of research books, or some such thing.”
She frowned. “Not quite. I’m not sure I’ve ever been seized by passion, thank you. That sounds like something that ought to be checked out by a medical health professional.” Thor laughed, and Margot kept going. “I meet a man. We talk. We usually talk quite a lot, in fact. How else can you possibly know if you suit?”
Thor’s mouth curved. “You fuck them, Margot. You can talk until you’re blue in the face. You can tell each other all manner of stories. You can compliment each other on your smart ideas and funny jokes. But if you have no sexual chemistry, then all you can ever truly be is friends.”
“Not everything is about sex.”
“Perhaps not. But I think you’ll find that fucking usually is.”
“You’re obviously looking for a more physical sort of relationship than I am. I couldn’t possibly consider someone as a partner if I didn’t feel that we connected on an intellectual level, and I’d always choose a very good friend with an astonishing brain over a fuck or two.”
“Why must you make that choice?”
She smiled at him. “You and I are different people. We look for different things.”
“I can’t decide if that was sad or patronizing.”
“I’m not trying to insult you. You don’t have to understand the things I need. I’m a tenured professor. You—”
She stopped herself, but it was too late. His dark blond brows lifted.
“I own a sex hotel and can therefore be assumed to have no intellectual interests whatsoever. A great and glorious tenured professor such as you, of course, is such a towering mind that you could never find yourself enslaved by the demands of the flesh.” But he laughed. “Am I your intellectual equal, Professor? Because I suspect your body likes me just fine.”
“It doesn’t matter who likes what here. You’re not my partner.”
“Indeed I am not.” That sat there between them. Margot told herself it was absurd that her pulse should racket about like that while he regarded her, all narrowed blue gaze and that humming thing inside her. “But you still haven’t answered the question. Why do you study sex if you think it is little more than a physical expression of what sounds to an impartial observer like a series of very long, very boring conversations?”
“Some people are more captivated by the mind than the body.”
“You are not one of those people.” He shook his head when Margot scowled at him. “What fascinates me is why you think otherwise. Because you have a job that involves your mind? So do many others. Why do you seem to think that your body and your mind aren’t connected? You can’t have one without the other.”
Margot drew the wrap tighter around her. “I think you’re misunderstanding me.”
“Proving, yet again, that I am not your intellectual equal, yes? Or is it that no one can be your intellectual equal? That must be convenient.”
Margot’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I asked you to psychoanalyze me.”
“I’m merely offering up my humble observations. It is my contribution to science, nothing more. After all, this is an experiment, is it not?”
And now there was a kind of prickly thing deep inside Margot that she didn’t understand. She should have no interest at all in explaining herself to this man. She never had to see him again after the blizzard ended. In fact, she could demand that he give her that hotel key right now and let her go off to a room somewhere. She didn’t have to tolerate any of this.
And yet there was something in her that wanted—needed—to explain.
The worst part was the little voice whispering that the need came from the same place as the part of her that had loved kneeling down before him. The part of her that had drifted off into the kinds of fantasies she normally strictly forbade herself to have, because they were remnants of patriarchal harm that every woman carried around inside her. They weren’t real. She’d never allowed herself to believe they could possibly be real.
She should have forbidden herself this, too. And yet here she was, opening up her mouth.
“Sex is fascinating,” she told him as if her life depended on it. As if she was on trial. “Why wouldn’t I want to study it? You’ve built your life around sex, too, as far as I can tell.”
“I built my life around pleasure.