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He always liked a woman that can dominate him.
That’s not a joke either. Honestly, the amount of people in his alma mater that can vouch for him sneaking off to random BDSM clubs as soon as he turned 21 could probably span the list of his arm. Not that any of those people really remember him given that after college and that whole incident with his doctorate, he kind of went quiet.
However, that college boy should never really left Ryland Grace and safe to say, despite becoming a teacher, that boy was still around, sometimes. Sure, he wasn’t clubbing every night like his brother probably does, but now and then, he retreated to the dark corners of the world to find some sort of… salvation.
When Eva Stratt walks into his classroom and practically forces him to come on Project Hail Mary, at first, he’s hesitant. His ego was still bruised from that time despite the cocky asshole that he was. Why did she even need him? Clearly she could find other scientists who are more willing to kill themselves over a stupid fucking space cell given she said so herself that Ryland was replaceable.
However, she seemed to push him, to hold onto him like a bird of prey with its talons stuck in his flesh. So he did what he used to do to women like that, women that wanted to control him, wanted to make sure that he knew who was the real person in charge.
He let her do whatever she wanted.
It seems she wasn’t expecting that; Ryland could read her like a book, the way her eyebrows arched when he followed her without complaining or pushing back, knowing her gaze when he would explain something to one of the astronauts or another scientist - making sure that he was saying one thing, but his body language was saying another, as he was sure that she could read him like she read others.
It was kind of entertaining watching her bluster after the first few times. Like water circling a drain, around and around each other they went.
Finally, however, the hole was plugged by Ryland himself.
Stratt had come into his lab, wet from the rain, make-up still perfect and her normal brash self, but Ryland could see how much she kept lingering on him as he explained the breakthrough of the day along with his other scientist before everyone decided to go to lunch, leaving Ryland and Eva alone, mist condensing on the plastic windows that have been erected by NASA’s crew of people.
(He should’ve really said they were Stratt’s people looking back on it, but ce la vie and all that.)
It was all too easy to get her to look into the microscope that held his slides of the astrophage he was currently butchering for research before he slid in behind her, hands already roaming up her skirt.
The squeak she made was lovely, but the whimper afterwards when Ryland pinned her hands to the lab table was even better. Ghosting his breath down her back so she knew exactly where he was going, he quietly used his teeth to pull the zipper of her skirt down before going back and getting the elastic of her underwear, rutting against her leg as he did so.
Should he be worried that this is pretty much public and everyone can see this? Maybe. It seemed however that Eva wasn’t worried about it, given she was grinding back on his thigh while he kept her pin down as he freed his cock from his pants and slipped it on in there with one stroke.
(Old trick he learned from Colt growing up; asshole was probably doing the same thing right now in LA. The idea almost made him throw up in his own mouth.)
He quickly clamped his hand over Eva’s mouth, then thought better of it and let it go to drag his fingers back down her forearm. Eva could handle herself, that he was sure of. He just simply focused on being non-verbal presence at her back, burying his face and mouth into the strands of her hair and smelling her shampoo as he thrusted slowly up into her, hips dragging because of the angle and drawing out every single small noise he could get from her.
(Of course, she was still a professional, even during public fucking sex. He wondered what other places he could get her in; her office, the meeting room, in one of those jets that he flew into this place on- the possibilities were endless, even though they’re trying to save the world at this current moment.)
Eventually, it’s over too soon. Eva’s walls clench around him and he sags his head down into her shoulder as she comes apart, getting in a few more thrusts before he too follows, taking a moment to bask before he pulls out and put himself back into his clothes, smirking as Eva’s dazed gaze finds him. “Don’t you have a meeting to go to Doctor Stratt?”
She doesn’t answer him. He doesn’t expect her to. He simply guides his hands to her hips to pull up her underwear and zip up her skirt, before tucking her jacket over her belt that somehow hasn’t undone itself despite their actions before he turns his back and walks out the door with a flippant. “Have a good evening, Eva.”
The use of her real name seems to spark her into awareness and he’s not surprised when she briskly and quietly walks past him while he goes to the lunchroom.
(Is he surprised that after their talk and her singing at the bar that she asks him to come to his office and he doesn’t leave until morning with a sore jaw and tired eyes? No.
Is he surprised when she betrays him? Well, you know the answer to that.)