It shatters something inside me. Not because she’s giving me permission, but because she’s asked for nothing else.
Her breath hitches, shallow and rapid, the rhythm of it skipping across my lips. I drag my mouth across the mark I’ve left, tongue gliding over flushed skin as I taste what I’ve done. I feel her body respond in small, more potent ways: a stuttered exhale, a tremble that starts in her spine and ripples outward.
She tilts her head, quietly surrendering the only part of herself she can bear to give.
I keep one hand at her waist, the other splayed across the back of her neck, steadying us both. I need her tofeelthis—not just the heat of my mouth or the pressure of my grip—but the intention behind it. I need her to feelwanted,yes, but more than that—kept.
If she won’t offer herself, then let her at least feel the weight of my want.
Let her carry the proof of it in the places no one else will ever see.
I’m about to take her in the way that only I can?—
Her phone vibrates on the table. The sound is an insistent, crude intrusion.
She rises so abruptly her chair jerks back. One of its legs catches on the rug and nearly topples, but she stops it just in time.
I reach out to steady her, but she’s already closing in on herself, muttering a breathless, “I’ll be right back,” before she disappears between the stacks, phone pressed tight to her chest like it’s a detonator.
She’s gone before I can even stand. All I can do is sit there, pulse hammering, while the cold rushes in to fill the space she’s left behind.
What am I supposed to do with this?
The imprint of her warmth is fast-fading from my skin, her perfume still suspended in the air—there, but just out of reach.
I lean back in my chair, but it feels too small, too flimsy for the weight in my chest. My bones feel too big for my body?as if I’m swelling with something I can’t contain. Something I’ve tried to control out of love, patience, and loyalty. Something I’ve swallowed every time she’s walked away instead of letting me in.
I know I’m reaching my limit. Whatever line I drew for myself—it’s blurring and being replaced by something far less rational.
I won’t let her keep doing this. Not to herself. Not tous.
When she returns, I feel her before I see her. The energy around her has shifted, tightened. Her shoulders are set, her eyes red-rimmed, lashes damp. I watch her as she walks back to the table—how she slows before she sits, reassembling herself piece by trembling piece. She’s so damn good at hiding. But I know her too well. I see every fissure she tries to plaster over.
She sinks back into the chair, her phone still in her hand, and I watch as she tucks the weight of that conversation somewhere behind her eyes. Then she turns to me with a watery smile so practiced it slices straight through me.
“I’m sorry for the interruption, my love?—”
“You’re coming away with me next week for spring break,” I cut in, my voice harsher than I mean it to be. “End of discussion.”
Her smile vanishes. Her brows knit, the cracks breaking through the surface again.
“Please, not this again, Nathaniel?—”
“No.” My hand curls around the edge of the table to keep from reaching for her. “If you won’t let me fix whatever’s going on, then at least let me shield you from it. Just for a little while. We’ll go wherever you want. Somewhere they can’t reach you.”
She goes very still.
Then she closes her laptop with the careful precision of someone trying not to shatter.
“I can’t talk about this right now,” she says, eyes fixed on some distant point beyond me.
Frustration rises—quick, hot, and mean—but I bite down on it. I’ve spent years mastering control over my emotions. Even when I wanted to ruin things just to feel something. But loving her has undone that composure thread by thread. I can’t think straight when she’s like this.
I don’t want to.
“You say that every time,” I say, my tone gentler now, but no less strained. “And every time, you put another wall between us.”
Her hands tremble in her lap. When she speaks, her voice cracks like a fracture under pressure. “Nathaniel, please stop. My mind is all over the place?—”
