“Riiight.” I scoff, leading the way back to my dorm. “Alright well, since we didn’t get to train this morning, raincheck for tomorrow?”
He nods. “You still want to meet up for lunch? And the library after?”
I grin up at him, something in my stomach fluttering with the anticipation of seeing him again. Of maybe… seeing what might have happened, if Samhain hadn’t gone the way it did. Even if I’m just imagining things could be more between us, the last three months of getting to know him, spending time with him—and even his dragon, today not withstanding—have made this place, this world, bearable. I don’t know what I’d do without him.
“Sounds good. Text me later?” I ask as we reach my door, but I don’t move to open it and he doesn’t move to leave.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. He’s close enough I can feel the heat radiating off his bare skin, and the scent of ozone and ash grows thick in the air. When he looks down at me, I don’t see his scars, I don’t see his sightless white eye. I just see him—the first person who was actually kind to me here.
“Bye, Ramsey.” I whisper, and see his eyes flash briefly.
“Seen you soon, Nyx.”
The next two weeks pass like a dream that I don’t want to wake up from. We spend every day together in the same routine: breakfast, training, lunch, library, dinner. He teaches me everything he knows about winning a fight, and my body hums with heat whenever his fingers linger on my skin, as do mine on his. I stop looking away when he takes off his shirt as we spar. He keeps looking when I stretch afterwards.
At the Saturnalia celebration the school hosts for the handful of faculty, staff, and students who’ve remained on campus, we sit close enough to touch. On the Winter Solstice, we join Esmé in the Temple as she leads a ritual to celebrate the longest night of the year. The burning tree erected in the center of the rotunda keeps the Temple lit during her vigil from the time twilight darkens the sky until the dawn rises the next day. She shows us how to weave crowns from the fallen branches of the Yule tree with vines, sprigs of holly, and berries. And we do it, because why the fuck not?
By the time New Year’s Eve rolls around, I’m damn near out of my mind. As much as I regret it now, sex with Killian a few weeks ago reminded my body of what I’d spent years repressing in Lynden.
And I’m not the only one on edge.
There’s something in the air, and we’ve been dancing around each other all day. In training, I managed to catch us both by surprise when I landed straddling his hips, perfectly positioned to feel the thickness of his cock nestled against my entrance through the thin layers of our exercise clothing. I barely stopped myself from grinding on top of him before we broke apart. At the library earlier, he gave me his sweatshirt when the temperature dropped and hasn’t asked for it back. Even now as we sit in the empty common room, watching Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper get blasted on live TV, it’s like we’re waiting for something.
Anything.
“You have any New Year’s resolutions?” I ask in a pathetic attempt to fill the burning silence between us.
He shrugs. “Maybe eat a couple people, hoard some gold, you know the usual. Do you?”
I’m pretty sure he’s joking. “Get magic, I guess? Not die or get eaten or whatever else people want to do to me,” I say, rolling myeyes. “I don’t know, even with all that shit,” I gesture vaguely, “I think this might just be the best New Years I’ve ever had.”
“Really? You don’t wish you were still in Lynden?”
I shake my head. “Fuck, no. Other than a few people like my old boss and some coworkers, can’t say there’s anything to miss about Lynden.” A pang of guilt squeezes my chest when I think of Cora begging for me to pierce her ears for her birthday.
“What, no boyfriend to kiss at midnight?” he teases.
I scoff. “Colt was hardly a boyfriend. We just kind of hate-fucked when there was nothing better to do.”
He hums, and looks at me from where my legs are over his as we relax on the couch.
“I got something better we can do,” he hedges, stroking my ankle with his thumb.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says, more certain, before quickly pulling me to straddle him, just like at the gym earlier. But this time, he grips my waist, and I rest my hands on his shoulders, slowly lowering my full weight over his rapidly-thickening length,
“Is this okay?” he whispers breathlessly, and I nod, running my fingers through the dark hair at the base of his neck until he shivers, closing his eyes and tilting his head back.
He’s made the first move. If I want this, I need to make the next one.
And I do.
I lower my face to his, gently brushing his nose with mine, giving him a chance to stop.
He doesn’t.
Hesitantly, I press my lips to his, and his hand drifts up my back, fingers threading through my hair. Then he’s pulling me into him, granting me permission to tease and tempt and taste. Our tongues slide together, and my hips begin to move back and forth over his. With his other hand still on my waist, he pushesmy hips down to meet his, and the hard bar of his cock rubs perfectly against my clit.
