Chapter 34 Nora
Nora
David shucks his shirt in one fluid motion, tossing it aside, and I drink in the sight of him—broad shoulders, the defined lines of his chest, that trail of dark hair leading down to where his pants hang low on his hips.
My fingers itch to explore, so I reach for his belt and undo it with hands that tremble a little from the sheer anticipation.
He helps, shoving everything off until he’s as bare as I am.
“Get on your knees.”
I don’t expect the command. Judging by the way my face goes hot and my body flicks instantly to compliance, neither does the part of my brain that keeps up with boundaries. I rise on my knees in the middle of the bed, shaking with want, every nerve raw and electric.
“Fucking perfect,” David says, voice low and commanding, and that, apparently, is enough to send any remaining doubts about my self-image into outer space.
He comes up behind me, hands anchoring on my hips, and drags me back against him, grinding his cock between my thighs.
I moan, wild and unfiltered, as the length of him rubs against my slickness, teasing enough to make me lose my mind. He slides an arm around my waist and pulls me upright, my back flush to his chest, his mouth at my ear.
“Tell me what you want, Nora.”
“You,” I breathe, losing any pretense of dignity. “I want you. Please.”
He strokes my hair back, his hand gentle in stark contrast to how hard and insistent his body feels behind me. “You have me,” he says, and the words are a promise I feel all the way through.
Then he pushes inside, slow at first, filling me so perfectly I arch back into him without conscious thought.
The stretch is exquisite, my body greedy for every inch.
He doesn’t rush. He just holds me, bites my shoulder as he bottoms out, and fuck if that alone isn’t enough to shatter me right there.
He moves inside, slow at first, then harder, the rhythm matching the frantic pulse pounding in my veins.
His hand slides up, bracing my breast, toying with the nipple, the other hand reaching between my legs and teasing my clit.
The combination of touch and the way he fills me is feral, electric, almost too much if I weren’t so desperate for all of it.
“Fuck,” I say, and my voice is a stranger’s, raspy and wrecked.
He laughs, low in his throat. “You like that?”
The answer is a sound, not a word, and I barely recognize it as mine.
He keeps going, angling each thrust so it hits places I didn’t even know had names, my body slick, open, shameless under his hands.
He presses his fingers to my clit, the pressure perfect, timed with each deep drive inside.
I’m not going to last, not at this rate, and I know he knows it.
“Don’t hold back,” he whispers. “Let go, Nora.”
It’s not a command—it’s a gift. I come again, harder this time, head dropping back onto his shoulder as I shudder so violently I nearly lose my balance.
David’s arm tightens around my waist, keeping me upright, and his rhythm goes ragged as he buries himself deep and follows me over the edge, both of us gasping, half-drowned in the aftermath.
He holds me there for a long moment, my back pressed to his chest, both of us shaking with aftershocks and some kind of wrecked hilarity that we survived that much pleasure with our limbs still attached.
“Did I ruin you?” he asks, and I let out a ragged laugh, still breathless.
“Yes. I think you did.”
We collapse onto the bed, lying together, a tangle of sweat and afterglow, neither of us moving or speaking for a long, contented minute.
I’m the first to break the silence, and it’s with an incredulous laugh that bubbles up before I can suppress it. “You know, I think we need a whole new protocol for how fast this is evolving.”
David groans, nipping my shoulder. “I vote for less protocol.”
“What does that look like?” I prop myself up, hair sticking to my skin, and tilt my head to look at him.
“Well, everyone knows now. So there’s no point sneaking around. But we still need to be smart about the parts that matter.”
I settle against him, my head finding the hollow of his shoulder. “The school.”
“The school,” he confirms. “What’s the protocol? Do you need to disclose?”
I think about it. Lincoln Park Prep doesn’t have a formal policy prohibiting relationships between faculty and parents—parents aren’t employees, so fraternization rules don’t apply. But there’s an unwritten understanding, and those are the ones that get you called into a boardroom with no warning.
“There’s no formal requirement,” I say. “But Janet and Margaret both know, thanks to Michaela’s excitement when I signed her out today—which was adorable, by the way, and totally fine.
But if Kelsie’s lawyers decide to make an issue of it, I’d rather the board hear it from me than from a complaint filing. ”
“You want to get ahead of it.”
“I want to control the narrative. Sound familiar?”
He huffs a laugh against my hair. “Painfully.”
“I’ll request a meeting with Anthea, the board chair.
Informal. I’ll frame it as transparency—I’m in a relationship with a parent, it developed after the safety plan was already in place, it hasn’t and won’t affect my professional judgment regarding Michaela or any student.
Paper trail. On the record. Before anyone else puts it there. ”
“That’s smart.”
“It’s self-preservation dressed as integrity. Same thing, different lighting.”
His hand traces up and down my hip. “And if they have concerns?”
“Then I address them. I’ve been in education for fifteen years and have an impeccable record.
One relationship with a parent doesn’t undo that.
And if it does—” I pause. The old voice stirs—the one that says make it easy, don’t be a problem, offer to step aside before they ask you to.
I hear it. I let it pass. “If it does, then that’s a fight I’ll have.
But I’m not preemptively surrendering a career I built because someone might object. ”
David is quiet for a beat. When he speaks, there’s something in his voice that sounds close to pride. Like he’s watching me do something he’s been waiting to see.
“Good,” he says, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “The next issue is my father.”
“Your father?”
The fingers on my hip stop.
“He’s lead counsel on my custody case,” he says.
“If this reaches Kelsie’s lawyers through the gossip chain, they file a motion before my father has time to prepare a response.
If he knows first, he can shape the strategy.
Reframe it as a stable, committed relationship that benefits Michaela’s home environment rather than an inappropriate entanglement. ”
“You’re very good at this.”
“It’s literally my job.”
He’s quiet again. His hand resumes the patterns—slower this time.
“The stakes are different now,” David says, his voice quieter, more serious. “Before, if this didn’t work, we could walk away and nobody outside of us would know the difference. Now Michaela’s invested. The friend group knows. Your board will know. My father will know. There’s no quiet exit.”
“I know.”
“That means we have to get this right. I’m not asking for perfect.
But I am asking for the kind of right where when it gets hard—and it will get hard, Nora, the hearing is coming and Kelsie will use everything she can find—we don’t fold.
We don’t retreat into our corners. We stay in the room and figure it out. Together.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “I told you that.”
“I know you did. I’m saying it back. Because you’re not the only one with a history of disappearing.
I do it too—I just do it while standing in the room.
I go somewhere behind the composure, close the door, handle things alone because that’s what I was built to do.
And I’m telling you now that I don’t want to do that with you. ”
My throat tightens. Because that admission is one of the most vulnerable things he’s said to me.
“Then don’t,” I say. “When it gets hard, tell me it’s hard. Don’t send me the managed version. I can take the real one.”
He pulls me closer. Presses his mouth to my temple. Breathes.
“OK,” he says.
“OK.”
We lie there for a moment, just listening to the quiet of David’s well-insulated apartment. No traffic. No random sounds from outside. Just the gentle hum of the air-conditioning and our breathing.
“There’s one more thing,” David says.
“What?”
“You’ve been invited to brunch.”
I lift my head. “Brunch.”
“Lockwood. This weekend. Serena’s orders. Apparently there’s a corner booth that functions as some kind of initiation ritual.”
“An initiation.”
“Into the girl group. Her words, not mine.” He looks at me with an expression that’s half sympathetic, half genuinely entertained by my impending doom. “I’m told it involves mimosas, interrogation, and Layla’s opinions about wedding seating charts.”
“That sounds horrifying.”
“It probably will be. But Nora—this is what I’m telling you about the stakes.
” His mouth curves into the slow, private smile I’ve catalogued and filed under things that make rational thought impossible.
“You’re in now. The brunch invitation is a binding contract.
Once those women bring you into the fold, there is no extraction.
Ask Jenna. She’s been trying to leave the group chat for months and they keep adding her back. ”
I narrow my eyes. “Are you serious right now?”
“I am. Trust me. Once you’re in, you’re in. Jenna texts her resignation at least twice a month, and Dominic treats it like she’s professing her undying love.”
“That’s unhinged.” I drop my head back to his chest and laugh.
“They’re secretly very obsessed with each other—well, Dominic’s openly obsessed. Jenna is quietly loving every moment. I’ve caught her blushing more than once. And she’s even cracked a smile or two.”
“That’s crazy.”
“The whole group dynamic is nuts. But it’s the best kind. These people—they’re the kind of friends who show up. Even when you don’t want them to. But definitely when you need them to.”
“I love that,” I say. “You’re very lucky to have them.”
“Seems they’re yours now, too. Consider yourself adopted.”
“OK. So to summarize,” I say. “I need to disclose to my school board, your father needs to restructure a custody strategy around our relationship, Kelsie’s lawyers are going to weaponize us, and I’ve been conscripted into a brunch cult at a wine bar.”
“That’s a fair summary.”
“And you think this is the less scary version of the stakes.”
“I think,” he says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head, “that the brunch is the part you should genuinely be nervous about. The rest, we can handle. Serena with mimosas and an agenda is an uncontrolled variable.”