Chapter 17 Nathaniel #2
When we carry the last of her bags through the narrow dorm corridor, a few of her hallmates peek out of their doors, murmuring with interest. They know who I am. They’ll talk. They’ll tell stories about how Olivia Bennett, the scholarship girl, is leaving the dorms to live with Nathaniel Caldwell.
I relish the thought. Let them spread the word that she’s mine.
Outside, I watch her take one last look at the building. There is something wistful in her expression, but she doesn’t say a word. She just gets into the passenger seat, and when I close the door behind her, it feels final.
By the time we reach Back Bay, evening has begun to creep over the city, the glass facades catching the last of the sun. Her bags are in my trunk, her keys in my pocket. It is done.
She’s coming home—with me, where she’s always belonged.
Now, I have Olivia right where I want her: in socked feet padding across the dark herringbone floor, methodically folding, hanging, and rearranging the small pieces of her life into the vast space that’s now ours.
This time, she doesn’t allow me to take over.
“You don’t have to stand there like a sentry,” she remarks, not looking up from the stack of sweaters she’s folding.
“I wouldn’t have to,” I say, “if you’d let me help.”
“You’ve done enough, my love.” She glances over her shoulder. “Besides, I need to get used to this space. To know where everything goes. If you do it for me, I’ll never find anything.”
I know she’s right, but it doesn’t stop this inner rebellion against the idea of her ever having to lift, carry, or tire. I want to make her life effortless.
“Fine. But only if you give me a kiss first.”
She rolls her eyes, but a smile breaks through. “You’re unbelievable.”
She crosses the room with a deliberate sway in her hips, presses her lips to mine, soft and sure, then pulls away just as easily. “Satisfied?”
“For now,” I say, allowing her to turn back to the closet, a grin tugging at my mouth as I take a seat on the low bench in the center of the room—upholstered in cream leather, the kind of thing no one ever actually sits on—and simply watch her.
Then, it hits without warning—the certainty of it, sharp and absolute. She’s moving in. She’s staying. There’s nowhere else she has to return to, no night waiting to take her from me.
The realization crashes through me with a force that leaves me breathless.
This is what I’ve fought for since the first time she slept in my bed—what every moment after has been moving toward.
To have her here, under my roof, no distance left to close.
To know that when morning comes, she’ll still be mine to reach for.
It feels too enormous to contain—this quiet, devastating fulfilment.
My mind, drunk on relief, leaps too far ahead: If she’s under my roof, she’s already halfway to forever. Sooner rather than later, she’ll wear my ring.
Suddenly, I can’t sit still.
I rise, drawn to her as if movement itself has found its purpose.
She’s sliding hangers across the rail when I come up behind her, close enough for my breath to brush the curve of her neck.
She falters. “Nathaniel,” she scolds, the warning softened by a smile.
My fingers brush hers when she reaches for a hanger; she stills, and I feel the smallest intake of her breath. My hand finds her hip.
“You don’t have to do it all at once,” I murmur.
She turns, her jade eyes lifting to mine. “If I stop, you’ll start doing it for me.”
“Is that such a terrible thing?” I press a kiss beneath her jaw.
“It would defeat the purpose.” Her breath catches—not quite a sigh, not quite a laugh—and she turns away, pretending to be concerned with the clothes on the rack. The gesture does nothing to hide the flush rising along her neck. I want to kiss the exact spot where it starts.
I reach for her again—her arm, the slope of her shoulder, the back of her neck. She’s tense under my touch, not resisting but holding herself still, the way she does when she’s trying not to give herself away. Her pulse beneath my thumb beats fast.
“Nathaniel…” she starts again, her tone edging toward something unsteady. “If you’re trying to help, this isn’t—”
I smirk against her skin. “Believe me, baby… I’m not trying to help.”
I turn her, guiding her back until she meets the wardrobe wall.
Her hands rise, uncertain, brushing against my chest. She exhales when I lean in.
“Then what are you trying to do?” she asks, the words soft, unsteady.
“Remind myself,” I say, tracing my lips along her jaw, “that you’re mine to come home to now.”
Her fingers tighten in my shirt. The sound she makes is low, caught somewhere between restraint and want. When I kiss her, she meets me with equal heat, matching the hunger I’ve carried alone for too long.
She’s pressed against the paneled wall, her body yielding beneath my hands. The cardigan she’s wearing—buttoned all the way up, soft and pale—does nothing to hide the shape of her.
The plaid skirt, the stockings, the socks pulled just below her knees—she looks studious, unassuming, but the effect is ruinous. Every inch of her was made to undo me.
My hands stay at her waist, memorizing the feel of her through the knit fabric. I hook a finger in the waistline of her skirt where it meets the small of her back, and my mind blanks.
Mine.
My grip tightens before I can stop it, the thought turning feral—no one else will touch her like this, see her like this, breathe this close to her.
She shivers when I pull back, my mouth finding the place just below her ear.
Her pulse stirs beneath my tongue. I taste the salt of her skin, inhale the lilies and bergamot of her perfume—hers, always hers.
I think of it mingling with the cedar on my clothes, the scent filling this space, living here now, permanently. The notion hits like a spark to tinder.
Her breath stumbles when I start unfastening her cardigan, one button, then another. I mean to be careful, but my patience snaps and the fabric gives under my hands, buttons scattering to the floor. She gasps, startled, and the sound only spurs me on.
Her top falls open, revealing soft skin and the blush-toned lace she wears beneath—simple, practical, yet devastatingly intimate. The sight pulls the ground from under me.
I lower my head, tracing my mouth over the swell of her breasts where they spill from the top of her bra.
My hands caress the soft curve of her abdomen and the luscious shape of her hips.
She feels sacred in my hands—every breath, every tremor a reminder that she’s flesh and blood and still beyond me.
A goddess in borrowed light, I think. And I’d kneel a thousand times to prove it.
The thought becomes action before I can stop it. I slide down, my hands gliding along her thighs as I sink to my knees.
It’s devotion, laced with hunger—the only way I know to worship what’s already mine.
To kneel before her is to acknowledge what she is to me: not a conquest, but a kind of divinity. A supplicant at her altar, I look up and find her still, lips parted, cheeks flushed with desire.
I slide my hands under the hem of her skirt, lifting it just enough to show her what I’m asking for.
“May I?” My voice is rough with want.
She stills at the question and I see recognition spark—both of us thrown back to Le Baroque’s private garden, the secluded alcove washed in lantern light, spring air and stone at our backs. The first time I had a taste of her.
That shared memory hums between us, an old vow quietly renewed.
Just as she had that night, she gathers the hem of her skirt in trembling hands, then she nods.
The pleats rise to reveal her thigh-high stockings, sheer at the top where the elastic presses into skin. She shivers when I lean in, when my mouth finds the delicate weave and traces along it, a tease that draws a tortured sound from her throat.
Above the stockings is more blush-toned lace, the perfect match to what I already uncovered. I hook a finger beneath the fine edge, easing it aside and revealing my prize.
My fingertips trail along her slit teasingly, making her whimper.
“Your pussy is so fucking pretty, baby,” I praise as I part her already slick folds. “I need to have it.”
I lift one of her legs over my shoulder, spreading her wider, before diving in for a single lick, long, slow, and deep. She squirms against my tongue, her fingers spearing into my hair.
“Will you let me have it?” I slide two fingers inside her and curl upward, watching with rapt attention as her eyes roll back in pleasure. “Can I have you?”
“Yes,” she replies breathlessly. “It’s yours. I’m yours. All yours.”
I lift her opposite leg to my shoulder so she’s straddling my face as I push her into the wall. I splay one hand across her stomach to hold her in place while the other wraps around her plush thigh, fingers digging in hard.
Then, I make a feast of her against the wall, fastening my lips over her hot, glistening flesh. The taste of her…dear god, the taste of her. I will never tire of it. Each time I go down on her, she only gets sweeter.
I bury my face in her sex, greedy for every sound and every tremor, but I remind myself to stay deliberate in the way I take her in. She’s meant to be savored, after all.
And why rush? She’s staying the night…and every night after. At long last, I have all the time in the world.
I trace my tongue along each side and then straight through her center, ravishing every part of her pussy except her clit. I make sure to draw out every twitch and gasp as she writhes against my mouth, fruitlessly chasing what I refuse to give just yet.
Her desperation is a palpable thing. While I loathe the thought of her suffering, I can’t deny the grim satisfaction of giving her a taste of what she’s done to me these past months. This is only a fraction of it—a shadow of the hunger she’s forced me to live with while I waited for her answer.