Chapter 14
ARCHIE
Ididn’t think I was supposed to feel this okay.
That was the part my brain kept circling back to—not the fact that we were just half naked in a library like two people with absolutely no sense of self-preservation, not the fact that he was my boss and I should probably be having a moral crisis about that—but the absence of anything important enough to stop me.
No drop.
No what the hell did you just do moment.
Just this steady, unsettling sense that something had finally… lined up.
Henry had already redressed me.
I hadn’t even registered when he’d done it—just the aftermath. Buttons fastened. Fabric smoothed flat under his hands. My shirt sitting right again, like it had never been disturbed.
My body remembered.
The sound of fabric shifting somewhere near my feet. The quiet drag of something lifted from the floor.
My pants.
He’d gathered them without a word, sliding the fabric up my legs with steady hands, guiding instead of asking—like it didn’t occur to him I might do it myself. Or like he’d already decided I wouldn’t.
Which, to be fair, I wouldn’t have.
My brain had gone completely soft on me. Useless. Just… floating somewhere above my own body, watching instead of participating.
And Henry hadn’t waited for me to catch up.
His hands had done the work for me. Adjusting. Straightening. Making sure everything sat right without rushing through it.
There had been moments where he paused—his mouth brushing against skin that hadn’t been covered yet.
I pushed my glasses up and pressed my thumb and forefinger into the corners of my eyes for a second, trying to force my thoughts into something more coherent.
Not gonna happen.
Not while he was kneeling in front of me, reaching for my shoe, attention fixed on the laces in his hands.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “Well, I’m not going to let you do it.”
“That’s not—” I huffed out a quiet breath, something halfway between a laugh and disbelief. “That’s not a reason.”
“It is to me.”
I went still, watching the way he pulled the lace snug, precise and unhurried, like he wasn’t even aware of how intentional he looked doing something this small.
Or maybe he was.
With him, it was hard to tell.
“Besides, you can barely sit up right let alone tie your shoes.” He kissed my kneecap. “Just sit there like the angel you are.”
“My cum drunk little angel.”
I shifted before I could stop myself, pressing my knees together, fingers finding the edge of the desk just to have somewhere to go while I tried to act like my cock wasn’t swelling under the zipper he’d just re-fastened.
A smug smile touched his lips. “You good, baby?”
“Are you teasing me?” I demanded, and he laughed.
“It is super fucking rude of you to be so coherent right now while I—”
Oh.
He looked perfectly put together, like he hadn’t just fed me his come off the tip of his fingers a whole ten minutes ago, while I couldn’t even finish a sentence.
Was I just… not good?
The thought turned my stomach sour.
He’d said I was his.
Did he mean it, or was that just something that sounded right in the moment?
“Baby, I can see your brain moving behind your eyes.”
I blinked, a little too fast, like that might prove him wrong.
“I’m not—”
“Thinking?” His mouth curved slightly. “You are. A lot.”
I huffed out a breath, dropping my gaze for a second. “That’s kind of my thing.”
“I’m aware.”
His hands didn’t stop. He finished tying the lace, tightening it once like he didn’t trust it otherwise, then let his fingers rest briefly against my ankle.
“Do you want to tell me where you just went?” he asked.
“Uh.” I hesitated, fingers curling slightly against the edge of the desk. “Not really.”
That earned me a soft exhale—almost a laugh, but not quite.
He gave the lace one last adjustment, then stood, unfolding back to his full height like it hadn’t taken any effort at all.
Which… did not help.
He nudged my chin with his knuckle, lifting my gaze. “What if I say please?”
“I didn’t realize that word was in your vocabulary.”
“It is for you.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. “But don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”
“Tragic,” I muttered, even as my brain immediately veered off in twelve different directions at once.
None of them helpful.
I pushed my glasses up again, more out of habit than necessity, and tried to pick one thought to follow through to completion. It didn’t stick. They kept slipping, overlapping, tripping over each other in a way that felt dangerously close to spiraling again.
“Okay, but—” I started, then stopped, because I wasn’t actually sure which but I meant.
Henry waited—all composed and patient. Like he had all the time in the world to let me work through whatever this was.
“How are you just… fine?” I asked finally, squinting at him a little. “Fully functional. Coherent. Using complete sentences. It feels disrespectful at this point.”
A hint of amusement flickered across his face. “Would you prefer I be less so?”
“Yes,” I said immediately. “A little bit of visible disorientation would go a long way here.”
“Noted.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I shifted on the desk and immediately kept talking because apparently I had no intention of stopping now that I’d started.
“How did you even find me? Were you just… wandering around the annex hoping I’d appear? Do you have some kind of tracking system I don’t know about? Should I be concerned about that?”
His brow lifted slightly. “A tracking system?”
“I’m just saying, you showed up very conveniently. It’s a little suspicious. Are we mentally linked now? Did I miss that part? Was there paperwork?”
“Archibald.”
“What if I’ve been microchipped?” I continued, ignoring him entirely. “That feels like something Wexley would do. ‘Congratulations on your assistantship, here’s your stipend and a mild invasion of privacy.’”
“Archibald.”
“And—” I pushed forward anyway, because stopping felt impossible, “—you’re not even a little concerned that this place is technically open to the public? Like, anyone could have walked in. We could have been—” I cut myself off, grimacing. “Actually, no, I don’t want to finish that sentence.”
His hand came up, fingers closing lightly around my wrist. “Archibald.”
I finally looked at him.
“What?”
His thumb brushed once over the inside of my wrist. “You’re spiraling.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
I exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction. “Okay, a little.”
“A lot,” he corrected.
“Rude.”
His mouth curved.
I huffed out a breath, some of the tension bleeding out of me whether I wanted it to or not, but one thought stuck—louder than the rest and harder to ignore.
It slipped out before I could filter it.
“Are we… boyfriends?”
“Do you want to be?”
“Ew. No. Do not do that thing where you answer my question with a question. Do you want my brain to explode? Do you want me to never sleep again?”
A real smile touched his mouth this time. “Yes.”
Just like that.
“Boyfriends?” I repeated, because apparently I needed confirmation like this was a contract I hadn’t read properly.
His hand came up, palming my cheek. “Mine,” he said, quieter now. “Completely. That wasn’t situational, Archibald.”
Ohmygod.
My heart nearly melted. I was not equipped to deal with that in a normal, well-adjusted way.
I swallowed, then immediately latched onto the next problem because focusing on that felt safer.
“Okay, great, but how did you even find me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes slightly in an attempt to look suspicious.
Honestly? I wasn’t sure I cared. I was just happy he did.
“I have access to the building systems,” he said. “Your keycard was used at the annex.”
I blinked at him. “You tracked me.”
“I missed you.”
Heart meet Henry’s hands… because that’s where you belong now.
“I missed you too, but don’t try to distract me, Professor.” I gestured vaguely toward the room around us. “You’re not even a little worried that someone could have walked in? Because this is—last I checked—a public space.”
“I’m not worried,” he said.
I stared at him. “That feels like something you should be worried about.”
“It isn’t.”
“Well, why not?”
His gaze didn’t shift. “Because I don’t give a fuck.”
I blinked again.
“You don’t give a—” I stopped, exhaling sharply.
“I don’t give a fuck about a lot of things,” he said, calm as ever. Then, after a beat, his thumb brushed once along my cheek. “I do give a fuck about you.”
“You could lose your job.”
And I wasn’t sure I was worth that.
“They won’t fire me.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, then tried again. “I could lose my scholarship.”
“Like I’d let that happen.”
“You make it sound so easy.” I met his eyes and lasted about a second before I looked away. “As if none of this is actually complicated.”
Henry didn’t react right away. He just watched me, head angled slightly. “It didn’t used to be. It is now.”
Oh.
God.
I dropped my gaze, pushing off the desk before I could sit there and make it worse, the soles of my shoes hitting the floor a little harder than necessary.
One of the books had slid under the desk, spine bent awkwardly where it had landed, and I crouched to grab it, more focused on that than anything else.
Of course it hadn’t been easy for him.
I knew that. I’d known that before I ever met him.
Dragging the book, I straightened it automatically, fingers smoothing along the cover like that might take back my word vomit.
“I’m sorry,” I said, refusing to look up, because I wasn’t sure I deserved to. “That was unfair.”
I picked up another book, dusting my thumb along the spine even though it didn’t need it. It was just to have something to focus on that wasn’t the sudden, uncomfortable guilt settling in my chest.
“You don’t have it easy. I know you don’t. I just—” I hesitated, pressing my thumb into the edge of the top book. “I start talking, and it all comes out wrong. You watched people die, survived a fucking fire, only to lose both your parents a few years later.”
And here I was complaining about scholarships and hypotheticals and what ifs those problems were even in the same category.
“I’m not trying to make this about me,” I added, finally glancing up at him.
“I just… don’t know how to not think ten steps ahead when something actually matters.
I live in a constant state of panic, worried I’m going to lose things that are important to me, and you have become… the most important thing.”
One second, I was crouched on the floor, and the next, his hands were under my arms, hauling me up before I could protest.
“Henr—”
“Hush.”
He captured my lips in a slow kiss, humming soothingly against my mouth, cutting through all the noise.
My brain stalled out.
Thank God.
“Archibald.” His palm was warm where it settled against the nape of my neck, forehead touching mine now. “Stop.”
“I’m just—” I swallowed, the words I’d been building tripping over themselves again. “I’m being selfish.”
“The fuck you are.”
“But—”
“No,” he growled, fingers tightening around my neck as he kept my gaze exactly where he wanted it. “You’re reacting to something that matters to you. That isn’t selfish.”
“It is when I’m standing here comparing my problems to—” I cut myself off, jaw tightening. “Everything you’ve been through.”
“I dealt with what I went through, baby. A long time ago.”
That didn’t feel entirely true.
But he sure said it like it was.
“My memoir, the research, the work I do now—that’s how I coped with it.”
I frowned. “You make it sound very… contained.”
“It is.”
Contained.
The word was dressed up in a shadow, like maybe it meant more than he was willing to explain.
Ever so slightly, the hand around my neck squeezed. “I don't like leaving things unfinished.”
What the fuck did that mean?
Questions built on my tongue but all that slipped past my lips was a bratty… “must be nice.”
As if I were jealous.
Jealous of my trauma-riddled Professor daddy boyfriend.
I have a boyfriend.
“And that’s the difference, isn’t it, sweetheart?”
I blinked at him. “What is?”
“I had answers.” His thumb shifted once at my throat. “I know what happened. You don’t. You’re still trying to fill in gaps that don’t stay still.”
I hooked my fingers in his belt loops, pulling him closer.
“That kind of thing pulls at you. Keeps you moving. It’s tearing a hole through you, baby. Of course you’re going to try to get ahead of it. That’s not a flaw.”
“I just don’t want to ruin this,” I admitted.
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” He swore, and I rolled my eyes.
“Your confidence is infuriating.”
His mouth twitched. “What you’re feeling is not selfishness. It’s a response to a fifteen year-old question that’s shredding you to pieces.”
I made a wounded sound.
“But don’t you worry.” He hummed. “I’m going to take what’s left. Any piece that pulls loose, I’ll take care of it.”
My heart did a cartwheel.
“Mine, Rabbit.”
A nervous laugh slipped out of me. “So I don’t get a say in this?”
“No.” His hand slid higher at the back of my neck. “But something tells me you don’t actually want one.”
I opened my mouth to argue.
“You just want it to stop,” he said, quieter now. “Even for a second.”
Yes.
I exhaled, the fight going out of me in a way I hadn’t expected. “That’s… annoyingly accurate.”
“I know.”
“Well, you don't have to gloat,” I muttered, and he kissed me. “So what, you’re just going to fix all my life’s problems?”
“Yes.”
Uhm..
I blinked at him. “You say that like it’s a normal thing to promise someone.”
“It is when I mean it.”
I huffed out a breath, a smile tugging at my mouth despite myself. “What, are you going to slay all my dragons now, Daddy?”
“Baby,” he said, voice low, “for you, I’d take them apart piece by piece.”
Something warm and dangerous curled low in my belly.
Violence shouldn’t have sounded like that.
It shouldn’t have felt like that.
Romantic. Sweet.
And yet—I believed him.
How could I not?