Chapter 39
thirty-nine
MORGAN
His cock stands rigid before me, flushed dark and wet at the tip, and the sight sends possessive satisfaction burning through my core.
He looks up at me with those warm brown eyes, his chest heaving in ragged breaths that make his abs contract in measurable intervals. His hands clench against the sofa cushions, knuckles white, fighting some internal battle between reaching for me and following my unspoken rules.
The desperation in his face, the raw worship written in every trembling muscle… this is control. Real control. Not the brittle fortress I built around myself, but something alive and electric, something that makes my nerve endings fire in patterns anatomy textbooks don't cover.
I never intended for him to get the Durkheim question right. That obscure detail about collective effervescence was supposed to be my kill switch, a calculated denial to keep him desperate, focused, and completely at my mercy, but he surprised me.
Something he's doing more and more of lately.
But surprise feels good because, for the first time in three years, I’m not just surviving behind my walls. I’m living. The armor is scattered across my apartment floor with our clothes, and instead of feeling exposed, I feel powerful. And, somewhere along the line, the impossible happened.
I started to trust him.
“Next question.” I trace a finger down his chest, cataloging each involuntary twitch. “An easy one this time. Define social stratification.”
He swallows hard, his throat working visibly. “The systematic inequalities between groups in society. Based on wealth, power, and prestige.”
“Good.” I lean down until my lips barely brush his ear, noting how his entire body shivers. “Tell me what you want, James.”
When he speaks, raw honesty cuts through my defenses with surgical precision. “I want to taste you. Please. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks.”
Heat pools between my thighs, but it’s the look in his eyes that gets to me most—not just desire but a genuine need to give me pleasure, to worship me the way he should have three years ago—and right at that moment I realize he could ask for anything and I'd say yes.
I shift on the sofa, swinging one leg over to straddle his face.
The position leaves me exposed in ways unrelated to nudity; it’s intimate and vulnerable, requiring me to put myself in his hands (or, rather, his mouth).
But whereas a month ago my brain would have been screaming at me, right now it's eager.
His hands grip my thighs, guiding me down with gentle insistence. The first touch of his tongue makes me gasp, shocking against sensitive nerve endings, and he groans against me like I’m sustenance, the vibration resonating through my entire nervous system.
And, right then, I make a conscious decision: I let go.
I stop thinking and just feel—the wet heat of his mouth, the rough stubble against my inner thighs, the way he moans like pleasing me is his primary goal.
My hands tangle in his hair, that soft chaos I’ve wanted to grip since day one, and when I pull harder than intended, he makes a sound of pure approval.
“Fuck, James, right there—”
He doubles down with enthusiasm, suggesting he’s found his calling, tongue working while his hands grip hard enough to leave fingerprints I’ll catalog later. When he slides two fingers inside me, the tension in my core reaches critical mass, and my orgasm comes embarrassingly quickly.
I cry out, loud and unrestrained in ways I’ve never permitted, my body convulsing as pleasure washes over me like the tide. It’s not just physical release, it's a total loss of every last vestige of defense against James Fitzgerald as I come apart on his tongue.
In the aftermath, I’m boneless, trembling, held up only by his hands. When I manage to shift back, he’s looking at me like I’ve just revealed some great secret of the universe. His lips and chin glisten with evidence, and his eyes are soft with something that constricts my chest.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, rough and wondering. “God, Morgan, you’re so fucking beautiful when you let go.”
I lean down and kiss him, tasting myself. It's tangy, intimate, empirical proof of trust. He’s still painfully hard against my stomach, and when I shift deliberately, he groans into my mouth with a desperation that spirals fresh arousal through me.
“Another question,” I murmur. “What was Weber’s theory on legitimate authority?”
He laughs, breathless and slightly hysterical. “Are you serious? My brain is soup and you still want to do this?”
“Answer the question.” I slap his hand away as it reaches for my breast. "Or no more fun."
“Three types,” he gasps as I grind against him, feeling his length slide against my wetness. “Traditional, based on custom. Legal-rational, based on rules. And charismatic…” He breaks off with a strangled sound as I wrap my hand around him. “Based on personal qualities of the leader.”
“Good boy.” The praise makes him twitch, another bead forming. “What do you want now?”
“You.” No hesitation, no performance. Just honesty that lands hard. “I want to be inside you while I make you mine and you make me yours.”
Our eyes meet and I consider crossing this last threshold. I realize now there's not even a moment of hesitation. I position myself over him, three years of anger and denied attraction crystallizing into this single moment, knowing that this time I won't run.
“Morgan,” he breathes, and my name has never sounded like that. It's a vow, a plea, and an answer to unasked questions all in one.
I sink down onto him in one slow, deliberate motion.
We both cry out, the sensation overwhelming, him stretching me, filling me completely, heat and pressure as one. His hands fly to my hips, gripping hard, but I don't care because I want proof that this happened, that I let him in, that we chose each other.
I set the rhythm, rising and falling, watching his face contort with pleasure bordering on agony.
His eyes keep closing and then snapping open like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he blinks.
The wonder mixed with desperation mixed with something dangerously close to devotion makes my heart rate spike.
“You feel incredible,” he gasps, unfiltered. “I can’t—”
I silence him with a kiss, swallowing his words and his desperate sounds as I ride him harder.
The angle is optimal, hitting a spot that makes my vision fracture.
I let him have it as hard as I can give, but just as I feel his body start to tense and his release start to build, I realize I want more.
I want to completely dismantle him.
“One more question,” I say, lifting off entirely, the loss making us both whimper.
“Morgan, fuck, please—”
“What’s Bourdieu’s concept of habitus?”
He actually laughs, breathless and broken. “You’re killing me.”
“Answer the question.”
“It’s the internalized dispositions that guide behavior. The way social structures become part of how we think and act unconsciously. Like how I’m apparently conditioned to get harder every time you quiz me on dead French theorists.”
“Good.” I reposition myself on the sofa, on hands and knees, back arched in clear invitation. “Now fuck me like you earned it.”
The sound he makes defies classification. Then he’s behind me, hands bruising my hips, sliding back inside with a groan that seems molecular. This position is different—deeper, more intense, involving angles that make me see constellation maps and undiscovered stars.
As he sets a punishing pace, his hand finds my clit, rubbing tight circles as he talks like he's confessing. “I've thought about you constantly, Morgan. The way you looked in that library, coming apart in my arms. I've been jerking off to that memory for weeks.”
The image—him alone, hand around himself, thinking of me—sends me spiraling. But then he slows, pulls me up so my back presses against his chest, one arm cupping my breast tenderly… protectively… while the other continues its devastating work on my clit.
“I’m sorry,” he says against my ear. “For everything. For that summer. For being a coward. For the gala. For every time I chose the easy laugh over the hard truth.”
The apology—direct, sincere, without deflection—unlocks something deep. “I was falling for you that summer,” I admit.
“I know.” He’s still moving inside me, slow and deep, apologizing with every thrust. “I was terrified. You were real, serious, and perfect, and I didn’t know how to be that. So I did what I always do—made it a performance—and I’ve regretted it every day since.”
I turn to look at him. “Don’t do it again,” I say, barely audible.
“Never.” He kisses me desperately, signing a binding contract with his tongue.
Then he’s moving faster, helping me climb toward something massive, something worldview-restructuring. And when the orgasm hits, I scream his name, convulsing, internal muscles clenching around him so tight they might never let go.
I feel him follow, pulsing inside me as he comes with a broken sound that might be my name, might be a prayer, or might be both.
And when we're done, we collapse forward, him still inside me, breathing like we’ve played sudden death overtime.
His weight should feel oppressive. Instead, it feels perfect.
After a moment, he withdraws carefully, before curling around me on my sofa. We’re tangled, sweaty, our hearts still racing, and I'm not sure I've ever felt happier. Because for the first time in years, I feel warm and connected and content. And there's not one single part of me that wants to run.
“So,” he says eventually, kissing my shoulder. “Did I pass?”
I laugh, surprising myself. “The exam is tomorrow, idiot.”
“I meant your test.”
I turn to look at him. His face is soft, vulnerable, and completely unmasked. “Preliminary results are promising,” I say. “What happens next?”
The question hangs, loaded. Because this is the moment it could all turn to shit. But it's also the moment we could unlock possibility if he wants to. And, for the first time in three years, I can imagine a future not built on isolation, a future where trust isn’t a weakness, a future with him.
“Everything,” he says simply. “Breakfast where I burn the eggs. Me at every game, wearing your number. Grocery shopping arguments about organic milk. Netflix fights—you’ll want documentaries, I’ll want comedy, and we’ll compromise on true crime—and really spectacular sex.”
“That’s a lot of promises.”
“I’m good for them," he says. “I’m not going anywhere. If you’ll have me.”
A genuine smile spreads across my face. “We’re a team, Fitzgerald,” I say.
His answering grin could power the Eastern seaboard. “The best fucking team.”
I push up, muscles protesting, and swing off the sofa.
He makes a sound of protest, hands reaching, but I stand anyway, gloriously naked and completely un-self-conscious for possibly the first time ever.
His eyes track over me with a heat that makes me want to abandon planning and climb right back on him.
“Get dressed,” I say, slipping into a captain’s voice laced with affection and post-orgasmic satisfaction. “We have work.”
“Morgan…” He looks like I’ve canceled Christmas.
“You have an exam tomorrow.” I grab my underwear from the floor, stepping into it. “Despite what just happened, you still need to study.”
He groans, flopping back with pure melodrama. “You’re really making me study after that?”
I pull on my bra, noting how his eyes track every movement for future reference. “Yes, we’re studying.”
“We?” He sits up so fast he nearly falls off, hope brightening his entire face. "Like, more question-and-answer-and-fucking type studying?"
I throw his boxers at his face with perhaps excessive force. “You're a walking-disaster…"
“I remembered Bourdieu’s habitus while I was inside you,” he points out. “Surely that counts for extra credit?”
He stands, crossing to where I’m buttoning his shirt, which I commandeered during our tangle of clothes. The fabric smells like him, and I've decided it's now mine. His hands settle on my waist, warm through thin cotton, pulling me against him for a kiss that’s slow, deep, and perfect.
“Thank you,” he says against my forehead. “For trusting me, for another chance, and for the best study session in academic history."
“Don’t thank me yet,” I say, smiling in that concerningly natural new way. “Wait until you see my actual study methods. Color-coded flashcards organized by theoretical framework, chronological development, and exam probability based on previous patterns.”
He laughs, bright and genuine and completely unguarded. “That’s the sexiest thing you've ever said.”
We get dressed—mostly—him in boxers and dangerously low jeans, me in his shirt and my underwear. It’s domestic in a way that should trigger my security protocols but doesn’t. We move around each other with a surprising ease, like we’ve done this for years instead of hours.
When we settle at my kitchen table with his battered textbook and my extensive notes (laminated, cross-referenced, obviously), he reaches across for my hand. And he holds it, for a long time, as we discuss the theories of dead European men.
It's the first step in a future neither of us saw coming but both chose. It's a sign that our real story—not the one scripted by wounds and defensive strategies—is just beginning. And for the first time in three years, I’m not wondering when it'll fail or determined to be alone.
I'm just… happy.