Chapter 23 #2
She moves quickly to the glass, hand pressed flat against it. “Nathaniel?” Her voice is sharp but not raised, edged with alarm. “What are you doing?”
I can barely hold her gaze. My breath tears ragged from my chest. Still, I manage a weak smile. “Hi, baby…”
She doesn’t think twice. The door slides open, water spraying her clothes. She steps into the shower with me, hands finding my arms, turning me toward her. My body is rigid, my skin ice-cold, my eyes unfocused.
“This water’s freezing!” she exclaims, her voice clearer now that she’s close. Her palm squeezes my forearm, grounding me. “You’re shaking! You’re going to make yourself sick, my love.”
I hear the words, but they feel distant, muffled under the roar in my head. I stare at her blankly, my lips moving before I can stop them.
“I’m so happy to see you…”
The words sound flat, like I’m speaking to myself, narrating a delusion. And maybe I am. Even if she isn’t really here, even if this is only the cruelty of my imagination—what comfort it is, to look at her one last time.
Her hand brushes across my chest as she reaches past me, adjusting the temperature.
The change hits slowly, but her touch is immediate—her fingers leaving fire against my skin.
My body trembles under it. I blink, once, twice, as if my eyes are relearning how to focus.
She’s under the spray now too, her hair damp, her clothes soaked, refusing to move away.
She brings one hand to the side of my neck, thumb tracing my jaw. With the other, she steadies my head, holding me there, not letting me drift. “I’m here,” she says quietly, low and sure. “I’ve got you. Look at me.”
I do. My vision comes into focus. She doesn’t flicker out of existence.
She stayed.
My hands, shaking violently, lift and find her waist. And I feel her. Warm beneath the wet fabric. She’s solid. My Olivia is here.
The relief crashes through me so sharp and sweet it nearly buckles me. My throat closes, my voice breaking as I choke out, “You stayed.”
Her eyes soften, relief flooding her features as if she can see me clawing my way back to her. She nods, lips curving into the faintest smile. “Yes, my love. I did. I’m here with you.”
She coaxes me into her rhythm. Her breaths are slow, measured, and I try—god, I try—to match them.
At first it’s impossible; my chest seizes, every inhale clipped and shallow.
But her hand stays at my jaw, her gaze tethering me, her body pressed into mine under the water.
I cling to her breaths, to the gentle rise and fall, until slowly, painfully, my lungs begin to follow.
“Baby, it’s you,” I whisper hoarsely. The words fall out again, again, like prayer. “You’re here.”
“Yes,” she answers gently each time, patient as if there’s nothing else in the world more important than repeating it. “It’s me. I’m right here.”
The storm inside me starts to recede, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
My heart still thunders, but not with the same terror.
My grip on her waist loosens, not from wanting to let go, but because the panic is finally loosening its hold on me.
My breaths deepen, ragged but real. And through it all—her touch, her voice, her presence—the one thing I was sure I’d lost is pressed against me, bringing me back to life.
My gaze drops. Through the haze of water and damp fabric, I see it—the necklace, clinging to her shirt, the solitaire diamond catching the bathroom light in a sudden, merciless flash. I blink once. Then twice.
It’s here. On her.
My hand trembles as I lift it, fingers curling around the pendant before sliding up, closing gently—claiming—around her throat. Her pulse flutters against my palm. The scattered edges of me sharpen, snap into focus. I meet her eyes, voice breaking but steady with need.
“What does this mean?”
She smiles. Soft, sure, impossibly beautiful. Fuck, I want every smile she’ll ever give, all of them, for the rest of my life.
“I think you know what it means,” she whispers.
The words pierce through me.
Yesterday wasn’t a dream. She knows everything—my obsession, my transgressions—and still, she’s choosing this.
She put the necklace back on, knowing what it is. A symbol of surveillance transformed into something else entirely: her consent, her choice.
I can’t hold back. My mouth crashes against hers.
The kiss is frantic, desperate. Water runs down our faces, slicking our lips, salt and heat mixing. Her mouth opens beneath mine with equal fervor, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer as if we could drown in each other and still not be close enough.
My chest aches, but this time it’s not panic, it’s relief so sharp it burns. I feel her teeth catch mine, her breath ragged against my tongue, and I press harder, angling to take her deeper, greedier, until there’s nothing left between us but skin, water, and need.
She’s real. She’s here. And she’s chosen me.
The rain shower pours steadily above us, a low percussion against the tile, steam curling between us, clinging to our skin as though the room itself conspires to keep us bound.
Her clothes are soaked through, plastered to her curves like a second skin.
When my hands slide down her back, the fabric drags and clings, maddening in its refusal to yield.
I tug at her hem, fingers desperate, half-clawing at the cotton as it sticks stubbornly to her body.
She breaks the kiss long enough to gasp a laugh, breathless and radiant even now. “This is impossible—”
I huff against her jaw, lips grazing her skin, refusing to let her slip too far away. “Then help me,” I murmur, voice rough with need.
Her fingers find mine, guiding, fumbling with me until the fabric loosens.
Together we peel it upward, every movement clumsy with urgency, her damp hair catching, our knuckles slipping.
The wet shirt resists until finally it gives, and she lifts her arms, letting me strip it away.
It falls to the shower floor with a sodden slap, already forgotten.
The sight of her—skin glistening under the cascade, droplets running down the delicate line of her collarbone—robs me of breath. My throat works, words nearly failing, but she’s already tugging at me in return, small hands insistent at the edge of my shirt.
“Yours too,” she whispers, fierce in her intent, and the sound of it makes something unspool in me.
I raise my arms, surrendering myself to her haste, letting her wrestle the drenched fabric upward. She curses softly under her breath when it sticks, and I can’t help but smile. Even in this frenzy, even as heat coils through me like fire, she’s here with me—laughing, cursing, choosing.
When the shirt finally tears free, it joins hers on the tile, and her hands are on me again, palms flattening against my chest as though she can’t decide between touching and holding, wanting and needing.
My own hands are already moving, skimming across her bare shoulders, down her spine, memorizing her as if the water might wash her away if I don’t claim her fast enough.
Her eyes lift to mine, green and bright even through the steam. Neither of us speaks for a long moment. There’s only the rush of water, the sharp cadence of our breaths, and the weight of what this means—what it has always meant.
Slowly, almost clumsily, we finish what we began. Damp fabric clings obstinately until it yields, falling in soggy heaps at our feet. Each piece stripped away feels like a barrier dissolved, another layer of pretense surrendered.
And then she is bare before me. Only the diamond at her throat, luminous against the curve of her collarbone, adorns her.
She couldn’t look more perfect if she tried…
except, perhaps, with my ring on her finger.
The thought lances through me, a promise I can’t yet voice, but which roots itself deeper in my chest.
My gaze drags over her, reverent and unhurried despite the urgency pounding through me. Every line of her body is an act of creation I can scarcely believe I’m allowed to witness. She is goddess made flesh, miracle and myth entwined, and somehow—impossibly—mine.
I’m stripped bare as well, the last of my restraint cast aside, and I feel her eyes on me. Hunger flickers in them now, unmistakable, mirroring my own. It undoes me more thoroughly than any word she could say.
The water slicks over us, heat and gravity conspiring, and I can’t keep myself from her.
I haul her against me, skin to skin, chest to chest, mouths clashing as though we’re trying to consume the distance that’s tormented us for too long.
Her lips are wet and insistent, her body a pliant, demanding echo of my own.
My hands roam without thought, possessive, tracing every curve as if mapping holy ground.
But then—before I lose all sense of speech—I pull back, cradling her face in both hands. Her cheeks are flushed, wet with water and breathless heat, and I force the words past the raw edge of my throat.
“I want you so badly, Olivia.” My thumbs sweep across her damp skin, my forehead nearly touching hers. “Please, will you let me have you?”
For a heartbeat too long, she only looks at me, jade eyes wide and searching, and the old anxiety pricks cruelly at the edges of my chest.
Then, her lips curve into the smallest smile, tender and knowing.
She leans forward to press a chaste kiss against my mouth, a deliberate contrast to the frenzy of moments before.
Then her hand slips downward, slow, deliberate, trailing across my chest and stomach until it reaches lower. The touch steals the air from my lungs.
“Yes,” she whispers, breath tickling my lips. Her fingers wrap around my length, tightening around me, and her voice comes again, velvet and certain. “Because I want you too.”