He kissed my forehead, my nose, my chin, then carefully moved off me, disposed of the condom, and came right back, holding me close. And my heart broke in the best way to see so much of that horrible exhaustion and grief had lifted out of his eyes.
They’re twinkling again.
“What were you going to say, Bennet?” he said. “Something terribly unromantic?”
“In about ten seconds, you’re going to feel so bad for teasing me. Like,sobad.”
He grinned. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” I stroked his cheek, traced his jaw. “What I was going to say is, I love you too.”
Orion’s smile tilted and became richer. More real, somehow. “I was hoping…so much.”
He kissed me then, the most deeply beautiful kiss of my life, before shooting a glance at the door. “Come on. We’ve pressed ourluck long enough, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said. “And you have a paper to write.”
***
We pulled ourselves together and walked back to Atlas Hall. It was early yet, only six o’clock. I called home to check in with Mom, while Orion ordered a pizza.
“What are we doing?” he asked after we ate mushroom and pepperoni slices in his and Easton’s dorm apartment, though his roommate was, as usual, nowhere to be seen.
“We’re writing your Mesopotamia paper, due tomorrow,” I said, and pulled him into his room, to his desk.
“We?”
“You. I’m just here for secretarial purposes.” I planted a kiss on Orion’s lips. “Can’t let Callister have the satisfaction.”
“Harper, I can’t write that damn paper.”
“You’re not. I’m going to write it. Well, type it. You dictate.”
He frowned, about to protest, but then nodded and tapped his temple. “Yeah, I think I have enough stored in here for something.”
He opened his laptop to a blank document, and I smiled into the keyboard, overcome with pride for my brilliant boyfriend.
“Ready when you are.”
For the next hour and a half, I typed while Orion paced behind me, dictating his term paper on the impact of Cuneiform, and how writing transformed Mesopotamian government as a tool for the elites, but not the ordinary people.
When it was finished, I did a quick sweep for typos and hitprint. I handed him the paper. “Callister is going to love it.”
Orion shook his head, scanning the paper, then tossed it onto his desk and hauled me to him. “You saved my arse. Twice in one night. How can I ever repay you?”
“Not sure,” I said, and disentangled myself to sit on his bed. “But this feels infinitely softer than the floor of the piano room.”
He grinned. “Can you imagine class on Monday?” he said as he went to close his bedroom door. “I feel like Wolfe is going to see right through us.”
“Probably,” I said, pulling Orion to me by the lapels of his shirt. “But I think it’s just the sort of thing he would appreciate.”
Orion lay over me, taking me down to his bed. “I think it’s just the sort of thing he would find exceedingly hilarious.”
***
An hour later, I lay curled against Orion under the covers, satiated and heavy, humming from being touched in a thousand ways. Being naked with him, pressed against his big, warm body felt perfectly easy and good. I hadn’t a shred of self-consciousness but loved how we fit together—my pale skin to his golden brown, my softer curves to his hard lines and muscles. He gazed at me as if I were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen when he’d been with plenty, and all of them more polished than I ever would be.
He loves me anyway. This poor, stressed-out girl, barely hanging on.
