We collapse together, tangled and breathing hard. He stays inside me as long as he can, softening slowly, savoring the closeness. When he finally slips free, he grabs a warm cloth from the bathroom and cleans us both gently. Then I pull him back into my arms, chest to chest, legs intertwined.
“I’m so fucking glad it’s you,” he whispers against my temple, pressing a soft kiss there.
I smile against the top of his head, exhausted and sated, sore and full. His fingers trace idle patterns over my ribs. “Me too, baby.”
We lie there in the quiet aftermath, the weight of everything we’ve shared settling around us. My mind drifts back to his stories—Rhiannon, the woman who didn’t stick. I think of Eli, and how hard I had to work for one single good day between us. How hard it was.
I look at Cade, and think of how different things are with us. I feel the old ache in my own chest ease a little more. He struggled with his label, but I’ve never cared what anyone calls me. None of it matters when the connection is this electric, this deep.
I tighten my arms around him, inhaling the scent of sex and satisfaction that clings to his skin. We sleep for nine hours.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
CADE
The weeks blurinto a bliss I never allowed myself to dream of, let alone believe I could deserve.
I wake most mornings with the ghost of Noah’s touch still lingering on my skin, even when he hasn’t spent the night. It’s a quiet, satisfying kind of growth—how easily my body has begun to expect him. How the space beside me in bed feels wrong when it’s empty. I lie there sometimes, staring at the ceiling in my bedroom, and let the truth settle over me: I am in a serious relationship now and I want to be with him every waking (and sleeping) second of the day (and night).
And somehow, impossibly, he wants me back in the exact same way.
I’d be scared if I weren’t so excited.
This morning, I arrive at our office before him. Hedidn’t sleep over last night because he had tests to grade, and we’ve both proven in the last week that we cannot get work done when we are together anywhere but the office.
Everything turns to quick blowjobs or me coming in my pants.
So off and on all week, Noah’s stayed at his place so we can get work done and keep our careers on track.
I drop my keys on the desk as I push the stopper down, keeping the office door propped open. The room smells faintly of old books and the vanilla-caramel diffuser Noah insists on running “for ambiance.” I set two coffees on the desk—mine black with two sugars, his with enough cream to make it pale—and try not to smile too obviously at the domesticity of it.
Twenty minutes later, Noah steps in wearing a charcoal button-down that stretches perfectly across his shoulders, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His watch slides over the ink on his wrist, a gift waiting for me to trace with my tongue. His hair is still damp from his shower—the one he texted me that would be filled with jerking off while thinking of me, curling slightly at the nape of his neck. He spots the coffee I brought him and his entire face lights up in that devastating way that makes my stomach flip, every single time.
“You’re spoiling me, Professor,” he murmurs, voice low, like a secret, even though we’re alone. And we’ve decided against being a secret. I know that the ball is mostly in my court, and despite the fact that it took mesome years to get here, I am here. Understanding of myself, and ready for the future.
With him.
I lean back in my chair, trying for casual even as heat crawls up my neck at just the sight of Noah. “Figured you earned it since you’ll be keeping me up until two a.m. tonight.” His eyes cut to mine, finding the little daring dance waiting for him. “Discussing Rushdie, of course.”
Noah rounds the desk, sets his bag down, and brushes his fingers against mine as he takes the cup. The contact is brief but of course deliberate. Electricity arcs between us. His thumb strokes once along the side of my hand before he pulls away, but his eyes stay locked on mine, full of promises we can’t fulfill here.
“I can’t wait,” he says softly. “Especially for the part where you realize my take is better than yours, and your glasses get all foggy.” He fans himself with a student essay. “You know what that does to me.”
I swallow hard, still kind of accepting that he and I are doing this. Accepting that I am attracted to the person before the gender was easier to accept than merely being chosen by Noah, I think.
I clear my throat. “We have a department meeting at ten. Try not to look at melike thatduring it.”
“Like what?” His smile turns wicked as he drops into his chair across from mine, stretching his long legs out so his foot brushes mine under the desk.
“Like you’re remembering what I sound like when I come,” I admit boldly, face burning.
Noah’s laugh is warm. “Guilty.”
The morning passes in comfortable productivity broken by those small moments. When I hand him a stack of essays, our fingers linger. When he leans over my shoulder to point out a citation error on our joint symposium notes, his breath ghosts across my ear and I have to grip the edge of the desk to stay focused. Every interaction is unintentionally charged, like we’re both still learning how to exist in this new reality where touching privately is allowed.
When Dr. Morton unexpectedly stops by our office, talking to Noah about some email he’d sent a few weeks back, for whatever reason, he brings stress. He brings tension. Because when Eli Morton leaves, he takes all the flirtation and fun with him, leaving a slightly quiet, more focused version of Noah in our office.
