He smiled and leaned in closer, quickly snatching a kiss.
A smile broke out on my lips. I brought my hands to either side of his face and bounced up onto my tiptoes to kiss him.
His hands wrapped around my waist, sinking low on my back. I let my hands melt down to the back of his neck. He walked us forward and around the couch. He sank back onto it, keeping his hands on my hips. So I crawled up onto his lap, my knees on either side of his hips.
His lips were something I knew I would never get tired of. Our lips moved together in perfect synchronization. They explored one another. They loved one another. Every piece of us was made to go together.
I relished in the feeling of Nathaniel’s hands moving up my hips, up my sides, over my back. He held me like I was something precious and desirable. Like he’d never let me go.
My hands slid back down to his neck, and I felt his pulse under my palms, growing quicker and hotter.
“It’s a good thing I love you so damn much,” I said, smiling against his lips. “Because your open mind might get us killed someday.”
I leaned back just a bit, observing the small, sad smile that formed on Nathaniel’s lips. He raised a hand up, brushing his thumb over my cheek.
“I might not be willing to get into fights to defend myself, Margot,” he said, “but if there was ever any chance you were in danger, every ounce of self-restraint I’ve developed over the last few years would vanish in an instant.”
“Stars, I love you,” I breathed out as I leaned forward again, claiming his mouth because he was mine and I was absolutely his.
My hands were all over him. They were greedy and hungry and desperate for more, more, more of him.
I didn’t know what it was, why we were waiting to have sex. There was this boundary and neither of us had crossed it, even though it wasn’t something we’d discussed.
Maybe it was just that we were both a little bit old-fashioned in some ways.
Maybe it was that neither of us wanted to discover every bit of each other too fast.
But for now, we were happy to explore just about everything else.
Nathaniel rolled us over, pressing my back into the couch, his body shifting on top of me. His lips moved from mine, to my neck. As his tongue licked out, exploring my skin, and his teeth grazed my flesh, I felt alive. Every nerve ending in my body was on fire. I was electric.
I heard it as I tilted my head back. Books lifted into the air. The desk lifted. Half of the room was floating.
But that didn’t stop my hands from gliding over Nathaniel’s shoulders. It didn’t stop his mouth from returning to mine, or my fingers from sliding into his hair.
“I don’t want to go home,” I breathed out, knowing the hour was getting later and later.
“I can’t believe your dad doesn’t have a problem with this,” Nathaniel breathed against my flesh, every inch of him trembling with need.
“He keeps making jokes about becoming a grandpa too soon, but secretly, I think he’s hoping for it,” I said, smiling.
Nathaniel chuckled and shook his head.
But somehow, we both just knew. Someday, we were going to grant my father his wish.
Just not yet.
“Come on,” Nathaniel said as he sat back and pulled me to my feet. I groaned in disappointment but knew that it was time. I needed to go back to the house.
“Walk me home?” I asked as I grabbed my coat from the coat stand by the door.
“Always,” Nathaniel said with a rogue smile, grabbing his own coat.
Snow was softly falling as we stepped outside. It was fully dark by now, the abandoned garden pitch black. But as we rounded onto the manicured grounds of Alderidge, the lamp posts lit our way.
“Are you still determined to go to school this next semester?” Nathaniel asked as we walked through the crunching snow.
“I haven’t made any quitting decisions yet,” I chastised him. “And I’m already signed up for classes. Besides, if you’re at school, I might as well be, too.”
He didn’t say anything else, but leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.
I felt the snow already melting into my hair. So, I looked up. I raised my hand just slightly.
And I told the snow to drift off either direction, away from us.
Instantly, the snow parted over the top of us, almost as if we had an invisible umbrella above us. Not another flake landed on either of us.
Nathaniel just smiled and hugged me closer.
There was dim light glowing and flickering in the window as we walked in front of my house. We could see my father’s silhouette, bent over a book.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Nathaniel said as we stopped in front of my door. “I can feel it. What we’re doing, with just the two of us, it’s difficult, but imagine what we can get accomplished with three of us.”
I still wasn’t happy about it. But I didn’t say anything. I gave an acknowledging nod.
“I love you,” Nathaniel said, pulling me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me.
“I love you, too,” I said, meaning those words, even though I wasn’t so sure about everything else that had happened today.
“Sleep well.”
I smiled at him, pressed a quick kiss to his lips, and walked inside.
Chapter Two
January third brought the first day of winter semester with it. It had snowed six inches the night before, adding to the twelve we already had, and Dad called over to the school twice to be sure they weren’t delaying or cancelling. They weren’t. So, Dad went out with a shovel to start on the driveway and the sidewalks.
I stepped out onto the porch and looked one direction and then the other. There was someone out at the end of the road, but they were far away and looking the other direction.
I smiled as I looked at my father bent over his shovel, his back to me.
I lifted my hand. I mentally reached out to the snow.
Instantly, every bit of it lifted off the driveway and the sidewalk, and then dumped itself in the center of the lawn.
Dad stood up with a start, looking to the left and the right in utter confusion. His hand even went to his hat, as if he were worried it was going to float away, too. I couldn’t help but laugh, to which he suddenly twisted around, searching for an answer. His eyes met mine, wide with shock and maybe a little fear.
I just smiled.
Dad looked nervous, but he smiled and laughed, too. He shook his head at me as he walked back up to the door, leaning the unneeded shovel against the side of the house.
“You’re a handy one to have around, every now and then, Margot Bell,” he said as he tapped my nose with his gloved finger.
“Every now and then,” I said.
We gathered our things and stashed them in our bags. And then we donned our thickest coats and hats and gloves and walked outside into the frigid air.
I continued to clear the sidewalks, so long as no one was around to see.
“How does Nathaniel not freeze in that solarium?” Dad asked as we set off on the sidewalk. His eyes slid in that direction, to the north end of the university.
“He has a fireplace,” I said, casting my gaze that way, too.
“But he’s surrounded by glass,” Dad said, shaking his head. “No insulation. I’m worried he’s going to sleep too deep one night and not stock that fireplace, and he’ll just freeze to death.”