Nate

“Good.” He kissed my nose, my chin, and finally my mouth. “You know I don’t mind giving a performance, especially when it’s as top notch as the one we just put on.”

“You’re terrible.” I couldn’t stop my smile.

“You’re wonderful.” He thrust once more, his semi sending tingles along my overheated skin.

Those three words whispered through my mind again, clamoring to get out. I wouldn’t let them. Not yet.

“What’s that?” Nate leaned over to look at my laptop.

Wearing one of his white t-shirts, I sat against his headboard with my laptop and logged onto my student account at Temple. “I have to register for classes. They just opened up at midnight. If I don’t get on it, I’ll miss it.”

“Miss classes?”

“Not entirely. I mean, I won’t get the ones I want, so then I’ll have a weird schedule or teachers that aren’t rated as highly.”

“Huh.” He stared at the screen, his brow scrunched, then scooted next to me and pulled me so I sat between his spread legs. Looking over my shoulder, he watched as I opened the class roster. “Why does it say you’re an undergraduate? Aren’t you a graduate since you graduated high school?”

I was glad he couldn’t see my smile. “No, I’m still an undergraduate. Graduate school is—”

“Oh, yeah.” He shook his head. “Sorry. I’ve heard you say grad school before. So that’s after undergraduate, like advanced degree stuff, right?”

“You catch on quick. Maybe you’re the one who should go to college.” I leaned back and kissed his cheek.

He grabbed my chin and kissed me on the mouth until I’d almost forgotten about registration. With a final bite of my lip, he turned my head back to the screen. “Hurry up. I don’t want you getting the shit classes. Though, I can always send someone to open up a spot for you in one of the good ones.”

I clicked through the literature courses. “Did you just threaten to kill a classmate so I could take their seat?”

“Naaahh.” He rubbed his palms down my thighs and rested his chin on my shoulder. “Maybe,” he whispered.

I pointed at my screen. “I get to skip freshman composition since I have AP credit, but I still need three credit hours of English for the semester.”

“Skip? I knew you were smart, but damn.” He whipped my hair over my shoulder and nibbled at my neck. “So, why law?”

Though his lips made it hard to concentrate, I chose a British fiction course and moved on to Western Civilization classes. “I think maybe that—okay, this may sound dumb—it would be the sort of degree that would make me feel empowered?”

“Empowered?” He stopped mid-nibble. “Like what do you mean?”

I’d never voiced my insecurities out loud, mainly because I couldn’t tell anyone “Hi, I’m Sabrina. My drug importer father was murdered in front of me by a hitman, my adoptive parents were also murdered—oh, and then I watched a mafia death match happen right in front of me while I cowered.” But Nate was different. I didn’t have to explain with him. He knew my path as well as I did, so maybe he’d understand why I’d want to choose a different direction. “I just feel like I’ve been a victim for most of my life. First with my father, then with his killer, then when you found me. I don’t want to feel that way anymore.”

“Hmm.”

I leaned back against his chest. “I pour my heart out and all I get is ‘hmm’?”

“Look, I get it. You want to feel in control. Because there were so many times in your childhood when you had zero control. But, the thing is, you’ve never been a victim to me. You’re strong, Sabrina. So fucking strong. To get through all you have, then to be a star student, to get into a great college. The world gave you a shit sandwich, and you threw it back in its face. I’d say you’re a lot more badass than you think.”

I’d never thought of it that way. Maybe because I didn’t have a habit of coming up with shit-sandwich metaphors, but all the same, he’d given me a new perspective. One that I appreciated. One that made me fall just a bit farther, as if I needed another reason to dive deep for Nate Franco.

He cleared his throat and guided my hand back to the scroll pad. “So you have to take some sort of advanced English, and history, and”—he watched me click through some more rosters—“algebra, French, and Introduction to Law?”

I clicked the last class on my list and sighed. “Thank god I got all the good ones.”

“That’s a ton.”

“Sixteen hours. Not so bad.” I shrugged. The course load wasn’t all that different from boarding school. “Plus, the study time I’ll need for each, it’ll probably total out to twenty-five to thirty. And I plan to get a part-time job for another ten or so.”