Page 38 of Before He Was Her Headmaster

Dragging in a rough breath, I try to make sense of the weird feelings in my head. I want Sebastian to make me mac and cheese. It’s sweet and kind and a little dirty, the way everything he does for me is. The way he’s holding me right now, with his big body between my legs, his arms wrapped around me. Caging me. I can make that dirty, too.

I can make anything dirty.

And nothing remains sweet.

I hiccup.

But Sebastian makes all sorts of things sweet. He takes care of me, even as I try to push sex all the time.

He wants to fuck me and love me, and it’s more than my heart can handle. Add a layer ofwhy the fuck does an eighteen-year-old get emotional about macaroni, and I think I might be too much for him.

With a shaky voice, I repeat that thought for him. Bare honesty. That’s what he wanted. “I’m worried I’m too much. For you.”

He exhales. Long and slow. And then his arms tighten around me. “Never. You could be a wild storm of a teenager forever, and I will always love that. Your big feelings bring me out of my shell. Your impulsive, hungry needs give me something to do. I’ve been missing you in my life for a very long time. You’re worried that you’re too much? Lily, I worry that I’m not enough for you.”

I gasp. “No.”

“Right? That’s how I feel aboutyou. We’re perfect for each other. It sometimes feels hard to believe, but that’s when the outside world intrudes. When we’re letting it inside our hearts.”

“We shouldn’t do that,” I whisper, arching inside the tight confines of his arms. “I want you to make me macaroni. I want to call you Daddy, and be your teenager forever, and make you horny in a hundred inappropriate ways.”

“A thousand.”

“A million.” I giggle.

He kisses me on my nose. “Can I cook now?”

“Yes.”

He makes the macaroni from scratch, and I tell him I finished my lit review. “I’m meeting with Madeline tomorrow to go over the last part of my project. I need to keep my head down to work for two more weeks and then… done.”

“Good girl.”

I will never tire of hearing him say that to me.

“What else are you working on? One more creative writing assignment?”

That question reminds me of the conversation with Stacey, and I wince.

He immediately sets aside the spatula he was holding and gets right in front of me. “What is it?”

“I don’t know if I can tell you. It’s a student thing. But it’s also kinda an us thing, and I’m….”

“Can you talk about it as a hypothetical?”

I take a deep breath. “Yeah. Okay. Uh… hypothetically, someone I know has a crush on my boyfriend.”

Now it’s his turn to wince. “A student?”

“Don’t ask me who.”

“I won’t.” He groans and kisses my mouth. “You know your boyfriend isn’t interested in anyone other than you, right?”

“Yeah.”

He kisses me again for good measure. “Good. Because Daddy doesn’t want his little girl to be jealous. There’s nobody else for him. Ever. But crushes are normal, and if anyone ever tried to act on that, I would politely and privately shut it down.”

“Good.”

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