Chapter 12: The Desk in the Chapel
The woods behind campus swallowed the last echoes of student laughter. The path, little more than a worn trail of pine needles and roots, climbed gently away from everything. Leo still held her hand, his grip not possessive but present, a steady signal in the quiet. Abby matched his steps, the sugary dregs of her coffee sloshing in the cup she still carried like a talisman. She felt hollowed out, scraped clean by the morning’s tears, but the weight was different now. Lighter. Bearable.
They didn’t speak. The only sounds were their footfalls, the distant tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker, and the wind moving through the high branches like a long, tired breath. Then, through a veil of young aspen trees, she saw it: the broken spine of the old chapel’s steeple against the grey sky. A relic from the university’s founding, left to the forest decades ago.
“Oh,” she said, the first sound in a long while.
“It’s on the way back,” Leo said, though the path had clearly curved toward it. “If you want to avoid it…”
“No.” The word came out too fast. She remembered the cold stone, the smell of damp and decay, the way his lips had felt that first night—clumsy, earnest, a question in the dark. A beginning before everything had fallen apart. “I want to go in.”
The side door, warped and perpetually unlatched, groaned on rusted hinges. The air inside was several degrees cooler, tasting of old stone, wet earth, and the ghost of beeswax candles. Dust motes swam in the slanted light from a high, broken window. They stood just inside, letting their eyes adjust. The pews were gone, ripped out long ago, leaving only ghostly impressions on the stone floor. At the far end, where an altar might have been, a heavy wooden desk sat beneath a sagging, water-stained tapestry.
They moved to the center of the empty space, where the worn flagstones were cleanest. Leo let go of her hand to shove his own into his pockets. He looked around, nodding at the architecture. “Early 20th century Gothic Revival. Poor mortar work, though. That’s why the south wall is buckling.”
A laugh hiccuped out of her, surprising them both. “You’re such a nerd.”
He shrugged, a faint smile touching his mouth. “It’s just facts.”
They sat on the floor, their backs against the cold stone wall. The silence here felt different—sacred, not empty. It held them.
“You really think you can find it?” she asked, her voice small in the vastness.
“I know I can.” He wasn’t looking at her; he was staring at a crack in the opposite wall, his mind clearly already sifting through digital landscapes. “Their kind of arrogance creates blind spots. They’ll have it saved somewhere obvious, because the threat is the point. They won’t expect a surgical strike.”
“A surgical strike,” she repeated, the phrase so uniquely his. “You make it sound like a military operation.”
“It is,” he said, finally turning his head to look at her. His eyes were dark, serious. “They declared war, Abby. They just don’t know I’m the other side’s artillery.”
The sheer, quiet conviction in his voice unspooled something tight in her chest. This lanky boy in a hoodie, talking about firewalls and passwords while sitting in a ruin. He wasn’t offering hollow comfort. He was offering a plan, a skill, a form of violence they wouldn’t see coming. It was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard.
Tears pricked her eyes again, but they were different. Not of despair, but of a relief so profound it felt like weakness. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know how to thank you for today. For just… showing up. For knowing what to do.”
“I didn’t know,” he admitted, his shoulder stiff under her cheek. “I just acted.”
“That’s the point.” She lifted her head. His face was close, his breath a faint cloud in the chill. “Thank you, Leo.”
Then she kissed him.
It wasn’t like the first time, fumbling and sweet in the dark. This was hard and sudden, a spark hitting dry tinder. Her lips crushed against his, her tongue sliding into his mouth with a desperate urgency. A muffled sound of surprise caught in his throat, then he was kissing her back, one hand coming up to cradle the shaved side of her head, his fingers tangling in the longer strands.
The coffee cup fell from her hand, rolling away with a hollow plastic clatter. She pushed against him, and he yielded, letting her guide him backward until his shoulders met the heavy wooden desk. The old timber groaned. She broke the kiss, breathing hard, her black-lined eyes wide and wild.
“Here,” she panted, pulling him by the front of his hoodie. “Now.”
She turned, bracing her hands on the dusty surface, and hoisted herself up to sit on the edge. The old wood was solid, cold even through her jeans. She lay back, the tapestry above her a blur of faded blues and golds. Leo stood between her spread knees, his gaze traveling over her body in the dim light—a look of pure, hungry focus that made her skin flush.
He leaned over her, bracing his hands on either side of her head, and kissed her again, deeper. His hips settled against hers, and she could feel the hard length of him even through their clothes, a promise of pressure. She whimpered into his mouth, arching up, grinding herself against him. The friction was maddening, not enough.
“Off,” she breathed, tugging at the waistband of her jeans.
He understood. He straightened up, his hands surprisingly steady as he popped the button and dragged the zipper down. The sound was obscenely loud. He hooked his fingers into the denimand pulled them down in one rough, efficient motion. The air hit her wet skin, making her gasp. He yanked the fabric down to her ankles, leaving them tangled around her Converse, her bare thighs pale and exposed, the intricate ink on her hips and stomach a stark contrast.
Leo stared, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. He fumbled with his own jeans, his fingers clumsy now, all his earlier composure gone. He freed himself, and her mouth watered at the sight—thick, erect, the tip already glistening. He positioned himself at her entrance, the head nudging against her slick folds.
“Abby,” he whispered, a question and a warning.
“Yes,” she hissed, digging her heels into the small of his back. “Don’t be gentle. Not right now.”
He pushed in. Slowly, so slowly, the stretch an exquisite, burning fullness. A low, guttural groan vibrated from his chest as he slid deeper, inch by inch, until he was fully sheathed inside her, his hips pressed flush against hers. She cried out, a sharp, shattered sound that echoed off the stone. He felt bigger than before, more real, the reality of him anchoring her to the desk, to the moment, to her own body.
He began to move, a slow, rolling rhythm that was almost reverent. His eyes were locked on hers, watching every flinch, every gasp. But the tenderness, the caution, was a dam holding back a flood inside her. She didn’t want to be worshipped. She wanted to be taken. She wanted to feel claimed by someone who asked first.
Her moans grew louder, dirtier, filling the hollow chapel. “Fuck, Leo… right there… god, you feel so fucking good…”
Her words seemed to ignite him. His thrusts grew harder, deeper, the desk beginning a rhythmic creak of protest with every drive of his hips. The slap of skin on skin joined the chorus of their breathing. She was unraveling, the coiled tension of the morning, of the past year, transforming into a frantic, physical need.
It rose in her, a dark, shameful whisper she’d only ever confessed in a dream. The memory of leather belts, of forced submission, twisted into something else here, with him. Here, it could be a gift. A choice.
Overcome, her head spinning, the words tumbled out, raw and barely audible. “Choke me.”
The second she said it, her eyes flew open in horror. She felt her face burn scarlet. She opened her mouth, an apology already forming on her swollen lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
The apology dissolved into a choked, slurred moan as Leo’s hand swept from where it braced beside her head and wrapped around her throat.
His grip wasn’t brutal. It was firm, possessive, his thumb pressing just enough on the side of her windpipe to make the world narrow to the points of contact: his hand, his cock buried to the hilt inside her. The shock of it, the sheer trust of it, sent a violent bolt of pleasure straight to her core. Her back arched off the desk.
“Is that what you want?” His voice was rough, strained, but his eyes were clear, watching her, reading her. Always reading her.
She couldn’t speak. She nodded, a frantic, tiny movement.
He squeezed, a fraction tighter. The air grew precious. Stars danced at the edges of her vision. His other hand clamped on her hip, bones grinding, holding her in place as he began to fuck her in earnest. No more rhythm, just a relentless, driving pounding. Each thrust jarred through her, hitting a spot so deep and perfect she saw white.
“You’re mine,” he growled, the words punched out with each drive of his hips. “Not theirs. Mine. This is mine. You give this to me.”
She was sobbing, crying out with each impact, her legs locking around his waist, pulling him deeper, taking every brutal, wonderful inch. The pressure in her throat, the fullness between her legs, the echoing sound of their bodies meeting—it coalesced into a tidal wave that shattered her. Her climax ripped through her without warning, a silent scream that tore her open. Her inner muscles clamped around him in violent, pulsating waves, milking him, pulling him over the edge.
With a ragged shout, he came, his hand loosening on her throat as he buried his face against her neck, his hips stuttering, pumping his release deep inside her in hot, endless pulses.
The silence that followed was broken only by their heaving breaths, the drip of water somewhere in the ruin, and the slow, fading creak of the old desk.
His hand fell from her throat, coming to rest gently on her chest, over her pounding heart. He was still inside her, softening, their bodies joined and spent. He lifted his head, his glasses askew. He looked terrified.
“Abby… I… are you—”
She reached up, her hand trembling, and touched his lips. “Shhh.” Her voice was a wrecked whisper. “It was perfect. It was exactly what I needed.”
She saw the fear in his eyes recede, replaced by a dazed, overwhelmed wonder. He carefully pulled out, the aftermath a warm trickle on her thigh. He fumbled with his jeans, then gently, so gently, pulled hers back up over her hips, fastening them with a tenderness that belied the fury of moments before.
He helped her sit up. She swayed, and he held her, his arms strong around her. She rested her forehead against his, breathing him in—sweat, cotton, and sex.
“The architecture,” she whispered, a weak laugh in her throat. “That was step what?”
A real smile broke across his face, shy and breathtaking. “That wasn’t on the plan. That was a… system override.”
He kissed her, soft and lingering. Outside, the wind picked up, whispering through the trees, but in the ruined chapel, for the first time in a very long time, Abby felt entirely whole. And entirely his.