CHAPTER 2

Zara’s POV

Twenty one years old. Curvy, confident, sharp, and completely untouched. The most widely read anonymous erotica author on the platform and I had never once done a single thing I wrote about. Not one scene. Not one moment. Every explicit chapter that left my readers crawling to their partners or lying awake alone and frustrated came entirely from research and a very good imagination that had been working overtime since I was sixteen.

I found that genuinely funny. I always had.

My alarm went off at seven thirty and I got up the first time it rang.

I showered and stood in front of the bathroom mirror with my towel wrapped around me and looked at myself the way I had been looking at myself for years now. Comfortably. Without the old running commentary that used to start up the moment I saw my own reflection.

I was chubby. Soft in the places that certain people spent a lot of energy having opinions about. Full hips, round belly, thick thighs, heavy chest. I looked at all of it and felt nothing except fine because I had made my peace with this body a long time ago and I was not in the business of revisiting settled decisions.

It had not always been this easy. My mother had made sure of that.

Mum was not cruel about it. She was never cruel. She was careful — gentle suggestions, smaller portions at dinner, clothes bought in the size she thought I should be working toward rather than the one I actually was. Little comments wrapped in love that landed wrong every single time. I absorbed them for years without fully understanding what they were doing to me.

Then she sent me to Hadley Boarding School in Connecticut when I was fourteen and something happened there that she had not planned for.

I met girls who looked like me and did not apologize for it. Girls who wore their bodies like they had paid for every inch. I watched them and something in me started to shift and by the time I was fifteen I had made a decision standing in front of a bathroom mirror at school that I have not gone back on since.

I was done.

Done apologizing for my size. Done treating my body like a project. Done making myself smaller so other people could be comfortable with my outline.

I got dressed without any of the old noise in my head this morning. No second-guessing. No sucking in my stomach or tugging the fabric to hide the soft roll of my belly. Just me, standing in front of the mirror, running my hands over every generous curve like I was claiming it all over again.

High-waisted trousers hugged my thick thighs tight, the stretchy fabric molding perfectly to the wide flare of my hips and the full, juicy swell of my ass. Every step made the material pull deliciously between my legs, pressing right against my pussy in a way that kept me half-wet already. I tucked the white fitted shirt in, the thin cotton stretching across my heavy breasts, the buttons straining just enough to create a deep, inviting valley of cleavage. My nipples were already tight little peaks, rubbing against the lace of my bra with every breath. The shirt clung to the soft curve of my waist and the plush underside of my tits, and when I turned sideways I loved how my body looked—round, ripe, completely fuckable. I slipped in the gold hoops, shook out my long dark hair so it fell in thick waves over one shoulder.

I grabbed my bag off the chair and was almost at the door when my phone buzzed on the desk. I picked it up.

Mum.

Good morning my darling. I found something I think could really help you. A lot of girls your age are doing this and the results are amazing. It’s simple and sustainable. Check the link 💕

The preview loaded on its own. Split-screen before-and-after. Left side: a woman who looked perfectly fine—soft, real, curvy like me. Right side: the same woman, smaller, smiling that wide, bright, finally acceptable smile.

I stared at it for a long second. Heat prickled at the back of my neck, but I didn’t click. I didn’t reply. I didn’t even send a heart emoji. Mum meant well. She always meant well. The love was real, the worry was genuine, but she still couldn’t see that her daughter had made a loud, proud, permanent decision to stop making herself smaller for anyone. The message could sit there unanswered. That was fine. I had a class to get to.

I slid the phone into my bag, let the door click shut behind me, and stepped out into the sharp January cold.

The campus was already alive. Wind slipped down the open collar of my coat and teased across the tops of my breasts, making my nipples tighten even more against the thin white shirt. I left the coat hanging open anyway.

I found the Kimmel building, took the stairs to the third floor two at a time, and pushed open the door to Room 304. Half-full already. Low murmurs, the rustle of notebooks, that first-day energy of strangers pretending they weren’t checking each other out. I picked the third row—middle seat, perfect view—and dropped into it. Notebook out, pen uncapped, date written neatly at the top like a good little student.

At the front of the room someone stood at the board with his back to us, writing the course title in slow, deliberate strokes.

Behavioral Psychology — Power, Motivation and Human Dynamics.

I leaned back and did what I always did when I had a spare minute: I watched people. Starting with him.

God, he was tall. The kind of tall that made the whole front of the room feel smaller. Broad shoulders filled out his white dress shirt so perfectly the fabric lay smooth and taut across his back, not a single wrinkle. Dark fitted pants sat low on his narrow hips, hugging the powerful lines of his ass and those long, muscular thighs. Black belt. Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing strong forearms corded with muscle and faint veins that made my mouth water. Dark hair, short and neat, with just enough silver at the temples to send a dirty little thrill straight to my clit. He wasn’t doing anything special—just writing—but the way he held himself, completely still, completely in control, made the air feel thicker near the front of the class. Like gravity pulled harder there. Like the room existed for him.

I uncapped my pen again and told myself to stop staring at the back of a professor I hadn’t even seen the face of yet. My thighs pressed together anyway. My nipples were so hard they ached against the cotton. Heat pooled low in my belly, slow and thick.

He capped the marker with a soft click.

Turned around.

And my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

That sharp, clean jaw. The dark stubble that looked rough enough to leave marks on soft inner thighs. Those almost-black eyes—steady, unreadable, seeing everything. The quiet authority radiating off him like heat. I knew that face instantly, completely, like muscle memory in my pussy.

Dominic Calloway.

My mother’s ex-husband.