That worked for about twenty minutes, and then there was a knock at the door.
I took a deep breath. Preparing myself.
Lucas, Hi. Hello. How are you? Good, good. No, I’m not doing anything. Sure, come on in. Talk? Talk about what? Oh, that? Yeah, no big deal. Right?
That would work. Easy-peasy.
Another deep breath. I smoothed my sweater down and tugged at the V-neck a little. I forced myself to blink away the nerves.
I opened the door, a smile starting on my lips, polite, welcoming, neutral.
Then I had the door opened, and my breath caught and my smile faltered.
Fuck.
I should have checked the peephole.
Ladies, a Public Service Announcement: Always check the peephole before you open the door. Always.
“Nina.” Low, deep, rough voice; unexpected, jarring, thrilling, terrifying, familiar, bone-shivering. “You took off rather suddenly. I had a few personal things to sort out in London, so I couldn’t chase after you straight away.”
CHAPTER 9
What the what? Was this actually happening? For real?
Ian was standing on my doorstep, looking down at me.
Sexy.
Huge and hard and muscular.
A little angry.
Actually, a lot angry.
But also hot as hell, and amused, maybe even a little nervous.
“Ian. Hi. Um. Hi?”
Fucking stupid sexy mouth of his, quirked up, smirky, snarky smile. “Nina. Hi. You busy?”
I blinked up at him. “Uh. No?”
“Is that a question?”
God, I loved his accent. Izz’tha’a question?
“No. I’m watching Dr. Who. Not busy, I mean. That’s what I mean. I’m not busy.” Yet I didn’t move out of the way. I just stood there stupidly, staring up at Ian.
“May I come in, then?”
I backed up, swiveled; Ian swept past me. I smelled his cologne, spicy, familiar, intoxicating.
Ian glanced around at the mess of books piled on the couch, on the table, on the counters. Books everywhere. Papers, too. Syllabi, grading rubrics, essay prompts, handwritten drafts of the papers I was working on. Yeah, I still wrote essays by hand before turning them in. With a real #2 Ticonderoga. Sometimes I switched it up to a Faber or whatever other brand was available. But I generally preferred the Ticonderoga.
Rambling. God, I was rambling mentally. Putting off my reaction to Ian’s unexpected arrival.
He moved into the living room area, pushed a stack of books carefully aside, sat down, found the remote, and unclicked the pause button. Dr. Who resumed. Ian even put his feet up on the coffee table, thumping his big black combat boots on the wood. I just stood there, gaping. He was here, suddenly, no explanation, just here. In my dorm. Light blue jeans with rips at the knee, the artful kind of rips. A dark red Lumineers T-shirt tight around his chest, hugging his trim waist. It was the concert shirt that was designed to look like an optometrist’s eye chart. Why that was important enough for my brain to take note of, I wasn’t quite sure.
And now he was just sitting there, watching Dr. Who.
Not asking what had happened, where I had gone, or why. Nothing.
I blinked several times, took a deep breath. Moved around the couch, pushed the books aside yet further, and sat down beside Ian. Knees drawn together, hands on my knees, breathing a little too deeply, a little too quickly. Ian seemed oblivious to my befuddled, ruffled, utterly baffled state. What did I say? Did I wait for him to say something?
I leaned back, tried to relax. But I couldn’t.
I snatched the remote from Ian and clicked off the TV. “Ian, god, I don’t even know what to say. You’re here, and I—”
“You don’t know what to say?” Ian turned to face me, eyes blazing. “You don’t know what to say?” He said it twice, emphasizing it two different ways.
For extra emphasis, I suppose. To great effect, as well, I should add.
“I—”
“How about ‘shit, Ian, I’m sorry, mate. I just panicked and I should have spoken to you instead of vanishing.’ You could start with that.”
Oh boy. He was really, really pissed.
“Ian, I—”
“Unless you did a runner because you wanted to get away from me, in which case I’m sorry for showing up like this, and I’ll just leave.”
“No, that’s not—no.”
“Then what? I know you’re surprised, but you could at least say something coherent.”
“Ian, I—”
“I mean, either way, you do owe me a fucking explanation, I’d think, right?”
“Ian, I—”
“That’s the third time you’ve said that.”
I lost it. “Then stop fucking interrupting me!” I stood up, pushed away from the couch and paced across the room. “I panicked, Ian. You got that part right. And I should have talked to you about it, but I just—I couldn’t. Because you would have just talked me out of…I don’t even know what.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“It’s panic. It’s not supposed to make sense.”
Ian nodded and shrugged. “Guess that’s true enough. But still. You panicked, but you couldn’t talk to me about whatever it was you were panicking about, because I would have somehow talked you out of something you’re not even sure of?”
“When you put it like that…”
Ian laughed. “That’s how you put it, babe.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Then explain it.”
I couldn’t look at him and explain anything rationally, so I stood facing away from him. “I’ll try. But you can’t interrupt me.” I turned and glanced at him, and he was just staring at me, blue eyes fraught with a thousand emotions, boiling and storming and piercing me. I turned away, staring at my feet. “Everything about you, about us…it was so confusing. I thought it would just be…fun, I guess, you know? Like, new experiences in a new country, or something. I came to England to do something different, to go where I wanted to be in my life, not where my parents expected, not where my sisters expected. England was supposed to be—not starting over, exactly, more…turning a page. A new chapter. Whatever other cliché you want to use.
“But then I met you on the plane, and you—you’re so…much. Larger than life. Intense, and into me. You’re not safe. You want things from me, you expect things of me, things that I—that I didn’t know I wanted. Things I didn’t know I liked. But I did, and it was—being with you, having sex with you, it wasn’t what I thought it’d be. I thought going into it that I could keep things casual. But I couldn’t. I know myself better than that. But I kept trying. Because I was going to end up here in Oxford, and you were going to stay in London, and I couldn’t risk not living my dreams, you know? And if I’d stayed with you, which I wanted to do—it could have been risky for me. That’s why I left, Ian. Because I wanted to stay.”
“Nina—”
“No, I said don’t interrupt. I know that makes no sense. I get it, okay? I left because I wanted to stay. Stupid illogical girl logic, right? Yeah. I get that. But it’s the truth. That night, with you, it was…it wasn’t just sex, okay? I know that. I knew that then. And so did you. I saw you, I fucking saw you feel it too. And that scared the hell out of me. Because—what I felt, what I saw you feel, it—it wasn’t something I could handle, not then. Neither could you. It wasn’t—”
“Convenient?” Ian supplied, and managed not to sound bitter as he said it.
“Exactly. It wasn’t something either of us were in a position to deal with.”
“News flash, Nina.” His voice came from right behind me, making me freeze in place, not even breathing. “Love is never convenient.”
Knock-knock-knock.
Shit. I knew that knock. Brief, efficient, polite. Not too loud, not demanding.
“Expecting someone?” Ian’s voice sounded suspicious, tinged with the beginnings of bitterness.
>
“Fuck.” My own voice was quiet, the single syllable spoken quietly, harshly.
“Nina, I think we need to talk.” Lucas’s voice, muffled, came though the door. “I’ve searched the whole library, which is rather a lot of territory to cover, actually, so I know this the only place you could be. Open up, will you?”
I moved away from Ian. “Ian, I—”
“Say that one more time, and I’ll be angry. Just send him away. We have unfinished business, you and I.”
Will be angry? If he wasn’t yet, then I should be scared to see what real anger looked like.
“It’s not that simple—” I started.
“Nothing is ever simple, Nina. It’s how you deal with the complications that defines who you are.”
I closed my eyes, blocking out the bleeding edge of hurt I saw in his blue eyes. I shook my hands, blew out a shaky breath. I opened the door, trying to keep the opening blocked with my body.
“Lucas, hi.” I was starting to feel like a record on repeat. “Um. Now is really—”
“You can’t avoid me forever. You’re in my class, for Christ’s sake. It doesn’t have to be awkward.”
“But it is, though, isn’t it?” I couldn’t help the comment from slipping out. “Look, can we talk another time?”
“It won’t take but a minute, I swear.” He held up the package he’d had with him in class. “I just came by to give you this. You did win the bet, and I—I always pay my debts.”
There were very, very few things I wouldn’t do for a first edition Jane Austen. I stared at the paper-wrapped parcel, blinking, trying to figure out a justification that would allow me to accept the book.
I came up blank.
“I can’t, Lucas. Keep it.”
“But Nina, it’s…it’s a first edition of Pride and Prejudice. It’s worth thousands of pounds. It’s—it’s a signed first edition. One of the very first printings of the first edition, actually, so it’s especially rare. You have to take it. I—it’s taken me quite a bit of courage to package it up for you, to get to a mental and emotional place where I can part with it, so you have to take it. You have to.”
“No, Lucas. No, I can’t.”
He glanced down at the book still extended toward me. Then he looked at me, and past me. He saw Ian, and understanding flooded his features. He backed up a step, two.
“Oh. I see. I see.” He backed up another step, turned and walked four more paces—I counted, for some reason—and then stopped and turned back. Stared down at the book in his hands. “Well. You still won the bet, so—here.” He set the book on the sidewalk at his feet, and then looked up at me. “And really, I just came to give that to you, and to make sure there wouldn’t be a problem with the class. Obviously neither of us knew I was your professor when we—when things happened. But now that we’re aware, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, with—with what happened. It was confusing, you see. For me, I mean. It seemed like you were…into it, is what it seemed like to me. And then after, you seemed so upset, and I just—I wanted to make sure there was no problem.”
Ian was standing right behind me, listening to everything. I could feel his anger.
“There’s no problem.”
“It seemed like there was.”
I turned and looked back at Ian. He shrugged, and then gestured at Lucas.
“Looks like you have a superfluity of explanatory outstanding debts,” Ian said.
“Ian—”
He nodded at the door. “Clearly there’s something that needs to be discussed. I’ll wait.”
I looked from Ian to Lucas, and back. Jesus. What a mess.
“You know what, never mind. It’s fine. There’s nothing to discuss. Never mind.” Lucas turned away, glanced back one last time at his book.
I let him get a few more steps away, almost out of sight, and then I swore and jogged after him, barefoot. “Lucas, wait. Just wait a second.” He halted, turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Lucas.”
“I’m the one who should be apologizing. I pushed you into something you weren’t ready for.” He waved a finger at my still-open doorway, at Ian filling the frame. “And you’ve got someone waiting.”
“You didn’t—what happened with us…Lucas, you didn’t push me into it. I went with it voluntarily.”
“Then what happened?”
I could only shrug. “I don’t really know. I still don’t know how to feel about it.”
“But it wasn’t—it wasn’t good, was it?” That was said as part question, part statement.
“I don’t know what it was, Lucas. I really don’t. It’s not about being blindfolded, or tied up, or…not solely about that. It’s about everything. The whole experience. It was…I guess in a way you’re right, I wasn’t ready for it. But not like you’re thinking. I think.” I laughed self-consciously.
“No, that’s how I meant it. I’m assuming that’s the bloke who had you crying in the rain, and you were crying, Nina. Deny it if you will, but you were crying. And now he’s here and I’m guessing you’re sorting things with him, which means I—what happened between us was—” he seemed at a loss to explain what it was.
“See? What was it? It wasn’t a rebound, or whatever. It happened, and it overwhelmed me, but I don’t regret it and I’m not upset with you. At myself for getting myself into this situation more than anything.”
“There’s no situation, Nina. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. You seemed really upset that night, and that was never my intention, obviously.”
“I know. And honestly, I think if circumstances had been different…I don’t know. Maybe nothing would be different.”
“I won’t lie…I do wish you weren’t my student. Or that you didn’t have…” his eyes flicked over my shoulder to glance at Ian, “…extenuating circumstances vying for your attention. I like you. God, that sounds absolutely juvenile, doesn’t it? You’re attractive and intelligent, and you appreciate the same things as I do, which is rather hard to find, I’ve discovered.”
I felt something in my heart squeeze. “Lucas, you’re not making this any easier. You know, in some ways I wish we hadn’t had sex. Not because of how I reacted, which is honestly mostly me. I mean, it was a lot to experience all at once, and really intense, but…if we’d gotten to know each other better first, maybe, or—I don’t know. I feel like you and I are—”
“Kindred spirits?”
“At the risk of sounding like a Lucy Montgomery character, yes.”
“But not kindred enough, right?”
“Lucas, come on—”
He held up his hands. “Sorry, I’m being passive aggressive, aren’t I?”
“A little, yeah.”
“A failing of mine, I admit.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw, scratched at his beard. “We’re going nowhere fast with this conversation, so…I’m going to leave now. I’ll see you in class, Miss Herrera.”
I let him walk away, watching him vanish into the shadows. When he was out of sight, I started back up the sidewalk toward my door, and came across the book, still lying where Lucas had set it, on the ground, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. I picked it up, held it in my hands, stared at it for long, long moment, wondering if I’d made a mistake in letting him go.
I jogged into the shadows. “Lucas! Hold on!”
There, at the edge of a pool of light cast by a lit window. “What is it, Nina?”
I pressed the book into his hands. “Keep it. Please.”
He stared down at the book for a long minute. “If you insist.”
“I can’t take it, Lucas. Not under these circumstances.” I inhaled deeply, because I really wanted to be able to keep the book.
“I understand.” He held it up in gesture, turned and walked away. “I’ll see you around, I suppose.”
He was gone again. I turned away, went back to my dorm but didn’t go in yet. I stood outside, reflecting. There wouldn’t be any going back, now. Something inside me understood very clearly
that whatever potential may have existed between Lucas and me was gone now.
And part of me mourned that.
We truly were kindred spirits. We saw the world through the same filter, in many ways. He understood my obsession with Regency literature, for one thing, which not many others could or did. He was kind, gentle, intelligent, thoughtful, self-assured, but not all cocky or arrogant. He could make me orgasm a dozen times in twenty minutes—although the exact number and time frame involved was hazy, at best.
So why had I let him walk away? What was wrong with me? He was here, in Oxford, where I hoped to spend the next several years of my life studying. Even being a student in his class wasn’t a huge obstacle. We were close in age, he wasn’t my degree advisor, his class wasn’t necessary for my degree, neither of us was married…
I felt him before I heard him. He stood behind me, waiting. “Nina?” The anger was tempered, for the moment.
“I’m fine.”
“We’ve been over this.”
“Really.”
“Bullshit.”
“Ian—”
“Even if you are—which I don’t believe for a second—I’m not.” A quiet tread of rubber on cement, then the scent of his cologne washed over me, and his heat billowed against my back. “What was that all about? And what’s with the book and the bet?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“Fucking hell, Nina, that’s the problem with you. Everything is fucking complicated. It doesn’t have to be. And you know what, it’s not really all that complicated, is it? You just don’t want to explain, because then you’ll have to actually say out loud what happened and what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling, say it all in actual words, and that scares the bloody hell out of you, doesn’t it? I’ve come a long fucking way to have it out with you, and by god I’m going to. I know it’s taken a bit of time, but life isn’t as easy as it seems in the movies, is it? So I can’t just walk away from a job I just started, one I moved halfway across the world to take, no less. I woke up after a night I thought had cemented something really powerful between us, that there really was…oh fucking hell, I don’t know, something. Something real. Not just casual sex, not just fun. Yeah, I saw it, too, I felt it, too. I saw you feel it as clearly as you saw me. And then I woke up and you were gone. Not even a fucking note, like ‘sorry, Ian, I can’t do this, goodbye.’ Just gone. Like, what the fuck, Nina? Who does that? All of your clothes, your toiletries, everything, just gone. Like you’d never even been there in the first place.”
Big Love Abroad (Big Girls Do It Book 11) Page 17