This was right. This was me. This was perfection.
“Ian—” His name on my lips was broken sob.
“Say it. Say anything, love.”
“Ian, no more playing around.” I rushed the words, got them out past the knot of emotion. “Fuck me. Love me.”
He slid in, withdrew, and then gave it to me hard and slow. “Like this, love?”
This time, that word, that term, it wasn’t just a slang term, a throwaway, it was heart-deep, meant, full of promise. “Yes! More, more. Please.”
“I love it when you beg,” Ian said, and this time it was slow, a deliberate tease.
“Please, Ian. Please. Pleasepleaseplease. I need you.”
“Say that again, the last part.”
I fucked up against him, needing it, desperate. “I need you, Ian. All of you.”
“Look at me, Nina.”
I forced my eyes open, found his, hot and blue as the noon sky, fraught with emotion. Hands on either side of my face, supporting his weight, his huge body levered over mine. He didn’t speak. Didn’t have to. He moved in me, slow and aching and perfect, filling me just right, stretching me so wonderfully. I hooked my legs around his hips, moved with him in unison, in synch, in harmonic beauty, us together a tapestry of hard angles and soft curves. His eyes on mine, we moved, the ILOVEYOUs unspoken but just as clearly heard.
Harder, faster. We didn’t speak. Didn’t scream or cry or demand or tease or curse. Didn’t have to. We just moved, never looking away. And that, the vulnerability, locked gazes was when my heart cracked open. Split apart and brought to the surface, his eyes meeting mine, hearts wrapped up and woven together, it was no longer sex or fucking or even lovemaking. It was something else entirely.
It was that moment when you cease being one disparate, singular entity, when you unite with him and melt into him, when it stops being about coming, about trading pleasure, about getting there, that moment when the veil across heaven or whatever forever you believe in is ripped open for the eternity of those particulate instants, those granular moments, each one branded on your soul, each one made indelible on your being.
I wanted it to last forever.
I wanted to not just be with him, but to become him, to crawl into this moment and wrap it around us both and never leave it.
Some advice, spoken from the moment of perfection: when you find love, don’t look away. When you know you’ve got forever in your grip, don’t look away. When he’s there and demanding you tell him you love him or tell him to leave…tell him you love him. Don’t let it go.
I almost did.
And now, when I think of that, how close I came to losing this forever, I could have a heart attack. I shrink inside, shy away from that edge. If I’m with him, I cling to him so tightly he surely wonders what madness has seized me.
And in that moment, when we broke open and broke apart, exploded together, it was a spasmodic weeping ecstasy, a study of utter carnality made into love, worship of all that we were together as one.
Left gasping, wordless, boneless, I find the nook of his arm and curl into it, find that sweet spot, where everything is okay and nothing matters but us, where he’s got his arm around me and his heartbeat thunders under my cheek, his skin sweat-slick stuck to mine. Sealed together.
“Jesus, Nina.” He whispered it, long minutes of silence into the afterglow.
“I know.” I twisted to kiss his chest over his heartbeat. “Me too.”
Moments of silence punctuated only by our breathing. “You had me worried there for a moment,” Ian finally said. “I thought you were about to tell me to leave.”
“But I didn’t.”
“And I can breathe again. I don’t think I’ve taken a full breath since I woke up the day you left.”
“Me either.”
“Never again, yeah?” His voice was sharp.
“Never again. I promise.”
He smacked my ass, hard and sudden, a slap so loud and stinging that I squealed. “Better not.”
“You want to spank me, buddy, you better be ready for what comes with it.”
He grabbed my hand, shoved it down between us, and I found him ready. “Hands and knees, Nina.”
I got onto my hands and knees, watched over my shoulder as he rose up behind me, palming my ass with such tender gentleness it hurt my heart to watch, to feel. Caressing, worshiping my body with his hands.
And then…
SMACK!
I cried out in pleasure, the sting of his palm on my ass causing my core to clench, to drip.
You know what happened, then? Hours of us. Fucking. Being spanked. Kissing. Hours and hours of just kissing, until our lips were raw from it. Exhaustion. Waking up in the wee hours, finding each other in the darkness, fumbling at each other, coming together quietly, furiously, shaking.
He did as he said he’d do, left me in my bed—our bed, since now any bed was our bed—with strict orders to not put on a stitch of clothing, and left, returning not long after with stacks of carryout, sorry, takeaway, and more condoms, and a bottle of decent white wine. We ate, we drank, we discussed logistics; namely, my class schedule, his work schedule, travel arrangements. Him spending weekends here, me spending off-days in London.
We created a life together, there, naked in my bed. When he had to run out for supplies he would return as quickly as possible and as soon as he had the door closed behind himself, he’d shed his clothes as if they burned him, and we went at it hard and fast on the couch, me bent over the arm, him behind me, keeping my right leg hitched up so he could pound up into me. All the while, the food cooled on the coffee table.
And then we ate, and we made a life together.
Don’t look away. Don’t let it get away. Don’t run.
Believe him when he says he’ll love you, if only you’ll let him. Because, yeah, you might get hurt. But love is always a risk. And when it’s right, god, it’s nothing like a romance novel.
It’s so much better.
EPILOGUE
An hour’s train ride doesn’t seem like much, when you compare it to American standards of distance. An hour’s drive, for instance, won’t even get you out of the Metro Detroit area. In fact, I don’t think you could drive the semi-circle circumference of the Metro Detroit area in a single hour. An hour won’t get you to Ohio, Illinois, or Indiana. Not even two hours will get you within spitting distance of the southern Michigan border.
Yet, by European standards, an hour’s travel is a long distance. An hour can get you nearly halfway across the entire country at the widest point. An hour’s flight will take you to the European mainland. To Ireland, Scotland, France…
There’s a saying: To Americans, two hundred years is a long time; to the English, two hundred miles is a long way.
An hour’s train ride, from London to Oxford—an hour and a half, if you want to be totally accurate—at the outset, seemed like a short distance. Hop on a train on Friday after class, spend the weekend with Ian in London, head back Sunday night, maybe even super early Monday morning. He could come up and see me on days I didn’t have class. It seemed so doable. So easy.
But, month after month, it got harder and harder. The miles and the minutes spent on the train, the nights spent away, not in his arms…piled up. Got longer, got harder to endure. I started to resent the distance between us. So did Ian, I think. One night, a Sunday in London, several pints in and dreading the train ride back to Oxford, I vocalized my doubts as to the worth of my time spent pursuing the degree at Oxford. I wondered if maybe Dad was right. How much good is a degree in old books, anyway? Especially when all I really wanted was to be with Ian.
Maybe, I said, slurring, sniffling, maybe I should just not go back—
“Are you fucking kidding me, Nina?” Ian demanded, setting his pint glass down so hard it cracked at the base. “After all we went through, all the fucking angst about staying true to what you set out to do, and now you want to just give up?”
“But what a
m I going to do when I’m done?” I demanded. “I’ll have spent a year, two years apart from you. And then what?”
Ian let out a frustrated sigh. The bartender slid him a fresh pint, and Ian gave him the guy-chin-lift of silent thanks. “Here’s what you’re going to do, love. You’re going finish your fucking degree. You’re going to woman up and deal with it. You are attending one of the most prestigious universities in the world, what is in fact the single oldest educational institute in the world. You are following your dream. And you aren’t going to give it up just because you can’t spend every single night with me. I miss you too, okay? I do. I hate falling asleep without you. It just plain sucks. I get it. But you aren’t giving up. I’m not letting you.”
“Shouldn’t it be my decision?”
Ian shook his head. “Nope. I’ll be pissed if you just roll over and give up just because things get a bit tough. You’re not moving in with me until you have your degree. It’s just not happening.”
“So if I quit, you’ll break up with me.”
Ian stared hard at me. “It would put a very hard strain on things. I’d resent you. I’d be so angry with you it’d be very difficult for me to forgive you.” He set his pint down, took mine from me, set it on the bar top. His eyes pierced mine, and we could have been the only two people in the bar. “Nina, listen to me. I love you. I miss you. I hate the distance. I hate having to travel an hour just to see you. But you can’t give up. Not after what we went through to be together.”
“Shit,” I sniffed. “You’re right. You are. I know you are. I just—”
“I know. I get it. I do. And as for what you’re going to do? That’s up to you. You want to do nothing with it, fine. You want to just sit home and read for fun, I’ll take care of you. I’ll buy you all the books I can afford. Or you can figure out what you want to do. But you can’t just stop. You’re going back.”
So I went back. We traded weekends commuting. I’d spend two weekends in London with him, he’d spend two with me in Oxford. It never got easier. Neither of us stopped hating the distance. But Ian loved his job in London, and I wasn’t about to ask him to move, or to commute in to London every day, not when it was hard enough on a weekly basis.
Eventually I finished my degree. Got my master’s in Regency era literature.
I still had no clue what I was going to do with it. I loved Oxford, it must be said. I did. I loved the grounds, loved the old buildings, the library. My whole family flew to England to watch me matriculate. It meant the world, honestly. My parents may not have agreed with my choice of degree, but they were proud of me nonetheless. They also met Ian, and my sisters were both a little jealous. Even my mom seemed a bit…weird, around him. But I get it, for real.
He still makes me a bit weird, TBH.
I graduated, and spent a good six months in London, asking myself “now what?” But they were a glorious six months. Nothing but Ian, morning, noon, and night. Yeah, we got a flat together, and we’d meet there once in a while for lunch and a nooner. Happy Nina.
But I got bored. I looked for jobs. Found nothing. I’d thought, after being in school nonstop for over twenty years straight, that I’d enjoy being done a bit more. But I missed the classroom, missed long days in the library, even missed writing papers.
Okay, kidding about that last one; no one likes writing papers.
And then Ian surprised me. He instructed me in his most un-disobey-able voice to get dressed in something nice, because we were going out for a fancy dinner.
By fancy dinner, he meant suit-and-tie, high heels and hair in an up-do, a car service picking us up and carting us across London to a restaurant at the top of a high-rise overlooking London. It was the kind of place that didn’t have prices on the menus, and you had to use your inside voice and keep your elbows off the table and use your best posture.
He ignored my queries as to what the occasion was all through dinner. After dessert—a delicate crème brûlée and thick, golden espresso—he ordered a bottle of champagne, and when the server had opened it and poured it with a flourish, Ian finally sat forward and took my hand, a happy gleam in his eyes.
“So, Nina. I have some news.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Out with it already!”
He shook his head in amused disapproval. “You have no patience. So here it is. I’ve been promoted. It’s not a simple pay-grade raise, though. It means a transfer.”
My heart dropped, and then twisted. “A transfer? To where?”
He hesitated, let out a breath. “Switzerland.” He seemed equal parts nervous and excited. “Zurich, to be precise. My firm is opening an office there, and they want me to head it up. It’s an all-expenses-paid move, and quite a large raise. It’s a hell of an opportunity, actually. I’d hoped you’d go with me.”
“Zurich.” I could only blink and try to fathom what this meant. “Zurich. Have you been there?”
He shook his head. “No. They want me there soon, though. They’ve already had the building we’re to occupy furnished, so I’ve got to get there as soon as possible and get the network designed and installed so we get the accounts going. They want the office up and running at full capacity within a month. It’s going to mean a lot work for the first few months, but then it’ll slow down.”
“But…what am I going to do in Zurich? I don’t speak a word of French or German.”
“You’ll learn.” He smiled, then reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat. “Plus, I did some querying on your behalf. The University of Zurich, which is rather well thought of internationally, actually has an opening in its literature department. It’s a lower level teaching position, but apparently their British literature professor is getting on in years, and is likely to retire fairly soon. So, I’m told he’s looking for someone to train as a replacement.” He handed me a few folded sheets of paper, a printout of an email exchange. “I sort of maybe hacked into your laptop and updated your resumé for you, and sent it on to the head of the literature department. You’ve got an interview next week.”
I couldn’t even blink, much less read the email thread. “You…you what?”
“If I’m going to drag you across Europe, I figured I’d better find something useful for you to do. You’ve been moping about for months now. You need a job. And I sort of thought teaching literature would be right up your field.”
“You updated my resumé?”
“Rather well, too. Got letters of recommendation for you from all your professors at Oxford and U of M.”
I felt something hot and hard knot in my throat. “Ian, you—you applied for a job at the University of Zurich, as me, without telling me?”
He frowned. “Yes. I did.” He swallowed hard. “I thought you’d be happy. I know I took a bit of liberty, but I did it for you. For us. I can’t move to Switzerland without you.”
My eyes stung. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll go.”
Champagne sat untouched in the flutes, bubbling merrily. I took the stem of the flute nearest me, pinching it between thumb and forefinger, spinning it on the spotless white tablecloth. Watched the bubbles stream to the surface.
“It’s an English-speaking position,” Ian said. “They know you don’t speak French or German, and it’s fine. You don’t need to. You’ll learn, of course. We both will, since I don’t speak either language any more than you do. The firm is providing a condo for us, too. It’s within walking distance of both the university and my office. I’ve seen photographs, actually, and it’s…stunning. Views of the Alps, the city…it’s furnished, as well. And Zurich is supposed to be an incredible city—”
“Ian?” I cut him off.
“Yes?”
“Shut up for a second and let me process this.”
He shut up.
Did I want to move to Zurich, Switzerland?
There wasn’t much of a question about that, really. I’d go anywhere with Ian. I’d probably live in a hut on some remote Indonesian island, i
f he asked me to. My consternation came in regarding his hacking my computer and applying, on my behalf, for a teaching position without so much as a ‘hey, how do you do.’
I read through the emails, which included a copy of my resumé. Damn. He’d made me sound pretty damn awesome. And, reading over everything he’d put in—which included nothing but the raw truth—I was pretty well qualified to teach lower-level lit. And if it included a shot at taking over as head of the Brit-lit department? Jesus, how perfect.
A brochure slid into view, informing me of the U-of-Z Ph.D. study program. “You could teach as well as study for your Ph.D., which would put you in pretty perfect position to take over for Professor Mueller. Just…by way of suggestion. You know.”
I studied the brochure. Studied the emails. Studied my own feelings.
But Ian wasn’t done. “Nina?” I looked up at him. “I have one other question.”
He had a black box. Velvet, about two inches square, clamshell. My heart seized, stuttered, and set to pounding. I tried to swallow, but there was a knot in my throat.
He smiled. Took my left hand in his. Love shone in his pale blue eyes. “Nina Herrera, will you marry me?”
“Oh my god, Ian.”
“If we’re moving to Switzerland together, starting a new life together, I thought maybe we could do so engaged. We could fly our families in to Switzerland, next summer. Get married with the Swiss Alps behind us—”
“Ian?” I interrupted.
“Yes, love?”
“Shut up so I can tell you yes.”
“Oh. Okay. All right. Go ahead.”
Giddiness welled up within me. Bubbled out as a nervous, happy giggle. “I would absolutely love to marry you, and move to Switzerland with you. Yes. God, yes. Please Jesus, yes.” Suddenly I was crying as well as laughing.
Ian slumped back in his chair. “Thank Christ.”
Big Love Abroad (Big Girls Do It Book 11) Page 21