by Coral Adams
Holed up in this little apartment with a professor turned lover who seemed completely taken with her, she felt free.
Chapter Ten
Adrian
Adrian wanted Laurie to keep playing forever. There was something different about watching her today than he remembered from seeing her play at college. The setting of course, and the way their relationship had changed, but just her, too.
He felt lighter as well. He knew it would change, that it was their isolated little bubble away from the world that was giving them a false sense of security, but there was no point in ruining it. A false sense of security for even a little while was better than nothing.
As the days passed it didn’t lessen, either.
They were in total harmony, making food, playing their instruments, laying in bed and fucking in every available space. When they hit the twelfth day, he felt like he knew her better than anyone he’d ever met. He knew her favorite and least favorite things. He knew everything that had brought her to where she was today, right there with him. He knew that she knew just as much about him.
Their little bubble stopped being a whirlwind and started being something else entirely. It was comfortable and cozy. It was intimate. It was real. Neither of them doubted that the reason they cared for each other was because they really cared for each other. It wasn’t merely a coping mechanism for their isolation. It was real.
Which was a problem.
Especially when the latest news alert came through.
US to reopen border to flights from EU for citizens wanting to return home at the end of fourteen day quarantine period.
“Shit,” was his first reaction. He realized he’d been hoping for the opposite. He wanted it to be extended. To months, maybe. He wanted to stay here with Laurie and never have to leave.
She met his gaze, eyes wide and a little panicked as well. “I guess we’re going home.”
Neither of them wanted it.
They moved from being in one bubble, to being in their own little bubbles. Sat on opposite sides of the couch without touching each other, they stared at their phones, looking for flights. Maybe they should even get separate flights back. But that would look strange, wouldn’t it?
He still needed to work out payment for half of their stay here, too, and he knew she was going to protest it, even more now they’d shared what they had.
Would their finals still go ahead? Would he need to be able to give an objective opinion of her playing? Right now, when she played, it made his skin prickle with heat and his dick hard. That definitely wasn’t a sign of objectivity.
Would other people be able to see it? Would they see the way they looked at each other and realize that quarantine had led to something more than just an awkward living with each other’s company? Would his job be at risk after all?
Would she even feel the same toward him as she had the past two weeks when she wasn’t stuck here with him? She was more than ten years younger than him, after all. She was only just finishing her college career and embarking on her life.
Her cold fingertips on his cheek made him jump.
She smoothed the wrinkles of his forehead with those fingers, and said, “You look stressed.”
“I feel stressed.”
She laughed. “Yeah. Fair enough.”
She nudged his knees apart and settled herself between his legs, side resting against his chest and head tucked against his neck. She fit perfectly there.
Already he felt better.
“I think I’d convinced myself that going back to reality somehow just wasn’t going to happen.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t want to go back to reality.”
She kissed his neck softly. “It doesn’t mean everything has to go back to how it was.”
“Yes it does. There are so many reasons in real life why this should have never happened.”
“But it did happen, and that’s all that matters to me.” She looked up at him with her wide, stunning eyes. Her fingers were warming as they cupped his face and kissed him.
They were frenzied as they kissed, like it was the last time. Maybe it would be.
His mind was blank except for the feel of her, the heat of her. He liked to tease her normally, to hold her hands above her head and kiss his way down her body until she was squirming and begging. It made him harder than anything.
Today he didn’t have the patience for it. He needed her now.
He maneuvered her down so her back was against the couch and he was pressed against her. He didn’t bother undressing her. He pushed her pajama shorts to the side and his own pants down just enough to free his cock.
Nothing mattered but being inside her. He was almost delirious with not just desire, but her need. She wanted him just as much as she had before. Maybe more. Her hands were rough as they held him to her, kept him as close as physically possible. Her nails dug into his back, so deep they might leave marks. He hoped she left marks. The pain didn’t register, only the passion.
Then he was inside her, moving hard and fast. Her voice seemed to break on every moan, her feet moving up his back with every thrust, trying to keep him deep inside her. He knew he was being rough, too. His hands on her hips would leave bruises.
They came together, their holds getting more tight and desperate. They tried to kiss, but the need to cry out was too much. Laurie’s final noise sounded halfway between a moan and a sob.
They held each other closely without speaking when they were finished, neither daring to break the moment. He couldn’t bear to let her go, in case she was never back in his arms again.
In two days, they’d be done. They’d be heading back to the States, and back to their real lives.
“Should I stay here tonight?” he asked, gesturing to the couch they were laying on, when he couldn’t resist any longer.
He needed to know. The next two days felt suddenly like the most important time of his life.
“Of course not. Not unless I’m staying here with you, anyway, and that just seems like it would be uncomfortable for no good reason at all.” She turned so she was looking straight at him, her eyes still bright and happy. She brushed his hair from his face. “Please don’t run away from me just yet.”
He rolled over a little so she could curl into his side, and held her close. “I’m not going anywhere until I have to.”
Chapter Eleven
Laurie
Their last day together was strange.
They’d lay in bed the night before and booked their flights, each reluctant to make a decision even though there was one leaving just after the curfew was lifted which wasn’t ridiculously expensive and took a relatively short route without a long layover. It was the perfect flight.
The perfect flight neither of them wanted to catch.
It would be leaving Salzburg at four a clock in the evening, and when neither of them woke up until nearly nine in the morning, she was devastated.
She clung to him, feeling pathetic until he held her back just as tightly. “I can’t believe we slept in.” She’d wanted every second she could with him before they weren’t allowed any more.
She knew exactly why they’d slept in, it was because they’d also tried desperately to stay awake for as long as possible because neither of them wanted to accept it was the last time they were going to be entwined together as they slept.
Even waking up at nine o’clock they hadn’t had a full eight hours of sleep.
Laurie fished out her phone from underneath her pillow. “Flight is still on time.”
“Of course it is.”
There wasn’t an ounce of enthusiasm between them. Thinking of America as home almost felt abstract. Adrian felt like home.
“We could just pretend that all the flights were immediately snapped up and we’ve got to wait another week before we can go home.”
“We don’t even have the apartment for another week,” he said.
> “Actually, we have it for another two,” she admitted. “I booked it for the full month, just in case. I figured better safe than sorry.”
He frowned, and she flushed guiltily. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You paid for it.”
“I did. I did.”
She still hadn’t figured out how to properly broach the money conversation with him, and it was something she was loathed to do on their last day together. She knew it was going to be uncomfortable, for both of them, and she was terrified of something that would make him so angry at her that it would ruin their final hours.
“I can see you’re about to offer to pay for everything again and I’m going to say again that I don’t want you to.”
“I know. I still want to, though. It just makes sense. Everything we’ve talked about, the positions we’re both in, it just makes sense. And I want to do it for you, because it’s you, especially. If you were an asshole I’d happily let you pay.” She tried to joke, but it fell flat.
He brushed hair out of her face, the touch gentle and intimate. Reassuring that he wasn’t angry when he said, “I’m not a charity case, Laurie.”
“And I’m not a selfish asshole.”
He laughed. “You’re the opposite. Can we just call it quits if you let me pay you for half of the two weeks we stayed at the apartment? I’ll ignore the taxi and shopping.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, I can live with that.”
Both seemed somewhat stunned for a few moments that they’d actually come to a compromise. “I’m used to a fight to the death,” she said.
“I was sure you were going to tell me that I was being a selfish asshole and that I deserved to pay for all of it after all,” he joked back.
“I–” she almost said it, the thing she’d been about to say to him so many times over the past few days. It had been an invasive thought whenever she saw him, whenever she touched him, whenever.
She stopped herself, though. Heat flooded her face and her body and she averted her gaze.
With a hand under her chin, Adrian brought it back toward himself. “I love you too,” he said.
She laughed and kissed him, feeling light as a feather. She pulled back for just a moment to say the words, because they’d been ready to burst out of her for what felt like forever now. “I love you.”
It was kind of silly to say it to each other after such a short time, especially when it was so close to the end, but she felt it. She did love him. She already loved him more than she’d loved Duane in the six years they’d been together.
She was beyond glad that they had said the words, before it was too late.
“Lying about those flights is looking even more tempting,” she said, leg wrapped around his hip and his hardening cock pressing against her stomach.
“Alas, that really is a risk I can’t take. That’s one way the college might actually find out.”
They tried not to let the second reminder they were going back to reality not sink their mood.
But then they had to get up and pack, and the day seemed to get bleaker and bleaker. She’d booked a cab to pick them up and take them to the airport, and it was due to arrive in twenty minutes. They were all packed, and sat on the couch, barely looking at each other and certainly not talking.
She picked at her nails, which had done a surprising amount of growing the past two weeks, since she hadn’t been picking at them as a nervous habit.
Adrian laced his fingers through hers, stopping her, and pulling her to him. She lay against his chest, overcome with the sudden urge to burst into tears. It’s not fair, she wanted to whine like a child. None of this is fair.
She wanted to promise him that this didn’t have to be forever. After all, she wasn’t going to be his student forever, and they had the rest of their lives if they wanted it. They’d just told each other they were in love, but the doubts of how he would feel when this extraordinary environment wore off scared her. The rest of the world could change everything.
“I’m going to hold your hand all the way until we land,” she said, petulantly, instead.
“If that’s the price of the free upgrade to first class, then I suppose I can live with it,” he teased back.
She’d been very grateful when he had agreed to let her pay for their upgraded seats. She’d wheedled him with fawning statements about how it was their last little bit of time together and she just wanted to spend it beside him. And with a glass of free champagne in their hands. He hadn’t taken much convincing.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said when the smile on his face started to dim on her face. “This has been almost surreal, but it turns out I like surreal, I suppose. Mostly, I like you.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, but for the first time, it wasn’t sexual. She just wanted to be close to him. This was as much of an I love you as when she said the words.
“Everything except being here with you seems so distant,” she replied, resting her forehead against his. “I’m going to miss you too.”
And then, too soon, there was a horn from outside the apartment. They both groaned, and Laurie felt the burn of tears at the back of her throat again. She was not going to cry. She wasn’t going to do it.
Just before they stood up and made themselves face reality, she couldn’t help but squeeze his hand and remind him, “There’s only four months until I graduate, though.”
Chapter Twelve
Adrian
Adrian was enjoying quarantine by himself significantly less than quarantine with Laurie.
He was bored.
He was bored and taunted by memories of her.
When they’d gotten back to San Francisco, they’d been told they had to self-isolate for fourteen days. By the time that fourteen days had expired, the whole country had basically gone into lockdown for anything except essential reasons for leaving the house.
Going to see his student because it turned out he slept infinitely better when he was wrapped in her arms wasn’t likely to be a necessity, he decided, every time he got to the door and almost did it anyway.
Because Laurie was in her apartment by herself. As much as they’d promised themselves and each other that they would stay out of contact, by the second day they were spending most of their time sat on the phone to each other.
Half of that time they weren’t even talking. They would just carry their phones around their homes while they did whatever it was they were doing. They would play their instruments, or sit and read their books, or fall asleep.
Tonight they were attempting to cook together. They’d found a recipe with items that they’d both actually got in the house and decided to try and make it at the same time.
“Well this is definitely out of my comfort zone,” he said as he arranged the items on his countertop.
She laughed. “I can’t believe they’d sold out of frozen pizzas when I last went shopping. You would have thought that would be at the top of manufacturer’s lists.”
“Did you at least get something to celebrate the college’s decision?” he asked. “I would imagine they haven’t sold out of expensive bottles of wine.”
“I may have done,” she admitted. The college had that day decided that they would have to postpone all finals. In order to cause minimal disruption, that meant they were going to award degrees based on the work already done and the predicted grades that would have been achieved in the finals. It was better for some people and worse for others, but for Laurie really it made no difference at all. She was predicted to get good grades, and she would have passed her finals with flying colors either way.
More importantly than that, it meant the barriers between them had lessened even further.
It was still the college’s intention to hold a graduation ceremony in September. Later than usual, but they were anticipating things to be back to normal by then. Laurie was technically part of the college, and his student, until that point.
But for all
intents and purposes, she was done. Them being together wouldn’t affect anything for her. She couldn’t be with him to try and get better grades anymore. He couldn’t be exerting pressure over her because he could affect her grades.
He had the creeping sensation they were almost home free.
Any doubts he’d had about their relationship surviving past Austria had disappeared almost immediately upon their return to the States. They lingered, telling him that they were still living in that surreal environment, really. That it was when the lockdown was lifted that would really shine a light on their relationship.
It wasn’t the crushing doom he’d felt on those last days of their time in Salzburg when he’d allowed it to win, though.
“Ah, shit,” he said, “I think I burnt my onions.”
“This was the first step!” she said, exasperated and laughing all at once.
“I wasn’t meant to be a chef,” he responded, turning off the heat and scraping his onions into the bin. “I’ve still got one left. I can have another go.”
“We’re all out of sync now.”
“You could sacrifice your well cooked onions and start again as well.”
She laughed. “I think I’ll just take them off the heat until you’ve caught up and use the time to pour myself a glass of that nice wine you mentioned earlier.” She paused. “You can do that with food, right? Well, I guess we’ll find out.”
By the time they were both sat at their respective tables, neither was impressed with what they’d created.
“I miss takeout,” Laurie said, and he heard the sound of her cutlery being set against the plate.
“Maybe when all this is over we’ll level the playing field and both become students in a cooking class,” he joked.