CHAPTER NINE
SEPTEMBER EASED INTO OCTOBER OF OUR first year together. Burnished leaves flared from the trees and began to fall in a blazing carpet of yellow and red. A pleasant chill bit through the air. Classes continued, the rhythm of the semester settling into a soothing march.
Being with Dean was so easy that my fear began to subside. If anyone could slay monsters, he could—though I would never ask that of him. I did know he was the one with whom I could discover all the hot, sexy things I’d imagined but never done.
I knew he was waiting for me to let him know when I wanted more, that I had to be the one to make the next move. I knew he would wait for as long as it took.
It didn’t take long. I thought about him a lot. My dreams burned with memories of his lips crushing mine, his hand sliding up my naked thigh, my breasts pressed against his chest. I woke breathless and throbbing, often rubbing myself to orgasm before I even got out of bed.
A week after my confession, I invited him over to watch a movie. Which I asked him to pick. Which was my mistake.
“Oh, Lord.” I dumped a pot of fresh-popped corn into a bowl and rolled my eyes. “Is that another key to unlocking you, then? Obscure foreign movies?”
He looked offended. “This is not an obscure movie. It’s a classic Tarkovsky film about a fifteenth-century Russian icon painter.”
“Oh, well in that case…”
“Give it a chance, would you?” He put the disc in the machine and hit the play button before settling back on the sofa.
I’d give it a chance because he looked astonishingly sexy sprawled out over my sofa, one arm slung over the back so that the material of his T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. His hair was all disheveled, his jaw coated with the stubble that I’d come to expect on casual evenings and weekends.
As long as I could sneak glances at him from the other side of the sofa, we could have been watching a movie about the bubonic plague, for all I cared.
I handed him the bowl of buttered popcorn and sat down, tucking my legs underneath my skirt. The movie started with a man getting entangled in the ropes of a hot-air balloon, which then caught a gust of wind and carried him through the sky.
After that somewhat promising start, there was drama about people seeking shelter in a barn to escape a rainstorm, then a philosophical discussion between two monks about grief and knowledge.
Fifteen minutes in, I took the popcorn bowl back and ate a few handfuls. Twenty minutes in, I yawned. Thirty minutes in, I felt Dean glance at me.
“No?” he asked.
I snored.
“Ah, Olivia.” He sighed and reached for the remote control. “You’re breaking my heart.”
“My being bored by a movie about a Russian icon painter is enough to break your heart?” I said in disbelief. “What happens when I tell you that medieval history puts me into a coma?”
“Quick!” Dean clutched his chest. “Administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
I giggled. He straightened and winked at me before turning off the TV.
“Okay, then,” he said. “A Russian icon painter doesn’t do it for you. What does?”
“This really handsome medieval history professor.” My breath escaped me with the blunt confession.
Our gazes collided across the expanse of the sofa. A current of electricity crackled between us. We hadn’t kissed since that night in his apartment. I knew we both wanted to. I also knew I had to be the one to initiate it.
I pushed the popcorn bowl aside and got to my knees. My pulse intensified as I moved across the sofa and knelt by his side. A slight tension rippled through him. I put out a hand and placed it on his warm chest. His heart pounded.
“What does the R stand for?” he asked.
“The R?”
“Olivia R. Winter. Rachel?”
“Rose.”
“Olivia Rose Winter.” His voice wrapped around my name, deep and caressing. “Pretty.”
“Thanks.” I tilted my head to study him. “Have you ever dated a student before?”
“You’re not my student, but no. Never.”
“So why me?”
“Couldn’t stay away from you.” He lifted a hand to cover mine where it rested on his chest. “Didn’t want to.”
“I’m not…” I swallowed to ease the dryness of my throat. “I’m not like other girls.”
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“More than okay.”
I wondered why, but couldn’t bring myself to ask for fear he might expect more of my own revelations. I was twenty-four, and I had yet to explore my own sexuality deeply and thoroughly. I’d wanted to for years, but was thwarted by so many things—fear, danger, shame, inhibitions.
None of which I experienced with Dean.
I knew I could be unreservedly passionate with him. He’d take me places I’d only dreamed about and keep me safe the entire time. Even when I’d confessed about the scars knitting through my soul, he had not retreated.
Just the opposite, in fact. He’d drawn his sword in readiness to protect me.
I curled my fingers against his chest. “I’ll need to go slow.”
“I can go slow.”
“It might be too slow for you.”
Dean looked at me for a long minute, a shallow crease between his eyebrows, as if he were trying to figure me out.
“I like downhill skiing,” he finally said.
I blinked. “Okay.”
“I like speedboats and bungee jumping.” He leaned forward and put his hand beneath my chin. “I also like hiking, rock climbing, and fishing.”
“That’s… um, very diverse of you.”
A smile tugged at his mouth. “My point is that fast is fun. It’s exciting, an adrenaline charge. But slow is no less satisfying. In fact, it can be even more of a rush to work and savor every step rather than fixate on getting to the end.”
“Well.” I exhaled a long breath, my skin tingling at the idea of savoring every step. “That’s good to know.”
“I’ll wait.” He lowered his hand from my chin and sat back. “Until you’re ready for me.”
“And you won’t…”
“I won’t pressure you.”
“I know.” I stared at the half-circle of tanned skin above the collar of his T-shirt. “I meant, there’s a lot of other stuff besides intercourse that I’d like to do with you first, but I’d hate for you to think I’m…”
“Playing games?”
“Or being a tease.” I forced my gaze back to his.
Pain and anger flashed in his eyes, emotions I’d seen that night I told him about my childhood.
“I don’t think that of you,” he said. “I won’t.”
“Okay.” My heartbeat sped up a little. “So we can fool around but take it slow and see where it leads us?”
“We can do that, beauty.”
Beauty.
I smiled, pleasure diminishing my unease like sunlight on shadows. I turned my hand where it rested on his chest so our palms met. His strong fingers closed around mine.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked after a few minutes.
“Sure.”
“Remember when I told you I…” My belly tightened. “Uh, when I told you I’m not frigid?”
“Actually, you didn’t have to tell me that.” Amusement creased his eyes. “I already knew.”
I blushed. “Well, I have a lot of fantasies.”
“About what?” His heartbeat increased beneath our entwined hands.
“Lately… you.”
“Me.”
I nodded.
“And what kind of fantasies do you have about me?” His voice was getting husky.
“Pretty explicit ones.” My blood grew hot as I remembered my fantasy from that very morning of me wrapping my legs around his hips as he drove into me hard enough to make my body tremble.
Definitely wasn’t ready to confess that one yet.
“I’ve done a lot more in my fantasies than I have in reality,” I admitted.
He didn’t ask why. He waited for more.
“But my fantasies have always been about anonymous encounters,” I continued. “Never about a man I know. Until you.”
He leaned closer to me, his eyes brewing with heat, but he didn’t touch me beyond the clasp of my hand against his chest.
“And what do we do in these fantasies of yours, Olivia Rose?” he asked.
I swept my gaze to the line of his mouth, my pulse spiking at the memory of his lips crushing mine. “Lots of kissing and touching.”
“Nice.”
“Oh, it’s nice.” I brushed my thumb against the secret notch beneath his lower lip.
Though Dean’s eyes fairly smoldered, he didn’t move to kiss me. The last remnants of my unease slipped away as I closed the distance between us and pressed my mouth to his. His lips were so warm and firm that I melted at the sensation of them moving against mine.
I curled my fingers into the material of his T-shirt, flicking my tongue out to probe at the seam of his lips. My pulse leapt when he opened his mouth to let me inside, then I put my hands on either side of his face and deepened the kiss.
A lovely haze descended over me. He tasted like butter, his breath hot against my lips. My heartbeat continued to throb, every beat pulsing heat through my veins. After a long moment of kissing, I paused to stare into his lust-filled eyes.
“Don’t you want to touch me?” I whispered.
“More than I want to breathe.”
“I promise I won’t freak out this time.”
He exhaled hard. “I promise I won’t act like an ass if you do.”
“You didn’t. I’m just not used to this.” I tightened my hand over his. “But I really liked the way you touched me.”
“One day I’m going to touch you in a thousand different ways and show you how to touch me.” Dean slid his hand around the back of my neck. “But right now we’re just going to make out.”
He pulled me closer, easing back so I could stretch out on top of him. I loved the coiled strength of his body beneath mine, the way our chests pressed together and our breath moved in tandem. He drew my head to his and kissed me, the pressure slow and exquisitely easy.
The man knew how to kiss. He rubbed his lower lip against mine, slid his mouth down to nibble at my neck, flicked his tongue out to lick the corners of my lips. His hands spread over the back of my head, angling our mouths together. My eyes drifted closed.
Heat and pleasure billowed through me. I sank into the sensations, unafraid, tunneling my hands into his hair to hold him against me. Our kisses went from soft and gentle to open-mouthed and hot, then back to soft and gentle again. I lost track of time as my heart beat in time to the instinctive rhythm of our kissing, the gentle easing in and pulling back, like waves rippling the glass-smooth surface of a lake.
Dean pressed his mouth to my cheek, trailing a path to my ear where his breath tickled the strands of hair against my neck. He lifted his head to look at me, his eyes filled with both desire and affection, and stroked his hands down to rub my back.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” I breathed.
His fingers flexed against my waist as our lips met again. I closed my teeth gently over his lower lip, eliciting a groan from deep in his throat. Emboldened, I spread my hands over his chest. The heat of his body burned through his shirt and up my arms. His heartbeat pounded against my palm.
Through the cloud of passion, I was dimly aware of his erection pressing against my leg, and my own body softened in response. A coil of urgency tightened through me, but even then I knew we wouldn’t go any farther than this heart-melting, delicious kissing.
And we didn’t. I don’t know how long it lasted, but somehow it felt as if we had never been apart. We broke the rhythm at the same time, both lifting our heads to stare at each other.
The sight of him—his hot, dark eyes, sharp features flushed with heat, rumpled hair—warmed my blood all over again. He pushed his hands through my hair, easing the loose strands away from my face.
Then he pressed the back of my head gently, urging me to rest against his chest. He brushed his lips across my forehead. I relaxed on top of him, listening to the steady sound of his heartbeat.
He stroked his palms up and down my back as our breathing slowed. Lulled by the sensations, I drifted into a smooth, deep sleep, one unbroken by sharp-edged dreams.
And when dawn appeared through a crack in the sky, I woke with a feeling of safety I had never before known.
We’d changed positions on the sofa during the night, and now the length of Dean’s body pressed against my back. His chest moved steadily in the rhythm of sleep. His breath warmed my skin. One of his arms was flung around my waist, and his hand curled loosely around my wrist.
A wave of pleasure surged beneath my heart. I lay still for a long moment, folded into the arms of this warm, strong man who was willing to bear the weight of my confessions. A man who admired my resolve and still wanted to protect me. A man who saw beauty in me.
Behind me, he shifted, his stubble scraping my neck, his voice a whisper. The crack in the sky opened wider, filling with light the color of apricots.