Big Love Abroad by Jasinda Wilder
"So why'd you sleep with him, then?"
I shook my head, not in denial or refusal, but because the truth he was digging for had been trapped deep, deep inside me for weeks. Trapped, thumping frantically, buried alive, demanding to be let out.
"You really want to know why I slept with Lucas?" I asked, finally purging all the truths secreted deep in my gut.
"I asked, didn't I?" Ian said, eyes narrowing and chest expanding as he drew a fortifying breath.
I dragged deep, trawled the farthest corners of my soul. "Because I wanted to be over you."
"Best way to get over someone is get under someone else, is that it?"
"Sort of, I guess? It wasn't that, consciously, though. It was...he made me feel safe. No, that's not right either. Fuck." I rubbed my face with both hands. "It's--it's that he was safe. Or so I thought, at least. He was good-looking, intelligent, understood my obsession with Regency literature, and not only understood it but shared it. I was attracted to him, I enjoyed being around him, because he was...calm."
"I'm not calm?"
I shrugged and shook my head. "That's not what I meant. It's hard to put all this into words. He was calming. He made me feel calm. We could sit and each do our own thing for long periods of time without talking. He didn't make me feel like...like everything I wanted, everything I knew, everything I thought I wanted or knew was...up for debate. Changeable. I could just be."
"And when you're with me?" Ian had stepped away to stand with his back to the TV, arms crossed over his broad chest.
"I feel like nothing is certain. I feel like...like I could just somehow end up being this totally other person. You make me feel like, all my life, the person I've been was just...not a mask, but...god, I don't know--like everything I knew about myself was just the skin, just the surface. And being with you somehow opens all that up, cuts through the skin and you've started to let out all the different parts of me that have been trapped under that skin my whole life. It's fucking scary, Ian. I don't recognize myself around you. Lucas made me feel like the old me."
"How does this go back to you fucking Lucas?"
I flinched at the cold, casual way he said that. "I'd walked away from you. I had to, though, because I wanted to stay, so badly."
"You'll have to explain that one a bit," Ian said.
"I mean, I could have stayed in London with you, like, forever. Just never left. I could see myself with your friends, in London, just...living life and having fun. And yeah, I know, that sounds great. But what about this--?" I waved at the outside, meaning Oxford in general. "What about my dreams, my goals? It's so easy to forget all that when I'm with you. That's why I left. And I didn't want to, but I had to, because otherwise I never would have. I'd have just stayed in London with you and we'd fuck and drink and everything would be awesome, and then one day I'd wake up and realize I never got my degree, never followed those dreams I'd left my family to come here to pursue. So I packed my shit and came to Oxford. And I knew...I knew I'd messed everything up with you by doing so, and that hurt. I knew you wouldn't come after me. I mean, why should you? So when I got here, I knew no one, had no clue where I was going, had no room assigned to me, didn't even know where the university was in relation to the train station. I should have taken a cab, but I'm an idiot and decided not to, and then it started raining--"
"And, as I said, cue the good professor, to the rescue."
"Yeah. And I felt like...like me, and like he fit with that me. I don't know if this is making any sense or not, but it's the best way I can explain it. And I didn't set out thinking he and I would do anything. It wasn't like I met him and was like, 'ooh, let's use him to get over Ian.' It wasn't like that. It just sort of happened. We met, but it was like two or three weeks before we even went out or anything, and even then I wasn't sure what to expect. And then instead of going to a restaurant, he took me to his place and cooked a meal and we had this expensive wine..." I ducked my head, hating how it sounded, even to myself. "I sound like such a slut. One thing led to another, and then bam--you know? It wasn't like that, though. But then, it was, I guess. I let it happen, I went into it eyes open. I made the choice and I can't pretend otherwise. Even after it started to get...weird, or intense, or whatever, I could have stopped it. But I didn't. And I realized, afterwards, I guess, that even though Lucas wasn't quite as--safe or vanilla as I'd initially expected, that he still wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't...right. Not like it was wrong. Part of me--" I halted, shaking my head, worried about admitting what had just gone through my head.
"What, Nina? Part of you, what?" He took a seat on the couch beside me, took my hand in his. "I may be upset about--well shit, bloody well everything really, but I'm not judging you. I'm not, and I won't."
"If it had been you, I think the experience would have been different for me."
"Be clear, Nina."
I let out a breath. "Lucas tying me up, edging me, all that. It was like--god, how do I explain it? It was like taking a sip of clear liquid, expecting water, and getting vodka. Unexpected. Even if you like both water and vodka, you drink one expecting something and get something totally else, it's a shock."
"So you're saying you did like it, but you weren't expecting it?"
"Sort of? I don't know. It felt like something was missing. Something was off. Not right. Again, not--not right in the sense of wrong, morally or whatever, just--off. I don't know how else to say it or explain it, even to myself. Best I can come up with is that I knew, deep down, that it should have been you, but it wasn't, and at that point I figured it never would be. But I wasn't even letting myself think about you at all then, and I guess I'm just now really understanding what I was thinking."
"It should have been me, Nina."
"But it wasn't."
"No, it wasn't."
"Because you're scared."
"I already said I was."
"And you thought Lucas was safe, a safe bet, an easy way out. The simplest way to sabotage everything for yourself, only it turned out to be not as easy as you expected. Because he did things to you that only I should be able to do. If it had been plain old just-sex, you wouldn't have been so upset about it."
"I guess so, yeah."
"And then I showed up, and now it's all a mess, because now you have to face the consequences of a whole bunch of questionable choices, including, but not limited to, everything that happened with Lucas, everything that happened with me, and even coming here to England in the first place. And you--as you've said a thousand times now--just don't know, right?"
"Right."
Apparently that wasn't the answer he was looking for.
Ian stood up abruptly and paced away, scraping a hand through his hair, growling in frustration. Two paces forward, halt, hand through his hair again, and then he stalked back toward me, grabbed me by the arms and hauled me to my feet.
"Ian? What--what are you doing?"
He didn't answer. Not in words, at least. He grabbed my arms and shoved them behind my back, imprisoned my wrists together in one of his massive paws. His big body was crushed up against mine, and he used his grip on my wrists as leverage to shove me harder against his body. All my softness was smashed up against his hardness. His other hand slid around the other side of my body, the edge of his wrist knifing past my neck, gripping my ponytail in his fist, roughly tugging so my face was tilted up to him.
"Tell me to go away, Nina."
I just stared at him, saying nothing.
"Tell me you don't love me."
I swallowed hard, licked my lips. Blinked, tears sliding down my face, heart slamming against my ribs like a caged animal seeking freedom.
"Tell me this all has meant nothing to you. That I mean nothing to you. That you can live without me. That nothing will ever be the same after London. After that night."
It wasn't that words were lodged in my throat, it was that I had no words to begin with.
"Say fucking something, Nina."
"I--Ian, I..." I
"Ian, I'm sorry."
His grip loosened, and an even stronger fear snaked through me: he was about to let go, about to walk away. And that fear dislodged a torrent of words.
"Ian, I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't have run. I shouldn't have been such a fucking stupid coward. I shouldn't have left you. I shouldn't have come to Oxford. I shouldn't have slept with Lucas. I should have...I should have..."
"But you didn't."
I felt the tears slip down. One, two, three. A dozen. All sliding silently down my cheek. He didn't wipe them away. He didn't let go of my hair, or my wrists. I was pinned against him, head tilted back on my neck, breasts crushed against the hard wall of his chest, his arms circling me.
"I'm sorry, Ian."
Instead of answering, he bent, teased his lips across mine. Tease, tease, tease. Lips brushing mine, tongue scraping over my upper lip, teeth nipping at my lower lip. Hips, grinding in slow, torturous, erotic circles.
I was crying, heartbroken, sorrowful, and he was turning me on? How was this possible? It was, though. Through my tears, I felt my nipples tighten, felt my core moisten, felt my belly clench and my lungs contract, blowing out the last of my oxygen.
"Ian?"
And then he kissed me. Not like before. Not gently. Not as a reminder. This was...claiming. Demanding. Punishing. It was a rough kiss, teeth clacking against teeth, breath blasting against breath, lips mashed against mine. He jerked me closer, towering over me, tugging on my ponytail until I was off-balance, leaning back on my heels, head craned as far back as it would go. And he kissed me and kissed me and kissed me, as if sucking the memory of the last three weeks right out of my soul via my mouth.
I thought my lips might split, might bruise. Thought he'd kiss me and then let me go, let me topple backward and then stride out the door.
Instead, he broke the kiss and left me gasping, eased back a step so I could regain my balance, let my head tip forward, released my wrists. Left me standing on my own power. Just stared at me, eyes hot and needy and furious with...
Love.
Fuck. He loved me?
Jesus, he loved me.
And he was waiting for me to decide what I wanted. I could refuse him, here and now. Play it safe. Make some excuse and get Lucas to take me back, go for the easy, safe path. Lucas would love me too, I knew that. He'd forgive me, and he'd take me back, and we'd have intense and overwhelming sex, and he'd make me come half a dozen times every night.
But...
He wouldn't be Ian.
"I'm scared." It wasn't even a whisper, really, more a fragile breath, a delicate exhalation. "Of being loved. Of loving. Of not being good enough. I'm scared that you might be attracted to me now, but in a few years, you won't be. That I'll gain thirty pounds and you'll leave. If we...we went with this, got together and made it work, I know you'd love me. We'd get married. I'd get pregnant, and I'd gain fifty pounds, and some of it would never come off. And then I'd have another kid, and there'd be a few more pounds that just wouldn't come off. And then one day...one day I'm not the same woman you married, and--and--"
He shut me up with a kiss. A gentle one. The gentlest. A butterfly's wings fluttering the air, the touch of a summer breeze, the sunlight on closed eyelids.
"This is still about your weight?" He didn't tip my face up, this time. He spoke to the top of my head. "Nina, sweetheart. Love sees beyond the numbers on a scale. It sees beyond the circumference of your waist, or your hips, or your chest. It sees beyond an extra five or however many pounds you may or may not gain. Sweetheart, love, real love--it's a decision. Not just an emotion, or attraction. It's not hoping it'll work out somehow. I've been through that. I've loved someone and had it fall apart because we weren't both totally invested. I won't do it again. And you know what, if you can't trust me to love you whether you weigh a hundred and fifty pounds or two hundred and fifty, then this won't work."
"I'm just supposed to trust you won't care what I look like in twenty years?"
"Exactly. It's a risk, Nina. You won't ever know with one hundred percent certainty. That's why love is scary. I've risked, and I've had my heart broken. More than once, actually. But here's the thing: when you left, when I woke up alone and all your shit was gone, it was worse than when I realized Jamie had never really truly loved me, that she'd been in love with Chase Delany the whole time."
"Wait, Chase Delany from Six Foot Tall?"
"Yeah, that Chase Delany." He sounded irritated to have to acknowledge it. "She was in love with him the whole time, and was just using me to hide from it, because she was scared. And when she broke up with me, I tried to play it cool, but it fucking hurt. I was an asshole about it, I guess, but I'd just had my heart shit on. And like I said, when I realized you'd bolted, that hurt worse than what happened with Jamie. It took this long just for me to decide if I had the balls to let you explain. To decide if I could risk my heart yet again."
"And you did." This, through slowing tears.
"And now you're telling me you're holding out on me because you're worried you may put on a bit of weight in a few years? If that's what's bothering you, then why don't we go eat a bunch of cheeseburgers and we can get fat together? I don't care, Nina. More than that, I love you exactly how you are. You're beautiful to me, as you are. And assuming you have the fucking stones to try this with me, I'll still love you in five or ten or fifty years, regardless of how you look. Because you'll be beautiful to me then, too."
"Jesus, Ian." I could barely get the words out, because I'd lost it all over again.
"Nope, no Jesus here. Just me."
"Shut up," I laughed. "What about--"
"Logistics are easy, Nina. Quit making excuses." He drew a breath, let it out. Cupped my cheeks in both of his hands. "Tell me you love me, or tell me to leave."
CHAPTER 10
I pushed myself up against him, let myself melt into him, ran my hands up his chest, clung to the back of his neck. I turned my face up to his, blinking slowly. Parted my lips. I felt every inch of his hardness, the mountain of his muscles, the heat of his breath, the expectant blaze in his eyes. I lifted up, ready to kiss him until it all went away--
He pulled out of my arms, shaking his head. "No, Nina. You can't kiss your way out of this, either."
"Ian--"
"Tell me you love me, or tell me to leave."
"Stop fucking interrupting me!"
"Then answer the fucking question!"
"It wasn't a question, it was an ultimatum."
"Yes, it was."
"You can't just strut around issuing ultimatums, Ian!"
He looked irritatingly calm. "Sure I can. And I'm not strutting."
"Ian, goddammit--"
"I can demand you face up to yourself, Nina. To me. To us. You walked away, and we've both admitted what we felt that night. And we both know that was just the moment when we both really realized what was going on with us. You walked away, Nina. And I came after you."
"A month later!"
"Yeah, well, I have a job, a life, a career. This is real life, Nina, and in real life, you can't just drop everything and jump on a train to claim the love of your life. Especially when you don't know--I didn't know why you ran, Nina. If I'd been sure you loved me, if I'd been sure it was just fear, I may have. If you'd said something, like 'this just won't work, I can't do long distance,' something like that, if you'd left me anything at all to work with, to go on, I may have been willing to walk away from my brand-new job. Because, yeah, I do believe that the right kind of love is worth sacrifice, is worth walking away from jobs. But
"You're right," I admitted.
"I know I'm right!" He brushed my cheek with his thumb. "But I'm here. And I'm willing to start from where we are now, from right here. But not if you aren't willing to be real about this. If you aren't willing to risk, to admit, to...to be really, really fucking real about this, then what am I doing standing here with my heart in my hand?"
He was right. He was so right.
In romance novels--the great measuring stick against which all of my experiences are compared--when the heroine is faced with this kind of make it or break it, now or never sort of decision, the choice seems glaringly obvious. Like, duh, you stupid cow, go get him! Say yes! He loves you, what are you waiting for?
In life, though, nothing is ever that obvious, or simple. I mean, yeah, he loves me. He'd come after me, and he was still here claiming to love me even after finding out about Lucas. But nothing in my life had ever prepared me for the reality of loving someone, or being loved. My parents loved each other, and they loved us girls, too. I knew that, intellectually. Mom and Dad have been married for thirty years; you don't make it that long without loving each other. But I'd never seen them be affectionate with each other. Never heard them say "I love you" to each other. And I'd also never been told by them that they love me. It just wasn't their way. I'd never told any of my previous boyfriends that I loved them, and they hadn't said it to me.
I grew up knowing in an abstract, mental sort of way that my parents and my sisters loved me, knew it because we were family, knew it because family loved each other. They took care of me, provided for me, spent time with me. We went to the zoo, to movies, to concerts, the odd holiday Mass, to dinner and to lunch. We were family. Family loved each other. My parents were together, never argued in front of us, were never mean or cruel. My dad may not have understood or agreed with my choice in career or degree, but I knew it didn't compromise our familial bond. I wouldn't be disowned over it; get-togethers might be a bit strained for a while, but that's it.
But all that? It's totally different than trying to come to grips with the reality of someone totally unrelated to you claiming to love you, someone who owes you no loyalty, no bond of blood. That's not so easy to understand. Not when "I love you" is such an unfamiliar phrase. Ian didn't have to love me. He chose to. Because he wanted to. How the hell was I supposed to be able to just...deal with that?