And secondly, because if he’d taken the day off, maybe he was busy – and I’d missed my chance anyway.
But I’d whined my way at the receptionist, telling her a huge sob story about how I was a daughter of his friend and we were supposed to talk about colleges and I lost his contact information and didn’t know how to talk to him. Thankfully, she knew enough of his schedule to know that he was supposed to be meeting me last night, and she fell for it. She gave me his cell.
Now all I have to do is call it.
I’ve been staring at the phone for at least ten minutes, trying to work up the nerve. Once I make the call, that’s it. There’s no going back. And what I’m afraid of is that this amazing sense of possibility I feel might be taken away. That once he says no, that’s it. No more dreaming.
At least right now I can keep hold of the dream – what might have been.
I take one more breath and hit the call button before I can stop myself and think about it too much again, almost panicking and ending the connection when I hear the dial tone. It’s too late now, I think. But, no it isn’t. I could just end the call now. I could stop, and he wouldn’t know it was me, because he doesn’t have my number, so it wouldn’t be so—
“Hello?”
I catch my breath, panicking. He answered the call. There’s no way out now. Unless I just put the phone down, or…
“Oz,” I say, gulping for breath. “Hi! It’s me. Um, Gabby.”
“Gabby,” he says, the word infused with a kind of relief that I don’t know if I understand. Why would he be relieved to hear from me? Well, probably because he thought I was some kind of weird creeper until I actually said something. “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
Erk. Have I done something wrong here? Should I not have called?
“I just wanted to say thank you for yesterday,” I say, closing my eyes briefly at my own stupidity. This isn’t going well at all. I didn’t want to just say that – there’s more I wanted to ask. I have to get my brain under control!
“Oh, not at all,” Oz says. “Listen, you’re doing your first tour today, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, then glance at the time and stand up quickly in horror. “Yes! Actually, I’m almost running late. I just – well, it’s your alma mater this morning.”
“Yes, you did mention that,” he says. I think I can detect a hint of a smile in his voice, but it’s hard to tell.
“Well,” I say, grateful that we’ve managed to get onto the subject at all since it allows me to ask what I really wanted. “I was wondering if you might be able to meet me for the tour? To help out, you know. Because you have the experience there. I… I know it’s short notice, and you might not have time to get there for the start…”
“Actually, I’m quite close already,” he says. “I’ll probably get there before you do. Where would you like to meet? Outside the front entrance?”
“Oh,” I say because that’s all my brain can process at the moment. I had somehow started to get myself psyched up for him to say no, thinking that it would be better to expect disappointment so I could handle it better. But I never expected him to agree so easily. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” he says. “You’d better hang up and get walking. I’d have given you a lift if I knew, but I left the car at home. I’ll ask them to wait for you if you’re a little late.”
“Thank you,” I say breathlessly, before doing as I’m told and hanging up. I grab my purse from the bed, check my reflection in the mirror, and then sprint out of the hotel.
At least it’s another cool, grey London day – so even if I do have to power walk my way there, I’m not going to arrive all sweaty and gross. The cold weather guarantees that.
I’m so glad I packed what I did. I didn’t have much room in my suitcase, but I thought I’d include at least one dress that was a little nicer. Something a bit flirty. I didn’t know what I was going to be getting up to, after all. And now I get to wear it for him – and hope that he’ll see the womanly curves my body has now.
I hustle down the street as fast as I can, checking the map on my cell phone at every turn to make sure I don’t waste time by going the wrong way. Thankfully, a lot of research on Street View ahead of time has given me a small amount of familiarity with the area, and I’m able to get myself there without a single missed turn – and in enough time that I’m not quite late as I walk up towards the college itself.
I should be thinking about the building, analyzing it, wondering whether this is the kind of place that I want to study for the next three years. I should be forming my first impressions right now and getting excited.
But, instead, the second I see Oz standing outside in a black coat over a less formal black and white outfit today, everything else goes out of my head.
How am I supposed to think about anything when all I can see is him?
I walk over as slowly and calmly as I can make myself, ignoring the urge to run and jump on him. The second I see him, it’s like a fire has been lit up inside my veins. It flashes right to the bottom of my stomach, too, leaving me burning for him. And more than that – my heart rate speeds up, my head starts to swim, and I can’t stop a smile from breaking out on my face no matter what I do.
I think I might be in trouble.
“Hi,” he says, casual and yet so perfect. Like it’s a scripted line from a movie, the way he moves towards me, reaching to lean down and kiss my cheek. “You got here right on time.”
“I tried hard,” I laugh because it’s somehow better to laugh at myself for having to rush over here than to acknowledge the butterflies fighting to break out of my stomach at the sight of him. I already want him so bad, and we’ve only been together for a few minutes. I feel like I’m turning inside out when I look at him, his dark hair just so over the sculpted lines of his brow and his cheekbones, his tall and strong frame that was so protective of me yesterday.
“We should head inside,” he says, gesturing with his head. “I have a feeling they’re probably running late because there’s no one here to greet us. But I spoke with the campus guides and they told me we need to go wait in a private meeting room just by the reception, where the tour starts from.”
“Wow,” I say, blinking. I thought he would only be a few minutes earlier than me – not early enough to find all of this out. “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”
He laughs, and turns towards the entrance, gesturing for me to follow him. “I wasn’t waiting at all,” he says. “I was just getting organized. Come on. I remember this place from my time here – it’s one of the older buildings on campus. Let’s go check it out.”
Chapter Twelve
Oz
We step into a private room that’s marked with a printed-out sign indicating that we should wait here for the tour guides, and find it deserted. I’m surprised it’s not overflowing with people – when Gabby said ‘tour’, I was imagining twenty or so prospective students, probably accompanied by their overbearing and fretting parents.
Which would not be good for me, standing next to Gabby, but here we are. I’d rather be mistaken for her dad than not get to spend time with her at all.
But here we are, and the room is empty. It looks like not much has changed except the posters on the noticeboard since I was a student here myself. It’s little more than a waiting room, there’s a small table scattered with leaflets and a couple of padded benches around the sides of the room where people can wait. There are no windows, which is a little disconcerting. It’s giving the impression that the college is badly in need of an update.
Which I’m sure won’t last, because we’re going on from here to tour all the new, modern additions the campus has seen over the last two decades. Still. Maybe I should have a word with the alumni association about sprucing things up a bit.
We take a seat on one of the benches, right beside each other. I half expect Gabby to move away slightly, but she doesn’t. She just stays where she is like she’s comfortable.
She might be the only one, because having her so close that I can feel the heat of her body is already beginning to drive me insane, and it’s only been thirty seconds.
“So, I guess we wait here,” I say, a little uncertain. I think I get away with it. It must sound like I’m not sure about the process here, just like I’m not sure I can handle sitting this close to her for very long.
“Was it like this when you came here?” Gabby asks, frowning slightly. Then she flushes a little and shakes her head. “Don’t answer that. It was too long ago. It might not even be the same year after year, let alone…”
“Decade after decade?” I suggest drily.
She makes a slight coughing noise as if to dispel the awkwardness. “Something like that,” she says. “Not in a bad way, you know. Just…”
“In a factual way?” I suggest, looking into her face. She turns to look at me as well, our faces inches apart. So close that, again, I expect her to move away.
But she doesn’t.
There’s a little catch in her breath, her eyes falling down from meeting mine to my lips, to the place where our legs almost touch, then back again. I watch her gaze and find my own traveling to her mouth when her tongue darts across her lips.
For a long moment, it seems as though we’re suspended there, in time, exchanging glances. Her eyes to my eyes. Her eyes to my lips. My eyes to her lips. Then back again.
There’s no mistaking it, now. The magnetism. The desire. The pull that both of us feel. This is it.
I was wrong to assume she doesn’t see me the way I see her. I can feel that now. The desire. It emanates from her like heat, pheromones that make me dizzy. And I’m not going to let it go to waste.
I bend my head just a little, only a little, and our lips meet the way our eyes have, soft at first, barely a collision.
And that’s when it really begins.
The first taste of her is like the first shot of an addictive drug, so strong I know I’m never getting out of its clutches. I put my hand up to her jawline, cupped her face, holding her close to me as I deepened the kiss. I feel like a starving man given my first taste of sweet fruit. I’m hungry now, so hungry I can’t hold back. Within what feels like just the barest moment, my tongue flicks across her lips and she opens for me, allowing me inside.
It feels like the deeper I get, the more I taste of her, the more I want. I’m insatiable for her, pressing my body over hers as I hold her desperately, needing her to be closer still. I feel her hand snaking into my hair at the back of my head like she’s hanging onto me for dear life, an anchor to keep her from slipping away.
She utters a breathy gasp into my mouth and it’s all I can do not to rip her clothes off then and there. I find my other hand gripping onto her hip, steadying both her and myself, caressing her curves. The bench we’re sitting on is too narrow, won’t allow me to get close enough to her, to hold her against me the way I want to.
I push her down gently, never breaking the aching and hungry contact between our mouths, the only sounds I can hear are our pants for breath each time we break for a single moment. I lay her back against the seat cradling her head above it, her body stretched out below me. I can’t help myself. My hand roams down the length of her body and back up again, moving from her hip to her ribs to the side of her breast, glorying in the feel of her skin through the thin fabric
She moans under me, her hips coming up to meet mine like it’s a natural fact, a foregone conclusion. I know she feels it too, this animal drive that’s pushing us together. It’s inevitable now. The only question that remains is how long the dance will last before we become one.
Any concerns about where we are have disappeared if I even had them in the first place. I only want to lose myself in her, to bury myself deep inside her pussy and claim her. I will have her, no matter what it takes. I rear my head back, breaking the contact with her mouth only so that I can kiss her neck, to feel her moans vibrating under my tongue as I mark her, to feel her arch against me even further. I move my head lower, nuzzling over her collarbone, my hands traveling ahead of me to cup her breasts, to marvel at their size and shape and the way they seem to fit my grasp perfectly–
“Wait,” she gasps breathlessly, bringing me to an abrupt stop. “Wait, Oz.”
I stop and look up at her, no longer moving. I don’t even take my hands away from where they are. I remain pressed over her, ready to resume if it should turn out that she only has a minor objection that we can resolve together.
If she wants me to stop, there’s no way I’ll go on, even given how badly I want her. But if it’s something else…
“You should know, first,” she says, and despite the glazed look of passion and pleasure and lust in her eyes, I know she’s serious. Her cheeks are flushed, and not just from what we were doing. It’s something she has to say, something she doesn’t want to. My heart leaps and stutters in my chest.
“I’m… I’m a virgin.”
I stare at her for a second, just a second, preparing my response. I don’t move, don’t even blink, because there isn’t enough time.
There isn’t enough time before the door of the waiting room opens abruptly, and someone comes in, talking loudly as they do so.
Chapter Thirteen
Gabby
Oh.
My.
God.
I’ve never been so embarrassed in my whole life.
I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, really – I can’t believe it. This is maybe the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me, and I just want the ground to swallow me whole.
Behind Oz’s shoulder, I get a glimpse of them in the split second before we immediately begin to move. A tour guide, he must be, given that he’s only a little older than me and holding a clipboard as he opens the door. Behind him, following so close on his heels that they can’t help but see everything, is an older couple with a boy who definitely looks more my age.
Another prospective student, and his parents.
And then we’re moving fast, so fast I don’t think I’ve ever even moved so fast in my life. Oz leaps to his feet and straightens himself up, quickly smoothing down his jacket and clearing his throat. At the same time, I shoot upright on the bench, twisting myself around and glancing down my body to make sure that nothing is on show. My dress is rumpled but intact, and I smooth down my hair rapidly, wanting to put everything back in the right place.
“Um, hello,” the tour guide says, nervously. He’s gone bright red, and I can feel by the searing heat in my face that I have, too. “This is, um. The waiting area for the campus tours?”
He says it like it’s a question, and I know he’s wondering if we’re here for a reason or if we just stumbled in here to have sex thinking that it was abandoned. Oh, no. This is the tour. And I have to walk around with these people for the whole morning. They saw what we were doing.
Oh, my god.
“Yes,” Oz says, finding his voice before I can. “We’re here for the tour.”
“Right,” the tour guide replies, looking down at his clipboard busily. Behind him, the others are still staring at us. The boy, and a couple of other girls who I didn’t see before, are staring at us open-mouthed. The parents who were right in the doorway and the first to see are glaring at us. Like we’re the worst thing in the world. Like we’re both monsters or something. Given what I’ve read about British sensibilities and the attitude towards sex here, well… maybe I’m not far off.
Doing it in a college tour waiting room really has to rank quite high on the list of things you’re not supposed to get caught doing.
I’m making such a good impression here, already. I’m just glad it wasn’t somehow the Dean of Admissions that caught us.
“Here,” Oz says, moving to the side and helping the flustered guide out by pointing to what I guess must be my name on his list. “Gabriella.”
“Okay,” the tour guide replies nervously, ticking it off with a kind of high-pitched l
augh. “Looks like you were the last ones we needed to gather, so we can start the tour right away.”
“Please do,” I mutter, still wishing for some kind of spirit to appear and carry me off into the sky so I don’t have to go through this.
Oz isn’t looking at me as the tour guide turns and leads us all out of the room again. He follows quickly, joining the crowd, leaving me to lag behind. I gather myself and get up, slipping out of the door just before it closes behind them all.
This is so horrible. I think this is the worst day of my life. What a start to my college career.
I can’t believe I messed everything up in the space of about ten seconds. One – telling Oz I was a virgin. What a stupid thing to do. Why did he need to know? I could have quite happily gone through with it without him knowing. I was enjoying myself. It was actually the best moment of my life right up until it suddenly plummeted in the wrong direction – his body over me, his mouth and hands all over me, his hardness pressing against my leg…
And then it all quickly disappeared as soon as it had started. Seconds two through six were at least as long as it took for him to stare at me blankly and in horror, realizing what I had just told him. And then there were the four seconds between the door opening, us looking up and seeing who was coming in, and absolutely failing to cover anything up at all as we sprang apart.
And the last second was the moment that Oz slipped fully back into serious mode, as if none of that ever happened, leaving me the only one who was totally red-faced. Well, except the guide.
I glance at Oz out of the corner of my eye as we walk down a hall within the building, trying to figure him out. I want to be subtle and not stare outright, but I need to know. He doesn’t look like he’s having any kind of… trouble. Not the kind of trouble that I’ve heard about guys having.
He’s walking perfectly fine, and from here I can’t see any kind of bulge in his, ahem, pants department. And what I felt earlier was… well, I don’t have much experience in terms of size, but it didn’t feel small.
Love In London: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 5
