Big Love Abroad (Big Girls Do It Book 11)

by Jasinda Wilder

  And then, abruptly, all contact was gone, the buzzing silenced. I heard harsh breathing. “Fuck it, I can’t—I can’t wait any longer.”

  Next came the rattle of a belt buckle, a whisper of cloth against skin, clothes hitting the floor, then silence; a drawer opening, foil crinkling. I was gasping for breath, dragging great lungfuls of air in and huffing out again, and I could feel my my breasts lifting and falling with each gust of oxygen. I was panting, heart hammering with anticipation. The bed dipped. Hands skated over my ankles, alerting me to his presence. Palms on my thighs, pausing at my hips, then arcing up my belly and cupping my breasts, lifting, kneading, letting their weight fall again. Lips, touch-touch-touching my skin at hip, belly, breast. Weight hovering over me, anticipation blazing in my veins where blood had once run.

  A low male moan in my ear, a warm nudge at my core. I opened, breathed out, focused every sense I possessed on Lucas as he slid into me, inch by inch.

  Like everything about Lucas, he was long and lean, filling but not stretching, plunging deep and sliding between my slick labia in slow, measured thrusts. He was so long there was no movement, even at the apex of withdrawal, that he wasn’t sliding inside me, present within me.

  I felt him, god, did I feel him. Robbed of sight, all I could do was feel. His skin on mine, his breath on my neck, his hands in the pillow on either side of my face, his hips over mine, bumping with his unhurried thrusts. I smelled him, too, sweat and musk, wine and male essence. I wanted to hold him, to wrap my heels around his waist, wanted to dig my fingers into his shoulder, but I couldn’t. All I could do was feel, was take.

  That was, perhaps, the greatest torture. Feeling him move, going so slowly, even when I felt the ache begin inside me, when he altered the angle of his hips, drew his knees up and leaned back, stretching himself and thrusting so his cock slid and scraped up against my inner walls, stuttering along my clit, pushing my orgasm-weak body to yet another climax. I shuddered, ached, gasped, fought my bonds.

  “Lucas!”

  “Nina, Jesus, Nina. You feel so good, so tight and warm. Come for me once more, won’t you? I know you’re close, I can feel you trembling beneath me. You want to touch me, don’t you? But you can’t. It’s making you crazy, isn’t it?” He punctuated his words with slow thrusts, driving in, pausing, withdrawing, plunging back in.

  I began to meet his thrusts with arching lifts of my hips, curving my spine and rising off the mattress to crush my hips against his. More. I needed more. More. More.

  But more I did not get. He continued his unhurried pace, ignoring my frantically bucking hips, ignoring my gasps of desperation, my thrashing against the ties binding me. It was infuriating and crazy-making and delicious but not quite enough.

  And then I felt the pressure that had been slowly building all the while burgeon, expand, balloon, turn hot and wild. I couldn’t contain it.

  When people say “I’m going to lose it!” or “I’m going to go crazy!”, it’s usually just an expression. I mean, what does losing it or going crazy really look like? Have you ever thought about that? Most of us haven’t. We just mean we’re going to be really upset until whatever it is making us upset is over.

  But if you really do lose it, really do go crazy…it’s not pretty.

  Blindfolded, hands tied together, feet tied to the bed. Tortured into more orgasms than I could count or remember, fucked slowly and into madness…I lost it.

  I screamed, I fought, I thrashed, I cursed. I wept.

  What I did not do was say Lucas’s last name.

  I should have. I really should have.

  This was a wildness I had no control over. I felt violent, unhinged.

  I bucked against Lucas as hard as I could, seeking more. Trying to get him to let go, to untie me or fuck me proper, or anything other than the slow, controlled, measured thrusting.

  “Nina, god Nina, you’re really wild for this, aren’t you?” He sounded pleased with himself.

  Problem was, I was incoherent, needing to see, needing to be free, needing more, and unable to vocalize any of it. You really can come too many times, and it really is a form of torture. Everything inside me ached, everything inside me was screaming, fighting, panting, begging. Yet all I could do was thrash and move and make wordless sounds of craziness.

  And still he moved slowly, as if he could fuck all day.

  The climax receded, finally. It had been what felt like an eternity of madness blasting through me, setting me afire, pushing thoughts into the ether and replacing them with insanity.

  When it faded, I could think. I could make words.

  And then Lucas came. It was like he had done everything else, in control, measured, intense. His thrusts did not come any faster, only more intensely, shuddering, achingly slow, as if savoring every inch of thrust in and pull out.

  And all I could do was go taut, every muscle tensed, so hypersensitive then that each slide of cock in and out of me was too much, too much.

  I heard him gasp, grunt, groan, felt his forehead touch mine, tasted his wine-sour/sweet breath on my lips.

  Even after he’d come, he continued to move slowly, and that was when I could take no more.

  “Killian! Lucas, please, no more. I can’t take any more—Killian.” I sounded…desperate. Broken.

  His hand brushed the tie off my eyes, and he was off me, tugging at knots, freeing me. Long hair tangled around his shoulders. Skin damp with sweat, chest heaving. As soon as the knots were freed, I sat up, shaking all over, sweat-wet and sex-slick and feeling unstable.

  “Nina? Are you okay?”

  I didn’t answer immediately. I wasn’t sure I was. I tugged the sheet up and tucked it under my arms, felt my face pulled into a frown, eyebrows drawn down, bridge pinched, breath coming in ragged gasps. Knees drawn up. I scraped hair away from my face, and then I stared at my hand which was still trembling slightly.

  “I need a drink. Can you pour me a glass of wine, please? Nothing fancy. Just wine.” I was proud of how steady I sounded, when everything inside me was rebelling and heaving and wondering and confused and wild.

  Lucas gave me a long, searching look, and then rose, naked still, and disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the sounds of him cleaning himself off, disposing of the condom, and then he emerged wearing a simple black cotton robe, knotting it around his waist as he moved into the kitchen. A few moments later he returned bearing two wineglasses full of a blush wine. He handed me one, sat on the edge of the bed next to me, and we sipped in silence.

  Or, well, he sipped. I gulped. Both hands clutching the cool glass, fighting for calm breaths, gulping huge mouthfuls of the not-quite-sweet wine.

  Lucas, intelligently, remained silent until I’d finished the entire glass and handed it back to him. “More?”

  I could only nod. I still had no clue what I even felt, much less what to say. Was I upset? Mad? Unsatisfied in some weird, fucked up way? Overly-sated? Was that last one even possible? So much was going through my mind and heart with such machine-gun rapidity that I couldn’t catch one single thought or emotion to name it or express it.

  Lucas returned with another glassful of the blush wine, the glass not filled to the proper barely-halfway level, but to woman-in-crisis full, enough to nearly slosh over the rim as he handed it to me.

  Smart man.

  When I’d downed half that glass—considering the size of the glass, probably a good half a bottle’s worth—I finally felt capable of possibly forming words, of looking directly at Lucas.

  But he spoke first. “Too much, yeah?”

  I nodded. “A little, maybe.”

  “I probably should have…eased into things, maybe.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Getting there, I think.” I glanced at him, saw concern, maybe embarrassment, worry, a little fear. “It was just…I don’t know.”

  Another four large swallows, and the glass was empty.

  “Nina, I—”


  I held up my hand. “Lucas, it’s okay. I just…I need to—to process. I think…I think I’d like to go home, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure.” He set his glass down, gathered my clothing for me, handed it to me in a pile.

  Apologies were bright in his eyes, and I couldn’t handle that, so I went into the bathroom to dress. I wasn’t sure I wanted apologies anyway. It hadn’t been bad, just…intense. A lot. New, different, a little scary. A lot scary.

  When I emerged with my dress on, my hair pulled back, Lucas was waiting for me, dressed in gym shorts and a T-shirt, hair still down, wearing frameless eyeglasses. He adjusted them on his face, grinning. “The glasses, they’re for driving at night.”

  I shrugged, because whether he wore glasses or not was the last thing on my mind. My tumultuous emotions consumed every synapse firing, consumed my everything.

  On the way out the door, Lucas grabbed a USB flash drive off the counter. When we got into the car, he inserted the drive into a slot covered by a flip-up cap. A few taps on the infotainment screen, and music filled the air.

  Björk.

  “Pagan Poetry.”

  Ian.

  Fuck.

  Had I just fucked up?

  I didn’t ask him to change it. I should have, but I didn’t. I also didn’t cry, but that was a close one as well. Post-sex emotions, the questions, the intensity, it was blazing in me. Lucas had rocked my world. Literally, I felt like something in my universe had been knocked out of alignment.

  And let me tell you, when that really truly happens, it’s not entirely pleasant or easy to digest.

  He let the music play counterpoint to the whine and snarl of the engine upshifting and downshifting, keeping silent and just driving. He parked when we arrived back at the college and then came around and opened my door for me, and walked me to my dorm. At my door, he paused, shifting from one foot to the other.

  “Nina, I—”

  “Lucas, that was one of the most intense experiences of my life. I’m not mad, I’m not upset, I’m just…overwhelmed. There’s just…a lot.”

  “Part of what had you crying in the rain?”

  “I wasn’t crying.”

  He laughed. “If you insist. But still, part of what had you not crying in the rain, then?”

  “Maybe some, yeah.”

  “Care to share?”

  “No. It wouldn’t be fair to you. There’s just…I’m—”

  “Overwhelmed, as you’ve said.” He nodded. “I hate leaving things like this. I feel like I’ve cocked it all up.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Well, you cocked me all up, that’s for fucking sure.”

  He snorted. “God, Nina.”

  “It’s okay. Really. I just need to sort myself out. Thank you for the amazing wine, and the delicious dinner, and for—”

  “You promise you’re all right?”

  I nodded, summoned a smile for him. “Yeah. I’m good.”

  “I’ll just go, then. I’ll see you at the library?”

  I lifted a shoulder, sort of but not quite nodded, something between a nod and a shake. “Yes, see you at the library.”

  He waited until I had my door open, and then he turned away. I closed the door and watched him through the peephole. He walked away until I had the door closed, and then he stopped and turned, stared at the door, an expression on his face that I couldn’t quite fathom.

  A moment, in which I watched him, and he stared at the door as if maybe seeing me, or knowing I was watching him.

  Moonlight silver on the grass, ancient stone looming behind him, his tall frame straight, one hand in his pocket, long hair loose around his shoulders, eyes like dark gimlet holes in his pale face, watching me, inscrutable, unknowable.

  I made it a dozen steps before I had a complete and total breakdown. A dozen steps, incidentally, is the number from the front door to my bed. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying, but I was and I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hold it back.

  I couldn’t even begin to sort out my feelings. I just let it all go in a deluge of confused and stormy tears.

  I passed out, hard.

  * * *

  I managed, like an idiot, to avoid my own emotions for three more days, and then classes started, and I was able to focus on learning rather than feeling. Feelings sucked, and I had so many fucking feelings that I just didn’t even know where to start. So I didn’t.

  I went to the library, but I never ran into Lucas.

  Thank god. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about him, and our night together.

  Classes were amazing. The first three were close studies, small classes, intimate, absorbing. My last class, on Friday, was a sort of novelty notion class. It was a study of the various iterations of the film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, comparing them against the books themselves. I’d chosen it because it sounded fun, honestly, and I confess I hadn’t paid much attention to any of the information regarding the class. So when I set out to find the classroom, I had to dig into my paperwork and find the classroom assignment. Which, of course, also included the name of the attending professor.

  My heart stopped.

  The sheet read: Pride and Sense: Adapting Regency Era Literature to Film; Professor L. R. Killian.

  Shit. Shit. No. No. Fuck no. It had to be a different L. R. Killian. Had to be.

  I swallowed my panic, found the classroom, and took a seat near the back. Yeah, cowardly, but shit, if it was him, how the hell was I supposed to handle this?

  I was early, so over the next few minutes a dozen other students filtered in, taking seats around me, fidgeting and conversing the way you do on a first day when the teacher hasn’t shown up yet.

  Two girls sat behind me, both around my own age. They were angled to face each other, knees in the aisle. “My older sister took this class last year,” one of them said to the other in a hushed whisper, just barely audible to me. “She told me Professor Killian is really, really hot. Like, she couldn’t believe he was actually the real professor. Apparently, he’s one of the youngest professors here in the last hundred years. I mean, really, he’s the only reason I’m even taking this class. Good thing Mum and Dad are paying!” She laughed, and their conversation devolved into stories of what they did over the summer—which primarily involved alcohol and sex and shopping.

  I felt my heart sink, clench, twist, felt my gut rise. This was going to be so awkward.

  The door opened, and yes, a tall, lean frame ducked through the doorway. He was dressed in pressed khakis, a white button-down, and a corduroy blazer. Long hair bound back neatly at the base of his neck, beard trimmed close. He had a leather satchel over one shoulder, bulging with books. Under his other arm he had a brown paper-wrapped rectangular parcel, twine crossing twice over the width and length of the package and knotted in the center. He set this on the desk, then placed his bag next to it, standing facing away from the students. He took a moment, adjusted the sleeves of his blazer, then turned to face the twenty or so gathered students.

  I shrank down lower into my seat, then caught myself and sat up straight. No shying away from your decisions, Nina, I scolded myself.

  His eyes roamed the room, going from face to face, stuttered over me, kept going, and then swept back. He paled visibly. He turned away momentarily, touching the paper-wrapped package on the desk with the index and middle finger of his right hand, as if to reassure himself.

  Turning back around, he smiled and, if I hadn’t met him, I wouldn’t have known he was suppressing anything. “Good morning, everyone. I’m Professor Killian. This is the movie adaptation class, in case you are wondering if you are in the correct place.”

  And then we were off. He didn’t avoid looking at me, but he didn’t go out of his way to look at me either. He managed to act as if nothing at all had happened between us, as if I was just another student in his class. He was a great teacher. He laid out the goal of the course, discussed Regency era lit with precision and consummat
e knowledge, never stuttered or stumbled or used extraneous filler words. He knew his material, had an opening spiel that clearly delineated the expectations and goals of the course. It wouldn’t be a pushover, or an easy-A course, that was clear. He expected you to know the material, to pay attention and draw your own comparisons and write lucid, competent essays supporting your positions.

  It was hard to keep my eyes off him, and equally hard to bear the brief moments when his eyes met mine and neither of us would look away, and he’d almost lose his place, but then would blink and tear his gaze away and keep going.

  I’d fucked my professor.

  We’d been two consenting adults, yes, and classes hadn’t been in session yet, true. But still. I’d fucked my professor. Or rather, more accurately, been fucked by him. Been tied and blindfolded and tortured into more orgasms in one night than I’d ever had in my entire life added together up to that point.

  But we could totally make it through the semester like well-behaved adults, right?

  Right.

  Right.

  As soon as he dismissed us, I was out the door and hauling ass down the hallway. I half-expected him to chase after me, which would be proper romance-novel behavior protocol. But he didn’t, because as I’ve established by now, my life is not a romance novel.

  * * *

  After class I went back to my dorm and had lunch. Did homework. Wrote two short papers, caught a bit of a Dr. Who marathon, made a grilled cheese for dinner…all the while wondering if Lucas had been thinking about me. Had he regretted anything, had it been just sex for him or…or what else could it have been? He was even more of a complete stranger than—NOPE. Not going there. Not thinking of him.

  Because he was there, underneath everything. Underneath all my thoughts, behind my memories, woven through all my fears and worries and confusion and guilt and desire. He was there.

  Ian.

  I shook my head, returning my attention to the good Dr. Who and his inter-dimensional adventures. I was not thinking about Ian, or Lucas, or anything, or anyone.