She spreads her legs over my lap and reaches back to take hold of my shaft. In one smooth movement, she lowers herself onto me and starts to ride. The sight of her ass bouncing up and down on my thighs, her skin glistening with sweat and her hair sticking damply to her back… I’m on fire inside and out.
My body tenses with the effort of trying to retain control. Liv moves off me and turns, lowering her head for a kiss as she sinks onto my cock again. Now with her breasts right in front of me, her nipples hard as cherries…
“Oh, fuck, Liv…” With a groan, I pull out of her and let go, shooting with a volcanic force. I push my hand between her legs. One rub on her clit, and she gives a sharp cry as her body convulses over mine.
She gasps and falls against me, pressing her face to my shoulder. I run my hands over her smooth back. She’s all soft, sweaty heat, her breath steaming against my skin, her body still trembling.
She shifts, pressing one hand to my cheek. She opens her mouth above mine and runs her tongue over my lower lip. Warmth rushes through me. She leans her forehead against mine.
“I’m going to miss you all over again, professor.”
“I’ll miss you too.” Everything in me is fighting the idea of leaving my wife again.I got it the first time, the idea that if I left Mirror Lake, I couldn’t be accused of any new transgression that could screw things up even more.
But now? With the poisonous Crystal Winter in town? With Edward Hamilton accusing me of having a precedent of getting involved with students? With Stafford investigating my relationship with Liv?
What if he wants to know more about her? What if he digs into her past?
The thought of Stafford bringing Liv’s history into this investigation sickens me with fear. And what the hell am I supposed to do about it from five thousand miles away?
“Hey.” I pull in a breath to suppress the growing anger. “How about I figure out a way to stay here? I can—”
“Dean.” Liv touches my face. “You have to go back. They’re expecting you, and I… with my mother here, it’s better if you’re away.”
A wave of frustration hits me. I don’t want to be away from my wife. And I hate that she wants me to go.
“It’s better if I’m away?” I repeat, unable to keep the irritation from my voice.
“You know it is.” She eases off me, shaking her head. “Don’t fight it again, Dean, please. You have to go back to Italy.”
Tension floods me as I reach for my jeans. I pull them on and watch Liv as she slips into her underwear, her hair swinging in a curtain over her shoulder, her skin still damp.
My chest tightens. Somehow, always, everything is okay when it’s just the two of us alone together. It’s when we have to deal with the rest of the world that everything gets fucked up.
And I still have no idea what to do about it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Olivia
April 11
his time after Dean leaves Mirror Lake again, I’m almost relieved by the fact that he’s away. Not because I want to be separated from him again, but because an ocean’s distance between him and my mother is a good thing—especially when my mother hasn’t yet given me any idea of how long she intends to stay.
I don’t have much time to worry about her though, because between the café and my hours at the museum and library, I have a commitment every day. I have to quit my bakery job, which doesn’t bother Gustave after we make plans to have him supply the café with croissants and brioche.
Marianne continues to help us with logistics, and with Brent as the café’s general manager, we move toward our early June grand opening. Marianne brings us a million samples of curtain fabrics, glasses, tablecloths, and soon we’re repainting the walls and installing a new subfloor.
I don’t see much of my mother during the week after Dean leaves. We exist in a strained but not overtly hostile way, and she continues to help out with the painting at the café. She’s never home in the evenings, as she goes out every night to clubs and bars, returning long after I’m asleep.
Though I talk to Dean at our usual time every night, safely ensconced in his office with the door locked, things are different than they were the first time. Now they’re strained by the unspoken presence of my mother and the threat to our future hovering over us like smoke.
One night shortly after he’s left, he reminds me that he didn’t use a condom the evening we fooled around at the Butterfly House.
“I’m not pregnant,” I tell him. “I started my period yesterday.”
“Oh.”
My heart thumps suddenly as I wait for more. “Oh, good”? “Oh, too bad”? “Oh my God, let’s try again”?
There’s nothing else. Just “Oh.”
“I guess we got carried away,” I say.
Even with all we’ve been through, I’m not surprised by this. We’ve had a rough time since last October, and we’ve both been trying to navigate this new territory between us. And in an old, gabled tower on a hill above Mirror Lake, isolated from discovery, wrapped in the intense sexiness of Dean photographing me naked… it’s no wonder we lost ourselves in cascades of heat and unreality.
“So… what if I were pregnant?” I ask.
Dean is silent. My heart pounds.