He feathered his lips to her neck and her ear where he whispered about how much she’d changed him. How much happier he was now that she was his.
She began to sigh as he adored her neck, dipping a playful tongue into the hollow at the base of her throat before kissing it chastely. He nipped at her collarbones, gently pulling aside the thin strap of her tank top so the white slope of her shoulder was bare to his mouth.
She would have removed her tank top for him, exposing her br**sts, but he stopped her.
“Patience,” he whispered.
He wound their fingers together and kissed the back of her hand, extending her arm so he could draw the flesh of her inner elbow into his mouth, pausing when she began to moan. He kissed every inch of her, gliding strong hands across soft skin, taking his cue from the heat that shot across her flesh and the sounds that escaped her lips.
When he was satisfied that her tears had stopped and she was asking him for more, he cast their clothes aside and knelt between her legs.
Soon she was shaking and crying out his name. In itself, this was the moment he craved most, even beyond his own climax—the sound of his name tripping from her lips amidst the waves of her satisfaction. She’d been so shy the first few times they made love. Every time she said Gabriel in that ecstatic, breathy whisper, a precious warmth overtook him.
This is what love is, he thought. Being naked and bare before one’s lover and unashamedly calling her name in need.
In his own orgasm, he reciprocated, telling her that he loved her. It was inextricably linked in his mind and experience—sex and love and Julianne. The holy three.
He held her tightly while they caught their breath, smiling to himself. He was so proud of her, so happy she could give voice to her desires, even when she was sad. He kissed her softly and was grateful to see that her smile had returned.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Thank you, Julianne, for teaching me how to love.”
* * *
Paul walked into the departmental office on Wednesday and was shocked by what he saw.
Julia was standing in front of the mailboxes, her skin pale and dull, with dark circles under her eyes. As he made his way over to her, she lifted her head and smiled at him thinly. Her smile alone pained him.
Before he could ask her what was wrong, Christa Peterson breezed in, her large Michael Kors bag dangling from her wrist. She looked remarkably well rested, and her eyes were bright. She was wearing red. Not cherry red or blood red, but scarlet. The color of triumph and power.
She saw Paul and Julia together and cackled quietly.
Paul’s dark eyes shifted from Julia to Christa and back again. He watched as Julia hid her face while she checked her mailbox.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“Nothing. I think I’m coming down with a cold.”
Paul shook his head. He would have pressed her, gently this time, but Professor Martin entered the office at that moment.
Julia took one look at him and quickly picked up her messenger bag and her coat, hoping to make a break for the door.
Paul stopped her. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I was going to walk over to Starbucks.”
Julia shook her head. “I’m pretty tired. I think I need to go home.”
Paul’s eyes glanced down at her bare neck, her bare unmarked neck, and moved back to her face.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
“No. Thanks, Paul. I’m fine, really.”
He nodded and watched her turn to leave, but before she could enter the hallway, he followed her. “On second thought, I should head home now too. I can walk with you, if you want.”
Julia bit her lip but nodded, and the two friends exited the building into the bone chilling winter air. She wrapped her Magdalen College scarf around her neck, shivering against the wind.
“That’s an Oxford scarf,” Paul observed.
“Yes.”
“Did you buy it in Oxford?”
“Um, no. It was a gift.”
Owen, he thought. I guess he can’t be a complete bonehead if he went to Oxford. Then again, Emerson went to Oxford…
“I really like the Phillies cap you gave me. I’m a Red Sox fan, but I’ll wear it with pride, except when I’m in Vermont. My dad would burn it if I wore it on the farm.”
Julia couldn’t help but smile, and Paul mirrored her expression.
“How long have you been sick?”
“Um, a few days.” She shrugged uncomfortably.
“Have you been to the doctor?”
“It’s just a cold. They wouldn’t be able to do anything for me.”
Paul stole glances at her while they walked past the Royal Ontario Museum, snowflakes swirling around them and the crystal monstrosity that was the north wall.
“Has Christa been hassling you? You seemed upset when she walked into the office.”
Julia stumbled in the ankle-deep snow, and Paul quickly reached out one of his large paws to steady her.
“Careful. There could be black ice under there.”
She thanked him and began to walk a little more slowly after he released her.
“If you slip again, grab hold of me. I don’t go down. Ever.”
She glanced at him sideways, completely innocently, only to see him blush. Julia had never seen a rugby player blush before.
(It was rumored to be impossible.)
“Um, what I meant is that I’m too heavy. You wouldn’t be able to pull me over.”
She shook her head. “You aren’t that heavy.”
Paul smiled to himself at the perceived compliment.
“Has Christa been rude to you?”
Julia looked down at the snow-covered sidewalk in front of them. “I’ve been staying up late every night working on my thesis. Professor Picton is very demanding. Last week she rejected several pages of my Purgatorio translation. I’ve been redoing it, and it just takes so long.”
“I could help you. I mean, you could email your translations to me before you give them to her so I could check them.”
“Thanks, but you’re busy with your own stuff. You don’t have time for my problems.”
He stopped walking and placed a light hand on her arm. “Of course I have time for you. You’re working on love and lust, and I’m working on pleasure. Some of our translations will overlap. It would be good practice for me.”
“I’m not working on love and lust anymore. Professor Picton made me change my topic to a comparison between courtly love and the friendship between Virgil and Dante.”
Paul shrugged. “Some of the translations will still overlap.”
“If we’re working on the same passage we could compare translations. I don’t want to bother you with stuff that’s unrelated to your project.” She looked over at him tentatively.
“Send me what you have and what your deadlines are, and I’ll look at it. No problem.”
“Thank you.” She appeared relieved.
He withdrew his hand, and they began walking again. “Did you know that the Chair of Italian Studies sent out an email announcement about your admission to Harvard? He said that you won a pretty big fellowship.”
Julia’s eyes went wide. “Um, no. I didn’t know that. I didn’t get that email.”
“Well, it was sent to everyone else. Emerson made me print out the email and post it on the bulletin board next to his office, after he insisted that I highlight all the important information, including your name, with a bright yellow marker. Figures. He was nothing but rude to you while you were in his seminar, and now he’s probably going to take credit for your admission to Harvard. Asshole.”
Julia’s eyebrows furrowed, but she didn’t comment.
“What?”
She flushed slightly under his scrutiny. “Nothing.”
“Julia, spit it out. What were you thinking just now?”
“Um, I was just wondering if you’d seen Christa hovering around the department? Or Professor Emerson’s office?”
“No, thank God. It looks as if she’s moved on to someone else. She knows better than to talk to me. I’m just waiting for her to give me a chance to tell her off.” Paul winked and patted her shoulder fraternally. “She better not give you a hard time. Or I have a few stories I could tell.”
* * *
On Thursday, Julia met with her therapist in preparation for her meeting with the Dean, which was scheduled for Friday morning.
Recognizing that Julia needed to discuss what was happening, Nicole set aside her goals for that session and listened patiently before offering her opinion. “Stress can be very destructive to our health, so it’s important to deal with it adequately. Some people prefer to talk about their problems, while others prefer to think about them. How have you dealt with stress in the past?”
Julia fidgeted with her hands. “I’ve kept quiet.”
“Can you share your concerns with your boyfriend?”
“I can. But I don’t want to upset him. He’s worried about me as it is.”
Nicole nodded sagely. “When you care about someone, it’s understandable that you would want to protect them from pain. And that’s perfectly appropriate on some occasions. But on others, you run the risk of shouldering more than your fair share of stress or responsibility. Can you see why that might be a problem?”