Love In London: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Read online

  “Exactly,” Gabby says. She nestles a little closer to me, laying her hand flat on my chest. I like it. How she’s slowly becoming more confident. How she’s nestled in my arms like she belongs there, and she does. “Although, um. I guess you’ve had a few more life experiences than me.”

  “Like what?” I ask. “You mean going to college, graduating? Getting a job?”

  “And other things.” She isn’t meeting my eyes, still looking at my chest. “I guess it never really came up in conversation before, with my… at home. But what were you doing with your life? Who were you spending it with? Before...”

  Ahhh. The penny drops. “You’re trying to ask me if I’ve been in relationships before?”

  She clears her throat a little uncomfortably, then looks up at me. “Well, how about it? I mean, a man like you… you haven’t been married?”

  I almost want to laugh out loud at that again, but I don’t want her to think I’m laughing at her. Far from it. I could see she was serious about the question. I take her hand from my chest and press it to my lips before putting it back where it came from. “I’ve never been married,” I say. “I’m a businessman. I’ve worked hard for a very long time.”

  She squints at me a little. “But you’ve had serious relationships.”

  Now, I do laugh. “Listen, Sherlock Holmes, there’s no secret to dig up here,” I say. “I am as you find me. I wasn’t ever serious about anyone before.”

  She pauses for a moment. Then, before I have a chance to ask her where she’s going with that serious look, she leans forward and kisses me square on the mouth.

  Before I can really get it together to figure out what I want to say, the kiss deepens, and I feel it shoot straight to my growing erection – which has apparently had enough time to recover. In a rush, we’re lost in each other again, and I roll onto my back to haul her on top of me, to knead her ass with my hands as we make out. And she’s the one, this time, who reaches down to touch me, exploratively at first and then with purpose, lining up my cock to enter her a second time.

  And it’s only once we’re done and laying in a drowsy haze, just before I fall asleep, that I wonder, did she hear how serious I am about her, and did this to deflect? Did she want to avoid the conversation?

  Could it be because, even though I know she’s mine, she still hasn’t accepted it herself – and she still wants to go home at the end of this week and forget about everything that’s happened between us?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Gabby

  Before.

  The word still rings in my head when I wake up the next morning, wrapped in the sheets of Oz’s bed. Before.

  He said I wasn’t ever serious about anyone before.

  All I can think about is what that means. Does it mean, he’s never been serious about anyone in the past, and that’s all?

  Or does it mean, he’s never been serious before – but he is now?

  I can’t figure it out, and I’m too afraid to ask. Because if he says it’s the first and not the latter and that he isn’t serious about this, then it’s going to hurt. It will make everything between us awkward – and it will also shatter my dream.

  I don’t want that to happen yet. I’m not ready for it. I want to hang on, still, to the thought that this could be something real.

  “Are you getting up?” Oz asks, his voice a lot less sleepy than I expected. I twist in the sheets and look up at him, finding his eyes open and fully awake. “It’s not long until we have to get going.”

  I look at the clock beside his bed and sigh. He’s right. I have another tour to go to.

  Wait.

  “We?” I ask. “You’re coming with me again today?”

  He shrugs lazily. “Why not? I already arranged the time off work. I had a feeling I was going to be too busy this week to make it to the office.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “When did you get that feeling?”

  “Oh. Tuesday morning,” he says, with a grin.

  Right before we met up for the first tour together. That figures. I give him a second raised eyebrow to join the first. “So confident?”

  He laughs. “Well, if you turned me down, I could always have spent the time drowning my sorrows. Now, come on. Shower?”

  “Shower,” I nod, suppressing a yawn. For all his talk of being an old man, he definitely seems to be coping better than I am with spending half the night awake – and engaged in some serious physical activity.

  We head to the shower, and it feels so strange and yet so right yet again to be showering in front of someone else like this. But it’s not just ‘someone else’. It’s Oz. That’s why it’s right. He pours expensive shampoo into my hair and lathers it up, given that all my things are back at my hotel, and I lean back into his touch. It almost makes me want to fall asleep again.

  It’s strangely intimate. Showering together and yet not getting up to anything more than cleaning one another. I know we’re under a time limit, so even a quickie probably wouldn’t be a good idea if we want to make it to the tour on time. But, still.

  It’s almost a little uncomfortable to feel so close to him, not knowing if this will last at all. Jarring. But I take a breath and push that aside, and focus on the moment.

  And when we get out of the shower and I dry my hair and then realize that I smell like him now, I decide I like it a lot, either way.

  I dress in the new clothes that Oz picked out for me – the least dressy ones of the whole selection, a pair of fashionable, designer jeans, a plain blouse, and a blazer. I would have thought, before, that it would be a waste to buy these kinds of staple items at such a high price. But now… I see. I see how the quality makes a difference. How it makes me more comfortable, changes the way I feel and think about myself.

  I could get used to this. Which is a bad thing, and I should probably stop trying to.

  “Ready?” Oz asks, and I nod. I forget to ask about how we’re going to get there until we step outside the elevator and I realize we’re not in the lobby from yesterday, but instead an underground garage. Oz leads me to a sleek sports car and tells me to get in, and I shake my head to myself in wonder.

  Looks like I’m going to be arriving in style.

  I find it hard to concentrate the whole day. On our way to the college, all I can think about is whether I’ll ever ride in this car with him again, or if today is the only time it will ever happen. When we start the tour and wander around after the guide, I keep thinking about whether or not I could stay here and keep him, if I just chose the right college.

  And I can’t also help wondering if we’re going to find another convenient closet, but we never do.

  “What about the student bar here?” Oz asks as we start to reach the end of the tour. “You said it’s undergoing refurbishment right now – do you know when it’s going to open? Are they going to be able to use it as soon as the semester starts?”

  “The builders should be done a few weeks before the start of the semester, so we’ve got a little wiggle room just in case,” the tour guide says, flashing Oz a smile. “Of course, I don’t know if you were looking for reassurance that your daughter wouldn’t be able to spend her whole student loan on getting drunk in the first month, haha!”

  I’m slightly behind him when it happens, and I see Oz’s shoulders stiffen. Daughter. That tour guide thinks that Oz is my Dad.

  I step up beside him, deliberately taking his hand, lacing our fingers together. “Do you have a daughter I don’t know about, honey?” I ask, making my tone as sugary sweet as possible.

  Oz looks down at me, and for a second I see how troubled his eyes are. But then he catches onto what I’m doing and his expression clears. In fact, it goes right past clear and straight into a roguish grin. “Not that I know of, sugar.” He yanks me closer, slaps my ass, and then puts his arm around my hips for good measure.

  The tour guide colors and stammers some kind of apology, and I don’t miss the fact that others in the group are watching us now
with strange looks. Some of them, anyway. Some look amused. I’m sure it can’t have escaped everyone’s notice that we are pretty far from acting as though we’re related.

  But still, I think it leaves a bitter taste in Oz’s mouth. I think it bothers him. And that upsets me.

  “You know it doesn’t bother me, right?” I murmur when the tour is over and the others are starting to disperse.

  He looks down at me in surprise. “What?”

  “The age thing.” I squeeze his hand a little more tightly. After that incident, we ended up walking hand in hand the rest of the way. “I don’t care what people think.”

  He nods, smiles, even though it looks stretched a little tight. “I know. I just found it a little… jarring.”

  “I know what you mean,” I assure him. “But people are stupid. I don’t have a problem with idiots assuming things about me. They’re going to anyway. And what they assume doesn’t reflect anything about me at all.”

  He stops dead in the street, which makes me almost stumble when I turn to see what’s wrong. Did I say the wrong thing?

  But he just grabs my face in both of his hands and kisses me right there, then pulls away to look at me and shake his head in wonder. “You were right about being older than your years,” he says. “How did you get to be so… balanced?”

  I chuckle. “I honestly don’t know,” I admit. Then I fix him with a flirty grin. “But if your old bones are up for it, I wouldn’t mind getting the chance to show you just how little I care about whether people think we’re right for each other.”

  He licks his lips briefly in a way that suggests he really would be up for it, grabs my hand again, and starts walking me back towards the parking lot so fast it makes me squeal and laugh.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Oz

  Back at the apartment, it’s as much as I can do to get the lift working, I’m already so hot for her. One more moment and I’m sure Ivan, the loyal and friendly doorman, would have seen a lot more than he bargained for. But the doors slide shut before the bulge in my pants becomes too obvious, and I end up launching myself at her, pushing her up against the mirrored wall to claim her mouth.

  We stumble out of the lift on the penthouse floor, fingers already working at buttons and belts, and I somehow manage to unlock the door without injuring myself and also without even looking. Once inside with the door safely closed behind us, all caution is truly thrown to the wind.

  I don’t care about how expensive our clothes are, about keeping them fresh and uncreased or even keeping them in one piece. I just want them off.

  This time, there’s no slow and sensual undressing. No taking our time. We’re fighting to get each shred of fabric out of the way in between gasps for air and hungry kisses, our hands roaming each other’s bodies. It’s like I’ve awakened some kind of devil in her – a devil who I would very much allow to take full possession of my soul. She runs her hands all over me the way I did to her, but with urgency and passion like she needs to touch it all now and can’t wait.

  When we’re both fully naked I grab her ass, cupping it, using it to lift her. She instinctively wraps her legs around me just like she did before, making me groan out loud as her hot, wet slit comes into contact with my achingly rock hard cock. She shifts her weight to kiss me, moving against me, and it’s almost too much to take.

  I push her up against the wide wall of windows, the whole of London spread out behind her. Not that I see it – I only have eyes for her, but it’s a strange sensation, holding her up seemingly in the air above the city. I use the leverage of the wall to support her for a moment as I pull back, line myself up –

  And then I’m inside her, where it feels like I belong completely.

  She clings to my neck and throws her head back, almost hitting it on the glass, and I lift her away to support her weight fully myself. With her arms holding her in place, mine are free to grab her hips and lift, making her ride me in that weightless state. She cries out again as I take control, thrusting hard and fast the way I’m learning she likes it, even despite her lack of experience.

  “Oh, god, Oz,” she moans, and I want to touch her, taste her, bite her, everywhere at once. My hands are too occupied. I need…

  I pull her off me and nudge her until her legs disengage, letting her feet drop to the ground. Her eyes have flown open, giving me that vaguely accusing look she always does when I stop even for a moment like I’ve taken away something she wants too much. I spin her around, making her face the window, and her arms fly out to support her. With her palms on the glass, I watch her eyes widen in her reflection, watch her take in the fact that she’s standing there naked in front of the floor to ceiling windows, in front of half the damn city.

  And instead of squealing and trying to cover herself up, or asking me if the glass is easy to see through on the outside – which it isn’t, anyway, for privacy reasons – or any other response that a shy, virgin, eighteen year old might have…

  She sticks out her ass for me like she’s physically begging me to take her right here.

  I don’t waste any time in granting her request. I slide back into her, my hands now free to roam up and squeeze her breasts, to pull her head around until I can kiss her, and then let her go again, to hold her hips once more for control as I thrust hard. I watch her watching herself in the reflection, watching the city, how her eyes stay wide and open.

  I realize that I’m watching her coming into herself as a woman, experiencing her own desire. Learning what she wants, what she needs. And I have to say it’s hot as hell.

  It’s when she reaches down to touch herself, to do what I did for her the first time and stimulate those nerves from the inside and the outside at once, that I can’t take it anymore. I throw my head back with a primal roar and thrust once twice before I lose it, burying myself to the hilt and spilling my seed inside of her. And it’s then I feel her come, her walls clenching and squeezing around me as she moans my name, making me wish I hadn’t already gone over the edge so I could tumble over it again.

  I rock back on my heels, pulling out of her with a satisfying pop. For a long moment, she doesn’t move, other than the heaving breaths that lift her breasts with each inhale. Neither do I. With a view like that, how can I?

  But when she turns, there’s a flash of something I didn’t expect. I expected to see a hot, sexy, lust-fueling vision of a woman, the kind of thing I’ll take with me and remember at those moments when I need something to take me over the edge. But instead, I catch a look in her, tired but blissful, and it layers in my head with something else.

  With a vision of her, tired and happy, after a day of looking after our children.

  And it nearly knocks me on my ass, because as much as I already knew I wanted her, I never knew exactly how strong that feeling could grow.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gabby

  I sigh, looking at all of the leaflets and pamphlets spread out over Oz’s kitchen table. “I really should have paid a bit more attention when we were on the tours,” I say, realizing far too late the predicament I’ve put myself into.

  Oz leans over, a fresh cup of coffee steaming in his hand, and kisses the side of my neck. “Why?”

  “Because I have no idea which one is the best,” I groan, swatting him lightly.

  “Well, I do apologize,” Oz says, with a grin that implies he isn’t sorry at all. “If I had realized I was so distracting…”

  “How could you not realize?” I tease. “You literally dragged me into a closet.”

  He laughs. “Well, you’ve got a couple more days left. Do you want to go back, have a look at some of them again? We can probably just slip onto campus. I doubt there’s too much security around right now. And if you want to go back to the first one, I can just show them my alumni card.”

  “No, no,” I sigh, thinking about how much that will eat into the rest of the time I have left.

  Two days. That's all. And then I have to go home, and maybe ne
ver see Oz again.

  And even if I come back here, several months into the future, maybe Oz won’t want to see me again anyway.

  “What are you having trouble with?” he asks. “Maybe I remember something that you can't.”

  I look at him, raising an eyebrow as if I’m heavily insulted. “Are you saying that you were able to concentrate more on the tours than I was?”

  “I wouldn't dare,” Oz says with a smile. “But I have lived here for a long time, and I have some experience with these colleges from previous visits. Maybe there is something I can add to the discussion. And, not to mention, as someone who's been through college already, I can guide you as to which factors are the most important.”

  I nod my head. “That is why I asked you along in the first place, after all,” I say. “I would love to get your input.”

  “Oh, is it?” Oz says. He has his eyebrows raised now, too, and I know he's just teasing me. “I thought you invited me along so that you could pull me into a cupboard and have your wicked way with me, and all of that.”

  “Oh, I'm terribly sorry for ruining your innocence,” I say dryly. “Now, help me decide. Which one of them has the best Student Union?”

  I don't really need to discuss all of this now. The truth is, I don't have to make a decision for a while yet. I can apply to as many of them as I want because I only viewed five colleges here and the application limit is five. Combine that with the applications I'm making back home, and I know I'm going to have a lot of choices. The question is, which of them do I really want to go to?

  And while I don't have to answer that right now, at least it's something that I can do with Oz. Something that allows me to spend more time with him, feeling him close by my side. I'm starting to feel a bit pathetic already, given how much I just want to cling to his company and his contact. I can't imagine how bad it's going to be on the day that I have to leave for the airport.