Autumn in London (9 page)

Anna

I scooted into the crook of his arm as he balanced a gift bag on his stomach.

“Whatcha got there?” I asked.

He pulled me closer to him. “It’s for you. A present.”

“Oh, I heard that girls who are into anal get gifts.” I laughed. “You had this planned all along.”

“Anna,” he growled, letting me know that he didn’t approve of my joke. He’d never bought me a present before. Not that I’d particularly noticed. Was this going to reveal his awful taste? Doubtful since his flat was amazing and his dress sense was impeccable . . . although he didn’t seem particularly interested in clothes—unless he was peeling me out of them.

I turned the bag to reveal the Hermès logo. I pursed my lips, trying not to grin.

“So what’s this for?” I asked.

“Well, like you said, I appreciate your ass.”

I play-thumped him on the chest. “You pig.”

“You love me.”

“I do,” I said in a small voice.

He’d meant it as playful banter but he’d brought it up. I loved him and we had promised not to keep things from each other. “No bullshit.”

He knocked the bag to the floor and pulled me down the bed and crawled over me. “You better,” he said. “Because I hear it’s no fun being in love with someone if they don’t love you back.” He paused. “I love you, Anna. No bullshit.”

I held his face in my hands as he looked at me, his eyes sparkling. He was happy. We were in love. Everything was perfect.

* * * * *

The Hermès bag contained scarves. Scarves to hide Ethan’s marking of me. I’d been wearing turtlenecks a lot recently, and the weather wasn’t really cold enough to justify it. I liked the idea of wearing a scarf, especially one that Ethan had bought for me.

“What about this one?” I posed in the bathroom doorway, naked apart from a scarf tied around my neck.

“I’m thinking this is shaping up to be the best Friday night I’ve ever had,” Ethan replied. “And I can think of several uses for the scarf. I like the thought of tying you to the bed. I think I mentioned that before.”

“One kinky step at a time, mister,” I replied as I unknotted the scarf, threw it at him and crawled back into bed.

“Okay, we can leave that until next weekend.”

My stomach dropped at the mention of the following weekend. It was the last full weekend we had together before he was due to leave.

We’d never spoken about him going. He’d forwarded me a couple of emails that set out details of his departure dates but I hadn’t replied and he never mentioned it when we were face to face. I took a deep breath and tried to bury the thoughts of him leaving. Two weeks was plenty of time. Plenty of time for him to ask me to go with him.

“Next weekend we’re carving out a bit of the USA here in London and having Thanksgiving dinner at your sister’s, remember? You can’t tie me to a bed for Thanksgiving.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’d be very thankful if you were tied to the bed.”

I bit into his shoulder in response and he pulled me over his body. I wanted to ask him what happened next. I wanted to ask him if he thought we could do long distance. I wanted him to ask me to move to New York.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, brushing my hair away from my face.

I shook my head. “I was imagining being tied to the bed.”

I grinned but he didn’t. “Don’t bullshit me.”

I looked down at his chest and traced my finger across his hard muscle. “Not now. Not yet.”

He lifted my head up but I kept my eyes low. “Look at me, Anna.”

I wasn’t ready for the conversation about what happened next. I wasn’t ready for it to be over, either. I wanted to keep enjoying what we had. I wanted Ethan for longer than three months. This wasn’t how this was supposed to have gone. This was supposed to be the guy that helped me move on. This wasn’t supposed to be the guy I fell in love with.

I lifted my eyes to meet his and his gaze was dark, intense—as if they were trying to pull something out of me. “When?” he asked. “We have to talk about it sometime.”

I pulled my face from his hands and lay my cheek on his chest. “Soon,” I mumbled.

* * * * *

We had dinner regularly with Daniel and Leah—Daniel and Ethan seemed to hit it off.

The boys were having a game of pool before dinner in Daniel’s games room leaving Leah and I to catch up in the kitchen, pretending we were cooking, when Daniel’s housekeeper had done it all and we were just warming stuff up.

“So, I’m in love with him,” I said abruptly to Leah as she poked about in the oven.

She spun round to look at me. “You’re finally admitting it?”

“What do you mean ‘finally’?”

“Well, you’ve been in love with him since New York.”

“I’d only known him a week in New York.”

“Doesn’t mean you weren’t in love with him.”

Leah had turned into a hopeless romantic since getting together with Daniel. There was no point in arguing with her.

“I told him.”

She stared at me as she took a seat at the breakfast bar, nodding at me like a lunatic. “And?” she asked.

“And what?”

“Don’t be obtuse. Did he say it back? Ask you to move to New York? Did he propose?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, trying to come across cool.

“He didn’t say it back?” she asked, scrunching her eyebrows together.

“Yes, he said it back.”

“Well, that’s great. You’ve both finally admitted what we’ve all known forever.”

“Stop, Leah. There are no happy endings here. We live on different continents. Our lives are on
different
continents
.”

“Are you telling me that if he asked you, you wouldn’t go to New York? And don’t you dare say no. Because he’s totally worth it. He makes you happy and you love him and he loves you and treats you like a queen and—”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go, for god’s sake, Leah.”

“So you would go?”

“Yes!” I was exasperated. She was making me talk about things I really didn’t want to verbalize but I spent every spare minute thinking about.

“Have you told him?”

I shook my head. “We agreed to live in the present and not worry about the future while he’s here.”

“But—”

“I know. I’m just not ready to lose him if he doesn’t want what I want.”

“But he loves you. What makes you think you’re going to lose him?”

“It’s complicated.”

“What’s complicated?” Daniel asked as he and Ethan clattered into the kitchen.

“Making risotto balls,” I said quickly.

“Yeah, like you were talking about making risotto balls,” Ethan said. “You can just about fry an egg.”

“Whatever.” I shrugged and he wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Don’t worry, you have other skills that keep me coming back for more.” He buried his head in my neck to kiss me.

“Eww. TMI!” Leah exclaimed.

We all laughed and set about dishing up dinner. I was relieved to have Leah and Ethan distracted at the same time.

Ethan

The weekend had been perfect. I didn’t know how Anna would react to getting gifts. She didn’t come across as one of those New York girls dripping in labels and expecting to be bought things. But the scarves suited her. I loved seeing her naked in them and I loved seeing her at work, in her suit with one neatly tied around her neck, covering the signs that she belonged to me.

It was our last full weekend together. My flight was booked for the following Sunday. I had pushed it out until that last possible chance so I was taking the latest flight out despite the fact that I had a full day of meetings on the Monday. It wasn’t the smartest choice but I didn’t want a minute in New York that could be spent in London with her.

Despite our agreement that we’d live in the present and wouldn’t worry about what happened when I returned home, I’d gently tried to bring up going back to New York with Anna a couple of times. First, I sent her a couple of emails setting out the date I was due back in New York. She hadn’t responded and so I hadn’t brought it up. It had been raised again this weekend. I could tell it was on her mind but for some reason she didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to push her, I wanted her to be happy and if not talking about it was going to to do that then I’d live with it, for now.

I’d never been in this situation before. I wasn’t good at complicated, I just wanted to make things simple and to me, talking about it would make it simple. I wanted her in New York, with me. That was simple. And if she wouldn’t move then we could do the long distance thing until I could work out a way for us to be together. I’d tried to extend my stay in London but my biggest client was being a pain in my ass about it and New York had said no. They wanted my billable hours back in New York. I could change firms but building a client base in London would not be easy. But she was worth it. She just needed to talk to me about it, to tell me what she wanted. If she didn’t want me then I would go and she’d never hear from me again, but I didn’t think that was it.

It was Friday night, I was home later than normal because I had things to tie up in London. Despite the time, I’d returned to an empty apartment. I checked my phone to see if she’d texted me. Nothing. I slung my jacket on the back of one of the dining chairs and went into the kitchen to make myself a drink. Her keys jangled in the lock and I grinned, reaching for another glass. I was looking forward to seeing her. Twice this week, when I’d had client dinners, I’d come home to find her asleep with a note asking me to wake her when I got in. I hadn’t woken her and had been chastised the next morning on both occasions. She looked so beautiful when she slept, there was no way I could wake her despite wanting to bury myself in her.

“Hey, beautiful. I’m in the kitchen,” I called out.

Her head popped round the door. “You’re back.” She grinned at me. “I have a gift for you.”

“The last gift you gave me was the only gift I could ever want.” Jesus, I felt my cock stir at the thought of her perfect tits wrapped in that black silk bow.

“That wasn’t a proper gift. That was my body. This, I bought. I have two.” She placed a shopping bag on the counter and pulled down the sides of the bag to reveal a pumpkin. She grinned at me as if she’d just bought me a boat. Fuck, she was cute.

“I like the other gift better,” I said.

She ignored me “You missed Thanksgiving so I thought we could make a weekend of it. We’re going to Jessica and James’ tomorrow afternoon and in the morning you could teach me to carve pumpkins and do whatever else you yanks do this time of year.”

“Well, we carve pumpkins at Halloween, not Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving we fuck. We spend the whole weekend naked and fucking.”

She smacked my arm. “You do not.”

I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her toward me “We do. It’s a huge tradition.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Crazy in love with you.”

That had the desired effect as she spun around in my arms and pressed her lips against mine. “Okay, we can carve pumpkins naked. How’s that for a compromise?”

“You promise you’ll be naked?”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“Deal.” Naked pumpkin carving. This would be a great new tradition.

“So you’ve been out buying pumpkins all this time?”

“I went to see a flat as well.”

“Oh, you didn’t mention it.” A stabbing pain jolted my stomach. She was planning her life without me. She was getting ready to move on. “How was it?”

“Vile. It only just came on the market and the agent was so pushy when she called me about it, but it was horrible.”

“You know I paid the rent on this place until March. I did it earlier in the week. I didn’t want you to be . . .You know, so you can take your time.” Even if she was prepared to come to New York, she would have to give notice and I knew she didn’t want to have to live with Leah and Daniel.

Her eyes soften as she looked at me but she didn’t say anything. This was the perfect time to discuss the after, the future.

“Anna?”

“That’s really . . . you’re amazing.” She reached around my neck and into my hair. God, I loved the feel of her hands in my hair.

“Anna? We need to talk.”

One hand released my hair and rubbed against my hardening cock. She wasn’t subtle in her distraction technique. “Soon,” she whispered rubbing up and down. I should stop her and make her talk but she knew how to get exactly what she wanted.

“When?” I groaned.

She unzipped my zipper and her hand slid inside my pants.

“Sunday. Right now, I want you inside me.”

* * * * *

I woke to the sound of her hairdryer and watched her at the dressing table doing her hair. For some reason, I loved watching her get ready. It was fascinating to me. The lotions and the potions and the nine different types of everything. She looked incredible before the ritual began so I wasn’t sure why she bothered. She looked most beautiful just after she came, which was the argument I’d used to keep her naked all morning.

Naked pumpkin carving had quickly turned into naked fucking, my new favorite Thanksgiving tradition. I’d tried to convince her that we could cancel on my sister but it hadn’t worked and so I stayed in bed while she banned me from coming anywhere near her while she got ready. For some reason she didn’t like the idea of smelling of sex when we went to my sister’s.

“You look beautiful,” I said as she switched the hairdryer off.

“You always say that,” she said, still facing away from me, but meeting my eye in the mirror.

“Because it’s true.”

“Get in the shower, you bum.”

“Will you rub me down? My dick is really dirty.”

She laughed. “Are you fifteen years old? You’d think that I deprive you? We’ve spent most of our day focused on your penis.”