Big Love Abroad Read online

  I think my parents were under the impression that I was the "good one" out of their three daughters. Maria had had a baby at twenty-three, fathered by a migrant farmworker from Venezuela; Luisa had a constant train of boyfriends, most of them deadbeats, some of them emotionally abusive, a lot of them manipulative, and all of them leeched off her. Despite her horrific taste in men, she'd worked at the same law firm for four years, starting as a gopher and working her way up to becoming a paralegal. Then there was me, the baby, the one my parents did their damnedest to keep from suffering the same fates as Maria and Luisa, the one who went to college, and not just college but U of M on an academic scholarship, the one who'd been a good girl, a virgin until nineteen, the one who didn't party and didn't bring home an endless string of bad boys and assholes, the one who didn't turn up pregnant without a degree or even a skill set except bartending. I was the good girl. They may not approve of my choice in field of study, but they were sure as hell going to be bragging that their daughter was studying at Oxford.

  Yet here I was, three days into my study-abroad trip, in bed with an Englishman, wondering if I had the guts to let him stick his finger in my asshole.

  And worse yet, knowing I did, and that I would.

  Bad girl. Bad Nina.

  I should be spanked.

  If I wasn't breathless with anticipation, I would have giggled at my own joke. But as it was, Ian's touch was slipping and inching closer and closer. He was giving me time to understand his unspoken intention, giving me plenty of opportunity to demur. His eyes were fixed on mine, and he wasn't even aware that I'd moved or that he had. But now I was positioned so I was almost on my stomach, his bicep as my pillow, one of his hands resting on the pillow. And his other hand, oh boy. Middle finger dragging back and forth through the crease of my ass, working closer and closer, wiggling in deeper, and I was staring at him, searching his pale intense blue gaze, asking a trillion silent questions.

  The only response I got in return from Ian was equally as silent: You know you want this. I know you want this.

  And I did.

  Curiosity was fire in my veins. Need was pulsing through my body in place of blood. And the craziest, most reckless, most undeniable part of all? I trusted Ian. With my body, at least. So far, everything we'd done had left me a quivering pile of satiated woman.

  My fingers curled into fists, one crushed between our bodies, the other underneath the pillow. My breathing stopped, my eyelids refused to blink, my throat closed, my skin tightened and tingled. Every sense was attuned to the moment, heightened and aware. I felt him, felt his heartbeat, felt his heat, the hardness of his body, his arousal against my thigh, the feel of him trailing his fingers through my hair, his scent, clean and musky with previous sex and current pheromones of desire. And that finger, digging in. Pressing against me in the most intimate of places.

  I forced myself to suck in oxygen, to swallow. And then I shifted my legs apart, pulled my knees upward a little. Tacit permission, in the form of heightened access.

  "Touch yourself, Nina."

  I slipped my left hand down, down, between my thighs. Dug the fingernails of my other hand into the muscle of his chest and let myself whimper as I found my clit with my middle and ring fingers. Oh god, the sound of my voice whimpering was erotic. I sounded breathless and wanton and aroused to the point of no return. What did it say about me that my own moan of desire had my nipples pebbling and hardening? It did, though, regardless of what it said about me. So I whimpered again, a low sound in the back of my throat that turned into a growling groan when Ian finally applied little bit of pressure. And just that slight push had something violent and wild waking deep inside me. A wiggle of his finger, a bit more pressure. I was tensed, I realized. I forced myself to relax, which is easier said than done. Especially when my fingers were swiftly hauling me up the mountain toward orgasm.

  A little more pressure and then I felt pressure become intrusion, insertion. A high-pitched sound in the back of my throat, and I pressed my forehead to the pillow, gave in to wanting this. I drew my knees up to my hips, thighs spread wide apart.

  "Oh Nina, you like this, don't you?" Ian's voice rumbled.

  "Yeah...ohhhhh fuck."

  Ian pressed in, and now I felt like I was coming apart at the seams even though I hadn't climaxed yet, and wasn't even really all that close yet. His finger was inside me, I wasn't sure how far, only that I was penetrated, and that it felt good. Dirty, and so good. When he wiggled the finger, not quite moving it in and out, but more in a ghosting hint of motion, a tease of in and out...I made a sound so raw and guttural and erotic and pleading that I didn't recognize it as coming from me.

  But it had.

  Low in my throat, a growl. Animalistic, primal. And it was accompanied by a backward thrust of my hips, a rocking move that spoke of need, that said more, MORE!

  "Oh fuck me, Nina. You make noises like that and I'm not going to be able to hold myself back."

  "Back? From...from what?" My basic higher functions--like coordinated speech--were short-circuiting, but I managed to garble that much out.

  "From fucking you just like this." He moved his finger in earnest then, and my still-busy fingers had my core aching and heated and on the verge; and then Ian threatened--or promised, depending on how I was looking at it--to fuck me, and I lost it.

  I came. Oh hell fuck shit and damn, I came so hard I saw stars, so hard it hurt, so hard my thighs bunched into knots and my pussy clamped down on emptiness and my asshole throbbed around Ian's finger, and my nipples hardened to aching points, and I--

  I screamed past gritted teeth, screamed into the pillow because it would have been audible back in Michigan if I hadn't muffled it, pushed back into his touch and writhed and circled my clit with my fingers until my hand hurt from the effort.

  Ian growled, a feral sound, and I felt him move. "Shit, Nina. I can't--I want you. I need you."

  "Shut up and do it, Ian," I whispered. "Take me. However you want."

  He rose up behind me, adjusted the angle of his wrist and I felt his knuckles press into the generous flesh of my ass cheeks, his finger still inside me. I wasn't sure what I'd just asked him for, what I'd just told him to do, but I didn't care. I'd take anything. I needed him, needed more, needed the full and overfull feeling of Ian inside me. I ached emptily for him. But not for long. He grabbed a pillow and stuffed it under my stomach, providing support I hadn't known I needed, and then I felt his tip nudging at my entrance, and I moaned in anticipation. Let out a breathless gasp of relief when he pushed into my pussy, splitting me open, filling me, stretching me. Bare, hot, smooth, slick. I didn't care, didn't think about anything but how good he felt inside me, how nothing in my entire life could have prepared me for the world-rocking ecstasy of Ian Stirling fucking me.

  And with his finger inside me, I was doubly full. Stuffed to capacity. And now heat built up, raged, an inferno. He didn't hesitate, didn't play around. He fit himself into me, flexed his hips to drive his shaft home, and then began fucking me. Slowly, deeply, thoroughly. I moaned in rapturous bliss at each penetration, pushed back into him and groaned with each cramming glide of his thick throbbing cock inside me.

  Faster now. Harder.

  It registered that he wasn't wearing protection, and that danger filtered through the haze of my awareness right as he was thrusting toward critical mass.

  I needn't have worried.

  He pulled out at the last second, making a hissing growl low in his throat as he did so. And then--I should have expected it, should have known how incredible it would be. He replaced his finger with the very tip of his cock, and pushed. And I, soaring on a double orgasm of wrenching intensity, took him. Not much, but it stretched me in a way I hadn't known possible, split-open, eyes crossing with delirious fervor.

  "Ohhhhhhhh fuck, Nina, Jesus, so fucking tight." He gripped my hips and held on tight, as if holding himself back. "Okay?"

  I tried to nod my head, but I could only jerk clumsily, ti
ghtly. "So--oh jesusfuck--yeah, yes."

  "Hurt?"

  Did it? Maybe a little. Faintly. Somewhere far beneath the pleasure, buried under an avalanche of ecstasy so deep I didn't even register that maybe it did hurt just a little. Not enough to want him to stop. Maybe it would later. I didn't care.

  "Does it hurt, Nina? Should I stop?" His voice was sharp, demanding.

  Mmmmm. Bossy Ian. Nina like.

  "No...no. It's good."

  "It's good?" Softer voiced, now, pleased with himself.

  SMACK! His hand cracked across my ass, and I shrieked out loud, and then made a sound of wondering, marveling, near-death incredulous pleasure as the sudden spank somehow let him a little deeper into me and I could have died from the searing pleasure.

  God, there isn't a word for the way that felt. Pleasure is so paltry a word. So weak, so inadequate.

  "Fuck my ass, Ian," I heard myself say.

  Holy hell, was that me? That raspy, growling, sex-goddess voice?

  "Like this?" He thrilled in and out of me, and I hadn't even known "thrill" could be a verb, but it worked. Thrilled. It was pure intensity. Raw shredding ecstasy. What other words can I find for what he did to me, then?

  In and out, ever so subtly. Just enough that I felt it, and I couldn't have taken any more. I knew I couldn't, and thank god so did he. I could only grip the sheet in my fist and work my clit with my fingers--suddenly I was aware of my own hand moving between my thighs, of its own accord--and groan and whimper and moan and shriek as Ian fucked me in the ass.

  Oh god.

  It's happening.

  Out of body experience, much? Oh yeah. I could almost see us, Ian tall and broad on his knees behind me, me on my hands and knees, masturbating as he drove his cock into my asshole, one of his hands on my spine, the other gripping my hipbone for leverage. I could see his face, twisted in concentration, sweating, watching himself move in me.

  A climax ripped through me without warning, tearing me apart and sending me spiraling into madness, screaming into the pillow again, ducking forward and shoving back, spasming, grunting.

  "Oh--Oh fuck--Nina," he grunted, grinding slowly, with shallow, shivering strokes, holding back.

  I felt him come, then, at the same time I did. I felt him spurt and gush inside me, filling me with heat and wetness. I came, and he came. We were both making incoherent sounds, and I knew only him, only his throbbing climax inside me, only the shuddering of my own orgasm, everything I was spasming and twisting and lit on fire, aching.

  When he was finished and I was limp, he carefully pulled out of me and I collapsed forward, twisted onto my back so I could look at him. He knelt there as he'd been, hard muscled, glistening in the darkness, covered in a sheen of sweat. His cock drooped, shrinking, pointing straight forward and dripping come. That should have been gross, but in that moment, it wasn't.

  Nasty, Nina. Dirty girl.

  I swept my thigh across the tip of his cock, smearing his essence on my skin, and then grabbed his hand, tugged him forward. He fell to his back beside me, and I rolled back into the nook, on the same side I'd been nestled against before he decided to alter my universe yet again.

  "I can't believe you just let me do that," he gasped.

  "Neither can I," I admitted.

  "You all right?" His voice was concerned, warm, drowsy.

  I smiled against his chest. "Mmmmhhhmmm. So all right. Very all right. Sexed out and ready for sleep, though."

  "You're not tired already, are you?"

  "Getting fucked in the ass really takes it out of a girl, you know?"

  Ian snorted, and smacked my ass gently. "You really like being spanked."

  "You really like my ass."

  "God, you have no idea. I could do things to it all day."

  "You have been," I pointed out.

  He laughed, and his hand smoothed a path up my back and down. "Oh, right. Lucky me."

  A long, long silence. I was nearly asleep, and so was he.

  "Ian?" Just as I'm falling asleep is when deeply buried things bubble up.

  "Hmmm?"

  "You really like me, the way I am?" I sounded so hesitant, and small. Vulnerable. The most hidden worry coming out. "The way I'm built...shaped, I mean. My body. That I'm not...not thin."

  A pause. Was he asleep? Had he heard me?

  "Nina." There it was, that use of my name as a scold. This time, his voice was mired in near-sleep, and he spoke in that slow, patient, tone of someone explaining the very, very obvious to the very, very stupid. "I love the way your body is shaped."

  "Oh."

  "Go to sleep, sweetheart."

  Sweetheart?

  Whoa.

  Whoa.

  WHOA.

  So many things to freak out about. He...loved...the way my body was shaped.

  Sweetheart. He called me "sweetheart." Not as a throwaway slang term, either. It was unfiltered, spoken naturally. A sleep-raw truth.

  Ohgodohgodohgodohgod. What am I supposed to do with this? I'm so conflicted and my anxiety is making it hard for me to breathe. Half an hour ago everything had seemed easy--perfect almost--but now I was in a state of panic.

  Wait. Wait. Wait. Calm down. Why am I freaking out? If he feels that way, and I sort of think I feel that way too, isn't that a good thing? Isn't this what I want?

  I had thought so, but as Ian snored beside me I began to doubt myself, and nothing seeds doubt like panic. I do crazy things when I panic.

  I grabbed my iPhone from the bedside table and began searching train schedules from London to Oxford.

  There was one at seven the next morning.

  Would I be a fool for running off like a scared rabbit, or would I be a fool to stay?

  I wish I knew.

  CHAPTER 7

  For an educated woman I am such an idiot.

  I totally panicked and bought a one-way ticket to Oxford.

  Instead of dealing with my emotions like a responsible adult, or talking to Ian about everything, I'd packed my bags and snuck out of the flat in the wee hours of the morning. Left the keys to the flat on the counter. I didn't even leave a note. So not only am I an idiot, but I'm a coward, too. I did the very thing Ian had done to me--but my reasons were not half as good as his.

  But I just knew that if I'd stayed and talked to Ian about how I was feeling, he'd get me all mixed up, he'd charm me and make me feel like my fears and concerns were silly, nonsensical. Or worse, he'd acknowledge them as being totally legitimate, but then he'd talk me out of them and I'd stay with him in London and we'd fuck for a month straight and I'd fall in love and then he'd get tired of the chunky girl and go for someone skinnier and more glamorous, someone more in his league. Like Jessica Biel or Emma Watson. And then I'd end up lonely, a bitter cat lady without a degree, rather than a lonely, bitter cat lady with a degree. If I'm going to end up as a lonely, bitter cat lady, I might as well have a degree to show for it.

  By running away from Ian, I felt I'd doomed myself because...deep down, some part of me just...recognized and understood what Ian was trying to tell me. Like, on a visceral level. And whatever it was we had, it felt real. Immediate, intense, and it scared me more than anything I'd ever experienced before. I ran away from it. I just knew, lying there beside him, listening to his casual but honest comments about loving my body shape, and then calling me sweetheart, that I'd never be able to walk away from him if I didn't do it then. I'd get stuck. I'd get lost in him, get addicted to and obsessed with being in his arms, feeling him near me, kissing him, touching him, hearing him reaffirm that I am actually beautiful to him. I mean, Jesus, who wouldn't get addicted to that? Everyone wants--needs--to know that someone, somewhere, sees him or her as sexy, desirable, beautiful.

  Exiting the Oxford Railway Station concourse, I found myself standing at the main entrance, blue steel columns, red window frames, gleaming glass panes, crowds swirling and flowing around me. Cabs sat waiting nearby at the curb opposite the entrance, a huge red double-decker bus
chugged past, brakes squealing, and then it was rounding a corner and gone.

  I hauled my heavy bags out of the station and into the warm summer air of Oxford, England. Here, at least, it was...underwhelming. Grey skies heavy with impending afternoon rain, tourists boarding a sightseeing bus, a long, low tan building of some kind, one of the outlying colleges, perhaps. On the way out of the concourse I grabbed a map of the area, so I paused, unfolded it, examined it, oriented myself...and discovered I had a hell of a long walk ahead of me, especially with three suitcases containing all of my worldly possessions.

  I was here just shy of a month early. I had no room allotted yet, and I knew no one. I had an apartment let for a month in London, furnished and paid for, which was now empty...except for one hunky, sexy, sleeping slab of British man-meat.

  Also, I had no idea how to get to the actual university from where I was. Official orientation wasn't for weeks yet.

  And I was fighting tears of confusion, frustration, and regret. I should have stayed in London. I shouldn't have left Ian without a word, or a note, or something. We never exchanged mobile numbers, so he couldn't text or call me, nor I him.

  I mean, who does that? What kind of woman just vanishes in the middle of the night after experiencing the most mind-blowing sex of her life?

  I do, apparently. I had a feeling that this made me a horrible person. Ian would wake up alone; see that my bags were gone, the flat empty, no sign of me anywhere. What would he think? Would he shrug and go on his way? Would he be mad? Sad? Heartbroken, even? Would he scramble for the next train to Oxford and come after me like the hero of some romance novel? Maybe kiss me in the rain on the rolling green sward outside one of the graduate colleges.

  Oh, lord. I was losing it. I was imagining Ian as a romance hero, now.

  Delusional much, Nina?

  I shook myself out of my thoughts and started dragging my suitcases in the general direction of the university. I had the smallest bag stacked on top of the lighter of the two larger ones. Thank God they all had wheels as this allowed me to actually haul three bags at once, three insanely heavy bags. I was trying to conserve my cash, and taxis were expensive. It couldn't be that far, really, could it? I could make it. People probably walked it all the time.