Arrive (4 page)

“Liv?” Dean comes up the porch steps toward me, concern etched on his face.

“I’m okay.” I shift my weight and press harder, just below my belly-button on the left side.

A fluttering, like bird wings against my palm. Rhythmic. Soft.

As I always do when Dean is nearby, I take his hand and put it on my belly, then spread my fingers below his as the movement continues—a kicking foot, a waving hand, hiccupping, I don’t know what it is, just a gentle, cadenced tapping that reverberates through my arm and directly into my heart.

Hello there, baby. We can’t wait to meet you.

‡

O
LIVIA

J
olly Santas, red-nosed reindeers, and smiling snowmen plaster the windows of the shops lining Avalon Street. By early December, a light snow heralds the approach of winter.

With the pregnancy and my business with the café, Dean and I have put our plans to renovate the Butterfly House on hold. The paperwork and process of obtaining permits is both long and daunting, so while Dean still works sometimes on weekends clearing out the house and making plans, we’ve decided to wait until spring to start the work. Even then, we’ll stay in our Avalon Street place for at least the next year.

Thanks to our friends, we have all we need for the baby, and lo and behold everything fits in our little apartment. I put all the newborn clothes in a dresser and packed the others away for when the baby is older. We have a pack-n-play in the bedroom, a swing in the living room, and a bouncy chair by the kitchen table. Diapers and lotions are arranged on a cart beside the bed, baby books line the bookshelf, and there’s a bunch of toys in a box underneath my desk.

I continue to work at the café, though none of my colleagues will let me lift so much as a tea tray. By default, my responsibilities turn more toward office work and payroll while Allie and Brent handle things in the front of the house. I love what Allie and I have created, love the work, my fellow employees, the whole atmosphere of the café.

One afternoon, I head home a little early because I’m accompanying Dean to his department’s holiday party. He’s already home, so I take a quick shower and dress in black pants and a red maternity blouse with a ruffled neckline.

“Pretty.” Dean pats my belly and kisses my temple as I’m fastening on silver earrings. “Pregnancy suits you.”

He moves to take his clothes from the closet. I like watching him dress—the adeptness of his fingers as he fastens the buttons, the smooth way he tucks in his shirt and slides his belt through the buckle, the effortlessness with which he knots his silk tie. Then, of course, I like to imagine watching him undress, which is even better.

We drive to a reception room on campus, which the department has reserved for the party. It’s a big crowd because collaborating professors and students from other departments have also been invited. There’s lots of holiday cheer, sparkling lights, and a great deal of food and eggnog.

Dean gets me a glass of mineral water, then squeezes my hand and heads off to socialize. I make small talk with several people I know, introduce myself to others whom I don’t know, and eat a lot of canapés. I glance at Dean from across the room. He catches my gaze and winks. My heart does its usual flip-flop.

I’ve seen him in this kind of social interaction before, but I forget how good he is at it. He moves from person to person with such ease, his focus intent on whomever he’s speaking with, his interest in the subject evident. And people respond to him with admiration, eager to earn his attention, anxious to impress him.

So proud. I am so damn proud of that man.

I turn to introduce myself to a new group of people. For the next few hours, I’m aware of the tide of conversations—often about holiday plans and the like, but also a great deal about medieval studies and research. Musical words float between the clusters of people—
pastoral, mystification, Avignon, allegorical, marginalia, Lindisfarne, Neoplatonic, palimpsest.
It’s like they’re speaking a secret language.

When the party begins to wind down, Dean finds me again and slides his hand over my lower back. “Ready to go?”

I nod. We say our goodbyes and return home. Dean pushes the door open for me and tugs at the knot in his necktie as he follows me into the apartment.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Hey, Liv.”

“I was thinking… maybe sometime you could tell me about your research.”

He pauses in the motion of unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt. “I tell you about my research all the time.”

“Not
all
the time, you don’t.” A flush crawls up my neck, and I look past him at the wall. “And, um, when you do I don’t always listen.”

He doesn’t seem surprised to hear this. Maybe my yawning when he talks about Franciscan ideologies is evidence enough of my disinterest.

“So, what, you want to start listening?” he asks.

“Maybe,” I reply cautiously. “Working at the historical museum opened up a window for me, you know? I like learning what people did in the past. What they wore, what they ate, how society worked. And I think I’d find your research really interesting if I paid attention to it.”

For a minute he just stands there looking at me. An irrational fear rises in me that he might want to keep his work and his home life separate, which of course is stupid since the man works from home much of the time.

“Of course, if you don’t want to…” I hasten to add.

“Liv. I’d be happy to talk to you about my research.”

“Even if I don’t always get it?”

“You don’t have to know Latin and Greek to understand medieval history.” Dean approaches me and brushes a lock of hair away from my shoulder.

“So maybe we could discuss illuminated manuscripts sometime,” I suggest. “When I went to your lecture at the conference, I thought of about ten questions I wanted to ask you.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. They were sort of basic.”

A smile tugs at his mouth. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.”

“I have had two great loves in my life.”

“Um.” My heart stutters a little. “Two?”

“The first is you,” he says. “You’re the most important. The one I can’t live without.”

“Who’s the second?”

“Medieval studies.” He shrugs. “I know it’s not like being a brain surgeon or research scientist. In the grand scheme of things, the relative importance of iconoclastic aesthetics is probably not all that high. But when I went on my first archeological dig and started unearthing objects from hundreds of years ago… it was like I was connecting through time with people who didn’t want to be forgotten. Like I had a duty to them.”

“And that was it?”

“That was it. Since then, I never once looked back. Never wanted to.” He brushes his thumb across my mouth. “Same thing happened with you, Mrs. West.”

Oh, Lord. I’m melting.

“And I can think of few things I’d like better than to introduce my first love to my second one,” he adds.

I smile. “We’re sure dorky, aren’t we?”

“Uh huh. Good thing we have plenty of explosive sex to counteract that.”

A shiver runs through me. Good thing, indeed.

“You know, not that you’ll have the time, but you can take a class at King’s, if you ever want to,” Dean says.

“Any class I want?”

“Any class you want. Just apply as a non-degree student, and you can officially enroll in courses.”

“Could I take one of your classes?”

“Sure. Next time I teach I’ll be offering my intro class on illuminated manuscripts.” He frowns, still rubbing his thumb across my lower lip. “Though don’t expect any special treatment.”

My lips are starting to tingle. “You mean I won’t be the teacher’s pet?”

“Oh, you’ll be the teacher’s pet, all right,” he says, “but you’ll have to earn your A.”

“I’ve always been a good student.”

“I know.”

Suddenly it feels like we’re no longer talking about illuminated manuscripts.

Though I know I won’t have time to really take one of his classes, it’s a fun thought. I imagine myself sitting in a lecture hall, my pen poised over my notepad, listening to my husband as he speaks authoritatively about imagery in the
Canterbury Tales
, then strides to the board to write down an arcane word or point out a detail on a slide…

“I’d like that,” I murmur, my mouth moving against the pads of his fingers.

“So would I.”

He slides his hand across my cheek and around to the back of my neck. Then he pulls me to him for a warm, lovely kiss that makes my heart skip a beat.

His lips brush against mine, back and forth, slow and easy, then he slides his tongue over my lower lip and I open for him. He tastes delicious, like wine and something spicy, and his breath is hot against mine.

I put my hands on his cheeks, rubbing my palms over the faint scratch of whiskers. Warmth travels up my arms. I hold him against me, not wanting to let go, not wanting this blossoming of arousal to fade. Six years together, and the man’s kisses make my heart pound as if I’ve never been kissed before.

He lowers one hand to the swell of my belly. The heat of his hand burns through the thin cotton of my blouse. Already my nipples are straining against the fabric of my bra.

I’m no longer self-conscious of the way I look. How can I be when Dean has never made me feel anything except beautiful and utterly desirable? And, really, I stare at my naked reflection in the mirror at least once a week now… and I do look sexy.

It’s weird, maybe, to think of my pregnant body that way but my belly is curved nicely, my legs are well-shaped, my breasts are big and round. My rear end is bigger, but combined with the inward dip of my waist, the extra weight makes my hips flare into curves that fit Dean’s hands perfectly.

And my libido still burns hot.
I
still burn hot. For him. I always will.

I move closer to him, inhaling the familiar scent of his shaving soap. I rub my cheek against his, kiss his neck, feel his hands sliding smoothly over all the arches of my body. He trails his finger along my arm and grasps my wrist, then guides my hand to the front of his trousers.

I draw in a gasp. He’s not getting hard. He
is
hard, rock solid and straining beneath material.

“Heavens,” I breathe, palming all that delicious rigidity. “If I’d known talking about medieval studies got you so hot, I really would have paid more attention.”

“Didn’t know what you were missing, did you?”

“I’ll make up for it.”

“I know you will.”

He cups his hand beneath my chin and lifts my face for another kiss. A gentle, teasing kiss that’s a marked contrast to the urgency I can feel in his groin. He runs his tongue across my teeth, licks the corners of my mouth. I squeeze his erection in response and am rewarded with a muffled groan.

“Bedroom,” he whispers against my mouth. “Now.”

A few steps later, his lips are locked to mine again and I’m tingling all over. Dean slides his hands underneath my shirt to my bare belly, where the skin is taut and so sensitive these days that the touch of his warm palms floods me with sensation.

I reach between us to tug at his belt, but can’t get the leather out of the buckle. I break my lips away from his and look down.

“Take it off.”

He backs up a step and slides the belt through the buckle, then drops it to the floor. I watch with a pounding heart as he unzips his trousers and pushes them off along with his boxers, kicking both to the side. His erection springs out from under his loose shirttails, blatant and so tempting that my sex tenses with the urge to have him inside me.

I drag my gaze up to his face. He’s working the knot of his necktie, about to pull it off.

“Wait,” I say.

He pauses.

“Leave it on.” He has no idea how good he looks standing there in his loose tie and dress shirt, the top buttons undone to expose the column of his throat, his cock poking stiff and ready from beneath his shirttails.

A grin twitches the corners of his mouth. “It’s the professor thing, isn’t it?”

“It always was.” I move back into his arms. “Oh, yeah, and the
you
thing.”

His cock nudges at me as our lips meet again, and then he’s tugging at my shirt and the waistband of my pants. Since my clothes are all either loose or held up with elastic, they’re easy to remove and it’s a matter of seconds before I’m standing there in my bra and panties.

I start to lower my hand again to seek his erection, but he backs me up against the bed and eases me down. He hooks his fingers into my panties and pulls them off, his gaze hot on my inner thighs. I part my legs, moving back into a more comfortable position, tightening in readiness for his delicious penetration.

But no. That’s not on the professor’s agenda. At least, not yet.

He splays his hands over my belly, then goes down on his knees beside the bed.

“Dean!”
The first touch of his mouth rockets through me, pleasure zinging along every nerve. I grab the bedcover and twist beneath him, my pulse throbbing as he spreads me open and strokes my pussy with his tongue.