When in Paris... (Language of Love) (34 page)

Most of the girls I’ve gone out with had diddly squat to say about anything besides high-school gossip, “our relationship” and their future plans for it (gimme a break, we weren’t even adults) and themselves. Our time together was dominated by a lot of making out and tagging those bases.

“
Monsieur
Pearson
.”

Mademoiselle
Dubois’ voice drags me back to the present. Everyone turns and glances back at me, while I struggle to figure out what the hell I missed. Everyone, that is, except Olivia, who’s steadfast in making sure she continues to pretend I don’t exist.

I buckle down and concentrate for the rest of the class. As everyone gets up to leave and starts filing out, I look at Olivia. She’s stuffing her textbook and spiral notebook into her bag and with her attention irresolutely directed in front of her, she hurries toward the door. But I’m faster, my legs are longer than hers and my will to talk to her is at least equal to her will to stay far away from me.

We’re going to talk today.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
OUR

OLIVIA

The second I see Zach stand, hook his backpack over his shoulder and head for the door, I shift gears, practically into reverse. The last thing I want to do is run into him. It’s hard to get over someone when they’re constantly in your face and two days a week is too much in my face for me. When it comes to Zach, I need to go cold turkey. Anything else is prolonged torture.

Rebecca is already gone, having left with a hasty goodbye. She has a test in her next class. Since this is my last class for the day, I can afford to take my time.

I’m the last one out and I figure enough time has passed so I don’t have to worry about running into Zach.

My thoughts are still on him—these days, when aren’t they—and my eyes are so intent on the exit doors, I don’t see him until he’s almost on me.

Shit crap shit.

Praying our paths are accidentally crossing, I bend my head and try to skirt around him.

“Olivia, can I talk to you?”

His question stops me cold.

I gulp in a mouthful of air, hold it and then let it out slow and controlled. Now I can face him.

While I debate how exactly to respond to him, I note the way his eyes devour me from top to bottom. My throat constricts and it’s hard to speak, impossible to swallow.

“I don’t really think we have a whole lot to talk about, Zach.” The jealous, shrewish side of me wants to ask if things hadn’t worked out with the sloppy drunk he left with Saturday night. But I have too much pride for that. I certainly don’t want to give any indication that I care.

Zach sighs, glances away and then looks back. “Olivia, please. Give me a half hour.”

Please.
My heart slams against my chest. He looks so…miserable and I hate that that makes me the slightest bit happy. Okay, more than slightly happy because it’s true, misery does love company.

If I didn’t miss him so much, I’d have had the strength to refuse but as it is, I’ve been more miserable than he looks.

“Fine, thirty minutes.” My voice is cool and level. “I have rehearsal in an hour.”

Nodding, he motions with his head toward the exit. “C’mon, let’s take a drive. I’m parked out here.”

Not that I think he plans to kidnap me or anything like that, but being alone with him in his car makes me nervous—and sadly excites me.

He doesn’t miss my narrowed look. “I just want to talk and it’s the only warm place I know we won’t be interrupted.”

My mind instantly goes to my room—which has a bed. Which is way too tempting. His truck definitely sounds like a safer bet than what’s whirling in my head.

I give a quick nod and he visibly relaxes.

“Let me get that,” he says, his hands already reaching for my backpack.

“That’s okay. I’m fine.”

I might as well have been talking into the wind for all the mind he paid me, easily slipping it off my shoulder.

By the resolve in his eyes, I can see arguing with him would be fruitless. Instead, I fall into step beside him as we head to his truck, my backpack carried in his hand as if it weighs nothing. My shoulder vehemently tells me otherwise.

Outside, the biting wind on my heated cheeks makes it feel like it’s growing icicles on top of icicles. Zach dumps our backpacks in the back seat before opening the passenger door for me. But he blocks the door and peers down at me, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“You look cold,” he says. Then he does something I’m completely unprepared for, runs both of his hands down the length of my shivering arms. Mind you, I’m wearing a winter jacket, but his touch burns my skin as if my arms were encased in lace and not two inches of shearling.

His touch slows, up and down, up and down, until I have no choice but to look up into his beautiful eyes. He captures mine in his gaze and my heart responds to my accelerated breathing by
thump thump thumping
in my ears until I can’t hear anything else but that.

I can tell he wants to kiss me and my own unruly response calls for a stern reprimand but all I can do is stare, and will myself not to forget every word he said the night we came home from Paris.

“It’s cold.” My voice breaks the silence. He flashes a rueful grin and drops his hands from my arms, no longer touching me. The air feels decidedly colder. After he steps aside, I waste no time scampering into my seat.

His door opens, bringing with it another gust of cold air and when he pulls it shut there’s just me and him…and everything that separates us.

“I’ll drive you to your dorm.”

Which won’t take more than five minutes. I guess our conversation won’t be long.

“Okay.”

He’s the one who wanted to talk, so I wait.

“So are we going to just continue avoiding each other? Not talking to each other?” he asks, glancing at me as he starts the car and backs out of the spot.

Not exactly how I thought he’d open the conversation but here we are, that laid out on the table.

“I don’t know what you want from me. I’m not like you, Zach, I can’t turn my emotions off and on at will.”

His hands tighten on the steering wheel, his knuckles white, the skin stretched taut. “I have emotions, Olivia. Don’t judge me because I don’t wear my emotions where everyone can see them.” His voice is rough and strained.

Tears sting the corners of my eyes and my lids act like a windshield wiper, blinking rapidly to will them away. However, my voice is another matter. “I had sex with you and then you tell me you don’t want me. I’m not sure how you expect me to act after something like that.” Emotions choke my words.

“I never said I didn’t want you,” he fervently denies, his gaze darting to me and then back to the road. We’re not even a minute from my dorm.

“No, you’re right. What you wanted was for me to be your booty call. You didn’t want us to get serious. I gave you my virginity and you—”

“Christ, Liv, you know I didn’t know you were a virgin.”

“I’m sure if you had, you wouldn’t have had sex with me.” I know that now.

His hands grip the steering wheel tighter as he inhales and exhales slowly. It’s obvious he’s frustrated. Well so am I. And ticked off. And hurt.

It’s like having your virginity this late in my teens is some sort of disease. While parents would undoubtedly applaud my decision to wait for that someone special even if it means I’d be a virgin until the day I die, guys don’t see it that way. They look at me, see blonde hair, a decent pair of breasts and legs, and can’t marry that picture with a virgin. Something must be wrong with me. Plus there’s this crazy notion that being a girl’s “first” means she’ll haunt you to the day
you
die. No guy wants that.

I’m pretty sure that’s why Zach was so freaked out when I told him. Probably thought I’d start stalking him. I emit an involuntary burst of laughter.

Brows high, Zach briefly looks at me but doesn’t say anything until he’s parked in front of my dorm. “What’s so funny?” he asks at last.

“Do you know once upon a time, being a virgin was something to be proud of?” Hey, I’ve read my share of romances.

Although I’m spouting this to him, I never felt all that proud, especially during senior year when I was positive that, except for some of the girls in AV and the Math and Science Club, I was the only virgin in my graduating class. Jeff certainly made me feel that way. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t, didn’t know who else I was saving it for because not being ready, not being sure wasn’t a good enough explanation for him. I’m surprised we stayed together until after prom.

Zach braces his arms on the steering wheel, his head angled in my direction, his eyes looking directly—deeply—into mine. “I’m glad I was your first,” he says softly and with so much sincerity, my throat closes up as dizzying emotions buffet me.

“I really like you, Liv. I like you a lot. And I’ve been miserable every day things haven’t been right between us.”

His voice is low and scratchy, almost as if what he’s saying is completely alien to his tongue.

I want to be mad at him. He hurt me a lot but he’s making it so hard.

“The girl at the party, th-the one you went home with—”

“Nothing happened. I swear to God nothing happened. Sarah asked me to drive her home because Jenny has a habit of getting piss-ass drunk and waking up in some strange guy’s bed. I took her home and that was it. I swear.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “I couldn’t have sex with her when you’re the only one I want.”

My heart stutters and then swells. “Let’s go to my room and not waste your gas,” I say, instead of telling him how much I’ve missed him and that he hasn’t been the only miserable one.

The half-smile that transforms his expression gives every indication that he knows he’s about to be forgiven. No doubt he’s looking forward to us making up. I’d be lying if I said I’m not looking forward to the same as anticipation churns in my stomach.

Two minutes later, we’re alone in my room and he’s hung his leather jacket over the back of my desk chair. Neither of us has uttered a word since we got out of his truck.

His stance is relaxed but his gaze is intent and focused on me, making it difficult for me to say what I need to say before we take this any further.

“Zach, you know how I feel. I’m not going to be the friend that you sleep with on occasion. I’m not going to be sleeping with someone I’m not serious about and who’s not serious about me. Now, if you want us to be friends, I-I guess we can give that a try.” I can’t ever see a time in the not-so-distant or distant future where I’ll be fine with us just being friends. But clearly it’s an offer I have to make and pray he won’t accept.

His shoulders jump once as an amused smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. Shaking his head slowly, I’m pinned under his burning stare. “No, the
friend-only
thing between us is not going to work for me.”

I swallow hard and try to stave off a shiver. My next breath comes out in a gust. “What do you want?”

His eyes glaze over in unrepentant lust. He takes a step toward me, at the same time hooks his finger between the belt loops of my low-rise jeans and pulls me inexorably toward him until our torsos are flush.

My hands go up to rest against him, and beneath the muscled wall that is his chest, his heart pounds beneath my palms.

“I want you anyway I can have you. Anyway that you want,” he growls as he slides his hand down my waist to my hip and then around to my butt.

I can barely breathe much less talk but I’m determined that this time we’re on the same page. No ambiguities or self-criminations afterward.

“But what do
you
want?” I croak.

My breath catches as he nuzzles my neck. I clutch his shoulders and hold on for dear life.

He lifts his head and stares down into my eyes. “I want you to be my girlfriend. I want a relationship with you. I hope you still want that.”

His words feed years’ worth of dreams, hopes and wishes. If I could stay in this moment forever, it would still end too soon. But more than anything, I want him to kiss me.

His head descends and his mouth rubs gently against mine. I’m too aroused to do anything but part my lips, our tongues entwining, driving the kiss deeper and hotter. I barely have time to savor the sheer pleasure of tasting him again, the wet slide of tongue against mine, before his hands cup my face, angling me for a more thorough kiss.

My hands run over the hard muscles of his pecs and then down over his defined abs. Cotton is fine, but I want the full effect of his bare flesh under my hands. I want skin against skin.

Running my hands until they hit the hem of his blue shirt, I burrow underneath and run my hands over his ripped bare abs. With a sharp inhalation, Zach breaks the kiss, his head buried in the notch of my shoulder, his lips on my neck. He emits an agonized-sounding groan, which reverberates all the way down to my toes.