Author's note: This is the second part of Laura and Richard's story. If you haven't read part one, you should probably start
there
.
Special thanks to
Bad_Hobbit
for editing and giving me the confidence to publish this. Any factual or writing errors are my own and I would be very grateful for your feedback.
Chapter 2
Richard
I fell in love and it didn't go well.
I was twenty-two, only a few months into my PhD and full of dreams and romance. Annette was fucking breathtaking. Stunning. Intoxicating. She walked into the graduate bar on a Friday night, spotted me and asked me to buy her a drink. A couple of hours later she invited me back to hers.
I think the phrase they use in police reports is "they quickly entered into an intense physical relationship". Before she'd even closed the door my mouth was on hers, my fingers tangling in the soft blonde curls at the nape of her neck as she teased my lips with her tongue and began to unbutton my shirt.
Annette was wearing a delicate strappy silk top and I felt the lace pattern of her bra and the hardness of her nipples as I cupped her breasts. She put both hands on my arse and pulled my body into hers, hooking one leg up over my hip like a tango dancer and grinding herself into the bulge already growing in my jeans.
Maybe it was a sign of things to come that I broke a strap of her delicate top as I clumsily pulled it down to kiss her body. She just gave a throaty laugh, turning me on even more, as I tugged the rest of her clothes off and licked and sucked and worshipped her golden skin with my mouth.
I fell to my knees in the hallway, pulled her knickers down and buried my face in her. I licked her thirstily, savouring the taste of her. The pleasure I was giving her was almost incidental as I relished her sweet saltiness. I slipped a finger inside her, then two, and she didn't take long to come after that, gasping and panting and holding my head as she clenched and shook.
Then we swapped places and she sucked my cock, wrapping her tongue and her lips around me and gently playing with my balls as she warmed me up. She began to suck in earnest, and it felt like she was sucking my brain and my eyes and my lungs out through my cock. I couldn't tell her to stop, even though a minute ago I'd been desperate to fuck her. She took me deep in her mouth and I tried to make it last, but I couldn't. I came hard down her throat, squeezing the last spurts of cum into her mouth as she looked up into my eyes. I fell onto my knees again, and it was a few minutes before I could get up.
But I was twenty-two, with the energy and enthusiasm of a puppy, and my cock was ready to go again before my brain had really recovered. She took me to her bed and produced condoms, and we fucked hard and fast on all fours, slept for a bit, fucked again slowly and thoroughly with her on top, more sleep, and then leisurely spooning in the morning.
I lost myself in her.
For weeks we spent all our free time together, and quite a lot of time that shouldn't have been free. We ate out and went to gigs, and I bought her jewellery and books and music. I burned through what little money I had and went into my overdraft. We talked all the time, shared secrets, laughed at inane jokes, and we planned holidays and living together and getting married and having children. We fucked like we were addicted to each other.
My PhD supervisor asked if I was serious about my academic career, and my parents worried about me, and my brother told me I needed to keep things in perspective. I didn't give a shit: I was in love.
***
When I came back from the kitchen, Laura was sound asleep. Her head was tilted back and her chest softly rose and fell with her breath. I covered her gently with a blanket, sat down in the opposite corner of the room and ate the sandwich I'd brought for her.
I wished she hadn't come.
What I knew about Dr Laura Black was that she was smart, independent, and hard-working. I'd seen her presenting her work, I knew she was shit hot at her job, and that most of the credit went to her scumbag boss. In meetings and seminars she had a knack for asking the right questions and not being fobbed off with bullshit. She was no respecter of rank or reputation: if the Dean said something vague, Laura would ask for clarification.
And she was hot. Gorgeous brown eyed framed by long lashes, a cute dimple in her left cheek, and lips that made me thirsty just to look at them. Long legs and perfect curves cunningly disguised under the jeans and comfortable tops she usually wore at work. Crouching on my doorstep with her hand stuck in my letterbox and her eyelashes clumped together with rain, she'd looked insanely gorgeous. I'd given her my favourite cosy long-sleeved T shirt and a grey woolly jumper that swamped her, and I was fucking entranced like a groom on his wedding day. She'd taken off her damp trainers and socks, and her feet were fucking perfect too. Damn.
If you're wondering whether her wanker of a boss had tried his luck, he hadn't wasted more than a couple of weeks. That was one of the first reports in the Alan Williams Hall of Shame I'd been reviewing earlier. She'd made a complaint, clearly and compellingly, and when it resulted in the predictable slap on the wrist, she'd stuck at her job despite having to work with the bellend.
She impressed me.
And Laura had always pronounced my name right. If you're called Smith or Lopez or Patel you won't get it, but if you really want to know who gives a shit about you, try having an unpronounceable name. All you Palaszczuks and McCaughreans and Chaimongkhons, you know what I'm talking about. In my first week I was dragged around the department to meet everyone, and I made sure I introduced myself rather than leaving it to the administrator to fuck it up. The wonderful Dr Laura Black, who with a name like Black had no earthly reason to care, listened with a concentration that unnerved me, repeated it back perfectly and smiled as she shook my hand. Remembering that moment made my chest hurt.
I listened to her quiet breathing and replayed the earlier conversation. She'd asked why I was such a grumpy twat, when it seemed like there was a real person underneath. Hopefully she would take the hint and leave it alone. I chose to be a grumpy twat. Other people were better off without my company. So I didn't smile, and I wasn't friendly, and I didn't fucking invite people round.
Maybe I shouldn't have let her in at all, but she'd already started shivering and it wasn't safe or responsible to leave her out in the rain with another couple of miles to walk. But that meant I'd broken my own rule, and she'd been exactly how I knew she would be: lovely, and grateful, and deeply threatening.
Laura didn't need to be awake to be asking me some tough questions about the splendid isolation I'd imposed on myself. Since I'd moved in, no-one apart from me had slept on that sofa, or anywhere else in my home. But she was warm and kind and made me laugh, and I suspected that when she went away my living room would feel emptier than before. Dr Laura Black had invaded my home, just as she'd stealthily occupied my thoughts without me really noticing.
I wished she hadn't come.
I didn't want her to go.
It began to look like she might be asleep for a while. I didn't want to disturb her, but I also didn't want to think of her waking up alone in a strange place. I poured myself a small measure of single malt whisky, picked up a pile of assignments that needed marking, and got on with work.
Anything to take my mind off what the fuck I was going to do when she woke up.
***
I'd marked most of the assignments when Laura stirred in her sleep. She made a soft noise that communicated directly with the contents of my boxer shorts, and I closed my eyes briefly and wondered what other noises she could make, and how it would feel to help her make them.
Then she murmured what sounded like "No". I looked over and saw pain and tension in her expression, and I told my crotch to calm the fuck down. A grimace flickered across her face, and she started to shake her head fitfully from side to side.
"No." she mumbled indistinctly, "Leemealone... No. Get off me." Her gasps were increasingly panicked and her legs twitched under the blanket.
OK, before you say it: I know you're not supposed to wake people out of nightmares. But I couldn't just sit there and watch her suffering. I just couldn't.
I went over and sat on the footstool next to Laura's feet. I said her name and nudged her knees through the blanket, but that just seemed to make her more agitated. I didn't want to accidentally grab anything too personal, so I tried to catch hold of her elbows. She shook me off and a flailing arm smacked me quite hard across the jaw.
Yep, I know. I asked for that. Trying to wake her like that was a fucking stupid thing to do, and I absolutely deserved a smack in the mouth. Twat.
Once she was properly awake, her eyes and mouth formed perfect round O's of dismay as she sucked in a long, shaky breath and I realised I'd just made her feel even worse.
