Chapter 48
"Good morning." Matthew Cavalier announced as he walked into the lecture hall.
The tittering started up. It always did when the new semester began, and, with it, brought new students. Female ones.
It was cold and wet weather, so his knee was acting up. The dull ache had irritated him that morning when he'd taken his pills to protect the joint. He could still run and go to the gym if he wore his brace, but his knee never quite healed from that car accident. It didn't stop him from exercising regularly, of course. As if Matthew Cavalier could give up his physique. Maybe too regularly, he thought as he stared down another class full of freshmen college girls who batted their lashes and shuffled at his attention. Clearly they thought he exercised enough as they eyed his broad shoulders and chest.
He dropped a briefcase on the desk and pulled off his black trench coat before rolling up his sleeves. The ends of his hair had begun curling over his collar. It's time for a haircut again, he thought as he ran his hands through his hair and pressed the button to start up the projector. His motorcycle wouldn't start that morning, so he'd had to rush to catch a cab and God himself knew New York City traffic was a bitch.
When the projector flicked to life, he loaded up his slides for lecture one, Ancient History 101. He took a breath and grinned over his class, ignoring the ones that swooned and checking out the interested faces he could see. Sure, part of the reason his classes were full involved ogling young girls, but the other reason was because he was an enthusiastic lecturer, good at his job.
"Ancient history," He began, clapping his hands. "Someone define it for me." Hands flew up, and he grinned.
He was bright, happy, waving his arms about as he taught. He told jokes that the students really laughed at - not just the polite chuckle of haha, teacher made a funny, but genuine, surprised barks of laughter. He laughed at his own jokes – just enough to know he was really enjoying himself. He sat on his desk sometimes, walked up and down the rows of students and leaned against the left and right walls of the hall. He gently corrected those who didn't understand. He was kind and warm and he loved his field of study. He loved what he did, and they loved him for it.
The class went well. He was happy, and it made the students happy.
"Alright," he announced, "If I haven't scared all of you away, I'll see you next week. Do your readings."
He turned from the classroom, as they rose from their seats, and packed his briefcase.
"Excuse me." A voice began behind him. He turned. A gaggle of pretty young things awaited him, smiling. He forced a wan smile. "We just wanted to say that we really appreciated the class and you're such a great lecturer and we just really like what you said."
He smiled at them each in turn. "Thank you." He walked around the desk to give himself some space as they giggled, and slowly made their way to the back of the room.
He liked his job. But the attention scared him sometimes and put him off most times. He picked up his coat and swung it on in one clean, practiced move before picking up his case and fiddling with his collar with his other hand.
"They seem to really like you." He dropped his suitcase.
***
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." I whispered.
He turned, and those caramel gold eyes burned into me. Stupidly, I wondered if he liked my hair. I pushed a hand though it nervously. I'd chopped it off years ago. I wore it in a short, wavy lob. I wondered if he liked the close fitting, turtle necked ivory cashmere sweater I wore or how it looked with my dark blue jeans and my heeled brown leather boots. I wondered if he thought I looked good with the brown leather laptop bag on my left shoulder, or the ankle length brown leather coat I had folded over my arm. I tucked my hair behind my right ear and wondered if he liked the two, dainty little rings I had pierced through the top of my helix or the three piercings up the side of my ear lobes. I wondered if he liked that I'd lost some weight around my waist and thighs but had gained some around my breasts and rear. I wondered if he liked that i'd gotten about an inch taller.
"Hey, Matthew." I said, with a shy tilt of my lips.
"Katherine." He started.
"It's Dallas, actually." I said quickly. I watched as slowly, one half of his mouth lifted into a grin. "I changed it." i said, nervously smoothing out the coat over my arm. "My Name is Dallas Smith."
He was so much taller now than in my dreams which clearly didn't do him justice. Even his shoulders were so broad and muscular. He must have gotten bigger. And those eyes, my God, I'd missed his eyes. Even his hands looked better, his hands.
He was nodding slowly. "I like that." he announced.
"Right." I said awkwardly. I heard murmuring and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw that most of the lecture hall was still there, watching the awkward exchange.
I whipped back to him, my pale skin flaming with rush of color i felt all the way to my ears. When I looked at him, he was smiling.
"You still do that, huh?" he asked.
"What? Blush?" I snapped, embarrassed and glaring. "No shit Sherlock, of course I still blush."
He gave a loud booming laugh that startled me enough to take a step back.
"Do you want to go where we won't be stared at?" he asked. I looked over my shoulder. Well. At least most of his male students were staring at my ass and looking me over appreciatively and nobody was laughing at me like i was out of his league. I awkwardly tucked the same strand of hair behind my ear a fourth time and nodded, stepping forward. He picked up his briefcase and I followed him out the door, his students staring. He reached back for me and my hand found his, instinctively. His skin on mine made my body flame. Five years, I reminded myself. It's been five years, people don't just fall back in love after five years.
The courtyard was less empty than i'd have liked; it was misty and cold and how thick the overcast was made it look so much darker out, but hordes of students still stood around clutching coffee or just chatting and laughing. I tossed my coat on quickly and flipped the hood up over the mop of platinum colored, loose curls. He was walking fast and I was struggling to keep up.
"Hey, can you slow down," I called on a breathless laugh, tripping over my heels. He pulled on my hand and suddenly, we were in the little alley way between the library and the student commons, hidden in shadow, and my back was against the wall and he was against me.
"Matthew," I barked in surprise.
"Say you love me." He cut me off.
"What?" I asked, flabbergasted. He ducked his head and his dark eyes made fire race across my skin.
"Do you love me?" he cupped my jaw with strong, hard fingers and demanding tilted my face up. "Are you here for some bullshit forgiveness or because you love me?" he snapped.
"Hey!" i bit, slapping his hand away from my face as my brow furrowed. "I've forgiven myself, Matthew."
"That took you five fucking years!?" he snapped, ire in his golden eyes.
"Yes, it fucking did!" I pulled my shoulders from the wall and stepped forward, challenging him. He stepped back.
He shook himself and stepped forward again, pointing an aggressive finger at my face "I forgave you days after you did it, Katherine."
"Oh, what absolute horseshit!" i shoved at his chest and pointed my own finger at him. "No, you didn't. And you know, it so don't lie! You know as well as i do that you blamed me and if we got together you would have goddamn blamed for as long as we were together, Matthew, and don't you dare try to bullshit me about that. I know. And my name is Dallas."
He stared at me for a second in absolute shock before the spitfire was back. "I needed you!" he accused. "I needed you to be there, Katherine, and you weren't."
I threw my hands up. "You would have hated me if i stayed-"
"I hated you for leaving!" he growled.
"Yeah? Well at least i didn't have to watch you hating me and you didn't have to watch us become nothing." He was breathing heavily and closed his eyes as he slowly started to calm down. I leaned my shoulders back against the wall. He scrubbed a hand over his face. Just like his father.
"We were kids." he sighed.
I sighed too, relieved. "Exactly, Okay? We were kids. We were barely together, Matthew, and we were kids. It was a few kisses and some really tense situations. I mean, Jesus Christ, we didn't even fu-" I cut myself off and Matthew's smirk and raised eyebrow made a blush brush across my cheekbones. I closed my eyes and raised a palm to stop whatever comment he was thinking of making. "Not the point." i said.
"What were you going to say?" he asked, his expression fully lecherous.
"Matthew-" i started on a frustrated sigh as used the palm i'd raised to rub my forehead. "Forget it. The point is-"
"We didn't even get the chance to fuck?"
A hot flush stole up my spine and lust raced trough my chest and i kept my eyes closed. I slowly lowered my hand and sent him a put out look. His brow climbed further. I threw my hands up in frustration. "Okay, yes, that. We were kids, Matt. Do you really want to tell me you haven't had sex in the last five years, huh?"
He winced and a hand came up to the back of his neck. "Well. I... I mean. I tried to move on... you know? So, uh, yes, there were a few girls, but-"
"Exactly." I cut him off. I wasn't mad. It was five years. I hadn't spoken to him in five years, hell, even i had-
"Wait," his brows furrowed and his eyes narrowed. "Wait. Have... Did you also-"
"Yes." i cut him off with a dismissive wave of my hand. I really wasn't in the mood to discuss my sex life post-Matthew. Not that there was a pre-Matthew sex life, but the point remained.
"Who!?" he roared, "I swear to-"
"Matthew. Seriously. Can we just... not do that? We had to have lives after everything... happened. I left." I shrugged.
He breathed in, out. We stood in awkward silence, both of us staring at the floor. I took a deep breath. "Look, it's fine. What i'm trying to say is, we didn't know what love was, ok? We didn't know anything about how that stuff feels or what we wanted-"
His mouth pressed hotly over mine before he let me finish. My chest caught on fire and my fingers dove into his hair and his palms dug their way up my sweater to press against my warm back and pull me into his front. Holy Hell.
After a moment, one of his hands left my back and i wanted to protest the loss - until that hand dug into my hair. He grabbed a fistful to roughly pull my head back and expose my throat where his teeth deliciously dug into my skin after leaving my mouth a moment later. Holy Hell.
My left hand left his neck to travel behind his coat and grip a handful of what was still a fantastic ass while i rose onto the tiptoes of my left leg. I threw my right around his hip, hooking him in and pulling his body flush against me. At that he gasped and his mouth was against mine again. He didn't have to fight for dominance, i gave my submission willingly. As my back met the brick wall hard, his other hand came back to dig its way up the front of my sweater and with nimble fingers flick open the front clasp of my bra before he was pawing at soft flesh with spectacularly calloused fingers. Holy fucking Hell.
"Don't you dare tell me i didn't know what i wanted." He snarled, his mouth still roughly pressed to mine before he bit into my bottom lip, hard. A moan stole it's way from my throat. "Don't you fucking dare tell me i didn't know what love was. I knew what it was. I knew what i wanted." he used the hand in my hair to twist my skull so i was trapped, looking up into smoky eyes. He stared at me hard when he growled the next words. "I know what i fucking want."
"Oh, thank God." i whispered, and he was kissing me again, with reckless abandon.
He tore his lips away from me. "Promise me." He whispered.
"I promise -"
"No." he cut me off with a harsh look. "Promise me you'll never leave again. Promise me you won't do to me what Kat did to James. Promise me." He growled.
"I promise. It's over." I whispered. And he leaned down and pressed his body hard and rough against mine, eliciting a sharp cry from me.
"What now?" he asked after a moment, the hand toying dangerously with my body stilling and dropping to cup my ribs just beneath my breast.
"I need to find someone." I whispered.
He stared at me. I freed my left hand and pulled a piece of paper from my pocket and handed it to him. He released my hair and my scalp tingled where his tight grip had had me. I liked the pain. Whoah, boy.
He read it over. Narrowed his eyes, read it again.
"These are the results of your mom's medical examination before she joined MI6." He said.
"Notice anything?" I asked, looking at him carefully. He didn't know.
He read it again, and his thumb began stroking the underside of my breast absentmindedly. I was loosing focus. "This says she had a scar...." his eyes widened, and he looked up at me with shock. "A scar from a-"
"C-section." I cut him off. His mouth parted, and his eyes were wide.
"I did some digging." I said, quietly. "Around the time my mom would have given birth, a woman that looked like her was seen dropping off a child at an orphanage. A girl."
He swallowed. "You have-"
"I have a sister.... and i have to find her."
He took a moment before he nodded and pulled me into his arms and I felt at peace knowing where I was going and who would be beside me.
I wasn't sure if it was made to last. I wasn't sure. But the world doesn't have a lifetime of forevers and tomorrows to wait. Forever begins today. And this day, this forever, belonged to Matthew and to me.
I was free.
And that was who I wanted to be.
***
The End.
I would love to know your thoughts on this chapter. I'd really appreciate some comments down below if you'd like to take the time, It'd mean the world to me.
Thank you.
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