“How was your day?” he asked as he rounded the counter and came to plant a kiss on my lips before I could answer him.

“It was fine, but how was yours?”

“It was good,” he answered.

I stood there waiting for him to tell me that he had gotten the headmaster job. But instead he gently let me go and went back to getting wine and appetizers for us to munch on after a long workday. He couldn’t possibly be trying to keep this news from me. Why wasn’t he telling me?

He set a wine glass down in front of me and waited to pick his up.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“For what?”

“To celebrate that I am now the new headmaster at the university,” he smiled slyly.

“You took the position?”

I was so excited for him that I nearly leapt off my feet.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I did. And I am very excited about what happens now.”

“Me too!” I squealed. “You’re going to be the best headmaster ever, and you will finally be able to run a college in a way that you should have been able to run Lineage. You have every reason to be excited.”

“Oh that is not why I’m excited,” he said as he walked around the counter and stood so close to me that I could feel his breath on my face.

“Then what is?” I asked.

“I’m excited to celebrate the good news with you, in every room of this apartment.”

Michael tilted his face down slowly toward mine and as soon as I felt his soft lips touch against my mouth, and the slow slide of his tongue against mine,I became completely entranced as everything else washed away aside from this moment.

“I’ve waited all day for this,” he said as he ran his hands up under the back of my shirt. His warm fingertips against my skin sent shivers down my back and into the tops of my thighs.

“Is that why you didn’t call to tell me this news earlier?” I asked as I leaned my body into him and tried to steady the excitement that was rising within me.

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he answered. “Plus I knew that if I came to the shelter after the interview, or even heard your voice on the phone, I wouldn’t have been able to wait until tonight to have you.”

“I almost wish you hadn’t waited,” I chuckled. “I couldn’t think about anything else all day long. I was pretty sure that if I had to wait any longer, I was going to implode.”

“Well you don’t need to wait any longer now,” he said as he pulled me into him.

I could feel the swelling and hardened bulge between his legs throb against me, and when he lifted me and carried me into the bedroom, I clenched his shirt in the fists of my hands as I kissed him while he walked.

“I thought you were going to make love to me in every room,” I whispered as he laid me carefully down onto the bed.

“Believe me, I am. We’re just starting here.”

18

The night was long and luscious, and it made me wish that there were more rooms in our small apartment. When Adam came over to have a late and lazy Saturday morning coffee with us, I could feel myself glowing.

All the lovemaking from the night before had left me feeling exhausted, satiated, and even though it had been hours of pleasure—still thirsty for more. My libido had been off the charts and I had assumed it was just because we had been so busy getting settled into our new lives, that we had been slightly neglecting our physical needs. But I was still so turned on, that even the insides of my thighs rubbing together under the table was making me twitch. Maybe it was something hormonal or maybe I just needed Michael more.

The three of us enjoyed a coffee together and then Adam left to go meet Anna for a second latte downtown. It was a beautiful day and the two of them had plans to stroll through a few art galleries.

“Do you want to take a walk on the university campus with me today?” Michael asked after Adam had gone. “I was thinking that I might like to get my bearings of the campus layout before Monday, and it’s such a nice day outside that I thought it could be fun for us to do. There’s even a cool student-run coffee shop that we could check out if you want.”

“That sounds great!” I smiled. I loved the idea of spending a leisurely day together wandering around campus and hanging out in coffee shops. “And maybe afterward we can have a continuation of last night.”

Michael’s eyes lit up.

“Really?” he asked with an excited grin. “Last night wasn’t enough?”

“It’s never enough,” I said as I leaned forward to kiss him.

“Agreed,” he said with a satisfied sigh.

As I was getting ready in the bedroom while Michael was having one more cup of coffee, I rolled my eyes at myself for the tightness of my jeans as I went to zip them up.

A walk around campus would be good for me, I thought. This peaceful life meant less traversing the mountains and less running for our lives, which seemed to be equating to putting a little extra weight around the middle. At least it wasn’t visible, and it still looked like I had flat abs. I could definitely feel it though, and that was motivation enough for me to not get out of shape.

The next few minutes played out very strangely. The fleeting thought about my jeans being too tight only lasted a short moment and then I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I was finished, I reached for my birth control pill pack and popped one in my mouth as I had done every morning. But then, for whatever reason, I happened to take a closer look at the blister pack of pills and noticed something that made me feel as if my heart had frozen mid-beat.

The pill I had just taken was a light green one, not a white one. It was one of the placebo pills that are in the pack for the week that you’re supposed to have your period. A lot of people just throw the placebo pills away, but I always take them so that I can make sure I never forget or miss a day of the pills. None of that was unusual. The unusual thing was that the pill I had just taken was the very last one of the meant that I should have already gotten my period.

I had missed my period once before, and it turned out to be a false alarm, so I knew better than to get myself all worked up about it yet. But there was a lingering feeling that burned slowly at the back of my brain—a vague thought that covered my mind and reminded me about that one night in the woods; the night that Michael and I had each other, and I didn’t have my pills with me.

“Nah,” I said under my breath as I looked at my reflection in the mirror. “There’s no way that one night would have done this.”

I splashed some cold water on my face and pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail. I was sure that my period would catch up with me in the next day or two, and until then I wasn’t going to freak out needlessly like I did the last time. And I sure wasn’t going to mention it to Michael and get him worked up for no reason, especially not right before he started his new headmaster position.

“You ready to go?” he said as he came in and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind me.

He kissed the back of my neck softly and my skin prickled as if there were a million little electric pulses running down my body.

“Yep,” I smiled. “All set.”

The university campus was beautiful. Instead of the sprawling grass and overhanging trees that decorated the campuses of Goldshire and Lineage in Charlotte; this campus had depth and texture. The pathways went up and down hills that were dotted with intricate architectural buildings that looked like they had weathered hundreds of years. There was definitely a lot of history here and a lot of culture. The walk was relaxing as Michael and I held hands all the way around the grounds. We stopped into the main building and peeked through the small, square window of the headmaster’s office which he would be getting the keys to on Monday. The office looked like one of those old libraries that was usually found in some sort of gothic-inspired monastery in the movies. It even had a dark leather armchair and a stained glass window. I was definitely still feeling plagued by a sexual angst, because when I saw the leather armchair, I started to fantasize about visiting Michael here at school and having sex on that chair. I shook my head to clear away my inappropriate thoughts.

“Hey, you never told me how you managed to land the job at your interview,” I said as I suddenly remembered that we hadn’t really talked about the interview itself or the fact that he had been hired for the highest position at the school without any references, any actual experience, and on top of it was an American national instead of a Canadian local. Even Anna couldn’t have pulled that many strings with her friend here.

“I told the hiring board everything about my time at Goldshire and Lineage.”

“What sort of things did you tell them?” I asked.