Chapter 29 - "We're an endangered species."

[[Sexual content in this chapter]]

There was something about Christmas that just made me instantly happy. Everyone seemed in better spirits once the festive period started to approach, and Jack had taken it upon himself to be chief decorator of the flat.

"Is all this really necessary?" Hayley asked him as she held his chair still whilst Jack pinned some tinsel above the door.

"Of course it's necessary! Christmas comes but once a year."

"I'm all for a bit of festive joy, but I'm finding it hard to justify putting up decorations before December."

"I'm sure there are lots of things you find hard to justify," Jack murmured under his breath. "Izzy, can you pass me that mistletoe, please?"

I glanced around for the mistletoe and found it resting on top of Jack's laptop lid. Reaching across, I grabbed it and handed it over.

"Strategic," Hayley then commented.

"What now?" Jack asked, with slight disinterest. He was balancing on one foot whilst trying to hook the mistletoe over the smoke alarm.

"It's strategic for you to place the mistletoe there, right by your room, where you've got every chance of cornering one of us when we get into the flat."

"Trust me, Hayley, you needn't worry about that..."

I smiled to myself, but I think Hayley failed to grasp the true meaning of Jack's words. She shook her head but didn't let go of the chair. Things had calmed down during the last few weeks. The incident with Hayley in the kitchen was far from forgotten, but we'd all moved past it. It was almost as if we needed to have that confrontation in order to get everything out in the open. I was by no means pals with her—her and Gemma continued to be joined at the hip—but there was less awkwardness. We knew where we stood with each other.

Louisa and I had met up a couple more times, but needless to say neither of us had consumed as much alcohol as we'd done that first night. As for Nathan, things were great with him. We were still seeing each other regularly, but work was starting to get busy for him.

As if he'd read my mind, Jack spoke up.

"So is Nathan coming round this weekend?" he asked.

"No," I replied. "I'm going to his."

Jack let out a dissatisfied moan. "It's been ages since I last saw him!"

"I know. He was due to come this weekend, but his work is crazy at the moment because of the Christmas deadlines, so he wants to stay at his place so he has access to his computer in case anything urgent comes up."

"Yeah, I get that," Jack conceded. "Tell him that he needs to come on the Christmas night out, though."

"Sure thing," I promised.

My phone vibrated from inside my jeans pocket, and I pulled it out, already guessing who it would be. Sure enough, it was Pedro.

Pedro: Still okay for 4?

I sighed to myself, which attracted the attention of the rest of my flatmates.

"Who's that?" Shaun asked.

"Pedro. We've got to meet up to practise our oral presentation and I can't be bothered in the slightest."

"You'll feel better for practising," Shaun told me.

I grumbled to myself and retreated into my room to put on a coat, scarf and pair of gloves. I hated oral exams. They were the worst part of a languages degree. Luckily, Pedro and I had become quite good friends, so I was no longer self-conscious about speaking Spanish in front of him. Instead, I liked that he could point out where I needed to improve. How else was I going to get better?

"Enjoy!" Jack shouted after me as I left the flat.

As I stepped outside, the temperature change between the heated building and the icy wind caused me to shiver. I shoved my hands deep inside my pockets and put my head down, marching as quickly as I could towards campus. The wind cut at my cheeks like an icy blade, making my eyes water.

I briefly wondered what the weather would be like in Italy at Christmas. Nathan had invited me over there, along with my family, but plans were still in the pipeline. Nothing was confirmed yet.

The library was a welcome sight, and I unashamedly jogged the last few metres to get inside the warmth.

"Evening." Pedro smiled. "You're a lovely rosy colour."

"I hate this weather," I told him, unzipping my coat. "If it's going to be this cold, then it could at least snow so that we get a tiny bit of enjoyment out of it."

He chuckled to himself. "So how are you feeling about this presentation?"

"Not too bad. I mean, I hate oral exams, but with presentations I always feel like there's a little bit of a safety net if my mind goes blank."

"Are you planning on memorising your whole presentation then?" he asked as we began to walk through the library to find a spare room.

"Oh, definitely," I admitted. "I get so nervous before orals. I don't trust myself to be able to speak spontaneously under pressure."

"Okay, well that's fine. We just need to make sure your speech does sound spontaneous though, and not rehearsed."

"I've been doing these damn exams for years." I shot him a grin. "I'm practically an expert at making something rehearsed sound spontaneous."

Pedro laughed, coming to a halt in front of a room. "Glad to hear it. Shall we try in here?"

"There are people in there," I said, peering through the glass in the door.

"Not for long..."

He pushed open the door and then dug in his heels, making me almost crash into his back.

"Oh," he said, feigning surprise. "Do you guys have this room booked too?"

The students in the room, none of whom actually seemed to be doing much work, all glanced at each other.

"Um, no," one of them said.

"Ah, sorry." Pedro grimaced. "I hate to kick you out."

"Nah, it's cool," the same guy said, standing up and beginning to pack away his things. "If you've got it booked then that's totally fair."

"Sorry," Pedro apologized again. "It's just we've got an exam to prepare for, so we really need the room."

"No need to apologize, man." The guy smiled. "It's not a problem."

Once the group of students had left the room, I pushed the door shut until it clicked.

"Pedro, that was really mean."

"What?" he said, voice laced with innocence. "They didn't have it booked so we have just as much right to be in here."

Pedro had proved that with a bit of confidence, you could fool anyone. So I set about perfecting how to fool a couple of teachers into believing that my speech was spontaneous and not scripted.

"What are you pulling that face for?" Pedro asked me after our third attempt at the presentation.

"You sound so much better than me."

"Jeez, I wonder why..."

I scowled, not appreciating the sarcasm. "Maybe I just need to practise more. Or listen to more Spanish TV or something."

"You sound good," he assured me. "Your pronunciation in general is great. But obviously it's never going to be as good as a native speaker. Linguistics don't allow it. I mean, you must hear non-natives speaking English and acknowledge how good they are, mustn't you? But no matter how good they are, they're never going to sound perfectly English."

"I suppose not."

"Your speech is good, though," he said brightly.

I laughed. "Of course it's good. You corrected all my mistakes in it."

"No, I mean the way you're presenting it," he replied. "It's good. You sound confident and..."

"Spontaneous?" I supplied, raising an eyebrow.

He grinned. "Yeah. Spontaneous. Do you want to go through it a couple more times?"

I agreed and off we went again. Despite not looking forward to this practice, I did feel better for doing it. The more I practised it, the more relaxed I'd be when it came to actually doing it. Plus I had no doubt that seeing Pedro there, a good friend, would help to calm my nerves.

A knock on the door interrupted Pedro's part of the speech, and we both looked over to see a tall guy stick his head through the door.

"Sorry to interrupt, guys," he apologised, "But we have this room booked."

I almost smiled at the irony of the situation; it completely served us right. Pedro didn't put up a fight, and we packed away quickly and efficiently, almost embarrassed.

"Karma," Pedro smirked as we headed out of the library.

I laughed. "Absolutely. God, it's freezing. How about a brisk walk back?"

"It's the Christmas lights switch-on tonight," Pedro reminded me. "Do you want to go?"

"I would, but I'm starving and I don't fancy hanging around. These kinds of things never happen on time."

"Okay, that's cool. Shall we just wander through the campus though to see what's going on? I'll buy you some mulled wine..."

Mulled wine sounded great at this moment in time, and I didn't want to completely blow Pedro off, especially since he'd been helping me a lot recently with my Spanish.

The campus was decorated beautifully as we strolled through it. There were little stalls selling food, decorations and drinks. There were even fires where people were roasting marshmallows, and that helped to warm me up a little.

"Free mince pie?" a person called at us as we walked past their stall.

Who turns down free food?

"I love mince pies," Pedro said as we helped ourselves to one each. "It's a shame it's not socially acceptable to eat them all year round."

I thought about Jack, back at the flat, filled with Christmas spirit. He'd love this. Taking another mince pie for free would be a little bit cheeky, so I handed over some money to the student manning the stall and picked up one for Jack.

"Wow, you really are hungry," Pedro joked.

I smiled. "No, I'm taking this back for Jack. He loves Christmas."

"Ah, how is Jack?" Pedro asked casually as we continued our stroll through the campus.

"He's fine. He's taken it upon himself to decorate the flat, much to the annoyance of Hayley."

"What's her problem? I thought you said she'd backed off a bit now after that big confrontation?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, but she'll still find any excuse to wind up Jack."

Pedro snorted. "Misplaced affection maybe."

"I hope not." I frowned. "He can do so much better."

"Got a soft spot for him?" Pedro asked me with a teasing smile.

"I'd just hate to see him with someone like Hayley," I said. "He's such a nice guy, a genuinely nice guy. And there aren't many nice guys left these days."

"Ah, that's true. We're an endangered species." Pedro winked.

I laughed. "How are things in your flat? How's everything between the two who slept together?"

"Eurgh, tense," Pedro said, pulling a face before taking a sip of his wine. "They've pretty much gone out of their way to make the situation as awkward as possible."

"How so?" I asked, lifting my own wine to my lips. The steam from the drink rose and warmed up my face, and I kept the mug there for a while, enjoying the heat.

"Because in the daytime they avoid each other. On nights out they continue to fuck each other."

"Do either of them talk about that to you all?"

"Nah." Pedro shrugged. "I mean, guys don't talk. And maybe Ellie's talking to her girlfriends about it, but we'd never know what they were saying. Apparently they just get drunk and keep doing it. But everyone knows that's not a proper explanation."

"I don't know. Sometimes it's easy to carry on doing what you're familiar with. Clearly they both know that, at the end of the night, they've got someone to go to bed with, someone who's not going to turn them down. Alcohol is just an excuse to let that happen."

"But can girls ever really have sex without feelings?"

I shrugged. "It depends on the girl, I suppose."

"Well, regardless of all that, it's still annoying as hell for the rest of us. It wouldn't be so bad if they just accepted that it's become a regular arrangement. But instead it's like they're going out of their way to be dicks to each other during the day, as if they need to prove to the rest of us that there are no feelings involved. You can be civil with someone and still have no feelings, right?"

"Yeah. I can see how that would be annoying."

"I'll welcome the Christmas holidays; it's a break from it all."

"Yeah, it's just a shame we've got this exam beforehand. Every time I get excited about Christmas, I just remember how I've got an oral exam the week before."

"But then you can go home for Christmas knowing that it's over and done with," Pedro pointed out. "There's nothing worse than revising over Christmas."

"That's true."

We started to head back to the halls of residence, slightly less cold than before having been warmed up by the mulled wine. Pedro chatted away whilst my mind began to wander. As per usual, I was counting down the days until I saw Nathan again and my mind was already conjuring up various scenarios that may take place over the weekend...

The flat was looking significantly more festive than it had been when I left it. Jack had obviously been busy.

"It looks like you've had a productive evening," I said to him as I wandered into his room with the mince pie.

"Indeed. It looks awesome, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it looks great," I said. "Here, I bought you a present."

I placed the mince pie down next to his laptop, causing Jack to drag his eyes away from a random girl's Facebook page that he was stalking.

"Ah, Izzy! You're the best!" He grinned, scooping up the mince pie.

"It's the Christmas light switch-on at campus," I told him. "You'd love it down there."

"Christmas light switch-on?" he repeated, his eyes lighting up. "Let's go!"

"No chance. I just got back from there and I'm freezing and want food."

Jack pulled a face but didn't argue. Instead, he turned back to his laptop screen and clicked on the girl's photos, immediately beginning to scroll through them. I rolled my eyes and headed to my room where I promptly dumped my stuff before going to the kitchen to see what the freezer could offer me tonight. Pizza would be nice; quick and tasty was always good.

With both my body and my pizza thoroughly warmed up, I was much happier. Jack had obviously forgiven me for refusing to go to the Christmas light switch-on, because he suggested we watch a film together. It was the first time I'd felt properly content at university; things with Nathan were good, I was feeling more on top of my work, Christmas was approaching which made everything better, and Hayley had stopped being such a bitch towards me.

Jack and I watched the film in silence, but it was a comfortable silence. As we sat under the duvet, with his door shut and just various Christmas fairy lights to illuminate the darkness, it was the perfect cinematic experience, and the perfect way to relax after a hard evening of revision.

I was in a good mood as I returned to my room later that evening. Everyone else seemed to have gone to bed, ready for whatever lectures Friday was going to throw at them. But when I pushed open my bedroom door and flicked on the light, I jumped in surprise.

Nathan was lying on my bed, flicking through my iPod.

"Finally," he said, pulling out the earphones when he caught sight of me. "I thought that film was never going to end!"

He placed the iPod onto my bedside table and stood up, stretching his limbs. How long had he been here? Why was he here? Had we made plans for this? I thought I was going to his place this weekend?

"Don't look so confused." He wandered over to me and leaned across to push my door shut. A whiff of his aftershave drifted through the short space between us. He was actually here.

"Why are you here?"

"And don't ask any questions," he said, before bending down and pressing his mouth to mine.

Whatever confusion I'd been experiencing was quickly replaced by desire. He was here and it didn't matter why. I was going to make the most of it.

Standing on my tiptoes, I wound my arms around his neck and crushed my body against his as I deepened the kiss.

A deep groan vibrated from Nathan's chest, his warm hands sliding down my sides to settle on the backs of my thighs. Our lips moved fervently against each other as we stumbled towards the bed. Heat flickered between my thighs, my blood alight with fire—a complete contrast to earlier when I'd been freezing.

I tugged off Nathan's top, then took a break from the kissing to trail my fingers over his stomach muscles, tracing his abs.

"You like?" Nathan asked, his voice low and breathless.

"Very much." I moved my lips to his cheek and dragged them along his jawline until I reached his ear. "I like every single inch of you." His breath caught as I nibbled his ear.

"Fuck." A shaky breath caressed my throat. "I'm sure there are some inches that you like more than others..."

"Mm, quite a few of them actually..."

When I retreated, Nathan's eyes burned with desire. His hands slid under my jumper, then my t-shirt, and he pulled both layers off at once before pushing me down onto the bed.

"Oh, the things I'm going to do to you tonight," he murmured in my ear, letting his body rest heavily on top of mine.

"Tell me." I wound my legs around his back.

"No. I'm going to surprise you," he said.

My stomach fluttered. He sat up and removed his jeans at a torturous pace, so slow that my fingers twitched to intervene. Instead, I occupied myself with taking off my own clothes.

"Mmm," he hummed in approval, his eyes scanning my body. "I'm so lucky."

"I want you." I tried to keep my voice low, but my previous embarrassment at being overheard now paled in comparison to how much I wanted him. How much I wanted this.

As I sat up to wind my arms around him again, he caught my wrists and promptly pushed me back down onto the bed, pinning my hands above my head.

"I think I'll be the one in charge tonight." The dark authority in his tone matched the intensity in his eyes.

Slowly, Nathan lowered his hips onto mine, his erection pressing into the damp space between my thighs. A needy whimper escaped my throat. This was torture, but definitely in a good way.

"I want you to keep looking at me the whole time," he said, rearranging to hold my wrists in just one of his hands, leaving the other one free to trail down my neck, over one sensitive nipple, along my stomach...

The second he slid a finger into me, I closed my eyes in pleasure.

"Eyes open," he said firmly, pulling away.

My heart thumped against my ribcage. One long finger pushed inside again, curling deep within me, then retreating. Over and over again. Each time the pressure built, he stopped, lowered his mouth to mine, and kissed me slowly and affectionately, almost the contrast of what he had been doing.

"You're killing me," I said through gritted teeth, lifting my hips to chase the release.

With a chuckle, he withdrew completely and shuffled down the bed. The wet warmth of his tongue flattened against my clit, then twisted in circles around the pulsing nerves. I clutched at the pillow with my now-free hands, churning my hips in time with the tightening pleasure.

"Don't stop," I gasped.

This time, he didn't. I clapped a palm over my mouth to muffle my cry, and I was still shaking when he crawled back up the bed and slammed into me.

"I love it when you beg," he whispered down my ear.

He was rough and unrelenting, yet so, so meticulous. Just like my message, he commanded control but let me have my turn too.

"God, I love you so much," Nathan breathed afterwards, as we lay side by side, panting.

I smiled lazily. "I love you too."

"You give me everything, Bella." He kissed my forehead. "I'm so lucky."

"I'm the lucky one. Thank you for surprising me."

He chuckled. "You're welcome. I've managed to get tomorrow off work, so I thought I'd come to surprise you. Jack was in on it, and he said he'd find some way to distract you so that I could sneak into your room."

"Sneaky. How did you manage to get tomorrow off whilst it's so busy at work?"

"Louisa drew my attention to the fact that I've still got six days left of holiday for this year. So I thought I'd spontaneously use one of them up."

I nestled closer into him. "I like spontaneity." 

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Thank you for reading :)xx