Awaken: A Spiral of Bliss Novel (Book Three) Read online

  A mouse?

  Fuck that.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dean

  March 8

  ean, we have a problem.”

  “I don’t like problems, Frances. I like solutions.”

  “Okay, perhaps it’s not a problem yet. More like a wrinkle.”

  “Don’t like wrinkles either.”

  I grip the phone with one hand and shield my eyes from the sun with the other. The dig trenches are organized into a grid and sectioned off with string, the façade of the eleventh-century church and perimeter walls rising from the ground like dinosaurs.

  “If you don’t like wrinkles, then you really won’t like this,” Frances warns me.

  “What?” Irritation scrapes at my insides.

  “Edward Hamilton is considering a large donation to King’s to fund a new law school building.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” If I weren’t so frustrated, I’d laugh. Maggie Hamilton’s father has carried on his family’s legacy of big alumni donations to King’s, and he’s going to dangle this possibility in front of the board like a damned carrot until they do what he wants.

  And what he wants is for them to fire me.

  “Why doesn’t the board of trustees just bend over for him?” I ask Frances.

  “Dean, he’s considering the donation at this point. He hasn’t committed.”

  “He’ll commit once he sees me out on my ass.” I inhale and focus on the excavation site again.

  Archeologists, volunteers, and students are scattered throughout the trenches, digging for artifacts and recording finds. The hills of Tuscany roll around the site like giants sleeping under green blankets.

  “What do I do?” I ask Frances, both expecting and dreading her answer.

  “Nothing,” she replies.

  “I can’t do nothing,” I snap. “I’m sick of doing nothing.”

  “Nothing with regard to the investigation, Dean,” she clarifies. “Going on that dig was the best thing you could have done. I’ve been reading your reports, your podcasts are brilliant, and the board of trustees has sent out a press release about the IHR grant and your contributions to the dig. Your job is to keep doing exactly what you’re doing.”

  “For how much longer?”

  “Ben Stafford has to make a recommendation to the university board of trustees soon,” she explains. “If he brings your case to them, they’ll have to further investigate and possibly hold a public hearing.”

  “When’s the next board meeting?”

  “End of May.”

  “That’s almost three months.”

  “They can convene earlier, if needed.”

  “I’m not staying here another three months, Frances. No way. It’s been over two weeks already. I miss—”

  I stop. The sun disappears behind a cloud.

  My wife. I miss my wife.

  “Work,” I finally say.

  “You are working,” Frances replies. “And it’s good for your career. When you come back, you’ll go right from the dig into the conference. It’s an excellent move, Dean, but you need to stay there and finish the work.”

  After a few more comments about the job, I end the call and walk toward the trenches. I grab a notebook and camera and start recording the features of the monastery located between the church and the cloister.

  I haven’t worked on a dig since grad school, and I’d forgotten how much I like the work. Being outside, hunting for treasures, wearing jeans and old sweatshirts, not needing to shave. Digging in the dirt reminds me of being a kid, back when Archer and I would hunt for bugs and rocks in the garden. I like figuring out what an object is, what it could have been used for, when a structure was built.

  Even missing Liv as much as I do, even wanting to be home again, it’s good here. I know what I’m doing. Thinking and talking about sediment samples, structural planning, building stages… this, at least, all makes sense.

  Unlike the miscarriage.

  Unlike the threat to my career.

  Unlike the trouble in my marriage.

  None of that makes any sense. It never will.

  I take pictures of the perimeter wall, then go to assist on the other areas of the site. There’s a solid routine to my days here. Wake early, breakfast, shower. Talk to Liv, then get to work. Digging, cataloging, consulting, studying, recording, photographing. Sometimes a trip to Florence or Lucca. Soccer games. Dinner with my colleagues, followed by a campfire, drinking, music, or a movie.

  Liv is always there, always in the back of my mind, my girl five thousand miles away shelving books, organizing a display of photographs, cooking dinner in our apartment that she’s made a home with all her houseplants and decorating touches.

  I don’t want to be away from her, but being here, I’ve figured one thing out—I need to do the same thing with my marriage that I’ve done my entire career as a historian.

  Study the data and figure it out.

  I can do that. I’ve done it countless times before. I’ll do it again.

  After consulting with the site architect about the drawings of the monastery, I return to my room and spend an hour reviewing site data sheets and writing up a report about yesterday’s finds.

  I pick up the phone and dial my father’s number for my weekly check-in to see how he’s doing after his heart attack.

  After he and I talk about his health, he asks about work.

  “It’s good,” I tell him. “Still on-site.”

  “Helen told us she’ll be attending your conference,” he says.

  Though the thought of seeing my ex-wife doesn’t bother me the way it once did, my chest constricts at the mention of the Words and Images conference. I’m acutely aware that I could be relieved of my duties as conference chairperson if this harassment allegation isn’t resolved soon.

  “When are you going back to King’s?” my father asks.

  For a second, I’m tempted to tell him everything. Confess all that’s happened. Though my father and I aren’t close, he’s always supported whatever I’ve wanted to do. He’s always been proud of me, though at the expense of my younger brother.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I finally say. “How’s Mom?”

  After a few more minutes of talking, my mother gets on the line. She chats about her charity work and local events, then asks me to ship her some painted terracotta from a showroom in Florence.

  I promise her I’ll look into it. After we hang up, I check my email. There’s a message from Liv along with a scanned drawing:

  I print out the picture and tack it to the wall above my desk alongside a photo I took of her a couple of years ago. I could stare at the photo for hours—the faint freckles across Liv’s nose, her high cheekbones and dark brown eyes fringed with thick lashes. The top few buttons of her shirt are undone to reveal a V of pale skin and the swell of her breasts. Her straight, brown hair is loose around her shoulders, her lips curved with a smile.

  Still scares me sometimes. How much I love her. All this stuff about her needing me, relying on me, depending on me… when I’m the one who can’t take his next breath without her.

  I fantasize about her to get off every night, but haven’t told her what I think about during the day. All the things that make Olivia Rose Winter Liv—the way she arranges the cereal boxes in alphabetical order, always stops to pet dogs on the street, hums when she waters her houseplants, and gets emotional over sappy commercials.

  And I think about the secret parts of her that no one knows about but me. The soft crease at the back of her knees. The curve of her collarbone. The crevice beneath her breasts. The small of her back where my hand fits perfectly. The ridges of her spine. The beauty mark beneath her left shoulder blade.

  Mine. She’s mine.

  The possessiveness that grabbed me the instant I saw her
is fathoms deep. It’s in my bones, my blood. It will never go away. And I don’t know what to do with my suspicion that it’s part of the problem.

  I push away from the desk and go back outside. After more work and planning for the next day, I get some dinner and go to bed early. I’m always up before dawn to talk to Liv, and it’s still dark the next morning when I call her.

  “Hi.” Her voice is slightly breathless against my ear. “I’m excited.”

  “So am I.” I shift the phone to rub my cock, which is still half-hard from a hot dream. “Let’s talk about our excitement.”

  “I mean, I’m excited because I got a job,” Liv says in amusement. “You know that French bakery down on Dandelion Street? I applied for a position working at the front counter, and I got a call this afternoon that they want me to start tomorrow.”

  The pride in her voice makes me downright happy. “That’s great, Liv. I knew you’d find something soon.”

  “It’s not what I want to do forever, of course, but it’ll be a good temporary job.”

  “How many hours are you working?”

  Liv gives me the rundown about her hours and new schedule, then tells me about the upcoming exhibition at the Historical Museum.

  It’s my favorite time of day—lying on the bed in my rustic hotel room, dawn breaking outside the window, listening to my wife’s voice like music in my ear.

  “Dean?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I also… um, I saw Dr. Gale today.”

  Tension claws my shoulders at her mention of the counselor who brought up the whole “sex is a problem” bullshit.

  “Yeah?” I manage to keep my voice even. “What did she have to say?”

  “Well, I’ve seen her a couple of times, but ultimately she just verified what I already knew.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I wanted our baby.”

  My heart constricts. “I know you did.”

  “Have you thought about it at all? About trying again someday?”

  “Some.” I stare out the window, where the sky is still pallid and gray from the night. “Scares the crap out of me.”

  “Me too, but I was anticipating it, you know?” Liv says. “And I think I want it more than I’m afraid of it.”

  Silence falls between us. I can’t look at the black possibility of what could happen to Liv if she got pregnant again. Yet the rational, researcher part of my brain knows that I was getting used to the idea of having a baby. That I’d started preparing for fatherhood.

  And the pieces were falling into place because I was with Liv, the woman who stole my heart and my breath with one look. The woman I didn’t even know I was looking for until I found her.

  I tighten my grip on the phone. “What if—”

  “I know, but what if you hadn’t been at the UW registrar’s office that day?” Liv asks. “The very same minute I was? What if you hadn’t decided to speak to me?”

  The darkness of that thought, of what might not have been, lodges between us.

  “What if I hadn’t had a job at Jitter Beans?” Liv continues. “What if you hadn’t come in that morning? What if someone else had been working at the counter? We might not be together now.”

  “Liv…”

  “Dean, how many things in the universe had to fit together for us to have met, let alone fallen in love?” Liv asks. “And how many of those things changed our lives forever?”

  “Every one.”

  “Exactly. For the better. Sometimes what if reminds you of what is.”

  I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell her I want to try again because I don’t know if I do. I don’t think I could stand the fear and uncertainty again. Not when it involves Liv.

  “Dean, I’m just saying I want us to think about it more,” she says gently. “Okay?”

  “Okay. I can do that.”

  “I know you can, professor.”

  You can’t control everything, Dean. Her voice echoes in my head again.

  But I know there are still some things I can control. How I think. How well I make and follow a plan. Every facet of my research. How hard I work to get what I want.

  And what I want most has everything to do with my wife.

  “Now tell me something research-y and esoteric,” Liv says. “You know I love it when you use your big, academic… words.”

  “Careful,” I warn her. “I’m battling all sorts of erotic longing over here.”

  “Me too.”

  “Yeah?” My cock twitches a little at the thought that she might be ready for some hot talk.

  “As much as I miss you, this separation has been great for my dreams,” Liv remarks. “I’ve had all sorts of lusty, imaginative dreams about us.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, in my last dream you were an incredibly hot gladiator—”

  “A what?”

  “A gladiator with chest armor and a loincloth, and I was… um, I think I was a vestal virgin or something, and we were in one of those temples with the columns… anyway, it was sexy.”

  Since I’m not too sure where she’s going with this, I switch the topic to safer ground.

  “Want to tell me what you’re wearing?” I ask.

  “Oh, er… hold on a sec.” There’s a thunk as she puts the phone down.

  I wait. A few minutes later, she’s back.

  “Okay,” she says, “Guess what I’m wearing.”

  “A T-shirt.”

  “No.”

  “Your white nightgown?” I ask hopefully.

  “No.”

  “Tank top and pajama bottoms?”

  “No.”

  “Please tell me it’s not your padded bathrobe.”

  “Hey, you love me in that bathrobe,” Liv says. “It drives you wild with lust.”

  “I love you in anything, and you drive me wild with lust, but trying to feel you up in that robe is like fondling the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”

  Her laugh warms my blood.

  “I’m not wearing my robe,” she assures me.

  “Then you must be naked.”

  “No. I’m wearing a pair of navy blue satin panties and a push-up bra with lace around the edges.”

  Lust bolts through me. My head floods with images of Liv’s curves all fitted into sexy lingerie. “Wow.”

  “You should see my boobs in this thing,” Liv remarks. “They look amazing.”

  “They are amazing.” I grab my dick through my boxers, picturing her full breasts pushed up into pillowy cleavage. “I’m hard just thinking about them.”

  “Oh.” She lets out one of her breathy little sighs, and I can see her all stretched out in my office chair, skimming her hand over her body. She murmurs, “Remember that first time when you showed me how you could fuck my breasts?”

  I groan. Raw talk from her gets me hot in less than a second.

  “I remember.”

  “We haven’t done that in a while,” Liv whispers.

  “We will when I get back.”

  “Are you near your laptop?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hang up, then turn on your webcam.”

  I end the call and grab my laptop from my desk. Sitting back on the bed, I get the software running. After a few false starts, Liv’s call comes through.

  My heart crashes against my chest. Even in the small screen of my laptop, the grainy picture sends my lust skyrocketing. She’s adjusting the camera, her hair all loose around her shoulders, her cleavage… God in heaven.

  I struggle to pull in a breath.

  “Can you see me?” Liv asks with a slight frown.

  “Yeah.” The word comes out strangled. “Christ, Liv, you look incredible. I want to see it all.”

  “Okay, hold on.” She mo
ves away from the desk and stands. My vision fills with the sight of her full breasts pushed together, hugged by satin and lace, the curves of her hips, a pair of satin panties cupping her between the legs…

  “Turn around.” I reach into my boxers and close my hand around my shaft.

  Liv turns, displaying the satin stretched across her ass. My body tenses with the urge to hook my fingers into that flimsy material and pull it down slowly over those gorgeous cheeks…

  “Bend over,” I tell her.

  “Make sure the record button is off,” Liv says, but her voice is getting breathless as she pulls the chair closer and kneels on it.

  She leans over the back of the chair. The panties stretch across her ass. I tighten my grip on my cock and stroke it, imagining shooting all over that smooth blue satin.

  “Hey, wait.” Liv turns, her hair sliding over her shoulders as she peers into the camera. “I can’t see you if I’m turned around. And why are you still wearing a shirt?”

  “Because I’m too busy staring at your ass. Turn around again and pull your panties down for me.”

  She leans closer to the camera and gives me a mock frown that makes me want to reach through the camera and kiss her senseless.

  “Okay,” she says. “But then you’re taking your shirt off. Boxers too.”

  “Show me your ass, woman.”

  Liv turns again and tucks her fingers into the waistband of her panties. After shooting me a wicked grin over her shoulder, she pushes them slowly down until her ass fills the screen. My blood pounds. I want to kiss and squeeze those perfect cheeks, slide my cock into the valley, then down between her legs where she can tighten her smooth thighs around my shaft…

  A groan rumbles my chest. I’m as hard as a rock. I take a deep breath, trying to regain some control.

  Liv twists around again and sits, the panties all tangled around her thighs. “Is your shirt still on?”

  I pull my shirt off and throw it on the floor, then shove my boxers down.

  “Oh.” Liv peers at the screen, her voice husky. “Very nice, professor. I so wish I could touch you. I wish I could taste you.”

  My erection pulses at the thought of her sliding her tongue over my chest and stomach before she takes my cock into her hot mouth. I move my hand up and down my shaft, pressure boiling through me like steam.