No, it is not possible to be this happy. How can I be this happy? - Beca thought. She was still reeling from seeing Jesse. She thought she was hallucinating but no, Jesse felt solid next to her and she just stopped thinking so much and sank against him. Just like she thought of for those many days and nights away from him. There was loud applause in the train carriage and she smiled against his chest.
"Umm.. I really hate to break this hug at the moment but I need to say thanks," she could felt Jesse's voice rumbling through his chest. She broke apart, a little red in the face, smiling at the crowd who were all whooping and clapping. Jesse walked over to them with Beca by his side, introduced her to the group and charmingly said thanks for helping him out.
Jesse tugged Beca's hand and they hopped off the next stop at St. Pancras King's Cross. Jesse was pulling her along, walking fast through the station while Beca, still a little dazed, followed along.
"Jesse." she suddenly stopped in the middle of the station. He stopped and looked at her. "Umm.. do you want to go back to my hotel? .. Just so I could... ahh.. say hello properly?"
Jesse chuckled "That sounds quite tempting. But I have plans, Beca. Don't distract me."
"Where we are going?"
"You'll see." he said with a grin. "Do you have your passport with you?"
"Yeah. Luke told me to bring mine along for some security thing. Why?"
"Yeah. OK." said Jesse, deliberately not answering her question.
"Paris? We are going to Paris?" Beca said, her eyes round as they stood in front of the Eurostar departure lounge.
"We can go Brussels, if you like. But I hear Paris is quite romantic this time of the year."
"But Jesse, I don't have any spare clothes!"
"I'll buy you some when we get there," Jesse said, tugging her along through the gates. "Besides, what I had in mind don't involve much clothes," he added with a half smirk. Beca could only rolled her eyes at that. Weirdo.
The three hour train journey was pleasant enough with both of them relaxing in their First Class seats, sipping their complimentary champagne. The French countryside made way to a more urban jungle as they neared Paris and before long, they alighted at Gare Du Nord station and hopped into a cab. Before Jesse could tell the cab driver their destination, Beca leaned forward and said, "Galeries Lafayette, Boulevard Haussman, sil vous plait."
"What?" said Beca, noting Jesse's expression. "I have to get some clothes."
"What happened to wanting to say hello properly?" Jesse teased, nipping her neck gently.
"That can wait," Beca said in a huff. "I don't want this dress ruined. I rather like it. And I don't fancy walking through the streets of Paris with only my underwear underneath this coat."
Jesse groaned at the thought, his hand sliding up to cradle her face. "Now that's an idea." He began to kiss her gently all over her jawline and neck, deliberately avoiding her lips, as much as Beca tried to capture his for a kiss.
"Right. I make it quick," she said breathlessly.
"Whatever happened to quick?" Jesse pouted as he sat on the little armchair in the middle of the boutique, bags of shopping round his feet.
"I'm almost done," Beca called out. "Now help me choose. This lacy black thing or this white cotton one?"
She put each of the lingerie set against her in turn. "The lacy one is quite stretchy and soft. But this white one is so pretty with the flowers here." She pointed to the breast area to emphasis her point. Jesse's head nearly imploded with the thought of either one on her and he swallowed visibly.
"Umm Becs... a moment please?" he said with difficulty. When Beca leaned down, he whispered hoarsely. "Take them both. I don't care. I'm going to rip them off you anyway. But if you don't hurry, I might have a little accident here."
"But we haven't even look at the stockings and corsets yet," she whispered back, her eyes flicking to the naughtier lingerie displayed on Jesse's right. Jesse looked a little pained and he artfully arrange a bag across his lap. Beca gave him a wicked grin as she stood up and sashayed back to the changing room.
"Wow."
Jesse just smiled as he put down the bags. He came behind and put his arms around her as she stood, awestruck in the middle of the room. Yeah, the room was pretty impressive. Beautifully furnished in cream and gold. Gorgeous big bed with a mountain of pillows. There was a balcony opening up to the view of the Eiffel Tower, now twinkling and shimmering in the night. Pretty awesome. But what really struck Beca was the amount of red roses in the room.
"Seriously dude, how many florists did you raid?"
"Don't you like it?"
"Umm… It's very… floral."
"You know, when someone whisked you off to Paris and have your hotel room covered in roses, some people say that's romantic."
"Who is this' some people' you speak of? What is this 'romantic' thing? This is so cheesy."
"You didn't mind me serenading you in the train just now. That was romantic."
"Please!" she scoffed. "You totally ripped that off Heath Ledger."
Jesse whipped her around. "Now how would you know that if you have not watched 10 things I hate about you…which would mean you, Beca Mitchell, had willingly watched a rom-com."
"Dude, no. No rom coms," she said with an eye roll. She fought down a small smile though without success. "I was under duress."
"Such a liar," Jesse said, grinning widely. "Now come here."
"Actually that flashmob thing was rather nice. And you sang it better than Heath Ledger," Beca finally said after gaining her breath back. Cheesy he might be but boy, does Jesse know how to kiss. They had sunk onto the sofa, entangled in each other arms, lips locked and now they had broken apart, breathless.
"Thanks for taking all the trouble planning this," she said. "What would you do if I have said no?" she added, teasingly.
She did not notice the cloud passing across Jesse's face. He had thought about that and it was sheer bravado on his part to just not to dwell about it and just go ahead and do it. He looked at this girl who could have so easily crush him and said, "I would have given my ticket to Luke."
Beca did not pick up the note of slight despair in his usually chipper voice and continued teasing him. "Well… Luke is incredibly hot…"
"Yeah..." he said and this time, she felt the pain in his voice.
"Hey, are you alright?"she said. Beca took his face in her hands, wondering at his sudden change in mood. Jesse just smiled, shook his head slightly like he was trying to dispel his thoughts and kissed her deeply. Don't ever leave me – he wanted his kiss to say – I don't think I can bear it.
Oh god… – thought Beca as she felt Jesse's lips parting, coaxing hers to do the same. His lips, tongue and teeth teasing her until she was this hot mess of jelly in his arms. His hand was slowly unzipping her dress while his other hand was sliding up her thigh, before cupping her ass and pulling her closer. Jesse could feel the fabric of her stocking giving way to the soft flesh between the top of her stocking and is that a suspender belt? Then the little soft scrap of her underwear. Fuck, she was so smoking hot. Beca was impatiently unbuttoning his shirt. She wanted to feel his warm skin and revel in the hardness of his muscles. She wanted to run her lips and tongue on those ridges on his abs and make him groan. She could not wait.
"Becs, I think we should slow this down," Jesse suddenly said. He drew back, regret written over his face and sat up, putting some distance between them. Beca just blinked. What just happened?
"OK, I'm confused now," she said in a low voice. "We are in Paris, in a room full of roses with a huge bed. You just unzipped my dress and had your hand up my thigh. I got sexy lingerie on and you think we should slow this down?"
"I don't know. Maybe we should get to know each other first."
Beca could not keep the incredulous look off her face. "Are we in the Twilight zone here? I think we already know each other. In the biblical sense as well, Jesse. What the hell are you saying?"
Jesse groaned. He knew he was making a right mess out of this. It was just the thought of Luke and what he represented intruded on him and he was faced with all his insecurities. "I'm sorry. I'm not doing this right. Give me a moment. Please don't be angry at me."
He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. "Becs, I never thought I will meet you again after all these years. You have no idea how happy I was to be with you again. It's like I got a reason to wake up in the morning. I found out I've still got all these feelings for you and I just want to be with you all the time. The sex was phenomenal, I had you with me, I couldn't be happier. Then I went and fucked it up at the Hamptons. I know I hurt you so much, babe. I know that. I'm going to make up for that for the rest of my life if you let me."
Jesse's face then clouded over with the memory and he continued "Becs, do you know, after what happened at the Hamptons, I just couldn't find you. The thing is I don't even know where to find you. When we fought back in college, I always knew. I knew where you go if you just want to be alone, where you go if you are angry and I always know what to do. But this time, I don't, Beca. I realised I don't even know where you live, for goodness sake. None of your friends knew. I didn't know whether you were safe. And it scares the hell out of me."
He just rubbed his face hard. "What I'm saying is I know the Beca in college but I don't know this Beca now. And I desperately want to. I missed the last seven years of you, Beca and it's killing me."
"But you knew where to sent those presents and the flowers.." Beca said confusedly.
He stood up and walked away from her, feeling so inadequate and insecure. " Luke helped me with those. I wouldn't even know how to get to you if he hadn't. And I got a feeling that if I were to hurt you and lose you again, he wouldn't help me again. I think his exact words were he would kill me with his bare hands."
Beca stood up. "What do you want from me, Jesse?" she asked quietly.
"I want you to be with me, please. I want to know you again, Becs. Please let me. I don't expect you to tell me everything now. I just wanted to try this. "
Beca's first instinct was to run. Run, Beca. He's going to tear down your walls and he's going to get hurt - she thought. But then she looked at him; properly looked at him and she saw the hurt, the hope, the love all over his face. He is already hurting now with your walls up, Beca.
"OK, ask me something." Her voice was steady although her insides were churning.
Jesse looked at her. Do I dare to ask her? - he thought. "Why didn't you tell me you were at my wedding?"
She shut her eyes. Of all the questions he could asked.
"Luke told you."
"Yes," he answered, still staring at her. "Luke told me a few things. About your mom, about you coming to my wedding, about you and him..." He could not finish it yet again. He just gripped the back of the sofa, his knuckles white. He took a deep breath. "It hurts so much, Becs. To know you have been with him. To know he's been there these last seven years, instead of me. It just hurt."
Beca's eyes popped open. She stared at Jesse.
And very slowly, very clearly she said, " You wanted to know the last seven years of my life? You want me to share what I had been through? Do you know I never want to know about the last seven years of your life, Jesse? Because it would mean I will know about your life with you loved her and married her. That I was so easily replaced. And then I saw you kissing her when I thought you were in love with me..."
She almost could not continue. She was shaking now. Jesse looked at the agony in her eyes and he could not believed he was doing this to her. What had he done?
"Why did I go to your wedding? I just wanted to see you happy, Jesse and that you have moved on. I thought I could do it. I missed the ceremony because I know I am not strong enough to see you up there in the aisle. I thought I would be OK just attending the reception. " She let out a hard, brittle laugh. "I wasn't. I couldn't."
Jesse felt like all his breath was knocked out of him.
"Surely, there was someone else in your life, Becs? All these years," he asked hoarsely.
"Luke helped me and he saved my life once, for which I am eternally grateful. But I never love him." She shook her head slowly. "There was no one. Only you. Always you, Jesse."
They stared at each other.
Look at me, Jesse - Beca thought - this is me without walls. Nothing but this mess that is me. Nothing in here but the shadow of you which I carry with me all these years. Do you really want to see me like this all the time?
And he saw it.
And he thought she never looked more beautiful than she was now.
He walked across towards her, tearing off his shirt. He took her in his arms because he could never be apart from her now. Never. For all the hurt he caused, he had to pay it a thousand fold. And for all the love she had for him, he had yet to earn them.
"Stay with me, Beca."
A little nod against his chest. That was all that he needed. Beca shut her eyes and rested her head on his chest, just listening to the steady beat of his heart. Can I do this? Dare I do this? - she thought.
"Yes. Yes, I will."
A/N Yay, they will be together. As always, thank you so much for your reviews and follows. A very special thanks to Cajunqueen for helping me flesh this out. Your PMs and thoughts are invaluable. I am always happy to chat via PMs, guys so don't hesitate to get in touch :) Also M chapter next. Well, all that raw emotions need an outlet somehow