Chapter 29

Thoughts of Lust

Gil had always thought once he got to Edinburgh that everything would be smooth running. He'd thought ahead so much that he had assumed barely anything could go wrong. So he felt dismayed when he received a fax from the university that afternoon advising him that several things in the schedule had changed. The days of his lectures had changed and had been pushed forward, giving him less time to prepare than he'd originally intented.

Slightly upset, he'd called the university to ask what was going on, but all he had been fobbed off with was excuses about scheduling conflicts and that they'd tried to get in touch with him the day previous but he'd already gotten on the flight to London and had been unreachable. He'd politely asked why he couldn't have been informed of the changes when the three professors had met him at the airport, but no one seemed to have any answers on this and so he excused himself from the phone call, and hung up.

With the fax in his hand he left his hotel room and headed up four floors to find Sara in her suite. If his schedule was to change, hers would too, as well as some other things.

He knocked at the door, quickly folded the fax and put it in his pocket, he didn't want to break the news to her straight away.

It was several minutes before the door opened – Gil had on the brink of walking away when he heard the clicking of the door open, he'd already turned away and had to turn back to see Sara at the door.

He choked on his own breath, Sara was standing there clad in nothing but a white terrycloth robe courtesy of the hotel. Her hair was wrapped up in a matching towel. Her skin was moist, and she had foam on her legs.

"Hey…" she said brightly, she gave him a soft smile. She seemed so radiant, freshly scrubbed, her skin glowing, unspoiled by makeup.

Gil tried desperately not to focus on the bare area of her chest the terrycloth robe fell apart to reveal. "I, uh…" he cleared his throat, "hope I haven't come at an inopportune time."

"I was just taking a bath," Sara shrugged, she moved aside, "c'mon in," she offered, and waited for him to come in.

Gil stepped in, taking a moment to examine how lavish the suite was compared to the small room he'd booked for himself. Not that he cared too much for luxury, as long as he was comfortable where he was, he was fine, but he found a small part of himself envying Sara in this suite all on her own.

"Isn't this suite something else?" Sara asked, she closed the door behind him, and crossed the room, "it isn't as tawdry as half of the suites we've investigated back in Vegas," she commented, she unwrapped the towel from her head and let her wet hair fall down in dark brown corkscrews.

Gil felt an ache in a familiar place as he looked at her again. Her presence right then felt like nothing but a tease, and he was trying desperately to not let himself be bothered by this. He tried to visualize several things that would help maintain his control. Thinking of cadavers momentarily did the trick. Momentarily.

"It's…definitely something…" Gil moved over to the large windows, to gaze out over the streets of Edinburgh. The city was now full of life, the streets full of people, heavy traffic fighting for their destination down below. He snuck another look towards her, as she leaned forward to towel dry her hair, her robe came open a little more at the front and he saw the slight curve of her left breast beneath the pristine white fabric.

"Do you want to go site seeing, then?" Sara asked, "You have free time, don't you?" she dropped the towel on top of a nearby dresser, and she pulled her robe closed, leaving Gil thankful he no longer had the temptation to look.

"Ah, actually…" he coughed, "there's been a…slight hiccup somewhere," he admitted.

"Oh?" Sara asked, she was heading towards the nearest bedroom off the main living room of the suite. He followed her in and watched her cross the room to grab a hairbrush from the dresser and run it through her damp ringlets.

"They changed the schedule at the last minute," Gil finally said, "actually they changed the schedules yesterday – but we were on the plane by then and they couldn't get in touch to advise us…"

"Couldn't they have told us this at the airport when they came to meet us?" Sara asked, frowning.

"I asked the same thing but didn't get a straight answer," Gil sighed. "Anyway. the lectures are now pushed forward to tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday. Which means that today I'm going to have to spend all my time focusing on preparing for tomorrow."

Sara looked at him, she put the brush down on the dresser slowly, "But…you weren't scheduled to lecture until Wednesday…" her face darkened, as she suddenly realised their time may be cut short, and that they would need to get to business a lot sooner than anticipated.

"I know, I'm not happy about it either," Gil nodded, "that's only the bad news, the good news is that Friday and Saturday we'll have enough free time to make sure we can do plenty of site-seeing," he moved over to her, "I'm sorry, this is all going horribly wrong."

"No, it's fine," Sara said, "I'm supposed to be a colleague on this trip, not your girlfriend, and the whole purpose of this trip is for you to lecture…not to be together," she reminded.

"I know," Gil responded, "But…I had hoped for a little time together. We'll be together in the evenings," he took the fax out of his pocket, "the formal dinners," he reminded. "But…it would be unwise to show any interest in each other whilst we attend."

"I understand completely," Sara said, looking crestfallen.

Gil took a minute to look at her, then moved over, "I'll make it up to you. I promise…" he placed his hands on her arms and squeezed affectionately, marveling at the wonderful softness of her robe beneath his fingers.

Sara moved forward, and instinctively he put his arms around her. Sara's head pressed onto his shoulder, he could feel the cold from her damp hair through the cotton of his shirt. He closed his eyes and held her to him, he touched her damp hair.

"I'm sorry I got you into this, Sara."

"It's fine," she murmured against his shoulder, "I'll find something to do. I'm in a whole new city…there's so much to do…" she stepped back to look at him, "at least we still have a few moments together," she tried to be positive.

Gil realised this were true, and he moved towards her to kiss her, catching her in his arms again. All the thoughts of lust came rushing back, so badly that he found himself trying to avoid pressing against her for fear she might become aware of his arousal.

This is all so wrong, he told himself. I'm trying to not to brush up against her when I want to force her up against the nearest wall and press into her so she knows how she makes me feel. He scolded himself for thinking such things, letting himself be drawn in by the kiss.

It was Sara now who was making the first moves, she deepened the kiss, it was her who parted her lips and let her tongue slide forward past Gils. Gil felt helpless but to respond to this.

She was driving him wild, and he would have given anything to jump into a cold shower right then to avoid this going any further. Everything he wanted to try and frantically ignore seemed to be forcing itself more and more into blatancy. The fact that he was in a hotel with her, in a lavish suite, in a bedroom, a large bed merely a foot and a half away. She was wearing nothing but this white robe. He could smell the citrus from her shower gel, he could smell the rosehip shampoo in her hair. He was suddenly also very aware that her breasts were pressed against him now as they kissed more passionately.

Pull away now, if you let this go too far, you'll regret it, he thought at himself, all the while he was trying to hunch slightly to avoid pressing against her at all. His heart was thudding in his chest rapidly, he could hear it within his own ears.

It's too soon for this, it's too soon to let it go this far…you're not ready – your body says differently but you know what your heart is telling you. Pull away before you get too involved and won't have the nerve to resist her anymore.

Gil wanted Sara to be the one to pull away this time, but she seemed quite content to let things continue the way they had been going. He wished he could be as free as she seemed to be in this respect, but his feelings for her were overweighing his own needs.

He was afraid. Afraid that if he let himself go too far then the relationship would quickly disintegrate after. He knew she loved him, he understood it so much it hurt, but despite knowing how she felt about him, there was always the small part of him that felt perhaps her infatuation was mostly from curiosity.

What if we do make love, how quickly would it be before she lost interest? He had to ask himself, he moved his lips over her in a kiss that was becoming fiercely frenzied in his excitement. His hand caressed her neck, and traveled down and across her bare shoulder, he realised her robe had fallen slightly loose at the collar. He marveled at how satiny her skin was. He wanted to touch her more, to probe further beneath that robe and examine how soft the rest of her body was.

No, stop thinking about this. You're digging yourself into a deeper hole than you're already in. For the love of god, STOP.

Her lips left his, and she had worked her way across his jaw, near his ear. Her mouth left his skin on fire, her fingers, along his neck left him with electric shivers. He chose this moment to recoil, "I…I have work to do," he admitted, his voice hoarse, so that he had to clear his throat.

"It can wait…" Sara objected.

"No…it can't…it really can't…" he swallowed nervously, hoping that she wouldn't glanced downwards and spot the height of his arousal which was now probably more evident than it had been before. "I…I really have to get to work on preparing for tomorrow…"

Sara merely looked at him, he couldn't tell if she was disappointed, angry, or both. Feeling that it was time to retreat, he forced himself to leave the room before Sara had been given any more opportunity to object. The first thing he had done when he had arrived in his own hotel room was to turn on the shower, and turn the dial all the way from hot to cold.

I'm going to mention the reviewers over 3 lines long every second chapter, at the moment, the reviews are giving me problems. I recieved 21 reviews this morning, but most of them were ones I'd already readso is ahving probs sending out the review alerts. I'll add the names of thsoe who reviewed over 3lines long in chapter 30.

To any of those who wonder why it's snowing in April in this story, I just thought I'd put that in because we had huge bouts of snow last week in Scotland. Plus it actually has been known to snow even in MAY in Scotland (seriously!). We don't get snow often, but when we does, it's usually at the weirdest times.

SS