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Chapter 179

New World

Leah

The evening with David's family had been simply beautiful. I had been able to forget everything else for a few hours. But now everything was moving closer to me again.

Tomorrow midterms began. Marcus was gone. Nanuk was confusing me. And next to me, my little bro ran on his paws and imagined how the day with our friends in Boston would be today. In doing so, he had quite loving imaginings. Boston had a lot to offer today - on Martin Luther King Day. Various museums offered special thematic exhibitions, a little film festival had its last day today, there was free admission at the zoo, free concerts took place in some public parks, Boston University hosted a brunch with lectures, live music, and plenty of food. The more I listened to Jake, the less I felt like it. It had been Marcus' idea.

'I'm not going with you!', I therefore thought explicitly, just before we arrived at our house in Saco.

Jake immediately slowed down beside me.

'What do you mean, you're not going with us?' he asked, quite flabbergasted.

'Well. I don't feel like watching how happy three couples in love are. I'd just be a millstone on your neck or the fifth wheel on the wagon. I really don't feel like it. I'd rather curl up in bed with a book!'

'Okay. Suit yourself', Jake thought quietly.

'But don't tell Mom and Dad that I'm staying home,' I rumbled through his thoughts. 'They would only worry unnecessarily.'

I first ran home with them.

Becky wanted to put on warmer shoes and needed her bag for her cell phone, wallet and such, and Jake needed a jacket. Since my parents would be coming back to get the backpack for Ced and to wait for the Mitchells to be all ready, I wasn't going in my room right now, but I would have to be there briefly. Dad would notice otherwise that I hadn't entered the house yet today.

"Have fun!", I wished Jake and Becky as I waved to them from the front door.

I went into the garage, undressed, and ran into the woods.

It was just before nine o'clock.

I estimated that I wouldn't be able to go home for a good hour if I didn't want to run into Mom and Dad.

I was enjoying the pristine morning forest, with clouds of haze still clinging to it. This inevitably led me to think of Nanuk.

Just like everything around me now, that is exactly how Nanuk smelled.

For some reason, inexplicable to me, I found myself at the lake. I had not taken any clothes with me, so I stood naked on the dock to the water and looked out at the lake.

A thick swath of fog hung over the surface of the water, framed by snowy terrain.

Lonely soothing silence.

Slowly, one step at a time, I walked across the dock. When I reached the end, I cried and sobbed unrestrainedly, lying huddled on my side.

This is where it all started. The whole chaos of my life. Right here, in this beautiful place, the misfortune had taken its course. I loved Marcus and I missed him. So many little things just came to mind. How he lit the fireplace. How he felt stupid for talking to an animal. How he thought he would catch rabies from me. How he had explained to me in all seriousness and with proven facts that chocolate was harmful to ones health. Just to get a piece. On the other side stood Nanuk. A man who more than appealed to me, but was just as unattainable as Marcus was to me now. It was only because of Nanuk that everything with Marcus had broken down, yet I couldn't blame him. It was simply the circumstances. The supernatural circumstances that I hated more than ever right now. The wolf in me simply destroyed everything. Without consideration for losses.

I just lay there, on the cold and hard wooden floorboards, moaning in dissolution about what I had lost and about what I was not allowed to get.

In my heart, things were just going haywire. My thoughts circled around the two men who had irrevocably nested in my heart, but not a single thought was tangible. Fleeting scenes played out in my head, single words echoed in my ears, small touches made my skin inflame. And I howled and cried, because I would never again be as happy as I had been so recently.

'... Leah ...', whispered inside me.

So quietly that I almost didn't hear it.

Actually, even now I wasn't sure if I had really heard it.

But besides this unreal voice, I felt my cheeks warming up, so I opened my eyes.

"Nanuk!?" I realized, startled, and very quickly wiped my eyes with the back of my hands. Okay, to hide my crying, it was probably too late, but the tears immediately dried up in the darkness of his eyes.

Sadly, he looked down at me while I was still curled up on the dock.

I sat up, with him helping me with very gentle hands. One was burning in my nape, the other at my side.

He knelt at eye level in front of me, naked, and his gaze did not leave mine, just as his hands did not leave my skin.

Tender and soothing. Both the look and the touch.

So I slid my hands on his strong shoulders.

How warm he was!

"Leah? Why are you crying?" he asked incredibly gently.

"What are you doing here?", on the other hand, I asked.

"I'm not sure. I kind of felt like you needed me right now. That I needed to get to you ... to ... save you."

"To save me?", I smirked slightly.

"You are sitting here all alone and crying. Why, Leah?"

"It's nothing," I rebuffed.

"You're already way too big a girl to shed tears over 'nothing'!" said Nanuk, running a thumb over my cheek to wipe away the wet trail on it.

I lowered my gaze a little, took a breath.

Why did everything Nanuk did have to feel so incredibly good? However, I found an explanation that was quite plausible for me, without having to tell him that Marcus no longer existed in my life.

"It's just our emotional chaos breaking down on me a little bit. Nothing more," I tried to soothe anew as I looked at him again.

His dark eyes were so beautiful, but the lids settled over them and our heads gently fell together at the forehead.

"The chaos that led me to you instead of me driving with Kate to her parents. The chaos that's keeping you from Marcus right now. The chaos that has us both sitting right here," he muttered to himself.

"Exactly that chaos I mean!", I confirmed in a whisper.

"I can't take it anymore!" he then suddenly said.

It sounded like he was giving up.

"What can't you do anymore?", I asked, opening my eyes.

Our heads were still leaning against each other, but we looked at each other.

I leaned away a little so I could see his whole face.

I recognized the brokenness in him, even if I didn't know what he was talking about. It distressed me to see him like this and I put my hands to his cheeks. I had an urgent need to do something good for him. To take away his suffering or at least to compensate for it a little.

So I leaned forward and covered his lips with mine. I took my time with it to enjoy it a little myself, kissing him with gentle pressure before leaning back again.

A slight smile was over his mouth, and he seemed to let it linger a bit with his eyes closed, which I had just done, contrary to what we had agreed.

But damn, how good it felt! And how incredibly loosened and relaxed Nanuk looked. But only for a moment.

"Exactly that, Leah!", he mumbled and ran his hands through his hair in a nervous way. "Exactly that, I can't do it anymore. I can't anymore, I don't want to anymore ..." he began to say.

Nanuk looked everywhere but at me. He also backed away from me a bit, let go of me, and leaned himself away from me.

This reaction gave me a bitter sting.

I had done the wrong thing! I had angered him with it.

New tears pressed against my eyes.

How had I been able to do that!

I wanted to leave.

Hectically, I struggled to my feet.

"Leah!" he pulled me back by the wrist, though, before I could really get to my feet.

So I landed with so much impetus with my butt back on the wooden boards that I was almost lying on my back. Nanuk had come thereby somewhat from the equilibrium of its knees, leaned practically over me and supported himself with a hand beside my head.

With his angry speech, he had somehow paused in the middle of it as our eyes now met.

In the midst of my frantic departure and his annoyance.

A moment passed in which his expression and his whole demeanor changed again. He took his hand from my forearm, put it tenderly to my face and looked at me as if his eyes promised me the world.

And so much more than that!

"I don't want to fight you anymore, Leah! ... I want you!" he whispered fervently.

I think I lost my consciousness for a fraction of a second, so explosively my heart beat. And my heart immediately sought a foothold. With my lips on his.

A kiss of redemption. A kiss of defeat of our struggle. But a kiss that was simply everything and also felt like everything. Love, trust, confidence, temperament, passion, friendship and so much more.

I was dizzy under all the emotions crawling up my spine to be revealed through my mouth.

Our hearts beat in rapid unison. Our tongues and lips danced together, impressively, playfully, yearningly. Our fingers were restlessly. Caressing, intimate, tender, without shyness. They ran over each other's backs, arms, cheeks, through our hair, along our necks, and butts. And did I mention that we were both naked?

So our bodies nestled together, involuntarily straightening a bit, rubbing with each breath, letting the blood boil up.

This kiss just didn't want to end. It should never end. But it did.

Breathing heavily, we knelt in front of each other, our arms tight around each other, as if we would never want to let each other go.

But the pause for breath lasted only a short time. It was just enough to look each other in the eyes and smile liberatedly at us, before our lips found each other again.

But something was different. Better. More ardent. Greedier. It wasn't enough for me to just kneel here with Nanuk and kiss him. I needed more from him. And a part of him that was already pressing against me was unmistakably of the same opinion, which only excited me more.

Nanuk's hot kisses slipped from my lips and set off to discover a new world.

At least that's how it felt to me. I knew this exciting feeling when the heavy breath and the moving lips pushed over my skin with pleasure. I thought I knew this feeling! Because it had never felt like it did right now. So exciting!

I was already trembling under the kisses that my neck and shoulder experienced.

Where was this going to lead? I didn't know, but I wanted to find out at any cost!

So I leaned back a bit and put my head in my nape, while my hands inspected Nanuk's musculature extensively. One arm slid under my back and gave me a secure hold so that I didn't tip backward. The other hand settled at my waist.

While Nanuk's lips slowly moved deeper, kissing and consuming my cleavage, the hand at my side slid inch by inch higher.

It was unbelievable how just the little tensions of his muscles in his arms, shoulders, the back of his neck and his upper body turned me on.

Then he achieved on both sides to my erect tips, and I moaned violently when everything had turned in my head briefly in the process.

I heard how a gentle smirk was in the air and felt how his lips curled a little at the same time. And the slight tumbling sensation hardly subsided as he courageously continued to play with them, caressing and gently massaging them.

"That's so ...", I wanted to explain my feeling, but I simply didn't have the words.

"Oh, yes," Nanuk confirmed, nonetheless.

No matter how much Nanuk was driving me crazy right now, I was not born to inactivity like that.

I leaned up again, where my lips were immediately welcomed enthusiastically.

"Leah. You're so ..." he murmured into our kiss, looking rivetingly into my eyes, but he interrupted himself as his head fell into his nape as my fingertips trailed along his groin.

We were still kneeling, by the way. On the hard wooden dock. By the lake. In the middle of winter. But that was just so unimportant!

My hands pushed down the sexy man's body, but he pulled me with him until we were lying on our sides facing each other. His warmth immediately befuddled me again, just as his smell beguiled me. His hands, restlessly running over me, put me in rapture.

But I was still unwilling to simply take his caresses. I also wanted to give. I wanted to let him feel the same feelings as he had given me so far.

So I leaned further towards him until he was completely on his back and began to explore this man with my lips. Kissed me over the blazing skin that made my lips glow.

Nanuk moaned out more and more as I came closer to his center, but I was also breathing harder every minute myself.

Seeing him quiver and tremble under my caresses, his heart stumbling when I changed my caresses, fueling the euphoria in me as if we were already much further along in our adventure.

But just before I actually reached his center, he sat up, pulled me to his lips and kissed me greedily.

It was unmistakable what I had intended.

"If you do that, I'll explode!" he mumbled emphatically.

I twitched my eyebrows challengingly as he looked at me saying that.

Okay, so my lips were not desired at the moment, but I still had hands.

Exactly these slid down his steeled torso and embraced him, massaging him and his gaze blurred.

He caught himself once again, only to look at me combatively, which obviously demanded a lot of composure from him. With one hand propped on the floor, he pulled me towards his lips with the other, but the arousal went directly down my body.

Let's say I could understand his little problem when he reached my center. When his gentle fingers touched me there, such an ecstatic wave pushed through my body that I again thought I had stepped away for a moment.

The arm I had been leaning on buckled powerlessly and I tipped awkwardly forward against Nanuk. So we leaned with the upper bodies against each other and nevertheless continued to seduce and kiss each other.

There came a point when we both couldn't continue to take it. We couldn't handle it anymore. We craved and ached to experience even more.

However, Nanuk acted faster than me and buried me under him.

To feel his weight on me, to feel his hot body on mine, that alone was so ... wow.

If we were so impatient just now and could hardly wait, we now paused for a moment.

We looked at each other.

Our thoughts seemed to be fighting a silent battle over whether we should really do this. Whether it was right. But I had just lost all counterarguments.

We kissed each other.

Intimately and romantically as we positioned ourselves for the inevitable.

Our gazes glowed expectantly. My eyelids fluttered as he penetrated me centimeter by centimeter.

He truly took my breath away.

I was now almost at my climax, but we just began! However he did not come yet. Not for a long time. It was somehow strange and yet felt right. As if my soul wanted to experience everything that was possible, every small or intense eventuality of rapture. As if every molecule of my body wanted to feel Nanuk pervasively before even thinking about surrendering to an orgasm. It was so incredibly good. So euphoric. So terrific. Every slightest movement my body took careful note of and reacted to ecstatically. Whether he was above, below, or behind me. Whether we kissed, caressed, or looked at each other. Every fiber of my body reacted completely intoxicated and just could not get enough. And we seemed to be made for each other. Our pulse continued to go in absolute unison, albeit very stormy. We moaned unrestrainedly under the lustful emotions. Although we were already united as much as it was possible, we sought further touches. Embraced each other irrepressibly, intertwined our hands stormily into each other, placed furious kisses on the accessible skin, drove obsessively through our hair, let our fingers excessively continue to explore the other unrestrained. Not the slightest bit of our bodies was immobilized, but everything feverishly indulged in this incredible, intense, and exuberant experience.

Nanuk sat cross-legged on the ground, and I sat on his lap.

We slowly rocked each other rhythmically to climax. A very erotic position, as I found. I could lean forward against his hot body or, as I was doing at the moment, support myself with my hands on his knees and lean backwards. In doing so, I revealed virtually my entire front to Nanuk, which he dealt with spiritedly and intangibly. His hands massaged over me, my thighs, my buttocks, my sides, my breasts, my center. And his lustful lips did the same. Then, as the explosion of the peak rushed ever closer, our previously deliberate movements became more violent. Nanuk wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against his torso. Only our pelvises were still moving, and they were becoming more and more fanatical. I put my arms around his nape, pulling him against me as well. His hot inflaming breath came in jerks at the crook of my neck, but mine was no less gasping. I felt dizzy as the sensations threatened to collapse over me. Until the redeeming bang came, a tremendous eruption that made me cry out unrestrained and my whole body tremble, accompanied by icy cold and boiling hot shivers. I was dead and in heaven! Perhaps it was less dead and more heaven when Nanuk lay back on his back and pulled me along.

We kissed, softly and playfully, while our bodies calmed down.

Lasted a little. Maybe a little more, with us spinning back and forth.

"You know after what I want now?", I asked smiling happily as he lay on top of me.

"No," he smiled as well.

I decided to just show him, pushed my hands between us against his torso, collected myself for a moment and threw him off me with all the strength at my disposal.

He flew in a high arc, with arms rowing and cursing into the icy cold lake.

Yes, I was stronger than him. But I immediately jumped after him. I needed to cool down.

With open arms I was already welcomed in the really cold water.

At the bank the water was frozen in places, but with wolves the internal thermometer was permanently out of order. Well, the open arms with which he had expected me in the water were also not what I had hoped for now. The surprising departure into the water Nanuk forgave me not so simply.

He teased me, tried to push me under the water.

The little banter ended with kisses as we sat at the end of the dock.

We just sat there and enjoyed the togetherness.

Yes, maybe we should both talk about what we had just done here. That I had just had probably the best sex in the world. What that meant for us and how it would go on now, but all that seemed unimportant to me. Only the moment was important.

At least until my stomach growled.

"Yeah, eating wouldn't be bad!" commented Nanuk.

"Let's run to my place. There's no one at home," I suggested.

He agreed, grabbed his bag, which was also here on the dock, and we ran side by side to Saco.

It had been wonderful. We had little races and jumped into each other's path. Without any guilty conscience at all. I had never felt so free.

Nanuk put on his clothes from his bag on the patio while I went to the garage where my clothes still lay.

Holding hands, we went into the house and the first thing I did was look at the clock.

I had no idea what time it might be by now.

12:42 p.m. Uh ... How long had I been at the lake with Nanuk?

I shrugged and inspected the kitchen cabinets.

"Do you actually know how to cook?", I asked Nanuk over my shoulder.

"With an almost all-star chef as Ma, maybe I should, but it's just enough that I'm not starving," he admitted, chuckling.

Not knowing what my mom had planned for dinner this evening, I merely grabbed her emergency mince and opted for lasagna with a salad.

It was nice to cook with Nanuk.

I told what exactly to do, but we then did it together, with him standing so close behind me that I could feel his body against mine from head to toe. In the meantime, we also cried together and kissed the tears from each other's cheeks.

The tears from cutting onions. As stupid as that may sound, I found it somehow beautiful.

With four hands that barely let each other go, we layered everything into the casserole dish.

"But I can bake pretty well," Nanuk remarked confidently after we put the lasagna in the oven.

I made a prompting hand gesture.

He listed ingredients that I pulled out, but then we did everything together again, only now the instructions came from him.

And without crying while doing so.

"Then let me have a taste," he demanded.

There was a spoon with us, but I took my index finger and turned to him. He sucked down the dough.

"Not nearly as good as you, but edible," the connoisseur noted, after also tasting at length from my lips.

Just to be on the safe side.

Since he had asked for a muffin tin for what we had stirred together, it would probably be muffins. But then we could only wait until the lasagna was ready in the oven.

"You look thoughtful," I noted as I washed up some things.

"I'm ... thinking about Kate," he admitted.

The mixing bowl fell back into the basin, and I let my head hang.

Kate. That one I had completely forgotten. Repressed, I should say.

"And what exactly are you thinking about?", I asked in a careful whisper. Maybe he just wanted to forget about the previous morning really quickly. Maybe he would want to keep fighting now. Maybe it wasn't such a big fight for him after all. We had sex, incredible fantastic sex, but maybe that meant nothing to him, and he had just taken the opportunity. Maybe I had only disappointed him, and he was now aware again that he really only wanted his Kate.

"What to tell her," he merely said.

"Maybe that you love her?", I offered him after taking one deep breath. I had to face the facts. We had denied our imprinting for a reason. There had been someone behind each of us for whom we had taken up the fight in the first place. Marcus and Kate. An adventure wouldn't change that.

"With that, I wouldn't even be lying to her," he noted sarcastically. "But I think she deserves a few more words," he reflected.

"What exactly are you going to tell her?" I asked, not understanding. Surely he didn't want to confess to her about our little adventure? By doing so, he was digging his own grave, so to speak! He apparently wanted to hold on to his relationship and I had to support him as best I could. This adventure should never have happened! I felt guilty for Nanuk's infidelity. Something that I normally abhorred deeply.

"Are you serious, Leah?" he asked, on the other hand, his mood becoming undeniably exasperated.

I just nodded, a little intimidated.

He threw the dishtowel aside, turned away from me as if he wanted to leave immediately. But in the doorframe he remained standing.

"Apparently the past hours have a different meaning for you than they do for me," he tried to sound composed, but it sounded quite different.

As if he were a broken man who had been deeply hurt and offended.

He ran his hands through his hair and his shoulders twitched as if to prevent himself from crying.

With hands still wet from washing up, I walked slowly towards him.

I did not understand his reaction.

But he kept talking before I could think of anything appropriate or get to him.

"I don't know what to say about that. How to deal with it now. Because obviously you want to stay with Marcus and the last few hours, as amazing as they've been for me, haven't changed anything for you. But it did for me, Leah! Even without us having slept together, one thing had become clear to me when I arrived to you at the lake ... I've been thinking about how to explain to Kate that I can't marry her anymore. That there is only one woman to whom I am willing to make such a promise. Only one I want to share my life with ... You, Leah. ... But it looks like you have ..." he said wistfully, and I couldn't take it anymore.

I bridged the last yard, turned him in my direction and literally jumped at his neck, kissing him so tumultuously that we almost lost our balance.

At first he returned my kisses, but then he looked at me.

"Leah? What ...?" he began, but couldn't quite seem to put into words what he wanted to ask.

"I want you, Nanuk. I think I love you. That time with you meant something to me. It was, damn it, the best sex of my life. And Marcus broke up with me a week ago because he thought our fight was hopeless," I finally now admitted

Nanuk pulled me tightly against his body and hugged me while I was still attached to him and had my legs swung around his hips.

"Oh Leah ... Why didn't you say anything about it?" he murmured in dismay.

"You wanted Kate, so I didn't want to bother you with it," I replied in a whisper.

"If you had told me, I probably would have come to the conclusion sooner that I could no longer live without you!" he countered in a velvety voice. "I only fought you in part because you held on to Marcus. But it got harder every day to remember that. Because I think I've loved you since we met," he admitted.

I leaned with the head back a little bit so that we could look into each other's eyes.

There was a glint in his eyes, but he smiled overwhelmingly, while I felt on my cheek the tear rolling.

"I guess Jake was right. We never had a chance of lasting permanently up against our bond," I reflected.

"No, we hadn't," he confirmed, and we kissed, me continuing to cling to him and us unwilling to let each other go.

Even the beeping of the kitchen alarm clock could not separate us and so we sat, after relatively awkward table setting, facing each other at the dining table. Our chairs were so close together that our legs somehow got knotted together.

But who bothered about such trivialities?

We shared a fork and fed each other.

"How do we go on with us now?", I asked at some point. I felt a little overwhelmed with the new situation.

"Well, I love you, you love me. That doesn't leave so many options now, does it?" he teased me.

"Yeah, but I mean, what's going to happen to us now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I live here in Saco, go to school here, and will probably go to Dartmouth this summer. And you live in Boston. That's pretty far away," I recounted the present facts.

"I'm sure we can make it work. Boston is not the end of the world. It's just an hour and a half drive. As a wolf, I'm sure it won't take me nearly that long either. And we could also meet in the middle ... If nothing comes up, I'll be finished with my studies in the summer. So I won't be tied to Boston then. So we're only talking about a few months we have to live with that distance. I'm usually here on the weekends anyway, but you could come visit me in Boston."

"You seem to have thought about all that very carefully!", I stated dryly, but smiled immediately afterwards. I liked Boston, even though I hadn't been there very often. Mostly only when something specific was taking place there or we were there for shopping and didn't want to go to Portland for a change.

Nanuk smirked and placed a kiss on the tip of my nose.

"Yes, I have. For a few days now, I practically couldn't get you out of my head. In fact, ever since we stood in that sunset with Sitara. Unfortunately, that made me realize that I have to go back to Boston very soon. That scared me. So I came up with various ways I would still see you," he admitted with a smile.

"Okay and how do you do that now in Boston. You live with Kate together, don't you?"

"So to speak."

"Huh ...?"

"Well. It's not really an apartment. We live together in a flatshare."

"Oh ... Sure, you told me that once. I don't know, somehow I was under the impression that you would have your own little apartment by now," I reflected.

"No, but it often seems that way to us. We share the apartment with three others. Sam and Babsi. They're together and not around most of the time because they've been taking mostly evening classes. And Sabrina, who is Kate's best friend. Her boyfriend Greg lives just a few blocks away with his parents, where she spends a lot of time. So we are relatively often alone in the apartment ... Since neither of us ever planned to stay in Boston after graduation, we never really looked for an apartment. In addition, we are both currently living completely on our parents' dime. In Boston, however, student housings are scarce goods. Whether it's simple rooms in dorms, shared or private apartments, or small apartments. Boston is full of universities. MIT, Harvard, Tufts, Bentley, BU and all the others we have there. In that respect, I can't move out overnight or demand that of Kate ... At least now I really see the advantage in the fact that Kate had insisted that we each have our own room. She was always of the opinion that we needed a place of retreat if we were already living together in quite a small space. So that we can study undisturbed, in case one of us is sick and needs rest and such ... Still, I think I'll look for something else for the rest of the time and stay with friends a lot. I don't want to keep putting Kate through my company."

"You don't want to hurt her," I said, and as I did, I shoved a filled fork into his mouth.

He shook his head, chewing.

"No. I won't ... It's not like I suddenly don't care about Kate now. I've been with her for over five years, and I didn't ask her to marry me just for the fun of it. I love Kate. Even now ..." he said and immediately mused. "Isn't that unfair? I know now and stand by the fact that I want only you, but the feelings for Kate are still there."

I nodded and shoved the fork into my own mouth.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Every time we saw each other, there was quite a spark," I said.

"Oh yes!" confirmed Nanuk, taking my fork from me and poking awkwardly at the salad.

"It was so exhausting not to get too close to you and to stick to our plan. If Akai and Jake hadn't been so careful when we met ... Anyway. Now we agree that the plan failed, but I still miss Marcus," I admitted.

In the meantime, I had snatched the little cherry tomato that Nanuk couldn't get on the fork because it kept rolling away, with my fingers.

He peeked offended.

The kitchen alarm clock rang again, and I quickly went to get the muffins out of the oven.

"I'm sorry about Marcus," he said meekly as I sat with him again. Gentle fingertips stroked my cheek. "You fought me because of him. You love him. Still do. I'm sure it was hard to accept that he left."

"Yes, it was ... It was okay during the day, but that doesn't surprise me. He was always in Portland during the day, after all. But in the evening. If he had actually arrived here so slowly ... I cried myself to sleep for most of the week, not wanting to admit it," I mumbled, in the process of which Nanuk pulled me into his arms. It was so good and yet so curious. My new boyfriend comforted me over the loss of my last boyfriend. Boyfriend. Somehow this designation did not seem appropriate to me. Neither for Marcus, nor for Nanuk. They were both so much more. Especially Nanuk. It was our destiny to be together. He was my perfect match. At least, that's what the legends said. Who believed in legends?, I thought with a smirk. We were walking legends! "Jake was with Marcus on Thursday. He's doing a lot worse with the breakup than I am ... How do you think Kate's going to digest that?", I asked, disengaging from his arms a bit.

The lasagna was not yet empty, so I reached for the fork again.

"Phew ...! Hard to say ... It would be naive of me to think that it would come out of nowhere for her. Actually, I've been waiting since last weekend for her to confront me again ... The night after you were all up at the Native American village, I called out to you in my sleep."

"I did, too. That same night ... Marcus 'blamed' me for withdrawing from him, and that I kept on and on avoiding him. I didn't even realize it, but he did," I said, pushing the plate with the last of the lasagna towards him.

He chewed the last bite, brooding.

"Now that I think about it, I guess I did the same thing ... The night before we first met at the lake, the night you were in Portland with Marcus and his friends ..." he said, and I bristled a little in surprise.

"You remember that?", I asked.

He smiled.

"I think I remember pretty much every word you said to me," he said, kissing my fingers.

"So. The night you went out with Kate!", I prompted him to speak on. I still knew every word, too.

We both smirked at this little fact and our fingers played with each other.

"It was the last night I behaved unconcernedly toward Kate. The one where I was fully convinced that fate could kiss my ass. But then we met all alone at the lake. The few hours with you were nice. I feel comfortable around you. Sure, I do with Kate too, or I wouldn't have been with her for so long, but with you it was completely different. I felt free. Like I could be myself completely. As if you could never misunderstand me. As if absolutely nothing about me could make you uncomfortable ..." He had become quieter and quieter, more and more meaningful, and had moved closer and closer to me. His handsome face was right in front of mine. "... As if you could be everything to me, Leah! ... My wife, my lover, my best friend, my soul!"

"This is me, Nanuk! All this is me. And all this is you for me!", I replied, and we fell into a kiss that made the whole world disappear into nothingness. All our feelings flowed into that intimate kiss. All of them!

After some time, however, the passion gained the upper hand. Gradually, our clothes ended up on the floor, which we took off each other very slowly.

It was different from the morning at the lake. It was sensual and intimate. With many soulful kisses and loving looks. We loved each other. There was no other term for it.

Lovingly embracing each other, unable to grasp the incredible world, we lay on the sofa afterwards and slipped together into the world of dreams that could never become as good as the reality.

Thanks for reading!