Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter Thirteen
As he plays with my chain and leans lightly against my forehead he sighs. "He couldn't figure out where he was in a massive park with signs. I don't blame him approaching you as you look amazing but he overstayed his welcome by at least five minutes."
"Well it's lucky you came past then to move him along." I run my hand through the short hairs at the back of his head just to ground me; no I'm not dreaming. "My accent was so bad how did he believe that?"
"Maybe the blood was being cut off to his brain by his tight shirt." His sarcastic and annoyed response makes me laugh.
"Baby after all this time are you jealous?"
"I get jealous but I'm usually around enough to intimidate them away. I don't like you being in another country makes my job harder."
"Hey there is no job there. I'm not letting anyone including a mid west American guy come between us. Believe me I grew up with those guys, I'm not running scared from us looking for safe and predictable, same way you are not running scared looking for the typical Beverly Hills girls that you once knew." He face morphs into a grimace. "Sounds way too boring don't you think and anyway no more running right?" I lightly kiss his lips, "now care to tell me how you are here? And how long I have you for?"
"You need to help me pick a house, and Jack was worried that the photos and video might get lost if I trusted a courier."
I laugh, "so Jack gave you a weak excuse to justify you flying across the Atlantic?"
"He knew I needed to see you." He runs his hands through my hair gently pulling my head back to his lips. "I've missed you so much but I didn't even know how much till I saw you sitting on this bench. I don't know how I'm going to be able to leave you in forty- eight hours."
I whisper against his lips. "Don't. Stay the remaining days here with me."
"I can't. The reporter's will notice I'm gone and I don't want anyone but you and my parents to know I'm here."
"Because of my father's threat?"
He smiles, "no I'm not concerned about that here." I pull slightly away and lift one questioning brow, "do you know that France hasn't changed it's marriage laws since Napoleon created them in the Napoleonic Code of 1804? 188 years old and still going strong."
"I didn't know that. And what did Napoleon say?"
"That a woman here can decide at fifteen to marry. I think if you are years older than the marriageable age then you spending time with your three week older boyfriend really isn't a big deal in the city of Love."
"You've researched this especially?"
"I like to read," he whispers into my ear, "all books." He kisses my neck, "especially the ones that will let me have you for forty-eight hours so I can start showing you my Paris."
He moves around my neck kissing and biting my sensitive skin, "your Paris where does that start?"
"Our hotel room that has a massive bath that has views to the Eiffel Tower." I moan, he chuckles. "Was it me or the bath that earned that response?"
"Baby it absolutely was the bath."
I'm immediately picked up and put on my feet, "yeah we'll see about that." I have enough time to grab my bag before I'm being pulled out of the park giggling. "It's obviously been too long."
We didn't make it to the bath till after lunch. I'd say it was my fault but Bren was the one that pushed me against the hotel door as soon as it closed behind me. By the time I was spinning her around to pin her against the same door, praising her Paris fashion sense of wearing a short skirt and vest with buttons and nothing much else, I found myself losing my pants. She was passionate at times but not usually this assertive. It had me pulling back slightly to look into her eyes. She knew instantly my unasked question, "we can both get swept away in it right and we will be fine?" My letter- she trusted me, she trusted us.
As I pull her even closer and make my way to the place I've been desperately dreaming about for weeks I respond, "better than fine." And we were. If I thought we were good together before, I don't even have words for the last few hours.
Laying in the bath with my woman resting on my chest I make circles across her stomach, occasionally dipping down to trace her hip bones. I'm exhausted. I'm not sure I'd classify that as us being swept away as it was more like a tsunami. She took my letter literally, and like Brenda does with everything she puts her mind to, she was diligent and excelled beyond even my wildest fantasies. Lust, passion and love all mixed in together to create a need that made me conscious that our star signs were right- possessive and obsessive. That summed up the frenzy of the last few hours.
"You're quiet. Jet lag catching up with you?"
I kiss the top of her head, "no not jet lag." From my jokey tone she knows what I'm thinking about and in retaliation mock pinches my outer thigh. "Woman stop that- keep your hands to yourself. I need a moment to catch my breath." Her action wasn't sexual at all but it still is fun to tease her.
"The great McKay saying no?"
"The great McKay is saying that I think I've let a Nymph out of her box." She immediately turns in my arms to face me with a smile but there is worry hidden in her eyes. Worry that it was, that she was too much. Before she can ask her question I respond, "and I loved every second of it but after weeks of cold showers and going without I might need to go into training." The worry begins to dissipate, "want to be my coach?"
She giggles, "what does that entail?"
"Oh regular training sessions, I'd say a few times daily. You know so these marathon sessions can be as productive as possible."
"I thought forty-eight hours in Paris was a once off?"
I move her hair behind her ear. "I think we might have to start getting creative." From my serious tone she knows I'm no longer discussing our morning together. She immediately turns back to rest on my chest and look out the window at the Paris view, lacing our fingers together in the process.
"You made the right decision with Jack. I called last night Paris time and surprisingly you weren't home. Some vague house business I believe was your mum's excuse- Iris still hates lying and didn't want to say house business that was taking you across the Atlantic. Anyway she seems equal parts annoyed at him and taken with the idea that it's all about finally building a stable support structure for you. Either way she has a spark in her tone. She's happy."
"I know. You'll like them together. They clearly aren't together but they strangely also are. They're best friends you can tell. They communicate through looks and he likes to stand close to her, he's attentive to her."
"He sounds like you with me."
"No. I'm always touching you. I imagine though he knows he can't do that to her but he clearly wants to… okay that's as much as I want that thought in my head." She laughs and moves our hands to make patterns on her stomach.
"He need's to be there, and you deserve, you all deserve this time, this chance. You made the right choice."
"But your Dad won't let us be together now. I don't see it as possible."
"So your plan is to sneak around having marathon sessions in hotels?"
"I'd plan that even if he did agree to us being together. Baja and Paris have convinced me that these weekends are a necessary requirement. You me locked away with no outside interference. We get to indulge in each other as much as we want." She moves our joint fingers down to make patterns on her upper thigh but doesn't comment on my desire for regular obsessive and persuasive connecting weekends. "You don't want to sneak around do you?"
"No. I want us together. We aren't doing anything wrong. I respect laying low like we decided till my birthday but after that I'm not okay with it."
"Bren I was raised in war zones I don't want that to be your home life to. I don't want to destroy your family."
"You are my family, and you aren't destroying anything my father is. This is the 90s he can't tell me who I can and can't date as an adult."
What? That sounds weird. "Are we just dating now?"
"What do you want to name it?"
"I don't know but it seems not big enough for what we are to each other. We are going to have kids and grandkids together, share a house- hell I'm here so you can help me buy a house."
"Yes Baby, I know and I want all that but we are still just boyfriend and girlfriend to everyone, we are dating."
It's late afternoon, I'm frustrated and watching her amused face as I search for Balzac's House. Both being lost walking in circles and the replaying over of those words for the hundred time that afternoon is raising my ire. Dating. I don't like it, it sounds small and inconsequential to us now. She was my first ever girlfriend and that had weight to it but nearly two years later it doesn't carry the right gravitas anymore. I'm surprised out of my internal rant when she starts clapping in delight as I finally stumble across the old writers private home. It's then that I realise what I want.
"Sorry Baby but it's half the fun- you need to earn Balzac."
I reach out to her for a kiss- I've been away from her lips for too long. "How long did it take you?"
"I'm never going to tell."
Our day had been a crazy whirlwind. From the Park to the hotel room full of pleasure, room service, baths, more pleasure, and then to exploring parts of Paris together- it had been magical. Dylan had booked his favourite restaurant in Paris for dinner tonight and I was currently at my hotel getting clothes for the next two nights. He'd be leaving almost in the middle of the night on Monday morning but we both wanted as long as we could with each other. Donna was out currently but as I finished up I left her a note explaining that I had got a cheap ticket on a tour due to a last minute cancellation so I was going down the coast till Monday morning. I apologised for being unable to wait for her but when I couldn't reach her I decided to jump on the last minute deal anyway.
I hated lying to her but Dylan wanted this just family, to him that was his parents and I. Brandon could know but we still wanted to protect him as much as possible. Him being in the middle forced to keep our secrets wasn't going to be okay. When I got back to our hotel room I went and started getting ready for dinner. Dylan came in a little while later from wherever he had disappeared to after walking me nearly back to my hotel.
He quickly begins getting ready for dinner using the other sink to style his hair. He doesn't take as long as Brandon but he is nearly as bad so he needed to get moving if we were going to make our reservation.
"The Spanish house has a big ensuite off the main bedroom. It looked to get pretty good light, though the bathtub doesn't have a view, and the tile is very traditional like you see down in Baja- it could probably do with re-grouting unless you think it needs replacing."
"Neither my current or your current bathtub has a view." I put down my eyeshadow and turn to him. "Dyl it looks like a beautiful house what has you pointing out negatives and sounding like you are second guessing the decision? Do you want to withdraw your offer?"
"No. I'm not having second thoughts it's just that you haven't seen it in real life what happens if you don't like it?"
"It looks beautiful and honestly it's your home baby, maybe mine if we stay in LA for College but-"
"No it's not mine it's ours there is no maybe about it. I don't like the idea that there is division on things between us." At that he moves behind me and lifts my lightly curled hair to the side to expose my neck, "things that divide us are now my least favourite things."
I give him a look and he quickly understands my unasked question, "we are in such a different place than we were at the start of summer, than even Baja. I'm in a different place. Do you know they made my nursery at the start of Iris' second trimester? I always believed I was a loner because I was a mistake because I was never wanted, when Jack kicked me out because of my mistakes I believed it was because I still wasn't good enough to be wanted. Your Dad has never seen me as good enough and I have believed him, I thought I had to live by his rules to be worthy of you."
"But you you saw me and liked me from our first moments together. You thought you were lucky to have a friend like me- you have always seen me. The drunk, the rebel, the grump, the quiet reader, all parts of me have always been enough. You have always seen being just with me whether that be sitting on the beach, in the car, studying, on the couch, making dinner whatever mundane thing we do together as enough. My presence in all it's imperfections is enough for you, and yours is everything to me. I wasn't a mistake but you are the only person who has never made me feel that I wasn't. I have never been that to you, even Brandon has questioned that. You and only you have never seen me that way."
"I know I'm not now, that I never was. I have spent the last few weeks understanding my family history. Ben and I have talked about it at length. I know how wrong people have been but more importantly I know how wrong I have been. You didn't need to know my history, even know me well to know something I didn't know myself."
With tears running down my cheeks I continue to hold his eyes in the mirror, "well you didn't need to know me well to know that you wanted something more with me, something you had never wanted before."
"You're right, my Mum is right, we are the same- one split in two. Kelly and Donna see you as having the perfect life I know it's not. I know it's been full of pain from your Aunts illness to losing her, your cousins accident, and I know you are expected to be your parents perfect little girl forever. Even your best friends can't see beyond their own noses to understand what really your life is like what makes you tick. It hurts knowing you aren't understood I know because no one has seen past the name, money or face to see me."
He leans down and kisses my neck and then lifts his fingers to my cheek to gently wipe away the tears. "I saw the real you from the start and you saw the real me. I don't want any division between us anymore because you and what I feel for you is the purest emotions I have ever known, they are real in every way."
"I love you."
"And I love you. So no more yours and mine okay? We are buying a house, we are family, and we are going to be late for dinner if you don't get a move on woman."
Through my tears I chuckle, "yeah well I have to redo my face now because someone made me cry it all off so move your lips away from my neck mister so I can concentrate."
He sighs, "okay." Then I feel his hands come around and play with the knot of my robe and then a cheeky smile appears on his face, "well I don't want to stop you from getting ready so if me kissing your neck is too much of a distraction I'll just remove your robe so I can kiss down your back instead."