Love in London by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Thirteen

Gabby

Oh.

My.

God.

I’ve never been so embarrassed in my whole life.

I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, really – I can’t believe it. This is maybe the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me, and I just want the ground to swallow me whole.

Behind Oz’s shoulder, I get a glimpse of them in the split second before we immediately begin to move. A tour guide, he must be, given that he’s only a little older than me and holding a clipboard as he opens the door. Behind him, following so close on his heels that they can’t help but see everything, is an older couple with a boy who definitely looks more my age.

Another prospective student, and his parents.

And then we’re moving fast, so fast I don’t think I’ve ever even moved so fast in my life. Oz leaps to his feet and straightens himself up, quickly smoothing down his jacket and clearing his throat. At the same time, I shoot upright on the bench, twisting myself around and glancing down my body to make sure that nothing is on show. My dress is rumpled but intact, and I smooth down my hair rapidly, wanting to put everything back in the right place.

“Um, hello,” the tour guide says, nervously. He’s gone bright red, and I can feel by the searing heat in my face that I have, too. “This is, um. The waiting area for the campus tours?”

He says it like it’s a question, and I know he’s wondering if we’re here for a reason or if we just stumbled in here to have sex thinking that it was abandoned. Oh, no. This is the tour. And I have to walk around with these people for the whole morning. They saw what we were doing.

Oh, my god.

“Yes,” Oz says, finding his voice before I can. “We’re here for the tour.”

“Right,” the tour guide replies, looking down at his clipboard busily. Behind him, the others are still staring at us. The boy, and a couple of other girls who I didn’t see before, are staring at us open-mouthed. The parents who were right in the doorway and the first to see are glaring at us. Like we’re the worst thing in the world. Like we’re both monsters or something. Given what I’ve read about British sensibilities and the attitude towards sex here, well… maybe I’m not far off.

Doing it in a college tour waiting room really has to rank quite high on the list of things you’re not supposed to get caught doing.

I’m making such a good impression here, already. I’m just glad it wasn’t somehow the Dean of Admissions that caught us.

“Here,” Oz says, moving to the side and helping the flustered guide out by pointing to what I guess must be my name on his list. “Gabriella.”

“Okay,” the tour guide replies nervously, ticking it off with a kind of high-pitched laugh. “Looks like you were the last ones we needed to gather, so we can start the tour right away.”

“Please do,” I mutter, still wishing for some kind of spirit to appear and carry me off into the sky so I don’t have to go through this.

Oz isn’t looking at me as the tour guide turns and leads us all out of the room again. He follows quickly, joining the crowd, leaving me to lag behind. I gather myself and get up, slipping out of the door just before it closes behind them all.

This is so horrible. I think this is the worst day of my life. What a start to my college career.

I can’t believe I messed everything up in the space of about ten seconds. One – telling Oz I was a virgin. What a stupid thing to do. Why did he need to know? I could have quite happily gone through with it without him knowing. I was enjoying myself. It was actually the best moment of my life right up until it suddenly plummeted in the wrong direction – his body over me, his mouth and hands all over me, his hardness pressing against my leg…

And then it all quickly disappeared as soon as it had started. Seconds two through six were at least as long as it took for him to stare at me blankly and in horror, realizing what I had just told him. And then there were the four seconds between the door opening, us looking up and seeing who was coming in, and absolutely failing to cover anything up at all as we sprang apart.

And the last second was the moment that Oz slipped fully back into serious mode, as if none of that ever happened, leaving me the only one who was totally red-faced. Well, except the guide.

I glance at Oz out of the corner of my eye as we walk down a hall within the building, trying to figure him out. I want to be subtle and not stare outright, but I need to know. He doesn’t look like he’s having any kind of… trouble. Not the kind of trouble that I’ve heard about guys having.

He’s walking perfectly fine, and from here I can’t see any kind of bulge in his, ahem, pants department. And what I felt earlier was… well, I don’t have much experience in terms of size, but it didn’t feel small.

Which means it must have disappeared completely. Probably the moment I told him I was a virgin.

I’ve ruined everything.

I’m so disappointed in myself that I can barely concentrate on what the tour guide is saying as we walk down the hall. He’s explaining the purpose of the building and what goes on there, but I can’t concentrate. I’ve made such an idiot of myself. Not just in front of Oz, which I never expected to go anywhere anyway, but in front of my potential future classmates as well.

Imagine if we do end up in the same classes. How will they look at me? They’ll probably tell everyone about what happened, and it will follow me everywhere I go. Like being in high school all over again, where one stupid rumor can ruin your whole year.

I thought I was getting away from all of that. But what if I’m not? What if I just ruined my chances of having a good start here?

I trail along after the tour feeling miserable the whole way around. Oz was right – once we leave that first building, the rest of the facilities seem much newer. There’s a lot that sounds interesting and even exciting, but I can’t bring myself to get hyped up about it. I can’t even think of any questions I want to ask, not even when the tour guide keeps prompting us to ask him whatever we want to know. It’s like everyone else is having the tour, and I’m just being forced to stand with them.

We’re getting closer to the end of the tour – and my humiliation, I hope – as we pass into another building that looks a little older. Not quite as antiquated as the first one, but it’s definitely been here for a while, although a lot of the furnishings inside seem new. The tour guide is explaining loudly to the group, his back to us as he walks, about how the college has put a lot of money into keeping the equipment and rooms upgraded so that everyone can enjoy the level of education they deserve.

And I nearly cry out in surprise when Oz grabs my hand and pulls me to the side so forcefully, I almost fall over.

I do stumble, but I find myself landing in something hard and soft at the same time – and in complete darkness.

What?

Okay. It takes me a moment, but my scrambled brain puts a few things together. One, the thing I stumbled into is Oz himself, his body catching my weight fully. Which leaves us pressed up against each other again in some kind of awful parody of what we were doing earlier.

And two, the darkness is because we’re now in another room off to the side of the hall we were in before, and Oz has closed the door.

As my eyes quickly adjust, I realize it’s not that dark in here after all. There’s enough light spilling through the cracks in the door that I can see Oz’s face, even if dimly. But then again, it is just inches away from mine.

I draw a breath and move back, righting myself back on my own two feet. I reach out to the side without looking and hit my arm on something – a shelf, I see when I turn and look. A shelf full of cleaning products.

We’re in a janitor’s closet.

“What are you doing?” I whisper because I have no idea why he dragged me in here or why Oz is looking at me with a glimmer of a smile playing on his lips.

“I remembered this cupboard from when I was a student here,” he says, keeping his voice just as quiet as mine. “I can’t believe it’s still in use. Lucky me, though.”

“What?” I say, still feeling like I’m trying to catch up. “Why are we in a closet?”

He snickers lightly, and we’re still so close that I feel his breath stirring the hair that hangs beside my face. Then his fingers come up to brush it aside, and I feel myself shiver. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”

“For what?”

“For this,” he says, ducking his head and pressing his lips to mine, soft and gentle this time. But then he does it again, and his mouth opens and teases mine to do the same, and I feel a searing heat move through my whole body as the kiss deepens.

“Wait,” I say, confused as hell and with shaking knees as he draws back slightly. “Aren’t you…”

“What?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, struggling to find the words. “What I told you. Didn’t it… put you off?”

“Put me off?” Oz repeats, frowning. Then his expression clears slightly and he laughs again, quietly, both of us trying not to be heard by anyone passing through the hall. “No, Gabby. I’ve been trying to look for an opportunity to get you to myself again ever since those people barged in. It couldn’t have happened at a worse possible time.”

“I thought…” I close my eyes for a moment. “I thought you were disgusted with me. That you didn’t want to…”

“I was just trying to stay calm and keep it respectful in front of the rest of the tour,” Oz whispers, nuzzling my neck. “I didn’t want to ruin your first impression of this place. Or theirs of you.”

“I think that ship might have sailed,” I whisper back, closing my eyes again as he kisses me once more, making my knees go weak. “So… you want to? Here? Now?”

He pulls back and shoots me a horrified look. Did I just completely misunderstand, or…?

“You really think I would let you have your first time in a cupboard?” he asks, his words incredulous even in his quiet tone. “I think you ought to know me better than that already.”

“Well, then…?” I say helplessly. I really don’t get what we’re doing in this closet, if not…

“I still want to,” he clarifies. “Oh, dear God, do I want to. But it has to be special – for you. It has to be something you remember for the rest of your life.”

“I think I would,” I say. It would be a bit of a story to tell, wouldn’t it? Sex in a closet in the middle of a campus tour?

“No,” he whispers, his kisses running down my neck again, making me gasp. “I mean, really special.”

“Then what are we doing here?” I ask.

He looks up at me, quirking an eyebrow. “Giving you a little taste of what to expect,” he whispers – before whirling me around, pressing my back up against the shelves at the back of the closet, and dropping to his knees.