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This was fucking great. Our first time traveling together and we were already fighting about what to do. Back when I was with Miles that had never been a problem. First, we were in university and didn’t really travel and second, if we did we stayed in the hotel room for most of our time and fucked. But Miles had sold me out so fuck Miles.
Maybe it would be nice to actually see something from the country you’re traveling to by hiking through the woods and up a mountain. The problem was I just did not like hiking and personally, I questioned the need to do so when there was a perfectly fine beach right next to the hotel.
Oliver, in front of me, sighed and did his disappointed/stress temple rubbing thing. “Lucien, I don’t want to fight with you over this.” God, he sounded exhausted already. We had just arrived.
“I don’t want to fight either, Oliver. It’s just that I don’t think I will particularly like it if we spend the entire day walking around.”
“That’s the same thing you said when I forced you to go on walks with me. You ended up liking them if I may remind you.”
I whined. “You have the unfair advantage of being a barrister Oliver. You can’t just win arguments by using logic and shit.” A five years old could’ve made his point, but bringing up his profession in my defence made him roll his eyes and a small twitching smile appeared on Oliver’s lips.
“Using logic and shit?” His eyes glinted like polished silver and he pulled me into a loose embrace. That I utilized immediately to bury my face in the space between his neck and shoulder. “Lucky for you I think I found a solution for our holiday imbroglio by using ‘logic and shit’.” The git even used air quotes.
He did that on purpose, didn’t he? I lifted my head to look him in the eyes and yes Oliver looked very smug. It was no fun teasing him about his usage of words only a 1870 duke would put in his sentence so naturally, if he did it on purpose. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t tease him at all, so I paid him back with my best Oliver temple-rubbing-imitation.
This time he just laughed. “Put on your boots, we’re going. Allez hop! And don’t forget the sunscreen and your trunks. And we should probably pack a towel as well. Oh and we can’t forget - “
Oliver rambled on with what we needed while I packed our bags dutifully and eventually we were on our way.
---
Oliver proved me wrong once again concerning me and my relationship with bodily activities. Don’t get me wrong. I hated the way my muscles started to burn after a while, how the sun bore down on us while we were walking on the very narrow path uphills. Hated how two people couldn’t even walk next to each other and how I had to follow Oliver like a lost puppy because of it.
But it was bearable. Very bearable, almost nice whenever we walked through a part of the woods surrounding the area. Though the shadows cast by the trees only had little to do with why I wasn’t constantly whining.
It was the way Oliver smiled when he turned around to look at me with a blinding smile. I liked to imagine his eyes to be twinkling behind his shades, which made him look sophisticated. Unlike mine, who probably made me look more like a recovering junkie hiding from the brightness of the sun, combined with the sweat spots under my arms and my flushed skin. Walking behind him, I also had the perfect opportunity to look at his butt, which looked better in his hiking shorts than it had the right to.
For the majority of the way, we walked in silence, for it only to be broken by Oliver who pointed at plants or trees to state a random fact about them, which I felt I should’ve probably known, considering I was working for beetles. I began to wonder what part of this hike was a compromise for both of us when we entered the forest again, and eventually stepped out on a sunny clearing.
I came to halt next to Oliver, who swiftly took my hand and pressed a kiss to it. Some corner of my mind took note that he didn’t look sweaty at all. More like a freshly styled supermodel, which was just unfair. “Et voilà! One beach day for you, mon chéri.”
I smiled at him. Weaving more and more French words and idioms into his sentences was something he had begun to do the moment we stepped foot on French soil and even more so since we had arrived in Provence. I liked it, it correlated with how he relaxed more and more by the minute.
In front of us, in the middle of the clearing was a lake, so clear that you could actually see the gravel at the bottom and the sunlight was reflected from the mirrorlike, smooth surface. It was surrounded by gravel and even patches of fine, almost white sand. Like some enchanted lake from a fairytale. Even wildflowers were blooming at the treeline, enclosing everything like a flower crown. It was a stunning sight.
“Oliver. I- this is beautiful. How do you know this spot?”
The tips of his ears flushed red under my gaze and he answered nervously, “You know how my family has a holiday home here? We used to come here every summer and we hiked through the mountains together and everything. When we were old enough, Christopher and I decided to explore the region by ourselves. We used to spend hours here, it was our little paradise away from everything else. It was probably the only time of the year we really got along and also the reason why we still went with them when we were older.”
The smile on Oliver’s face was a little wistful, almost sad, now and I hated it. So I did the only thing I could think of in that moment and kissed him in a way I hoped would tell him how much I loved him in that moment. I hoped the hand clawing into the back of his shirt to keep him close to me and the one cradling his neck told him how much it meant to me that he shared this with me. Just how much I appreciated him making an effort to come up with plans that satisfied both of us.
I licked my lips nervously when we parted, our foreheads still resting against each other, not sure what to do next. Luckily I could always count on Oliver, whose face was flushed entirely now and sported a completely happy smile again. “How about we get you out of your shirt and you go take a dip?”
I dragged him to a shady, sandy spot at the edge of the lake, dropped my backpack and began undressing while Oliver rummaged through his bag. He, rather rudely, threw my swim trunks in my face when I was naked and waggling my eyebrows suggestively at Oliver. He ordered me to put them on, unimpressed. I did as I was told with a heavy sigh and was very disappointed when I saw that Oliver hadn’t even taken off his shirt, yet.
It turned out that being half naked in front of Oliver while he was still completely dressed made me even more self-conscious than when we were in an equal states of undress. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and raised an eyebrow, “Are you planning on swimming with your clothes on?” It came out less teasing and more unsure than I had intended to.
“Lucien,” Oliver said in the soothing baritone of his voice, “swimming is not something I am terribly keen on doing. I’ll stay here on the towel, read my book and enjoy the time we have here together.” He made a vague gesture to the area surrounding us.
“Alright then.” I turned towards the lake before I remembered something and went to search my backpack until I found what I wanted. “But first,” I shook the sunscreen bottle in front of his face, “you have to help protect myself from the evil sun rays." He laughed, then indulged me.
---
After rounding the small lake once, I gave up on swimming and just floated on the water. I had to wonder once again what someone like Oliver Blackwood wanted with me because despite Oliver’s many, many faults he was still the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. Maybe it was the heat of the sun that led me to this particular train of thoughts, but I couldn’t help myself.
I was standing in the water now and looked over to Oliver, who still looked like a swimwear model. Even without the, well, swimwear. Sometime during my swim he must have taken off his shirt without me noticing and was now parading around his very impressive v-cut, with which I had become intimately familiar during the past months.
Okay he wasn’t exactly parading it around, he was just laying there, legs stretched out, on a beach towel using his backpack as a makeshift pillow, his shades pushed into his hair with a book in his hands. He was too far away for me to read the title but I was close enough to admire his physique and to notice that his chest was flushed, which provided an excellent excuse for me to get out of the water, stalk through the fine sand and drape myself all over him.
I’ve never heard Oliver squeal that way before like he did when my wet skin touched his, and my trunks glued themselves to his shorts. The repreminding glare and the temple rubbing on the other hand, were Oliver through and through.
I snatched the book out of his hands and threw it down next to him. “Lucien, now I don’t know where I stopped reading.”
“You’ll survive,” I rolled my eyes and kissed Oliver just to distract him from his annoyance towards me and from my hands currently wandering over his chest, feeling up the warm skin. I assumed it didn’t work since he suddenly rolled us around, off the towel, and used his hands to pin my wrists over my head while straddling my waist. I could feel the sand sticking to my wet back and hair.
My gaze was met by the twinkling silver of Oliver’s. And then we kissed again. This time he initiated it and he kissed me with all his oliverness. It was becoming hard to think, and my original plan of rubbing sunscreen into his skin was blown in the wind with his tongue licking against my lower lip, demanding entrance.
When Oliver moved his lips away from mine I tried to follow him, to get his tongue back into my mouth so we could fight it out, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He licked his lips and his eyes flicked around the clearing nervously, embarrassed that he had gotten carried away at this in a, while secluded and devoid of any people, still public place.
Oliver licked his lips and I wanted to taste them again. “How about you take a dip with me now? To-uhh-cool down.” I glanced down in the general direction of his crotch. “I need to wash off all the sand anyway.” My voice was huskier than it had been before and it made Oliver swallow and his eyes darken as they flitted between my eyes and lips.
Oliver helped me up after a few more heavy breaths, “I- I need to change. Can you grab my trunks for me?”
I rummaged through his backpack and found what I was searching rather quickly, despite being very distracted by Oliver’s impromptu strip-tease. It wasn’t really one but anything that involved Oliver getting rid of his clothings in my presence counted as teasing in my book and I wasn’t going to budge on that now. Especially when the sunlight made Oliver’s skin glow and all I could think of was how I wanted to get my mouth on every part of him.
“Lucien?”
“Huh?”
“My eyes are up here.” I tore my eyes away from the glorious sight that was his slightly fuzzy v-cut with the playful little veins and deliberately dragged them up, over his chest, very slowly, admiring the prominent muscles until I met his gaze. It would be a shame to cover that up, even if it would only be a small part of him.
“Will you give me my trunks now?” Oliver held out his hand expectantly. I looked at him and then at the dark blue fabric in my hand before I made the decision.
I sprinted towards the lake like the devil in person was chasing me, which might have been true because Oliver was chasing me and just as fast if not faster than them. But before he could catch me I had already dived into the cool water and with that, forced him to jump in after me, which he did with a lot more grace than I had.
Oliver chased me around the water for some time, his trunks floating somewhere, long forgotten. Eventually he caught me and pressed our lips together like it was the last chance he’d ever get to kiss me. And once again I was rendered brainless since my blood was needed elsewhere. It was probably the reason why I found myself, once Oliver had ceased his attack on my lips and had swum away, trunkless and as naked as the day I was born in a mountain lake somewhere in Provence.
I hadn’t even realized that my boyfriend had just undressed me.
Now it was my turn to chase him around. I’m pretty positive Oliver let me catch him since it didn’t take long for me to jump on his back and dunk him under.
When he resurfaced he smiled, “You have corrupted me Lucien O’Donnell.” Even my name sounded Frenchier somehow. And then he kissed me.
---
After a wonderful hot shower in our hotel room, and getting rid of all the sand that had accumulated in every crevice I had, I flopped down on the bed next to Oliver. He had changed into a blue shirt, which made his eyes look incredibly soft. (I might have stolen his pyjamas out of his suitcase before we left London in a futile attempt to make him sleep shirtless.) He smiled at me softly and I smiled back before taking my phone from the nightstand and opening our Whatsapp group. Nothing new.
On a whim I laid on my side, with my back turned to Oliver and took a picture of us smiling in the camera, which I promptly sent into the group. It was nice, having something happy to share with my friends. Something I was still getting used to. Normally I would mostly complain in the group.
I was promptly rewarded for it by one of the James Royce-Royces, who renamed the group to Lucing good . Since both of them had changed their profile picture to the same photo taken at their last anniversary-party, I had no chance of telling which one it was without extra effort. I couldn’t be arsed to open their contact to look it up right now. Not with Oliver pressed against my back and his lips peppering small kisses on the nape of my neck.
OMG U 2 ARE SOOOOOO CUTE!!!!!!!!
That was Bridget.
TELL OLIVER TO BRING ME A SOUVENIR
I put my phone back on the nightstand and turned in Oliver’s arms. “Bridge says you should bring her something.” I waggled my eyebrows. “Maybe make it regional and just give her three of those air kisses and call it a day.”
Oliver groaned while I laughed at my own joke. “First of all Lucien, those ‘air kisses’ are called la bise.” He pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose, “and second, if we want it to be regional it would be two kisses since that’s the usual number of kisses you exchange in Provence.”
I sighed, “Well then, I guess we have to go souvenir hunting while you show me the tourist spots in town tomorrow.”
“We will be sight seeing tomorrow?”
“Hmm. And then we will have a fancy dinner where you’ll order for me and I’ll feed you dessert and then we’ll go to a bar or a club.” Maybe it was the exhaustion of the day catching up with me, but I felt my eyes droop and moved closer to Oliver.
“Is that so? Got it all planned out already?”
“You’re not the only one who can find a solution for our holiday imbroglio using ‘logic and shit’,” I yawned, “I really enjoyed today with you.”
Oliver hummed approvingly then untangled himself from me to shut off the lights. Once I was tucked safely under his arm again he pressed a soft kiss to my hair and whispered, “I enjoyed today, too.”
With a last wiggle I made sure both of us were comfortable before giving Oliver a goodnight kiss. “Love you.”
“I love you, too.”