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It’s been hours since ‘the talk’.
The talk that had made her pack up some of her stuff and tell her husband – now ex-pig-of-a-husband – to leave her house by the time she’d get back. She didn’t tell him where she was going, nor when she was coming back, only that he had to leave. Even better – disappear.
He had looked at Y/N when she told him she knew everything and had seen those messages with his queen-bitch-of-a-boss. There had been no regret in his eyes, though he had told her that he was sorry. She didn’t even bother looking at him when she left the room a second after his pity apology. A liar and a cheater needed no chance to explain himself. Yet, she knew the right answer – she had never been enough for him. And, she never will be. Everyone she knew had been telling her stories about his ‘Casanova adventures’ with his co-workers.
Good for him. Apparently, he’d been promoted at work.
Y/N pulled her luggage out of the taxi and examined the villa with a sigh. She was tired, too tired to fight their suggestion to come here.
Honestly, it was pretty.
She wasn’t sure why she had agreed with Ivan’s wild idea of Go to England! Get away from Bulgaria for a while! But, she figured she did have to write – to pay the bills, eat food, etc. – and she couldn’t do that in the house, sleeping in the bed that Stefan had done all that in. So, her publisher, Ivan, had encouraged her to take a month or two on a lake in England, somewhere near London, at a house the publishing company owned somehow, and bang out all her angst onto the page, the way a good little writer who hated therapy should.
Y/N Y/L/N was an ordinary, shy, twenty-six years old writer, not really a famous one, but famous enough to get by with her daily life. What she was happy for was that even in a relationship she was independent, and didn’t need to rely on her ex’s finances.
After paying the taxi driver with a hefty tip (for not asking why she muttered to herself so much with angry tears slipping out here and there) she dug the key out of her pocket as she climbed up the steps, her luggage bumping and thumping up behind her.
It was a lovely house with a gorgeous view of the lake and surrounding hills; the winter sunlight was casting dappled shapes onto the walls of the sitting room, sparkling and reflecting off the surface of the water. A quaint little dock extended some distance into the water, with a tiny boat tied off next to it. Y/N swore she saw ducks around the lake. It was idyllic, undeniably.
“Глупости.” /Bollocks./ Y/N kicked her luggage into the corner and collapsed at the writing desk that had been set up. She buried her face in her hands, inexplicably angered at how beautiful it was here. “Заслужавам ли да бъда тук, изобщо?!” /Do I deserve to be here, at all?!/
Y/N was sitting outside hours later. It was sunny and there was a soft breeze in the air that she enjoyed. She had her fuzzy sweater, loose jeans, and house slippers. It wasn’t that bad. It was already mid-November. She’d already had a bunch of tea and was using the empty mugs as a way to keep the papers on the table, lest the wind picked up.
She got to work, taking out her pen and notebook. She didn’t switch her drafts over to the computer until the third round of editing, an oddity that confused her publisher and her editor, but Y/N had grown up with barely enough to eat sometimes, writing her stories onto little scraps of paper.
Y/N’s cloak-and-sword stories were about powers, landscapes, battles, remarkable creatures and politic games, but they were born on paper, and she wouldn’t apologize for it. She liked being a little old-fashioned when it came to books. Books were sacred. They took a long time to bind, even longer to write, and each handwritten word was a marvel. She found it strange that people tossed them on the floor with little care for them. It was a big crime, which, in her opinion, had to lead to the electric chair.
A cat had jumped up on the table just before Y/N was about to finish one more chapter. Y/N didn’t notice what was happening before it was too late. The cat hissed at a bear-of-a-dog that shot out of nowhere and through the table like a bullet after the cat that had ran off.
The massive dog turned the table upside down, mugs colliding with the ground, her papers – now flying away from their place. She watched the whole scene frozen on her spot – the cat that climbed up a tree, the disgruntled dog that barked underneath it, and the papers, which the wind took right into the water.
“Листите ми! Книгата ми! Не! Не! НЕ!“ /My papers! My book! No! No! NO!/
Y/N took off her slippers and sped towards the dock. As she ran, she took off her thick sweater and jeans, leaving herself only in her black bra and her matching panties. What made her stop right at the edge of the deck was a sight that almost made her jaw drop in the water. Not what, but who.
A man, whose back and legs rippled with muscle as he was swimming around and trying to collect as many of her papers as he could.
“Мамка му!“ /Fuck!/ Y/N exclaimed, and the last thing she thought about before jumping in the lake was that it was the coldest season of the year.
Holy shit! The water was ice-cold! “Мамка му! Мамка му! Мамка му!” She gathered some of her already withering and extremely wet papers from the water, all the while complaining and grumbling under her breath, telling the stranger loudly that it wasn’t worth their efforts, that it wasn’t worth their time and that it was full of bullshit, but the man happened to be a stubborn bull and didn’t listen to anything she had said while being at the other side of the deck.
At least she thought he was there until he appeared face to face with her.
He looked so… godly, with the sunlight disappearing into the dark locks of his damp hair that hung almost in his eyes. Adrenaline or not, she noticed how his eyes glinted with something, maybe wisdom, or maybe kindness. Y/N couldn’t tell. The color in them made his eyes look as cold as the lake, but she felt as if she was flowing in them. Indeed, she was – it was her reflection flying in a night and a day sky above a small forest. There was no warmth, no coldness – only bliss.
She was romanticizing the guy while getting a pneumonia.
Overcoming the coldness, but not and his charm, Y/N swallowed hard and swam around to gather the rest of the papers. A pathetic and quite pointless try to ignore his staring.
He tilted his head at her, and huffed a quiet laugh, to which Y/N winced, “You’re either a foreigner, or a mermaid, cuz’ I haven’t heard such a language before.”
She wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing – to stay and listen to him make jokes of her in another language she knew only a few words of, or to like, run away.
Bye, bye, she thought, and then tried to make an escape plan. The idea of moving around him to get to the stairs was bad, because it included getting closer to him. It could had led her to drowning. The thought of his body near hers made her stomach twist and her legs go numb.
He was right next to the stairs and she had to be like dangerously close to him.
She glanced at the stranger again, looking away quickly when he met his eyes with hers, and felt her nerves prickle. Y/N felt super silly and super stupid, and immature, and absolutely out of her mind for the thoughts in her head she couldn’t quite stop.
Wet skin on wet skin, his hot breath in my neck, canines grazing against her collarbone, and those muscles…
She had to get out of the water. Fast!
“Russian?” That she understood.
She forced herself moving, ignoring the tremble that had been caused by the coldness (probably by her nerves, too), and grabbed four more papers.
“Bulgarian.”
The low, a little rough ah that rolled out of his deliciously looking mouth spiked through her body as if Y/N had lost her breath underneath the water. He was drowning her in the sound of his charming British accent, “A Slavic girl, then.”
The words came easily, loosely with a slow smile that matched the slide of his voice and made her heart turn into a bird rebelling against her ribcage.
Whatever that guy says, it came beautifully. Even if he calls me squirrel, I won’t mind. Probably…
“Help no needed. Cold water,” Bravo, Y/N! Five words are your new best record. What a magnificent writer you are…
The thrill of speaking to this man was huge. Almost as huge as he was, comparing to her small form.
As she was about to grab the last paper that was floating between them on the surface of the water, he had reached his hand and intercepted it with her own. It lingered on top of hers a little too long. It felt warm and heavy and she was sure if he kept it there a little longer her heart would burst out of her chest.
Courage, bloody, courage!
Sinking nervously her teeth into the inside of her cheek, Y/N slid her hand back and clutched the paper so hard it started to look like some awkward unformed figure, “Come. It’s ice.”
She jerked her head towards the house and moved finally to the stairs that had been left unguarded since he had had approached her. Y/N didn’t hear any response from him, but she knew he was obidiently following closely behind.
Is it wise to invite someone you don’t know? Who had wanted to rescue your book? Who practically came out of nowhere just like—
“Kal!”
Yes, like Superman! Wait…
She turned around… to see him petting the dog that was behind all this Hell.
Now everything begins to make sense.
“Tози вагабонтин е очевидно твой.“ /Тhis rascal here is apparently yours./ She could already feel a headache coming on.
Y/N stared, dumbfounded, at the Akita that drooled in front of them. His shiny black-white coat was something to look at if she wasn’t so mad at him, judging by his testicles. The merry animal rolled over onto its back and began to scratch itself with the grass, resulting in a horizontal dance of ridiculous proportions, kicking and pawing at the air.
How is it possible something that looks like Hades’s Cerberus to act so sweet? That dog has contradictory personality traits as his owner.
I like that!
“Lil’ Devil,” The silly name came out just like that without her expecting it. It drew the stranger’s attention, whose face revealed an amused expression.
He tilted his head and raised one brow, nonverbally asking her a question, Did you just call my dog ‘lil’ Devil’?
Her face began to feel warm. She straightened up and returned her gaze to him, No… I’ve said something in my own language.
Till now, she hadn’t noticed that any clothing had been gone from his body to reveal a heavily built torso. Droplets gleaming under the winter’s sun that had been stuck in the hair that peppered his upper body, from his broad chest to his thick arms, down to his stomach.
His board shorts embellished his hips, hanging low enough to tease the V-line of muscle he possessed.
Y/N had never seen a man like him. It’s not common for her to be in the presence of a such good-looking man. So, she savored this moment in studying him… perhaps for too long.
She promptly shifted her gaze elsewhere, hoping she didn’t give the impression that she was more curious than normal.
He observed her appearance thoughtfully before nodding his head in agreement, a knowing smile on his face, At least, there is the body language we both speak.
The man wasn’t only looking at her movements – he was also watching her almost bare body!
She jerked in fear instantly, arms reflexively covering in the next second her breasts and female parts. Y/N was mentally struggling to find the right words to excuse herself, however little they were.
When she looked back up at him, the bemused smile on his face had grown, soon breaking into a chuckle.
“Let’s get you warm, shall we?” Whatever he said to her was accompanied by a polite gesture of his hand that implied a silent: after you.
Once they three were inside and away from the chill in the air outside, Y/N quickly went to the shelf by the door that held two warm blankets. She grabbed them and turned around to give one to the man.
“Keep it. I’m used to the macroclimate here,” He said, his voice pitched lower and Y/N had just realized how close they’d been standing to each other.
She needed to get a grip of herself. Say something, you stupid! Anything would work!
“Y/N,” Anything… but that. She glanced up at him, wincing as he gave her a slight look of incomprehension. “My name.” She hugged the blanket closer to herself for some support. “Y/N.”
There was a pause, him looking down at her, until it passed and his eyes darted to the opposite from the window that showed the whole splendid scenery. “That’s my house over there. We’re neighbours.”
As slow and clearly as he was trying to talk so she could find something that she understood, Y/N discerned only ‘that’s my house.’ It was enough to make her more nervous, if was possible.
Y/N squinted and could make out a house in the near distance. When she turned her look back on him her sight somehow stopped on his perfect cheekbones, his nice stubble, the sweet little dimple on his pointed chin her pinky itched to poke, the thick of his neck…
She glanced up at his eyes, pretty sure he caught her staring, again. Y/N couldn’t decide if it was his smell or his compelling eyes that made her go so still.
He began studying her more closely, and with dread she became aware of what had crossed his eyes and was gone just like that – a compassion. He went through the facade she had built up for everyone. So easily as if he was reading a book. The dark circles under her eyes and the way her shoulders droop lower tiredly had betrayed her completely.
But, whatever he had saw, the man didn’t comment on the matter, nor showed any other reaction related to it.
Instead, he said with a genuine smile, “Henry.”
And, Henry took at last the blanket Y/N had offered him (a long time ago) so he could wrap her in it’s warm embrace.