26. It’s done
Chapter twenty-six
It’s done
Greta’s hesitant hand began to shake as she pressed the touch screen of her laptop to open an email from the University’s HR department.
Subject: Honorary Contract Termination.
Dear Dr Vincent,
Following a review of your contract with the University, we are writing to confirm that your honorary status will conclude with effect from the date of this correspondence.
This decision has been made in line with the University’s policies and expectations regarding professional conduct and appropriate boundaries. As an honorary appointee, you are expected to adhere to the same standards as employed staff, including those relating to relationships with students.
With immediate effect, you should not represent yourself as having any formal affiliation with the University, nor engage in teaching, supervision, assessment, mentoring, or contact with students in a University capacity.
Your access to University systems and facilities associated with the honorary appointment will be withdrawn accordingly.
We recognise the contributions you have made during your time as an honorary lecturer and thank you for these. This correspondence brings the honorary appointment to a close; no further action is required from you at this time.
Regards,
Lyle McKenna
Senior Manager, Human Resource Dept, The University of Manchester.
Slamming her laptop shut, Greta tossed it onto the bed, pressing her back into the pillows behind her.
‘What’s wrong?’ Dylan asked, twisting to place her iPad on her bedside cabinet next to the Margs Monitor.
‘I’ve lost my honorary contract. It’s done.’ Greta stared down at her bare legs and feet.
‘Fuck. You’ve had—’
‘It’s done, Dylan.’ Greta’s blinking quickened as she valiantly battled the tears stabbing her eyes.
She had known this would be the very least to expect, but reading the words felt like the bottom had been kicked out of her world.
‘Fuck G, I’m so—’
‘Do not say that fucking word. I am so sick of guilt and apologies. We apologise to one another all the time despite the very fucking real fact that this feels so fucking perfect.’ Greta quickly scrubbed away a tear and blew out a sharp breath.
‘G, I—’
‘Please, Dyl. I don’t want to talk about it.’
Dylan stared at the side of Greta’s head, before casting her gaze to her hands. She watched for a beat as Greta’s fingers concertinaed the hem of her oversized blue shirt before unravelling it again.
‘I don’t want to make you cross, G, but this is too big for you to try and fold into your shirt,’ Dylan said softly. ‘Talk to me. Please.’
Greta didn’t look up as she took a steadying breath. ‘There’ll most likely be an internal HR investigation at the PCI. They’ve assured me that there will be no punitive action, but as we know, boxes have to be ticked.’
The silence stretched for a few moments, not awkwardly, but as a moment in time to allow the decision to take root and unfurl in their minds.
‘Can I get you anything, G? I bought a bottle of that Rioja you like,’ Dylan said softly, adding some Spanish flair to the word as she tucked Greta’s hair behind her ear. ‘I could cook you something nice. Or we could get a takeaway? Momo Shop is open today.’
‘I’m okay. Thanks, Dyl.’
Dylan's hand reached out to Greta’s face. Greta pressed her lips against her palm.
‘I don’t know what to say, G.’
‘I know,’ she whispered onto Dylan’s skin. ‘I know.’
Words were not what Greta needed from Dylan, they were useless—instead she needed to forget the email, the decision, and the day.
No amount of talking could untangle their relationship from the consequences she now faced.
Breathing in Dylan’s familiar scent, Greta knew she was the only thing capable of numbing the pain of what she had lost, because she was worth every single possible consequence.
Not only was she worth the cost of them but she was the only thing Greta needed because a lifetime of achievements could never equal the quiet, consuming gravity of Dylan simply being beside her.
Moving her mouth slowly up Dylan’s arm, Greta drew her closer, pressing deep kisses against her skin.
Dylan leaned in, hands cradling Greta's face to pull her into a slow, lingering kiss. What began as an unhurried and delicate meeting of mouths quickly grew hungry and wide. Greta’s breaths were loud and tight as she unravelled Dylan’s towel.
The smell of freshly showered skin filled the air as Greta rose to her knees to pull herself over her lap.
The sensation of Dylan’s hands moving over her hips, thumbs brushing back and forth over the soft cotton of her underwear, sent a charge pulsing straight to her core.
Their kiss deepened, growing hungrier as Dylan pushed under Greta’s shirt, her soft hands seeking her naked breasts.
Impatient, Greta pulled the fabric off and threw it to the floor, immediately guiding Dylan’s face to her chest. She held her close as Dylan cupped her breasts, her mouth taking in a nipple—alternating twisting licks from the tip of her tongue with lingering strokes, before sucking and softly biting down.
Arching into the touch, Greta forced herself deeper into Dylan’s mouth.
A frisson ran over every inch of Greta’s flesh as Dylan’s blunt fingernails raked down her smooth back, splayed hands coming to rest over her arse to pull her in and hold her close.
Greta moaned and rocked, grabbing at Dylan’s vest to pull it over her head, throwing it to the side, leaving a puddle of blue and white fabric on the floor.
Leaning back into Dylan’s drawn-up thighs, Greta watched her heaving chest, slowly examining every inch of her bare skin, running her fingers over the sacred heart tattoo.
Under the weight of Greta’s gaze and the soft touch of her hands, Dylan hummed low and deep in her throat, her posture tense as if resisting the urge to push herself insistently into the contact of Greta's hands. She held Greta’s waist, her grip tight with an obvious swelling desire to be urgent and rough.
With every single second savoured, Greta took her time, her gaze slowly moving over every blemish on Dylan’s skin and every colour within the extraordinary artwork that reached her collarbones, marvelling at its meaning and permanence.
Without saying a word, Greta reached over to the bedside cabinet, sliding open the drawer to retrieve the strapless dildo, while Dylan watched her in silence. Settling back between Dylan’s thighs, Greta leaned in to kiss her. 'Open your legs,' she breathed against Dylan’s lips.
Dylan did, letting her legs fall fully apart, her mouth sliding open with a gasp as Greta swept the short end of the silicone through her wetness before slowly, steadily pushing it inside.
‘Fuck, G. Are you—?’
Greta silenced her with a soft finger pressed to her lips.
She didn’t need words, or for Dylan to check in.
She needed Dylan to be inside her. To be as close as humanly possible in every sense of the word.
She needed all of the woman responsible for gathering the pieces of her broken heart and painstakingly gluing it back together.
With their breaths now leaving no room for silence, Dylan smeared lube over the dildo as Greta straddled her pelvis and rose to her knees again.
Dylan’s warm hands held her hips, her mouth lavished her breasts and belly with soft kisses before she leaned back to watch.
Not willing to waste time removing her underwear, Greta hooked her fingers into her knickers and pulled them to the side.
Slowly, she lowered herself, taking the dildo inch by breathless inch in one smooth movement, dropping her head and gasping as she settled on Dylan’s lap.
‘Fucking hell,’ Dylan breathed. With Dylan fully inside her, Greta placed her hands on her own thighs and briefly swung her hips to deepen the contact, until the soft skin of her inner thighs was flush against Dylan’s.
With her hands still clasped around Greta’s waist, Dylan looked up under her lashes.
‘Are you okay?’ she whispered, sighing as Greta said nothing but arched into the warmth of her strong hands as they slowly slid over her breasts and down her stomach.
Still silent but for heavy breaths, Greta’s rhythm shifted, the roll of her hips deepening to draw Dylan as far inside as possible. Her moans came from deep in her core, yet she kept her gaze locked on Dylan's eyes.
‘You are so fucking violently beautiful,’ Greta breathed, with another slow, rolling push of her hips.
Leaning forward, she slowed her pace, stopping only when their lips almost brushed.
With her hands cradling Dylan's face, she held them suspended in a stretch of absolute silence, brows furrowing as she searched her eyes. ‘I love you,’ she finally whispered.
The declaration was spoken so softly, the three words she had been so desperate to say were barely a breath.
Blinking rapidly, Dylan’s eyes glistened with a sudden rush of tears.
Her expression grew tense, as she clearly fought back the urge to let the emotion break through. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move.
Though Greta still controlled the slow, heavy rise and fall of her hips on Dylan’s lap, she had relinquished everything else.
The physical rhythm in that moment was the only control she kept, the only control she wanted; the rest of her was now completely open, handed over to Dylan without a single defence left.
With their foreheads pressed together, Dylan’s chest heaved as she dragged in a stuttered breath.
She looked as though she needed to understand what was happening, as though she needed to believe it was real.
With her hands still holding Dylan’s face they kissed, their lips slotting perfectly together, tongues brushing delicately while she continued her slow, steady grind.
‘I love you, Dylan,’ she repeated softly into their kiss but louder this time.
Not because she wanted to hear it back, and not even because she had finally allowed herself to say it, but because she had finally allowed herself to feel it.
She needed to hear the words out loud, again and again and again.
Pulling away she traced the soft curves of Dylan’s lips with her fingertips, her gaze fixed on her mouth. ‘I’m in love with you,’ she whispered.
The walls Greta had spent years building were now smouldering ash, burned to the ground by the fire Dylan had brought into her life.
It was the surprising intensity of it all, after two years of slowly building feelings, that had finally razed every last brick surrounding her broken heart.
Now, that heart hung in her chest, beating wildly as she made love to the woman she had finally allowed herself to fall in love with and claim as hers.
This was the same heart that had only ever known the love of one woman—the heart she had kept packed away, stored safe from harm behind her ribs.
The heart she was giving Dylan the absolute power to destroy, and a deep trust that she wouldn't, as it battered ferociously against muscle and bone.
It was a heart made beautiful again; glowing pink and beating rhythmically beneath shining streaks of gold.
With her arms clinging tighter to Dylan’s neck to anchor herself, Greta’s slow rocking lost its gentle slide.
The movement turned into a harder, hungrier grind, her weight pressing deeper with every shift.
Deep moans thrummed in her throat, her warm gasps and broken breaths escaping her open mouth.
‘Ohh, Dylan…’ she whispered, the words landing hot against Dylan’s ear.
Drawing in a slow breath, Dylan pulled back, looking up with heavy lidded eyes. ‘I love you, Greta,’ she said softly. The short sentence fractured; she swallowed audibly and let out a shaky sigh. ‘I fucking love you.’
Greta kissed her again, swallowing Dylan’s moans, softly licking into her mouth and moaning against her face as their movement gathered momentum.
The newly declared confessions, still dancing in the air, seemed to displace the oxygen, leaving Greta light-headed as they gasped under the exquisite pleasure of their building orgasms. Greta ground herself down to meet Dylan’s slow, almost imperceptible thrusts, until Dylan’s hips grew more urgent and her grip around Greta’s body tightened.
Their bodies locked into a desperate, perfect sync, moving as one, holding each other so fiercely they would surely be bruised when their bodies finally parted.
With her hands buried deep in Dylan’s hair, Greta held fistfuls of soft curls as she gently pulled Dylan’s head back, her open mouth finding her exposed her throat.
Their clenched moans and desperate sobs were suddenly too hard to stifle.
The air was thick with raw desire, the sweat pooling between them useless in cooling their hot bodies.
As Greta rocked harder and pushed deeper, Dylan’s ragged breaths spilled onto her skin.
‘Oh fuck, Greta, please…’ Greta crashed her mouth to Dylan’s to muffle her pleas.
With her eyes slammed shut and their faces pressed tight, Greta’s orgasm thundered through her, wetness running down the dildo and spilling over Dylan’s lap.
‘Fuuuck!’ Dylan moaned. The word quietly and slowly unfurled as she came, her head pushed into Greta’s breasts as Greta let her head fall back, her throat bared as she cried out Dylan’s name, unable to suppress the need to say it out loud and into the room.
As they grew still, the remnants of pleasure settling in their pressed-together bodies, they kissed.
Though the kiss was wet, lazy and slow, it felt heavy with a weight that had nothing to do with the gravity of their circumstances and everything to do with what they had just confessed.
It burned—not ferociously with white-hot urgency, but with a quiet, steady heat.
It no longer carried everything they hadn’t said, every moment of restraint, every almost, or every lingering doubt.
It no longer held the fear that they would be forced apart.
Instead, it burned with their confession, their recognition, and their certainty.
It flared with the quiet, unshakeable power that they could fight anything, as long as they fought it together.
When they finally pulled apart, foreheads pressed together, Dylan whispered, ‘I love you,’ onto Greta’s parted lips.
Greta smiled, running a soft hand down Dylan’s cheek. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered back.