Forbidden Page 4

  Beneath me, he is gasping for air and caressing my thighs. Once his orgasm subsides, I release him from my grasp and collapse beside him on the bed.

  “Holy shit,” I say, still breathing heavy.

  He smacks my upper thigh and grins. “We’ve still got it,” he says. “Even though we’re getting old.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I retort, rolling onto my back and closing my eyes. I feel the bed move underneath me and then feel his breathing on my ear and his arm across my belly.

  “You hungry?” He asks as he nibbles on my ear lobe.

  “Starving.”

  He rolls away from me and off the bed, then reaches for his jeans which were lying on the floor in a heap. Something lands on my belly and I look down to see it’s one of his t-shirts. I sit up and pull it on over my head, then get up and look for my panties. I locate them in the corner of the room and step into them.

  As I dress, the guilty feeling I so haphazardly tossed aside earlier comes rushing back. It’s suddenly so clear to me what a shit I am. Someone proposes marriage to me and I go running back to my old lover and immediately fall into his arms…and into his bed. I am a horrible, horrible person.

  “What’s his name?”

  “What?” I whirl around to see Ryan staring at me.

  He looks at me pointedly. “You know…him.”

  “Oh,” I reply softly. “Steven.”

  “Do you love him?” He asks softly.

  I’m stumped. How do I answer that question? Do I love Steven? Certainly, he is a good man. He’s always treated me with kindness and affection. He’s been patient with me, never pushing me into the next level of our relationship. It seemed he always knew something or someone was holding me back.

  I look back at Ryan and meet his eyes. Slowly, I nod. “I do,” I say. “But it’s different somehow.” I tug on my lower lip, unsure of how to explain what I’m feeling.

  Ryan reaches out a hand to me and I put mine into his. He closes his fingers around mine, then lifts our clasped hands to his mouth and kisses one of my knuckles. He is looking at me with such concern that I nearly weep. It’s as if he knows what I’m feeling and is trying to help me through it.

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  I sigh heavily, then cover my face with my free hand. “I have no idea,” I reply. “I don’t want to hurt him, but really, it’s inevitable.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No,” I reply, knowing this is something I must do on my own. It would be even more of a slap in the face to Steven if I were have the man I‘m dumping him for waiting for me in the car.

  Ryan looks oddly disappointed, almost as though he felt he had a right to come with me. I lean into him and wrap my arms around his waist.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll be fine. Steven will understand.”

  “Will he?” He frowns. “I’m not sure I would. Not where you’re concerned.”

  “I can’t explain it other than to say I held something back from him…and I think he knew I did. He never said anything to me but I think he always knew there was someone else…someone I…”

  Ryan’s arms wrap around me. “I know,” he says, holding me tight. “I know. Come on. Let’s get something to eat.”

  We take a few steps into the kitchen and I’m shocked at how small it is. He’s got one of those bistro tables but I know it’s second hand because the table’s edges are worn and the chairs are mismatched. But with some sanding and a coat of paint… Without even realizing I’m doing it, I’m imagining how I might improve the table and chairs and make the kitchen a bit more homey for Ryan.

  “Where did you find this?” I ask, placing my hand on one of the chairs.

  “Goodwill,” he replies. He’s bent over in front of the fridge, searching through its contents, which I am certain contain nothing more than condiments and the odd jar of pickles. He is a bachelor, after all. To my surprise, he pulls out a dozen eggs, some mushrooms, and a bag of shredded cheese. “Omelet all right with you?”

  “Sure,” I reply, taking a seat in one of the chairs. “As long as it’s not ham and cheese.”

  He looks up, surprised. “But you love ham and cheese omelets.”

  “Not anymore, I don’t.”

  “Huh.” He frowns. I make a mental note to tell him why I can no longer tolerate anything with ham in it.

  Though his place is small, it’s actually quite cozy. I imagine many mornings waking up here in Ryan’s arms, perhaps sitting on the front porch with him while we sip our coffee and read the paper. I will, of course, have to clip coupons until I find something that pays a bit more than the current cashier job I was able to obtain. It sucks that I managed to graduate in the middle of a recession. I have a degree in Marketing but no job even close to my field. For now, cashiering will have to do.

  It occurs to me that I have no idea what Ryan does for work. I inspect his body once again, noting the ripples in his stomach and the firm curves of his shoulders and biceps. I assume he must be doing something that requires a lot of heavy lifting.

  “Ryan?”

  “Yeah?” He says. cracking two eggs into a bowl. He picks it up and turns to me while whisking them into oblivion with a fork.

  “What have you been doing since you…got out? Where are you working?”

  It’s a little odd to be asking these sorts of questions since the last time Ryan and I spoke, we were trying to decide what color dress I should get if we decided to go to prom. But things are different now, and it’s becoming more apparent the more time we spend together. I feel a twinge of concern in the pit of my belly but quickly brush it aside. Of course things are going to be different now, I tell myself.

  Ryan smiles as me with understanding, almost as though he can read my thoughts. “I’m all right for money, if that’s what you’re asking. I know it doesn’t look that way from where you’re sitting but trust me, we’ll be all right.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about at all. I don’t care if you have tons of money or none at all – you know that.”

  He puts the bowl down and walks over to me, taking my hands in his. “Of course, I know you don’t care about that sort of thing. You never have. I just want you to know that I’m fine. We’re going to be fine.”

  He walks back over to the stove and pours the eggs into the pan. He quickly chops up a few of the mushrooms and tosses them in, then turns back to me as though waiting for me to ask my follow-up question, which of course, I do.

  “So what have you been doing?”

  He smirks at me. “A little of this, a little of that.”

  “Ryan!”

  He laughs, then holds his hands up in front of him, surrender style. “All right,” he says. “I got my GED while I was in Juvee” –the sound of that word rolling off his tongue causes me to cringe- “and then once I got out, I stayed with my Aunt until I got back on my feet.”

  It occurs to me that Ryan wasn’t completely left alone as I once thought and relief washes over me. I’d forgotten about his mother’s sister. Though she lived clear across the country in Arizona, she’d apparently stepped up to the plate when he needed someone.

  “Your Aunt Lou?”

  He nods. “She came to visit me once and gave me her address. Told me to write to her. Then we started to talk on the phone. Turns out she never liked my dad in the first place.” He shrugs. “Anyway, when I found out I was getting out, I wrote to tell her and she sent me a plane ticket. Once I was released, I went to stay with her. I only got back here six months ago.”

  He turns back to the omelet and flips it. “She was great to me. Let me stay with her while I figured out what I was going to do with the rest of my life.” He glances at me over his shoulder and grins. “As it turns out, I’m really good with my hands.”

  I can’t help but blush, thinking of exactly how skilled he is with his hands. “So, what did you do while you stayed with her?”

  “I started working for a friend o
f her. A guy who owned a contracting business. He’d build houses, decks, pretty much anything and he needed someone to do the grunt work – lugging bricks, cement, tools, whatever. So I did that for a bit, watched a lot, then he let me do some small stuff. I’d shingle a roof, cut some boards after he’d marked them, install a floor…eventually, I started to get good at it and he gave me more and more work. Pretty soon, I was taking on jobs by myself and the business started to grow.”

  He adds cheese to the omelet and folds it in half. “It’s too bad he didn’t have any sons. When I left, business was booming.”

  “Why didn’t you stay there with him? Do you think he might have wanted you to take over the business? Eventually, I mean.”

  Ryan was poking the omelet with a spatula. “He did want me to take over the business. We talked about it but I just couldn’t do it. My home is here, Becs. With you.” He steals a glance at me and smiles tenderly.

  “Oh.”

  “So, like I said, I just moved back a few months ago. I’m trying to get my own business off the ground. I figure I’m far enough out of town for people to not instantly remember the kid who shot his father eight years ago. And those that do? Well, I’m hoping they’ll either forgive or be so desperate for a quality carpenter that they’ll hire me. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’ve got some sorry-ass houses around here, this one included.”

  Ryan slides the omelet onto a plate and places it in front of me. It smells delicious. I take a large bite and nearly groan with pleasure. I hadn’t realized I was so hungry. “So,” I say as I chew. “Are you going to talk to the owner about fixing this house up?”

  “No need to.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m the owner.”

  “You are? Really?” I grin. Ryan keeps his back to me while he whips up another two eggs, then pours them into the now empty pan. Once he adds the mushrooms to his omelet, he turns to me.

  “Really,” he replies. “I own pretty much everything you see. It’s about fifteen acres.”

  “But how did you…I mean….”

  He laughs. “When I stayed with Lou, she didn’t let me pay her a dime. I took every cent I made working for Dale – that’s the contractor – and stashed it away. I always knew I’d come back here.” He shruggs. “I guess I came back at the right time because this piece of property had just gone on the market. The man who lived here had died and his kids wanted to sell it fast. I made an offer and they accepted.”

  “Wow,” I reply, looking around. “I just can’t believe it. I mean, I can…it’s just…”

  He smiles. “I know. It’s a lot to take in.” He slides his omelet onto a plate and sits down at the table with me.

  He takes several large bites of his omelet and I take his silence as an opportunity to look out the window into the back yard. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a dilapidated red barn about two hundred feet in back of the house.

  “It’s just an old barn. It looks like crap but it’s pretty stable. I figure I can fix it up a bit and use it for the business.”

  “And this is all yours,” I reply, scanning the property.

  I hear a chair scrape against the wood floor and then feel his warmth behind me. His arms wrap around my waist and he puts his chin on my shoulder. “Ours, Becs. It’s ours.”

  With Ryan’s arms around me, I feel as though I’ve come home. I want to stay – I want that more than anything. But there was one thing I needed to take care of before we could begin our forever. Steven. I needed to tell him. Needed to make him understand that I’d chosen Ryan before we’d ever met. Steven – or any man, for that matter - never stood a chance.

  Slowly, I turn to face Ryan. I bury my face in his neck and wrap my arms around him.

  “I want that,” I whisper. “So badly. But I’ve got to tell Steven.”

  He wraps his arms tighter around me and I feel his nod. “I know you do. Just hurry back to me.”

  I nod. We finish the rest of our omelets in silence, then put the dishes in the sink. Ryan keeps close to me as I gather my clothing and get dressed. I find my flip-flops in the living room and slide my feet into them. Standing up, I look at him, knowing it’s time for me to go but not wanting to say so. I take a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then take a few slow steps to the front door.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I say, opening the door.

  “Becs?” He says.

  I turn back to him. “Yeah?”

  “I love you. You know that, right?”

  “I do.” I can’t bring myself to tell him the same. I love him, of course I do. He is my everything. It’s just that it doesn’t feel right when I have this…attachment to someone else. I want…I need to be free to be with him and only him before I can say those words. It’s almost as if saying them while I’m still semi-attached to Steven would tarnish them in some way, and I couldn’t bear to do that. I give him one last smile, then turn and leave the house. My feet are heavy, leadened, and my legs feel as though they are dragging bricks behind them. I dread this. Steven doesn’t deserve this. None of this. He deserves so much more. He deserves a woman who will love him for him, and not continue to search in his eyes, hoping to see someone else.

  I can’t give him what he needs, so it’s only right to release him, even though it will hurt him. But it’s the right thing to do.

  Ryan is standing in the door frame looking out at me. He watches, still, as I open the car door, slide into the driver’s seat and turn the ignition. The engine comes to life immediately, almost as if it’s anxious to drive me to Steven and get this over with. Ryan lifts a hand slowly to wave at me. I wave back, then begin the short drive home, already feeling a tightening in my chest because I will be away from him.

  As I drive through the town I now consider home and head back to the town I grew up in and my father’s house, I realize that I have more than one thing to take care of. Yes, I will have to talk to Steven. Unfortunately, I will have to break his heart so that my own can be whole and this thought nearly causes me to double over in pain. Though I know it has to be done, I can’t bear the thought of hurting the man who has been nothing but kind and gentle with me. He has been everything a woman could want; only I want someone else – always have – and nothing he could have ever done would have changed that.

  But before I see Steven, there something else I need to take care of…my father. It is now that I realize that all of this pain – mine, Ryan’s, and of course, Steven’s – could have been avoided if only my father would have not barred Ryan from finding me all those years ago. He was the barrier between us, even after Ryan had been released from juvee. I smirk, realizing that even my own father could not keep us apart – it just took us a few years longer to come together.

  Anger wells up inside of me and it occurs to me that my own father is the reason for all this pain.

  We will have a nice little chat, I think. Then, and only then, I will return to the love of my life.