It was a rather large home- four bedrooms, two full baths - on quite a bit of land with its own little lake I filled with fish. However, it was nothing like my parent’s house. In fact, it was purposefully quaint and contrary in comparison. All of my other doctor friends had gone nuts with their houses but not me. I wanted something normal, something meaningful and homey. The big, looming mansion bit reminded me too much of home, so I settled for a log cabin, which was in hindsight quite hilarious given my name.
In fact, my fellow colleagues were not above cracking jokes about it. It was in the middle of the woods, out in the sticks, with all the cheesy knick-knacks and forrest-y feeling things one would usually find in a cabin. I even had moose antler lamps. I was sure that Gwen would give me shit about it as we stepped inside, the high-ceilinged living room decked out with forest green furniture, but all she could say was:
“Wow…” “Wasn’t what you were expecting huh?” I laughed, setting my keys on the keyholder by the door. “Not at all…I kinda figured it’d be more…”“Extravagant and like my boozy parents’ house?” I took my shoes off and threw them by the door. “Not my style.”
“Well I figured with all you said that…”“That I’d end up like them?” I tittered, helping her to the couch. “No. That shit makes me uncomfortable. I don’t even really talk to them.” She nodded, looking around her at all the cute knick-knacks, settling on a funny fishing one on the side table and giggled. “Dad would have loved this place.” She smiled warmly, picking up the fishing statue and looking it over. “Yeah…he definitely would have.” I grinned. “I still go fishing a lot, just like back then with him.” I pointed to the pictures on the wall by the front door- all of me holding huge fish I had caught on our fun little summer trips. I realized like a jerk she probably couldn’t see and brought her a picture. She held it close to her face and laughed. “Holy crap that’s a big one!” her eyes widened as she gasped. I took the picture away and replaced it with another, smaller picture. “I have caught many a big fish, but this one is my favorite.” As she put the snapshot closer to her face, I saw her eyes light up. It was a picture of her, Alphonso and I, fishing when we were about eight years old. Alphonso was laughing as Theresa took the picture, the two of us had caught a medium sized bass with a ridiculously fashioned pole- a stick, some line, a hook and a worm.“That whole day, daddy had used that brand-new pole with the fancy reel and everything and caught not a damn thing.” She laughed hard, tickled pink over the photo. I sat down next to her and we chatted a bit about old times- old fishing trips, acting in plays together, trick or treating- nostalgia of our childhood together, and hopefully helping to mend a few bridges I had burnt out. As we spoke, I couldn’t help but keep staring at her, just as beautiful as ever. Her smile could make a room light up within a second, her eyes the same beautiful hazel, and her freckles dotted across her face that crinkled up every time she flashed those pearly whites. I could feel my heart flutter every time she did, leaving me warm and alive inside for the first time in ages.
After a while, I could see she was getting tired, and I gave her a quick tour. I gave her the first bedroom downstairs, the hallway was wide and easily wheelchair accessible, and the closest room to a bathroom. My room was upstairs in the fourth bedroom, which was more like a loft overlooking the living room.“There we go!” I said as I gently helped her sit on the bed. The room was a guest space I had set up as a convenience for my fishing buddies if they had a few too many or were too tired to travel back. The other bedrooms were unfurnished, ready and waiting for the future where I had more people in my life. When I could take a break from all the work, I had dedicated my life to and have the sort of environment I had always dreamed of as a kid.
Eventually, I wanted kids and a wife and ‘the good life’. I figured when I bought the place that four bedrooms would be enough for a growing family. Something my friends always laughed at. It wasn’t that I was particularly impersonable at work, I was known for being married to my work. A bit too cold around people I didn’t know, a little too dedicated to the job. But really, I just hadn’t found the right woman yet.
Gwen smiled up at me, tucked in the bed, her blanket up to her chin. I grinned back and felt a weird little twinge in my chest as I noticed the curve of her lip and the new twinkle in her eyes. Feeling a little awkward standing there, realizing maybe I had been staring too long, I made my way towards the door. “If you need anything, there is a little bell next to your bed.”“Ooo la la! Like a French maid!” She giggled. That smile…goddamn. Every time I could feel my heart pound and quake, just like when I had planted that first kiss on her lips all those years ago.
“Except without the sexy outfit,” I chuckled, “Unless of course you want me to wear one, I could get one sent here on Prime in about two days.” She snorted and cackled like old times, taking her glasses off and setting them on the table next to the bed. I guided the wheelchair closer to the bed in case she needed it for a midnight bathroom run or even just to get fresh air. Although I hadn’t read her file, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she suffered nightmares from the accident.
“If you need help? Seriously, don’t hesitate to ring the bell. I don’t want you falling in the middle of the night.”
She nodded quietly, her smile becoming a straight line suddenly as if a though hit her. That thought came spilling quickly out of her mouth like a fountain. Gwen was never one to mince words, a quality I was always appreciative of when it had come to her. She didn’t pull punches.
“Listen, I know you’re doing this to be nice and I am grateful…but this doesn’t fix what happened. Like I said before, a lot of hurt is there.”“I know,” I sighed, frowning. “But I am hoping this can be a new beginning. That maybe we can at least get to a place where we can maybe be friends again.” Gwen sighed too, looking at the ceiling, smiling to herself. “Maybe. We will have to see wont we?” She looked over to me and grinned then turned off the lamp by her bed, the room a pitch back except for the night light faintly glowing in the corner. “Goodnight, Link.” She whispered sleepily, drifting off.“Night,” I whispered back, smiling into the darkness. As I made my way to my room and changed for bed, I found myself overcome with more thoughts from the past. Not the cutesy memories we had touched on during the evening out on the couch, but that smile on her face had triggered more intimate memories.
Like the night we lost our virginity, her sexy smile turning into an irresistible ‘o’ as she came, her tan cheeks flushed and pink. As I laid there, thinking about that night, I couldn’t help the blood rushing in between my legs. Sure, there was plenty of awkwardness, but that’s not what my mind went to. No, it focused on how right it had felt at the time. How connected we were and how perfect everything had felt. I quickly roused to full hardness as I thought about once again pressing my lips against hers.
The way she looked at me then had been like I was the whole world. And considering how starved for any kind of affirmation I was, it had been quite the heady look indeed. It was so different from the expression she wore when she saw me now. All wounded and uncertain and full of distrust.
I wished that I could wipe that away. Just take some sort of sponge to our past and wipe away all the bad but leave the good.
But that wasn’t how life worked, so I was stuck touching myself, thinking about a beautiful, perfect woman who wanted nothing to do with me.
It was probably disrespectful to jerk off to our past memories considering all that I did to her, but I couldn’t stop. I stroked slowly, mimicking her movements that fateful night in my mind, imagining her womanhood gripping around my cock, slick and wetness.
She was bigger now than she had been then, all filled out in the shape of a woman. She had lost plenty of muscle and far too much weight when she was going through the worst part of her recovery, so it was nice to see the flare return to her hips and the softness to her stomach. She’d never been a thin girl and always seemed to feel best when she was hovering somewhere around pleasantly
plus sized and ‘thick’ as was popular to say lately. I remembered when she’d first started to gain weight her freshman year, bemoaning puberty and carbs, but I had been all about it. Little high schooler me hadn’t had the wherewithal to realize that he liked strong, bigger women until she’d gone up to a size fourteen and complained that none of her pants fit anymore.
Everything had been so new and exciting then. An important discovery. When was the last time I had felt excitement?
Mostly just when I saw Gwen defeating some obstacle.
My dick throbbed, not liking my melancholy thoughts. It wanted stimulation and for me to think about more enticing things. Like the plush well of her breasts or how soft her skin had felt when I picked her up.
Perhaps it was pathetic to be so hung up on a woman who’s heart I had broken, and yet that was exactly where I was. Because, when I was honest about it, no other partner had ever compared to her. Gwen was a one of a kind, and I had ruined it.
I picked up the pace as I imagined that smile, those plump lips of hers from tonight wrapped around my cock, sucking and licking at me like she was hungry. She’d been a little too shy to do that when we were younger, but I was sure she’d had some wild adventures since we had been together.
Sure, she had said that she never dated, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have any fun. …did it?
My fingers tightened around my shaft, pleasure coursing through my veins. I could feel my toes curling as I laid there, imagining all the different ways I could have had her if I hadn’t been such a monumental idiot.
The vision in my head was apparently too much for me to handle, as it had been awhile since I had even thought about touching myself, and suddenly I was spilling all over myself. The orgasm wrecked me, leaving ropey lengths of white striping my fist.
I laid there a moment, breathing hard, my world completely rocked by something that wasn’t even real. And could never be real. I had made sure of that with my stupid actions as a teenager.
I would love a second chance. I would get on my knees and beg her for one if I thought that was even the slightest possibility. But there wasn’t. And even if there was one, it wasn’t the right time to pursue it.
Gwen was hurt. Recovering. At the moment I was providing her shelter and I needed to be content with only that. Asking for anything more would be taking advantage.
And that was the last thing I ever wanted to do to her.
6
Gwen
The jostling and bouncing as the bus driver seemed to hit every single pothole made my sore legs hurt like they had a vendetta against me. I cursed him under my breath, but that only made the deep throb of them slightly better. At least the upside was that the pain was a good sign, meaning that physical therapy was helping, finally challenging me. But being able to face and beat the tough challenges didn’t change the fact that it made me feel like my legs had been crushed all over again. Ow.
One of the downfalls of living with Link was that his house was out in the sticks. At first, I thought I was going to have to do some serious begging and apologies to Frannie about the long drives, but luckily enough, there was a bus that went all the way out to a shopping center at the end of Link’s long, long drive.
It was a relief because I didn’t have to ask him for a ride on top of all the other things he was doing for me, and I got the walking in that I was supposed to be doing every day anyways. My PT was certainly going to be pleased.
And it wasn’t like I was afraid to ask Link for things. He made it clear that he would basically grab the rainbow out of the sky and feed it to me if I asked, but I didn’t want any of that. It was already bad enough I had become a roommate to my sworn enemy, though I guessed in one short night we had shifted to frenemies. Ugh. How high school.
But still, he was really sweet to me and had even suggested making physical therapy appointments closer to when he got out for ride convenience, but I didn’t want to overreach on his kindness. He already made us breakfast and dinner every day, insisted on doing all the cleaning and had given me a bell to ring in case of emergency. It was kind of hard to accept I basically had my asshole of an ex at my beck and call. Though kind of ironic and hilarious, for all I knew, this was some cruel joke. I mean, our breakup had definitely felt like one. One moment he was kissing me and I had a friend at arms, and the next I just wasn’t good enough for him.
Ugh. Thinking about that day still made my eyes prickle. Stupid. It was years ago and I still let it affect me so much. Wasn’t a sign of adulthood getting over the stupid little drama of childhood? And yet I was clinging to it like a life raft. Which was strange considering how shitty of a life raft it was.
At least I had my best friend to keep me on the level. Frannie, had seemed a little hurt and confused when I had picked up my stuff, but I explained to her the situation, and it had thankfully been cleared up quickly. Naturally she wasn’t the biggest fan of Link, but she seemed to have a sort of respect for him- I imagined it was a work-related thing- and when I told her of the plan, and bamboozling my grandparents, she had been all in.
‘Anything to get that old bastards goose and get you that money’, she had said to me, putting an arm on my shoulders and flashing a weak smile.
I couldn’t really blame her for her apprehension given Link and my past. But I assured her it was all a ruse, and she seemed okay with that. She did think it was a shame that my grandmother was a more innocent party, but over dinner one night, Link had reminded me she hadn’t stopped it either. It was a thought I had had before myself, and I wasn’t surprised he had had it too. I wouldn’t chastise her for it, but I definitely wouldn’t forgive her either. If all continued well, I would continue to visit her, at least. Maybe inviting her over to my new house when I get it.
As the bus screeched to a halt, I bumped my hip against the armrest of my seat, sending a searing pain down my leg. I yelped in surprise, panting as I grabbed my purse and got myself up, using my cane to shakily navigate the steps. Luckily, I had been intuitive enough to bring my wheelchair, given the length of Link’s driveway. The bus driver, a middle-aged man with creaky joints of his own, begrudgingly brought the wheelchair to me from where it was folded in the back. He mumbled to himself as he huffed and puffed, struggling to make it down the tiny bus stairs with it. I wanted to tell him if he felt annoyed, imagine how hard it was for me, but I kept my mouth shut.
He finally made it down, taking off his drivers cap and wiping a bit of sweat from his brow. He flashed me a quick smile and started making his way slowly back up the bus stairs. “Thank you, sir.” I called out as I got into my wheelchair. He turned around, seeming surprised at my quick appreciation. His eyes lit up and crinkles at the corners as a big smile went across his face. I could imagine public transportation was a boring job, not to mention thankless. “You’re welcome!” He beamed, tipping his hat at me as he sat down and pulled the lever to close the bus doors. I gave him a quick wave and turned the wheels on my chair, heading towards the house. Link had brought the hospital one back and kindly bought me a new one, it’s tires better built for various outside terrain. Even so, I still struggled a bit as it was definitely a workout on the arms. One thing was for certain, I was going to end up with some seriously nice guns once I was done with all my therapy. I took a few breaks as I made my way to the door, taking a moment to just enjoy the view.
Pretend Boyfriend (Be My Boyfriend Book 4) Page 6
