by Donna Fasano
The invisible touch of his green eyes made her lift her gaze to his. She saw him smile gently.
"It's okay," he said. "We'll get used to each other."
He came over to stand beside her and covered her hand with his. And even though Chelsea knew this was a gesture of reassurance on his part, she automatically distanced herself from him, slipping her fingers from underneath his. She didn't want to push him away, but a habit learned from years of emotional survival was impossible to deny.
Awkwardness surrounded them like a thick fog. Chelsea tried to ignore it by busying herself with the task of clearing the table.
"I'll do this," Ben told her, taking the salt and pepper shakers from her hands. "You cooked. It's only fair that I clean up. Go on into the other room and relax. Prop your feet up."
Chelsea was relieved for an excuse to leave the kitchen. She sat down on the sofa, picked up a magazine and absently thumbed through the pages, not seeing the informative articles or the colorful advertisements.
Why did Ben have to be so... nice? He was a good person, a wonderful man. And she'd found it hard not to look at him. She wanted badly to deny that she found him so darn good looking, that she was attracted to his sun-bleached hair, his jewel green eyes, his easy smile.
She heard the water running as he rinsed off the plates and utensils; the glassware clinked together as he loaded it into the dishwasher.
Thoughts of what the two of them would do later this evening forced their way into her mind. It was difficult for her to imagine going to bed with such a beautiful man. She had no experience, other than the television shows and movies she'd seen and books she'd read. But she and Ben wouldn't be engaging in the soft, passionate lovemaking depicted in romantic comedies and trashy novels. No, Chelsea imagined hers would be a quick, unemotional coupling. How could she expect anything else?
And did that even matter?
"No," she murmured to herself.
Just then Ben came into the room with an uncorked bottle of wine and two stemmed glasses.
"I thought a little of this magic elixir would help us to relax," he said.
He poured the rich red wine into one glass and handed it to her. As he poured one for himself, he commented, "I should have thought to serve it with that delicious dinner you made."
"Oh, that's okay," she told him. A tiny burst of joy exploded inside her at his compliment.
When he sat down next to her, Chelsea instinctively inched away from him toward the arm of the sofa.
"Boy, am I tired," he said. "I've had a long day."
Disappointment welled inside her, hot and strong. "Too tired?"
Ben looked at her, puzzlement narrowing his gaze. The implication behind her question struck him the same moment she realized she'd actually asked. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth, her eyes wide with embarrassment.
He laughed softly and shook his head. "It's okay. I understand. And, no, I'm not that tired." He twisted a little so he could look at her. "But at least now I know…" The rest of the thought petered out as he couldn't quite decide how to phrase his thought.
"Know what?"
Ben looked toward the far end of the room, then ran his fingers over his jaw. "Well, I was wondering how you wanted to… um, do this thing. The baby thing, I mean." He shook his head, rolling his eyes at his own stupidity and murmuring, "Of course you know what I mean."
Suddenly, the wood of the coffee table top became riveting, as if it had been made of some rare and mysterious tree that grew in the rain forest rather than plain, old oak. When Chelsea didn't respond, he lifted his gaze to her face and nearly laughed at the deer-in-headlights look she was giving him. He slipped the wine glass from her fingers and set both his and hers on the table.
"Obviously, we need to talk about this."
"You're not backing out, are you?"
"Relax. Of course not. I wouldn't do that. But you have to admit… there's more than one way to skin this cat."
She blinked, and her lips parted as her jaw dropped.
"I'm sorry, Chelsea. That was a very poor choice of words." He sighed. "What I meant to say…" He hesitated long enough to moisten his lips. "There's Mother Nature's way; one man, one woman… bing, bang, boom… and nine months later a baby is born. And then there's the more… clinical method. You know, doctors and appointments and specimens and… well, you know, things like that."
The whole time he was talking, her face became rosier, but she never broke eye contact with him.
"Ben, you must think I am a complete and utter idiot." Her head shook back and forth slowly. "Never. Not once did I think about the, um, clinical method."
She rubbed her palms up and down her thighs. "I did consider adoption. Did a small amount of research on the internet. But I soon found out it's very expensive." She drew her bottom lip between her teeth, evidently pondering his suggestion. "Does health insurance cover something like that? And if it doesn't, how much does it cost? How long does it take? And what's the success rate?" Her hands stilled. "Would you prefer the, um, artificial route over…?"
"Bing, bang, boom?" He grinned.
"This isn't funny, Ben."
"I know," he told her. "But I have to do something to break the tension. I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin talking about this. And you don't look much better."
She nodded. The two of them sat there together on the sofa, so close yet so far away from each other, and Chelsea could feel the silence that she'd embraced all her adult life swiftly becoming her enemy. Finally, she whispered, "I'm worried about the time frame. What if the doctors require us to go to counseling? How expensive is something like that? Will my medical insurance cover any of the costs of the procedure?"
"I don't really know the answer to any of those questions, Chels. I'd have to assume that, if neither of us have any health issues that would keep us from, you know, making a baby the normal way, the insurance company wouldn't agree to pay anything. Do you have any? Health issues, I mean?"
She shook her head. "No. You?"
"Not that I know of."
Chelsea frowned, her thumb tracing tiny circles on her thigh.
He slid closer to her and covered her hand with his. "Listen, stop worrying. It's going to be okay. I only brought it up because, well, because I was wondering. That's all. I'm fine going with Mother Nature. Her method is… pretty damn perfect from what I hear."
Relief rounded her shoulders. And when he scooped up the wine glasses and handed her one, she took it and smiled. Really smiled.
"So, what do we drink to?"
His question took her off guard. "Drink to?" she asked.
"Chelsea, we're in the middle of a successful campaign here," he said. "We've accomplished one of our goals by saving Reed's Orchard from being sold." His green eyes darkened and his mouth tipped into an off-center grin. "Don't you think we should drink to the complete success of our deal?"
"Well... sure."
"To success," he said, and lightly tapped the rim of his glass to hers.
"To bing, bang, boom."
He laughed at her joke, and she joined him, despite the raw anxiety churning in her chest. She watched him take a deep swallow and then she took a tiny sip. The wine tasted fruity and slightly sweet and it trailed a warm path down her throat.
He reached behind her and turned down the brightness of the lamp on the end table. Chelsea's spine straightened so quickly she sloshed wine onto the back of her hand.
"Ohhh, look what I've done," she said. What the heck was he doing?
"Atmosphere."
His answer told her she'd spoken the question aloud.
"But... but..."
"It's okay," he assured her gently. "We don't have to do anything right away. Let's just get comfortable. Let's just relax."
He took the wineglass from her hand and set it on the coffee table. She hadn't noticed when he'd set his down. He took her fingers in his and pulled them toward him.
"But I've spilled the wine," she pr
otested, panic rising into her throat, and she weakly tried to pull her hand from his grasp.
"Oh, but I have the perfect remedy for that," he murmured, his voice tinged with wickedness.
Slowly, his warm lips touched the back of her hand and he gently sucked the wine from her skin.
For the second time that day Chelsea felt a slowing down of time. No, this was a complete cessation of life as she knew it. Ben's tongue was soft as velvet against her flesh. His lips sent a delicious heat radiating up her arm.
Because his head was bent, she wasn't able to see exactly what he was doing. So she wasn't prepared when he kissed the tender spot between her index finger and thumb. The tip of his nose brushed back and forth across her tingling skin. He sniffed gently and slowly and deeply, and the muscles in her stomach tightened almost painfully.
He was inhaling her scent. She found the action extremely erotic. Although she felt sluggish and giddily drunk, she knew it had nothing to do with the wine. It was something else altogether; she was actually feeling... sensual.
The realization made her gasp softly and she snatched her hand from his grasp.
"Why are you…?" The words she uttered sounded strangled.
He lifted his head to gaze at her, his green eyes holding a mixture of perplexity and some other dark, mysterious emotion she was afraid to identify.
"Well," he began. "I guess I'm trying to... turn you on... get you in the mood... arouse you."
She blinked several times. "Is that absolutely necessary?"
Ben leaned back against the couch, lifted his hand to his face and deliberately rubbed his fingers across his mouth and chin. He darted a look at her, then another. Finally, he said, "No, I guess it's not. But, then, I also guess we should talk about this a little more."
"Do we have to?" This time her question came out sounding squeaky and Chelsea was so mortified she wanted to hide her face in her hands. But she forced herself to finish. "Can't we just... you know... do it?"
She watched his frown deepen.
"Seeing as the two of us have differing ideas as to how we should 'do it,'" he said, "I don't see how we can get around talking about it."
Chelsea's lips set in a grim line.
He sighed heavily and glanced toward the ceiling. When his gaze returned to her face he said, "Okay. Let's take this slow. There's no reason to be embarrassed, we're both adults. We know what has to happen in order for you to get pregnant." He hesitated a moment. Then his tone became quite soft as he asked, "How did you want us…" he indicated the two of them with a back-and-forth movement of his hand "…to go about making love?"
Closing her eyes at the sound of his last two words, she willed her pounding heart to calm, but the effort failed. Miserably. She slowly raised her eyelids and gulped in a deep breath.
"What we'll be doing certainly can't be called... making love," she said stiffly.
"Oh? And what is it called?"
Chelsea swallowed nervously. "We'll be... well, we'll be..." One of her shoulders lifted. "…procreating." Her face flared hot as the word passed her lips and she was forced to look away from him.
His eyebrows arched high. "Sounds kind of stark to me," he remarked. When she made no response, he asked, "How does this procreation work?"
Her gaze flew to his face. "Ben." The tone of her voice and her agonized expression implored him not to force her to explain.
"Oh, I wasn't asking you to break down the intimate nuances of the act itself," he said, ignoring her silent plea. "I think I learned that in eighth grade health class. But I would like you to clarify the preliminary details involved in your plan."
"Preliminary details?" Chelsea searched his face for some sign to tell her he really wasn't going to insist on a description, but he only nodded and settled back against the sofa to await her answer.
Damn it! He was going to make her do this. Clearing her throat, she took a shaky breath. "Okay, well," she began slowly, "I thought we'd go back there…" she pointed down the hallway to indicate the bedroom "…and take off..." Here her voice failed her and she simply fingered the collar of her blouse to convey her message. She ran her tongue over her dry lips. "And then...I thought we'd get into the..." Her voice turned quavery and she closed her eyes as she hurried to state her last thoughts. "Then we'd have... well, we'd have..."
Realizing she simply couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, she clamped her mouth shut and turned her head away.
"Chelsea." His voice was gentle. "Look at me."
When she did, she saw that his expression was just as gentle as his tone.
"Chelsea, this is what you're trying to say. You want us to go back to the bedroom. You want us to take off our clothes. You want us to get into the bed. And you want us to have intercourse." He took her hand in his. "Tell me how you expect to do those things, when you can't even bring yourself to say the words."
"I want to have a baby," she whispered. "I'll do whatever I have to."
"But do you want the memory of conceiving your child to be so cold... so clinical as what you seem to have in mind?"
"Ben, two people do not have to be in love to make a baby." Chelsea pushed back the wall of emotion that threatened to pen her in.
"No, we don't have to be in love," he agreed. "But is there some reason we can't at least enjoy ourselves?"
Before she could answer, he continued, "Chelsea this can be a warm and happy experience for us both."
"I don't need to enjoy myself. It's not necessary for me to have an…" She stopped suddenly and shifted her gaze to the floor. "I don't have to enjoy myself to conceive a child."
"Orgasm, Chelsea," he supplied. "The word you're looking for is orgasm. And you're right, it isn't necessary for you to have an orgasm to conceive."
Chelsea pulled her hand from his and slid back even farther into the corner of the sofa.
"But," he said, his tone a bit harder, "it is necessary for me to have an orgasm if you're to become pregnant. I'm not a stud horse. I'm not an animal. I'm a human being. A man with feelings and emotions."
Feeling as though she would choke on the panic that churned in her chest, Chelsea placed the flat of her palm at the base of her throat.
"Look at me, Chels."
She slowly raised her eyes to his and felt unshed tears burning the backs of her eyelids. She would not lose control of herself. She would not!
"It really isn't fair of you," he said, "to expect me to reveal the most intimate part of myself to you when you aren't willing to reveal the most intimate part of yourself to me."
"Oh, so it's 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine,' huh?" She knew very well she was being unfair to him, knew her question was mean spirited, but her words were an ingrained self-defense mechanism that she was unable to stop.
"This has nothing to do with physical body parts and you know it," he said. "This has to do with feelings. The most intimate of feelings, in fact."
"Feelings." Chelsea spat the word out in a way that was certain to convey her disgust. She wanted to insult him. She wanted to start an argument. Make him angry. She wanted to make him shout at her, call her names, anything rather than talk about this subject any longer. She was afraid that if they continued down this avenue she would surely fall apart.
"I'm not going to fight about this," he said calmly. "It's obvious that you don't trust me. And until you do…" he slid his hand down his thigh and cupped it over his knee "…I don't see how it would be possible for us to sleep together."
"But that's not fair!" Chelsea sat up straight, her gaze locking with his. "We made a deal. You said you'd make me pregnant."
"And I'm not saying I won't," he said. "I have no intention of backing out of our deal. But I'm going to have to add a stipulation of my own."
"You're going to force me to... enjoy myself?" she asked, her tone intentionally snide.
He obviously couldn't help the smile that gently curled his mouth. "No." He shook his head. "All I'm asking is that we get to know one ano
ther. I want you to know who's making love to you. And I want to know who I'm making love to." Then his gaze intensified, as he added, "I want you to trust me."
"But... but..."
He touched her thigh with his strong, tanned hand. "It won't take long, Chels. You'll see. Soon you'll understand that I'm not a bad person. I only want to help you the way you've helped me." He stood up and looked down at her. "Good night, Chels. I'll see you in the morning."
She silently watched him cross the room, heard his footsteps fade down the hallway. Every muscle in her body felt stretched to the limit. Tears screamed for release.
He didn't know what he was asking. She knew he wasn't a bad person. In fact, she'd already noticed just how wonderful he was. But she couldn't get to know him. She couldn't let him get to know her. And she certainly couldn't ever come to trust him. Because that would mean she'd have to reveal herself to him. And Chelsea knew revealing herself meant becoming vulnerable.
Her chin quivered and a single tear trailed slowly down her cheek. Vulnerable was the one thing she'd long ago promised herself she'd never become.
Chapter Four
Ben sat at the kitchen table, lingering over his morning coffee. It had been three days since his wedding… three days since he and Chelsea had discussed their differing views on sleeping together. And now he felt as though they were at some sort of stalemate. She'd been quiet and reserved around him before this whole marriage business, but now she avoided him altogether. That's why he'd decided to dawdle a bit this morning and pour himself an unprecedented second cup of coffee, in an effort to force her to talk to him.
He should probably feel bad about insisting on their getting to know one another before they tried to conceive a baby. He knew that physiologically it wasn't necessary for them to know or even like one another before they made love. But Chelsea had made the act sound so impersonal. He couldn't imagine having sex with an unresponsive woman. She seemed intent to detach herself from the whole proceedings.
