There wasn’t anything left in Kanile that Mitch recognized anymore. He didn’t respond.
“I know Mitch Junior wouldn’t remember me, but has he ever asked about me, you know, asked about his mommy?” Mitch didn’t answer her. He stared at her, his brows knit. Although a sudden feeling of fear gripped her stomach, Sophia had to ask Mitch the question that had haunted her for years. She lifted her hands from her lap and placed them on the table with her fingers entwined. Her eyes met and held his. “When can I see him, Mitch?” she asked quietly.
He turned cold, stunned eyes on Sophia, and looked at her for a long moment then briefly he looked around the room, before he returned his attention back at her. “Are you hungry?”
“Mitch, you can’t avoid my question. I want to see my baby, our baby. I want to be with him. I am well now and I want my child in my life.”
“So now you want to take him away from me?”
“No, I don’t want to do that but I know you and I can work something out so that we can both be in Mitch Junior’s life. Please, Mitch. This is not a Sophia pity party. I am not waging a war on Sophia’s rights.” She paused a moment and her entire body shuddered. “I have missed my baby so much. Please,” Sophia said and she began to cry.
Mitch took a deep breath. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her.
“You don’t have to cry. We will talk about it.” He knew Sophia would want to see their son. They would just have to find a way to reintroduce her into Mitch Junior’s life without confusing him.
After wiping away her tears, Sophia returned his handkerchief. Mitch didn’t want Sophia to hurt anymore. She had suffered enough, more than anyone had a right to. It seemed she had suffered most of her life. Yes, Sophia had been through enough, had suffered enough to last a lifetime.
After a little time had passed and Sophia had had a chance to compose herself, Mitch said,
“This may not interest you but I did make partner in my old firm,” he began and immediately he saw her eyes light up.
“As I predicted.” Sophia’s demeanor changed as she smiled at him.
“Yes, as you predicted. And even more, I left that firm and I now have my own business.”
Sophia’s hands, with her beautiful pink nails, went up to her mouth. “Oh, Mitch, I never had any doubt that you would do amazingly well, and now you have your own business. I am so proud of you.”
Mitch gazed at Sophia from across the table and he had to admit she was right. When no one else, not even his wife had any faith in him, Sophia did. “You always said so and I appreciated your faith in me.” After gazing at her another moment, he asked, “You ready to order some dinner?”
“No, actually I’m not hungry. We had a late lunch, so I’m good.”
“Great, because I’ve got an idea. Where are you staying?”
“Right here at the hotel.”
“So am I. Let me make a suggestion.”
“Sure. What?”
“Why don’t we each go up and change and I’ll take you out for the evening?”
Feeling a ripple of excitement rush through her body, Sophia said, “That sounds great.”
They got up from the table and after Mitch threw several bills on the table, they left the restaurant. When they entered the elevator, Mitch looked at Sophia before hitting a button for her floor. When she told him her suite was on the fourteenth floor, his mouth fell open. As luck or fate would have it, their rooms were on the same floor.
“This is too much of a coincidence,” Sophia said and Mitch chuckled with her because he had to admit that it really was a coincidence. “I could not have scripted this better,” she confessed.
Mitch looked at Sophia, completely amused by her as he took her room key card and opened the door to her suite. He was completely taken aback by Sophia’s next move once the door was closed behind them. Sophia moved quickly into Mitch’s arms and before he could think, she had fastened her arms around his neck and her tongue was in his mouth. Although the contact sent waves of sensual reaction crashing through his body, Mitch forced his mouth away from hers. Staring at her lips, he gritted his teeth as he reached his hands up to Sophia’s arms and removed them from around his neck ignoring the disappointed look on her face. Mitch looked at his watch. 6:15. “I’ll pick you up at 8.” With that, Mitch turned and walked out the door.
A strange sensation began deep in Mitch’s stomach as he walked away from Sophia’s door, and down the corridor pass three room doors to his room. He removed his room key card from his pocket and opened the door to his room.
He entered the room, loosened his tie enough to pull it over his head and he threw it onto the bed along with his jacket. He kicked off his shoes, then his trousers. He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, stepped into it, and allowed the cold water to run over his head and down his tall, lean muscular body.
Mitch exited the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around him. He laid back on the bed, grabbed the remote, and turned on the television. After flipping through the channels, not really paying attention to what was on the screen, Mitch turned off the set, leaped from the bed and ripped the towel from his body.
He unzipped his suitcase, pulled from it a white short-sleeved pullover sweater and a pair of dark brown slacks that he hurried into. After ramming his feet into his shoes and slipping his room key card into his pants pocket, he rushed out of the room. Although, initially he was still feeling some kind of way about Sophia, from the time he laid eyes on her, spending time alone in his hotel room was very unappealing.
As Mitch knocked on the room door, he was reminded that this situation felt like déjà vu all over again. Yes, it was déjà vu all over again and he didn’t care. He didn’t care six years ago and he doesn’t care now.
Mitch interrupted Sophia taking a shower because when she opened the door, she had water beads on her face, her short copper hair was wet and matted against her head and she was wearing only a short white terrycloth robe.
Mitch pushed opened the door. Sophia looked up into his face, her beautiful enormous dark eyes dilated. Mitch grabbed Sophia and pulled her roughly into his arms as her robe fell open, exposing portions of her beautiful breasts. First, his mouth came down hard to meet her lips. He heard her breath intake just before her tongue was in his mouth. The hunger that flared inside her matched his exactly.
While Mitch had one hand on Sophia’s back to hold her body close to him, his other hand caught and held the back of her head, holding it captive so that she couldn’t pull away even if she wanted to, and no way did Sophia want to. She was too engaged in kissing him back, her mouth moving ferociously and heatedly under his to do anything else.
He sucked hard on her tongue, wanting all of her sweetness deep inside his mouth. As the kiss deepened, a shudder of undeniable pleasure shot through her. Then his tongue was inside her mouth and she used hers to toy with his. When their lips parted, his lips slid down her throat savoring the smell and taste of her freshly showered scented skin.
In one swift movement, Mitch lifted Sophia up into his arms and carried her over to her bed where he laid her down. Her robe completely open now, revealing her entire ripe, plump breasts, causing Mitch’s penis to press hard against the zipper of his slacks since he wasn’t wearing underwear. His eyes never left hers as he ripped his sweater over his head, unzipped his pants, and kicked them off along with his shoes. She gazed at him through heavy-lidded eyes filled with desire.
In the next moment, he was on the bed with Sophia in his arms. He kissed her and she kissed him back with all her hunger for love on her lips. After kissing her hard, bruising, he tore his mouth from hers, slid the robe down her arms, pulled it from her body, and flung it to the floor. Now, they were naked. He moved his body against hers, skin to skin. She felt the coarse caress of his body hair, the heat, and moisture between her thighs. She whispered his name, “Mitch.” She ached for him to be inside her, to fill her as he’d done before, so long ago.
He used his mouth to bite, tease, and nibble her until she couldn’t take no more. Sophia closed her eyes and groaned from the intense pleasure that he was igniting throughout her body. When it was like a crescendo of desire flowing through her, she screamed his name. Her body rose off the bed up against his face and she moved her body in such a way that let him know that she wanted him. All of him. “Are you ready for this?” he asked.
Sophia was so touched by his concern for her that tears crept out under her lids. “Yes, my love. I’m fine and I’m ready for this. I’m ready for you.”
He ran a finger over her closed eyes, gently wiping away the tears from her lashes. He kissed her once more as she spread her legs for him. When he entered her, he was certain he heard bells ringing in his ears. He made love to her gently yet thoroughly.
“Darling, I am a woman. Don’t treat me like an expensive piece of china,” she whispered against his mouth. “I am completely recovered and I want you to love me like I know you can.”
Mitch didn’t know how he was able to restrain himself as long as he did, but now that she was giving him permission to take her as he wanted to, his passion mounted in a way that he had never experienced before. He unleashed pinned up feelings that had gone untouched in that way for years and all he wanted to do was swim in her body for the rest of his life.
***
When they awoke hours after being wrapped in each other’s arms, Sophia said, “I knew you were coming back here.”
“No you didn’t,” Mitch teased but he believed that somehow she did know. She had such intuition into him and his behavior. Hadn’t she predicted that they would make love together almost six years ago, walking on the beach on Myrtle Beach?
Sophia pulled her head back so that she could look into his eyes. He smiled as he stared down into her beautiful face and he wondered what it would be like to journey through the seasons of life with her. Mitch then pulled her head back close to him. So much had happened within the past twenty-four hours, so much and the strangest feeling had come over him.
Is it true that time heals everything? How can you know for sure? Life has brutal ways of throwing you curves. Sometimes, you can work through them and put them in the past while other curves will attach themselves to you forever, reminding you that when you think you have hit rock bottom, there is always an even lower level that you can fall to. Although nearly six years had passed since that dreadful day, the details were etched in Mitch’s memory. He remembered the incident all too well. Mitch had fallen to that level when a young woman surprised him and his wife by practically leaving a baby on their doorstep, blowing him out of the water and leaving Kanile in complete shock with her mouth hanging wide open. At that time, there was no way Mitch could have known that he would find happiness again, especially the kind of happiness he was experiencing right now with Sophia, that same young woman who had disrupted his life years ago, but it had.
Sophia, the most beautiful woman that Mitch had ever seen, the woman he was deeply in love with and who loved him from the day they met was lying in his arms, in bed with him. A woman who had asked nothing from his but his love yet she had vowed to give everything of herself. Mitch had never known this kind of happiness and with Sophia, he intended to savor it, protect it, and keep it safe in a very special place in his heart forever. In this game called life, things can change in an instant. Mitch knows now that this was how he and Sophia’s lives were supposed to be. It was destiny because years ago, that day he believed was dreadful, had brought he and Sophia back to Myrtle Beach, together again. Only this time the situation was different, very different. They arrived at the beach with different ideas of what their future would be like but they would leave the beach together, as a couple and they would build from now. Whatever their future held, they would be together, with their son.
***
The storm that had looked threatening all day had finally unleashed, sending sheets of rain lashing against the windowpane of the hotel room. Although a violent storm was raging outside, erupting around Mitch and Sophia, he was oblivious to it. He was intensely aware that he and Sophia were tucked in that hotel room, in bed together.
Now that Sophia was back in his arms, he wanted her to stay there. He whispered against her hair. “We’ve got so much to talk about and some tough decisions to make.”
Sophia responded. “I agree!”
“I don’t know how you feel about this but I don’t what to lose you again. Six years ago, there wasn’t anything I could do about it even if I wanted to. But now I can, but only if you want me as much as I want you.”
Sophia remained silent.
“I would like nothing more than to have you, our son, and I together as a family.”
It was Sophia’s turn to speak. “What exactly are you saying?”
“Call me crazy, Sophia but I want you to marry me.”
“I believe I loved you from the night we first met but when the situation went so far out of control, I just stored my feelings for you in the deep recesses of my mind.”
Though it came out of nowhere, after making up his mind to ask Sophia to marry him, Mitch was impatient for an answer. “Well…Sophia? Will you marry me? Will you marry us?”
Mitch knew that time didn’t heal everything. Some things that happen in life never heal. Sometimes the pain of a particular situation goes on forever. He didn’t know where time would take him, Mitch Jr. and Sophia, but he was certain he was willing to go on that journey with Sophia and their son and see where it lead.
“Yes! Yes!” She was breathless. “I will marry you! I have been waiting for you to ask me from the time when we first met.” Sophia knew the first night she saw Mitch that she was going to meet him. Although she didn’t know how she would make it happen, she knew she was going to have him. Somehow, she just knew it. She was thirsty for Mitch then and she was thirsty for him now. Sophia’s wish had come true. Her wish upon that falling star that night long ago, her sin and her shame were now things of the past. Then suddenly Sophia leaped out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Mitch asked.
Sophia didn’t answer him. Sophia went over to her suitcase, searched through it and after removing some thing. She walked back over and got back into bed with Mitch.
“What have you got there?” Mitch was curious.
Sophia revealed to him what she was holding in her hand.
Mitch’s face broke out into a huge grin. “A seashell.” He took the seashell from Sophia’s hand, looked at it, then at her. “This is the seashell I gave you on the beach that night all those years ago.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You kept it.”
“I told you I would.”
Mitch knew, at that moment, that he had not, nor would he ever, love another woman as he loved Sophia, and he knew he always would.
“I love you, baby,” he said. “And I can’t wait to take you home to see our son.”
Sophia was so excited she could hardly breathe. “I love you, Mitch.”
Mitch took Sophia into his arms and kissed her with a passion that he had not felt since the first night they met. If Mitch thought making love to Sophia last night was overwhelming in its passion, intensity, thoroughness, making love to her now, fiercely and relentlessly pump
ing into her was something out of the best dream he could have ever imagined. In kind, Sophia wrapped herself around Mitch and bucked back with him, giving herself to him in its entirety, claiming him as her own. At that moment, with their heads swimming with more love than they thought was possible, all they knew for sure was that they would wake in the morning wrapped in the comfort of each other’s arms, and every morning afterwards.
The Sin, The Sun, & The Shame Page 14
