by Alisa Easton
“You really do look breathtaking in that dress,” he said letting his eyes trail the length of my body, “I don’t blame your date for taking certain liberties with you.”
I am sure that I blushed. “He is only a friend. He escorted me to my best friend’s wedding because I didn’t have anyone else to go with. He took pity on me.”
“That’s some kind of pity.”
“It’s not what it looks like. He was only doing me a favor.”
“I find that hard to believe. You must have men lining up to take you out.”
“There have been a few that have taken interest over the years, I suppose.”
“But you weren’t interested in them?”
“Reese, I don’t think you came here tonight to pry into my love life, or lack thereof. So why are you here?”
He shifted uncomfortably while he collected his thoughts.
“I can’t stop thinking about you, Alexandra.”
I looked down at my hands unsure how to react. The last time he walked into my life and told me that he couldn’t stop thinking about me, he was gone again almost just as quickly. I was afraid to get my hopes up or trust again too easily. Each time he tore away from me, I knew that it would only hurt me deeper.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I said barely finding my voice to speak the words. I didn’t want to say goodbye but I knew that I couldn’t handle the cycle of sex and then nothing with no hopes of contacting him in between. As good as Reese managed to make me feel, I needed more and I wasn’t going to settle.
“I’m sorry, Alex. I probably shouldn’t have come here tonight. I knew it was wrong. All of it was wrong.”
“It didn’t feel wrong,” I whispered more to myself than to him.
He turned his back to me as he moved toward the door but still he was reluctant to turn the handle and let himself out. I froze in place.
“I know about your wife and daughter,” I said more to the empty space at my feet rather than to him, “Sylvia told me.”
He sucked in his breath but didn’t turn from the door. He didn’t say anything in response but he didn’t turn back to me either so I decided to push further.
“I know your life must be complicated right now and I don’t want to make it more complicated,” I told him slowly, “I just want to find a place in it if you’ll let me.”
“Alexandra…”
“You can tell me what’s going on and I can listen. I’m willing to listen, Reese.”
He turned back to me and we stayed frozen in that moment for what felt like an eternity simply looking at each other and not really knowing what to say. I knew that he wanted to find a reason to stay with me as much as I wanted him to stay but still, he held back. Was he too afraid to give me that chance?
“Her mother has made my life a living hell for the past year,” he told me. He took my hands in his and held on tightly. “Fighting to get custody of my daughter, Kelly, has cost me nearly everything I had. I have nothing left to offer.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know where I went wrong. I tried to do the right thing. I blamed myself for a long time. I still blame myself. There are so many things that I wish I’d done differently.”
“How old is your daughter?” I whispered as he paused. I could see the pain and the weariness that set in the lines of his face and I wished that I could lean forward to kiss them away.
“Kelly is five. She lives with her grandparents right now about half a block from where I met you that night. I stay there a couple nights per week when I can. I haven’t been able to sleep much so sometimes I’d spend the night just walking trying to clear my head, trying to think about anything except the misery that my life had become. It was the only thing that kept me from ending it all right then. Because of Lisa, I lost my job, I lost my house, I lost everything.”
“Oh, Reese.”
He laughed softly. “I know the couple that likes to have sex with their curtains open. I used to work with the woman and when I realized it was her, I couldn’t stop watching. It’s terrible, isn’t it? That I stood outside and watched them? That I got excited at the sight of them?”
“No, it’s not terrible,” I said remembering how she looked back at me as Reese pulled away my clothes in the rain. I’d been just as turned on by the experience.
“Then you came along and for a little while, I forgot about everything else going on in my life. I forgot about the fact that I wanted it all to end. Being with you is different than anything I’ve ever experienced. I don’t know if it’s the way that we met or something else but I can’t seem to pull myself away from you.”
“I feel the same way.”
“But you deserve someone that can make you happy. That can offer you so much more than I can offer you. I’m nothing, Alex. I’m just a lost, desperate man fighting to get my daughter away from a drug addicted woman I wish I’d never met. I’m fighting a battle that I’m probably doomed to lose and even if I win, I still have a long road ahead to put my life back together again. I can’t afford to complicate things right now and I can’t bring you into this mess that I call my life.”
“I don’t really want you to leave, I told him, “I want you to be a part of my life.”
“Didn’t you hear anything I said? I’m no good for you. There is only one thing that I can offer you.”
“I don’t care, Reese. We can work it out somehow. If you didn’t believe that then why are you here now?”
I couldn’t help myself. I looked into his eyes and saw the pain and desperation. A part of me knew that he was right and I should let him be but I couldn’t accept it. I leaned forward and I kissed him hard. I didn’t just sink into our kiss, I gave in to some primal urge inside me that told me that nothing else mattered except being with him. I kissed him with an urgency and passion that I’d never felt before and much to my relief, he didn’t push me away. He kissed me back.
Our bodies spoke the words that we couldn’t say. Our hands and tongues engaged in conversation, pulling free from clothes, and blending into one another so that the only the only thing that existed was him and me in one moment and somehow we knew that whatever we felt together was greater than ourselves and we would never walk away from it. We had both changed since that first night in the rain. In some strange way, we’d both been lost and searching and we found ourselves in one another.
We didn’t even bother to try to make our way to the bedroom. Reese pulled me down to the living room floor with him and there we rolled and tangled together and explored one another’s flesh as though it was the first time we’d ever seen another human body. I kissed him everywhere as he did the same to me.
When he reached my ear and nibbled along the edge he whispered breathlessly, “I love you, Alex.”
We both knew that whatever obstacles may lie in the path ahead, we would face them together.
“I love you, too.”
My body tingled everywhere that he touched me. If I thought that my experience with Reese couldn’t have been more intense the other times that we were together, I was very mistaken. We moved perfectly together and once we had satiated each other thoroughly on the living room floor, we made our way to the shower where we started all over again. No matter how many times we pleasured each other, I didn’t think it would ever be enough.
As the morning sun tiptoed through my bedroom window and we lay in my bed wearing nothing but a sheet and each other’s arms, we made a promise to each other that we would always be together.
And many years later, our promise remains unbroken and our pleasures know no bounds.
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