by Loomis, Lisa
“Really?” I said mockingly as I stripped off my bra and panties.
“Yeah, really,” he said smiling.
I watched him peel off his jeans; still commando like always. The sight of his hard cock made my heart race with anticipation.
“You’re full of shit,” I panted. “You’ve got your boots on. You were at least hoping.”
He laughed, and it felt like music to my ears. When we fell into bed, he pulled me to him, pressing our bodies together. He was ready to go, but he took his time, massaging my back, feeling my body, making me wild with desire. Our breathing was coming in gasps before he finally rolled on top of me. I wrapped my legs around him, my heels pressed into his backside as he entered me.
“Oh, Ryan, make love to me,” I moaned.
His cock filled me; in and out he thrust, slowly at first, and then building, faster and harder. My hands caressed his neck, his back, his ass, as he rocked us towards the peak all the while kissing me. Our bodies fit together like they hadn’t been apart. He made me feel like I was flying, soaring, as we launched off the peak together. As he collapsed into me I could feel his heart beating, it filled my ears, a sound so sweet it brought tears to my eyes.
I wiggled into the crock between his arm and his shoulder, resting my head on him. He ran his fingers lightly down my side. I wanted to stay just like this, almost afraid to move and break the moment. He lifted my face and lightly kissed my forehead and my eyelids and then my lips.
“I do love you,” he whispered. “I love you with all my heart.”
That was enough for now. I wasn’t going to ask him to define it. Maybe he had figured things out, and maybe he hadn’t. I would have to wait and see if he was able to give me what I needed. He held me tight and we talked, catching up on things, gradually at first and then like we always had, easily and comfortable. He wanted to know about Tahoe, and I divulged most of it. He asked if I had dated and I told him yes. He didn’t push for any details.
“Ryan, I’ll agree to see you for a while and see what happens. This isn’t an easy decision for me. I went away to forget you. I wanted to force you from my head and my heart, and you won’t let me. I won’t be waiting anymore, and I won’t be exclusive. If we are going to date, I’m going to date other people as well,” I said.
“I don’t like it, but I understand,” he said quietly.
Of course you don’t like it and why do you understand it!? If he wanted to date, that was what he was going to get. I didn’t know who else I was going to date, but I would find someone. If he still didn’t have both feet in I was going to torment him. I thought about Tahoe, was I willing to push it off? Here, now, in his arms, with the man I felt was the one, sadly the answer was yes.
Chapter 46
Mom acted like she had won the lottery.
“Mom, I agreed to see him. It doesn’t mean that we’re back together,” I cautioned.
“I know,” she said excitedly.
I didn’t want to blow her high, so I left it alone. I spent the next two months finding dates, to not be readily available for Ryan. I could tell it was torturing him, and I wanted it to. I made sure at least every other week I already had plans: a movie date, a dinner date, a sailing date. I gave the dates different names and spent a lot of time with Luke. He was a saint to tolerate me. As close as I was with Mom, I didn’t even let her know. I figured she might slip and tell Ryan.
“So, can I take you out to dinner Friday?” Ryan asked over the phone.
“I can’t, Ryan, I have plans already,” I said.
There was a pause.
“Okay,” he said, sounding bothered. “Saturday night?”
“I think I’m open Saturday,” I said.
“You think?” he asked.
“I guess I could be,” I said casually.
“Can we do dinner and dancing?” he asked.
“That sounds like fun.”
“What are you doing Friday night?” Ryan asked with a hint of dread in his voice.
“Dinner and a movie,” I lied.
“Not with that Blake guy again?” he asked.
I’d used Blake’s name more than once, although I wasn’t seeing him at all. Ryan had met Blake once at The Chart House, so he knew what he looked like, like someone I would be attracted to.
“Ryan, don’t ask me,” I said, crossly.
I had to keep reminding myself that Ryan put us in this uncomfortable place. It was he who questioned his feelings. We hadn’t revisited the whole love and in-love question. I wasn’t going to open myself up by asking. For once in my life, I was being realistic instead of letting my feelings run the show. Nothing came up about the girl.
“On Saturday, can we have a drink at your place, say around six, and then head out?” he asked.
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you Saturday,” I said.
I hung up the phone, pleased with myself. I called Liz and asked if she could be my dinner movie date on Friday. We decided we would skip the movie and instead have just dinner. I suggested we go to La Jolla to stay out of our normal haunts. Liz liked Ryan, but she had seen my hurt, and she understood my need to make him feel some pressure.
When Ryan arrived Saturday, he looked so handsome that it made me long for other times, times when I thought we knew we loved each other. I had done a pretty good job of keeping my emotions in check, but it was getting more difficult every time I saw him. I was tiring of the game; I was never good at games. I was thinking maybe it was time to move on, end it, that I loved him, but it wasn’t going anywhere. He’d said he loved me, but other than that there was no commitment. I would never issue another ultimatum.
That night Ryan took me to a Japanese restaurant. We followed the hostess into a private room where we sat on mats on the floor. We talked and laughed, and for a minute, I could pretend it was like the old days. He offered to take me line dancing, but I didn’t want to share him tonight. I told him I would prefer we go back to my place. I was feeling melancholy about our past. Once inside I took his hand and led him to my bedroom wanting to lose myself to him, maybe for the last time.
He took me in his arms, holding me tight. A safe peacefulness I hadn’t felt since before he left washed over me. The butterflies were calmly floating on a sweet smelling breeze; stripping my mind of any thoughts of an end. I kissed his lips lightly and then his neck as I unbuttoned his shirt. As I did so I kissed down his chest and his stomach until I got to the top of his jeans. I got on my knees and undid his pants, button by button. I pulled them down from the back feeling his tight ass.
“Um,” he groaned.
Pushing his jeans to the floor I took his hard cock in my mouth.
He lay on his side staring down at me with a smile. I was lying on my back in the bed still catching my breath, my chest rising and falling, my heart beating fast. I looked into his eyes and could see the sparkle.
“Wow,” I whimpered.
Our lovemaking made me think of the time in the shower after the desert when I’d seen a side of Ryan I hadn’t before. He could always surprise me; make me reach new places. He leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips.
“Wow? You liked that huh?”
I smiled stretching languidly like a cat. He hadn’t asked me directly, but he’d poked around the question of whether I was sleeping with anyone else. I let him poke, never giving him a straight answer. He ran his fingers down the side of my face pushing my hair back then lifted my hand from my stomach and laced his fingers in mine.
“Morgan, I don’t want you to date anyone else,” he said.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want the moment to be gone.
“Ryan—” I started to object, pulling my hand from his.
“Let me finish,” he interrupted. “I love you…and I’m in love with you.”
My eyes flew open and I rolled onto my side pushing myself up on my elbow. He smiled, as I stared into his eyes. Taking my chin in his hand he drew my face to his and kissed me.
“I’m sorry for the pa
in I have caused you. I wasn’t sure before, but I am now,” he said adoringly.
He searched my face. Am now, what? Swallowing hard I tried to slow my mind, memories, thoughts, emotions were swirling like a newly churned up river. I could feel my heart spill open, but I was afraid to say anything, feel all the feelings again, let my heart completely reattach to him. He ran his hand down my arm gently.
“Our time apart made me take a hard look at things, take a look at myself. I’ve had to dig deep in my soul, and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve had to look at my fear and take it apart, try to figure it out…” he started.
My blood was pumping rapidly and I could feel the pulse in my neck. I glanced away from him.
“My initial reaction was to go, to pack up and move away so I wouldn’t have to answer the questions, but that’s always been my solution. I talked to your mom and to my mom, and I started to see that I didn’t want to keep going that way. I realized I can live without you, but I don’t want to,” he said with a conviction that shook me.
The words ran around in my head and made me feel dizzy. Now what? What was I going to do with his words? I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes. They burned slightly, and I put my fingers to my temples massaging them. Ryan leaned over and kissed me. When he pulled away, I opened my eyes and could feel them fill with tears. I stared at him, not knowing what to say. What does that mean?
“I’m in love with you,” he said intensely.
I searched his eyes for reassurance, reassurance I could let my heart go.
“I want to marry you,” Ryan said. “Spend my life loving you.”
I heard the words, but it took my brain a minute to process them.
“Will you marry me?” he asked.
The tears spilled from my eyes as the butterflies tumbled joyfully.
“Why are you crying?” he asked, pulling me to him.
“I don’t know,” I said, burying my face into his neck.
What the hell, Ryan?”
“Will you?” he pleaded. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes, of course I will,” I said through a happy sob. “When, when do you want to marry me?”
It seemed unreal. I’d yearned for this moment so many times with him and yet never saw it, never visualized what it would look like. It wasn’t staged or pre-planned. It was from the heart. If he had given me clues that it was coming, I hadn’t seen them.
“Let’s pick a date,” he said elatedly.
“Now?” I asked, still in shock.
“Right now, get a calendar,” he said, wiping away my tears with his fingers.
“You know Mom will go nuts. She has been so broken up about us. I have felt so bad for her, how torn she’s been. My family loves you, Ryan,” I said and kissed him.
“Get a calendar,” he said, pushing me from the bed.
I walked naked to the spare bedroom and pulled the calendar from the wall. The picture was of a tree-lined dirt road the fall colors vibrant and beautiful, leaves of orange and red and yellow; the beginning of a new road for us. I brought it back to the bed and climbed in next to him feeling his warm skin on mine.
“Here,” I said, flipping forward through the months.
“You pick,” he said.
“I need time to plan a wedding.” I said happily. “A wedding…”
We decided on April. I asked him to call his parents and tell them; I wanted to make sure he was absolutely serious. He dialed their number, and I could tell from both the length of their conversation and Ryan’s answers that they were thrilled.
“I want to tell my parents in person,” I said when he hung up. “Can we have them over for dinner tomorrow night?”
“That will work,” he said grinning.
I called Mom and invited them. She was excited to hear Ryan would be at dinner. I kept our conversation brief as I was so wound up I didn’t want to leak anything over the phone.
“She is going to freak,” I said with delight.
I loved surprising Mom. It felt like Christmas. I wanted to surprise her, to feel the magic.
“So about the dating thing, since you agreed to marry me, I assume you will call the other guys off,” he teased.
I snuggled into him.
“Oh, I assume I’ll have to,” I said nonchalantly.
I had to know the whys. I needed to understand why we had happened this way. Why the path had been so long and so rocky.
“What took you so long, Ryan?” I asked seriously.
He wrapped his arms around me.
“I needed to be sure. I’m only doing this rodeo one time, so I had to be damn sure. When I first met you, I never thought I could date a girl like you. That you were so far out of my league, and Max was in the picture then too. When he wasn’t anymore, I’d gotten to know you, and I thought you were too wild for me. That you would never stay with one person. I saw you with the boys, remember,” he said.
He paused, and I waited.
“I watched the partying, the guy parade, and I didn’t think it would stop. You and Liz scared me more than once. You two could do material damage. Like the day you started at Del Dios Bar in the morning after a fight with Max and Dave. I was building shelves for your mom, and you two showed up at noon completely hammered and in your pajamas after being at the bar all morning. I remember thinking, who does that? When we started dating, I was pleasantly surprised, but still had my doubts.”
I could see where I could have scared him. I hadn’t only been somewhat of a wild child, but he knew all about it. He’d heard the stories, from me no less, and witnessed enough firsthand to have cause to worry.
“When I’d proved it to you though, you still had reservations obviously,” I said.
He shifted adjusting us slightly.
“Look at my life. I’ve moved around every two or three years, and I have been in California almost seven years now. You wanted more, and I wasn’t sure I could give it. I thought maybe it was time to move on again. When I moved out, and then you were gone, all I could think about was you. I would go talk to your mom and try to work through my feelings, but that was tough too because it was your mom. Every time I tried to tell myself to just leave town, I thought about how my life would be without you, and I couldn’t picture it,” he said.
I could understand his fear, his doubts, but he’d had issues too, it wasn’t all me.
“Ryan, you have a history too, you know. The pining over Carrie. The long string of girls that followed. A lot of that string being my friends, and let’s not forget to throw a mother in there,” I said. “We both had things we were working through. Maybe we just weren’t ready at the start. We had to go down this rocky road to get here.”
“Could be,” he said tilting his head towards mine. “Here is good, here is where I want to be, with you.”
When he kissed me, the floodgate opened. The love and the longing, the wanting and desire, spilled out with a force that was overwhelming. Ryan could feel it, I could tell, and he let me take control. I rolled him onto his back, straddling him, teasing his body until he couldn’t stand it anymore. When he urgently grabbed my hips and lowered me onto him, it was with a hunger that made me shiver.
I lay on my back next to him, still feeling flushed. I’m getting married to my best friend! I couldn’t wait to see my parent’s reaction, couldn’t wait to tell the world.
“Willing to give up the Casanova Cowboy ways?” I teased.
“The Casanova part anyway,” he said with a grin. “I’m hoping you’ll let me keep the cowboy part.”
Chapter 47
My parents came to dinner the following night. It was all I could do to get everyone a glass of wine before I told them the news with Ryan smiling at my side.
“We’re getting married,” I said beaming.
“Oh, my god,” Mom screamed, and jumped towards us in delight.
She almost spilled her wine as she flung her arms around the two of us. I could see Dad smiling over her shoulder. She had tears in her eyes
when she let go and she hurried to her purse for a tissue.
“No wonder your table is set so beautifully, it’s a celebration,” she said dabbing at her eyes.
“Congratulations,” my dad said reaching to shake Ryan’s hand.
The small dining table was set with my nicest stuff, brightly colored cloth mats and napkins, red candleholders with white candles. I’d fixed a seafood stew and the aroma filled the air. We sat in the living room drinking wine and talking. Of course Mom wanted all the details, and we laughed about Ryan’s choice of venue. I served the stew in bright white bowls along with soft sourdough bread.
“Do you not like it, Mom?” I asked her when I noticed how little she ate.
“I love it, honey. I’m just not that hungry.”
“You’ve lost weight, Mom,” I complimented her.
“That’s a good thing,” she said with a smile. “I need to go buy some new clothes, so mine don’t hang on me.”
Mom was pretty consistently a size ten. She had been very thin when she was younger and had complained through the years about gaining weight, dieting off and on. Diets that mostly didn’t work, since she hated to exercise.
“Sometimes stress is a good thing,” she laughed again.
I knew she was referring to the situation with Ryan and me.
“When we look at wedding dresses for you, we can do some shopping for me,” she said excitedly.
Over the next few months, Ryan and I were so busy planning for the wedding. There were so many decisions that needed to be made. It became a little easier when Ryan moved back into the condo; I didn’t have to chase him down because he was home every night.
I got rid of my dates. Most fiction and actually spent with Luke, who joked that he would miss our nights out. He was happy for me that I was happy although he still thought Ryan and my’s journey was too rough. It worried him. Liz, my other “date”, was thrilled by the news and was to be in the wedding so she was around a lot.
Ryan and I went to a jeweler and custom designed our wedding rings, picking out the settings, and even the diamonds to fill mine. It was such an exciting time. I even got a real job. I accepted a position as a loan officer at a national mortgage company and reluctantly quit my Chart House job. I missed the people, but not the nights.
