by Mary Peart
“I see,” the man drawled. “What is this about?”
“He called her the other day and I have asked him not to call her again. I want to make sure he doesn’t.” Christopher told him, his message clear.
“I will see to it from my end,” Merrick told him grimly. “You are just protecting your territory, nothing wrong with that.”
“You protect your daughter as well; he is not really a stand up kind of guy.” Christopher told him.
“Oh I know that very well and I have ways to deal with men like him. Sheila might be a bubble head but she is my bubble head and I am hoping for a grandson I can groom to take over the business one day.”
“I certainly hope it happens.” Christopher told him. “We will be in touch.”
“We certainly will be.”
Chapter 8
June came in with rain and thunderclouds and sweltering humidity and heat and the smell of gardenias and petunias heavy on the air. Sophia found that although she was only three months pregnant, she was starting to feel like she was wilting. She had been taking the vitamins and iron the doctor had prescribed for her and Christopher had been hovering over her like a mother hen making sure she was not working too hard.
He had been irritatingly vigilant as well because he came around her office and asked Amelia to let him see what she had been working on so far. The petrified girl had heeded his request and gave him the files with the different buildings she was checking on.
“You need to let me do my job,” She had told him as soon she found out. She had stepped out of the office to go to the kitchen to get some soup and chat with the chef a little bit. She had also noticed that Amanda had been behaving strangely from the other day and was determined to find out what was going on with her.
He looked up as Sophia barged into his office without knocking. She was the only one who could get away with doing that. “What are you talking about and have you eaten?” he glanced at the clock and noticed that it was almost two o’clock.
She looked at him in frustration sitting behind his massive desk, an air of confidence and superiority about him. “Why do you think you have to monitor what I do Christopher? Don’t you trust me?”
“Nonsense,” he told her mildly getting up from around his desk and coming around to face her. He looked her over quickly checking for any sign of weariness. She was dressed in a chic olive green pants suit and a multicolored scarf tied stylishly around her neck. Her hair was in dozens of tiny ringlets and fell down to her shoulders and there was a special glow on her face giving her a stunningly beautiful look. “If I did not trust you I would have locked you up and thrown away the keys. Relax baby I am just making sure you are not overworking yourself.”
She gave him a fulminating stare which he met head on.
“How about a kiss for your very concerned husband?” he asked her mildly.
She stepped back and looked at him coolly. “I am very good at what I do and I want this baby as much as you do. I am not going to let anything harm our child so back off and stop terrorizing my assistant.”
He looked at her disconcertingly for a moment and then he nodded his dark head, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “As you wish,” he told her.
“Good,” she told him briskly and without another word she turned and left, closing the door behind her. He smiled slowly as he realized that she had just won that round.
*****
Sophia skimmed through the figures quickly and then looked at her mother. She had stopped by the bookstore on her way home after she had told Christopher that she would be home a little late. He had wanted her to take Carlos with her but she had insisted on driving herself. “Stop smothering me,” she had told him mildly, giving him a kiss on the lips before leaving.
“These are very well done Mom, have you been taking classes?” she asked her. Ever since the day of Christine’s party and she had heard her mother’s conversation she had been trying to find a way to ask her mother what was going on. She had thought about telling Christopher but had decided against it.
“You could say that,” Sybil said with a laugh. It was almost five thirty and the crowd had trickled down somewhat leaving a couple of ladies browsing through the gardening section. Sophia accepted the coffee her mother handed her and sat back against the sofa in the corner. “So how are you baby girl?”
“I am well just a little bit tired and don’t think about telling Christopher because he is looking for any excuse to stop me from working.” Sophia said with a sigh.
“Can you blame him for being so excited?”Sybil said indulgently looking at her beautiful and sophisticated daughter.
“He is impossible Mom!” she said with a shake of her head and an unconscious smile on her lips.
“But you are so in love with him that you don’t mind one bit,” Sybil said gently.
“I love him so much that I find myself wondering what it would be like without him.” she admitted. “You loved dad like that once didn’t you?”
“I still do,” she looked at her daughter searchingly.
“And yet you are in love with someone else now,” Sophia said softly looking at her mother closely and seeing the flare of something there. Guilt perhaps?
“What do you mean?” Sybil asked her carefully putting away the cup she had been drinking from.
“I overheard you at the party talking to him Mom and it sounds as if you have found someone to share your life with again but what I cannot understand is why you have not shared it with me.”
Sybil looked down at her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes mirror images of her daughter’s looking across at her. “Because I am not ready to share yet and it is very complicated and I don’t know how to explain it.”
Sophia looked at her understanding dawning. “He is married.”
“Technically yes.” Sybil said with a sigh. She got up and went to deal with a customer and Sophia sat there wondering why on earth would her very sensible and upright mother be dating someone who was unavailable in the worst possible way? And what does technically married mean?
She looked up and realized that her mother had closed and locked the doors of the store and came over to sit back down. “His wife suffers from early onset dementia,” she said quietly, staring off into space, a sad expression on her attractive face. “We met when he came in to buy something for her birthday and I spent some time helping him to find a suitable gift for her and found myself thinking then that it was so refreshing for a man to go to the trouble to pick out a gift for his wife in this day and age.”
Sophia leaned forward touched by the story. Christopher picked out her gifts for her no matter how busy he was.
“He came back after that to thank me and we started talking and we talked for a long time,” she smiled in remembrance. “I started feeling something and looked forward to him coming by after work.” She looked at her daughter with a whimsical smile. “I told myself all sorts of things and why it was not a good idea to get involved with a married man but we could not help ourselves and now we are in very deep. The day when I was talking to him at Christine’s party was the very day he was packing up her things to take her to a home and it was very hard on him.”
“Oh Mom,” Sophia cried out, reaching out to clasp her hands. “You are in love with him?”
She nodded. “After your father passed I was content and prepared to be by myself for the rest of my life because I told myself that there would never be anyone who could make me feel that way again. I was not expecting this Sophia and it has taken me completely by surprise.”
“What are you going to do?” Sophia asked her sympathetically, her heart going out to all three of them.
“We see each other every day and make plans but we know deep in our hearts that he is not going to desert her in her time of need and I would not be in love with him if he did.” Sybil said with a sad smile. “She does not recognize him and prefers to talk to everyone else there but him but still he goes and every time
he does, it eats away at him just a little bit.”
“Oh Mom,” Sophia said fighting back tears. “I wish it had been different but he sounds like a really nice person.”
“He is,” Sybil told her.
“I would like to meet him.” Sophia said surprising her.
“You would?” Sybil looked at her startled.
“I would. How about we have lunch together tomorrow at the Café Du Jour at one if he can make it?” she suggested.
“I will ask him if he is available and let you know,” there was a lightness in her tone and her eyes had lost their shadows. “I am so happy I am able to talk to you about him at last. I have wanted to do that for so long.”
“I just want you to be happy Mom,” Sophia told her gently.
“I am happy when I am with him,” she said simply.
*****
That night after they had put Christine to bed and her father had read her two stories, Sophia sat in the bath she had drawn with him on the opposite end, her expression thoughtful.
“Spill,” he told her as she squeezed out the sponge and dipped it inside the scented water again.
“What?” she looked over at him with a slight frown.
“Baby you have been doing that for the past ten seconds and not saying anything. So what’s wrong?” he asked her his eyebrows rose.
She looked at him resignedly. “Even my thoughts are not private from you.” She told him peevishly.
“As it should be,” he moved closer to her and taking the sponge from her, he started soaping her arms. “What is it?”
“Do you think you would be able to love someone else if I am gone?” she asked him.
“Are you planning on going somewhere?” he asked her quizzically, his movements still.
“If I am you know dead and gone,” she explained.
“No,” he said instantly.
“Just like that?” she asked him, his answer sending a rush through her body. “You don’t have to think about it or anything?”
“No,” he repeated resuming his rubbing of her skin. He stopped again and looked at her underneath all the bubbles. She had piled her thick dark hair on top of her head and her face was wet from the water she had washed her face with, her lips parted and sexy. “No, there could never be anybody else for me but you. I love you completely and the thought of being with someone else makes me sick, so I would prefer to be alone than to settle for someone who is not going to take my loneliness away.”
She stared at him wordlessly, shaken by his admission. She felt the same way too and sometimes she wondered if their love was too intense and what would happen if one of them lost the other. “I feel the same way too,” she whispered. His hand had found her core and he had slipped two fingers inside her.
“Good,” he murmured huskily. She opened her legs and lifted her knees to give him better access to her. He thrust into her slowly and Sophia felt the shivering starting inside her body. Suddenly he pulled her up and lifted her above his head and fastened his mouth on her, his tongue reaching inside her as he thrust into her rapidly. Sophia cried out sharply, her body shuddering with the passion racing through her body. He held her firmly above him and licked at her, his tongue making her crazy with need. She moved her body against his tongue, the sounds coming from her mouth unrecognizable as her body spiraled out of control.
He pulled out of her and stood, holding her soapy wet body against his. Reaching for a towel, he stepped out of the bath with his arms around her and wrapped the towel around her. He took her inside the bedroom where he placed her gently on the bed. He stood there looking down at her, his dark eyes unreadable then he inserted a finger inside her, his eyes holding hers as thrust the finger inside her slowly, pulling it out and rubbing it against her mound. The slow torture was making her skin feel heated and she felt as if her body was imploding.
“Christopher,” she moaned, moving restlessly on the bed.
He did not respond but lifted her legs and bent them at the knees before climbing on the bed and kneeling in front of her. He dipped his tongue inside her, licking and savoring before dipping in further, his movement sharp and rapid. He reached underneath and inserted a finger and together with his tongue he brought her up and over, her control breaking into tiny pieces. She cried out sharply, her hands clenched into the sheets, her body bucking out of control but still he did not stop. She called out his name in a sob and begged him for release and he gave it to her, biting down gently on her mound and had her screaming uncontrollably as her release came with such an overwhelming force that it had her sobbing.
“No no,” she cried out. “Please Christopher please,” she begged him as she gave in to the helplessness that gave her body the momentum and the release that no one else could.
She was still trembling when he entered her, still on fire and moaning when he filled her up with his erection. She clasped him around the neck, clinging to him as she buried her face into his strong chest as he moved inside her. She did not know what to say but her body said it all and he lifted her still weak legs and clasped them around his waist, increasing the pace as the fire started all over again. She dug her short nails into the muscles of his shoulders and met his every thrust frantically.
He took her lips with his, the movement bruising and hungry as he drank from her and took from her, giving as well as getting, his body molding to hers as if they were one. He felt his testicles go stiff and he knew he was going to be spilling his seed inside her any minute now but he wanted to prolong the moment. He pulled out of her much to her dismay but placed the tip of his penis on her mound and rubbed it lightly over it causing her to shudder at the feel of him. He reached between them and held his pulsing erection tapping it on her, his eyes holding hers and seeing the intense passion there. He slid it back inside her and lifting her hips, he drove himself inside her over and over again, his body losing the control he had placed over it as she wrapped around him and pulled him in. He called out her name hoarsely, his grip tight on her, never fully understanding the desperate yearning for her but embracing it as he emptied himself inside her, his cries mingling with hers as they rode the waves together.
It was later, much later that night with their skins still flushed from the intense lovemaking that she told him about her mother.
“I feel sorry for them and I look at what we have and wonder if that would have been me and I no longer recognize you,” her lips trembled and she buried her head in his chest. His arms tightened around her waist. He was still inside her and his semi erect penis was getting harder by the minute.
“It does not matter what happens with us and to either of us, it will always be only you,” he murmured, resting his head on hers.
She kissed his chest and felt him quiver against her mouth. She loved the feel of his body against hers, the corded muscles and the lean taut frame. “I feel the same way.”
“How is she dealing with it?” he asked her softly.
“She is sad but she said that the time they spend together is worth everything.” Sophia told him.
“I guess they will have to be satisfied with that for now.” He murmured. “Don’t worry about it baby, she will get through it.”
“I love you Christopher,” she lifted her head and looked up at him.
“I know,” his lips quirked into a smile. “I love you too.”
“Sometimes I think the words are not enough for what I feel for you,” she told him.
“Then let’s use something else,” he said huskily and he reached down and captured a nipple inside his mouth. Her body arched against him and she did not have time to wonder how they could possibly want each other after what they had just done.
*****
He was a gentle man and he was completely devoted to her mother. Sophia watched as he listened to her attentively and smiled at her in a gentle manner that had her liking him a lot. He had met them at the café and had shook her hand and told her how lovely it was to finally meet her. “I have seen y
our pictures in the papers of course but the pictures do not do you any justice, you are as beautiful as your mother.”
“Thank you,” Sophia said warmly.
“I understand that congratulations are in order,” he said as soon as they had ordered their shrimp cocktail.
“Yes thanks.” Sophia told him with a smile. Her mother had told her that he had never had children and even though it had been due to his wife he had still stuck by her. “Christopher tells me that he does not care about the sex of the child but I am hoping it will be a boy.”
“Sybil is so proud of you, she keeps my ears buzzing with your accomplishments,” he smiled at her mother teasingly and Sophia was once again caught by how tender he was to her.
“What’s not to be proud of?” Sybil asked him and for a minute they looked at each other and it was as if they were the only two people in the room. They were definitely in love and there were no doubts about it. He told her about his job and how he was an account executive at the company he worked for.
“Do you like it there?” she asked him really warming up to him and liking him a lot.
“I have been there for twenty-five years and yes I like what I do and the people I work with.” He told her with a smile. Suddenly he was serious and he leaned forward and looked at Sophia. “I know you would want something better than this for your mother and so would I. We did not set out to fall in love but we did and I am so happy when I am with her. Celia,” she noticed that he did not say his wife and she found that that was so sad. “She has retreated to a place where she is better able to handle what she is feeling.”
“It must be so hard for you,” Sophia told him softly.
“It’s harder for her I think.” He told her with a grateful smile. He changed the subject then and spoke about her husband and his company and how much the job market had changed over the years.
He left them at the café and said he was getting back to work. “I hope we can do this again sometime Sophia,” he told her taking her hand in his.
“We certainly will,” Sophia assured him.