Love & Desire

by Matilda Martel

  Love & Desire

  A Collection of Love Stories

  Matilda Martel

  Matilda Martel

  Copyright © 2019 by Matilda Martel

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Stealing the Bride

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Becoming A Baroness

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  My Best Friend’s Dad

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Banished to the Netherworld

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Follow Me

  Stealing the Bride

  Chapter 1 - CELIA

  I’ve loved Jack Reed for as long as I can remember, for at least as long as I have memories. He lived across the street from us growing up and since my father didn’t have sons and his Dad died when he was young, he was almost like the brother we never had. I say almost because I never thought of him as my brother. He was the sun, the moon, the stars all rolled into one, but never my brother.

  I was 5 and he was 15 the first time I remember meeting him, when he came over to the house to help my Dad with some yard work. While mowing the lawn, Jack found a doll of mine hidden in some bushes, thanks to my older sister Camilla, and he brought her into the house to return to me. He was tall and lanky, with dark brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, but to my 5-year-old eyes, he was Prince Charming. He’d saved my doll from certain death and even washed her off for me. I was in love.

  When we got older, he naturally gravitated towards Camilla. She was 5 years older than me and they were closer in age. That was a terrible time for my poor rejected soul. Before that he’d lived in Boston while he attended Harvard and I sulked daily while he was gone- I missed him desperately. When he graduated, he returned to Virginia to start law school at Georgetown but broke my heart when he started dating Camilla. Now, I was only 13, but I was certain he and I were meant to be together. If he could only see past my flat chest and the awkward boyish figure I kept hidden behind the little girl dresses my mother still insisted I wear, he would be able to see I was the girl for him. But no, he was crazy about my whore sister, who dated other boys behind his back and treated him horribly. Luckily, her trampy ways kept her from marrying him and ruining my chances forever. Life felt so unfair.

  Truthfully, life was particularly unfair for everyone those days. The country was still struggling from a horrible economic depression, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and forced us into the terrible war that had been tearing Europe apart for several years. My father was a Colonel in the U.S. Army, working under the Roosevelt Administration. He’d been toiling day and night to help expand their military intelligence and when Jack finished law school he followed my father into that division. In January 1942, they both left to Great Britain together and I was beside myself with grief. Almost two years would pass before I’d see him again.

  Something miraculous happened to me while Jack was away fighting the Nazis in Europe - I became a woman. And I don’t mean metaphorically, like I lost my virginity, but in the true sense. Between the ages of 16 and 18, I finally blossomed and stopped looking like a little girl. My breasts developed almost overnight and they were fuller and suppler than Camilla’s, which drove her crazy. The legs that used to look too long for my body became one of my best features when the rest of me caught up to them. I was getting asked out on dates from the few men still left around or about the leave overseas, but I kept everything friendly. Deep down, I was still holding out for Jack.

  By the time I was 18, I was getting more attention than my older sister, who at 23 was still unmarried and stringing along a few soldiers to hedge her bets. Jack seemed to be the only soldier she wasn’t writing to, since she was so confident in his affections. While he was away, I wrote to him in her place, always signing my name as C. I never wrote anything that should have given him the impression it was Camilla, but he wanted to believe she cared enough to write, so he did. He never wrote me back, he wrote to her. When I truly thought all hope was lost, we received a letter from my father that both he and Jack were coming back to Virginia for 3 days over the Christmas holidays. It was my one chance to get him to notice me.

  Chapter 2

  CELIA

  The afternoon my father and Jack arrived back in Virginia, Camilla and I had a prior commitment working at a USO dance in DC. Daddy told him he could see us there, while he and Mama went out for dinner in town. When he arrived, the girls onstage were doing a wonderful impression of the Andrews Sisters and Camilla was busy catching up with a few of her boyfriends on leave. He was dressed in his Captain’s uniform and looked devastatingly handsome. His chest looked broader, he was more masculine and muscular, but his gorgeous face was the same. I was wearing the new red dress I’d convinced Mama to buy me. It hugged all my curves in all the right places, accentuating my bosom, my round behind and my small waist. I was hoping it would help him stop seeing me as a little girl and finally see me as a grown woman.

  As much as I wanted him to see how horrible my sister was, I hated to see him hurt. Just before she went to dinner, Mama told me he’d finally learned that it was me who’d written to him all along. Daddy must have heard it from her and broken the news. Now that he was in town, he’d find out she’d written to countless others instead of him. As I watched him cross the room, I tried to see if he was headed towards her or if by some miracle he was looking for me. Before I could tell if he’d seen me, Evan James, a friend who went to school with my sister, asked me to dance.

  Evan was Camilla’s age and although she’d never admit it, she’d been dying for him to ask her out. He was the captain of the football team, prom king and the valedictorian of her graduating class. Since he’d become well acquainted with her reputation over the years, he had no interest in someone so fickle and never gave her the time of day. I was certain if she saw us dancing together she would have spit nails but I didn’t bother to look, the only person I saw was Jack Reed approaching us on the dance floor to cut in.

  “May I?” He was asking Lieutenant James, but he was looking at me.

  Unsure if he could say no to someone who outranked him, Evan reluctantly nodded and handed me over. “Thank you for the dance, Celia. I’ll look for you when you’re finished with the Captain.”

  Jack took my hand in his and placed my arms around his neck. As he wrapped his arms around my waist he looked at me and smiled.

  “Celia, you’re breathtaking. You’ve never looked more beautiful.” He pulled me slightly closer to him and I felt so overcome with emotion I was afraid I might swoon.

  “Thank you. You look very handsome. It’s good to have you home, Jack, even if it’s only for a few days.” I looked away demurely, too overwhelmed to look into his soulful blue eyes for very long. I felt crippled with love and desperate for him to love me.

  “Celia…” He stammered as he tried to get his words in order. “Celia, thank you for writing to me. You don’t know what your letters meant. I’m sorry I didn’t return them. I didn’t realize it was you until just before we came home. I should have put two and two together when none of your letters matched letters I was writing. Please forgive me.”

  I don’t know why, but something in his words hurt my
feelings. Maybe there was nothing he could have said that would have made me feel better, but by the time he finished speaking my eyes were filled with tears and the last thing I wanted to do was dance with him.

  “You don’t need to apologize. I wrote to you because I knew Camilla wasn’t. I care about you and wanted you to know someone from home was thinking about you. I’m sure they meant more to you when you believed Camilla wrote them. Don’t give it another thought Jack, you’ve always been like a brother to me.” I walked away from the dance floor with tears rolling down my face and a confused Jack following closely behind.

  He caught up with me in a hallway leading outside. “Celia, what did I say? Whatever I said I’m sorry. I only meant to say thank you.”

  “And you’re welcome!” I growled and started walking faster.

  “Not just that, everything is coming out all wrong. Please, stop walking away.” He reached for my arm and turned me around. I was sobbing uncontrollably. All my great plans for his sexy seduction were ruined.

  “Just leave me alone, Jack. I’ve spent enough time making a fool out of myself for you. You wanted Camilla and she didn’t want you. She never wanted you and I was dying for you to notice me for so long. I’m sorry she couldn’t be bothered to write to you. You must have been so disappointed to find out it was just her stupid little sister sending you all those letters. You’ve said your thanks, now buzz off.” I turned and ran out of the hall, too embarrassed to see if what he was doing.

  I left Camilla at the dance, knowing she’d easily find a ride home and drove like a maniac back to Alexandria. I was still crying when I pulled into the driveway and saw Jack getting out of his car. He obviously knew a quicker route home than me.

  Chapter 3

  Jack

  I think I knew all along it had to be Celia writing those letters. Camilla wasn’t that thoughtful and I never knew her to be patient enough to sit down and write a three to four page letter to anyone. When the Colonel confirmed it, I thought back to all the letters I’d written Camilla that had evidently gone unanswered and how I’d done the same thing to Celia. It wasn’t that I didn’t think she was beautiful-- she was 16 when I left to England. She was 16 and I was 26. I’d just graduated from law school, but I didn’t need a law degree to comprehend how inappropriate it would have been to pursue anything with her at the time. Things were different now. Celia was 18 and if I could accomplish one thing over our three days home, it would be to convince her how much she meant to me.

  When I arrived at the dance she was already dancing with another officer, but I didn’t care. I needed to hold her, hear her voice and tell her how grateful I was for her letters. She needed to know what they meant to me, how lonely I’d been and how they made me want to stay alive through the worst days of the Blitz. Walking up to her, I realized how much she’d grown up. Celia had always been prettier than Camilla with her dark hair and big green eyes, but now that she had a woman’s body, she looked absolutely stunning.

  As I held her in my arms for the very first time, I realized how kind and guileless she was for such a beautiful woman. I wanted to convey my gratitude for all she’d done, all the trouble she’d gone through to make me feel like I hadn’t been forgotten, but everything went horribly wrong. Halfway through my apology, I saw her eyes fill with tears and her bottom lip start to shake. My heart sank. Her body stiffened and her expression changed to anger as she thanked me for my gratitude and left me standing on the dance floor alone. By the time I chased her down she was almost inconsolable. I knew she’d head back to her parent’s house so I took the shortcut to see if I could fix whatever I said.

  She was still crying when she walked up the driveway towards me. “Why are you here Jack? You said what you wanted to say.”

  I shook my head. “No, I haven’t even started to say what I wanted to say, Celia. You only let me get out the beginning. I adore you. I’m sorry I didn’t pursue you before, but you were so much younger than me, it wouldn’t have been right. I’ve always thought you were beautiful and such a better person than your sister. Please believe me, I wasn’t disappointed when I found out those letters weren’t from Camilla, I think I knew it all along. I feel terrible because I should have written you.”

  “Why didn’t you?” She sniffled and wiped her tears with her handkerchief.

  I took her into my arms and held her against my chest. She felt so warm and smelled so good, I was afraid she’d feel my growing erection. “I don’t know. I felt guilty because of your age, but I should have at least written to you as a friend, to let you know I was thinking of you too.”

  She looked up at me confused. Her gorgeous green eyes threatening to fill with tears again. “We can be friends, Jack. I’ll always be your friend.”

  As she tried to squirm away, I pulled her tighter into my arms, desperate to feel her warmth against me. “No, Celia, that’s not what I want. I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me? Is that why you wrote me? Do you have feelings for me or am I just creating this fantasy in my mind?”

  Celia nodded and started sobbing into my chest. “I love you, Jack. I’ve always loved you.”

  “Baby, I love you. I want to be with you always. As soon as the war is over, I want to marry you and start a family. I know you’re in high demand right now, but will you wait for me?” I kissed the top of her head and she snapped her head up to look at me.

  “Are you mocking me Jack Reed?”

  “Not at all, I saw the line of men waiting to dance with you tonight.” I took her face in my hands and at last, kissed her. She instantly kissed me back, moaning sweetly against my lips and letting our tongues dance against each other. My hands inched possessively up her back, trying to press her as close to me as possible. Her breasts smashed provocatively against my chest and my cock grew so hard I was certain she could feel it brush up against her. Fearing the neighbors would talk, we rushed inside the house to take advantage of her parent’s night out.

  Chapter 4

  CELIA

  The only words I heard were I love you, I want to marry you and start a family. My heart soared to unbelievable heights imagining I could be his wife as soon as the war was over. When he kissed me, I pictured him kissing me on our wedding day, on our wedding night and when he’d finally make love to me, making me his forever. After we kissed for a few minutes, we decided to take it inside. Mama and Daddy wouldn’t be home for at least another hour and we only had another two days to last us until the end of the war.

  As soon as we were inside Jack came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me against his body as he trailed long kisses down my neck. My knees felt weak, no one had ever kissed me, I’d never allowed anyone to touch me before. I placed one hand one over his hands and let the other reach behind me, gripping his hair as he moved on to my lower neck and shoulders.

  “Baby, can we go to the couch?” He whispered in my ear. I loved hearing him call me “baby.” I nodded and he led me over to the couch in the den, where we would have a good view of anyone pulling into the driveway. He sat down first and beckoned me to sit down next to him, with my legs strewn across his. As he reached over to kiss me, he brought me on to his lap and gently cupped my breast. He stalled in case I planned on protesting then continued caressing and squeezing them both as I moaning and mewed against his mouth. His kisses grew more eager and desperate, but he kept checking in with me to make sure he wasn’t taking things too far.

  “Celia, you’re so beautiful. I can’t wait to marry you, baby. As soon as I come back, I don’t care if I’m in crutches, I want to marry you the week I get back.” He pulled one of my breasts out from my dress and started licking my nipple, suckling it and squeezing it while I held on to his head and encouraged him to keep going. Everything he was doing to me felt incredible. Every part of me wanted more. I loved him so much, I needed to belong to him. While he teased my nipples, his hand moved underneath my dress and I felt his fingers slip into my panties. I shivered, partly out
of fear and partly out of anticipation.

  “Jack..wait.” I had no idea what he was doing.

  “It’s okay sweetheart, I just want to make you feel good.” He smiled when his fingers slid through my moist slit and found my swollen clit. “Celia, you’re so wet.” He dipped his finger inside me and I purred into his ear when my pussy jerked slightly into his hand. It was a whole new sensation and one that I didn’t want to stop feeling anytime soon.

  “Oh Jack, that feels so good. I can’t wait to be your wife.” I kissed his chin, then moved down to his jaw and neck while he rubbed my clit and fingered my pussy mercilessly.

  “When we are married, I’ll be putting much more than just my finger inside you.” Sensing I was about to cum, he kissed me passionately then pushed me down on the couch, lifted my dress and sunk his face between my thighs.

  “Jesus Jack, oh my God, that feels so good.” I bucked my hips up into his mouth and he caught them midair, dipping his tongue deep inside me while I wailed with the start of my first real orgasm. “Jack, I’m cumming, oh God, I’m cumming!” I squeezed my own breasts and threw my head back as my body trembled in the throes of ecstasy. He was still trying to lick all the juices off my lips when we heard a car pulling up. It was my parents returning from dinner.