by J. M. Newlin
She’d never thought of that before. She’d always assumed that Ben’s closeness to her was because of his promise to Alex.
Ben hadn’t gone into details about Alex’s death but she knew that Alex’s last words had been to ask Ben to look after and protect her.
She’d always assumed that Ben’s presence had been because he was fulfilling a promise to a friend.
Could it be that he also had feelings for her?
Is that why he moved to be closer to her house and took that job around the corner?
Sarah suddenly felt angered and betrayed.
How could he do this to Alex? How long had he been harboring this secret agenda?
God stop being so stupid Sarah she chided herself silently. You have no idea whether he has feelings for you or not. You’re getting angry for no reason!
After all Sarah thought, wasn’t she the one being jealous just a second ago?!
She was so confused. Of course she didn’t expect to be single forever, but she was still reeling from the death of her husband.
Her mother had suggested she get out there, sending her emails with links to dating sites and such.
She’d told Sarah that she had to move on with her life, it was no use moping around and feeling sorry for herself. Alex, her mother had said, would want her to be happy again.
She knew she was right, but she never imagined or wanted to think about moving on so soon.
She got the distinct impression that her friends and family thought she was a bit pathetic.
Truth be told, she thought herself a bit pathetic at times too.
Her moping around over Alex’s death wasn’t the best way to deal with it all but the pain was still hard for her to bear.
If she was to move on with her life, was it right that she did so with the best friend of her dead husband?!
Sarah was so confused and the questions swirling in her mind started to make her head spin.
Ben was looking at her.
‘You okay?’ he asked. ‘You look a bit worried’
Sarah snapped out of her head and back into the living room.
‘Er, yes I’m fine, sorry I was just thinking about something I need to do’ she replied.
‘Do you want some ketchup?’ she asked Ben as she stood up from the couch, changing the subject quickly to stop Ben from delving further into what she was thinking.
‘No, I’m alright thanks. Gotta watch my weight eh!’ Ben joked.
Sarah smiled weakly, still trying to shake off thoughts of her and Ben being anything more than just friends.
Entering the kitchen, she opened the fridge to get the ketchup. Lying just in front of her was a bottle of white wine.
Bugger it she thought. She picked up the bottle and poured herself a large glass, downing it in one large gulp before pouring herself another.
‘Do you want some wine Ben?’ she asked, popping her head from around the kitchen door into the living room.
‘I’d better not, I’ve got to drive back home’ he replied, trying to speak with a mouthful of pizza.
Drinking again he thought, hadn’t she already finished off one bottle today?
Sarah returned to the couch with her wine glass in hand.
‘Back to work tomorrow?’ she asked, trying to focus her mind on other subjects.
Ben started to speak but Sarah wasn’t really listening.
His words and actions now came with an unanswered question, was he in love with her?
And for the first time, Sarah started to see Ben as other women saw him.
Her eyes traced his cheekbones down to his full lips. He had a softer face than Alex did, less masculine but still good looking.
His eyes were a piercing blue, with wrinkles around the edges. Whilst his face was young, his eyes bore the effects of combat – aged and weary, a young man forced to age faster than he should.
Sarah couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss him. Now she’d opened up the door to her sexual feelings she couldn’t stop herself. Especially as she suspected that he might feel something for her.
This feelings made her feel even more conflicted, which made her drink even more. Pretty soon Sarah was drunk.
Ben had noticed that she was drinking more and more, but he wasn’t really in the mood to fight against her.
And in any case, he needed to go to work early the next morning.
Ben got up to go to the rest room, leaving Sarah sipping on her glass of wine.
When he came back, he found her curled up on the sofa with her eyes closed.
‘Sarah?’ he checked to see if she had fallen asleep or was just resting her eyes.
Her snoring gave it away.
Ben smiled.
Taking her wine glass gently out of her hand, he placed it on the table beside the couch and slid his hands under her shoulders and her legs.
Picking her up easily into his arms, Ben carried her up the stairs and into what he imagined was her bedroom.
Pushing open the door he saw he’d made the right choice. He laid her on the bed and found a blanket on a chair next to the bed that was illuminated by the light from the landing outside.
Placing the blanket over her, he leant down and kissed her on the forehead.
‘Good night Sarah’
Ben walked downside, turned off the lights and closed the front door behind him.
He made his way to his car and drove home.
That night, his dreams were filled with the usual images. Alex gurgling and choking on his own blood, young children who had been blown apart by bombs dropped on Taliban positions, the lifeless bodies of enemies who had been shot through the head by snipers – their brains sprayed across the floor behind them and bits of their skull blown into the earth. Amputated limbs and dead soldiers were his nightly reminders of his time in Afghanistan.
He woke up at 4am in the morning drenched in sweat, he couldn’t sleep anymore. How he wished he was back in Norway, he’d barely had a bad dream over there. The constant BASE jumping had kept that at bay – the sensations of peace and calm stayed with him into the night and the constant presence of his jumping buddies reassured him and made him feel at home.
But here, back in his apartment he was all alone and he felt it. And his dreams came back to haunt him. He needed to go jumping again as soon as possible or this would become unbearable.
Chapter 5 – Everyday
Sarah woke up to the sound of a car horn.
She was still in her clothes from last night and she was covered by a blanket.
How did she get here?
She remembered talking to Ben on the sofa, him going off to the toilet and feeling very tired.
She guessed she must have feeling asleep. Did Ben carry her to bed she worried?
A warm feeling of comfort and love came over her as she thought of Ben picking her up and carrying her to bed.
She picked up her phone and opened her messages.
Did you put me to bed last night? she sent a message to Ben.
‘Yes, you fell asleep on me!’ he replied a couple of minutes later.
‘Sorry! Thank you ‘
‘No problem sleepy head, have a good day!’
Sarah put her phone down and rolled over.
Ugh, her headache had already started.
Reaching into her drawer, she pulled out some painkillers and popped them into her mouth with a gulp of water from the bottle by her bed.
She rolled over and buried her head in the covers and tried to go back to sleep but the sunlight through the drapes was too much to bear and sleep was impossible.
Anyway, she was hot and sticky in her clothes, so she decided to take a shower.
The water brought her back to life as the painkillers started to work. She thought of Ben as the water cascaded over her head and down her back.
She imagined how he must have picked her up in his strong arms and carried her to bed.
She imagined herself in his arms now as
he caressed her body with soap, kissing her neck and sliding his hands over her breasts.
Sarah slid her hand down between her legs and began to gently rub her clitoris with her soapy fingers.
Suddenly she was taken back to when Alex had made love to her in this very shower. How he’d soaped her body, gently rubbing soap down her back and over her buttocks before pressing her up against the shower door and sliding his cock into her wet pussy, fucking her passionately until he came inside her.
The memory of Alex suddenly brought her back to reality. What was she doing thinking of Ben like this?!
The guilt of thinking of another man washed over her as she was reminded of her husband.
She quickly jumped out of the shower and got dressed.
She had to stop thinking like this!
Sarah made herself a coffee from an old Italian coffee press that her mother had given her when she moved in.
She didn’t know why she’d given her it as a present, Sarah could have just as easily gone to the mall and got one herself, but she’d appreciated it all the same.
I’d better go into the shop she decided. It had been too long since she had set foot in that store and it was better than sitting around the house all day. At least there she could keep her mind off of things she’d rather not think about.
Drinking her coffee quickly she picked up her handbag and got into the car. It felt good to be doing something productive, the devil makes work for idle hands as her Grandmother was fond of saying.
It was only a 20 minute drive to the store and traffic was light as she had missed rush hour.
She pulled into the parking and switched off the engine. Claire, the store manager she had put in charge, would be surprised by her visit but that wouldn’t be a problem. It would be nice to see her and in any case Sarah would be spending most of her time in the back office buried in paperwork.
As she walked through the door Claire was helping an elderly man choose a watch, but she looked up as Claire opened the door with her security pass and smiled warmly.
‘Good morning Sarah’
‘Good morning Claire’
Sarah walked through to the back of the store and through in the office.
The office was a small, windowless room, protected from the main store by a security pass locked door.
Here is where the businesses paperwork and files were stored and where Sarah would spend her day going through the accounts.
She took a seat behind her desk and moved a pile of papers off to one side. Claire would also use this office as well to do her own paperwork and any other admin work whilst Sarah wasn’t using it.
As she tidied her desk, she noticed a magazine laying on the desk, probably one of Claire’s gossip mags she thought as she picked it up to move it with the papers.
A headline on the front of the magazine caught her attention.
‘Finding love after loss’
A bit of a strange coincidence she thought, but the title intrigued her.
She leaned back in her chair and opened the magazine to find the article.
In it a girl had lost her husband to cancer, leaving her to raise their child alone. It told of how she had overcome her loss and found love again…..in the arms of his best friend.
Sarah was shocked, was the universe trying to tell her something?
She’d never been a religious or superstitious woman, she didn’t believe in fate or destiny, but she couldn’t believe that of all the days and of all the times for her to find this article, it was this day.
One phrase from the article stuck in her head.
‘If I was to move on with anyone, I know that my husband would have wanted it to be with someone he loved and trusted to treat me and our child right. I believe my husband is in heaven right now looking down on us and blessing our relationship. He would have wanted me to be happy.’
Sarah sat in her chair, unsure whether this was some sort of practical joke.
How can an article have been so perfectly fitting for her situation? This woman was practically her.
Sure, they’d lost their husbands in different circumstances and Sarah didn’t have a child to raise but they both had feelings for their dead spouses’ best friends.
Sarah was interrupted by a knock on the door. She hurriedly put away the magazine.
‘Come in’ she called out.
Claire opened the door.
‘Hey Sarah, just wanted to pop in and say hi! How you doing?
Such a sweet girl Claire, and talented. She’d single handedly held the fort in the shop since Alex died, not once complaining. She took it all in her stride.
‘I’m doing okay thanks, just came in to do some paperwork. How are things with you?’
‘I’m doing good!’ Claire replied brightly with a smile. ‘We’ve had a great couple of months and an even better week last week. Can I get you a tea or a coffee?’
‘Great news!’ said Sarah. ‘No thanks, I’ve already had a coffee, but thank you for asking. Let me know if you’d like a break after I’ve finished the paperwork and I’ll take over from you front of house.
‘Sure thing, thanks Sarah. See you a bit later’ Claire closed the door and Sarah looked down to the magazine on the floor beside her.
She was still reeling slightly from the unbelievable coincidence.
If it wasn’t implausible she would have thought that it was some kind of cruel hoax or practical joke, but she knew that it wasn’t possible.
Was Alex reaching out from beyond the grave to give her his blessing?
This had to be more than just a coincidence Sarah thought, this had to mean something.
She tried to distract herself in work.
Sarah started poring through the last few months accounts. Claire was right, they’d had a fantastic few months with each month bigger and better than the last.
And she hadn’t even been around.
She smiled, she’d made a great decision in hiring Claire. Not only was she capable and efficient, she was also a lovely girl.
Reflecting on the article she just read, and the new feelings she found herself having for Ben, Sarah took a deep breath.
It’s time she thought.
Before Alex had died, Sarah had big plans for the store. With the success she had created when she took over the business and the rapid growth in revenue, Sarah had planned to open a second store in the city.
However, once Alex had gone, work had taken the backburner as Sarah was consumed with grief for her loss.
Claire had done a great job in her absence, but the expansion plans had never been put into place.
Now was the time Sarah thought.
Everything became very clear. Enough moping around after her husband, he was dead and nothing would change that.
He wouldn’t want her to be holding her life back on account of him, especially not with work.
He’d always been proud of her ambition, proud that she wasn’t like the other army wives who didn’t work. He, of all people, would want this.
It was if a huge weight had lifted off of her shoulders. A sense of lightness and euphoria washed over her.
She’d been held down in a prison of her making for so long, sticking rigidly to what she thought was the right thing to do.
The guilt left her, she had to get on with her life – both professionally and personally.
She stood up from her chair and opened the door. She would tell Claire about her expansion plans and offer her the position of managing both the stores once the second one was up and running.
And after, she would see how things went with Ben.
A new energy had filled her now, after a year stuck in second gear she was finally moving on.
It was dark when she arrived back at her home.
Claire had been surprised when Sarah had told her about plans to open a second store but she had been all to glad to accept the opportunity.
Sarah had spent the rest of the day serving customers and h
elping Claire out at the store. She’d forgotten how much fun she had working there. It’d seemed a long time since she’d smiled and laughed so much.
Once inside her house, she went upstairs to take a bath and unwind. Slipping out of her dress and lifting her top off, she stepped into the freshly drawn bath and slid down into the water with a satisfied sigh.
As the water washed over her body, she started to think about Ben. How was she going to tell him how she felt?
She thought about his lips and wondered how they’d feel to kiss. As she leant her head against the back of the bath, her hands slipped down her stomach and onto her pussy, submerged in the warm water of the bath.
She ran her fingers over her clit and down, caressing her wet slit as she widened her legs further apart, feeling herself getting wetter and wetter.
She imagined Ben’s body over her, his cock hard and throbbing.
She groaned as she slipped a finger inside herself before bringing it up to her chest and rubbing her juices on her nipples.
God she wanted Ben so badly.
In her mind Ben was picking her up in his arms like he had done the night she had fallen asleep, carrying her to the bedroom where he would lay her down on the bed spreading her legs and sliding his fingers into her dripping pussy.
Sarah imagined that her fingers were Ben’s as they pressed up against her G-spot, pushing and rubbing rhythmically.
Her head began to spin as she got closer to climaxing. She pictured Ben guiding his hard cock into her mouth as he pleasured her with his fingers.
Sarah sucked on the imaginary cock, flicking her tongue over the pulsating head as her fingers thrust harder and harder into her pussy – now pouring with wetness.
She’d never been so turned on before as she pictured Ben’s cock cumming, a torrent of sperm spurting out of it into her willing mouth.
With that, Sarah’s hips bucked up and she let out a long and loud cry of pleasure as she came to the image of Ben’s cum flowing into her mouth.
She splashed down into the bath, exhausted and satisfied by her orgasm, her fingers still dripping with juices.
Oh my God that was amazing she thought.
It was official, she had fallen completely for Ben without even realizing it.