Finding Love

by Natalie Ann

  The car jerked again and she couldn’t stop the giggle. “Are you writing about me?”

  “No,” she said. “Though I might pick your brain one day and write about a doctor, just not you. I’d never do that. I don’t do that.”

  “That’s good.”

  “You’re easily rattled right now. Are you sure you aren’t nervous?” she asked when they pulled into her driveway.

  He just winked at her. “I guess you’ll find out in a minute.”

  ***

  He wasn’t nervous at all. At least until she started teasing him about her books. About her sex scenes and bad boys and whips and chains. Yeah, still no nerves, just a bit of shock.

  Then he realized that was part of her personality. Always teasing and always leaving him on edge.

  So when that was all explained and he calmed his racing heart, he found it was picking up speed for another reason. At least this time he was going to control the show.

  She shut the door behind them, and he dropped his bag in her foyer, then turned her around and kissed her hard. “Do you want a bad boy tonight, or like someone in one of your other books?”

  “I want you. I don’t want any of them. Just you.”

  He didn’t realize that was what he wanted to hear until she said it. That she wasn’t looking for someone she wrote about in her books. That she was looking for something real. Something maybe only he could give her. And he was going to.

  He picked her up and carried her through the house and into her room, then set her on her feet.

  As much as he loved kissing her and wanted to continue, he was ready to move forward and he wasn’t going to drag it out. Maybe next time, but this time he had a feeling she was as eager for it as he was. No use making either of them wait.

  He reached his hands down and grasped her shirt at her waist, then pulled it up over her head and tossed it on the floor. Not to be outdone, she did the same. “Let’s just undress together. It will be faster,” she said.

  “I like your thinking.”

  The two of them disrobed in a hurry, then reached for each other at the same time, naked bodies touching everywhere and everything. No time to look at each other, no time to do anything other than just feel.

  He picked her back up in his arms and laid her on the bed, then remembered he left the condom in his shorts. “Crap. Hang on. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Where would I go?” she asked, giggling.

  He picked his shorts up and found the condom in his wallet, tossing it on the bed somewhere. He’d find it later, but right now he just needed to get his mouth back on her.

  She pulled him on top of her, but he rolled to the side and inched down. “I’ve been dying to do this,” he said before his mouth landed on her nipple.

  “Then why haven’t you before now?” she said, her back arching off the bed. She’d always been very reactive when they’d been fooling around and he could tell neither of them was going to be disappointed now either.

  “I told you why,” he said, sucking her pebbled peak into his mouth, his tongue coming out to swirl around, then nip some with his teeth.

  “No, you didn’t,” she said.

  He lifted his head. “Do you really want to have this conversation now?”

  “What conversation? Shut up and go back to what you were doing.”

  He shook his head, didn’t bother to answer and just did what she said...gladly.

  Her hands moved up to his head, holding him in place, then urging him to the other side. He didn’t mind in the least.

  Then her hands went around his back, her nails leaving marks, her hips rising and pressing against his. “Erik,” she said.

  It might have been only the second time she’d said his name. The first when they were kissing on his couch before the dryer went off. Seemed she only said it when she let her guard down. “Yeah,” he mumbled while he moved his lips back to the other side. There was so much he wanted to taste and he couldn’t decide.

  “Move down please, or I’m going to have to take care of that myself and that would be a total waste having you in my bed.”

  He was happy to do what she asked, moving down her body, his lips and his tongue tracing grooves and nibbling all the way. Then he spread her wide and set his mouth right on her little swollen bud.

  “Wow. Going in for the kill,” she said. “Damn it!”

  He was ready to stop, until he realized she swore in pleasure and not pain. That she was starting to moan and getting close to screeching.

  His blood was pumping into every part of his body at a speed and force he hadn’t known was possible. She was right there, it was easy enough to see, so he sent her over the edge by sliding two fingers in her and curving them just right.

  It took just that one thrust and he felt her throbbing, her muscles gripping him and pulling him in, his mouth sucking, and his name was screamed from her lips. It was a sound he could never tire of hearing.

  He lifted his head and looked around for the condom, saw her lying there with her eyes closed, a wide smile on her face, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

  “I’d help you locate what you’re looking for, but I just need to take inventory of my body right now.”

  She hadn’t even opened her eyes when she said that, but she still smiled. “No worries, I found it. Catch your breath because I’m going to make you lose it again in a minute.”

  “You’re cocky. I like that. I like that a lot. Can you back it up?” He slid right inside of her, her back arching higher. “Oh shit yeah, you can. I didn’t even see that coming.”

  “If you’d open your eyes you’d see.”

  “I’m afraid to. What if I’m blind? This way I just know they’re shut.”

  He grabbed her hands and threaded their fingers together, his hips sliding in and out slowly, hers meeting the pace. She didn’t seem to be in as much of a hurry right now.

  “Open your eyes, Sheldon,” he whispered.

  She did. On her green bedspread, her eyes reflected a lighter shade of green, staring at his. Their hips moving in sync, their breaths coming in and out and at the same pace. He’d bet their hearts were beating in rhythm too.

  “I want you to see who is inside of you right now. I want you to know it’s me,” he whispered.

  Her eyes started to gloss over. Her breathing quickened. “I know who it is, Erik. It’s who I’ve been waiting for.”

  Those words could mean a lot of things, but he took them to heart. Probably in a way she didn’t think he would, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was he was with her, and in her, and knew beyond a doubt what they had and what they were doing was real. And he never wanted to lose it.

  He stopped talking and just kissed her. Not hard. Not fast. But gentle.

  His lips nibbling around hers, softly.

  Her tongue coming out to tease him, just the corner of his mouth.

  Now their lips were within a whisper of each other.

  “Oh God,” she said, her legs coming up and wrapping around his back and holding him so tight to her body, it almost felt as if they were one.

  Easy as That

  Sheldon was lying there a second time, just gathering her thoughts. Erik had rolled off and gone into her bathroom quick, then come back, pulled her close and was holding her, kissing her neck and her collarbone and making her feel like jelly.

  She wrote about romance, but she’d never experienced it before. Not until now. And never did she realize it would feel this good. This wonderful.

  “How can you still be single?” she asked.

  “I’m not.”

  “What?” she asked sitting up straight, pushing him away. What the hell?!

  “Whoa. That came out wrong. I’m with you. Sorry. That’s what I meant.”

  “Oh.” Talk about feeling foolish. She’d need a minute to calm her racing heart. To cool the heat of anger spreading through her.

  “As for being single. Or why I am? You’d have to ask my ex-w
ife.”

  “What?” she asked again. Seriously? So much for cooling off.

  “I’m divorced. What’s the big deal?”

  He was staring at her, not angry, just more confused. “You didn’t think it was relevant?”

  Now he just frowned. “No. Divorce means single. You’ve got such a horrible opinion of relationships, maybe I should have asked if you were divorced. Part of me figured you were based on your opinion and it didn’t change the way I felt about you or how I feel about you now.”

  “I’m not divorced. Never been married. Never been engaged. Not even close.”

  “Then why are you so upset? It doesn’t make sense.”

  She didn’t know. She had no reason to be. But she didn’t expect him to say that. And she was kind of hurt over it. Here she was thinking he was too good to be true and he just proved she was right. Why else would he be divorced so young?

  “Just ignore me,” she said.

  “No. It’s not the place I’d thought we’d talk about it, but I will if you want.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said.

  “Really? Because I’m thinking I do. I’m thinking you need to know or you might be stepping back down a few rungs on that ladder.”

  Damn, he was too smart.

  “I overreacted,” she explained.

  “I think you did, but I’ll tell you just the same. Then maybe you’ll explain why you overreacted.”

  She wasn’t about to tell him why she had a distrust of any relationship. He didn’t need to know. It was her problem. “It’s not a big deal.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t believe you. But I’ll start anyway. I was married for two years. Marjorie, my ex, is a doctor too. Oncologist. Pediatrics. She’s at Boston Children’s Hospital now.”

  “That’s got to be a tough job.” She couldn’t imagine working with kids that were that sick.

  “Yeah. It is. It takes a special kind of person to do that. To shut yourself off in order to deal.”

  “Is that what happened? She shut herself off from the rest of the world?”

  He snorted. “Yeah. That’s the simple answer. The more complex one is she had to be the best. She wanted to go where she thought she could make a big name for herself. We had different goals in our future and I was too blind back then to really see.”

  “How’s that possible?” He seemed like he had it all together. It didn’t make sense he wouldn’t have known that.

  “Because we had so much in common, or so I thought, or maybe hoped. But we hardly ever saw each other and when we did, we talked about work. We did our residencies together, just different divisions. I knew she was all about moving ahead. There were whispers about her and her cutthroat approaches to getting cases.”

  “But they’re children, not things.”

  “You see that. She didn’t. That was one problem. The other is, she wanted to be there, I wanted to be here. When things don’t add up, you get a divorce. Easy as that.”

  It didn’t sound easy to her and she was starting to feel some shame over her reaction to finding out he was divorced. “You don’t seem bitter about it.” Which was surprising because it seemed to her he was the one that got burned. She’d be more bitter than ten-day-old coffee at a police station.

  “It’d be a waste of breath for that. We were smart enough to recognize it and move on. I wish her well. I’m sure she feels the same.”

  That seemed kind of cold and she was wondering why she was feeling sorry for him over it. Especially when it was exactly the reason she stayed away from relationships. They never lasted anyway. Why even open herself up for one?

  The only problem was, the wall she’d built around herself was already breaking down.

  ***

  Erik didn’t really want to talk about his ex or his failed marriage, but if it made Sheldon feel better he would. If it got her to open up more about any fears she might have, he’d be willing to rip his chest open wide and let her see all his wounds and scars.

  “You don’t talk to her at all?” Sheldon asked.

  “No reason to.”

  “When did you get divorced?”

  “Well, we split a few years ago. The divorce was finalized over a year ago.”

  “Why so long?”

  “It wasn’t long.” He figured he might as well give her the details. “Do you want to get dressed before we continue this conversation?”

  “No. Sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s fine.” He leaned up on his elbow. “Here’s the deal. We met in college. We did our residencies together. Got married during the first year. At the end of our residency, she wanted something I didn’t. Like I said, we were two different people at that point. She wanted to go to Boston, I wanted life in the slower lane. We sat down and talked it out. There were no hard feelings. Finalizing the divorce was just a piece of paper. It’s not like either of us was in a hurry to marry again.”

  He had no thoughts of them working things out and she could have cared less when it was finalized. More than anything, it just got lost in the shuffle of the move. Like forgetting to call and get your address changed on a bill you saw once a year.

  “That sounds kind of frigid.”

  “Yeah, well. Like I said, we didn’t want the same things. No use hanging on. For a while, I thought it was me, and then I realized it was just like mixing water and oil. Nothing more than that. We gave each other comfort and support during a difficult and trying period of our lives and moved on.”

  She was frowning at him. “I thought I was cynical. Guess I was wrong. Or I should say not the only one.”

  “I’m not cynical at all. Sheldon, I was hurt. I felt like a failure. Is that what you want to hear? I was more hurt than she was and that made it worse. She is the one that talked calmly and she was the one who decided we needed to end things.”

  “So you would have gone to Boston if she didn’t want a divorce?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to go as much as she didn’t want to come here. I think if our marriage had been stronger in other areas, I would have caved. But it wasn’t and she was always the more logical of the two of us, so when she laid it all out, I realized she was right.”

  “Did you love her?”

  He was surprised she asked that question. “I did. I take relationships seriously. I’d like to believe she loved me back at one point. Or her form of it. We ended the marriage peacefully. After our residency was over, we just moved. By that point, what I felt for her wasn’t the same as it was in the beginning. The divorce was done through our lawyers. I haven’t seen or talked to her since we both left Baltimore.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why? There’s no reason for you to be sorry.” He didn’t want her to feel bad. Just because he grieved his failed marriage didn’t mean he had to tell her all about it.

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up. Least of all here. How about I take your mind off of it?” she said, leaning down and kissing his chest.

  He pulled her down on top of him. “I’m glad it’s out. I’m glad you know. I don’t want secrets between us. There wasn’t one to begin with. It just hadn’t come up and now it did.”

  “So I’ve got no worries she’s going to come into your life and want you back?”

  He laughed this time. “Not at all. No reason to be jealous.” Was that what caused her sudden response to him being divorced? Imagine that.

  “Who said I was jealous?”

  “I think you said enough to make me think so.”

  She put her hands on his cheeks. “I might have been a wee bit jealous. But I think it was more about having to deal with an ex.”

  “Like I said, nothing to deal with. I’m all yours.”

  There was a double meaning there and he didn’t know if she caught it or not, but she smiled and dropped her mouth to his, the conversation done.

  Too Late

  The next morning Sheldon was mixing pancake batter in a bowl while Erik was si
tting on a stool drinking coffee, reading the news on his phone. “You can use my computer or tablet if you want,” she said.

  “I’m good,” he said, not looking up.

  She stopped what she was doing and leaned in front of him on the counter until her face was pretty much under his phone and then started to cross her eyes. “This is what will happen to you if you keep reading on that small screen all the time.”

  He set his phone down, grinned, then brought his lips to hers for a smacking kiss. “Is that a medical opinion?” He reached for her hand and pulled her around the counter and between his legs, holding her tight.

  “I’ve done a lot of research, you know. I can tell you little bits of just about anything. I need to change up the careers of my characters.”

  “So that is how you do it?”

  “Sometimes. I try to find someone that works in that field and pick their brain enough to work into the storyline. I don’t like to bore the reader too much by filling it full of how an accountant actually balances their books, for example. More like things they do or encounter.”

  “From what I’ve read it does seem like you know what you’re talking about.”

  “Gee, thanks for that,” she said, kissing him quickly, then pulling away and walking back to her pancake batter.

  “Did that insult you?”

  “No. It was just the way you said it. It’s all good.”

  “Are you sure? You look like you’re annoyed right now.”

  “I don’t get annoyed often, Erik,” she said, looking up and sticking her tongue out at him. “It’s a total waste of my time.”

  “Especially when you can write annoyance out of your life?”

  She paused and looked at him, then finally said, “Exactly.”

  He shook his head and picked his phone back up while she continued to make breakfast.

  Did she do that? Did she really avoid any type of negative thoughts, feelings or opinions by just trying to eliminate or express them in her books?

  She didn’t think that was a bad thing though. But maybe it was. Maybe she needed to stop trying to block out what was going on in the real world.