Hard Choices: An Erotic Romance

by Joan Farraneau

  “Are you still hungry?”

  Sam’s question interrupts my thoughts. From the way she’s pressed against me I can tell she’s feeling self-conscious now. The way she’s curling into herself makes me think she’s not used to being naked, not around a man, at least. What happened to this woman in the intervening years? Why is she so much less open now? The Sam of ten years ago would never have been so shy, at least not from the stories she told me about other boyfriends. The Sam I see now must have been through some serious shit.

  “I’m starving,” I say, pushing myself up from the bed. My pants are still around my ankles. I bend down and slip off my shoes and jeans. I pull my underwear up and tuck my half-hard cock inside. When I look up, I see Sam’s eyes locked between my legs.

  Seeing me see her, she blushes and looks away.

  “Okay,” she says hurriedly, getting up and pulling open a drawer of the dresser beside the bed. She fumbles around as she chatters about what we’re about to eat. Finally, she finds a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and bra and begins to pull them on.

  “No,” I say, catching her hand as she pulls the bra onto her shoulders. “No bra.”

  She grins as she drops the bra and pulls a white tank top over her head. She looks damn good in it; her breasts outlined perfectly, her hard nipples poking through the half-sheer fabric. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman, and even longer since I’ve had a woman like Sam. I’m of half a mind to throw her down on the bed and take her again, but the hunger in my belly can no longer be ignored. I haven’t eaten a meal since yesterday.

  When Sam’s dressed, I follow her to the kitchen. She beckons me into a chair at the small, round table and then pulls open her freezer and begins to rummage around.

  “You said meat, right?” she asks, pulling out a few frozen hunks of what looks like venison. I nod and lean back in the chair, admiring her curvy, 28-year-old body as she moves back and forth from the fridge to the counter to the sink.

  “Okay,” she laughs, turning to me, her smile that of a little girl who’s just been promised a trip to Disneyland. “I’m going to make you something special. You’re not allergic to anything are you?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Good.” She opens the fridge, pulls out a beer and tosses it to me. I pop the tab as she pulls one out for herself. She opens her can and holds it out. I raise mine and tap it to hers. We take a sip without looking away from one another. “Then just sit back, relax and let me take care of you.”

  9.

  Sam

  It takes an hour to get dinner ready, by which time I’m ravenous, my stomach seemingly folding in on itself. I’ve been so busy today, from start to finish—with anticipation, with anxiety, with worry—that I haven’t had a chance to eat. Luke too must be starving because he digs in before the plate has even left my hand.

  “Wow,” he says, looking up at me gratefully as he spoons more mashed potatoes from the pot on the table onto his plate. “This is delicious. I didn’t know you were such a good cook.”

  “How would you know?” I laugh, cutting off a piece of steak and popping it in my mouth. “You just met me.”

  “Oh…right.”

  Something is nagging at the corner of my mind but dissipates before I can examine what it is. We eat silently for several minutes, the only sounds the scraping of our forks across our plates. After two platefuls, Luke sits back and sighs with satisfaction, his hands crossed over his stomach. I can’t stop staring at his body. I’ve never seen, much less been with, anyone with such a perfect physique. It’s like he’s straight out of the Greek statue wing of a big museum. Just seeing him makes my heart, and my groin, pulse with desire.

  “So,” I begin, not entirely sure what to say. I want to know more about this man, where he came from, what brought him here. “Who are you?”

  Luke cocks his head.

  “I mean,” I continue, trying to push down the blush I feel spreading across my chest. I’m just like a flustered schoolgirl! “What do you do? Why are you here?”

  Luke smiles, folds his napkin, and sets it on his empty plate. He takes a sip of his beer and swills it around his mouth as he thinks.

  “Business,” he finally says.

  “Business? What sort of business?”

  He shrugs.

  “I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s alright.”

  “Okay…”

  “It’s nothing bad,” he says, cutting off my thoughts as they appear. “Just personal. I’d rather get to know you better first.”

  The way he says this makes my heart leap into my throat. Know me better. Then he does want to see more of me.

  “I understand. What can you tell me then?”

  “Well, what would you like to know? Besides that, of course.”

  “Hmm…how about where you were born?”

  “I was born just a few towns over, in the Elwood hospital.”

  “No way! Me too! Who was your doctor?”

  “Harold Roth.”

  “What? Are you kidding? Me too! Wow, small world. Wait, how old are you?”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  I take a moment to look him over, trying to decide. As far as I can tell, he’s ageless. All I see when I look at him is life and vitality and energy. And sex, of course.

  I shrug.

  “Thirty-three?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “You’re kidding. Me too!”

  My enthusiasm suddenly makes me embarrassed and I fall silent. Luke stares at me intently, though he too says not a word. The look in his eye is playful and I get the feeling, again, that he knows just what I’m thinking. There’s no hiding from this man. I feel like I’m talking to someone who already knows me.

  “You look good for twenty-eight,” he says after a moment. “Most women in these sorts of towns fall apart well before then.”

  “Well…” I shrug and take a bite of steak. “That’s what happens when you pop out three or four kids before you’re twenty-one.”

  “Very true.”

  Luke cuts off a big bite of his steak and chews it slowly. While he chews, he holds my gaze, a smile playing around his eyes. The way he looks at me makes my insides flutter. I can still feel the ghost of him inside of me. Just the thought is enough to get my hips grinding slowly against the chair. Does he know he’s awoken a sleeping beast?

  “So,” he continues, downing the last of his beer. I reach over to the fridge, pull open the door, extract a beer and slide it across the table. “Why don’t you have three or four kids? Never get married?”

  I’m caught off guard by the question and don’t answer for a moment. I’m not sure what to say. I’m reluctant to tell him the truth. What if he cares that I am married, even if it is to a tyrant I don’t have the slightest feelings for? I can’t risk losing him, not now that I’ve just found him.

  “Nope…” I drawl, the lie escaping before I can really think about what I’m doing. My eyes glance over to a bowl on the kitchen counter. My wedding ring is there on top of a pile of paperclips and pennies. I haven’t worn it in years. Why do I keep it out?

  But Luke doesn’t notice. He nods, satisfied, and takes another bite of food. I get the feeling this is his first home-cooked meal in a long while.

  “Where were you before this?” I ask casually, the guilt from my lie fading as quickly as it flared. I don’t consider myself married, not truly. If anything, I’m incarcerated.

  Luke hesitates, his eyes turned down to his food. When he looks back up his eyes are serious, intense.

  “Alaska,” he says simply.

  “And what were you doing there?”

  “Not much of anything.”

  “I’ve never been to Alaska. Is it beautiful?”

  “Very. The most beautiful place I’ve ever been. I loved it.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  I can tell the question hits a sore spot. I should change the subject but I’m too intrigued.


  “I…was…in trouble,” he says, choosing his words carefully.

  “Trouble?” I press. “What sort of trouble?”

  “It’s nothing,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “Minor trouble.”

  I’m willing to bet this trouble of his will tell me a lot about him. I lean forward and slide my hand across the table until it rests atop his.

  “What kind of trouble?” I ask again, my voice a whisper. “You can tell me.”

  He opens his mouth, hesitates, clamps it shut. We stare at one another in the silence of the kitchen. I can just catch the smell of our sex in the air.

  “Gang trouble,” he says finally.

  “You were in a gang?”

  “No. Well...”

  “What does that mean?” Suddenly his muscles look much bigger, his tattoos more menacing. Who is this man, this stranger, seated before me?

  Luke sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He looks away, his eyes staring out the window behind my head, out at the forest that presses up against the house. When he looks back, I can see the change in him.

  “I’ve been on the road for the past ten years,” he begins. “Riding my bike all over. I’ve done a lot of bad stuff to get by over the years—stealing, cheating, lying. About two years ago, I went up to Alaska for the first time. Heard there was good jobs to be had in the oil fields up north. Turns out they weren’t hiring.”

  “Go on,” I prod, squeezing his hand and smiling encouragingly.

  “I ended up getting in with the wrong crowd. Bikers. Not just the ones who dress like bikers and ride around to rallies across the country. Real bikers. Bad bikers. They ran a drug ring up in Alaska. Wanted me to be a part of it.”

  “And were you?”

  He shrugs again.

  “For a while. At first it was small jobs, running packages to and from suppliers, helping collect money from people. But then they wanted me to join for real. Become a full member.”

  The silence between his words is devastating. I’m so enthralled I’m barely breathing.

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wasn’t willing to go through with the initiation.”

  “What was the initiation?” I breathe.

  Luke takes another sip of his beer and sets it slowly on the table.

  “Killing someone.”

  I draw in a sharp breath.

  “Killing…?”

  He nods.

  “They wanted me to kill one of their customers who hadn’t paid his balance. I refused.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Gangs don’t generally like when you refuse to do whatever it is they say, including joining. Because I wouldn’t join, they saw it as an insult. Because I refused to kill some poor, drug-addicted son of a bitch, they decided to kill me.”

  “And?”

  “And so I left.”

  “Is that why you are here?”

  “Among other reasons.”

  “Wow,” I say, sitting back in my chair. “Just wow.”

  “Yep,” he says, taking a gulp of his beer. “Wow, indeed.”

  10.

  Sean

  I end up staying the night. After dinner and my partial confession of why I’m in town, we don’t talk about much for the rest of the evening, and certainly nothing serious. Fine by me. It’s a rule of mine not to think about the shit from the past anyways, not if I can help it.

  When it gets dark out, we cuddle up on the couch and watch a terrible TV movie. Sam is asleep within minutes, her now-naked body snuggled into mine, her head buried in my chest. I watch her for a while, tracing the curves of her body with my eyes. I still can’t get over the fact that after all these years, I’m back in Forton with Sam Atley in my arms. Talk about dreams coming true.

  As the movie plays and the night sinks in, my thoughts drift back to Alaska and my years on the road. So many bad decisions, and for what? Because Sam didn’t love me and my father was an asshole? I might be big, but I still feel like a little boy. After all, little boys run from their problems. Men face them. Which, I guess in a way, is what I’m doing now. Though technically I’m still not directly facing them since I haven’t told Sam who I am.

  On the television screen, some neckbeard is professing his love for a woman clearly out of his league. With doe-like eyes she accepts his flowers, gasping as he falls to his knees and pulls out a ring. She squeals and begins to cry, pulling him up to her and kissing his cheeks and nose and eyelids. She’s the happiest she could possibly be.

  I look down at Sam. Is that what she wants too? A happily ever after? I must admit, it feels nice—lying here with her, the crickets chirping outside, the moon rising through the trees. It feels almost like what I want too.

  But how? Now that she thinks I’m Luke, how can I admit to her that I’m Sean Hartwood, the nerdy boy of yesteryear?

  Before I can go too deep with this thought, a howl from outside interrupts the calm of the evening. Sam shifts but does not wake. A coyote, singing for and about its loneliness. A few seconds later it howls again. Another voice, deeper in the forest, joins in.

  The movie is almost over now; the man and his new bride are driving up to his mansion. It turned out he was filthy rich and never told his woman. He wanted her to love him for him, not for whatever he could buy her.

  Seeing the house on the screen, I suddenly remember my morning with my father’s lawyer. I’m filthy rich now too. $150 million. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

  When the movie ends, I lift Sam gently from the couch and carry her to the bedroom. She stirs but does not wake. I set her gently onto the bed. Before I pull the covers over her, I take a moment to admire her naked body one last time, running my hands from her thighs up to her chest. She smiles in her sleep and snuggles into the pillow. I pull the covers over her and crawl in beside her, conforming my much bigger body to the smaller contours of hers. Sensing me, she turns and snuggles in, sighing contentedly as she drifts deeper into sleep.

  It’s a long time before I fall asleep; too many thoughts are racing through my brain, too much new information that I need to take in. In an instant, life can change in ways you never would have expected, and one morning can look very different from the one before. Tomorrow, when I wake up, I will be the richest man in the county. But will I be Sean or will I be Luke?

  11.

  Sam

  He drops me off the next morning at the diner just as the sun is rising. I don’t have to be at work until ten, but since my car is here and Luke has somewhere to be, the only option is to come early. As I get off his bike and turn around for a goodbye kiss, I can feel Sarah’s eyes on me through the window. No doubt as soon as I get inside she’s going to assault me with more questions than a lonely teenager with a magic 8-ball.

  The peck I give Luke turns into a deep kiss as he pulls his hands from the handles of his bike and closes them about my waist. His touch sets my heart racing immediately. I can smell myself on him. In fact, my dried juices from this morning, when I woke up with his face between my legs, are still on his chin.

  “Luke,” I giggle, breaking away for a moment and leaning back to look at him. “You never washed your face.”

  He smiles and slides his hand behind my neck, puling me forward as his lips pass over my collarbone.

  “I didn’t want to wash my face,” he growls, working his way up the side of my neck. “I like the way you smell.”

  My knees are weak. He must know what he’s doing to me because, with a laugh, he releases me, plants a last kiss on my cheek, and shoots off across the parking lot before I’ve even had a chance to catch my breath. I watch him go, my eyes glued to his hulking frame until he’s disappeared from sight, the early morning fog swallowing him whole.

  As predicted, as soon as I’m inside Sarah’s on me. The diner is as empty as it always is at this time, the only customer once again old Mort asleep in a corner. It’s hard to believe that only twenty-four
hours before I walked in and saw Luke for the first time. And less than twelve hours after that, we were fucking. Don’t forget about this morning either. That was quite possibly the best orgasm of your life.

  “So,” Sarah begins, not even giving me time to hang up my purse and don my apron. “Tell me all about it. Did you get some?”

  “Sarah!” I exclaim, blushing immediately.

  “What?” she asks innocently, pouring two cups of coffee and sliding one over the counter into my waiting hand. It’s just what I need.

  “A girl doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  “Oh, so you two did kiss then? And what else did you two get up to, hmm? Based on your flush, I’d say you came no more than an hour ago.”

  “Sarah!”

  With a straight face she raises her hands, forms a circle with her thumb and forefinger of one, and pushes the forefinger of the other through it.

  “Some of that?” she teases. “Did he give your little kitty a nice petting?”

  Thankfully, I’m saved by the appearance of Mike. Seeing me, he smiles gently, his eyes saying everything. He’s one of those guys who’s intuitive, who seems to know without having to be told. And I can tell he’s happy for me too, just like Sarah.

  “Mike,” I say, taking a sip of coffee. “You need to control your woman.”

  “Would if I could, Sam. Would if I could.”

  He sets the plate of fried eggs and hash browns he’s holding on the counter in front of me. Smelling it, my stomach growls. After so much sex, I’ve sure worked up an appetite.

  Sarah watches me as I eat. I know she’s just biding her time, waiting until the next opportunity to pry. I can’t blame her; this really is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me since…well, ever, really.

  “Did you tell him you’re married?” she asks when I push the plate away and reach for the coffee pourer. I freeze with it tilted above my cup and look up at her. Ever so slowly, I shake my head.