“Let’s play touch so no one gets hurt.”
He put the ball on the ground and I held it so he could kick. Once again it went flying out into the field, this time about 35 yards. We both started running for the ball. I grabbed it, turned around and started running for the touchdown line, but he reached out for me and tapped me softly. He then grabbed the ball and threw it. We both started running after it. He reached it before me, turned around and started running toward the touchdown line. I ran after him until I reached him and touched his arm a lot harder than I meant to. He stumbled, grabbed me by mistake and we both fell. I fell directly on top of him, and he started laughing, then he looked into my eyes. I couldn’t help but look back into his and thoughts started rushing into my head. He was so gorgeous and the connection between us was so real. His lips looked so calling, but how could I do this to Ethan? It wouldn’t be fair; it wouldn’t be right. But I have never had a guy like this notice me. Oh Lord, what should I do? I knew I was never going to get a chance like this again. This was so fucking wrong. Shit I should never have agreed to come. What if it was just a one-time thing? Oh, forget it.
As if he was hearing my thoughts at that same moment, he pushed his body up and we met in a passionate embrace. Our lips found each other so easily; it was as if we were the perfect pieces for an impossible puzzle. This kiss felt like nothing I had felt before. A pulse of energy ran through my body, and my hands searched for the back of his head. I stroked his hair softly as he grabbed my waist, while our mouths kept getting to know one another, and mud clung to our bodies. I backed away from his grip and stayed quiet, in disbelief. I knew I had fucked up. He grabbed my hand and started caressing my arm, got close to my ear and softly whispered, “It was everything I could have hoped for and more.
Chapter four
I grabbed Tom’s hand and looked into his eyes. “I really like you. I can’t deny that. I like you more than I probably should...but that shouldn’t have happened and I’m sorry that it did and most importantly if I lead you on . . . “ I started to get up to leave but he grabbed my wrist, which made me look at him.
“Rachel, I like you a lot, too. I understand this is a complicated situation, but I have never felt such a connection before and something tells me you haven’t either.”
“You may be right, but I can’t do this to Ethan…I love him.”
“I understand and I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do or make you choose between us because I am aware that you just met me.”
“I’m glad you understand that. So what exactly do you want from me? I can’t give you anything.”
“Nothing…But I want you to know that I am going to fight for you because I know this is real and I am positive you are worth fighting for.”
“I honestly don’t know what to say to that,” I said, looking down.
He put his hand under my chin and lifted my head. “You don’t have to say anything. Just let time pass.” He grabbed my hand and got up, gave me a hug and planted his lips firmly on mine. “I think it’s time I let you go home. I’ll see you tomorrow at work.”
We each started to walk our own way, looking back from time to time and then he was out of my view. My mind was all over the place, and the guilt was consuming me, but my heart was walking on clouds. I had forgotten how good it was to just have fun with another adult. To see how someone could fawn over you. Ethan had never fawned over me, not even in the very beginning; he was just always there. He brought me a lot of gifts, maybe admired or desired, but he never fawned. He knew from the very beginning how I felt for him and that I wanted to be with him. Maybe that was the reason why it never happened, but who could know for certain.
Oh my God, Ethan, I thought. How could I do this to you?
I took the subway home and by the time I got there it was already dark. I opened the door and walked in. I started walking to the kitchen and that’s when I saw him standing in the middle of the dining room. The lights were off and there were candles everywhere. There were square plates with a black design on the edges. There were pots of food on the table and there in front of everything stood Ethan with a bouquet flowers.
“Ethan?” I said, surprised. “You’re back early.”
“Yes, baby,” he said, obviously excited. “This is great, isn’t it? Why are you all muddy?”
I looked down at myself. I had completely forgotten what I was wearing and how I looked. “I was playing football with some colleagues…I thought you had three days left in your conference.”
“I talked to my bosses and they sent a colleague for the last three days.” He put the flowers on the table, picked me up and carried me to the bathroom. He took my clothes off and opened the glass door of the shower for me to walk in. I got in and cleaned myself quickly as he walked out of the room and came back with a towel. “I’m so glad I can be here with you,” he said with a smile. “I missed you so much. I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”
“I missed you too,” I said in a low voice as I grabbed the towel from his hands and dried myself.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, dropping his shoulders.
“Nothing...I’m just trying to assimilate this. I guess I still can’t believe you’re here today.”
“Maybe I can help you believe it,” he answered as he picked me up, carried me to the bedroom and tossed me gently on the bed.
“Won’t your suit get wrinkled?” I asked.
“It’s fine. You saw me and that’s what matters, and you saw what I prepared for you.” He pushed me higher on the bed so that my back was resting on the headboard, lifted my towel and parted my legs as he placed his tongue between my legs.
“Oh God,” I moaned.
He looked up and smiled. “You like that, don’t you?”
I moaned as he passed his tongue around my clitoris, which was more than happy to receive some attention after almost two weeks. I felt by body tingle. Shit, everything he did always felt so good, as if everything between us was perfect, no problems, nothing bad. Just him and me. He slipped two fingers inside me while keeping his tongue on my clitoris, making the moment even more enjoyable, then he took them out and massaged right below where he was licking. He didn’t have to do much more before I climaxed. Then he lowered his zipper and was inside me before I could even recover, and I was grateful he didn’t let me recover because this was more than perfect. He didn’t waste any time and started making love to me fast and then hard, and then fast and hard together, and soon we both climaxed together.
After a few moments, he pulled himself out of me and laid next to me on the bed. “God I missed you and everything that comes with being near you.” He got up and kissed my forehead. “I’m going to go clean up. If you want you can get dressed and then we can go eat the food I made.”
I got up, dressed and walked to the kitchen. A few minutes later he walked through the kitchen doorway and grabbed my hand, guiding me to the dining room. He pulled out a chair for me and waited for me to sit down, then pushed my chair in slowly. “So...I have something for you,” he said, excited, and pulled out a medium size black box from his pocket. I opened it and saw the most beautiful Rolex Lady-Date Just Pearlmaster and was instantly awed. It was gold with two lines of diamonds running along the sides of the bracelet, the bezel had diamonds around all of it and inside the dial there were also diamonds.
“This looks very expensive,” I said in disbelief.
“It was,” he said with a smile.
“Why would you buy something so expensive? Don’t get me wrong, I love it...but do you have enough money for this?” I said, a tone forming in my voice.
“See... this was my way of telling you something.”
“And what’s that?”
“Well, the thing is, the head of the surgical team is retiring in a few years and they started training me for the position and also raised my salary, almost double.”
“Oh, wow...well, that’s great then.”
“But that’s not really why
I bought it,” he said, then staying quiet. I waited until he decided to continue, “See... the thing is I was thinking a lot during the conference and I came to a decision I would like to discuss with you.”
“Ok, and what is that?”
He got closer to me, grabbed my hands, and said, “We’ve been living together for a year now, engaged for about two… How about if we get married this same day next year?”
“This same day next year?” I said, shocked. “That would be June 19, 2017.”
“That’s correct.”
“Do you know what day the 19th falls on?”
“Um, I can check.” He pulled out his phone and started looking through the calendar. “It’s a Friday.”
“We can’t get married on Friday.”
“You’re right. June 21st then.”
“June 21st ?”
“Yes, it’s a Sunday.”
“Well...I guess that’s a good day. I don’t see why we couldn’t get married then,” I answered as Tom popped into my head at that very moment along with a feeling of guilt.
He got up and hugged me. “We are getting married. I shouldn’t have waited so long to talk to you about setting a date,” he said with excitement in his voice. “Let’s eat now, ok?”
The food was exquisite; Ethan did always cook well, better than just well, his food was great. We finished the meal mostly in silence, Ethan giving me romantic stares from time to time. After finishing the meal, we washed the dishes together and talked about our days apart. I would say the night finished after that, but I would be lying. Ethan was nowhere ready to let the night end. Even though I tried not to think about Tom, he came into my mind as Ethan got close, kissed my lips or caressed my body. I could think of no one but Tom. I felt tremendous guilt and had a feeling that I was about to embark on the worst emotional roller coaster of my life. I barely knew Tom, yet he had been able to come between me and Ethan. A man whom I knew I wanted to marry a month into our relationship. The worst part was that everything with Ethan could be put on the line for someone who had no place in my life.
Chapter five
The next day I woke up to bags packed in our room. I looked around the room for Ethan but I didn’t see him. I got up from the bed and walked to the kitchen, where Ethan was dressed as if he were going to a water park. He was wearing navy blue shorts, a white shirt that said I love New York, flip-flops and a Navy blue hat without a logo.
“Are you going somewhere?” I asked.
“I think you mean, are we going somewhere?”
“Wait, what?”
“ I booked a hotel for the weekend. We’re leaving right away.”
“But I don’t have anything packed.”
“Don’t worry. I took care of all of that. Just go get ready and I’ll wait for you in the car.”
I went into the bathroom, took a shower and got dressed. When I got out of the shower Ethan had everything packed in the car and in about 5 minutes we were on our way.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
“Old Forge, NY.”
“Old Forge? What the heck is in Old Forge?”
“This really nice place. I think you’ll like it.”
“How far is it from here?”
“Four to five hours.”
“You’re really bold, don’t you think?”
“I guess so, plus I love spending time with you.”
“Sure doesn’t seem like it lately. Every week you spend more and more time at the hospital.”
“That has nothing to do with you, Rachel. They’re short on staff and we needed the money if we were going to get married. I have to be able to provide for my future family.”
“I understand that, but you have to balance it out.”
“You’re right. I do have to balance it out. That’s why I’m taking you out this weekend, marking a new change”
“As long as you don’t promise me something and don’t deliver, we’re good.”
“Rachel, I will try with all my power to be the man you want me to be.”
“Ok...Can we listen to music?”
“Yeah, sure.” I plugged my phone into the auxiliary and put on a station from Pandora.
He changed the station. “Your music is weird,” he said, “This is what normal people listen to.”
“Normal people aren’t all that normal then.”
“Or maybe you’re just weird.”
“Whatever. We need to stop for gas.”
We pulled in to a shabby gas station and Ethan bought me some chocolate and a soda.
“Thanks,” I said as he handed them to me.
He got in the car and we were on the road again. We stayed silent for the rest of drive, except when comments were made about the scenery. Which was not all that bad. The more we drove, the more the city disappeared and the countryside of New York started to show. Instead of high-rise apartment buildings we saw beautiful houses of brick or wood in a variety of colors and architecture. After about three hours of driving we finally arrived and just in time because I felt like my gluteus muscles were going numb. The Inn Ethan chose truly was nice. It was big and looked like it had about 200 rooms, the walls of which were a light brown under a dark brown roof. Most of the rooms had a balcony that faced a lake about 30 yards from the Inn. There were a few motorboats tied at the shore of the lake and what appeared to be a small ferry also docked at the shore. We parked our car, a gray Mercedes, removed our bags from the trunk and walked toward the Inn’s lobby to check in.
“Welcome to the Water Edge Inn. How may I be of service?” asked the receptionist.
“Hello,” Ethan said. I booked a room for two.”
“Yes, name please?”
“Ethan Callum.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Callum, we’ve been expecting you.”
“Expecting you?” I asked, surprised by the comment.
“Oh yes,” said the receptionist. “Your husband picked a great suite for the weekend.”
I thought about correcting the receptionist, but I felt this would be too cruel, so I just stayed silent and so did Ethan.
“Very well,” the receptionist said. “May I have someone guide you to your rooms?”
“Yes, thank you,” replied Ethan.
When we reached the room, I took in everything slowly as the hotel employee showed us around the room. It was equipped with a small kitchen and dining area with a beautiful wooden table, high chairs and a silver vase of flowers. Next was a meeting area with a big brown couch in the middle and a wooden coffee table in front of it. On the wall in front of the coffee table was a 64-inch flat screen TV with a lamp table under it. There was a glass wall to the left and a glass door that led to a private balcony facing the lake. The balcony held two reclining chairs so one could lie back and relax. The bedroom had a dark brown bed set. The bed was in the middle of the room with a beige bed cover that had a hint of green. On each side of the bed there were lamp tables with lamps on each one, a burgundy shade on each lamp. There was a window on the right side of the room with burgundy curtains. Another lamp with the same burgundy shade stood behind a brown leather classic chair. The bathroom was connected to the bedroom, with a door separating the two. The bathroom had two sinks with white marble tops and dark brown almost black wooden cabinets under the sink. Two mirrors with the same brownish black color borders hung above the sinks and two small lamps were connected on each side of the mirrors. The room was so nice, especially the bedroom, it screamed romance and I couldn’t help but love it. Ethan had truly outdone himself. The hotel employee explained some of the activities they had available for the day and then left us to enjoy our mini vacation.
“Sooo...what do you think?” Ethan asked. “It’s a really nice place.”
“Which activity would you like to do first?”
“Well...it’s 2:30 pm. What time is the next activity?”
“If I’m not mistaken, horseback riding is at 3:30 pm. Would you like to go?”
“I’d love to go
! You know how much I love animals, and horses are definitely on that list.”
“Yeah, I definitely know how much you like animals. That’s why I picked this place. I hoped that we could see some more animals on the trail, not just the horses.”
“I love how you just know me.”
“I love how I just know you too,” he said, laughing and kissing me on the mouth. “You’re so stupid.”
“And you like stupid.”
“You’re right. I do like stupid.” He leaned in and started kissing me and caressing me slowly. “Ethan, if you start doing that then we won’t make it to the horseback ride.”
“Well, there is another one at 4:30 pm. We can always go on the horseback ride later.”
“So what do you think? Want to stay in a little while? After all, it was a long car ride.”
“That depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“If I’m allowed to lead.”
“You are always allowed to lead.”
“Then it’s settled, I guess. We’re going horseback riding at 4:30. Should we go to the bed?”
“The couch looks extremely comfortable, don’t you think? Just close the curtains and everything will be perfect.”
Chapter six
“I am exhausted,” he said in gasps.
“Oh no, don’t think you’re getting out of horseback riding that easily. You wanted to stay in a little while. Now it’s my turn.”
“But why go out when we could do more of this?” he asked, grabbing my thigh and kissing my neck.
“Oh no, no, no, no,” I said, getting off the couch in a small jog, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at him. “You get up and get dressed. We are going to ride horses.”
“Ok, ok, fine. I’ll get dressed, but this is not done.”
“Fine, now hurry up,” I said with a laugh.
By the time he came out I was already dressed in my khaki Bermuda shorts, a pink tank top, a khaki hat and pink sneakers.
“Weeelll... you sure look cute,” he said with a flirtatious smile.
“Oh shut up.”
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