But this was more than just physical.
She was baring herself to me because she trusted me. She knew that I felt as strongly about her when my eyes were closed or when we weren’t even together as I did with her naked in front of me.
Feelings of pride and possession overtook me. I knew with absolute certainty that I couldn’t possibly share this with anyone else. This was sacred to me. She was sacred to me. It was the purest thing I had ever experienced, and I wanted it all to myself. All of her. Evangeline didn’t know it, but that was the exact moment I vowed to do whatever it took to fight for her; even if that meant giving everything else up and suffering whatever consequences resulted.
Her eyes were still shut as she shifted her head to the other side, causing her wild black tresses to slightly cover one of her breasts. I would draw her exactly that way.
It took everything in me to muster enough energy to start the first stroke. I much preferred staring at her and marveling at her natural beauty without having to think about anything else aside from what it would feel like to be inside of her. I forced the movement of the pencil.
Once I started, I couldn’t stop, so incredibly focused on the precision of the angles and depicting her proportions accurately. All of my practice runs prepared me for this. The way she was standing, I couldn’t make out her chest as clearly as I needed to. I had to know if she had any beauty marks, too.
As much as it was a risk, I stood up from the bed and slowly walked over to her. “Keep your eyes closed.”
Her breathing intensified, but she did as I told her. Holding the pencil in my hand, I used it to lightly trace the shape of her breasts one at a time. When she flinched and opened her eyes, I whispered, “It’s okay. I’m just tracing them to get a feel for the shape. I promise I won’t do anything else.”
She nodded, but now her eyes were open and following the movement of my hand. Her breathing was labored.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” she breathed out.
I tried to burn the fine details of her body into memory: the pear shape of her breasts, the small brown beauty mark on the inner skin of her right one. Her beautiful bare pussy…it took everything in me not to kneel down and devour it. When I’d gotten what I needed, I forced myself to step back. She looked up at me when I stopped touching her with the pencil. Our eyes locked. As erotic as it all was, I couldn’t take it any further.
I knew she was turned on. There were obvious signs, like the way her nipples puckered and the way she kept shifting her legs. But more than that, I felt it. In fact, her resistance was weaker than I ever expected. I would have been willing to bet anything that she was as wet as I was hard. The mere thought of that was making me insane. But as much as my body craved her, this wasn’t the right time to consider anything more than what we were doing. I wasn’t going to take advantage of the gift she’d given me tonight.
So, I returned to my bed and vowed to stay there until I finished the sketch.
***
It was almost morning by the time Evangeline got dressed and returned to the main house.
Seeming to really love it, she’d gasped when I showed her the drawing. I had to admit, it was truly my best work. I hadn’t ever realized how much easier it was to create an accurate depiction when you had an actual live model.
Before leaving, Evangeline hid the picture inside a large Ansel Adams photography book that I’d let her borrow. She’d better have found a damn good hiding place for it.
Left in a state of excruciating need, I immediately retreated to the bathroom and jerked off to thoughts of all the things I wanted to do to her but hadn’t. Now that almost every corner of her body was crystal clear in my mind, the fantasies were unbearably vivid. I came hard three times in a row…in the bathroom standing, in the shower and again in my bed. I’d considered taking a day off from work just to masturbate but stopped myself when I thought about how ridiculous that was.
At breakfast that morning, I could barely look Elle in the eyes.
“Sevin, are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah. I’m just a little tired. I wasn’t able to sleep last night.”
As I looked into her sweet eyes, for the first time, my guilt felt like it was completely transparent. The one consolation was that Evangeline was apparently still upstairs sleeping.
When Elle had recently suggested we take things to a physical level, I’d somehow managed to convince her that it was best to continue waiting.
When Olga was out of earshot, Elle whispered to me, “I want to come see you tonight.”
“Okay. Sure.” I didn’t know how to respond. I knew for certain that I wasn’t going to lay a finger on her, but being alone with her lately still made me uncomfortable. She seemed desperate to connect with me while I just became more distant.
With each day that passed, it seemed less likely that the wedding to Elle was ever going to come to fruition. The chances of my moving back to Oklahoma, however, seemed greater than my ending up with Evangeline.
“Callum is coming to visit this weekend. I told Evangeline the four of us should go out again.”
It felt like everything was closing in on me. Evangeline had all but told me outright that she was leaving town with her “boyfriend.” Meanwhile, the wedding plans were ongoing. I felt like I needed to do something drastic and soon.
***
Callum had driven down from Missouri, and the Suttons had stuck him in my guesthouse. So, I had a very unwanted roommate for the weekend.
The night I drew Evangeline was a game changer. There was no way I was able to tolerate the idea of this guy so much as touching her, let alone marrying her.
The alone time with Callum, though, was my opportunity to play dumb and get as much information about Evangeline’s plans as possible.
We were outside working on rebuilding the shed that was damaged during the storm. It was a clear afternoon, and the sun was beating down on us. Elle and Evangeline went to town to the farmer’s market to buy produce for dinner. Lance and Olga had gone to a church function with Emily. So, aside from Imogene, it was just Callum and me on the property.
What started out as a routine afternoon of work turned out to be anything but ordinary.
I banged down with my hammer onto a piece of plywood and removed the nail that I’d been holding between my teeth. “So…Evangeline says she’s now planning to move to Missouri?”
“Yeah…it was her idea.”
“What’s the rush all of a sudden?”
“I have my theories.”
“Oh, yeah? What are those?”
“Well, you know. This environment here isn’t exactly conducive to having a relationship. My parents aren’t nearly as strict as the Suttons. They believe in traditional roles and all, but their courtship rules are different.”
“So, you think Evangeline wants to move to Missouri so she can fuck around with you?”
“Partly, yes.”
“And when you say, ‘traditional roles,’ what exactly are you talking about?”
“That means multiple things. For one, once we get married, Evangeline will stay home and raise our kids while I work outside of the home.”
“I thought part of the reason she’s supposedly moving is to work for your parents’ company.”
“Well, that’ll be okay for a while, but Evangeline’s not gonna be able to have a career once we have babies.”
“Does she know that?”
“It’s understood.”
“So, you’ve discussed it...”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit. No you haven’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“Evangeline would never go for that. She’s way too ambitious.”
“That’s nice and all, but once we’re married, she’s going to do what’s best for our family and therefore best for her. That’s how it works.”
“What’s best for her is whatever makes her happy.”
“So, you’re telling me tha
t Elle is going to continue working once you have kids?”
“Elle can do whatever the hell she wants to do, whether that’s staying home with her children or working. It’s not my place to tell her how to live her life.”
“Sorry, but that’s not how I was raised. A wife doesn’t have a choice in the matter.”
“I didn’t realize you were raised by a tribe of fucking hyenas.”
He lifted his arms up. “Dude, what the fuck is your problem?”
“My problem is your archaic thinking and the fact that you don’t know diddly squat about the woman you’re supposedly marrying.”
“And you do?”
“A heck of a lot better than you, apparently.”
“What is it with you and Evangeline anyway? Why are you always in our business? You wish you were marrying her instead? Why don’t you stick to worrying about Elle. Go fuck her or something. Stay out of Evangeline’s and my affairs.”
“Evangeline is my family, just as much as Elle. She is my business.”
“Well, not for long.”
“If you think she’s gonna marry you and agree to lose her identity, you have another thing coming.”
“She’s gonna do whatever the fuck I tell her to do as her husband.”
“I suppose you think she also should fuck you whenever you tell her to, right?”
“Actually, yes. As my wife, whether she wants to or not, she will submit to me wherever and whenever I tell her to.”
I really didn’t mean to practically knock out his teeth. But as soon as that sentence exited his mouth, my arm took on a mind of its own. The next thing I knew, Callum was on the ground, and his mouth was a bloody mess. It all happened so fast.
There were no witnesses in sight—or so I thought. It would be his word against mine as to how the fight happened.
“You nearly fucking knocked out my tooth, you bastard!”
“You say shit like that about people I care about again, and I will make sure you don’t have one single tooth left next time.”
I didn’t know how I was going to explain this to the Suttons. Callum would definitely make me out to be the bad guy.
As if this shit show couldn’t have gotten any worse, Callum and I looked up into the window above at the same exact time. It seemed we had a witness to our fight. Imogene was standing there smiling down on us with her toothless grin. She’d been watching us like a spectator sport. I hadn’t seen her in weeks, since the Suttons did such a good job of keeping the poor thing hidden.
Pervert that she was, she must have been ogling Callum and me as we both worked shirtless in the sun. That wasn’t the worst part. When she noticed that we spotted her, she lifted up her shirt, exposing her long saggy tits. She started shaking them around.
What in the hell?
Callum and I were speechless. That marked the end of our fight as we both returned to the guesthouse in shock and silence.
CHAPTER 15
EVANGELINE
Callum had a fat lip. He wouldn’t tell me the truth about what happened, but I had a sinking feeling Sevin had something to do with it.
At dinner that night, I noticed that Sevin had a bruise on his hand, so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.
When I confronted Callum about it later, he made up a story that the two of them were drinking too much and ended up wrestling. He said things got out of hand. The whole thing sounded bogus.
I’d been intentionally avoiding Sevin completely, so asking him wasn’t an option. I knew he would tell me the truth, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. The one time he was able to get me alone in the kitchen after dinner Saturday night, he said he needed to talk to me about something important. Perhaps it had to do with what happened with Callum. Elle had walked in seconds later, and that was the end of it. Now that my decision about leaving had been made, there was no point in making things worse by spending any more time with Sevin. After that night, I stopped showing up for dinner.
Sunday evening, Callum had just left to go back to Missouri. His next trip to Dodge City in two weeks would be to pick me up and bring me back with him. Although Mama and Daddy had given me their blessing to move in with the Hughes family, I hadn’t yet told anyone exactly how quickly I was planning to leave. I was waiting until the last minute so that it didn’t get back to Sevin. That also meant keeping it from Elle.
I was in my room discreetly packing some of my small items in preparation for the move when Elle walked in. I tried hard to look casual so that my packing up wouldn’t seem so obvious.
She smiled. “Hey, sis. What are you up to?”
“Just organizing some of my things.”
She plopped down on my bed. “So, you’re really planning to eventually move to Missouri?”
Letting out a deep breath, I said, “That’s the plan.”
“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
“Don’t make me cry. It’s not that far away. We can still visit each other.”
She sighed. “I know. I just always envisioned us raising our babies together, walking them around the property every day in their strollers while we visited Mama. I understand that Callum has to take over his father’s company and all, but I never imagined that you’d move away. It makes me sad. I can’t help it.”
Tears that came out of nowhere were starting to form in my eyes. “I’m really sorry, Elle.”
Sorry for my weakness, which screwed up your dreams for us.
Sorry for falling in love with your fiancé.
Sorry for everything.
I was truly sorry.
Elle got up from the bed to hug me. “Don’t worry about me. It’s okay as long as this is what’s going to make you happy.”
Your happiness is more important.
Elle really had no clue how unhappy I was. I thought that maybe after all this time, Sevin or I might have given off some kind of vibe, but it truly amazed me that Elle didn’t sense that something was off with either one of us. My misery felt like it should have been written all over my face.
“By the way, is Callum okay?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“His lip…”
“Sevin didn’t say anything to you?”
“No. I asked him if he knew what happened, and he said it was nothing. He wouldn’t go into details.”
“The way Callum explained it, apparently they were drinking while working on the shed and were horsing around, and Callum cut his lip.”
“That sounds really weird.”
“I know.”
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Boys will be boys, I guess.”
“Right.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief when she left to go downstairs. It was so hard not to tell her how soon I was planning to leave. But once it got back to Sevin, I knew he would try to stop me. I couldn’t risk anything happening between us that might deter me.
After the night that he drew me in his room, I knew I couldn’t allow myself to lose my inhibitions like that ever again. I’d wanted him to draw me as a form of closure, but it had an opposite effect on me, one so strong that it solidified the need to leave as soon as possible.
I couldn’t close my eyes at night without remembering the feel of his pencil tracing my breasts—the look of desire in his eyes when he did it.
He’d been so intensely focused, drawing me as he sat on the bed with his legs crossed, that pencil tucked in the crook of his ear.
I will never forget one single second of that night. The sensations that had pulsed through me were ones I didn’t think my body was even capable of.
The ache for him was now more unbearable than ever. Forcing myself to stay away from him made it even worse.
I missed him so much but could no longer trust myself around him. This was the way it had to be. All he’d have to do was touch me one more time, and I was afraid I might lose it. And losing it would mean losing my sister and being responsible for Sevin’s downfall all at onc
e.
***
One week before my scheduled departure, the feelings of emptiness and longing hadn’t waned; they’d only intensified. In a fruitless attempt to shake them off, I decided to do something that I hadn’t done in weeks.
Lacing up my sneakers, I prepared to go out for what would likely be my final early morning run here, since the rest of the week’s forecast called for rain. There was less fog than usual, and the sun was fighting to peek through the morning clouds.
As my feet hit the dirt of the grounds outside the ranch, the enormity of my leaving really started to sink in. I ran faster to fight the feelings of despair. The cold morning air attempted to dry the tears that were streaming down my face.
I didn’t want to leave.
The symbolism of my running was not lost on me. That was exactly what I would be doing, running away from everything here. I didn’t know if that made me a hero or a coward.
About three minutes into my run, it felt like my heart was beating out of my chest in synch with my feet. I could have sworn I heard it pounding outside of me but soon realized it wasn’t my heart at all. It was the sound of footsteps pounding the pavement behind me.
I didn’t have to turn around. I knew it was him. I sped up. By the time he made his way to my side, it felt like I’d lost a race against time.
He could see the tears falling down my cheeks, the redness in my eyes. He must have known I was crying long before he ever showed up.
Sevin’s gray hood covered his head. His beautiful dark blue eyes were piercing from beneath it. He looked tormented, devastated…stunningly beautiful—a clear reminder of exactly why I’d been staying away from him.
He wasn’t saying anything. The faster I ran, the faster he would go to keep up with me. You’d think we were being chased by something when in fact the only thing we were running from was each other.
I was losing my breath. It felt like I was going to drop, and he sensed it.
He grabbed my arm, forcing me to a halt. “Fuck! Stop, Evangeline.”
Wrapping his hands around my cheeks, he pulled my face close to his. We were just inches apart and both gasping for air. The air that escaped his mouth and entered mine made me weaker and weaker. I wanted to consume each and every one of his breaths. This moment was different from all of the others we’d shared. The intensity in his eyes wasn’t anything like the focused stare he normally displayed when looking at me. It was wild, uninhibited and held no control at all.
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