by Simply BWWM
"I'm Cicely, it's nice to meet you. Roman. I wish it was under better circumstances." She smiled down at him and put her warm hands over his. It made him think suddenly of his own mother who had passed away years before. Her gentle touch was comforting to him, and he could see in a minute that she was a woman who loved and defended fiercely.
"Hello Cicely, it's so good to meet you. Thank you for coming in here!" He smiled at her. "It's easy to see where Cami gets her beauty and her strong character."
Cicely laughed quietly and said, "So, they tell us that they are letting you go today. How do you feel?"
Roman shrugged. "I feel better than I did when I woke up, and I feel alive, so that's the most important thing. They've taken good care of me in here, and I can't ask for much more than that."
"How long will your recovery period be?" She looked at him with kind eyes.
He tilted his head. "Well, it's supposed to take six weeks, and we're already coming to the end of the first week, so we've got a way to go. But it will happen. I come back for checkups a few times, so those benchmarks will tell us how I'm really doing. I have high hopes."
The corners of his mouth turned up a bit. "I've had good company here in the hospital, and a great staff. I think it's been the key to my recovery." He smiled at Cami, and thought again for the umpteenth time how beautiful she really was.
Cicely patted his hand and let it go. "I hope you heal soon. If there is anything that I can do for you, please let me know."
He knew that she meant it and he was grateful for her thoughtfulness. The doctors and nurses came bustling in around him, unhooking him from everything and getting him ready to be released. An hour later, he had been signed out of the hospital and was being driven home by Janine. He'd said goodbye to Cami, Emma, and Cicely at the hospital and it hurt his heart to know that he wasn't going to be seeing them more than once a day, now that he was going back to the house with Denise.
He wondered what he would find when he went home, and deep down, he wasn't looking forward to it.
When he went through the doors of the huge house, it was quiet. No one was there to greet him. Janine looked around and scowled.
"I told her you'd be coming home, and I expected her to be here to help you." She gave one sweeping dirty look to the empty space where his wife should have been and then turned and smiled at him. "No matter. We'll get you set up in the guest room downstairs here. I don't want you trying to go up and down the stairs to your bedroom while you're still on crutches," she said and then walked toward the guest bedroom beside the library.
Roman followed her. He knew she was right; it would be much easier to navigate the downstairs rooms than it would be to try to get up to the second or third floor with crutches. For all the richness and convenience of his massive home, he had not put in an elevator, so he hobbled into the guest room and took a look around.
He hadn't been in it for a while, and it wasn't as big as his room, of course, but it was quite clean and it looked really comfortable. Janine got him all set up and then looked at him as she was leaving.
"You let me know if you need anything, and you’d better tell me if Denise gives you any grief. I know you can take care of yourself, but if she isn't an absolute angel to you while you're healing, she is going to catch hell from me." Then she smiled at him, hugged him, and walked out, leaving him to rest.
He laid back in his bed, worn out from the trip home and the excitement of the day, and before he knew it, he was sleeping.
It was hours before he woke, and when he did, the house still seemed quiet. He got out of bed and hobbled into the kitchen for a meal and some water to take his medication, and he was surprised to see Denise and her mother sitting at the table, talking in low tones.
They both looked up at him and Agnes narrowed her eyes at him and glared. "Well, look who it is. The wandering philanderer back from the grave."
He looked at her for a moment, wondering if she knew her daughter had been having an affair, and took a deep breath. "Hello, Agnes."
He turned and headed toward the sink. He was stunned when Denise hopped up and rushed over to help him. She pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water, and then handed it to him.
He stared at her for a second. "Thank you," he said quietly, and that was all he said because he didn't know what else to say to her. She wasn't really a deeply compassionate person, or terribly thoughtful.
She seemed somewhat agitated, and she twisted her fingers round and about each other as she looked at him, almost in desperation.
"We need to talk," she said thinly. He looked at her face and saw worry in her eyes, and something like panic, but not quite as dramatic. He nodded.
"Alright. Can we go somewhere private or does your mother need to be in on this conversation?" He wasn't sure what she needed to talk to him about, but he knew better than to suppose that it would be just the two of them without checking.
She looked over her shoulder at her mother, who was still shooting daggers at Roman, and then she turned her eyes back to him. "It'll just be the two of us. Let's go." she walked beside him as they made it back to his room downstairs and he climbed into bed with a sigh.
He got comfortable and looked up at her. "What is it?" he asked in a tired voice.
Denise shifted uncomfortably and then sat on his bed beside him and laid her hand on his leg. "I found out about your kid," she said quietly.
Roman nodded. "I know. I heard about it when I woke up at the hospital."
She leaned forward, moving closer to him. "I'm sorry I didn't come see you, but I just couldn't stand that place, or stand being around that woman you were with. It was just too hard for me, and I knew that if anything bad happened, then they'd call me and of course, I would have come to you, but I knew that as long as I didn't hear anything, then you were okay, and I didn't have to worry about you.
“I knew you were being taken care of and that was all that mattered to me. I just wanted to know you were alright without having to get into any weird fights or arguments with that woman."
Roman could understand her point, but he still felt like he had been deserted. He felt like she should have been there, no matter what.
Denise inched even closer to him, sliding her hand up his leg a bit further. "I had some time to think about it while I was waiting for you to come home, and I wanted you to know that I've accepted what you did, and we've both made mistakes, and I still want us to work on things together. I still want to try to fix our marriage. I'm going to be a step-mom to that kid, and I will do my best to try to be a nice one."
Roman was shocked. "You are willing to take on the role of a step-mother? You're ready for that?"
She shrugged and leaned close to him, just over his chest. "It's what I have to do to keep you and help fix our marriage, so yeah, I can give it a try. I don't want anyone thinking that I'm trash because I let you down. If I become the kid's stepmother, then everyone will think I'm a saint for taking in your bastard child, and it will look better for me, and it will help our relationship because then we can stay together as a... a family."
She almost stuttered over the word family. He stared at her. "My child is no such thing, and if you do want to stay in this house, you will never refer to her as that again. Her name is Emma. You may call her Emma, and that is all you may call her, other than my daughter."
Denise shrugged and nodded her head. "Sure, no problem. I can do that. I'll call her Emma. Let's just try to work this out together. Let's fix everything together," she said, smiling at him and leaning down so that her face was close to his.
Roman couldn't remember the last time she had been that close to him. Her hand slid from his leg over to his groin and she began to massage him. His eyes widened in surprise as she lowered her head to his and kissed his mouth softly.
"See? We can work this out." She kissed him again and he just looked at her for a long moment as she brought her lips to his again and opened his mouth with her tongue, movin
g her hand more firmly along the length of him that was growing stiff with arousal. She smiled sensually and whispered against his mouth, "There we go... isn't that nice? Isn't that what it's supposed to be like for us, my husband?"
She opened his robe and slid his shorts off of him as he laid there and looked at her with uncertainty and a growing ache in his loins. Denise kissed him softly from his mouth down his chest to his stomach, and then looked up at him playfully from his thighs.
"I'll have you feeling better in no time. You'll see," she said with a sultry voice. She kissed the tip of his erection and worked her lips down the shaft of it, flicking her tongue over it until she opened her mouth wide and enveloped him in it, sucking at him softly at first, and then with more voracity as she got more excited.
Pleasure burned through him and he closed his eyes, letting it wash over him. Roman tentatively lowered his hands to her head and slipped his fingers into her red curls, feeling their silkiness and bending his fingers in their thickness. She worked away at him, making his breath grow short as he began to gasp and pant, his eyes closed and his heart pounding wildly against his chest. Just before he could climax, she pulled her lips from him and straddled him there in the bed, plunging him into the depths of her and riding him hard as he grasped her hips and held her tightly to him.
"I've missed you," she whispered as she leaned over him and kissed him firmly, crushing her lips against his. He opened his eyes and looked at her for a moment, and she took his hands and lifted them to her voluptuous breasts.
The feel of her flesh beneath his hands had once been as familiar to him as breathing, but now it seemed foreign, it seemed strange, and as she rocked her hips over his, his mind turned to the one who he wished was with him in his bed, one who had felt better in his arms and connected to his body than anyone had ever felt to him, and his pleasure skyrocketed.
He pushed himself into her over and over, his hands clasped tightly to her breasts, listening to her moan and cry out in pleasure, and all the while, his eyes were closed and his mind had taken him back to the night on the yacht with another woman, a dark skinned woman who had loved him as he had never been loved. His body tensed and arced as his orgasm rushed at him full force and he came like an explosion inside her body... inside..."Cami... my Cami..." he cried out in his powerful release.
Denise stopped short and looked down at him with wide eyes.
"What did you say?" she asked in horror.
He opened his eyes in realization and looked back at her. "I'm sorry... I.... it must be the medication I don't know what I was thinking." He almost whispered it.
Denise yanked her body from his and climbed off the bed, pulling her clothes back on. "I know what you were thinking, and it's something you can't ever think of again. That's what it means when we say we are going to fix our marriage. It's just you and me and no one else."
With that, she turned and stomped out of the room and Roman closed his eyes, wondering what on earth he had been doing, thinking about Cami at a moment like that. Cami was his friend... she had been a lover once, and he admitted to himself that things had gotten hot with her when he had kissed her at the hotel, but he had to stay focused.
She was his friend and nothing more. He was married, and he could not use Cami or try to make her his mistress. That wasn't the life he wanted for himself or anyone else, including Cami and Emma. They all deserved better.
He mentally chastised himself for his carelessness and swore to himself that it wouldn't happen again. His tiredness overtook him and he fell asleep, but in his dreams, she came to him again. In his dreams they were on the boat and they made love and laughed together, shared each other's company, danced and held each other beneath the stars, and loved each other.
When he awoke the next day, he had breakfast with Denise in the kitchen and he realized that she was watching him like a hawk as she moved around the room. She seemed nervous and ill at ease as she sat with him, almost like she was twitching.
"Roman, I was thinking... after last night," a disgruntled look crossed her face, "I think we should go away together for a little trip, when you're feeling better, and spend some time alone. What do you think?"
He realized then, as he looked at her, that Cami had completely unsettled her, and his calling Cami's name out the night before had undone her. She was absolutely insecure about it and about her relationship with him.
"Listen, Denise, if this is about last night, then you don't need to worry about anything. I'm sorry about my mistake, and it was indeed a mistake, she and I aren't anything more than friends, and it was probably just all the medicine that the doctors have me on right now. I don't want you to worry about anything, alright? Try to let that go as much as you can." He felt badly about it, but there was no way to undo it.
She blinked at him a few times and then scooted her chair closer to him. "Well, we have to start working on fixing things between us, so I want to lay some ground rules down. I understand that you want to see your kid-"
He shot her a serious look and spoke in a strong voice, "Emma, her name is Emma. Use her name."
Denise shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Alright, then, Emma. I understand you'll be wanting to see her, so I was thinking that she could come over here when you want to see her, and then you don't have to go to... her place to see her. That way you don't have to be around her." She smiled brightly at him.
"You and I can set up a room for Emma here, and she can spend time with us here. Her mother can drop her off and pick her up at our door, and then you don't need to be at her place and be around her. That's what I want to do about it." She looked as if the matter was finished.
Roman thought carefully about what she was saying. He knew she was trying her best to keep him away from Cami as much as possible, and he could understand why, but he could not understand the ache in his heart at the idea of not seeing Cami. He felt like Denise was stealing away his opportunity at a friendship with her, and it hurt him.
He also knew that there would probably be better times to discuss it, and better ways to handle it, than to argue with her over breakfast when he had called out Cami's name during their intimacy just the night before.
"We'll have to figure it out as we go along, but for now, I guess that will work." He sighed. He was meeting Cami later to see her new home, and he would talk with her then.
Chapter 7
Cami and Cicely decided to go out to an early dinner when they left the hospital. They loaded Emma into the backseat and in no time they were traversing the lofty hills of San Francisco.
Cami hadn't asked what her Mama thought of Roman. She had been waiting quietly, and almost impatiently, to find out, but Cicely was taking her time and hadn't said a word about him at that point.
They were near the restaurant when Cami finally broke down and asked.
"Well, Mama?" she asked as a nervous smile touched the corners of her mouth.
Cicely looked out the window. "Well, what?"
Cami laughed and scolded her. "Mama! What did you think of Roman?"
Her Mama smiled a little and looked over at her casually. "I need to spend more time with him to tell you what I really think, but he seems like a nice man. He seems like a good man, and I like what I know of him so far.
“That's all I can say to you about him for now. Janine is quite a character, though. That lady isn't afraid to say what she thinks! Not at all. I like women like that. Ladies that speak their mind with no filter or hesitation. It saves me the trouble of having to get past all their games and just know them."
Cami nodded. "I knew you'd like her. She's really been so good to us since we got here. She's looked out for us just as much as Roman has. She's the one who helped me find a home here. I think our move would have been so much harder without her helping us."
Cicely looked at Cami then and said, "I will say one thing about Roman. He really does care about you a great deal. I could see that as plain as day on his face when he looks at you.
&
nbsp; “He watches you with love. I don't think he knows it yet, but it's obvious. If you two think you're going to be able to raise my little Emma as just friends and not have any sort of romantic feelings for each other, you've got a challenge ahead of you.
“He cares for you and he cares for Emma, and that is only going to grow stronger over time. If his wife thinks she can hold on to him, she better hold on tight. You're a grown woman and you can do what you want, but I'm going to tell you right now, Cami, you be careful around him, and you keep your wits and senses about you, because I don't think it would be too difficult at all for you to fall right into love with him and end up with a broken heart."
Cami was silent as she listened to her mother. She knew that what Cicely was saying was true. She had seen it and felt it at the hospital, and before then, at his office and in her hotel room when they kissed.