Adored in Oman (Book 2 in Teach Me, Love Me Series): Interracial Romance

by Mariah Violet

  “We can do whatever you suggest, but I want it filed immediately, today. I want Jack served as soon as possible. One more thing, I want my name changed back to Evans. I want to be Shannon Elise Evans, again,” Shan stated quite emphatically.

  “No problem, I will get the ball rolling before you are out of the parking lot,” Lawyer agreed.

  As Shan left, he got on the phone and started giving his paralegal the information she needed to get it all started today. He told her to mark it hot and nothing else on her desk took precedence over getting his cousin away from this fool. Only a fool took his girlfriend to the bed he slept in with his wife.

  The next stop was the gas station. She bought a four pack of sauvignon blanc, a pack of menthol Newports and drove five hours to Galveston. She smoked half the Newports en route. The wine was sitting in a little cooler she had also picked up when she stopped at Woody’s Smokehouse off the highway. There was an additional four pack of wine, cheese, crackers, summer sausage, turkey jerkey and coffee, cream and sugar. She had bought a cute ceramic mug that said, “Free To Be Me” in bold letters.

  She was driving through Houston and saw her favorite eatery and thought, “Twice in one day? Hell yes! I am leaving the country soon.”

  She ate a tasty shrimp salad accompanied by crawfish bisque. She also did the sweet tea to go trick and stashed not one, but two Swamp Things.

  Satisfied, she made her way on out of the big city and coasted into Galveston about 8:30. The sun had long ago set. Shan drove to her favorite hotel on the Strand and got a room. One hour later, after a shower and a Swamp Thing, melted, but still potent and tasty with just a little ice from the bucket delivered by room service, Shan called her mother.

  “Hey Daughter!” Katy Evans sang into the phone. She hadn’t expected to hear from her only chick. They had talked just the previous day.

  Hearing those two words, the greeting years old and a reminder of every warm and familiar thing she loved, Shan finally broke.

  “Mommy,” she whispered.

  In Longview, Katy stopped moving. Her whole body got tight. She knew that sound. Her baby was in distress. Not sad or upset or even angry. She was hurting in her heart and mind and body.

  “Where are you?” Shan’s mother demanded.

  In a tiny voice, lost and quivering, Shan said, “I’m on the Strand in Galveston.”

  “Oh baby, why are you in Galveston? What happened?” Katy entreated. Galveston was where Shan went to lick her wounds. It was the closest beach and Shan had always loved the ocean, since she was very young. It soothed her.

  In a halting voice, the words seemed to be jerked from her throat, “I went home unexpectedly and found my husband with his tongue on my co-worker’s clit and then he slid his favorite appendage inside her body and proceeded to screw her in our bed.” This was followed by a harsh, barking laugh. “I’m so stupid.”

  “There will be none of that!” Katy snapped at her daughter. “I can’t even pretend to have a word for this, but you are not stupid. You never have been and you aren’t now that you have discovered your husband is not the man his mother raised him to be.”

  In a gentler tone, “Now, what have you done? I know you did something! You have driven all the way to Galveston. That means you are making plans. 45 South is your break up highway.”

  A more natural laugh made its way through the phone, bounced off cellular towers and into Katy’s ear. She relaxed a bit.

  “You know that’s right, Mama!” Shan agreed. Lighting a Newport, not really caring if her Mama could hear her falling into a habit believed long dead, Shan responded on an exhalation.

  “I left him. I quit my job. I took half our monies, opened new accounts and took my name off the joint accounts. I paid half our debts. I told the realtor to put the house on the market. I went to see Lawyer and he put that frighteningly efficient paralegal of his to work. I am changing my name, effective immediately. I am getting divorced, effective sometime in the next ninety days. I am spending the rest of this week in this hotel drinking and smoking cigarettes.”

  Still smoking, Shan sat with her feet on the rail and looked toward the sea wall. “When I return, I am coming to Longview and I will apply for teaching positions in Korea, Thailand, and the Middle East. I am leaving the States on the first thing smoking. Then, I am going to forget I ever saw my husband,” she paused here, her voice faltering, “doing the things I caught him doing and I am never, ever getting married again.”

  Shan was true to her word. Jack never saw her again and she never spoke to him again, though he tried on a number of occasions to make contact and had sent her many letters. He tendered his apology through her mother. By this time, she was working abroad. She wasn’t mad anymore and she told her mother she was happy to receive the apology and would forgive him.

  When her mother asked if she should tell him that, her only response was, “I’m not sending Jack any messages. My last message was signed in Lawyer’s office. He’s forgiven. You can say I told you that I forgave him. Or, you cannot. I don’t care if he knows or not. It’s not about him. It is about me not being emotionally crippled.” She wasn’t mad. She was just uninterested to the nth power.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Shan finished recounting the moment she had been faced with the second most devastating truth of her life, the only sound was the air conditioning and the muted Arabic tunes floating from the speakers.

  Abdulla was somewhere between stunned and infuriated. He wasn’t surprised at a cheating husband. This happens. Often. He wasn’t infuriated because it happened to Shan, because if it had not, she would not be in his car right now. No, what stunned him is that a man would be so foolish as to take a mistress to his home. What infuriated him is that a woman seemingly took a dislike to Shan and laid a trap for her husband.

  What kind of person does that? That’s not how you deal with people you don’t like. If he screwed the wife of every man who had ever angered him, the wreckage of lives in his wake would be disproportionate to whatever had been the original conflict.

  “So, this is why you teach abroad?” he asked.

  “It is why I left home, but I have stayed away from Texas because I have found I like the experiences I have as a stranger. You can learn a lot about a nation’s people by the way they treat a foreigner,” was her honest reply.

  “Are you serious about never marrying again?” was his next question.

  “Yes,” one word, clipped and final.

  “I think punishing any man who might love you because of this Jack is a sign you may have forgiven him but not yourself,” was Abood’s extremely surprising response.

  Turning to look at him, Shan had a dangerous facial expression, lips tight, eyes narrow and eyebrows drawn together. “What exactly is it I need to forgive myself?”

  Slowly, choosing his words very carefully, “I cannot say Shan. I can say if you have really moved on, what Jack did should not keep you from having whatever kind of relationship you want with any man you love.”

  “He was clumsy and foolish with your love. He changed two lives and there will never be children as proof of your love. However, there is no reason for that to be true of any other love. I would never be so clumsy. I believe we could do well together. I know our children would be beautiful. I am sure we could bring great joy to each other.”

  “You have a strong sense of what you want and are smart enough to know saying you will never marry again punishes only you. If you are punishing yourself that means you feel you have done something that requires it. Forgive yourself.”

  Now, Shan’s mother has been saying for years that it was foolish to deny the possibility of a family just because of Jack, but the funny thing about Truth is that it sometimes requires re-seeding and constant watering. Shan wanted to be angry, but she really couldn’t because for the first time in years, Truth was sprouting roots in her mind. A decade after divorce is plenty of time to get over hurt. Ten years and Jack had married and was now a
father, twice. She wasn’t unhappy with her life’s circumstances. There had been a couple of nice men she dated, but she had not been ready to even consider a permanent arrangement and they had continued on their journey. However, Abdulla…he made her want to consider it.

  The almost angry expression smoothed out and she asked him, “What are you saying Abdulla?”

  “I am saying I will marry you and give you children. I am saying Jack and his clumsiness is not an obstacle to our future. It is okay for you to think about this slowly. I will ask you when you are ready to say, yes.”

  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. She sighed and turned to look out of the window, because she was imagining what a life with Abdulla might look like. She was imagining herself in that role of “wife” again. Could she invest that much emotion in a human being? Was she brave enough? Honestly, it had taken two years before she was ready to consider dating. It still embarrassed her to reflect how unkind she had been to the first man she had actually dated post-divorce. Also, it was not just herself she had to consider. If Abdulla was serious, she could hurt him. That is a lot of power. She wanted to believe he could be trusted. She felt like he could, but the last time she thought a man could be trusted that had been a big mess.

  WAIT. Wait. Wait. The last time she thought a man could be trusted she had married him. Her mother and Abood were right! She needed to forgive herself. Had she been blaming herself all these years for trusting Jack? God in heaven! Really, Shan, are you just now coming to this conclusion? Shan was gripping Abdulla’s hand and having an epiphany. She needed to forgive her twenty-five year old self for trusting Jack. He had been trustworthy at one point. He changed, which was not her fault and not even something she could have predicted. Abdulla had precisely described Jack’s handling of their love, clumsy. Jack had been clumsy.

  Abdulla had shown her many things in the past few weeks, but clumsiness was not one of them. Still he had said she could think about it slowly and she would. Thinking about it wouldn’t hurt anything. She could always say no if he actually asked.

  Abdulla smiled.She hadn’t said no again and right now she was looking out of the window, thinking about marrying him. He just needed to get her to go from thinking about it to doing it. He knew her issue was trust. Knowledge is power. Now he knew what he was up against.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The last Iftar was a good old fashioned party. Shan knew almost all the people gathered in Abdulla’s family home. She had visited often enough she felt comfortable and was even trying out a few Arabic phrases she had been practicing as a surprise to Abdulla. His mother was delighted at her attempt. His sister and cousins and aunties all tried to teach her more Arabic with much laughter and teasing at her attempts.

  Abdulla’s young cousins kept reporting back to the men about “Abdulla’s woman” and what the women were doing. Little did the men know, the same youngsters were telling the ladies what all was happening with them! There was lots of teasing going on with the men also. They kept asking Abdulla if he would stay in Oman if he married Shan. Or, would he be very fancy and leave Oman to live in America with his bride? He said, “It’s too early to tell!”

  The night grew long and the laughter loud. Neighbors came by to visit and have a bite to eat. They brought gifts of sweets and candies with them. Children were underfoot everywhere.

  It was only quiet during the last prayer. Shan waited in the sitting area while the family went to the prayer room in the home. The staff replenished all the platters and teapots during prayer time. Midnight came and went and still the fellowship went on with children giving up and falling asleep in different places on pillows and rugs. Shan was used to Arabic parties and knew it could go on far past her stamina, so she asked one of the staff to let Abdulla know she was calling a cab and for him to enjoy his family. As she was waiting outside, he met her in the drive.

  “Surely you know I will take you home,” Abdulla insisted.

  “Of course you would, but it is the last Iftar. Enjoy your family,” Shan urged.

  “No, I will take you home. You are our guest and will not take a taxi,” he insisted as they walked toward his car.

  Shan wasn’t really devoted to the idea of a cab ride, so she allowed herself to be ushered into his SUV and driven home. There were not a lot of cars on the road, but lots of people milling about in the neighborhoods. It looked almost like a block party as they made their way to the highway. They chatted quietly and as usual, Abdulla walked her to the door. Unlike all the other nights, he followed her inside. When the door closed behind them, a hush descended. Without any hesitation, Abdulla pulled Shan slowly to him.

  “I’m going to kiss you all over Shan,” he whispered.

  “Please, do.”

  He did. He kissed her forehead and each cheek. He bent his knees and pulled her up level with his face and looked at her. Then, he kissed her lips with a very light, sweet touch and Shan just sighed and closed her eyes. She was awash in sensation. His body fully against hers, which was still new for them, previous kisses having been brief and mostly lips. She could feel all of him; his hard, strong arms surrounding her and his hands gripped her. His beard tickled her face and was very soft. His lips were soft and he was licking at hers. He took little nibbles of her jaw and pressed his nose into her neck and inhaled. She would have to remember how much he liked this rose oil.

  Then, he placed her on her feet and led her to the sofa. He seated himself, pulled her to his lap and resumed kissing her. He ran one hand up her leg and wrapped a fistful of locs around the other. He applied pressure and pulled her head back. He kissed down her neck and leaned her against the armrest. His hand continued up her leg to her tummy, which was trembling. Here, he paused and kneaded it.

  “Why are you shaking, habbibti?” he asked.

  “Because you are touching me,” she whispered.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No. Nervous and excited,” she said before pulling his face back to hers and kissing him.

  They stayed that way for a while, one hand on her belly, his other massaging her scalp and kissing. Kissing and nibbling lips and necks while she explored his shoulders and head and face with her hands.

  He started unbuttoning her abaya. She shrugged out of it. He sat her up on his lap and gazing into her eyes, started peeling her out of the cat suit. She cooperated and pulled her arms free. He traced the edge of her cream colored, lace bra with the end of a finger. Leaning forward he kissed her collarbone. Shan was trembling all over now. Abdulla was breathing hard and trying not to abandon all sense of self-control. He didn’t want to hurt her in his eagerness. The plan had been just to look a little bit. He just wanted to see and touch more of her. However, looking at her smooth, brown skin and glimpsing her darker areolas and the pebbled nipples through the lace were making him doubt he was going to just touch a little.

  Shan had moved. She was straddling his lap and pulling his shirt over his head. Leaning in to kiss his neck, she rubbed his nipples with her thumbs and made a little circle with her hips. That one little movement elicited a big response from Abdulla. All of a sudden he wasn’t just a little turned on, he was a whole lot turned on and little wasn’t exactly the word to describe his situation.

  The next time their lips met, it wasn’t as soft or sweet, there was urgency to the mating. There were no questions being asked, but demands being made. Shan was still making circles with her hips, Abdulla stood up and pulled the cat suit all the way off and thought he would surely faint from the rush of blood that just abandoned his brain. No panties.

  There goes the plan.

  He picked her up, put her on his bare shoulder and without even asking for directions walked directly to her bedroom and tossed her on the bed. Shan was shocked to find herself upside down and before she could even get her wits gathered enough to say something she was bouncing on her bed watching a very big, very serious man discarding his belt, watch, pants and underwear.

  Knees up and l
eaning on her elbows all she could think to say was, “Why the watch?”

  Crawling up the bed between her legs he said, “I don’t want to scratch you.”

  Then, he put his tongue on her thigh and she stopped asking questions. He bit her inner thigh. She squealed a little, but she didn’t close her legs. He had two hands on her inner thighs, pressing down and up, opening her wider. He put his tongue on her labia and she moaned, he licked her clit and she moaned louder, longer. He stayed there and Shan got louder. He added one finger and she couldn’t keep still. The trembling in her tummy spread to her legs and up her body to her shoulders and arms. Her fingers gripped the sheet as she tried to avoid scooting away from the exquisite torture.

  Next he licked his way to her stomach, traveling up to her nipples and she could feel his rod thumping against her mound. When he finally took her nipple in his mouth, she dug her nails in his shoulders, arched her back into his lips and groaned.

  Chuckling, he asked, “You like that?”

  No answer necessary he rolls the other nipple between his thumb and finger and bites the one he is sucking. She bucked her whole body and almost threw him off her. He solved that by putting his weight where it would do the most good and penetrated her body. Shan gasped.

  There is a moment in a woman’s life when she makes love for the first time with a man she has been seeing for a while that she feels like spun silk, fragile, delicate and light. It is that moment of knowing.

  It’s brief but very revealing, it is more than being naked; it is being inside out because you can see very clearly for a moment. All the secrets are revealed.

  He fit, barely. He paused and whispered, “You okay?”

  Relaxing around him, holding him in a way she hadn’t held any man in a very long time, she smiled.

  Sighing, “I’m better than okay,” she wrapped her legs around his hips and rose up.

  They danced. Each moving backward and forward, kissing, sucking tongues and nipples, biting necks and breasts. They rolled over. While riding she caught him looking, so she threw her hands in the air and rode him like she didn’t care.