I smiled and climbed into bed next to him. This was all so wrong. I knew better than to agree to something so scandalous. Still, I couldn’t help myself. I was drawn to him. “Thanks.”
I got comfortable on my back, staring at the ceiling, with my hands folded across my chest. Being in bed with Stoshua was harder than I thought it would be. He was right there next to me. I could have reached out and touched his chiseled chest. I could have ran my hands through his dark wavy hair. I could be pressing my lips against his.
But I didn’t.
I remained still, just waiting for him to fall asleep.
“Do you love me?”
His words caught me off guard. “Yes.” It was the truth. After all this time, after he’d married my sister, I was still in love with him.
I felt his hand running down my arm until it reached my fingertips. He intertwined his with mine and just held it. “Goodnight, beautiful.”
Stosh started to snore shortly after that comment. I lay there wide awake, hearing him call me beautiful. I was practically naked in bed with him. We were holding hands and I wasn’t about to let go. I had just a few days to be with him. It was important to my sister that I did whatever it took. I just wasn’t sure how far I’d have to take things and if it came to being intimate, I didn’t know if I’d be able to say no.
I woke up in the middle of the night. His arm was draped around me and his head was nestled into my shoulder. I couldn’t help but take my fingers and run them through his dark hair. He didn’t flinch, so slowly, I reached over and kissed him right on the lips. I left mine lingering over his. He was warm and I wanted nothing more than to kiss him like he’d kissed me years ago in the hallway at school. I’d spent many nights thinking about that kiss.
It was a good thing he didn’t wake up.
I finally let myself fall back to sleep knowing that his body was against mine. It was good that it was dark in the room, because my smile was more than obvious.
I didn’t know what my sister had going on. I had no idea where she was, or who she was with. All I knew was that she’d left me to take over her life in her absence. In order to become my sister, I’d have to become Stosh’s wife. For some reason, it made what I was doing worth it.
When I woke up the next morning, Stosh was next to me with a smile on his face. He ran his fingertips over my arm, giving me goose bumps. “Good morning.”
I smiled. “Hi.”
“Are you hungry?”
I shrugged. “A little.”
“Let’s get dressed and go to breakfast.”
It was my favorite meal of the day. “Okay.”
“I want some French toast.” He sat up in bed and grabbed his pants, before walking into the bathroom. Just when I thought he was getting in the shower, he peeked his head out of the door. “You going to join me, or what?”
Chapter 4
I’m bringing sexy back.
As much as I wanted to stand up and slowly remove my clothes, so that I could join his hot, naked body in the shower, I knew I couldn’t. I already felt like I was stabbing my sister right in the back. Granted, she talked about him like he was a piece of crap and only really cared about herself, but he was still her husband. He’d made his choice and it wasn’t my place to come between them; not that he would ever want me anyway.
I was just the old friend that he probably felt sorry for.
When he got out of the shower, I was already dressed and ready to leave. I couldn’t stay in that bedroom for another minute, hoping to catch a glimpse of the water trickling down his sexy body.
Stosh drove us to a little place that was only around the corner. They served pancakes and pastries. I remembered my sister eating the Bavarian crèmes, so I ordered one of those. Stosh smiled when he sat down with our food and coffee. He kept smiling as he watched me eating it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as the fresh apple critters that I knew they made. I watched Stosh eating one and I almost licked my lips twice.
“So, I was wondering if you’d want to go out on the boat?”
He had a boat? I’d never known that. “Alone?”
He reached over and grabbed my hands. “I just want to spend the whole day alone with you. Is that so bad?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s really sweet. I guess I just didn’t think you wanted to be around me lately. I, uh, I got the impression that we weren’t on the same page.” What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t tell him that my sister had told me a whole different story.
He squeezed my hands and looked right at me. “The past four years haven’t been easy for either of us, but I can assure you, we are definitely on the same page, babe.”
Every time he said something nice, I had to remind myself that he was speaking it to my sister and not me. Still, hearing it made me smile. Knowing that I was going to get to spend more time together made me even more happy. “I’d love to go on the boat with you, Stosh.”
He seemed so happy as we walked back to his place. For me, well, I was living a fantasy. When they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, I think they meant it. I was every bit in awe of this man, as I was when we were in high school. I wanted to be around him, spending every second watching him smile and enjoy himself. It made me happy to see him happy, even if that happiness wasn’t really because of me.
Since I’d not known about the boat, I had no idea what to expect. When he started to tell me about how his dad had repaired some things, I remembered that they’d had a nice size boat. They use to take it out and spend the night on it.
I was going to be alone on the water with Stoshua Wheeler. It was horrifying.
I hadn’t signed up for this.
As panicked as I was, I couldn’t just jump out of a moving vehicle to avoid the elephant in the room. I had to stay focused and remember that I was Ivy, not Willow. “So, I’m sorry if I’ve been kind of distant lately.”
“Lately? Try the whole time since the wedding.” I wondered what he meant.
“Surely, I haven’t been that awful to be around. Have I?”
He didn’t answer as we pulled into the marina, but I wanted to know what he would have said.
His parents boat was nice. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. When you went down underneath, it had a galley kitchen, with a table. A compact bathroom followed and then there was one bedroom. After looking around, I leaned back on the bed and saw him looking at me. “Did you bring me here to seduce me, Mr. Wheeler?”
He took one step forward, but stopped. “What if I did?”
I was at a loss for words.
What would Ivy say? “Are you hungry? I’m starving.”
Yeah, I changed the subject. After I’d sampled his kissing, I knew talking about sex was going to cause me to crumble at his feet. I had to keep my composure.
Stosh made us a picnic top-‐side and
we sat on the boat floor facing each other. He leaned over and fed me a grape. “You look so beautiful, sitting there across from me.”
I could feel myself blushing. “Maybe it’s the new haircut.”
“No, you could be bald and still be as beautiful. It’s not the hair, I can assure you.” I think I saw him blush before he bit down into a sandwich.
“So, should I be worried you’re going to throw me overboard in the middle of the night and leave me to the sharks?”
“Babe, there’s no sharks in this river. You know I’d never hurt you like that anyway. I love you.”
As much as I liked the way it sounded coming from his mouth, I felt repulsed.
He should have loved me. This should be my life and not hers. My next sentence escaped without me being able to rationalize it away. “What ever happened between you and Willow?”
He shook his head and started laughing. “I’m not going to discuss that with you, babe. Not here. Not now.” He leaned over and tried to kiss me, but I instinctively pulled away. “What’s wrong?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I just feel like I want you to answer.”
“After all this time? What does it matter? Why do you even care?” He seemed like he was getting annoyed.
“Never mind. You’re right. It isn’t important.” Yes it was!
We finished eating in silence and he got up to start the boat’s engines. I felt relieved that the conversation was over, but scared that we were going out into the open water alone.
Don’t get me wrong, if I died at any second, I’d die a happy girl. He was here with me and not Ivy. Temporary or not, he was mine.
Here was the biggest problem with pretending to be my sister. I envied her life so much, that I was starting to consider what it would be like to take it for myself. I wanted to know what it would feel like to touch his naked skin, to lay naked in bed next to him and to make love with him.
Maybe my time away had changed me from a caring person to the devil himself. At any rate, the more I thought about walking away, the more I wanted to stay.
We spent the day heading out to sea. It wasn’t hard considering we lived right outside of Middletown Delaware. We were practically surrounded by bodies of water. It took us about two hours to get to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Large cruise ships and shipping freighters shared the water with us.
We spent the day fishing and bathing in the warm sun. It was the perfect day, and as the sun started to set, he wrapped us up in a blanket and watched it go down with me in his arms.
How could I not be in love with this man? He was damn near perfect.
Did I feel bad for pretending to be my sister?
I was starting not to.
“This is amazing. Thank you for bringing me out here.”
“I used to like it when we hung around and watched movies all day. Things were easier back then. There was no work and no drama. Now, I go to work and come home. My days are busy and I spend my nights trying to forget about my days. After a while the monotony drives you insane. I tell you, I just need a damn break from it all. I want to do something different than what I’m doing. I don’t want to rent a pool house for the rest of my life. I want a house full of kids and to be able to coach them in sports and take them to Disney World.”
I heard everything he said, but only one sentence stuck in my head. I remembered watching movies with him. It hurt to think that my sister took that spot next to him on the couch. She’d taken everything we ever did and made their memories better. I was always pushed to the side, with everything I tried to do. Maybe that was why I took the academic route. It was the only thing she had no interest in. I couldn’t blame her for falling for Stoshua. He was an all around amazing guy. He was into sports, but equally into academics. He was brilliant and gorgeous. I couldn’t have been the only one to notice.
Shouldn’t I be glad that he was somehow always going to be in my life? Had I wasted so many years of being a part of their lives over something that was just an adolescent action?
I looked over at Stosh. He took his arm and pulled me closer. We stared into each other’s eyes. As much as I wanted to be the better person, I couldn’t imagine not having him for myself. In one selfish move, I leaned up to his mouth and kissed those perfect lips. While our physical contact became downright involved, I had not one single regret. In fact, my sister never even crossed my mind.
After several minutes of tasting every inch of his tongue, I pulled away. We kept looking at each other. It was so intense. “I love kissing you. I love everything about you. I know you want to walk away from this. You think I don’t want you, but you’re wrong. I want you, babe. You’re all I want.”
It was too much to hear. I’d switched back to Ivy and realized that he was talking to her. He was so in love with her that this was an attempt to get them to reconnect. I was giving him false hope at reconnecting with his wife. It was wrong on so many levels and it made me feel like shit inside.
I got up, out of his arms. “I need to use the bathroom. Be right back!”
I hurried into the small bathroom and buried my face into my hands. The tears were falling and I didn’t know what to do. Ivy was my only sister. I couldn’t do this to her. Even if she didn’t want to work things out with him. I could never be with him. It would never work.
Knocking caught me off guard. “Babe, are you alright?”
I wiped the remaining tears off of my cheeks. “I’m fine. Just needed to freshen up.”
“I’m going to start cooking the chicken. You sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah. I’ll be out in a second.” I leaned over and washed my face, before looking at myself in the mirror. I had to decide whether to be Ivy or my self. Without questioning my sanity, I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and dialed my sister. It went right to voicemail. I called back again and this time she answered.
Hello?
Hey, it’s me. Listen, things are getting intense and I don’t know what to do. He brought me on his parent’s boat to try and work things out with you. What am I supposed to do now?
Great. I can’t believe it has taken him this long to admit what he wants.
Ivy, can you please just help me here?
Oh yeah, sorry. I guess you’re going to have to keep him happy.
What are you implying?
For Christ sakes Willow, I told you to do whatever you have to. Look, Stosh and I aren’t exactly on the same page.
What are you saying?
You’re a grown woman. Figure it out! Please don’t call me unless it’s an emergency. Gotta run!
I found Stosh standing over the stove. He was preparing a nice salad in a large wooden bowl. He heard me walking up behind him and he leaned back to kiss me on the cheek. “There you are. I thought you got lost.”
I tried to smile. “I knew where
I was.”
We both laughed.
“Would you mind setting two places and pouring us a glass of wine?”
I opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of red wine. It was weird how my sister liked the same brands as me. We’d always been that way. I’d once saw a picture of her on Facebook and she was wearing a jacket that I had just bought. Since we didn’t even live in the same state, I knew she’d gotten in online.
Once the table was set, I handed Stosh his glass and he tapped it against mine. “To us.”
I smiled and thought about what that meant. “To us!”
The night was still young and the elephant in the room was getting restless.
I kept seeing that saying in my mind ‘The truth will set you free’. It wasn’t setting me free. It was making me go crazy.
Chapter 5
Sexual Chocolate and Rainbows and Sunshine.
After eating dinner, and finishing off two bottles of wine, we were both feeling the effects. I wasn’t belligerent. In fact, I knew exactly what I was doing. Things were just way more relaxed.
It was a good thing that I’d never ran out of things to talk about with Stoshua. To keep up with the charade, I sat across from him, discussing the economy and what it would be like to live in another country. I felt comfortable, like nothing was going to happen to jeopardize anyone’s relationship. That was until he brought out a bag of chocolate covered strawberries.
“Look what I found in the refrigerator.” He smiled, so big that creases on either sides of his cheeks looked like dimples.
“I think you put them there.” I grabbed the bag and read that they had been soaked in liquor, before being dipped in chocolate. My eyes got big as I looked up at him.
Twinsequences (A Twisted Twin Series) Page 4