Taking the Fall

by W. Ferraro

  “I think I know exactly what I want, but what do you recommend today, beautiful?”

  At the sound of the endearment, Molly’s cheeks turned crimson. Gage smiled and Delaney became quite engrossed in Jacob’s Picasso-esque drawing, but Hunter held strong, never breaking eye contact with the blond restaurant owner.

  True, the private name he held for her really did slip from his lips, but at the same time, it just felt very natural to say it aloud. Not to mention about damn time. To him, she was the epitome of beauty, a beauty that has just gotten more pronounced and more appealing to him as the years go by.

  Surely, he wasn’t alone on the island of these kind of feelings, was he?

  Molly laughed and said with a wide smile, “Good one, you had me going there for a moment. Now you listen to me, doc. Complimentary name calling won’t get you out of paying your bill,” she sassed as she looked over his head toward customers at the other end of the restaurant. Her face was still red, and it was obvious to Hunter that she was now avoiding his gaze.

  So, why not put it all out there?

  “A man can dream!” Hunter said, again meaning the double entendre.

  The fact that Gage was the only other person at the table who knew just how true those words were was not lost on him, either. The fact that his older brother just coughed up his drink also proved that he wouldn’t be alone much longer with knowing what Hunter was doing. There was no way Gage would keep something like this, hell anything, from Delaney.

  His sweet sister-in-law jumped in to take Molly off the spot. “Molly, did you hear? Leah is coming for an unexpected visit. Our guy Hunter here will probably want to walk on the clouds when you two head to the park.”

  Hunter wanted to pump his fist in victory when Molly did a double take toward Delaney at the words, “our guy.”

  But, God love her, she recovered quickly.

  “That is great news, Hunter! I know how much you’ve missed her.”

  “I have missed my girl. Thank you.”

  God, he is just full of double entendres today!

  With her still crimson cheeks, her voice croaked when she asked, “So, what can I get for you?”

  “I’ll have a BLT club with extra bacon, please.”

  At the mention of her favorite order, their eyes connected and Molly searched his for a moment before leaving the table without so much as a nod.

  Hunter wondered maybe if he pushed it a little too hard, but truth be told between the unusually pleasant phone call with Allison, the idea of Leah coming in just over a couple of weeks, and just being in Molly’s presence, his head was in the clouds and his tongue loose.

  Gage interrupted Hunter’s euphoric inner thoughts, “Smooth, doc.”

  But Delaney hushed her husband once more and they all began planning Leah’s impending arrival.

  Molly brought Hunter’s sandwich out, asking the table at large if they needed anything else before slipping out of sight once more.

  Hunter kept looking for her to reappear, but she never did and Kayla came over to take his plate and give him his check.

  “Where’d Molly disappear to?”

  Kayla, the young restaurant worker, shrugged her shoulders and replied, “She told me to cover the place because suddenly there was somewhere she needed to be.”

  Interesting.

  At this point, Delaney, Gage, and the kids had left, and Hunter needed to get back to the hospital. So placing his cap back on his head, he preceded out the door. But when he should have headed right, back to the ER, for some reason his feet brought him left to where the alleyway led. He stood at the end of the street looking down at Molly’s parked blue SUV. Pondering what her car still being there could mean, he slowly pivoted around and started heading back the way he came.

  I am upstairs hiding in my room like a scared adolescent. What in the hell is wrong with me?

  Molly had thought she was doing so good holding her own with her growing friendship with Hunter. They seemed to have fallen into a safe, functional repertoire. Molly had to admit she began to wake up with a newfound love for the morning daylight, knowing that for forty-five minutes it would seem it was just a world containing Hunter and her.

  Moreover, it was not even in a physical attraction kind of way. She truly enjoyed his humor and spryness. She relished his platonic company.

  The physical attraction pull would come at night when she was alone in the safety of her room. When she closed her eyes and her hard-earned willpower against actuality could no longer keep the truth at bay. That was when all hell broke loose.

  Each night the visions were clearer, the emotions became deeper, and the attraction turned hotter. She found herself fantasizing about acts she never in her life thought she would consider. As the nights had gone on, each location and intensity grew until last night the most erotic of all of these dreams occurred.

  Molly walked up a set of stairs and through a beige hall where her bare feet tiptoed over cool dark barn board floors. She kept walking, as if gliding toward the door at the end, which was ajar. When she reached the cream double paneled door, she had no reservations and pushed it lightly with her fingers, allowing it to swing open all the way. The room before her was one of the most exquisite she had ever seen. Along the far wall, kitty-cornered was a massive wrought iron bed with an intricate trellis-like design on the headboard and matching footboard. All its cushions and surfaces were draped in white, looking as if they had just been thrown in the sexiest of patterns. White candles were scattered along the wide boards of the floor, hundreds of them, causing her to have to lift the hem of the long flowing negligee she wore to avoid stepping on one. Amongst the glowing candles, pink rose petals were strewn. So soft that when her naked foot touched, it felt like a kiss of silk against her skin.

  Although, the most alluring feature in this dream was an almost naked Hunter in the erotically inviting bed calling to her. He lay on his stomach with the sheet lying low on his hips, the rise of his ass visible before it disappeared beneath the fabric. She could see the two indentations above his tailbone clearly. He extended his hand, luring her to him as she slowly approached the sexiest man ever created. In her dream, she was timid, shy as she lifted her hand to push her long flowing hair back and bit down on her trembling lip. He smiled at her coyness, never letting his eyes stray from hers as well as allowing his dimple to hide where he lay against the soft pillow.

  She watched his gorgeous enticing mouth. “Come to me . . .” he whispered huskily moving his index finger in a come-hither motion.

  However, his mouth moved to form a word at the end of his command, but Molly had been unable to hear it or make it out. It was as if all the sound in the room silenced at that moment, but she didn’t care. She had just reached the bed when he pulled himself up, still covered by the sheet, and gently yet thoroughly brought her smaller body into his embrace. She could feel his hard chest through the thin silk of her gown. Her nipples hardened in reaction to the slight tickle from his hair covered chest. His cologne lingered on his skin, surrounding her. He lifted his hand and placed his palm against her cheek, where she leaned into the warmness as his fingers spread wide touching her ear and beyond to where her hair fell over her neck. He caressed his thumb against the side of her mouth, making her want to stick her tongue out ever so slightly just for a chance to taste the semi-rough digit.

  Their eyes connected, the intensity of his blue gaze on hers had her wanting to dive head first into the ocean, to feel the depth of such clearness all the way through to her bones and further, into her soul. He slowly lowered his head, pulling his eyes away from hers and staring at his intended target, her lips. When he was just about to finally make the caressing connection of placing his lips to hers—so she could finally say she knew without a doubt what those lips felt against her own—she woke up.

  She lay in the dark of her own bedroom, quietly panting, covered in a sheen of sweat, fully aroused, and needing release. She fooled herself into thinking perhaps it
was only for a moment but when she extended her arm out to the other side of the mattress, there were no remnants of a warm body having laid there—there was nothing but cool cotton sheets.

  She tossed and turned for hours after that, getting flashes of what was sure to occur, but as soon as they would come, they would blink out again. The constant fleeting playback did nothing for her body’s desire for physical release so she finally gave up and got out of bed.

  Molly scrubbed her bathroom tub, ran an entire self-cleaning cycle on her stove, did two loads of laundry, rearranged her kitchen pantry, as well as alphabetized all the television media in the living room. By the time all that was done, she felt she had a good grasp on keeping the vault door shut.

  That was until she heard him call her beautiful; an immediate recollection of the dream flooded her brain, and she felt confident she just had validation that his endearment was, in fact, the missing word.

  She tried to remain calm.

  She tried to remain friendly.

  She tried to remain professional.

  She hoped she accomplished just one of them. However, she feared she failed at all.

  She had to get out of there. She needed to escape to wrap her head around what all of it could mean.

  Well, at least all that she perceived it to mean, which was probably the furthest from what it truly did mean.

  She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever, nor would she want to, but it all was just too much for her to handle at that moment.

  So, she fled to her home knowing she wouldn’t be able to stay long but just enough to clear her thoughts and rid herself of the trepidation of reality and her private dream connecting.

  But the longer she remained in her privacy, the guiltier she felt. He was so excited about his news and she ran like a scared little girl rather than celebrate with a friend who just got an unexpected surprise.

  Great! Now I feel even worse.

  Molly checked her appearance in the reflective surface of her wall oven before taking a deep breath and walking down the steps to get back to work.

  When she reached the floor and checked in with Kayla, who confirmed she hadn’t missed much, she went back out to the dining room and her eyes immediately scanned the booth where he sat. It was empty.

  She didn’t know if she felt relieved or disappointed.

  Time to put on your big girl panties and deal with your actions, Molly.

  Great!

  I should have just gone commando.

  By the time Hunter arrived at the park the next morning, Molly was there, an unusual feat. He slowly pulled into the spot, and he couldn’t help but take in her appearance.

  She always wore those workout type clothes on their walks, and it probably was his imagination, but each day they seemed to get tighter and tighter. Today, she stood in black cropped pants with a hot pink short-sleeved shirt tucked into her pants. The division of color emphasized how her waist dipped inward. It also showed the beautiful swell of her ass and her shapely thighs. Her breasts looked high, and he was extremely tempted to see how well they fit in his hands. With her hair up in her usual high ponytail, it showed off what Hunter thought to be the sexiest part of a woman—her neck.

  Some men were either leg men or ass men, while the majority were breast guys, but not Hunter. He was a neck man. To him, nothing was sexier than an exposed female neck. It invited all the senses to stimulation. The skin there was always so soft, not to mention warm where it beat with life. A woman’s smell was so potent there, too. Between their flowing hair and being a common application area for perfume, you just couldn’t go wrong inhaling when you were close. By sight, it was arousal personified. Whether it was long or short, or accentuated by a visible clavicle or not, it just begged to be touched or kissed. However, the best was its taste. If there ever was a spot to taste, nibble, or lick the innocent essence of a woman, it was her neck.

  Hunter wanted so badly to know Molly’s neck up close and personal in every aspect.

  Just the thought had his pants fitting a little bit tighter.

  Molly was standing with her back to him, holding her left foot against her edible looking backside. She looked like a graceful flamingo. It demonstrated great balance and smart pre-workout stretching.

  As a physician, he could appreciate this.

  As a man, he was more intrigued by the strength of her muscles and with how those strong legs would feel wrapped around his waist. Would she squeeze his hips when he drove into her over and over again? Would she insist on using their power to straddle him, taking all the control of speed, as well as depth of penetration, and drive them both crazy?

  Hunter got out of his Jeep, grabbing the two bottles of water that became a habit and joined her on the paved path. Praying his self-control over his lower half wouldn’t pick now to fail him.

  “Morning.”

  “Hi,” she answered nice enough but avoided any sort of eye contact.

  Hunter stretched too, twisting at the waist before lifting his knees high to stretch both the quadriceps and hamstrings.

  Hunter cleared his throat a couple of times to see if she would react, but if anything, every time he did, she looked in another direction all further from where he stood.

  “Ready?” she asked still without looking at him.

  “Absolutely,” he answered kindly placing a bottle of water in each pocket of his track pants.

  Molly began to jog.

  So, we are running today. Interesting. Wonder if she is trying to run away from me?

  “Like that is going to happen,” he muttered to himself.

  Hunter caught up to her easily enough, falling into stride with her. They ran the first quarter mile in silence except for their steady breathing and the slosh of the water bottles in Hunter’s pockets. When they were closing in on the half-mile mark, Hunter’s curiosity got the best of him.

  “Are we going for three miles of silence?”

  Molly’s pace slowed, eventually stopping. She turned and looked at him with her hands on her hips.

  Finally.

  With a pinch of her face, which Hunter assumed meant something unpleasant, he waited for her to speak.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly as she looked at her feet.

  Even though he wanted to question what she could possibly have to apologize for, his mind plotted another course—one that held the events of the past. Was she finally going to address what occurred all those years ago?

  Was he ready for the answer?

  “For?”

  Stay in the present. Stay in the here and now, Hunter.

  Now she looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. With the slightest smile on her face, her head dipping a bit and her brows going upward, she was obviously thinking her reason for an apology was apparent.

  Her green eyes waited and when enough time had passed, she raised her hand turning it palm side up to indicate she was in fact waiting for him to reason it out.

  She really does look adorable when she does that.

  “Honestly, Molly, I don’t get it.”

  A smile crossed her face and she crossed her arms. The action had her breasts pushing together and he couldn’t help but let his eyes stray if only for just a moment.

  Thankfully, she missed it.

  “You going to keep me guessing or you going to take pity on my too old brain?”

  “Old? You are only a couple years older than me.” She rolled her eyes in outrage.

  “I’m three years and two months older than you to be exact. Which would technically make me a few years older than you. But you are changing the subject.”

  His long-winded reason had her smile growing. With the way the sun shone, her hair sparkled in a way that reminded him of the princesses that Leah used to be so obsessed with. Her jeweled eyes twinkled and her white teeth would make a gum commercial character awfully jealous. Molly Jenson truly was fabulous.

  “You had wonderful news to share yesterday, and instead of celebrating with
you, I kind of wigged out and vanished.”

  Now it was Hunter’s turn to laugh. And laugh he did. To the extent, he actually hunched over succumbing to the fit of laughter her choice of wording had over him.

  People in their vicinity were starting to take notice, so Molly grabbed a hold of his arm to bring them over to where one of the granite benches was. Neither of them sat down but at least they weren’t blocking the path any longer and this gave them a little bit more privacy.

  Finally, his laughter subsided and Molly jumped to sarcasm.

  “Are you quite through, Dr. Dennison?”

  Her slight annoyance for some reason was humorous to him as well. When he thought he would finally be able to inhale and exhale without a fit of laughter, he asked incredulously, “Wigged out? Seriously?”

  ”Are you going to be serious about this or not?” She tried to be stern but was unable to keep a straight face.

  As he continued to clear his throat in an attempt to stop his laughter, Molly rolled her eyes again.

  “I’m trying, but like I said, beautiful, I don’t know where you are going with this.”

  He watched as all the jovialness that they had just shared was gone. Her eyes went wide, her creamy porcelain cheeks reddened, and she wrapped her arms around herself in what he was sure was a defensive reaction.

  The fact that he didn’t know why was killing him.

  “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  BINGO!

  About damn time she caught on.

  Rather than answer, he posed his own question.

  “Why do you call everyone sweetie?”

  Her brows scrunched together, looking as if she couldn’t find the connection from one to the other, but to his relief she replied, “I don’t know, it is just something I do. A habit, I guess.”

  “So, why can’t that logic apply to me?” Hunter proposed with a tilt of his head. “Why can’t I use the same reasoning?”

  At that moment, she looked so innocent, bringing back so many memories of times he would watch her from afar in a constant state of wonder.