Still, that was not off-putting. He dropped to his knees, hugged her legs, and then rested his head on her belly. “I want to be a part of my child’s life,” he agonized. “Please don’t shut me out.”
She squirmed a bit before becoming still when he wouldn’t let her go.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, dotting kisses all over her belly, his voice filled with love.
“Hmmm,” escaped her lips before she could stop it. Startled, she grabbed his shoulder to steady herself as his light kisses sent heat through her belly.
“I love you both,” he murmured, rubbing his face gently on her belly.
Oh, that feels so good. She drew in a deep gulp of air, blood thundering in her ears.
His warm brown eyes gazed at her, his fingers now caressing her belly. “Can we talk?”
She looked blankly at him, and he continued to rub her belly, kissing it ever so often. She felt barely coherent. All she could think of was the warmth of his breath flowing through the thin fabric of her blouse and straight to her heart.
He stood up, his hands circling her waist. “Can we talk?” he asked softly.
She looked up at him and he was sure he shuddered, while drowning in her eyes. Heat passed between them, and in sync, they both inhaled.
Hearts thundering.
Mouths gaping.
Panting … heavy panting, they gazed at each other, everything else disappearing.
Rozene’s body blazed with heat, like someone had lit a fire in it, and before she could stop herself, she was on the tips of her toes, straining her neck to taste his lips. “Thirsty,” echoed in the air, and she wondered if she said it or he did.
He searched her eyes and instead of kissing her, his lips explored the length of her neck, and then along her quivering jawline, before his lips claimed hers with a raw need they both understood.
Helpless moans erupted from her lips, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him without restraint. His heart was super glad, for he’d wondered if her libido had again increased with this pregnancy. Check! And if his prayers were answered, he would be a very happy man.
Gentle groans escaped her lips as he attempted to release his mouth.
“Stay,” she murmured breathlessly, hanging on to his lips with her own.
His breathing went shallow, desire taking a front seat. He lightly nipped her pouty lips, causing her to purr in anticipation. Delightful energy flowed between them, when he captured her soft mouth again in a deep, lingering kiss.
Murmurs of incomprehensible approval erupted from their lips, and he knew he had to slow his thoughts … and he needed to slow her down too.
Threading his fingers through her hair, he lifted his lips from hers, and held her against him. She whimpered, protesting, and for a second time, he slowed his thoughts.
Slowed his breathing.
Slowed everything.
He had to keep focus.
He looked into the depths of her yearning eyes. “Can we talk?” His voice a hoarse whisper.
She pressed her damp palms against his chest, savoring the heat of his skin. Her breathing uneven and edgy, she nodded weakly.
Lord, help me, he pleaded. The last thing on his mind was talking. He lifted her and she clung to him, her lips nipping his neck with each stride he took. He reminded himself, first things first.
“Larry!” She murmured his name in anticipation, clutching his shoulder as he closed their bedroom door.
“Later,” he told her huskily, dropping a light kiss on her forehead. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six … He counted backward to distract himself. The temptation was overwhelming but he managed to walk through the bedroom and enter the balcony. He placed her on the sofa and made sure she was comfortable, and then sat beside her.
She gazed at nothing in particular, slightly exasperated that her treacherous body wanted him. She tilted her head and considered him for a few seconds. The look on his face was an intense one … and one of remorse.
Larry watched her too. Her expression was somewhere between adoration and annoyance. Nevertheless, the adoration in her eyes spurred him on. He needed to speak frankly with her, but the only thought on his mind was to wrap his arms around her and comfort her. Help me, Lord. He closed his eyes briefly then opened them to find her still watching him.
“Roz, I love you with all my heart. I’m so sorry for what I did to you, and-and our marriage.” Then, he was on his knees before her, holding her hands. “You keep me sane and when I am not in sync with you, I feel off balance, dreadfully so. I don’t want to live my life without you.”
His words touched her and annoyed her at the same time. Her eyes welled up with tears, for she remembered what he had done. She pulled her hands out of his. “You’ve, you’ve …” Tears ran down her cheeks. “You’ve crushed my soul, Larry.” She gulped. “I don’t know if I’ll ever recover.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, babes. Please,” he grabbed her hands again, his voice a desperate whisper, “forgive me. I’ll do anything to win back your love. Please, please don’t -”
She dragged her hands out of his, but it was the hard weight of her glare that halted him in mid-sentence.
“The way you treated me was cruel,” she accused him. “It just doesn’t make any sense. You committed the same sin.”
“I know, babes. I know. I had gone crazy; jealous rage took a hold of me. I couldn’t handle that you found someone else attractive … that you had given yourself to someone else … when I was literally dying to make love with you. Somehow, I blamed my infidelity on you. I know it sounds crazy, and it is.
Eventually, the Holy Spirit convicted my heart and I decided to tell you. I wanted to tell you at Abella but every time I tried, you shut me down. After that, you were so happy I couldn’t risk destroying your happiness. So I kept quiet about it.” He looked at her hoping for some kind of response, but nothing. He tensed. Say something, please. Anything. “Babes, say something, please.”
She slumped against the chair and wrapped her arms around her chest, her countenance fallen. “Larry, I thought about this and I get it that we have both sinned. Thankfully, I also know that God has forgiven us. So for me, at this point, it is not about the sin because I have been there. What I still don’t understand is why I had to grovel for months to get back into your good graces, when you did the same thing. Is it okay for you to do it but not me?”
He winced. “Babes, no. Not at all. It is not right for any of us to have sexual relationships outside of our marriage. I was shocked by my own action, but instead of dealing with it, I kept pushing it under the carpet, and focusing on what you had done. I still can’t believe I took advantage of her.”
She studied his features watching his body tensed before her eyes. She didn’t want to know the rest of that story, but felt a pressing need to inquire. “Who have you been sleeping with?”
Astounded, he sat back on his heels, his eyes widening. “Roz, don’t put it like that. It only happened once with Gabrielle.”
“Gabrielle? Oh, my God!” She flew off the sofa and leaned against the railing on the balcony.
Larry followed and stood nearby. He attempted to speak but she lifted her hand, halting his speech. “How long has this been going on?” she croaked out.
“Babes,” he pleaded, “It only happened once - The Wednesday before that Monday when I found out I had Chlamydia.”
She turned to look at him, holding her hands tightly around her waist. “ONCE! So that makes it okay?”
Shame burned deep in his heart, and he looked away. “No. It doesn’t.”
The silence stretched on forever as her eyes pierced him.
“Babes,” he edged nearer to her and held on to the railing. “I’m sorry. That was the furthest thing on my mind when I went to work that day. I wanted you. I wanted things between us to be back the way they were after the children left for MIT. Still, that doesn’t excuse my behavior. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”
She eyeba
lled him, with barely-held contempt. “So you’re the office lothario? How did you manage to seduce Gabrielle?”
Surprise shot through him and he looked away again, embarrassed.
“How did it happen?” She thrust out her chin. “Tell me!”
His face, raw with emotion, he begged, “Babes, please don’t -”
She shot a glare in his direction. “I want to know.”
His eyes hit the floor this time. “We-we were working, and we stopped to have a snack from her refrigerator.” He paused to plead with her. “Babes, please don’t make -”
“I want to know.” Her eyes fixed themselves upon him. His usual confident demeanor weakened with uncertainty.
He swallowed hard. “I think we were both having marital issues, even though we didn’t discuss it.”
She jerked upright. “How did you know -”
“Her husband was scheduled to leave on another business trip, so I asked her if he’d left. Usually at the mention of his name, she would become a light bulb, but she wasn’t like that. And, she is usually very chipper, but she wasn’t that day. While we were snacking, I felt the overwhelming need to comfort her so I gave her a massage. She didn’t want me to at first, but-but I convinced her to relax and think about her husband.” He let out a long sigh. “One thing led to another and even though she didn’t want to, I-I … I coerced her to satisfy my own need.” He gulped. “I am still horrified by what I did to her. She still refuses to take my calls, and when I did make contact months ago, she was still angry. She even threatened to call the police.”
Rozene spat out a laugh. “Can you blame her?”
Larry gritted his teeth in embarrassment and his hands tightened on the railing but he didn’t respond.
“What’s happening with you and Pastor Fotola?”
“He was disappointed that I didn’t tell you about my infidelity before you moved back home.” He hung his head and avoided looking at her. “I was just trying to avoid any conversation with him so I wouldn’t see the disappointment in his eyes.”
Rozene didn’t say anything else but walked away from him and sat on the sofa, clutching her hands close to her chest as if protecting herself.
He followed her, his steps slowing as he neared her. He quietly slipped on the sofa beside her.
They looked at each other in silence.
“Babes, please don’t cry. Think of the baby too. You shouldn’t be stressed.” His eyes welled up with tears. “We’ll get through this.”
She glared at him. “That’s easy for you to say.”
“I’m sorry. Please … please, I need you. Please don’t shut me out. I’ll do whatever it takes to win back your love and -”
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
Shame constricted his breathing.
She walked away from him and stood at the railing again, tears spilling down her cheeks. Closing her eyes, she asked God to give her strength. She needed to keep calm, if for nothing else, than the baby’s sake. She rubbed circles over her baby bump, in an effort to apologize to her unborn child, even though it didn’t stop the excruciating pain that was in her heart.
She wiped her eyes and faced Larry who stood nearby. “You know what’s the worst part of all of this?” She swallowed hard, her expression that of a lamb about to be slaughtered. “I don’t know how to live without you.” Her eyes speaking volumes, she swished past him, and kept moving until she disappeared into the bedroom.
Grief knotted Larry’s throat as tears formed again in his red-rimmed eyes. His mouth opened, but no word came out. God, help us, was all that kept rolling through his mind.
CHAPTER 38
An eerie sense of loneliness washed over Rozene as she stood in Madison’s room. Everything felt strange. As looming blackness threatened to overtake her, she sat on the bed, and reached for her devotional from the nightstand. Propping a pillow behind her head, she began reading. She had read only two lines when unhappy thoughts began swirling then dancing across her mind, and before long, she was curled up in a ball.
She hadn’t spoken to Larry since their blow up last weekend. Not for lack of trying on his part. She scrunched up her face. He’s home way too often these days. But he might as well be if that’s the woe-is-me countenance he’s displaying at work.
Tears stung her eyes. “Lord, I don’t want to be mature. Why do I have to be mature in this situation? He took months to forgive me. You saw how he treated me. Had me running away from my own home. Running from what I had helped to build. This is my home too, and it took forever for me to move back here. I want to leave him hanging for at least the same amount of time I was out of this house.”
However she knew that would not be enough.
She thought about calling her mother but immediately perished the thought. This is a personal decision.
The first tear fell, then another, and another.
“Lord, help me to pass this test,” she whispered, mopping her eyes with a wad of tissue from the nightstand. “I want to, Lord, but every fiber in my body rejects doing the right thing. I don’t want to forgive him.”
The weight of the decision rested heavily on her and before long she fell asleep, an inner voice telling her, You are responsible for your response.
Some ten minutes later, Larry knocked on Madison’s room door. When Rozene didn’t respond, he quietly opened the door, and saw her curled up sleeping. A spasm of worry tightened his stomach when he observed the pieces of tissue on the floor beside the bed. Clearly, she’d been crying.
He closed the door, and leaned against it. “Lord, please take care of her,” he muttered, tears burning his eyes.
Remorse swept through him as he made his way to the study and sat behind the desk. What could he do now but pray? “I surrender all to You,” he choked out. “Everything … withholding nothing. Withholding nothing. Lord, You are the cog that holds my life together.”
He was about to rest his head on the desk and succumb to his tears, when a thought hit him. He sat back on the chair. It dawned on him that the same pain he’d felt about Rozene’s infidelity, was the same pain she was feeling about his mirrored behavior. That gave him a new perspective and he began praying for her.
A few minutes later, he pulled out the desk drawer to retrieve the envelope with the divorce documents, only to discover that he had hidden her gift there. He opened the gold box to display the beautiful heart-shaped emerald jewelry set he had custom-made for her to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary.
He had been planning the events for their anniversary. It would have been a blast - a quiet, elegant ceremony for the renewal of their vows, and then a celebration like no other, towards the end of the year. But, suffice to say, everything was now on hold. Hopefully, not for forever.
He placed the jewelry box back in the drawer, and walked to the shredder in the corner of the study with the envelope in hand. “Make us one, Lord,” he murmured over and over again as he shredded the divorce papers. Then, in a desperate move, he stretched out on the ground by the shredder.
“Make us one, Lord. Make us one in the Spirit. Wrap us and cover us in your glory, so that your nature flows from us; so that we are in agreement with You. Thank you, Lord. Amen.”
With that, Larry was quiet before the Lord of all creation.
An hour later, Rozene woke with a start. She had dreamed that Larry was moving out … in a hurry too. Really? She gritted her teeth, and rolled on her back. In a hurry, huh? She didn’t know why that annoyed her.
She massaged her belly thinking she needed to find food, but she was feeling too lazy to move. She thought of calling Armela to make her a sandwich, but remembered she had given her the weekend off.
Sitting up, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and then swung her legs off the bed only to hit something below. She gasped, quickly pulling up her legs, and peeping over the edge of the bed.
It was Larry … lying at the side of the bed.
He pulled himself into a sitting position on
the floor, offering an apologetic smile.
Awkward silence stretched between them.
Larry couldn’t bear to see the pain in her eyes. Once again, his heart was crushed over the anguish and suffering his infidelity was causing her. As the pain shifted in his heart, he continued to gaze at her, unsure what to say.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, gazing at him through watery eyes, hoping for something, some kind of reassurance.
He shifted and knelt at her feet. “Babes, I love you. Please give our marriage a chance. We have weathered many storms by the grace of God. I want our marriage and I know you want it too. The presence of God is with us, has always been with us, so let us allow Him to guide our decisions.”
She let the information sink in.
“My faith is stronger,” he continued. “Going forward, I’ll make sure my choices are based on the Word of God, and I will be honest in our marriage. Truthfully, I have learned that people with understanding keep the commandments of God. I have decided to do so with my whole heart.”
Her heart warmed somewhat, but she did not speak.
“I love you. You are still the best part of my mornings and my nights,” he told her softly, “And the best part of my days.”
A slight smile creased her lips, for she remembered he’d told her the same thing on their honeymoon.
That smile was the ray of hope he needed. He pulled forward, and placed his head on her lap, circling her waist with his hands.
She let out a long sigh, and as his tears damped her clothes, she recalled her mother’s advice, ‘You are doing the same thing you had begged for him not to do to you. It took some time, but he extended forgiveness to you. You should do the same to him.’
She cradled his head with her arms, and he began to weep uncontrollably.
She wept too.
Soon, his weeping subsided, and he pulled away from her, studying the floor.
“Larry, come here,” she said quietly.
His bloodshot eyes watched her guardedly as she patted the bed, and then he eagerly moved to sit beside her.
Mirrored Hearts: Sealed by Fire (Encounters of the Heart Book 2) Page 26