Love's Awakening (20 page)

“We’ll be okay,” Oliver said. “We really will. No matter what happens.”

“I know,” Celia lied.

They kissed, entwining their arms and legs. Letting their hips find each other and start a familiar dance.

Celia struggled to hold back, to not let go completely, to not lose herself in a whirlwind of passion and sensations. But she was losing, big time. And coming to terms with it. Her kisses grew more daring. Hungrier. No holds barred. She melted against Oliver, and the world was her and this resilient, understanding man.

*****

Celia watched as Oliver slipped her black dress off, then pulled off his own clothes. Fine dark hairs curled across his chest—not too much hair, not too little. His nipples beckoned her with their erect tan peaks.

Celia drew in a breath. “Oh,” she whispered.

“Told ya I was too smokin’ hot to take my shirt off at the hike,” Oliver teased.

Celia wriggled her fingers. “I’m a kid in a candy store.” She ventured a touch and a few nibbles. One thing she had learned long ago—women often didn’t appreciate the sensual power of sexual play on a man’s nipples.

“You’re beautiful, Oliver. I’m going to sound like a broken record, but you are. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Lovely. The kind to inspire a library of badly written poetry.”

Oliver laughed. “Handsome. So handsome I inspire a library of badly written poetry.” He tugged Celia to the bed, and his mouth explored the lines of her stomach, of her sex.

“You have a fantastic body,” Oliver said.

“You’re a fantastic liar.” Celia hoped her tone signaled that she knew Oliver meant every word.

Oliver ran his tongue over the light stretch marks on Celia’s stomach. “I’m not lying. If you had a perfect body, you’d be boring.”

Celia grinned. “So you admit I was boring before.”

“You were snoozeville. Zzzzz. Is it any wonder I used to avoid you?”

At last, he entered her, and she let out a cry, arched her head back and shuddered. Pleasure rippled her insides.

“You’re a river,” Oliver said.

“A river named Oliver.”

Celia abandoned herself to the whirl of sensation, let Oliver see her face, let Oliver feel her, her moans, groans, cries, expressions of torture, of ache, of need.

The next couple of hours were one of the best, if not the best, of Celia’s life. She and Oliver came separately and together, their lovemaking more on the side of sweet and exploratory, lots of kissing, than on the side of mad animal lust.

But they had mad animal lust in them too, oh yes they did. They had so much potential, and Celia could not wait to experience everything.

She hoped she would get to.

*****

“You had sex,” Janet exclaimed when Celia got home.

“What?”

“That’s a sex flush on your neck. Blind date, my ass. More like a booty call.” A mischievous grin. “Who is it?”

The lie came easily. Too easily. “No one you know.”

Maybe Celia should feel guilty about the lie. Maybe her head should hurt. Maybe mortification should snake around her heart. So what? She did not care what she had done, why she had done it. She might later, but in this minute, pleasure filled her. She would make no apology for her feelings.

Janet, her gaze eager, tugged Celia to the couch. “So? Tell me about him. What’s he like?”

Celia had to say something. Get it off her chest. “He scares me.”

Janet frowned. “Huh?”

“My feelings for him scare me. I’ve never felt like…” Celia swallowed. “He’s really sweet. Funny. Hot and sexy. We connect, we really do. He doesn’t expect anything from me. He accepts me for who I am. Stretch marks and big tits and David and Caleb and all. That by itself is scary enough. But there’s just something about us together that…” Celia gestured vaguely. “It’s scary. Also one of the best feelings. I didn’t expect this to happen. And so soon after David. And the baby.”

“Think you’re on the rebound?”

“Could be. My body playing tricks. My heart playing tricks.”

Janet’s eyes narrowed. “Is he taking advantage of you?”

“No, no. Trust me, he’s not. Anyway, there’s no future for us. We both know that. Maybe that’s why I feel the way I do, because he’s safe. So I’m giving myself permission to…oh, I don’t know.”

“Why is there no future?”

“I don’t want a relationship. Not for a long while.”
And
not
with
my
husband’s
son.

“What’s his name?”

“I need…” Celia pictured Oliver rubbing his cheek. Oliver thinking. Oliver stalling.

“I know him, don’t I?”

Celia rolled her eyes. “No, you don’t know him.”

Chapter
Eighteen

The next morning, Celia and Caleb headed to Pinewood. David’s room was empty. “He’s outside with Shirley,” Joe said.

Celia found her husband and mother-in-law at the banks of the duck pond: David in his wheelchair and Shirley on a bench under weeping willows. Good spot in the shade.

Shirley took the baby from Celia. “Grandma says hi!” Shirley chirped.

Something was off about Shirley, despite her apparent cheer. She lacked the somewhat manic vibe she’d developed after David’s wreck.

“You okay?” Celia asked.
Missing
Richard,
maybe?

Shirley pursed her lips. “Are you going to wear your rings again?”

Celia studied her bare fingers. “No.”

“David hurt you too much.” Matter-of-fact voice.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Celia murmured.

“That cloud,” Shirley said. “What do you think it is?” She indicated the sole cloud in the sky.

Celia saw a shell and a head poking out. Four little feet. “A turtle.”

Shirley laughed. “That’s what I thought, too.” She squeezed Celia’s hand and let go. “What’ll happen when David wakes up? He can’t get his heart broken. It’d put his rehab back years.”

“He was leaving me. He’d already resigned himself to the fact we were over.”

“You know for sure he was leaving you?”

“Yes.”

Shirley set her lips in a thin line. “It’s good of you to visit.”

“He was my husband. I loved him. He’s Caleb’s father.”

“Do you think he will wake up?”

“I don’t know,” Celia said. “I look at him and I find it hard to believe he might. But other people have woken up.”
Shirley,
David’s
not
waking
up.
I’m
sorry.
Celia knew in her heart David would never wake up. David was dead. Celia would not be with Oliver otherwise. Period.

Shirley rubbed her forehead, and the energy she had absorbed from David over the past months seeped out. She looked her age now. Then some. “What will you do if my son wakes up?”

Celia opened her mouth. Closed her mouth. First time Shirley had said if, not when. “I have no idea, Shirley. I’ll be at his side, if he wants me. But not as his wife.” Celia cleared her throat. “Shirley, I’ve started dating again. Nothing serious. But I’m dating.”

Shirley gazed out to the pond. “Dating. I see. I woke up this morning and called for Richard.” She chuckled wryly. “Took me a moment to remember he’d gone.” She sniffled. “We’re eighty-two. Too old for this. What if he forgets to take his heart pills?”

Celia snaked an arm around Shirley.
Oliver,
Oliver,
Oliver.
I
think
I
love
you,
Oliver.
No,
you
don’t.
Desperation
for
affection
and
contact
is
driving
this.
Don’t
dare
think
you
love
him.

The twittering of birds brought Celia back to the present. “I was going to contest the living will,” Shirley said. “I’m not anymore. My son wouldn’t have wanted this. I’m beginning to think Richard is right. David is gone. He’s dead.”

“Perhaps.”

“Celia,” Shirley said.

“Hmm?”

“I’m not blind. I see what’s happening between you and Oliver.”

The sentence jolted Celia’s body. “Nothing is—”

“I’m not blind,” Shirley repeated. “I knew right away when I saw how Oliver was dressed that night you went bowling. My grandson, bless his heart,
never
dresses up. I’ve tried to pretend, tried to stay out of it. I can’t anymore. I don’t like it. It’s disrespectful. It’s terrible.”

“Shirley, I—no. Nothing’s—Shirley, Oliver went bowling straight from work. That’s why he was dressed up.”

“Don’t feed me that bull,” Shirley retorted. “It would best if you stopped coming here. If you didn’t spend time with me anymore. Or Oliver, for that matter.”

Celia tensed her hand, still on Shirley’s shoulder. “Shirley,” Celia said. “Please don’t do this. You’re like a mother to me, and—”

“I did
nothing
,” Shirley declared. “You did it. I don’t know how far it’s gone, and I don’t want to know.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Stop. Please just stop.”

“We were going to end it soon.”

“I don’t want to hear any more.” Shirley stood and pushed David away.

*****

In the parking lot, Celia secured Caleb in his car seat and slumped into her own seat. Cement hardened in her chest.

Crap.

Crap.

Would Shirley talk to Oliver? Probably not. Oliver was her grandchild, her flesh and blood. Best to blame the outsider, the daughter-in-law, the dark-haired vixen. Certainly not her own secretive, emotionally distant, emotionally abusive son.

Maybe Celia should have told Shirley about David being transgender and how that had brought her and Oliver closer. Maybe that—
no,
it
would
have
made
matters
worse.
Bottom line: there was a reason Oliver and Celia were afraid to articulate they had relationship potential. Maybe they were not having an affair, per se, but they were sneaking behind people’s backs. They acted like their connection was wrong, illicit. Hell, Celia had not been able to tell Janet, her own best friend, about Oliver.

Celia hated how she had hurt Shirley.

She hated how she herself could not stop thinking about Oliver. Oliver’s smile, Oliver’s laugh, Oliver inside her.

Then David’s blank expressions.

When Celia got home, she retrieved her rings from the jewelry box. She slipped them on one last time. Light caught the diamond, giving it an unearthly shine as if it knew its last breath had arrived.

“Goodbye, David,” Celia whispered. She knew what she would do with the rings. She would bury them with her husband.

*****

Oliver called not long after. “Can I come over tonight after work?”

Celia should have told Oliver right then that Shirley knew. But she was not ready just yet to say goodbye to him.

“Yes, of course!” she said, faking cheer. “I can’t wait.”

She was hollow and stiff, like an arthritic tin man. She wanted to tell Oliver many things: how Oliver made her alive, so unlike anything that had come before. That what she had with Oliver paled to everything else, that she could stare at Oliver for hours on end and kiss him for hours on end, too.

Celia said nothing. She could not imagine taking Oliver from his grandparents, who were just about the only family he had left.

“Caleb’s teething,” Celia warned. “He’ll cry.”

“I’ll get him if he cries. No problem.”

Celia replied with a tense smile even though Oliver could not see it.
Bzzz!
Wrong
answer,
Oliver.
No
need
to
telegraph
how
much
you
like
me.
You’re
not
supposed
to
be
that
easy
about
the
kid.

*****

They made love after Oliver finished work, with Celia on top. Oliver’s stare was bold and assessed Celia frankly. Celia wanted to look away but could not. Oliver was reaching into her very soul, reading and caressing it.

Oliver knew they were right together, too. Celia was sure of it.
Oliver
is
in
love
with
me.
Head
over
heels
in
love
with
me,
just
like
I’m
with
him.
This
shouldn’t
be
happening.
We’re
supposed
to
be
passing
ships.

Passing
ships.

He’s
supposed
to
want
nothing
to
do
with
Caleb.

Oliver’s expression scared her. Her own feelings for Oliver scared her, and no man had looked at her like this during lovemaking.

Oliver moaned, sweat glistening on his forehead. The “mm-nn” moan, unique to Oliver, meant he was close to orgasm. Their bodies moved in greater harmony, but then Caleb howled.

“Shit,” Oliver said, but he got the baby, like he said he would, and returned with Caleb. “I changed his diaper. Does he need a bottle?”

“Nah.”

Oliver got into bed with Caleb, plopping Caleb on his stomach and making faces at him.

Oliver’s
so
good
with
Caleb,
he
looks
like
his
father,
he
looks
more
like
Caleb’s
parent
than
I
do,
they’re
natural
together…