TornByLove (4 page)

But it was just my guilty conscience kicking in. We were alone in the house. To ensure Mark couldn’t surprise us, I put the chains on both the front and back doors. Then I went back upstairs to wake Marlena.

She smiled sleepily up at me and I felt my heart thumping painfully. She was so sexy and beautiful!

“Paul.” She stretched out her arms. “Take off your clothes and come let me feast my eyes, lips, and pussy on that big, hard beautiful body of yours, darling.”

Oh, shit she made it difficult to think of anything but sex! “No,” I said, my voice brusque.

She rolled onto her back and parted her long, lovely legs. The bunched up sheet covered her breasts but left her lower body bare. “Why not? Didn’t I please you earlier?” She compressed her stomach.

I nodded, staring at her pussy, watching my cum oozing from it. Oh, fuck that looked so sexy. But I could not afford to lose my head and get back into bed with her. And I sure as hell couldn’t cum inside her again. “You know you did.”

She licked her lips. “Your cum is sliding out of me. My pussy is empty. Come fill it up again.”

Such sexy talk turned me on, but with the edge off my sexual hunger, I had a clearer head. I should have hurried her out of my home but I couldn’t summon the will to do that.

Instead I joined her in bed. But when she rubbed her nude body against me, I shook my head. “I want to talk.”

“Talk? You have a naked, horny woman in your bed and you want to talk?”

“Yes. I want to talk.”

She kissed my cheek and cuddled against me. “I like that in a man,” she said. “I want to know everything about you, Paul.”

I told her about my failed marriage and determination not to marry again.

She sighed when I fell silent. “I’m sorry marriage was such a miserable experience for you but surely you know it doesn’t have to be that way, Paul. You must know people who are very happily married and committed to each other.”

“They’re outnumbered by the couples I know who are miserable together as well as the ones who are delighted to be divorced.”

“So if you happen to fall in love what are you going to tell the woman? That you’ve been screwed once and she has to pay for it?”

Put like that she made my desire to remain single—even if I fell in love sound downright unreasonable. But I wasn’t buying into her game. As far as I was concerned with marriage, it was one and done for me.

“Let’s talk about you now.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Everything.” I listened in silence as she admitted she wanted to get married and have a family. “Have you ever been in love?”

“No. I was too focused on getting through high school and college without getting pregnant that I never really allowed myself to have more than a few heavy crushes. I’ve never been in love but I want to be.”

Whoever she fell in love with would be one lucky bastard. I sighed, realizing how time was slipping away from us. “It’s getting late. You’d better get showered and dressed before Mark gets back.”

As she sat up, the sheet I’d drawn over her slid down to her waist, leaving her beautiful breasts bare. She made no effort to cover herself and I couldn’t look away from her.

“Mark will have to know about us sooner or later. I think sooner is better. Don’t you, darling?”

The idea of telling Mark I’d slept with the woman he adored sent me into a panic. “No! And I am not your darling!”

She stared up at me. “What?”

I shrugged. “What don’t you understand? Sleeping with you was a mistake.”

I had to avert my gaze because I couldn’t bear to see the wounded look in her dark eyes. Knowing I’d hurt her just made me angrier. I yanked at the sheet until it covered her pussy and breasts. “Now will you please get your ass up already?”

“What?!”

I met her gaze again and steeled myself against the pain I suspected I was inflicting on her. Right then all I cared about was getting her out of my bed before Mark showed up. If someone had to be hurt, better her than Mark.

“What just happened between us didn’t mean anything to you. Did it, Paul? You just wanted a woman to have sex with. Now that you’ve had your fun, I get kicked out on my ass?”

It hadn’t been like that, but I could see how she might feel that way. If I’d had the time, I would have tried to explain that I hadn’t just wanted sex, but I couldn’t risk Mark finding us together in my bedroom.

When I didn’t answer, she wrapped the sheet around herself and pushed me.

I stood up.

She slipped off the bed and gave me a long, cool look before she walked into the bathroom. Over the sound of the water, I could hear her sobbing.

Oh hell. I hadn’t wanted that. I longed to go comfort her and assure her it hadn’t been all about sex for me, but I didn’t dare. If I saw her nude again, my belated and renewed concern for my relationship with Mark wouldn’t be enough to keep me from taking her again and again.

Unable to bear the sound of her distress, I left the bedroom and went down to the kitchen. I picked up her clothes and took them upstairs, laying them across the foot of the bed. Then I went down to the living room to pace the carpet.

She walked into the living room fifteen minutes later. With her face bare of makeup and her hair in a careless braid, she still looked sexy enough to arouse me. “Do you still want me to go, Paul?”

I sighed and nodded, feeling as if my heart were breaking.

“I’m going but we need to talk.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to say that I haven’t already said. Sleeping with you was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”

She sucked in her breath and rushed from the room. A few moments later, I heard the kitchen door open and close.

Filled with guilt and regrets, I walked through the kitchen to the refrigerator. I left the door open while I quickly drank two cans of beer. Then I took a third can back to the living room with me where I sat and drank it.

I’d met the woman of my dreams, slept with her and then kicked her to the curb. And I’d risked losing my most prized possession—my relationship with Mark. I just could not allow him to find out how I’d betrayed him. I knew I’d hurt Marlena. Of the two of them, I reasoned she was better able to handle my betrayal than Mark would be. He still thought I was a decent man. Marlena now knew differently.

Mark arrived just after nine that night. I was lying drunk and sleepless in bed, my face buried in the same pillow that Marlena had used, afraid that in hurting her, I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.

“Uncle Paul? Are you all right?” he asked from the door.

Hell, I’d probably never be all right again. “Yes. I just need to be alone.”

He glanced at the bed. “You had a friend over?”

“Who I did or didn’t have over is none of your damned business, Mark. Just fuck off now and let me sleep.”

He arched a brow but turned and left the room without speaking again.

I buried my face in the pillow that still bore a trace of her scent and finally drifted to sleep. When I woke in the middle of the night, I was alone in the house so I had another two beers and stumbled back to bed.

I woke up with a hangover and in a foul mood the next day. I downed two cups of coffee, showered, and went on a five-mile run. I managed to get through the day without resorting to drinking again and lay sleepless for over an hour before I finally fell asleep that night.

A busier than usual workweek helped me keep from losing myself in thoughts of Marlena. But my nights were spent in a lonely, sleepless quagmire of regret for having hurt Marlena.

Mark called twice. I allowed each call to go to voicemail but never responded to them. The combination of guilt and anger I felt ensured I was very unpleasant company. Since I’d already screwed him, snapping at him would have been the final insult.

That was one of the longest weeks of my life. Driving home from work on Friday, I decided I’d earned a weekend of gambling down at A.C. If I were lucky, I’d pick up a woman to spend the weekend with.

My thoughts on how soon I could shower and change and drive down to A.C., I was annoyed to find Mark seated in the living room with five empty beer cans beside him as he watched a baseball game.

Shit. Just what I didn’t need or want. But he clearly needed to talk and I had to listen. Swearing softly, I walked into the room.

He didn’t look up as I sank down on the sofa across from the loveseat where he sat. “Hey sport, a little early for drinking alone, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “Not when a man has to wash away his blues.”

“What blues?”

“Marlena is cheating on me, Uncle Paul.”

The blood rushed up the back of my neck so fast and furiously that it felt as if it were on fire. “Cheating on you? What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s seeing another man!” Mark opened another can and took several gulps from it. “She told me today that she won’t go out with me again.”

I raked a hand through my hair. “Did she say why?”

“She said she’s in love with another man.”

“In love?” My heart thumped. I swallowed twice before I could trust myself to speak again. “Did she actually say she was in love with this other man?”

He nodded and finished the beer. “How can she be in love with someone else when we were seeing each other exclusively?”

“Now, Mark, that’s not exactly how it was. You told me yourself the two of you weren’t actually dating.”

“I know, but I was going to date her exclusively! Even though she knew how I felt about her, she never gave me the chance. Why didn’t she wait for me?” He crushed the empty can in his hand and tossed it across the room. “And anyway, who is this other man? Where’d she meet him? Why does he have to take the one woman I love?”

I’d never felt so helpless or so torn in my entire life as I felt then. She loved me too! I felt on top of the world and wanted to shout out for the entire neighborhood to hear that I was the lucky bastard Marlena was in love with. I finally admitted to myself that I was in love with her too. But the father in me was devastated at the pain and anguish Mark clearly felt.

“I know you’re hurt and angry now, Mark, but you’re young, handsome, and you have excellent prospects. You’ll fall in love again.”

“No. I won’t.”

“She’s far from the only woman in the world. You—”

“She’s the only woman for me, Uncle Paul! Can’t you understand that? I love her—just as you loved Brenda. Look at you. You’ve never fallen in love again or remarried. I don’t want some other woman. I want her and she’s cheating on me!”

I raked both hands through my hair. “If she’s in love with someone else, you have to forget her.”

“Forget her? Forget the woman I love? Fine. Please tell me how to go about doing that Uncle Paul, and I’ll do it. How do I do it when thoughts of her consume my every waking moment?”

He had me there. If I knew how to forget her, I’d have done it myself and never come between them as I had. “Mark, listen. I…” I trailed off at the hint of tears I saw in his eyes.

“I love her, Uncle Paul!”

Any secret notion I’d been nourishing of seeing Marlena again vanished as I got up and put an arm around his shoulders. He buried his head against my shoulder and I felt my own eyes water.

After all the frustration of watching Brenda get the house my parents had given to us, I never thought anything else would come close to having such a lasting effect on me. Now I had to choose between the woman I loved and the male who was like my son. Holding him as he sobbed, I knew there really was no question as to which of them deserved my loyalty.

By the time I left him stretched out and covered on the sofa, I knew I’d spent my one and only night with her. I couldn’t sleep with or see her again—no matter how much I ached to.

I came home twice during the following week to find messages from her on my phone. As soon as I saw her name on my caller I.D. screen, I quickly erased the messages unheard before I could take note of her number.

I felt as lost and lonely as Mark did. Actually I felt even more anguish because I knew I was hurting a woman who loved me as much as I loved her. But we could not be together—not at Mark’s expense.

I had to consign her to my past—as I’d done with Brenda. Nevertheless, trying to forget Marlena was hell. I’d lie awake night after night, unable to sleep for wanting her and reliving every moment of the time we’d spent together. My feelings ran so much deeper than just physical. My need for her ate at me until I couldn’t think of anything except her.

Before long, I’d lost my appetite. Then my temper went and I lost interest in everything—including work. Luckily I had a great woman who managed my office. Of course, that just gave me more time to obsess over Marlena. I often wondered if she ever thought of me. If she did, I knew my behavior must have hurt and pissed her off.

Grandma always said time heals all wounds. But the passing weeks didn’t do much to help either Mark or me. We were both miserable and getting worse with each week. I hated seeing him so hurt. Finally, something had to give.