Chapter Eighteen

 

I stuck my head around the doorway to his room where he was pulling a shirt down over his chest. I could tell he’d been working out. He was all muscle, without an ounce of fat on him. The way he was built tended to make him look scrawny, but without a shirt, a girl could appreciate his efforts.

“I have to run over to the diner for a minute. I’ll be right back,” I promised.

He swiveled toward the doorway. “We just got back. I thought we were going to relax. Can’t it wait until morning? Mason is already gone.”

I walked in, my snow boots clomping on the carpet of the room. My hand flipped a piece of hair out of his face and the ring he’d put on my finger earlier tonight flashed in the light. “We are going to relax. I’ll only be a second. I need to do something.”

He grasped my wrist lightly. “Let me get shoes on, you aren’t going alone.”

“I’ll be fine, you can watch from the doorway. I only need two minutes inside the building and the automatic lights will be on outside. I’ll be fine.”

He let my arm go and grabbed a sweatshirt. “Fine, I can see you won’t rest until you do this. I’m still putting shoes on and I’m waiting by the truck.”

I held up my hands. “Fair enough. I really won’t be long.”

I waited for him to get his stuff on and then left the house, jogging to the diner and letting myself in. I waved at him for a moment before I pulled the door closed behind me and clomped to the kitchen, my snow boots leaving a trail of melting snow on the floor. I searched the cooler until I found the wrapped to-go box and plastic bag then carried them to my office for the note I had made earlier. I put the food box in the bag and set it all in a cooler. I taped the note to the top and once I had it ready, I opened the door and relocked it behind me. I glanced up and down the length of the building and finally decided to leave it under the light closest to the woods. After it was in place, I trucked back to where Shep waited for me.

He put his arm around my waist and helped me back in the house. “What was that all about?” he asked as he unzipped my coat and hung it on the hook for me. We both flung our boots off onto the boot tray and shuffled our stocking feet into the living room like we used to do as kids.

I put my arms around his neck and kissed his lips. “I asked Mason to leave a boxed meal in the cooler for me. It’s just a sandwich and potato chips, things that won’t freeze, to leave outside the door. I thought maybe the guy who keeps coming around is just hungry. Remember last time he was digging in the dumpster?"

His eyes narrowed with suspicion and worry, but showed sadness at the same time. "You have a good heart, Ivy. Just don't be too disappointed when it's not the case, okay?" he asked, caressing my face. 

"I know the likelihood is about one half of one percent, but I thought it would be worth a try."

"It can't hurt," he agreed, even though I knew he was placating me. "I chilled some wine before we left. Interested in a glass?"

"If it's red and sweet I'm in," I said as I sank to the blankets by the fireplace. He had started a fire while I showered when we got home from the park and the room was the perfect temperature for relaxing by the tree. 

I rested on my elbow, propped up by pillows we stole from the couch and he handed me a glass of wine and joined me. 

He held the glass up. "To going steady," he said, a smile on his face.

"To going steady," I repeated, winking when we clinked glasses and drank. We sipped while listening to a mixed list of Christmas songs, my head resting on his shoulder.

“I bought your Christmas present today,” he teased, kissing my neck.

“You did, huh? What did you get me?” I asked, turning my face toward him.

He poked my nose. “I can’t tell you, goofball. I hope you’ll love it. I’m a little nervous about it, but we can always take it back.”

I lowered one brow. “In all the years we’ve known each other you always pick out the perfect gift,” I reminded him.

He winked. “I’m counting on my streak continuing.”

I stroked his chest with my fingers, tracing the lines of his muscles. “I’m struggling with what to get you this year. I don’t have a clue and I usually have it by now.”

He kissed me, the sweet wine on his lips making me melt into him. “I’m holding my Christmas present,” he whispered, deepening the kiss.

The wine glasses went on the coffee table and the kiss picked up again, his lips pressing my head into the pillows on the makeshift bed. I rested my hand on his chest, his muscles rippling under the shirt. The wine made my head feel light and I floated through the kiss like a butterfly on the breeze.

The next thing I knew I was waking up with a bright light in my eye and disorientation in my stomach. I turned my face away from the light to see Shep asleep beside me.

“Shep,” I whispered, shaking his arm. “Something tripped the lights at the diner,” I whispered.

When they installed the lights on the diner, I had them install one on the house that was connected. If the diner lights came on, so would the house lights and I would know something was amiss. I didn’t know the lights would shine directly in the living room window, though. Rather than grab my phone and open the app for the cameras, I crawled around the tree and peeked through the shade of the window on the far side of the room. While I wouldn’t be able to make out a face, I would be able to see who or what tripped the light. His hand caught the small of my back as he knelt beside me, the sleep gone from his body as fast as it left mine.

“Do you see anything?” he whispered, squinting into the bright lights as our eyes adjusted.

“Not yet,” I answered, scanning the area behind the diner and the house. I climbed over his legs and sat on the other side of him for a better angle of where I left the cooler. A figure stood over it as if he was reading the note. “Same guy,” I whispered. “He’s by the cooler right now.”

He stood, heading for the door, but I grabbed him.

“Don’t. I’m not trying to catch him. We know we can’t outrun him. I put the cooler there in hopes we’d get a good shot of his face from the camera for the police.”

He lowered himself back to the floor and we waited while the man pointed to each word on the note as if he struggled to read it. “I don’t think he can read,” Shep whispered.

“It’s looking that way,” I agreed, as the man stopped and glanced around the open area searching for any threats. I waited and finally he opened the cooler, glanced around furtively again, grabbed the food bag, and ran into the woods.

I did a fist pump of excitement. “Yes!” I exclaimed quietly. “I was right.”

We watched in silence a few moments longer and then Shep led me away from the tree and to his room where his soft, comfy queen bed sat empty. “Maybe you were right, or he may have taken the food as an afterthought,” he said, climbing the stairs.

“Maybe, but did you hear him pound on the walls? I didn’t,” I said smugly.

He patted my butt toward his room while he stopped in the bathroom. When he closed the door, I ran back down the stairs to the guest bathroom by the kitchen. My mouth tasted like dirty wine and lemon pepper, so after I used the facilities I swished around some mouthwash to kill the taste. By the time I got to the top stair he was waiting by the bathroom.

“Ready to go back to sleep? I think the excitement is over for the night,” he paused, “I guess it’s technically morning,” he said, wrapping his arm around me.

We both climbed on his bed and I glanced at the clock. It was only one thirty in the morning, but I wasn’t tired. “Weren’t we kissing earlier? Then…”

He laughed, laying his head on a pillow facing me. “Then you fell asleep with your lips still on mine.”

“No!” I laughed. “Did I really?” He nodded, a lazy smile on his face. “I’m sorry. I was exhausted. It was an unbelievably long week.”

He brought his hand up and stroked the hair back from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “I know it was, which is why I didn’t take offense. You need some rest. Your body and mind are exhausted.”

I twined my fingers with his. “I love you, Shep,” I whispered. “For knowing me better than I know myself sometimes.”

He scooted closer to me until our legs were tangled and my chest was pressed close to his. He wore a relaxed smile when he kissed my forehead. “When I hear you say you love me, Ivy, my heart stops for a beat. You’ve spent a decade pretending you didn’t need, or want, love from anyone. Selfishly, I’m thrilled I’ve broken through to your heart, finally. It feels like you’ve come back to life this Christmas. I’m in love, in lust, and totally infatuated with you.”

“It all started with some wayward mistletoe,” I joked as I ran my hand up his chest and across his muscles, the sleep gone from my body. I was focused on the scent of clean soap and a hint of spice. “In lust?” I asked as my hand found its way under his shirt to touch his warm skin. His eyes closed as I explored his abdomen and pecs, running my hand through the soft hair sprinkling his chest.

He moaned quietly and nodded. “Lust, meaning intense sexual feelings toward a woman with a longing to hold her in your arms and never let another man touch her, ever again.”

I laughed, and noticed it was low and husky sounding. “I don’t think the last part is included in the definition by Merriam-Webster.”

He sat up and yanked his shirt over his head, laying back down while I drew circles on his chest with my finger. The action raised goosebumps across his skin.

“Maybe not, but it’s part of my definition. I want to be the only man you ever lust after,” he whispered.

I lowered my head and kissed his chest, the action causing him to suck in a breath, so I repeated it, across his pecs and down the centerline to his navel. “I’ve never had the desire to be with any other man,” I whispered, laying kisses across his belly. “I always wondered why. Now I know. I wasn’t with the right man, until now.”

He captured my wrist and held it, forcing me to draw my lips from his chest and gaze up at him. “We have to stop this, right now,” he whispered, swallowing hard over the lump in his throat.

“Why?” I asked, “you don’t want to be with me?”

He took the wrist he held and lowered it to his groin, letting me feel him for only a second. “Does that feel like a man who doesn’t want to be with you?” I shook my head, his body more than ready to show me his love.

“I want to be with you, too,” I whispered, my lips back on his chest, teasing a nipple to a hardened bud. He sat up, and held me out by my arms.

Our eyes locked and he refused to let me look away from him. “Once we make love, it’s over for me. I will never touch or love another woman. I know we’re going steady, but I have to know you’re in this for more than just a few weeks. I have to know you’re in this forever.”

I rose up on my knees so I could reach his lips. I laid mine on his, and straddled him at the same time, lowering myself to his lap while he held the back of my head, crushing my lips to his. “Shep, we’ve been together for twenty years and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say we were dating the whole time. Maybe we didn’t know it then, but all the hours we spent laughing and talking about our dreams, all the bad times we helped each other through, and all the good times we’ve celebrated, were actually us building a life together. The idea of dating you now is a bit ridiculous when I already know everything there is to know about you. The one thing I don’t know about you is how you feel inside me. I’ve had a taste of your love, and I want more. I want all of you.”

He cupped my chin and kissed my lips, his longing for me obvious in the way his tongue stroked mine. He released my lips, but not my chin. “Sweetheart, we have to stop and think here. You’re a virgin…”

“And you want to protect my virtue?” I asked confused.

“You’ve waited a long time to give yourself to a man, maybe you want to keep waiting.”

I ran my hand up his face and buried my fingers in his hair. “For what? Marriage?”

“The thought crossed my mind,” he admitted, his hand leaving my chin and straying to my breasts where my nipples thrust against the fabric of my night shirt, passion taking over my body simply from his kisses. His palm ran across them, and my breath hitched. Every thought went right out of my mind as I concentrated on the feelings coursing through me.

“You make me feel like a woman,” I whispered, arching my back to get closer to him. “I’ve never had this much desire in my soul before, Shep.”

He kissed me again, his hand still on my breast, massaging and rubbing. “In this moment, I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to make you mine.”

“But you can’t make love to me knowing I’m giving up my virginity before marriage?” I asked, my lips at his neck. I had kissed my way to his earlobe and bit down gently.

He sighed, pressing his head into my lips. “It’s understandable if you want to wait, Ivy. I’m not going to pressure you.”

I released his earlobe and leaned back, still straddling him. He rubbed his hardness against me, clearly in pain from me being on his lap. “I’m not a virgin out of virtue, Shep. I’m not even a virgin out of lack of offers. I’m a virgin because no one has made me feel the way you make me feel. No man has ever excited me, tempted me, and loved me the way you do. Sure, some of it was psychological. I didn’t want to become my mother, so I waited, hoping I would know when I was with the right man. It turns out the right man was already in my life. All I had to do was understand my fear of losing you as a best friend was misguided. I can still be your best friend, but I can also be your lover and your life partner. Right?”

He grasped my waist and brought me to him, encapsulating me in his love. “You’ll always be my best friend, Ivy, but you’re right, we can be extraordinary as lovers and as partners. I don’t need anyone to tell me you’re the right woman for me. I need you to tell me I’m the right man for you.”

“I think I just did, Shep. Think of all the time and kisses we wasted being dating disasters.”

He stroked my face and brushed the hair from my eyes. “I prefer to look at it as time we spent getting to know each other better than any two people ever have, by discovering what we didn’t want in a partner. Maybe we were dating disasters because we weren’t supposed to be dating at all. We were supposed to be concentrating on each other. Have you noticed how since we moved in together there have been no blind dates, no need for the dating disaster book, and no blackberry pie eaten to drown the pain of another missed connection? We’ve been dating each other, and everyone but us could see it.”

I ran my hands through his hair and held his forehead to mine. “Audrey told me on Thanksgiving when she caught me watching you, we were meant for each other and everyone but us could see it. I think that was the moment I started to see you differently. Lucille always said I was a knobhead for not seeing the love in your eyes. I denied it every time, saying you were my best friend and nothing more. Now, when I look in your eyes or catch you watching me work, I see what she saw all these years. I can see your love for me.”

His eyes flicked down to my lips and his head moved as if it was drawn there like a magnet to metal. He traced the lines of my bottom lip with his tongue until I whimpered. “I’ll still respect waiting if it’s what you want. Maybe you want to be married before you lose your virginity.”

“Do you want to get married right now?” I asked, as he kissed his way up my neck. “Because I don’t want to wait any longer to be with you. We don’t have to justify making love to each other to anyone. We’re adults and we’re in love. There’s no doubt in my mind you’re the one I want to give myself to for the first time.”

He reached for the hem of my shirt and pulled it over my head, freeing my breasts for his admiration. Instead of his hands homing in on the objects of his desire, they grasped my face and his lips attacked mine, his hunger for me obvious in his passionate thrusting to the rhythm of the kiss. “You’re gorgeous, Ivy. I don’t deserve you,” he whispered, as his hand finally strayed to my chest. He touched me and heat exploded in my belly. His lips left mine to travel down my neck, over my collarbone in a goosebumps-producing trail, and across my right breast, the tender skin screaming with sensation. His lips captured my nipple and I thrust upward, his hands holding my waist and working my boy shorts down.

“Are you sure, sweetheart?” he asked as he tossed the shorts to the floor, his eyes traveling the length of me in a heart stopping flash of desire. His finger trailed from my chest down to my navel and waited there.

“I love you, Shep, that’s all I need to be sure of. Us, together, is right,” I whispered, my gaze locked with his.

His hand flattened and he slid it lower, touching me in a place I’ve never been touched before. My body reacted by thrusting my breasts toward him, his lips catching a nipple in a love nip.

“I love you, too, Ivy. Have since I was six-years-old and saw you playing hopscotch, your hair bouncing in pigtails. You grabbed my heart and even if I didn’t understand it for years, you never let it go,” he whispered, his lips back on mine while his hand teased me and readied me for his love.

He kissed me senseless, until I couldn’t breathe from passion and need. I grasped his shoulder, letting my other hand snake down to the waistband of his sleep pants. His hardness strained against them and begged for release. He moaned in a way that lit a fire through my soul. “Now, Shep. The time is now,” I begged, fighting with the pants he was lying on.

He stilled my hands and waited while I took a breath. “I refuse to take you in the manner in which I want to, fast and furious. I will make your first time one you’ll remember for the rest of your life. First, tell me if I need protection.”

I shook my head. “IUD, remember, you drove me there.”

He kissed me gently, his lips falling from mine as quickly as they landed. “I do remember, but I’ll still use a condom if you want me to.”

I grasped his face and brought his lips almost to mine. “What I want you to do is stop talking and kiss me.”