Cherie had forgotten about food. “No. I can wait a little longer before my belly starts making noises.”
Reaching down, Reese pulled the sheet and blankets up to their shoulders. It was apparent he wanted to stay in bed a little longer, and so did she; she snuggled closer to his body, gasping softly when her thigh grazed his semi-erect penis. Cherie closed her eyes and forced herself to think of anything but the need for Reese to make love to her again. It had been years since she’d shared her body with a man, and she was realistic enough to know she wouldn’t be able to make up those lost years. She’d always known of the strong passions within her, yet had denied her own needs because she preferred to live in the past.
“Reese?”
“What is it, bae?”
“Do you think I was shameless when I asked you to make love to me?” Laughter floated up from his throat, and Cherie couldn’t stop the wave of heat beginning at her hairline and moving lower to her breasts. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because your question borders on ridiculousness, Cherie. If the roles were reversed and I’d asked you to sleep with me, would you have thought me overstepping what we have because we haven’t known each other that long.”
“No, because it’s what I wanted.”
“You asking me to make love to you is also what I wanted,” Reese retorted. “We’re both adults, and we should feel comfortable enough with each other to say whatever is on our minds. I told you before that I value truth in a relationship over all else. And if you can’t be truthful with me, then that’s a deal breaker.”
“What if you’re not truthful with me, Reese?”
“If you ask me something, I’ll always tell you the truth. The only time that won’t happen is when I don’t have the answer.”
Cherie’s mind was in tumult. She so wanted to tell Reese about her prior relationship with Weylin, then thought better of it. What if what they had was too new? More importantly, she didn’t want him to judge her.
It was different with Kayana and Leah because, as women, they were cognizant of the sacrifices they’d made to save their marriages, even if what they’d had to give up was for naught. Leah had married a man who sought to control every aspect of her life, while Kayana had put up with her first husband turning their home into a club where she was expected to play the role of hostess, while unaware that he’d been having an ongoing affair with one of their invited guests. Even when Cherie admitted to them that she’d slept with a married man, they hadn’t judged her.
Cherie knew her grandmother would’ve said she’d taken the rag off the bush and was Boo Boo the fool once she’d made the decision to continue to sleep with a married manandbecome a surrogate for his wife.
She closed her eyes and sighed softly, knowing that not only had she turned a corner in her emotional growth, but she was grateful that she’d waited for someone like Reese to come into her life. Her breathing slowed until she fell asleep in the embrace of the man who had unknowingly given her a second chance at love.
* * *
Reese reclined on a cushioned chaise in the enclosed sunroom at the rear of the house, drinking beer and watching the rerun of a basketball game from the night before; despite knowing the final score, he pretended interest in it, because it kept his mind off the woman sleeping upstairs in his bed. When Cherie asked him about inviting women to his home since he’d returned to Coates Island as a civilian, he’d been forthcoming and admitted she was the first one. What he hadn’t admitted to her was why it was her. Why her and not some other woman?
He knew the answer as surely as he did his own name. She wasn’t like any of the women with whom he’d had a platonic relationship or those he’d slept with, or even the woman he’d married. And he had loved Monica enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her even when he’d become aware of the cracks in their marriage. It wasn’t until after their divorce that he realized he’d been in denial; his wife had been dropping hints about being unhappy, while he’d attributed it to their moving from one base to another when she’d just formed friendships with the wives of other officers. She’d also resented that she had to put her goal to become a lawyer on hold and her growing concern with her father’s failing health.
It had been twelve years since his divorce, and since that time, he’d been able to control his emotions when it came to women. There were some he liked more than others, and whenever they mentioned they wanted a commitment, Reese was truthful when he told them that wasn’t possible because, as an active-duty soldier, his commitment was to serve his country.
His marriage to Monica had taught him that he wasn’t emotionally equipped to deal with oppositional issues affecting his personal life at the same time that he was responsible for the lives and safety of the men and women under his command whenever they embarked on a mission.
Then there was Cherie Thompson. The first time he saw her in the Seaside Café, he realized she was the same woman he’d seen talking to Bettina Wilson during his patrol of the island. He’d tried, although unsuccessfully, not to think about her while attempting to rationalize that she was just another woman. But the truth was she wasn’t just another woman. However, he didn’t want to make the same mistake with Cherie that he’d made with Monica and let his heart overrule his head, thinking that he was the answer to all her problems.
When he first met Monica, they were both students at Duke University, and he’d sensed a vulnerability under her sometimes overly animated demeanor. A part-time student, she worked as a legal secretary during the day, while attending evening classes. He’d gone to the college library to study for finals, found an empty chair at a table where Monica sat with two other students, and opened his textbook on European military history. He’d been so engrossed in reading that he hadn’t realized the other students had left and only he and Monica had remained.
She introduced herself, and then revealed she was a freshman and pre-law. Her eyes appeared to light up when he told her he was a junior in the ROTC. They’d spent the two hours talking rather than studying; when Monica revealed it was getting late and she had to leave—she didn’t want to miss her bus and have to wait more than an hour for the next one—that’s when Reese offered to drive her home to a rented room in a house with other students.
They’d begun dating during his senior year, and he was instantly drawn to her upbeat, carefree personality, unaware it was a foil for deep, unresolved childhood issues. Her mother had walked out on her father, leaving him to raise their four children. Her father hired a woman to look after his three sons and daughter whenever he went out on the road as a long-haul trucker.
Monica told him the woman favored her brothers and treated them as if they were royalty, while she was considered an outsider. And whenever she complained to her father about the mistreatment, he claimed she resented the live-in housekeeper because she wasn’t her mother. It wasn’t until years later that Monica learned that her father had been cheating on her mother with the woman he’d invited into his home to care for his children, flaunting his affair until her mother had had enough and left.
When her father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Monica forgave him and moved back to Fayetteville to take care of him after the woman with whom he’d cheated deserted him because she hadn’t signed up to take care of an invalid.
Reese put the bottle of beer up to his mouth and took another swallow. It had been years since he’d thought about Monica, and despite what she’d put him through, he still wished her well. She’d been the one to propose marriage while declaring she wanted to become the mother of his children. At twenty-two and as a newly commissioned officer, he knew he wasn’t ready for marriage. He told Monica he wanted to wait for her to finish college, and two years later and a week following her graduation, they were married on base by a military chaplain.
And when he called and told his grandparents that he was married, their first question was were they about to become great-grandparents. Reese had laughed and said that wasn’t going to happen for a while, unaware that it would never come to fruition.
He was now forty-two, single, and with no children. His mother was gone. His grandfather and grandmother were also gone, leaving him with a house filled with warm and wonderful childhood memories he would take to his grave. It was those memories that had sustained him whenever he’d faced imminent death from enemy fire, and that’s when he’d imagined hearing his grandmother’s voice praying for his safe return.
When he was granted family leave to return to Coates Island to bury his grandfather, his Gram had pleaded with him to leave the army because she couldn’t bear it if she had to bury him beside his mother. He reassured her he would submit his discharge papers once he completed his last deployment. Seven months later, she was gone, and Reese blamed himself for not being there for her as she grieved the loss of her only child and the husband with whom she’d shared sixty-one years of marriage.
Reese detected movement behind him and stood up. Cherie hadn’t made a sound when she entered the sunroom. His instincts were still on full alert, and it was obvious he hadn’t lost his edge. He could smell what he’d come to recognize as her bodywash as she approached him.
