Finding Opa! (17 page)

Tonight, he didn’t know what to expect. He could walk into her condo to find all of his things in a box waiting for him at the door. She could have surmised that their relationship just wasn’t worth it. Or to keep things really simple, she could have changed the locks. There simply was no way to tell.

Getting off the elevator on her floor, he eyed her door at the end of the hall and felt butterflies erupt in his stomach. How would he put all that he was feeling into words without messing things up more?

Pulling out his keys, he unlocked the door slowly and sighed. At least she had not changed the locks. He opened the door and inhaled the familiar scent of jasmine and lilac. Rapture was standing on the door mat looking up at him as he closed the door behind him.

“Are you a dog or a cat?” he asked, kneeling down to rub his back. Rapture wrapped himself around Hunter’s hands and purred. “Where’s your mommy?” Looking around, he noticed all the lights were off.

Great, she was asleep.

Throwing his keys on the sofa table as he passed, he made his way down the hall to her bedroom. Pushing the door open with his index finger, he found Stacey curled up in the bed listening to jazz. Her silhouette moved in the darkness.

“Hey,” Hunter said in a rough, scruffy voice.

Stacey sat up and wiped her face. “Hey,” she answered in a nasally whimper.

Hunter wasn’t sure if he wanted to turn on the light or not. He had never seen her cry before, and didn’t know if he could take the first time being because of something he had done. Feeling through the darkness, he went over to her side of the bed and knelt beside her. The moonlight shun in through her open curtains and cast a glow on her angelic face. He reached out and took her hand.

“I wasn’t sure that you’d come back,” she said somberly.

“How could I not come back?” Hunter asked surprised. “I told you that I’m going to be here, and I am. But it’s not because I feel like I have to be, it’s because I want to be. I still stand by the fact that I want to be your husband, and I want you to be my wife, but I’m willing to wait and prove myself to you. And you’re right. We do need a plan. We do have so much to discuss. But there is nothing that is going to be said that is going to push me away.”

Stacey reached over and turned on the light. She wanted to see his face, to read his eyes and know in her heart that each and every word he was saying was true.

As the lights flickered on, Hunter saw how disheveled he had made her. Her beautiful brown eyes were blood shot red and puffy from crying. A large bushy ponytail of sandy-brown dreads sat crooked atop of her head wrapped in a colorful headband, and she still had on the clothes he had left her in the night before.

As she sat on the side of the bed, he stood up and sat beside her. His face showed his immediate concern. She tried to smile for him, but he quickly took her face in his hands and kissed her lips. “God, I’m so sorry,” he said, moving his lips from her lips to her eyes. He kissed both of them.

“I have a confession to make,” Stacey said, looking into his eyes. “It can’t wait any longer.”

Hunter paused in fear. What had she done? What had he missed? If she said that she had gotten an abortion, he’d have a heart attack. His hands clammed up, and he was forced to remove them from her face, but he did not speak. Instead, he waited for tortured minutes until she spoke.

She sniffled. “This pregnancy, while maybe not consciously, was my doing, Hunter. The day that we made love for the first time I should have been more careful, but a part of me didn’t want to be. I guess that I wanted this in some weird, very unstable way.” She retracted. “Not to trap you, but to have a baby or have someone who would be in my life for the rest of my life.” Stacey looked away embarrassed. “I took advantage of you, but I promise I didn’t plan to do it. This baby means the world to me, but I don’t want to start out a relationship with you being dishonest. And if it sounds like it’s too much to comprehend or…”

Hunter was elated. She had not had an abortion. Putting his cold hands on her warm fleshy lips, he silenced her. “Me too,” he said, nodding. “I could have stopped. I could have used a condom. I could have done a hundred things differently, especially as a doctor, but I didn’t. And it’s for the same exact reasons.”

Stacey exhaled a deep sigh. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to say that.”

“You don’t think I feel responsible for this little person?” he said, rubbing her flat stomach. He chuckled. “The worst thing that I could think of happening to me would be losing you. The best thing that I could think of happening is having this baby with you. You’ve been nothing but good for me…nothing but good.”

Stacey began to cry again, only this time tears of happiness. Nearly leaping into his arms, she wrapped herself around him and hugged him tight. Hunter held her gratefully, savoring the smell of her and feeling her warmness against him. He never wanted to lose this.

“I love you so much,” he whispered into her ear.

“I love you,” she answered.

“And I’m going to do whatever it takes, you hear me?”

She nodded. “Me, too.”

Maybe it was the relief of getting over their first disagreement or knowing that the baby was safe or that they were still together, but Hunter suddenly went from happiness to heat.

Kissing her lips slowly, he first just wanted to be near her, but as his hands rubbed and consoled her, they also began to massage her skin, feel the curves that had landed them in this situation in the first place. Slipping his hands up the front of her shirt, he cupped her perky, warm breasts in his hands, fondling her pebbled nipples in between his fingers. Her mouth opened, releasing a sensual moan that caused him to lean in and kiss her again. She nuzzled his jaw, moving against him. Hunter watched her face, how her expression tightened, twisted in pleasure.

Maybe it was the alcohol that caused his blood to race and the room to spin or maybe it was the heady news that he wasn’t alone in his attempt to take his loneliness into his own hands, but he could not sate his growing lust.

Laying her on the bed carefully, he pulled off her pants and slowly pulled down her lace panties to reveal her perfect temple, trembling under his touch. His strong hands rubbed over her first, then found their way in between her slicked hot thighs to her eager pearl. Rubbing his thumb over her aching clit, he opened her wide and slipped a single digit inside of her. Her eyes closed and her head fell back. Holding on to him, she moved against his strong digits and rotated her hips.

Her long slender back arched in response. Clutching the pillow, she panted as she looked down at his tousled hair while he bent to her slicked sex. His breaths on her lips made her moan. Kissing her softness, he sucked in hot skin in his mouth and heard her cry out. Awakening the beast inside of him, he moaned into her quivering body, full of want and need. His lashes lowered, lifted, eyes half-veiled. She tasted as good as she smelled.

As a doctor, there wasn’t a place that he didn’t know on a woman’s body, and as a man, there wasn’t a place that he didn’t want to explore on her. Taking his time, he pulled off his shirt and nestled below. With her legs thrown over his shoulders, he made slow circular motions with his long, nimble tongue as he held her open with his fingers. He watched her melt into the bed and forget her worries. Her body wiggled under his touch. Erratic breaths caused her chest to rise and fall, pulling his attention from her heated womb to her needy breasts and all the firm skin in between. Sliding his hand back under her shirt, he fondled her in two places at once and witnessed her climax hard against him. Loud screams and shutters proceeded silk that slid over his hands.

He could barely get out of his pants now. Kicking them off beside the bed, he fell in between her legs and lifted her up to invade her throbbing, swollen sex. Feeling her muscles contract, he let out another masculine moan of his own. The tightness of her body around his was pure heaven.

Trailing a kiss from her collar bone to her ear, his hot breath hissed against her skin as he pumped into her body with powerful thrusts. He watched her submit, moving her hips around below him, adding fuel to his fire. Her long dreads now fanned the pillow and her strong nails dug into his tanned back.

His thoughts intermingled with his want. As he watched her body move in sync with his own, he could feel her soul. The power behind her brown eyes moved him more than the flesh below him. At that moment, he knew he was not alone anymore. There were two people who were with him, two people who seemed to care about him unconditionally, and two people who were counting on him.

The thought brought him to tears. Kissing her mouth again, hot salty water burned at his eyes as they fell on to her face. Suddenly, he stopped, hovering over her with a look of clarity. With awe in his heart at how she had totally transformed him, he pulled out of her body.

“What’s wrong?” Stacey asked startled. She couldn’t follow the raw emotion that had suddenly surged from him to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked again.

Hunter got on his knees beside the bed and looked up at her. He shook his head, pushing past the doubt of what she might say. Taking her hand, he stilled his rushing heart.

“Stacey Lane Bryant, would you do me the honor of please being my wife? I don’t want to live with you as anything less. I don’t want to be with my child temporarily. I don’t care about our families, our culture difference or our money. I see the woman that I want to spend the rest of my life with in front of me, and I know that there will never be anyone but you. You may not know me as well as you knew Drew, but I promise to you from this day forth, I will be an open book. I will be what you need, what you want.” He took a deep breath. The sweat ran from his neck down to his chest. Looking up at her, he smiled. “Let me fill his shoes. Let me walk beside you. Let me carry you when you are weary and uphold you and your dreams. Let me take away the loneliness and fill your days for the rest of your life with love. Let me be what I am meant to be…your husband.”

Stacey was lost for words. Never had anything sounded so sweet. Finally breathing, she exhaled a deep breath. Wiping the tears from her face, she got off the bed and knelt with him. Taking his hand in hers, she put them to her face and kissed them.

“Yes,” she said, completely in love. “Yes, I’ll be your wife.”

Chapter Thirteen

The clouds blanketed the early morning sky with deep hues of gray outside, but Stacey’s apartment was filled with sunshine. Greek music played on the radio in the kitchen as Hunter fixed breakfast for his soon-to-be bride while she cleaned the living room and separated the laundry to wash.

Bliss. It was the only word that Hunter could use to describe his world when he woke that morning. It was the only word that he could use to describe the look that Stacey gave when she rolled over and opened her bright brown eyes to him. Bliss.

Stacey dwelled in the same world as Hunter. Humming as she threw a load in the washing machine, she imagined a small wedding on a hill top with a small crowd of close friends and relatives. For the first time since she found out that she was pregnant, she thought about what their child would look like. It was all so surreal. She was actually about to marry again. Whirling around in the wash room with one of Hunter’s shirts, she hugged herself tightly and wondered if her mother could see her right then.

“Hey,” Hunter said, sticking his head inside of the room. “Breakfast is ready.” His smile was endearing.

“On the way,” she said, closing the door on the washer and putting down his shirt.

Following him to the dining room, she noticed the drapes had been pulled back to see the morning sky and the waterway in the distance. A single rose had been placed inside of one of her Waterford crystal vases and a quick but customary Greek breakfast had been prepared of black tea sweetened with honey, feta cheese, olives, bread, a bowl of yogurt with honey and fresh fruit.

Stacey knew that he had done all of this for her, because he didn’t really eat breakfast, even though it was the most important meal of the day.

Pulling the seat out for her to sit down, he pushed her up to the table and placed a plum-colored napkin in her lap.

“Thank you,” she said with a grin.

“You’re welcome,” he said, taking his seat. With his newspaper beside him, he sat across from her and shook his head. “This is nice, huh? Having breakfast together like an old married couple.”

“Well, we aren’t exactly spring chickens,” she said playfully.

“Speak for yourself.” Fixing his plate, he looked over at her. “I want us to go and visit Corina’s gravesite today, if that’s okay with you.” He waited for her approval.
Would this make her happy or put her off?
He wasn’t sure.