Love Untold

Love Untold: Chapter 20

Love Untold: Chapter 20

Chrissie laid the chemise on the table and avoided his gaze.  She was getting comfortable around him, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted that just yet.  He might start taking advantage of her, if she did.  

Okay, so the guy had taste.  Of all the choices in Victoria’s Secret, Chrissie would have probably picked out that nightgown herself...but don’t tell her mother that.  The blue satin that made up the body of the slip-like nightie was a shocking hue, yet still elegant and sophisticated.  The cream Venetian lace around the bottom hem and the sweetheart bust line only gave the gown a sexy flare, rather than matronly, as Chrissie always thought that type of lace to be.  

She’d keep the gown, but did he really expect her to parade around in it for him?  And of course, the thought of doing just that made her flush with more of that confusing lust.  She’d entertain the idea that she desired him, but only a selfish, tacky woman would take advantage of a man just because he was there and willing.  Chrissie Hill wasn’t selfish or tacky...most of the time...the past twenty-four hours notwithstanding...

Okay, fine!  Chrissie was selfish occasionally, but not enough to jump a man’s bones because he had great taste in lingerie...and birthday gifts and snack food.

To hide her growing infatuation with the man, she dug through the bag, muttering, “What else did that woman buy?”

“I don’t know,” Race answered, even though he must have guessed the question was rhetorical.  “I saw that blue one, and didn’t bother looking at the rest.”

Peeking from under her lashes, she took note of his statement.  Other men might have gone through the whole bag, fantasizing about some of the riskier pieces in there.  Chrissie held up the white teddy her mother spoke of earlier, and she almost laughed.  It would take a crowbar, some duct tape and two weeks of starving herself to squeeze into that contrivance.  

“That looks painful,” Race commented dryly, vaulting back up onto the table to sit next to her explorations.  Chrissie didn’t say anything.  She removed a yellow and green babydoll down and immediately tossed it aside.  Ridiculous.  She wasn’t three-years-old anymore. There was also a black bustier with matching panties and a pink negligee that split straight down the middle with only a ribbon tie to keep the sheer fabric around her shoulders.  

Race fingered the pink gauze of the negligee and grunted.  “Either your mother is completely clueless or she’s trying to cover all her bases.”

Chrissie looked up at him.  “I don’t understand.”

He waved at the mass of lace, ribbon and material on the table between them.  “She chose quite a selection, don’t you think?  Between this black, dominatrix thingy...”  He lifted the bustier and then the babydoll gown,  “...and this thing, you’d think she’s trying to propagate some kind of fetish out of me.”

She blinked and rested a hip on the table, watching his sure fingers slip a yellow ribbon through them.  “Do you have a fetish?”

He raised  his eyes and grinned.  “Only you, sweetheart.”

And there for a brief second, she caught a flash of...something.  Something familiar and all him...and it was gone as quickly as it came.  Dizziness swamped her.  She swayed on her feet and squeezed her eyelids shut tightly.

“Chris, what’s wrong?”

Race had jumped down from the table, and his hands hovered near her, but he didn’t touch her.  She hadn’t given him permission, and she respected that he kept his promise, but inside, she wished he would touch her, just once...maybe that flash would evolve into what she’d forgotten.  But it didn’t, and she was left with a vacancy in her chest.

“I’m fine,” she said, stuffing the lingerie back into the bag.  His expression begged her to let him hold her.  She nearly relented, but a jarring knock on the locked door jolted both of them.

“Chrissie, dear, are you in there?”

“Crap,” Chrissie moaned.  “She found me.”

Race let out a tired breath and went to open the door.  Dolly breezed in with a scowl marring her lovely features.  “For a woman who can’t seem to remember she’s married, you have a tendency to run after your husband a lot.”

Chrissie glared at her.  Dena followed behind their mother, looking extremely tired.  “I’m done!” her sister exclaimed.  “I’ve babysat her this long.  Let’s go home so I can get a nap.”

“Fine, let’s go,” Chrissie agreed, gathering up her shopping bags and purse and slipped on her shoes.  Dena sighed gratefully, but she eyed Chrissie and Race with interest.  

Why did she come straight to him?

She couldn’t very well go home.  That would have been the first place her mother would have looked for her, but this would have been the second.  Chrissie hadn’t been thinking, that was all there was to it.  There was no other reason.  It had nothing to do with the fact that she felt safe with Race and had a strange desire to be near him, and she knew he’d protect her.

Well, he wasn’t protecting her from her mother right now.  In fact, he seemed pleased to get rid of her.  Chrissie’s bad mood returned.  He actually looked relieved that she was leaving.  And that hurt.  After all his talk...

However, Dolly wasn’t ready to leave just yet.  She spied the Victoria’s Secret bag and smiled.  “So, did you find something worth keeping?” she asked her son-in-law, completely ignoring Chrissie.

“I’ll let Chrissie decide if she wants to keep any of it,” he replied coolly.  

“A husband should choose his wife’s bedtime attire,” Dolly said importantly.  

Chrissie said, “Mom, leave it alone!  Why can’t you understand that this is not your average, happy marriage?”  She didn’t mean the words to wound Race because his indifference hurt her, but they hit their mark.  He flinched, but otherwise remained calm.  Chrissie felt regret and satisfaction at the same time, and she wished she could get a handle on her rampant emotions.

She was a mess.  One side of her was thankful he wasn’t pushing her into a more touchy-feely relationship, but the other side yearned for his touch.  Wanted it, needed it.  She should have taken those anti-anxiety pills this morning.  

“Nonsense, dear,” Dolly said.  “Your marriage is only unhappy because you don’t want it to be.  Just let the man do his husbandly duty.  You’ll feel better about yourself afterward.”

Race stood off to the side, not getting into the middle of her argument with her mother, and Chrissie felt like doing something reckless, something Dena would do.  She wanted to wipe that calm composure right off his face and shut her mother up at the same time.  

Since she walked into his work room half an hour earlier, she’d been bombarded with a craving and a hunger to kiss him.  So, she did just that.

Race never saw it coming.  Suddenly her arms were around his neck, and she was shoving her tongue into his mouth.  He hesitated for only a moment before kissing her back.  One hand curled possessively into her hair while the other flattened over the small of her back, fitting their lower bodies together.

Her mother let out an unladylike snort.  “Really, dear.  You’re being--”

Race jerked his mouth away to shout, “Get out.  Now!”  And then he replaced his lips, and Chrissie moaned with the pleasurable assault.  Outside her bubble of lust, there was some shuffling, some muttering, and a door slamming, but for Chrissie, there was only Race.

Heavens, he knew how to kiss!  

He devoured her for an eternity, and Chrissie let him.  She couldn’t have stopped this kiss if she wanted to anyway.  His hands traveled down her body to grab a thigh in each palm.  He lifted her up, never breaking contact, and her bottom landed on the table.  With the extra height and her legs spread for him to shift between them, their groins matched up perfectly.  A hard ridge rubbed against her, and she mewed with ecstasy.  The heat from his lips went straight to her core.  Chrissie folded her legs around him, securing a lock on their dry-mating.  Her hands tugged at bits of clothing, wanting it all gone, bared, on the floor...

Then just as quickly as she ambushed him, he was ripping himself out of her arms.  “Stop!” he sputtered.  “I can’t...I won’t...”  He went down to his knees and bent over like a person hyperventilating.  

Chrissie tried to clear the fog from her brain, but she couldn’t.  She wanted him...and before yesterday, she’d never met the man.  How could she loose control of herself so quickly?

Race pounded his fists on the cement floor.  “I’m sorry, Chris...Please!  Just go!”

Tears stung her eyes, but she wobbled to her feet and ran out of the room.   A low roar burst from his throat and followed her all the way to the parking lot.

“I just don’t get you two,” Dena said as she drove them back to the house.  Mom was oddly quiet and pensive, staring out of the passenger side window.  Chrissie reclined in the backseat with her eyes closed, reliving that kiss...and the bitter betrayal of Race yelling at her to get away from him.

“How am I supposed to help you if neither of you will take my advice?” Dena went on.  “I tell Race to have patience and give you some space, and what do you do?  You maul him for no other reason than to prove that you can.”  She stared in the rear view mirror at Chrissie.  “I swear!  I think your memory loss stole some of your common sense, too.  You go on and on about not knowing him and not wanting to sleep with him and then you do something like that.  You’re going to give the man a complex, you realize that, right?  He’s already confused enough.  How could you kiss your husband like that?”

A giggle escaped Chrissie.  Did Dena understand the lunacy of that question?

“Don’t laugh at me,” Dena growled.  “You know darn well what I mean!”

“Let your sister be,” their mother finally said.  “At least she has a husband to kiss.”

Dena rounded on Dolly.  “And you!  I realize that you flew all the way down here on short notice to help your daughter through a trying time, and I love you very much, Mom, but maybe it would be better for you to go back to Denver.  You’ve done nothing but hound Chrissie and Race to have children since you got here--”

“I think you both need to stop helping,” Chrissie said quietly.  Dena snapped her jaw closed and fumed all the way back to Chrissie’s house.  She locked herself in her room again, trying to untangle the mess of emotions flowing through her mind.

First of all, she kissed Race to prove something -- what?  She didn’t have a clue what, only that it sounded like a good idea at the time.  In his arms, she forgot everything.  She forgot the mayhem with her memory loss.  She forgot the disastrous shopping excursion with her mother.  She forgot even herself.  She wasn’t herself when enveloped in his embrace.  She was his...his wife, even if she owned no memory of being that.  And it was fitting, proper and complete.  

She fingered the bracelet circling her wrist.  Maybe she should stop fighting.  She was married to him.  It was still a scary thought, but she could accept it eventually.  

Then there was that flash of familiarity while she stared into his smile earlier.  His dimples winked at her, and a deep-rooted certainty took hold of her.  Maybe it’d only been her desire to have what everyone said she had with him.  Maybe it’d only been indigestion from that chicken ranch wrap she grabbed at the mall’s food court.  But she wanted to feel that way again.  She wanted to grasp it by the balls, just like she’d done to Race yesterday, and hang on for dear life.

Her thoughts carried her into the evening as the aroma of veal parmigiana permeated the house.  It seemed her mother was cooking up her Italian special in hopes of an apology for the way she acted earlier.  Dolly Hill always made Italian and listened to Dean Martin when she was feeling guilty about something.  

A soft knock on her door had her running a hand through her hair and fixing her clothes.  She wondered if Race was home yet, or would he be avoiding her all night?  Her question was answered when she saw him standing in the hallway, hands stuffed in his front pockets and smiling sheepishly.  

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately.  “You kissed me, and I wanted you, and I didn’t think I could stop if it lasted a second later.  Forgive me?”

How could she stay mad at those blue-on-blue eyes and that rueful smile?  She gave him a placating expression.  “It’s okay, Race.  I took advantage of you, and I’m the one who should apologize.”

The tension in his shoulders evaporated, replaced with a casual, devilish charm.  “I’ll take another kiss, if you’re feeling penitent.”

Chrissie laughed and rose up on her tip-toes to press a simple kiss on his cheek, right next to his mouth.  His gaze darkened dangerously, but his grin remained the same.  “Are you sure you don’t remember me?”

“Right now, Race...I’d very much like to remember who you are,” she admitted honestly.  He searched her face, and took her hand in his.  Centering a gentle kiss on her palm, he replied, “I’ll take that...for now.”

“Dinner smells good,” Chrissie said, stepping away from him.

“Unfortunately, it’ll just be you and me tonight,” he said, moving aside to allow her out of the bedroom.  “The Snow Dragon cooked it all up, mumbled a quick apology to me and left just five minutes ago with your sister, who mentioned that she needed something in a pair of cowboy boots to take her mind off things.  I don’t expect her back tonight.”

Chrissie wrung her hands together.  “I’ve really made a mess of things, haven’t I?”

“No one blames you, Chrissie,” he said, guiding her into the dining room where the table was set for two.  He’d even lit candles and placed some fresh-cut flowers in the center of the table.  “This has been hard on all of us.  Hopefully the doctor can tell us something tomorrow.”

“I hope so,” she agreed and cleared her throat.  “This is...nice,” she said, nodding at the cozy scene.  “But you didn’t have to go through all this trouble.”

“Yes, I did,” he said and drew out her chair.  The look in his eyes dared her to argue with him.  Chrissie was too tired to do so.  She sat down, enjoyed her dinner and his companionship, and kept every negative thought to herself.  Afterward, he silently helped her with the dishes and straightening the kitchen, kissed her hand once more, and departed through the basement door.

Chrissie sighed to herself.  She got ready for bed, but like the night before, she couldn’t sleep.  So, another sleeping pill was swallowed.  In the middle of the night, she awoke in the guest bedroom again, but this time, Race was beside her.  He opened his eyes when he felt her staring at him.  “Sleeping walking again?” she asked.  He nodded, and Chrissie closed her eyes and dozed off again, not the least worried he might try anything with her while she slept.