Love Untold

Love Untold: Chapter 36 (The Please-Don't-Hate-Me-Chapter)

(As the chapter title says, this is the Please-Don't-Hate-Me-Chapter....read the note at the bottom from my good friend Anita...)

Love Untold: Chapter 36

Chrissie was oddly strange tonight, Race thought, watching her pick at her food and ignore her wine glass.  She grimaced at the mushroom chicken, hiding it under her rice, and nibbled only on the lettuce from the salad.  He knew he wasn’t the best cook in the world, but it couldn’t be that bad.  “How’s Dena?” he asked, hoping it would start some kind of conversation.

Chrissie shrugged.  “She’s fine.  Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering how the packing is going.”  He continued to watch her as she kept her eyes away from the food on her plate, drumming her fork against the edge until he couldn’t stand it any longer.  “What’s wrong?”

She glanced up and smiled, but there was anxiety in the solemn depths.  “Nothing...I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

“Like...” she began, but suddenly she turned an alarming shade of green.

“Chris?”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she muttered and dashed to the closest bathroom.  He was right on her heels.  “Chris?!”

Chrissie dropped to her knees in front of the toilet and buried her head in the bowl.  “I hate throwing up,” she moaned after emptying her stomach, the sound echoing deeply out of the toilet.  Race crouched down next to her, smoothing her hair back from her face.  “Chris, what’s wrong?  Did you eat something bad?”

She laughed, causing another round of gagging and spitting, and Race ran some water on a washcloth to cleanse her mouth and chin.  “Stay here,” he told her.  “I’m calling a doctor.”

She weakly grabbed his hand.  “No, don’t do that...I’m not sick.”  And then she got sick again, only now she heaved up air.

“People don’t throw up for no reason, Chris,” he said, noticing that color started to come back to her cheeks.

“Some water, please,” she said, closing the lid and leaning her head on it.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, “Please.”  He dashed to the kitchen for a glass of water, spilling half of it on his way back to the bathroom.  She sat there, on the tiled floor, with her eyes closed and her lips parted, breathing through her mouth.  “Here,” he said, offering the glass to her.  He had to help her drink it, but she guzzled it all, letting it trickle down  her chin in her hurry to get the water into her mouth.

“Thank you,” she sighed, dropping her head to her arms and slumping over the toilet again.  Race gathered her up and carried her to bed.

“What happened today?  Why are  you sick?” he asked, taking off her shoes, rubbing her feet and moving up to tuck her against his chest.  Her breathing was heavy, almost panting, and her heartbeat like a bass drum against his body.  

“I told you, I’m not sick,” she said.  “I threw up, it happens.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Race scoffed, holding her tightly.  Up until dinner time, the only thing on his mind was how he was supposed to propose to her again in the sweetest way possible.  He planned to dance with her after dinner, spoon feed her the raspberry sorbet he picked up at that gourmet store, and make slow, sweet love to her, slipping the new ring on her finger while she wasn’t paying attention.  He stole her old one to be melted down and the diamond reset in a cluster of amethysts, and he only got the ring back from the jeweler that afternoon.

Now, he’d have to wait.  Chrissie’s illness came first.  Chrissie came first.

“Yes, it does happen, and I expect it’ll happen a lot more,” she laughed, and he didn’t think there was anything funny about this.  She sighed.  “I didn’t want to tell you this way...I had plans, and...”

Plans?  Like his plans?  Or her own plans?  Plans about what?

“And?”

Her fingers curled up against his chest.  He looked down at her, tipping her face up to look at him.  “And what, Chris?  What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong...I’m...I’m pregnant.”

She bit down on her lip, watching his reaction, and he honestly didn’t know what his face looked like then.  He felt his jaw drop open, his eyes widen and a silly grin stretch his lips wider than they were designed to go.  “You’re pregnant?”

She nodded.  “Is that okay?”

“Is that okay?  Is that okay?!  Chrissie!  How long have you known?”

“A few days,” she admitted, growing pink in the cheeks.  “You were gone to Oklahoma City to meet with your sponsor, and I didn’t want to tell you over the phone, and well...this is the first chance I’ve gotten.”

He rolled her over to stare at her, his eyes traveling down to her flat stomach, imagining it round and full with his child, and he got tears in his eyes.  He got tears on Chrissie’s face, too, and the sheets and the pillows because they flowed freely down his cheeks.  “My baby,” he whispered reverently, gently spreading his hand against her abdomen.  

He bent down, lifted the bottom of her shirt and lightly touched his lips to the skin just under her bellybutton.  Chrissie giggled.  “That tickles.”  Her stomach quivered as she laughed, and he pressed his ear to it, listening for...anything.  “I don’t think he’s big enough for you to hear him,” she added, still laughing at him and his fatherly love.

“He?  It’s a boy?” Race asked, glancing quickly up at her happy face before returning to loving on her stomach.  “You’re a boy?” he whispered to her naval.   

Chrissie stroked his cheek and jaw.  “I don’t know yet, not for a while, but we have to call it something.”

“I like Eli,” he said to her stomach.

“Eli?” Chrissie asked.  “And what if it’s a girl?”

“Then I like Ellie,” he answered, kissing her from one hipbone to the other.

"Mmmm," she moaned, "And I like that."

He recognized that husky, breathy timbre to her voice, and it got him excited faster than if she paraded in front of him, naked, with a bottle of massage oil in one hand and a can of whipped cream in the other.  His plan to sneak a new engagement ring on her finger just might come to pass tonight after all.  He wanted her, hardening for her from just that little "Mmmm".  He could smell the citrus scent of her body wash grow stronger as her skin heated up, and he imagined what she would taste like with his nose buried in that tuft of silky curls just behind her panties.

"Can we still have sex?"

She laughed, more of a tickled sigh than anything, and said, "Oh yeah...lots and lots sex."

“Good, cuz' I want you, I need you, Chris...please, let me have you,” he said while his mouth circled all around, up and down, side to side, tugging down the waist band of her chinos to dip lower.  Chrissie’s pelvis arched up to him and she let out the cutest feral purr.

“Before we take this any further,” she said, “I need to brush my teeth.  I have puke breath.”

Race was already dragging down her zipper.  “There’s some peppermint in the top drawer,” he informed her right before her pants and panties shackled her ankles and he planted his face between her thighs.

Somewhere in the middle of evoking her second orgasm as he thrust rapidly inside her, he slipped the ring on her finger and whispered, “Marry me, Chris.”

She arched and moaned and rode out the waves of passion before replying.  He slowed to a gentle rocking motion.  “I want to marry you, Chrissie,” he told her.

“We’re already married,” she said with a lazy, sated smile.

“No...”  Race shook his head.  “No, we never married.  I never married this woman right here.  You’ve changed from the Chrissie I once knew, and I’ve fallen in love with you.  You, Chrissie, not my memory of you, but you.  I want to marry you.  Please say yes.”

He watched her throat undulate as she swallowed and her eyes locked with his.  “Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Some interior muscles squeezed him, and he moaned at how good that felt.  She grinned.  “You want an answer now, or should we finish this first?”  She clenched again, so tightly he couldn’t have moved if he tried, and he bent to nip her breast, to make her stop doing that and distracting him, to make her continue her squeezing because she was so warm and soft, and he wanted to finish this first.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she sighed against his ear, and he spent himself inside her just from those words.

“Can a man possibly be more happy than I am right now?” Race asked once the spasms subsided and he could breathe again.

Chrissie kissed him lightly on the mouth.  “Can two people be more happy?  I don’t think it’s possible.”

Race silently agreed.  Dinner and dessert forgotten, he secured his fiance and the mother of his child to his chest and they drifted off to dreamland.

*****

Chrissie cracked open a leaden eye and glared at the sunlight streaming through the window.  “Go away,” she muttered, turning to find a more comfortable position, but her body wouldn’t respond.  Her arms were trapped at her side, and her legs felt like two poles of cement.

“Chrissie?” a voice from far away called her.  Dena’s face suddenly appeared above her.  “Chrissie?!  You’re awake!”  Dena disappeared, and Chrissie tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes, but they hurt.

What’s going on?

“She’s awake!” Dena screamed from the other side of the room.  Seconds later, more faces, strange faces, hovered in her vision.  A bright light flashed in her eyes and she grimaced.

“What’s going on?” she voiced her question, her throat dry and scratchy.  “Where’s Race?”

Dena hugged her tightly, but Chrissie still could not move.  “Oh, sis!  I’m so glad you’re back!”

“Where am I?” she tried again.  “Where’s Race?”

A man, who looked strangely familiar, popped by her side.  “Take it easy, Miss Hill.  Don’t talk unless you have to.  My name is Dr. North, and you’ve been unconscious for almost two weeks.”

A fog laid heavily on her brain.  She couldn’t think straight, and she was hearing things.  A dream...it’s just another dream, a nightmare, and she closed her eyes to go back to sleep.  She’ll wake up in the morning, and Race would be there beside her, holding her, kissing her back to reality.

“Miss Hill?  Open your eyes, please.”

The voices would not go away.  “Chrissie, please,” Dena begged, sounding like she was crying.  Chrissie felt bad about that.  She opened her eyes.  

The man looked carefully at her.  “Now, Miss Hill, I want you to listen very carefully, okay?  Just nod for yes and shake your head for no.  Do you know where you are?”

Chrissie blinked and tried to look around her, but she couldn’t lift her head.  She shook it carefully.  “Where’s Race?” she asked, despite the man’s frown that she spoke.

Dena clasped her hand tightly.  “Oh, honey...I don’t know what you’re talking about.  Who or what is a Race?”

Chrissie attempted to swallow and work some moisture in her mouth.  Her head was starting to ache terribly.  “My husband,” she croaked.  “Where is he?  What happened?”

Dena shot a look at the man next to her.  At his nod, she turned to Chrissie and bit down on her lip.  “Chrissie...honey...you’re not married.  You’ve been in a coma for twelve days.  Don’t you remember?  A chandelier fell on your head...”

Chrissie stared at Dena.  No...no...Race?  Not married?  No...no...no!

Blackness overtook her.

*****

*****

(This story is a finalist for the Non-Teen category of the 2011 Watty's.  Vote and support if you love it.)

{I have been reading and editing (suggesting is more like it) for Heather on this story. I want to say that first of all keep reading, there is a lot of the story left! I also feel that I need to say that this story has been in the works for a very long time and Heather did not change the story based on the recent discovery of the movie The Vow. This story is 100% Heather's and just wait...it only gets better!!
Anita aka Goldie68}