Book of Love Page 15

  He looked over at her and said, “Yeah.”

  * * * *

  They walked into Janice’s apartment, and this time Janice didn’t turn the lights on except for the little light that was over the stove. Chris came up behind her and gently turned her around to face him. Cupping her chin, he searched her upturned face, then his mouth covered hers hungrily. In a matter of minutes, they were both kissing each other passionately.

  He put his hands at the hem of her sweater and slowly reached up under the sweater and felt the edge of her bra. He brought his hands around and stroked her breasts, and her nipples hardened under his touch. Janice unsnapped his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. He dropped the shirt on the chair and then slid the sweater over her and tossed it aside.

  He started kissing her again, this time moving his lips from her lips along her jawline to her ear. He kissed her earlobe and then traveled down her neck. Each touch gave Janice a heady sensation that she had begun a climb, a climb that she knew only Chris would be able to help her finish. Chris reached to her back and unsnapped her bra. Her breasts spilled out from the strapped fabric. His hands came around again and cupped her breasts.

  Janice tilted her head back and raised her chest up to Chris so he could minister to her breasts that were becoming enlarged in anticipation of his lips. She cradled his head in her arms as his tongue caressed her sensitive, swollen nipples and his hands slid across her belly. He lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom, lying her on the bed gently. He reached for the button at the top of her jeans, unzipped the zipper, and slid her jeans and panties off her.

  She sat up for a minute and undid his belt buckle, then the button on his jeans. She unzipped them and helped him slide them off his powerful legs. She marveled at the sight of him as he lay down beside her. As she put her hand lightly on his shaft, he caught his breath. She stroked it gently as he continued to kiss her breasts, and he slid his hand across her belly down to the little mound of hair. She let out a quiet moan as he stroked the area lightly, his massage sending currents of desire through her, and then he moved down between her folds and gently opened them up. Soon his finger found her core and worked its magic, going in and out of her.

  She let out a gasp, and whispered, “Oh, Chris, please, now.”

  He pulled her legs apart so he could fit between them and laid his shaft on her belly for a few moments. She stroked it a little harder and he moaned. Shifting himself up off her slightly, he entered her, and the moment he did, she shattered into a million glowing stars, but it didn’t stop there. She felt like she kept soaring higher and higher until she reached the highest peak of delight.

  “Oh...Janice,” Chris called out as he thrust himself into her one last time.

  Chris laid down beside Janice, pulling her with him so they could stay connected. Both were gasping for air as they laid there holding each other.

  After their breathing leveled, Chris whispered into Janice’s ear, “I love you, honey.”

  He kissed her ear, then her neck. His hands started roaming over her body, searching and touching her pleasure points. Each point he touched, he brought his lips to it and left a trail of sweet wetness.

  Chris slowly made his way to her belly. A moan of ecstasy slipped through her lips as his hand touched the pleasure points between her legs. Chris widen her legs so he could reach the very core of her. His tongue darted around her folds, bringing her to the brink of the ultimate release as she squirmed under his ministration. His tongue entered her, shocking her with a jolt of pleasure, and she felt like she was exploding from the fiery sensations.

  “Oh, Chris,” she moaned softly.

  “Enjoying that, love?” Chris chuckled quietly as he continued to enter in and out of her with his tongue.

  Janice cried out as waves of ecstasy flowed through her. Janice had never thought lovemaking and sex could be so passion-filled and pleasurable. She had never felt anything like this before.

  Chris came up and eased Janice over to his chest as she continued to draw in deep breaths.

  After a while, as they lay quietly in the dark, Janice kissed his nipple as she ran her fingers over his chest. She kissed the other nipple while her hands roamed to his belly. She could see his manhood springing upward. She gently outlined his shaft with her index finger, watching as it got harder and became more engorged. She continued to run her fingers over the area, and she kissed the spot below his belly. His tip touched her cheek and she rubbed her face against it. She started licking him, starting near the hairline and working up to the end. When she reached the end of his shaft she took it between her lips and gently rocked it in and out of her mouth.

  “Janice, honey…I’m going to come.”

  Janice sat up and straddled Chris, guiding his shaft into her again. She began a rocking motion, riding him gently at first, and then a little harder with each entry. Chris brought his hands to her hips, and when he thrust upward, he held her hips down so he could go in deeply. He let out a powerful release. She felt the fluid of his release as it warmed her insides.

  “Oh, Janice…honey,” Chris whispered in her ear.

  His hands continued to gently massage her back. She laid her head on his chest and wrapped her arms around him, listening to his heart beat wildly.

  Soon, they drifted off to sleep as satisfied lovers.

  Janice felt something touching her scars as she tried to pull herself out of what seemed like a drugged sleep. She woke with a start, her eyes snapping open as she yanked the sheet up over her.

  Chris was lying next to her. “Tell me what happened,” he said quietly.

  She pushed his hand away and pulled the sheet up to her neck, turning her head in shame.

  Chris reached over and turned her chin toward him. “Why are you ashamed?”

  “You don’t know me and what I’ve been through,” Janice said, looking away.

  “These scars look painful, honey. Talk to me,” Chris prodded gently.

  Janice lay there a few minutes, trying to figure out how to get out of talking to Chris about her scars. She sighed, accepting the fact that she couldn’t avoid the subject any longer. “I’ll tell you the whole story, but first I want to put some clothes on and make some coffee.”

  “Okay.” He pulled her chin back up to him again and kissed her on the mouth.

  His kisses still made her tingle with delight despite the somber mood she was in. At least he didn’t look at her with pity, or draw away from her as if she were too scarred to be touched. The last thing she wanted was for Chris to be embarrassed or feel pity for her.

  She got up and put on a pair of sweatpants and a top, then went to the kitchen to make coffee. She sat down at the table to wait for the coffee to finish brewing and for Chris to come out.

  Chris finished dressing and came out to the kitchen. He bent over and kissed her on the neck, putting his arms around her and cradling her as if she were the most precious thing in the world.

  She put her arms on his and held them. “Last night was wonderful,” Janice said.

  “Yes, it was,” Chris whispered in her ear, kissing and nibbling on her lobe.

  When the coffee was done, she got up and poured two cups. She took them to the table and gave one to Chris. He took a sip from his cup, waiting patiently for Janice to begin her story. Janice walked to the refrigerator and grabbed some ice to put in her coffee. She sat down next to Chris and drew in a deep sigh, and then started.

  “I moved to Colorado to work on a contract with Aspen District Library. They built a new building and wanted to update everything, and I was in charge of it. After the library was built and everything was in place, I was done. I figured I’d just find another job, but by then I had met David Banning. We met at the library—he was one of the contractors there to install the heating and cooling. We fell in love, at least I thought, and got married. His parents begged him not to marry me—I guess they thought I wasn’t good enough for their son—but we went through with it anyway. However,
he did do what his dad requested, and asked me to sign a prenuptial agreement. I did, thinking I would never need it, that once I married, it was going to be for life.” Janice stopped and took a sip of coffee, careful that it wasn’t too hot.

  “After we were married, I found out that David had been implicated in a murder charge, but the police weren’t able to tie any evidence to him. But most conveniently, which I didn’t know at the time, his parents had put him in a mental institution so he wouldn’t be tried for the murder. Anyway, we started fighting a lot, and he started to get abusive. He was always telling me that I was ugly, didn’t know how to dress, and he’d slap me with this look of rage on his face. Then one day, I had one too many slaps and I said that was it. I wanted a divorce. I moved out of the house we were living in and into a small apartment.

  “David came over one night, claiming to be really sorry for everything that happened. He had a container of food. He had made me macaroni and cheese, the way I like it. I was thankful for the gesture and told him that. I started eating it and after a few bites, my tongue and throat and then all the way down into my stomach started burning. It was burning really badly, and I felt my throat closing off, and as I was gasping for air, I said, ‘David, what did you do?’ He laughed and said, ‘I poisoned you with potassium hydroxide. Here, here’s the rest.’ Then he threw another container with liquid at me.” Janice stopped.

  Chris’s mouth dropped open and then he clamped it shut.

  “I turned away from him just as the liquid spilled across my neck and back. My back started to burn, and it felt like I was completely on fire. I stumbled out into the hallway and the man across the hall looked at me and said, ‘Oh my God, you need medical attention.’ He went in and called 911. David left before anyone could see him. When the ambulance came, I managed to tell them that I had ingested potassium hydroxide and that he threw it at me and my skin was on fire too. I spent the next four months in the hospital. I was so severely burned that they didn’t expect me to live. My circulatory system began to fail and I had perforations of the digestive tract. I had horrible abdominal pains, my mouth was burned, and my lips and tongue swelled up. They had to put a tube in me to keep my throat from closing completely. I asphyxiated twice. My lungs became congested and my stomach is permanently damaged. The burns on my skin caused these disfigurements. My sister came all the way from Detroit, leaving her family behind, to be with me and help me while I was in the hospital fighting to survive.

  “The long-term effects of this are that I can never have children, and I have a high risk of developing cancer. Just recently, Dr. Merck referred me to Dr. Bedford and I had a biopsy done on a sore at the back of my tongue. I was so scared that the cancer had begun. Fortunately, it was benign. I have scar tissues where the burns are, and they are quite large. It makes eating hard for me to do. I have to take tiny bites of food, and I can’t drink hot liquid—like this coffee—I have to let it cool down, and I can’t eat things with hot peppers or warm spices. It’s like rubbing salt on a wound.

  “I divorced David, and yes, I had stupidly signed that prenuptial agreement. However, David’s parents put him back into the private institution again so he didn’t have to face any charges. They paid the psychiatrist to keep him there. I had absolutely nothing. No money, no insurance, and I’d spent all that time in the hospital.” Janice reached across the table to a folder with papers in it. She pulled out the hospital bill. “Here’s what my hospital stay cost me.”

  Chris looked at the bill, which totaled two hundred thirty-four thousand, eighty-eight dollars.

  “There is nothing wrong with David mentally. He’s as sane as you and I, except for perhaps being a psychopath. His parents paid off a lot of people to keep him out of jail. My friend Jack is an attorney, and he filed the lawsuit on my behalf. Chris, I was not after their money to break them. All I wanted was for them to pay for my hospital bill, since their son put me there and he got away without being charged for the crime.”

  Janice stopped for a few minutes. “His parents got really ugly during the last month I was in Aspen. I had to get away. They were calling me all kinds of names, saying things like I was a gold digger, I was the abuser, I was after David’s money, and so on. It was almost as bad as the horrible injuries I suffered from because of him. I stopped at a used car lot and bought that car. The salesman said that it was a good buy and the car ran well. I made it to Billings when I saw the ad in the paper for the library assistant job. I decided to come this way and see if I could get the job and hide in a small town rather than another big city.

  “Anyway, last month, when I went to Aspen to meet with them, I knew that it would be my last meeting. I was going to put a stop to it all, and I did. Senator Banning wants to run for the US Senate, and he wanted the matter to quietly go away. I stood my ground with him and told him if I didn’t walk out with a check that day, or if I did walk out with a check and it bounced, I was going to go to the media and I’d make his life miserable. He’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting into the US Senate. He cut me a check for four hundred thousand. I paid Jack’s legal fees and the hospital bill, and the rest is for any additional medical expenses I might have relating to the scars and burns. There’s not a lot of money left over, but I can invest it and have it make me some more money. You see, Chris, I’m not a gold digger, as Senator Banning said I was, and I wasn’t out after the family to bleed them dry, I just wanted justice and my medical bills taken care of.” Janice finished and waited for Chris to say something.

  He appeared speechless for a few minutes. “Honey, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I hope you can forgive me. I totally misjudged you all the way around. Shane did a background check on you and we found out that you had this lawsuit going on despite the fact that you signed a prenuptial agreement. We assumed you were after his money for financial gain.”

  “Well, it didn’t help that I didn’t share any of this with you sooner,” Janice replied.

  “I didn’t create an environment where you could do that. Damn, how awful it must have been for you. The agony and pain you must’ve gone through. I can’t even imagine it!”

  “Believe me, I didn’t want his money. But I had no other recourse. I live my life quite frugally. You see this furniture? This is not my furniture. This is a furnished apartment. My clothes? I haven’t bought a new pair of jeans, blouse, suit, or anything in years. I wear long-sleeved shirts with high necklines because of the scars. I just went through a cancer scare. The first of many I’m told will happen to me. Each day I wake up, I am a little angrier than I was the day before. I don’t like living like this, but I have no choice.”

  “I don’t blame you for being angry, Janice. You have every right to be angry, and you have every right to be angry at me too. I was so conflicted between the person I saw you as here and the person I thought you were in Colorado. I’m glad you finally told me. I now understand and see you for the beautiful person you are. Your scars reveal to me the strength you have, and it shows your true character, who you really are. You shouldn’t be ashamed of showing your scars. From now on, you will never go through any of this alone. I will be with you, and we’ll deal with whatever happens together.”

  “Really, Chris? My scars don’t turn you off or make you sick or anything?”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “I’m glad, because it would tear me apart if they did. You see, I’m in love with you too.”

  Chapter 18

  Janice felt much better over the next few weeks after talking to Chris about what happened to her. They spent as much time together as their schedules allowed. Chris was feeling the situation out, gauging how people reacted when they saw them together, and what people were saying. He didn’t want to commit to Janice and then have people scorn her or stop supporting the programs she’d begun and stop coming to the library because of her relationship with him. At the same time, Janice was looking for opportunities to show Chris that they could make their relations
hip work despite the difference in their ethnicities.

  She had the opportunity to deal with the issue when Betty Nettles, a deaconess at the church Janice had been attending, came into the library to talk to Janice about her relationship with Chris.

  “Hello, Janice,” Betty said as she walked up to the counter where Janice stood.

  “Hi, Betty. What can I help you with?”

  “Actually, I’m here to talk to you about your relationship with that man.” She pointed out the window to Chris’s shop.

  “Excuse me?” Janice asked as she walked over closer to where Betty was standing.

  Robin stood off to one side, listening to the conversation.

  “Janice, the Lord doesn’t want you to be involved with someone of a different race.”

  Janice raised her eyebrows at that statement. “Why not?”

  “People should marry within their own races,” Betty went on. “Besides, Indians are the lower side of the human race.”

  “Betty, let me ask you a question—do you think God cares what color someone’s skin is?”

  “Well—no,” Betty replied hesitantly.

  “Then why should you?” Janice asked. “If you will excuse me, I have work to do.” She turned and walked into her office.

  Janice couldn’t believe what she had just encountered. She was appalled that this woman, who was a deaconess of a church, would show this kind of behavior and attitude, and decided she would make an appointment to talk to the reverend about it.

  * * * *

  The hayride and Octoberfest dance was coming up, and Janice was excited about it. She thought it was great to be a dancer that collected money for the Food Bank. Chris wasn’t particularly happy about it, but he figured he’d be there in case anyone got fresh with her.

  “Why don’t you go to Barb’s shop and see if you can find a pretty dress to wear at the dance Saturday night?” Chris said to Janice one afternoon.