Chapter 14

A hard, heavy thigh pressed her to the bed and she could feel the warmth of his breath at her ear. They were tangled together and Jon’s head was nestled in between her neck and shoulder. Cilla stroked his arm, tracing the superman tattoo with her fingertips. How could he have made her feel so much? She didn’t want to compare, but Charles hadn’t ever made her feel the way Jon just had. Oh, sure, there had been moments of unbridled passion, but they had been few and far between. Cilla hadn’t ever really enjoyed it anyway; it had always been more about Charles than her. She sighed at the thought.

Jon pressed a kiss to her neck and eased himself off of her. “Are you okay?” He had heard her sigh and hoped she didn’t regret what had happened between them. Cilla nodded, “yeah, just thinking.” He lay on his side so he could look at her and pulled the blankets up over them, “thinking about what?” She smoothed her hand over the blanket, “this.” His eyebrow shot up, “this?” He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know what she was getting at.

Looking over at him, she could see the confusion on his face. Cilla sat up a little and pulled the covers around her. “This Jon” she said quietly as she motioned with her hands to him and the bed. “How we ended up here; why, when you could be with any woman you wanted you chose me” she paused and looked at him, “how you made me feel more just now than I ever did with… and where do we go from here.”

Jon sat up and wrapped his arm around her, settling her against him. “I think I’ll answer that last part first. We just take it one day at a time. I like you Cil, more than any other woman I have been with since my divorce. You’ve made me laugh more in the last three days than I have in the last three months. I can’t explain it; I just know that I want to be with you and I hope you feel the same about me.”

He thought about the rest of what she had said. “Cil, I don’t know what your relationship with your ex was and frankly, I’m not sure I want to. I can only guess that he was a very selfish man who didn’t know the gift he had in you. You deserve everything you got tonight and more.” He looked down at her, his blue eyes shining with sincerity “I want to be the one to give it to you too.”

Cilla laid her head against his chest, “this all happened so fast. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. It’s been a long time since I had more than one date with a guy let alone anything more.” She looked up at Jon, “just be patient with me Jon. I may stumble around a bit, but I’m willing to try.” He kissed her head, “That’s all I can ask. Now that we got that all settled, can we eat? I’m starving.” Cilla laughed and pushed away from him, “stay here, I’ll go get it and we can eat in here.”

Jon watched as she grabbed her night shirt from the back of the door and slipped it on, “aw” he whined, “do you have to get dressed?” She looked over her shoulder at him, “you don’t want me to get cold do you?” He winked at her, “I’ll keep you warm baby.”

Five minutes later she was back and they were sitting with a plate of food between them, feeding each other bits of pasta and drinking wine straight from the bottle. Cilla chuckled, “Sid is going to have a heart attack when he finds out about this.” Jon smirked, “why’s that?” She took a swig from the bottle, “I’m fairly certain that he’d love to be sitting where I am right now.” Jon laughed, “I guess it’s a good thing I like girls then.” Cilla smiled and fed Jon a bite of pasta, “good thing.”

When the plate was empty and the wine bottle nearly so, Jon set them on the floor and pulled Cilla close, kissing her softly. “Dinner was delicious, thank you.” She ran her hand up his arm, “I brought some things up from the shop, would you like dessert?” Jon traced his fingers down her chest and toyed with a button on her night shirt, “I think we need to talk about one other thing before we have dessert.” Cilla laid her hand over his, “what’s that?”

He turned his hand over and laced their fingers together, “you said earlier that I didn’t need to use a condom, why was that?” She tried to pry her fingers from his but he wouldn’t let go. “Talk to me Cilla. Whatever it is, just tell me and we’ll work through it.”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him so as she stared at the blanket she told him. “I can’t have kids Jon. I had my tubes tied years ago.” He squeezed her hand, “that’s not so bad Cil.” She looked up at him; the pain and sadness in her eyes caught him by surprise. “Charles made me.” Jon’s grip on her hand tightened, the surprise he had felt was slowly being overshadowed by the anger that was coursing through him. What kind of monster was this man? His jaw tightened and the muscle twitched, “why?”

It still made her sad to remember, she had always wanted kids, so had he; at least that’s what he had told her at first. When he started having his moods, that all changed. “Charles didn’t want children and he wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t be an issue. He hated condoms so I told him I would go on the pill; but he worried that I would forget to take one. He told me the only way to be certain was for me to have my tubes tied. I asked about him getting a vasectomy but he said that was out of the question.” A single tear slid down her cheek as she finally looked at Jon. “I didn’t want to but he didn’t leave me any choice.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close “oh baby, I’m sorry.” She sniffed, “it’s okay Jon. The way things turned out, it was for the best anyway.” He stroked her back, “that’s still no excuse for what he did to you Cil. He had no right to force that on you.” She pulled back from him and wiped her face with the back of her hand, “I know, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. I’ve moved on from it.” She studied Jon’s face, “is this going to be an issue for you?”

Jon settled back on the pillows and pulled her with him, “it just pisses me off that this happened to you, but no, it won’t be an issue.” He kissed her tear-stained cheek, “did you ever consider having it reversed?” Cilla shook her head as she settled against him, “it crossed my mind once or twice after the divorce but I didn’t have any insurance so I just let it go.”

Jon lay awake long after Cilla had drifted off. He was angry at a man he had never met, angry that this man so callously decided her future for her and gave her no choice but to do as he asked. What kind of person does that? Cilla moved and stretched her arm across him. He stroked her hand and closed his eyes, willing sleep to come.