Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I thought I could get used to doing it with fewer clothes on, though, as long as our underwear stayed on. It did feel nice when he touched me gently down there, even when he did it inside my panties. As long as it didn’t mean—as it had meant on our wedding night—that he intended to be intimate with me.
So I rushed into his arms, and I could feel in the way he held me that he must have on his face the broad smile that always melted my heart.
“There we go,” he murmured contentedly. I thanked God that he couldn’t see my face as I rested my chin on his bare shoulder. I smelled a hint of the musky scent of his body, and I felt my brow furrow. That earthy fragrance… I liked it—no, I loved it—and yet it made me blush a little every time, the heat fiercer the more strongly I could smell Rick’s body. It smelled to me like the outdoors and the earth he worked with, even when he hadn’t just come from mowing a lawn or planting a tree. I liked it, and I loved him—so why did I wrinkle my nose?
Rick moved his right hand down my back, to touch my bottom. I stiffened. The sensation of his hand there, moving now underneath the hem of the cotton nightgown that only came down to the middle of my thighs, seemed to merge with my thoughts about the way he smelled.
My memory flashed back to the wedding night, when he had touched me between my thighs, and the aroma of his naked body had been so strong. His scent had joined together with my own terribly embarrassing fragrance—the one I always got an unwelcome whiff of when I took off my panties after a long cuddling session. I knew people sometimes talked about the way it smelled—about what my bashful mind wanted to call the scent of intimacy. I never heard about that without the heat mounting to my cheeks, and the feeling of my husband’s hand under my nightgown, cupping my bottom through my modest cotton panties, made me anxious that my underwear would smell that way even after the cuddling I had promised to do, as chaste as I meant it to be.
“What’s wrong?” Rick asked, quietly and soothingly. I felt certain he would take his hand from my backside, but he didn’t. For a moment I wondered if he thought somehow he should try to imitate that crazy older guy Scott from the porch.
Are you going to let her get away like that?
Rick’s hand stayed on my bottom. He squeezed my little cheeks very gently through my panties. I bit my lip hard and managed to keep the whimper that threatened to rise in my throat down and silent. I knew with a thrill of shame, however, that I would definitely smell my lack of self-control when I took off these panties.
I absolutely did not want to bring Scott and April up again, and I didn’t want to argue. We would cuddle: I would show my wonderful husband that if he could remain patient, I would let him hold me and touch me, and then he could go to the bathroom and ‘take care’ of himself in the shower.
“Nothing,” I whispered, and I put my arms around his strong back. The feel of my bare flesh on his sent a little thrill through me, one I felt I could welcome and enjoy because Rick and I had done it—we had gotten married and we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. I knew how that contradicted the way I felt about intimacy, but right now I just wanted to love my husband and to give to him what I felt sure I could give. “Go brush your teeth and let’s cuddle.”
Rick’s fingers on my bottom moved softly, caressingly. My forehead creased even harder, and I had to bite down on my lower lip. To my horror, though, I couldn’t keep my hips from moving, pushing my backside into my bridegroom’s possessive hand.
Had he felt it? Had he sensed my body’s betrayal of my modesty? Rick didn’t show any sign of knowing about the mortifying turmoil inside me. He let go, and stood up, as I stepped aside to get into bed.
As soon as he had closed the bathroom door behind him, I fled; threw my sweats on over my nightgown, put on my flip-flops, and walked right out of the room. I didn’t know why, just that I had to get out of there.
Scott, clearly returning to his and April’s room with an ice bucket in his hand, saw me coming the other way.
CHAPTER 5
Mandy
Our drive home to New Jersey the next morning, after Rick had found me in the lobby, staring blankly at the fireplace, and I had refused to say anything, and he had slept on the couch in our room while I lay sleepless in the bed where I had promised to cuddle… that silent six-hour drive home easily took the prize as the worst experience of my life.