Forbidden Love Read online

  He said he went from being a watch to a golden statue of a god where unwanted sacrifices were being made. He only wanted to be human and to be loved for being human. He just couldn’t get anybody else but me to see him that way.

  As his relationship with my mom was imploding upon itself, I was having issues with Rick. We had been dating for two years. I knew the relationship wasn’t perfect. I saw how imperfect it was once I read Jack’s manuscript about me, even though he wouldn’t admit it was about me. He could point out how I went on diets just to please Rick, or how I would accept his cheating on me because I wasn’t a good enough girlfriend. Two years of my life had been spent with Rick. I didn’t want to throw it away, especially when I thought it could still be fixed.

  Part of me also didn’t want to admit that Jack saw me and my relationship for what it really was. He came from a middle class income and didn’t attend any of the best schools. In a lot of ways, he was very common, even if he held romantic ideals about being a gentleman.

  As my mid-twenties were starting to become my late-twenties, time became more important to me. There was a part of me that thought getting pregnant might help push Rick towards the marriage issue. Instead it was more like the nail in the coffin.

  I was single and pregnant. Jack was single, successful, and playing the field. He made sure I knew that, even though he was there for me throughout the pregnancy. He would go with me to doctor’s appointments and other things. When the doctor or the nurse would think he was the father, he would tell them he was just a friend. When they left the room, he would turn to me and say, “’Friend’ sounds a lot better than ‘almost step-father’ or ‘man that was screwing my mother’.”

  I wasn’t sure what he wanted us to be during that time. He was more than a friend, but he would never say he was anything more.

  When I was six months pregnant, I attended a wedding alone. Jack was there with some random girl he didn’t really care about. She was young and beautiful. She liked him for his name recognition, and he knew it. He said it wasn’t against his morals to use somebody when she was using him. He said it was an unspoken understanding. Anyway, it gave him the freedom to ask me to dance, since he had no real commitment from the woman he was dating.

  He didn’t just ask me to dance. He came over to me and held out his hand for me to take. He kissed it and said, “May I have the honor of dancing with the most beautiful woman in the room?”

  “I’m the most bloated woman in the room and could possibly be the fattest woman in the room.”

  “Yes, well, you know my weakness for mothers.”

  His smile and eyes were dazzling.

  I got up and started dancing with him. He held me close to him, but he held me and danced with me like he was doing the waltz while everybody else was just slow dancing.

  “I’m already knocked up, Jack. We don’t need to dance and bring attention to ourselves.”

  He leaned in close to me and whispered, “I’m dancing with the knocked up daughter of my ex-girlfriend. People are already going to be talking. The least we can do is show them how elegant we are while they continue to live their own sordid little lives.”

  I wanted him. It was not that he was just kind and funny and handsome. He was charming and graceful. He was the last of a breed of men who could be called a gentleman.

  “If I hadn’t been with Rick the night you met my mother, would you have chosen me over her?”

  “Well, now, Miss Catherine! That is a loaded question. If I didn’t know you any better, I would say your hormones are out of balance. Is it true the female sex drive increases during pregnancy?” He smiled at me as if he was playing dumb to any feelings he might have for me.

  “Why? Are you thinking of moving from older MILFs to younger MILFs still with child?”

  “Maybe. Thankfully we live in a depraved and immoral society where women are getting pregnant out of wedlock and men aren’t stepping up to the plate to take care of their children. I might even be able to find a website that caters to such sexual desires.”

  “Do you have such sexual desires?”

  I look him in the eyes. He looks back at mine. He chooses his words carefully.

  “I have rules that supersede carnal desires. Since I was with your mom, I can’t be with you in the same way.”

  “But you can be my friend and draw attention to us by asking me to dance?”

  He smiled. “If the pregnant woman would rather sit alone at a table and prove to the world she is a social outcast, I can take my humanitarian efforts elsewhere.”

  Even though I knew he was joking, there was a truth behind his eyes. I gave up on him being a substitute father to my unborn child, or at least on us being a couple.

  “No, I would rather have you stay.”

  He kissed me on the forehead. “Good. You truly are the most beautiful woman in the room. I don’t think I could put up with everybody else’s attitude tonight.”

  We continued to dance, but we talked less. We were enjoying the feeling of being able to touch each other and what could have been if we had made other choices in life.

  My son will be five this year. Jack has always been there for me and my son. He has taught him to play catch and to pee standing up. He has been closest thing my son has ever had to a father. He’s changed dirty diapers and given me breaks when I needed to sleep or just relax from taking care of somebody else. He was also there for adult conversations when baby talk started to take its toll on me.

  I pointed that out to Jack one time. He said, “You’re my best friend. I help you take care of your child. And we don’t have sex. That might sound like marriage to you, but I see no reason to make it legal and get the government involved in our lives. It will just screw up everything.”

  I can’t tell what he wants. Maybe he’s conflicted and wants something that violates his rule. I only know I haven’t dated anybody else. I don’t want to be in a relationship if he should ever change his mind.

  Even with the women he has dated, I don’t know what he wants. I haven’t met a woman yet who doesn’t think he should be in a relationship that would lead to marriage. Knowing his independent streak, he could be resisting marriage because it is what everybody else wants for him. Why should they know what would make him happy?

  Chapter Three

  He got drunk on his thirtieth birthday. It’s not just that he got drunk. He got drunk and drunk dialed my mom. She called me and told me to pick him up.

  I had seen him earlier that night. I had gone out to celebrate with him, but I had to leave because being a mother doesn’t really allow me to take a night off. Apparently, that was the case with the rest of his friends, too.

  When I found him, he was severely drunk. He wasn’t just celebrating. He had been drinking to forget. I put his arm around my shoulder and helped to walk him out. He pointed out two women at the bar and said, “I could have had a threesome with them, but it seems some woman has poisoned my heart to where I only want her.”

  I took him back to my place. I didn’t want to leave him alone like this. I stripped him down to his underwear and tried to put him in bed.

  “I need to pee.”

  I help him to the bathroom. He leans over the toilet and is doing the best he can to stand there. I notice his massive erection, which is popping out of the top of his boxer-briefs. I free him from his underwear and point him at the toilet, even though he is fighting against me.

  “Don’t tell Cathy you saw me this way.”

  He doesn’t know I’m standing beside him. I try to comfort him. “She won’t find out. Just go to the bathroom so I can put you to bed.”

  His dick starts to get a little softer as he starts to pee. I flush the toilet, pull his pants back up, and wash our hands. As I’m walking him back to bed, he garbles out, “It’s my birthday. How did I end up alone?”

  I lay him down on the bed. “Shhh. Just go to sleep, Jack. It will all be better tomorrow.”

  “When I was a kid, I thoug
ht my birthday wishes didn’t come true because I didn’t have enough candles. How many candles do you need before your wishes finally come true?”

  I start to run my fingers through his hair and caress his chest. “I don’t know. What did you wish for?”

  “I wished I had chosen Cathy over you that night, or at least that we hadn’t had sex. Things would be so much easier now.”

  As he’s confessing things I’ve longed to hear, he doesn’t know I’m taking care of his drunk body because of how I feel for him. I helped him pee knowing that is how he needed me at that moment, just like he once helped me change diapers, play with a fussing kid while I tried to sleep, or brought me dinner when I was too much of a mess to go out in public from taking care of a baby all day.

  As he babbles on about me, I hold him tight. I take in the smell of his skin and am thankful for this one chance to have him like this where he doesn’t have to think about what is right or wrong. I kiss his neck and shoulders and know this is the only time I will ever have to put my arms on his chest or to wrap them around his waist.

  He confides in me that he drank vodka tonight knowing it would act the same as Viagra on him. He tells me my mom was his booty call. He begs me to take advantage of him so he can pretend my mom is me. I refuse him, even though he protests it’s his birthday. He’s entitled to birthday sex.

  I hold him even closer as I begin to cry. I’m loving him as I’ve always wanted to and as I’m finding out he is wanting me to, as well. I don’t take advantage of him in this state. Instead, I grant his birthday wish and love him.

  When he woke in the morning, he had no memory of what he had said, or even of me being there fulfilling his wish.

  My mom can try to tell me I’m young and deserve a good man in my life. She can tell me she wants me to be happy, or that she is old and doesn’t deserve these things as well. Even, “You’re a mother. You should know what a mother would do for her child”, doesn’t justify having the talk with him. I don’t want him to know what all he confessed to me. It would be like betraying a friend, which I can’t do to him. I love him too much. Having him in my life this way is better than not having him at all.

  I don’t want to screw up the best thing I’ve never had.

  About This Book

  Jack is intending this as the first part of a small series. He has more in mind for Jack and Cathy. He can’t leave their desires unfulfilled. It goes against the romantic in him.

  Other Books By Jack Gunthridge

  Broken Hearts Damaged Goods

  Life

  Life in the Master’s Hands

  Out of the Blue Nights of Death and Desire

  Out of the Blue Whispers in the Dark

  Out of the Blue Dying Embers of Love