The Anniversary Gift (Re-Connections) Read Online Free PDF Page A

you will shame me, cause regrets that I don’t have the courage to face. Please understand,” I beseech him.
    “Can I hold you ?” he asks. “Just for a little while.”
    I feel myself nodding, feeling the love he has for me radiate through him at my ascent. He leans down and picks me up, carrying me to my bed. At my protest, he quiets me with a kiss and promises, “It won’t go further than this.”
    Lying in his arms with his hands stroking my hair, he turns me onto my back and settles in beside me. He breathes in deeply and murmurs that I smell like heaven. I feel myself melting again, but am committed to allowing myself only this, no further, even as my belly squeezes in on itself tightly and I feel myself getting wet.
    His hands grow bolder, down my arms, up my sides an d touch the naked skin of my chest. He pauses there to stroke me, back and forth above my breasts, the soft strokes causing me to ache. He leans down to kiss me again, this time more urgently, his tongue on my lips. The sweetness of it as it slips inside my mouth causes me to respond in kind.
    Oh my … I love this, how cherished I feel, how loved I feel. But it is wrong. “Stop … please stop,” I whisper. “I don’t have the willpower to ask you again. If you care for me at all, I need you to stop.”
    He leans up on his elbow, gazing down at me with soft, understanding eyes. “I promise it will go no further, do you trust me?”
    And it is those words that bring me to my sens es, those words that give me the strength to sit up and then get up onto my feet. His words echo with the words of my husband only a few short days ago. “Do you trust me?” I shudder in remembrance.
    “Please go,” I ask.
    Brian smiles at me sadly, but with understanding in his eyes. He turns to gather his things, and my eyes can’t miss the huge erection causing a tent in his pants. I take a deep breath and I know that, although I’m doing the right thing, I’m missing a very special opportunity for some really amazing sex. I close my eyes, and in a moment hear the door open softly and then close. When I open my eyes again, he’s gone and I’m alone and my body begins to shake. I lie down on the bed and sob…in regret and in response to how close I was to betraying my marriage vows. Hot tears leak down my face as the pain of sending him away flows over me.
    “ Perhaps he could be our third,” I think with venom. “Why must the third be female, after all?”
    The next day I meet Brian in the lobby, to ride together to our client’s office. “I’m sorry,” we both say in unison. Mutual smiles of understanding are a blessing … we’re ok, I know we can get past this.
    The day drags by slowly, successful but lacking the same excitement that yesterday offered. Back on the plane, Brian holds my hand. Nothing more, just the gentle caress of his thumb on my skin as we sail closer to home. Landing safely, Brian walks me to the baggage claim area, where to my surprise Ethan is waiting with a pretty bouquet of roses. I’m quite sure I’ll expire on the spot, but somehow my face splits open into a wide smile and my legs move toward him rapidly. As I wrap my arms around him, I swear to myself to never betray his trust. I pray in that moment for the strength to do what needs to be done to save my marriage.
    When I unwrap myself from his embrace, Brian is gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    T-Minus Eight Days to Anniversary
     
    After the sweetness of the airport welcome, things become polite and distant in the car. Why? Why can’t we communicate, talk past this oddness that seems to settle around us like a cloud?
    “I’ve been thinking about your anniversary gift,” I whisper with a thumping heart. Ethan’s hands grip the wheel tightly, but he doesn’t say a word. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make us work, even to find another woman for our bed. But I want to try something else first. Are you up for that?”
    “I’m up for anything,” he finally