I Want To Be In Love

"That's so comforting to me, Kevin," I continued. "I knew from the way you touched me that you were in love with me. You are so gentle. I wanted to fall in love with you right then . . . but I couldn't . . . I didn't want to let myself until I had re-established myself as someone other than a failed banker and a failed wife and mother."

"You were never a failure, Mel," he admonished my self-pity.

"I feel like a failure," I said.

"Don't," he said simply. "Just because life didn't turn out the way you wanted, doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow."

"That's easy for you to say," a slightly defensive tone crept into my voice.

"It is," he shrugged. "I've had my share of good fortune, but I've also been so lonely for . . . well, for all my life. I don't want to spend it the rest of my years without someone I love with me."

My jaw fell open.

"Don't leave me again, Melanie," he pleaded. "I'll do whatever I need to in order to have you in my life. . . . I love you . . ."

In that instant, Kevin looked so vulnerable. His usual confidence was stripped away. Once again, he looked like the shy teenager I used to know. The one who could solve any math problem but couldn't talk to girls about anything social.

"Even if I'm unemployed with two kids?" I asked in a playful tone that was meant to allay his fears. "Even if I'm a middle-aged divorcee with saggy breasts and too much grey in her hair?"

"Even if," he smiled. "I don't care if you ever work again. I like your kids and if you'll have me, I want to be in their lives."

His hand caressed my cheek.

"Melanie, I think you're perfect," Kevin said softly. "I love everything about you. You're the most beautiful woman in the world . . . you always have been. Do you know when I fell in love with you? It was in ninth grade Earth-space science. We did the 'egg drop' contest together. You wanted to win so badly . . ."

"So did you!"

"No, I didn't," he pulled me down to him. Our lips met. "I didn't care if we came in first place or last. I just wanted to spend an afternoon with you . . . even if it was under the pretense of doing a science project together."

"You didn't turn down the points when we came in first place."

"I'd have given them all back if I could have gotten to do the apple-shooting project with you, too." He smacked me playfully on the backside. Then his hands cupped my breasts. "I love your tits, Melanie. I could spend the rest of my life holding them . . . but if you don't like them, I'll pay to get them lifted or tucked . . . Or if you want a pair like Melinda Dransfield's, I'll get them for you—"

"You'd like that!"

"If it will make you happy," Kevin snorted. "But I don't want you to change anything about yourself. I love you just the way you are."

"Oh, Kevin," I sighed contentedly. "You sure know how to say the right things to a girl."

"Yeah, well, I've been saving up."

"For what?"

"For you." We kissed gently before he spoke again. "Marry me."

"What?" I gasped.

"Will you marry me, Melanie Nakamura?"

I gaped at him, unable to speak. His hands caressed my shoulders. His lips were so soft. I knew I had fallen for him. A little part of me wanted to slow things down, but I pushed that voice out of my mind. After all, there was no sense in being cautious any more. Not after what I had just done.

"Yes," I replied. "Yes, I'll marry you, Kevin Westcott . . . But you're going to have to ask me again later because I am not telling Mother this is how you proposed to me!"

We laughed together, a sound that would become very familiar in the coming years.

"I love the way you touch me, Kevin," I whispered, kissing him behind the ear.

"Well get used to it, because I'm never letting go of you," he vowed.

Once more, we shared a deep, sloppy kiss. Then I sat back and he cupped my breasts in his hands.

For the rest of the afternoon, I impaled myself on his cock, crying out his name. He held me in his arms and made love to me long and slow. I was never so happy to miss a flight in my life.

***********

"Where are we going?"

"That's a surprise," Kevin replied. He was carrying an overnight bag. After his impromptu marriage proposal, he made a call and soon had a private jet waiting for us at the airport. We flew back home. I drove back to my parents's house and Kevin picked up a rental car.

I didn't tell Mother or Father about my job. Not then.

Unbeknownst to me, the next afternoon, while I was out with the kids, Kevin drove over and asked my parents for their blessing. We went out to dinner that night to one of our favourite restaurants out at Atlantic Beach and much to my surprise, his parents, my parents and my kids showed up.

He got down on one knee, produced a ring with a rock on it that appeared to be about the size of The Fabulous Baseball Diamond and formally asked me to marry him.

I acted surprised but the tears were real. Of course I said yes.

We were planning a small wedding (and when I say "we" I mean "me") when we decided to forego the formality and flew all of our friends and family out to Vegas and got hitched. No, Elvis wasn't involved. I had the big wedding the first time and wanted this one to be familiar and intimate.

Emily and Toby were our attendants and Kevin surprised me by producing the kimono my mother had worn at her wedding. Father only winked. Despite my reservations about how they'd react, both my parents eagerly supported my union with Kevin. I think they were relieved that I had found a successful husband since I was once again unemployed.

Somehow, Kevin found a Shinto shrine out in the middle of the Nevada desert and we had a small, but traditional, Japanese wedding. At first I wanted to wait, but Kevin insisted on getting married quickly.

"The kids will be going to their father's once school gets out," he told me. "I want them to be a part of our wedding and then I want us to have some time together before we get them back when school starts again in August."

I readily agreed; it seemed my new groom was thinking two steps ahead of me. When we returned, the two of us sat down and had a heart-to-heart.

Despite the whirlwind nature of our romance, the fact of the matter was that Kevin had been a confirmed bachelor and I was a family mom. There was a great divide between our worlds. We talked about his role as a stepfather. We discussed all the debt I was bringing to our relationship. Everything was on the table, from the hours we kept to the way we spent our money. Life isn't all passion and romance and we both wanted to love each other once the first six months of our marriage had passed.

It was especially hard for me. In the back of my mind, I was busy re-formulating my 5 year plan. I didn't have to work if I didn't want to. Kevin told me as much. But I needed something to do.

I'm a goal driven person. I always have been. When I was laid off my job, I my self-esteem was crushed. I hate to admit it, but every identity I had was wrapped up in my career. Unfortunately, I was a mommy second to my job. It wasn't out of selfishness, though; it was out of love. I wanted to provide for my family and I thought that by working and working, I could give them things and opportunities I couldn't if I didn't push myself so much.

This second round of unemployment was a little easier for me. It was voluntary. It was something I had chosen.

Even though I could have been Kevin's trophy wife, I desired more. I needed something other than sitting around a house waiting for him to come home from work.

Luckily, Kevin understood, although he told me to take some time to spend with my kids before jumping back into a job hunt.

So there we were, on a private jet going somewhere. Kevin wouldn't tell me where.

School had just gotten out. I packed up Emily and Toby's things and their father drove down to pick them up. With tears in all our eyes, my children went off to spend the summer with their father, a condition of our custody agreement.

Kenzo was a little shocked that I had re-married so quickly. He wasn't exactly rude to Kevin, but he wasn't very friendly, either. For his part, my new husband was kind of a jackass, too.

For me, depression sank in almost as soon as my kids were out of the driveway.

Kevin tried to alleviate this by taking me on this trip. The flight was a little over an hour. We landed and it took me a second to realise where we were.

My eyes grew wide as we got in a waiting rental car.

"Why are we at Raleigh-Durham?" I asked once I found my voice.

"I knew I should have blindfolded you!" he smiled mischievously.

"No really, why are we here? And why didn't we just bring the kids with us?"

"And deprive your ex-husband of a nine-hour car ride with Emily and Toby?" Kevin laughed evilly.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

A little while later, we were driving through my old home city. After graduating from Duke, I had settled a little ways up the road in Raleigh. When I got married, we stayed in town because I was making good money and Kenzo easily found a job in the booming economy of the late 90s.

Kevin drove around for a little while and soon we were in one of the city's "old money" neighborhoods. The houses there weren't as big as the McMansion I used to live in, but they were all built during the Gilded Age and oozed character and history. Also unlike the new cookie-cutter sub-divisions, no two houses are alike and they had been kept up well.

Finally, Kevin pulled into the driveway of a house. The lights were on inside.

"Friends of yours?" I asked.

"No," he replied simply.

We got out of the car and walked around to the back. It was then that I noticed his red Shelby Cobra and Jeep CJ7 sitting under the car port.

My hands started to shake.

Kevin reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. He handed it to me and motioned towards the door.

We stepped inside to an unfurnished house. The hardwood floors were cold, but had just been polished. There were new granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The walls were freshly-painted.

Unable to speak, I dumbly followed Kevin through the house. In the living room, my husband flipped a switch and brought the gas fireplace to life.

"What is this?" I breathed.

"My wedding present to you." Kevin took me in his arms. We stood there for a long time in the flickering light.

"Why?"

"Because your kids need you to be near them," he replied. "Look . . . there's no reason for us to live in Jacksonville with your parents, is there? And you don't want to move to Richmond with me . . . Emily and Toby's dad lives here so why not bring them home?"

"But what about you . . . your foundation?"

"It goes where I go," he waved me off. "It's just me and I can run it from here as well as from Richmond."

There were so many things I wanted to say, but the words failed me. I pulled Kevin close and vowed to never let him go.

"Come here, I want to show you something," he said, a twinkle in his eye.

He led me to the front door, where I began to cry.

A mat was on the floor, and despite the fact that there was no other furniture, it made this house feel like a home. Our home.

Welcome to the Casa de Mel

I practically threw Kevin on the floor and raped him right there. To his credit, he took it like a man.

***********

The next seven months passed in a blur.

When he found out that Kevin and I had moved to Raleigh, Kenzo was more than happy to go to an every-other-week schedule for the kids. I don't think he (or his girlfriend) realised how much work having the kids for three months was going to be.

We moved his things from Richmond and got some of my stuff out of storage. Kevin revealed that he had bought this house almost three months before as a "reconstruction" project and had been slowly restoring it to its former glory. I was amazed at his confidence that there was some future for the two of us. He gave me a healthy budget for new home furnishings (I came under; yea, me!) and we nested. All our parents came up and we celebrated our first Christmas as a family.

Kevin sold his house and I started working as a loan officer for a local credit union. It was a steep pay cut from my previous job as a banker, but the hours were good and I didn't miss the extra stress or the travel. The kids returned to the schools they left when I moved home and it was as if they hadn't missed a beat.

The four of us had some growing pains as a family, but Emily and Toby readily accepted Kevin as their stepfather and he treated them as if they were his own children. Of course, we had to break ourselves of some old habits as we learned to live with one another, but that was to be expected. Besides, when Kevin and I fought, we got to have make-up sex.

Valentine's Day rolled around and Kevin was waiting for me when I got home. Some days I felt like he was a worthless bum because he never had to leave the house to go to "work" but I didn't begrudge him the fact that he had earned the lifestyle he now led.

I was carrying a bouquet of flowers that had shown up at work. They were beautiful and garnered much jealousy from my co-workers. The kids were at their dad's for the week.

Setting the flowers down on the counter, I drew out a small box from my purse.

Handing it to Kevin, I greeted him with a kiss. "Happy Valentine's Day."

As the wrapping paper fell away, I saw his jaw drop.

"What . . . Mel? . . . I . . ."

Smiling to myself, I pressed my body against him. "Kevin, this is my wedding present to you. I know it's a little late and that there's nothing I can buy you that you don't already have . . . but I want this for us."

"Are you sure?" he asked once he found his voice.

"Yes, Kev, I'm sure," I replied. "I'm thirty-seven years old now. If we wait any longer, we'll be taking chances with my health . . . and our baby's."

He flung my birth control pills down on the counter, the scooped me up in his arms.

I let out a rapturous laugh as he carried me back to our bedroom. I nuzzled up against his neck.

"I stopped taking them last week," I whispered. He promptly tossed me down on the bed. A shiver ran through my body at the look he gave me.

Kevin pounced on top of me and tore at my clothes. I eagerly gave in to the primal force that was my husband.

The two of us fucked like rabbits for the next three days. We didn't even leave the house. We made love everywhere.

Kitchen table. Living room sofa. Stand-up shower.

Check. Check. Check.

I rode him as he sat on the toilet. He bent me over the side of the loveseat and banged me. We sixty-nined on the dining room floor. I sucked his cock as he surfed for porn on his computer. He ate me out as I sat on the edge of our whirlpool tub. One night, we went outside and had sex in the hot tub on the back deck even as the snow was falling.

And more than a few times, we made love in our bed.

It wasn't until my March cycle that I caught. Neither of us wanted to know what the sex of the baby is going to be. We turned the spare bedroom into a nursery. Both Emily and Toby were excited to have a new sibling. His parents were ecstatic that they were going to be grandparents.

A month after that, I came home from work one day and Kevin told me to pack a suitcase.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"On the honeymoon we never took," he said.

"What about the kids?"

"They're going to their dad's next week." Kevin still won't call Kenzo by name. "How would you like to spend a week in the Caribbean?"

Who am I to turn down a vacation with the man I love?

As with just about everything Kevin does for us, the plans were already made. All I had to do was show up. It was a great relief to me that Kevin did so much for us. Not that I don't like to plan, but because it allowed me to let other people do the little minutia that I often get caught up in.

Giving up control was very hard for me. That's one of the downfalls of being a Type A personality. I'm lucky to have a husband who is patient with me and doesn't put up with all my crap.

We got on a plane in RDU and flew to our connecting flight to Ft. Lauderdale.

Kevin went off to get us something to drink. I headed for the gate for our next flight.

I was walking by one of the airport restaurants, when I felt someone tugging at my arm. I turned, instantly defensive.

"Melanie Nakamura?" a man asked.

His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. The man sitting at the table was short, round and balding. I knew I should recognise him, but I didn't.

"Melanie? You haven't changed a bit!" he continued. "It's me, Darren Copeland."

My eyes got wide. Darren graduated with Kevin and I. He was almost as smart as Kevin and almost as motivated as me. As I remembered, he was also kind of arrogant and liked rubbing the fact that he smarter than most everyone else in their faces.

He hadn't aged well. At least not as well as my husband.

"Hey, Darren, what have you been up to?"

"Oh, not a lot," he slurred. It was evident that he had been drinking for some time. "Have a seat and join me for a drink."

"I can't—" I started but he waved a waitress over.

"What'll you have, Melanie?"

I blushed. "Just water, please."

You had better hurry your ass up, Kevin! I thought.

"Where are you off to?" Darren asked. As revolting as they appeared, the cold potato skins on his plate seemed oddly appealing to me. Pregnancy cravings, I guess.

"Ft. Lauderdale," I replied absently. "Got a date with a jewelry store on St. Thomas."

"That sounds like fun. I'm on my way out to San Francisco for a software conference," he said even though I hadn't asked.

"Listen, I've got—"

"Hey, Kevin! Kevin Westcott!" he looked past me and started to wave excitedly.

I turned and saw my husband passing us by on the moving sidewalk. He glanced up in surprise, then his face broke into a wide smile. My husband came back and held out his arms to embrace our mutual friend.

"Well, I'll be damned! Darren Copeland! How the hell are ya?"

I sat there as the two old friends exchanged pleasantries. Kevin and Darren hadn't been close in high school, but they ran in the same circles and both spoke the same language: computer geek. And I mean that in the most loving way possible.

"Can I buy you a beer?" Darren asked.

Kevin, if you do anything other than get me away from him, I will kill you, I thought.

Have you ever been around someone who just gives you the creeps? That was the vibe I always got from Darren. Not that he was dangerous or anything like that, but I always felt that when he looked at me, he was picturing me naked. Of course, I think sixteen year-old boys look at all girls like that.

"No thanks," Kevin replied. He set a cup of coffee down on the table in front of me.

"What are you doing here?" our mutual friend asked.

"I'm on the way to Ft. Lauderdale," my husband said. "Got a big Caribbean cruise coming up."

"Say, Melanie, aren't you going to Ft. Lauderdale, too?" Darren slurred.

I nodded and resisted the urge to slap him upside the head. Maybe he was really drunk and not just tipsy. He raised his half-empty glass of beer. "Well, here's to you, Kevin, the luckiest game designer on the east coast; that contract was mine you know! And to the prettiest girl in the Class of 1991: Melanie Nakamura!"

"Westcott." Smiling to myself, I corrected our drunken companion. "It's Melanie Westcott now."