Casanova Cowboy (A Morgan Mallory Story) (5 page)

“Well
, in that case, let’s have a dance,” he said, taking her hand.

Walking away
, he turned around and winked at me, and I mouthed
thank you
. Where I thought it would be awkward between us, it wasn’t. It was like the other times in our past, as if we hadn’t been apart. When he asked me to leave the reception with him, I already knew where it was going, where he hoped it would go. He drove to a nearby park, the one by our old elementary school, and we swung on the swings and talked. When he kissed me, it didn’t feel wrong, and the desire he’d always been able to evoke came back far too easily.

He took me downtown to the Hyatt and got
us a room. I watched us almost from afar, knowing I shouldn’t be doing what I was about to do, but unable to stop it. Unable to ignore the emotion he brought forth. He said it was entirely up to me as to what would happen or not. He wasn’t fooling me, he knew his power over me, and he knew exactly what would happen. I called Gayle to tell her I wouldn’t be back, and she wasn’t overly surprised.

“I had a pretty big suspicion this might happen,” she said.

When we made love, it was with the intensity of old. He was all I could see. The guilt feelings I thought I should feel never surfaced. We spent the next few days and nights together, completely immersed in each other. It made me sad to have to leave him, and I dreaded going home. As I lay in Mathew’s arms, I tried to compare my love for him to my love for Max and realized there was none; they were completely different. On our last night together, I called Mom at the O’Conner’s to confirm details for the next day.

“Where are you?” she asked
quickly after her initial hello.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I tried to reach you at Gayle’s. She told me you were with Mathew. Did you not go back to her place after the wedding?” she asked.

I thought about what her reaction would be, pictured her at the other end of the phone, the
muddled expression on her face.

“
Yes, to pick up my luggage. I’ve been with Mathew ever since,” I said honestly.

“
Morgan!” she said sharply.

“I know
, Mom, but I couldn’t help it. You know how it’s always been with him,” I defended.

These were the moments I knew that the distinction between being a friend and a mother were tough for her.
A friend would ask for me to tell her the details and a mother should say what I had done was wrong. I heard her sigh.

“Y
es, I do, like a moth to a flame,” she said with resignation.

I wanted to tell her everything, but I felt I should be somewhat cautious, not wanting to overwhelm her with my feelings.

“It’s been amazing Mom. I think I’d forgotten what real passion feels like, to have someone really want and desire me. Max doesn’t even act like he likes me half the time. So don’t
Morgan
me as if you would care if it ended with Max,” I said.

Max. I’d hardly given him a thought the last few days. Since the wedding, when I’d fallen back into Mathew’s arms, he was all I cared about. I knew it was selfish, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

Do? Was that even a
legitimate question?

“I get one more glorious night with him
, and then I fly home. It’s not like there’s really a choice between Mathew and Max. Mathew lives here. I have school there and on and on. We live five hundred miles apart,” I said.

“I’m sorry
,” she said sadly. “Sorry for all of us. Morgan, I understand maybe you don’t think there is a choice between Mathew and Max, but there is a choice. Love is not always easy to understand, but don’t settle where love is concerned. It matters,
love
I mean.”

I felt my throat tighten and my eyes burn.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, wanting to cry.

“And don’t cry,” she said
, reading my mind. “I was afraid he would pull at your heart. When I saw you two at the reception, I was sure of it. Morgan, I love Mathew. I’ve known him since he was a kid. He’s my best friend’s son, but he’s not for you, just like Max isn’t.”

The tears sprang into my eyes and I pushed on my eyelids to stop them.

“God, Mom, I hate it when you say shit like that. Like you already know the answer, but I don’t. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I was frustrated w
hen I hung up the phone. I stayed at the kitchen table thinking about Max and what Mom had said. I tried to reach back in my memory and find a time when I had ever had feelings for him like I did for Mathew. I was attracted to Max and thought my feelings were love, maybe they still were, but nothing matched what I felt for Mathew. Mathew still had his
magical hold
on me as Gayle called it. Of late, it seemed like Max and I did more fighting than loving. Even the makeup sex had lost its luster. With Mathew, I got what I got; he wasn’t always kind, but he was honest. He didn’t try to hide who he was.

“What is that pretty little head of yours thinking?”
Mathew asked, coming into the kitchen and bending to give me a kiss.

I lifted my face to him
, thinking it would be a quick peck. Instead, he pulled me up from the chair and into him. He wrapped his arms around me, kissing me hungrily, his tongue teasing in my mouth. Then probing, rolling his tongue with mine, seeking. I instantly felt the tingling warmth spread between my legs, a feeling he easily generated with a kiss. I pressed my pelvis into him, and he lowered one hand cupping my ass, squeezing, keeping me pressed hard against him. He was freshly showered and smelled of Mathew, the light vanilla, lemon, whatever smell made him, him.

“Um,” I moaned.

I felt his other hand move under my T-shirt towards my breasts and the fire grew, spreading from between my legs into the pit of my stomach.
Even with all the sex we’d had over the last few days, I wanted more. It seemed as if I could never get enough of him. He pulled away, giving me his sexy smile and took my hand, slowly, almost sauntering, he lead me down to his bedroom. I eagerly followed him, knowing what was about to happen.

I watched as he unbuttoned his shirt.
I pulled my T-shirt over my head and pushed back my hair. Mathew pulled his shirt open and I could see his chest, the muscles defining it. I sucked my breath in as I stripped down my shorts. His eyes were locked on me and mine on him. I could see where the V went down into his pants and I knew he had no underwear on. He smiled when he saw my reaction and stripped off his shirt and then his pants. My breathing came in small pants as I admired his naked body, and his erection.

I
quickly removed my bra and panties and went to him, naked. I ran my hands down his chest, down his stomach, then took his hardness into my hand. He groaned and his breathing grew quicker, and I could see the desire in his eyes.

“You’re going to make me crazy, aren’t you?” I
murmured.

It came out husky, sexy
, and raw and he smiled.

“Can I still do that to you?”
he asked, kissing me softly on the mouth.

Then he kissed down my chin with little butterfly kisses, down my
neck, and throat to my nipples that had already gone hard with desire. He flicked them with his tongue, one and then the other, and then sucked on each one. When he stood back up in front of me I looked into his eyes. I wanted him so badly.

“I’m here
, aren’t I?” I said in a hoarse whisper.

He thrust into me
with a hunger that sent waves of shivers through my body. He rode me until the pleasure was almost painful. Our bodies connected, finding the perfect rhythm, harder, faster, until we hit the top. Like a roller coaster pausing for an instant and then plunging together down the other side. A vulnerable gasp escaped his chest as he collapsed on top of me and stayed there. I breathed him in. His wonderful freshly showered Mathew scents mixed with our smell of sex. I held him for a while and then rolled from under him and curled into the nook of his chest and underarm. I wanted nothing more than to stay right there.

We went to dinner that night to a small café in Los Gatos.
It was a busy place, with brick floors.
Unusual
, I thought. We sat in a booth on the same side, pushed into each other. I noticed the walls were lined with funky signs and plants filled the front windows. For the first time, he asked me to tell him about Max. He’d found the scar on my head, and I explained about the accident. He found my passive-aggressive behavior about the Blazer amusing.

“I’m sorry you
got hurt, but the story is pretty funny. He lies to you, so you take his Blazer, with a guy he doesn’t like, stay out drinking and dancing, and then crash it. Maybe it will teach him not to lie,” he chuckled.

“I doubt it.
I don’t think he connected the two things.”

I wished he hadn’t brought up Max. Now he was in the room with us and I didn’t want him to be. I moved the silverware on the table
uneasily.

“Morgan
, why do you stay? If you loved the guy, you wouldn’t have spent the last few days with me,” Mathew said.

Love, t
he damn love thing, what the hell was it?
It seemed to me to be an illusive animal; it was there, but not exactly.

“Hmm
, it’s just that Mathew magic,” I grinned, leaning into him playfully.

Mathew looked into my eyes and then leaned in and kissed me.

“It’s only Gayle that thinks I’m magic.”

“Only with me,” I chuckled.

I fiddled with the silverware on the table again. Putting it horizontal and then vertical.

“And to answer your question
, I don’t know why I stay, habit maybe. Maybe I want to believe love exists, and it can last. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself.”

Mathew was never one for staying in a relationship too long, especially if it wasn’t good. I couldn’t come up with a decent reason as to why I was still with Max. As we talked, it hit me why my relationship with Mathew had transitioned through so much time and space; we never had a chance to give it time. The day-to-day of living never crept in. When we were together, it was the passion and us: no bills, no laundry, no car wrecks.

We made love again that night
before we fell asleep in each other’s arms. I woke in the morning to his kisses down my body, and he took me on one more roller coaster ride. I didn’t want our time together to end, to go back to real life.

“I wish I could stay,” I said.

“I know,” he said, as he ran his fingers down my back.

“Did you mean what you said at the Hyatt? That if you’d ever given in, we wouldn’t be together now?”

“I just meant we’ve had our moments over the years, keep having them. I think it’s good.”

I wanted to ask about love, but I stuffed it down. It didn’t make a difference; our lives were what they were.
I snuggled into his side, feeling his warm body against mine. Max never made me feel this, like the moment was perfect, just by its self. Instead he made me feel like what I gave was never enough. Like somehow
I
lacked something, not that
we
lacked something.

Mathew drove me to his parent’s house to
meet mine, in order for us to head back to the airport. As he pulled into the driveway I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. I stared out the windshield at the O’Conner’s house, his old house as he shut off the engine. He and I had spent so much time together here; there were so many memories. The thought of leaving him was tearing me apart. I wanted to bury my face in his chest and make the world go away. I wished for the first time in years that we could be together as a couple. I wondered why we’d not broached the subject. In all our years of circling each other Mathew and I had never talked about a future together; it hadn’t seemed feasible.

“
No regrets?” Mathew asked breaking into my thoughts.

He’d held back the night of the wedding until I’d told him I would have no regrets by being with him. A vice like grip went around my heart, and my nose burned, the tears I knew not far behind.

“Definitely no regrets,” I whispered, leaning across the car to kiss him.

I hadn
’t come to San Jose with any intention of being with Mathew. I had envisioned us catching up at the wedding, no doubt dancing together, possibly some flirting, and the rest of the weekend spent with Gayle. The intense, sometimes insane, feelings I had for him, I chalked up to being young, and yet now, I had to rethink that. I had walked into the wedding, determined to keep my head on straight, and he had changed that instantly.

Chapter 4

Mathew had pulled me back into his arms without even a struggle from me. I had gone willingly, and thoughts of him flooded my mind all the way home. I knew that I needed to untangle my feelings for Mathew from around my heart, but our history was so complicated and messy. Now, heading home, I was desperately trying to make a conscious effort to refocus on my feelings for Max. I had no idea how I would feel when I saw him. Maybe when I saw him that is when the guilt would engulf me.
I should feel twisted up in shame, but I don’t. Why?
“If you loved him, you wouldn’t have spent the last few days with me” Mathew’s words rang in my ears.

“Are y
ou going to Max’s?” Mom asked when we got back to the house.

Dad and Pat had brought the luggage in and it all sat in the family room, like stiff soldiers, handles still up. The cute panties and bra I’d last taken off for Mathew packed neatly in my bag on my dirty clothes side.

“No, I think I’ll stay home tonight,” I answered pensively.

“That surprises me
,” she said.

My head jerked back slightly
as I stared at her.

“It does?
” I asked.

“
Mathew?”

I could see the
worry in her eyes as she searched mine.

“Du
h,” I said, tears springing to my eyes.

She ca
me to me and gave me a hug, realizing I was struggling. She held me tight and the tears came flooding, silently at first. She rocked me when she could feel my body shake.

“Sometimes I wish you found it
harder to tell me things,” she said.

“I know.
I’m sorry. God, Mom, I didn’t give it a thought that I could fall back in, that the old feelings for Mathew would come rushing back like a tidal wave. I figured we had both moved on from the old days. It’s been years since we even spoke, why would I think we would tumble back into bed just like that,” I cried, snapping my fingers.

“When
Gayle said you were with Mathew, I figured,” she sighed. “I figured it was more than a social visit.”

Max
wasn’t happy that I didn’t want to drive over to his house. He wouldn’t think of driving over to mine, so I didn’t ask, although I didn’t want to be with him anyway. Mathew was weighing too heavily on my mind.

I talked to
Mom about the weekend, about my feelings for Max, about my confusion about what
love
really meant. About why I stayed in relationships that weren’t working. She listened and offered the advice she could. She didn’t scold me about cheating, but instead pointed out that I should try and understand the reason it was so easy for me. I needed to sort out my own feelings; she couldn’t do it for me.

I finished paying off the
Blazer that summer and started back to college in the fall. Max and I were still going out, but it was becoming more and more evident to me that our relationship was not what it should be. Neither of us was very into it. We both spent a lot more time with friends, and the boys’ nights out increased. I knew he was out looking, but I didn’t really care. It was as if neither of us wanted to be the bad guy and quit. And it frustrated Mom.

“Do you still love
Max? Did you ever love him?” she asked one evening when I stopped by.

S
he’d asked me to stay home, to not go to Max’s. Her brow was wrinkled in annoyance as she poured us both a glass of wine.

“Mom
, I’m not sure I know anymore what
love
is,” I answered. “I thought I loved him. I was pretty sure I did until the accident. After the accident, I started to look at things differently. I can blame it on the concussion right?”

“
Right,” she said sarcastically. “No, you can’t blame it on that.”

“
Then the weekend with Mathew happened, and I questioned it even more, the
love
thing. How could my feelings for Mathew be so strong if I truly loved Max? Can you love two people at the same time? Max is selfish, and I suppose to some extent we all are, but everything has to be his way. If it isn’t, he gets mad or refuses to participate in whatever I want to do. I think if you love someone, it should be give-and-take, not all taking.”

I flashed back to when I
’d accidently got pregnant, and he made it my problem, not our problem. How I’d scheduled the appointment for an abortion, and he hadn’t even driven me there. He was supposed to pick me up and instead left me waiting in the parking lot still somewhat drugged up from the procedure for over an hour.
Was that what you did to someone you loved?
I quickly erased that from my head, it was a thought and a story I didn’t share with Mom—I knew it would make her too sad.

“D
o you think you still love Mathew?” Mom asked.

“
I do, but it’s different. We’re not together. We’ve only had fragments. Mathew is selfish too, but at least he’s honest about it. He’s never promised me anything. Our age and living so far apart made it impossible for a real romance to develop. Whenever I was with him, I wished that it could be different. I wished it this last time too; I didn’t want to come home. It’s probably your and Dad’s fault I’m a failure at love, moving me away like you did,” I said with a pout.

“
That, missy, is a crock of shit,” she said.

I laughed.

“Spending time with Mathew made me take a hard look at things between Max and me; sex for one. With Mathew, the sex is incredible. He can look at me and get me started, and his kiss, it sends me to the moon. With Max anymore, sex doesn’t feel special, magical; it’s almost ho-hum, get it over with, especially on his end.”

Our sex life had definitely
deteriorated. Max didn’t seem so willing to initiate and when I did many times he was “too tired”. I felt like an old married couple without the ring.

“W
ell, that’s not a good sign,” she said, frowning at me.

“Can it stay g
ood, Mom? Please tell me it can,” I pleaded.

“Love or sex?” she asked.

“Both,” I said.

“It changes.
Sometimes it can be intense, magical like you said, and other times it can be very calm, maybe comforting,” she said.

“Love or sex?” I teased.

“Both,” she laughed, “both.”

“
Mom, I want to feel love. I want someone who feels it with me. Is that asking too much? I feel like I must lack something, that I can’t truly love or be loved, to make it last,” I said.

“
You just haven’t found the right one. I like Max, but I don’t think he’s the one for you. Mathew, as intense as you say your feelings are, I think you two run too hot. If you were together all the time, you would burn out,” she said.

“I wish we lived close enough to try
,” I said. “Especially the sex part.”

“Quit it
,” she said, slightly embarrassed at my comment.

“I’m serious
,” I said.

We finished off one bo
ttle of wine before dinner was ready. Pat was out with friends, and Dad was in his office. He came out briefly for dinner before he retreated back to his computer. We talked about Pat’s latest news. He’d decided he was going to move to Park City, Utah, and be a ski bum for a winter or two. He’d lined up a job at a ski shop through a connection of Dad’s and would be headed out around Thanksgiving. In a way, I was jealous that he was such a free spirit to risk a new place.

“
Liz and I are planning a trip in January to go visit Pat and ski,” I said.

“The boys going?” she asked
, referring to Max and Dave.

“They weren’t invited
,” I said authoritatively.

Max
and Dave had been best friends since high school. Dave went off to college in Arizona where he’d met Liz. Max had stayed in Escondido and gone the junior collage route before he’d apprenticed as an electrician, while he worked toward starting his own company. When Dave graduated, he brought Liz home with him. From the minute I met her, I liked her. She had a sassy personality that jived with mine, and it hadn’t taken us long to become good friends. Liz and I hung out together and then commiserated when the boys had nights out without us.

She
had recently found her own place at the beach in Del Mar, so I spent a lot of time there. Near the beach there were plenty of places for us to go and whenever we went out together, we got noticed. Where I was tall with blond, thick, wavy hair, she was petite with blond, long, thick, straight hair. We both had blue eyes. Liz was pretty, and she had a knockout body with big boobs. Mom called us Mutt and Jeff. She’d tried to explain what that meant once, and I still wasn’t sure I understood it, something about friends being so different. Apparently Mutt and Jeff was an old comic strip, but I didn’t see the relevance.

“
That should be fun. I’m sure Pat will show you two a good time,” she said.

“Mom
, I’m so glad I can talk to you. I know sometimes it’s not easy, hearing about your daughter’s foolishness,” I said.

“Hey
, we all have to grow up, even my baby girl. I’m just glad you feel comfortable talking to me,” she said, clearing the dishes.

I got up and
hugged her. I realized she had always been there for me, even when I hadn’t thought so.