"This Time Around"
By: gb
Chapter 42
As a child, Gillian was always looking for a sign.
One of her schoolfriends had told her when something was gonna happen, a sign would always come before it. You just had to look for them.
She knew little Sajan's appearance meant something, but she hadn't been able to figure out what yet.
When she was younger, her behavior had been very spoiled and selfish(which she now realized was a cover to make everyone, including herself, believe she was anything but lonely and needed nurturing and attention). She now thought that had been why no good signs came for her,though she had searched exhaustively her whole life.
Ryan's arrival had been a great sign- it was after he came that her life had been happy.
Now as she slept next to him, holding hands, she dreamed of the early morning hours when she and Ryan had created Janie together...
...Gillian came awake groggily as little by little, memories of last night came back to her in a jumbled mess. As she lay in her bed in Myrtle's boardinghouse, she remembered that she had gone to SOS to celebrate its grand opening.
Now, she remembered Ryan...their passionate dance that looked more like making love...their steamy kiss outside in the night air...his smile that melted her...how he held her close, his hands warm and caressing to her body...how she told him she was setting him free and filing for divorce, giving him the freedom he so craved...how her heart had torn from its fragile bindings in her body and crashed to the ground in a thousand pieces when she saw that he didn't want to fight her decision but thought it was the best idea...how she had tried to drown him out in liquor and Jake's arms though inside, she had been crying the whole time because her heart had refused to let go or forget her great love; her Ryan...how Ryan had brought her back here...how she'd been too drunk to help herself to even undress for bed, so he'd done it for her while she'd carried in silly nonsense. She had been too intoxicated to be coherent, but nothing she could ever do would drown out her husband...She had been falling all over the place, all over him and not once had he taken advantage of the situation. And he had been complaining that that he wasn't an honorable man, she laughed harshly to herself...
It was still too early for her to get a headache from all those margaritas, but one would be here soon, she knew. She was glad- she wanted the pain too be so much that she could forget about him for awile!
She turned to her side and saw Ryan sleeping in a chair he'd pulled up to the bed. She smiled at his peaceful looking face.
But the smile faded as she realized, "Probabally can't wait to be free of me, can you? I can't blame you, I know I wasn't much of a wife. But you still touched me,Ryan, and I was happy being with you...
When she'd moved again, the sheets russled and combined with her rambling, he woke up.
His head turned towards her and they stared at each other and then he smiled sleepily.
"You're awake, Princess," he said quietly, stretching. "Go back to sleep, the sun hasn't even come up."
"I can't sleep anymore, " she also extended her limbs to get them moving.
"You had a rough evening, Baby. One too many margaritas." He got up and walked over and carefully sat next to her. "You look ok now, but that headache's gonna kill you!"
She reached for his hand and told him," Thank you for taking care of me...I'm sorry you had to bother."
He leaned over and kissed her forhead. He hesitated at first, but then went and did it.
Then he tucked the blankets around her and ever so gently, brushed her lips with his own.
Slowly rising, he said, "I guess I can leave now...you seem to be better."
She nodded.
He started to walk away when she called to him and he turned around.
"I'm sober now..." she said carefully. "You don't have to think you would be taking advantage of me..."
They were so awkward with each other now and she knew she should let him walk out then, but she had to try one more time.
"Gillian..." he began as he realized what she was asking. "Baby, I don't have the right anymore."
"Ryan, I won't make any demands- I promise I won't ask you to stay. We've decided to go our own ways and I'm not changing my mind- you've made it clear you don't want to be married to me anymore. Trevor Dillon will have the papers for us to sign this week. I just thought...it's still a few hours before morning and we never said goodbye...and maybe I owe you for putting up with me all this time." she told him.
She didn't add that she was still in love with him and her heart was the one who was asking now.
He came over to her.
"Gilli, you don't owe me anything- that's not why I ever made love with you. But I can't start something that we can't finish. We're over- why beat ourselves up like this?" he asked her in exasperation.
"Because we both want to and I can admit that...and because we never have to talk about it if you don't want to, Baby." she reached for him.
She put her arms around his neck and moved herself closer to him until she felt sure he could feel her thundering heart against his own.
"I can't, Baby," he insisted, but he looked down at her into her pleading eyes and forgot to pull away as she kissed his lips.
He sat down on the bed next to her and his kiss was so deep and so yearning for her that her head was already spinning. She had never known need like this in her life!
"All those nights in jail," he said in an anguished rush as he kissed her face now. "I dreamed of kissing you just like this! I ACHED to feel your soft skin in my hands- of making love with you all night long! God, I almost died from being deprived of you! You haunted my every thought- I had visions of breaking out of jail to be with you; to see your sweet, beautiful face! I craved your hands on me, Gillian!"
"You can have me now." she told him, somehow touched by his words.
He hesitated again and then kissed in desperation, her lips burning from his touch!
He seemed to come to a decision then about it as he rose and instead of speaking, started to unbutton his shirt and then his trousers.
She watched him peel away his clothes from his well built body as her heart leaped in excitement!
The soft glow of the nightlight illuminated his light goldenish skin as she saw the remains of a thin scar on the side of his lower abdomen.
She had seen it the first time he'd ever taken his shirt off in front of her even before they had married. Someday, she would ask him about it, though something told her she wouldn't like the answer.
His life was still such a mystery to her even though so much of the ugly truth had been laid bare for her now. They were still strangers- intimate strangers- in so many ways.
She had never believed she could love someone as much as she did Ryan and not know alot about him, but he kept so much locked away and out of her reach that she constantly struggled to form what she could with what little pieces she had and the resulting conclusion was too frightening to comprehend.
He came back over to her and she pulled back the covers to let him join her.
He had helped her out of her beautiful red sari and blouse last night and was now nude under the blanket, her hair still in the upsweep she had worn at SOS.
Gillian welcomed him in her arms and he began placing kisses over her skin. Her body screamed in delight as she told him with her hands how much she loved him even though her lips remained silent!
His fingers lovingly kneaded her torso and her arms as he kissed from her throat to her stomach and back. He had the most wonferful hands and they weaved magic whenever and wherever he touched her!
He knew how to tease her, how to caress her as if playing a delicate instrument that had been mastered over just a small time and he knew her body so well, she was a plaything for his fingers and she knew he reveled in knowing her so well!
She kissed his chin then and he leaned back as she trailed her lips over his chest and abdomen. She saw him smile as she caressed him to such a peak of excitement, that he was shaking from it!
She wanted to please him if only for the short time they had left. She wanted him utterly happy and make sure he knew that she was leaving him now because she was giving him what she thought he wanted and not because she no longer wanted him.
She wanted this night to live on in his thoughts forever! Maybe she's selfish because she never wanted him to forget, but letting him go was the hardest thing she'd ever done and she wanted him to understand that somehow.
He held her head now and released her hair from its clip and as her locks fell, it brushed playfully against his skin. He quivered and as her soft, dark hair tickled his flesh, he grabbed her arms in an effort to hold her above him so he could kiss her back the way she was doing for him!
She looked down at him, pleading with her eyes for him to see the love that she felt only for him! She bit her lip to keep herself from telling him and scaring him away!
Her teeth bit into her skin painfully as she tried to keep her words at bay and tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
He, however, brought her back down again and gently and slowly, kissed her lips apart.
He then sought and located the place on her chest where her heart was and kissed it lingeringly as if he knew what she was so desperately trying not to say.
She arched her head back as he playfully brushed his lips back and forth across her throat.
"I'll never regret this!" she told herself. "I'll always have this time to keep in my heart with me always no matter what happens!"
As tears of pleasure and pain came down her face, she let him love her whole body while she held onto him from her position above him!
The floodgates opened when they joined together, and he sent her to such a height of pleasure and passion, she was dizzy from its effects and landed back on the ground so thoroughly loved that she slept, exhausted, but refusing to let him go just yet, she clutched at him in an attempt to keep his body joined with hers still...
Some time later, as the sun slowly started coming up on the new day, Ryan turned in her
arms and woke her with the sweetest kiss on her forhead.
Their time together had come to an end. She felt the unbearable heaviness in her heart as she wordlessly released him from her arms as she had promised even as her limbs protested their sudden emptiness.
He looked down and didn't meet her eyes as he slowly got up and began to dress.
He stayed there for a moment and watched her, lingering long enough for her to wonder if perhaps he'd changed his mind and wanted to be with her still and it was on the tip of her tougue to let him know that she'd love him forever, but the next moment, she felt him withdraw from her.
She wanted to say something, watch him put on his clothes again and hold him in her arms once more.
Instead, she turned away so she wouldn't have to see him leave and he wouldn't see her tears, and cried silently into her pillow as she heard the door to the the room close softly telling her he had gone.
Her world suddenly swept away from her, she finally turned around almost hoping to see him still there, but she was alone in the room now.
Biting her quivering lip and not bothering to wipe away her tears, she huddled into her blanket seeking the warmth that his arms were no longer there to give her.
Her body was still tingling from his touch even as a headache was building into titanic proportions!
She felt more lonliness now than she had ever thought she could stand!
"Why did I sleep?!" she asked herself out loud. "Why didn't I stay awake so I could've seen him for a little while longer?! Even a little while would have made me happy! Why didn't I watch him leave?!"
She burrowed deeper into the blanket, not wanting to face the world and wanting to escape its unforgiving lonliness now that Ryan wouldn't be there to go through it with her anymore.
Later, she would call Trevor and see if their divorce papers were ready yet so they could sign them and put their marriage to rest for good...but right now, all she wanted was to lose herself in their love and her misery.
"I'm alone!" she cried. "Ryan's gone and he's not coming back this time and I don't think I can live without him...please let me do it!"
She hadn't known then that she and Ryan had created a life together who would change their lives in ways they never expected...
Gillian woke from her dreams and turned in panic, but breathed calmly as she saw that Ryan was sleeping next to her.
She snuggled next to him and his hand remained clasped in hers.
At the foot of the bed, Sajan slept on the bedcovers quietly lost in his cat dreams and she smiled...
end of part 42
(to be continued...)
Next time: Ryan and Gillian try to keep Sajan a secret- will they do it?