The Love I Never Knew I Needed Ch. 02

Once again, a reminder. I am coming back to writing after a LOOOONG absence. it will improve with time and as I get more practice. Thank you.

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1:00 am. Dark, quiet room. All alone, with nothing but my broken life, a day full of emotions and unreal memories.....and questions.

What just happened?

Was I about to kiss my Aunt Laura? On the lips? In a SEXUAL way?

Well it was no use asking myself these questions, I already knew the answer. Yes. I was. What was really boggling my mind was why SHE was acting that way. I mean if I really thought long and hard about it, even though Laura had sort of let herself go in some ways, and if she wasn't my Aunt Laura, I wouldn't even look at her twice, inside and out she was still such a beautiful woman to me. Actually, just a beautiful person. One who made me feel safe always, and taken care of. A safe port for any storm I was in.

Maybe that was part of it. But was that really enough for me to have physical, sexual desires for her?

It certainly seemed like it, because if she had gone for my lips and shown me she wanted me in anyway, I knew in all honesty that I would have fulfilled any need she had. How could I not, being the replacement mother I deserved in the first place, beautiful and so very giving at all times to me.

Well, maybe it was just late and we both had a long day...let latent things get the best of us. Yeah, that must have been it. Makes perfect sense.

Sitting there, I knew I was exhausted, but since the war and my life split apart, I rarely found sleep easily. Mix that with the fact that so much had happened in the last 24 hours and the fact that my mind tended to idle at one hundred miles an hour and.... Well I was content to just sit in a quiet room alone with my thoughts.

Thoughts about being in this house again. Thoughts about being back home thoughts about Aunt Laura. Thoughts about......Jane.

Jane. Damn. Now her, I could think about all day.

I don't remember how old I was when I recognized that the childhood infatuation I had had for her never went away, and grew into more of a longing, or pining. I just remember that as far back as I can remember, when it came down to family events, Gavin might be my best friend and brother in life, but Jane is...well to put it childishly my 'dream' girl.

I had spent what felt like an entire lifetime secretly adoring her from afar, mostly because that was where she kept me. I had always wondered why, given all the cousins we have--of which there are over twenty-five—she never really tried to build any kind of relationship with me. She did with my siblings--2 sisters—but not me. Honestly, when I thought about it, my heart sank...a lot.

Now today, her surprising me with that hug, a hug I'd never gotten before, and then the impromptu 'emotional episode' I had and the way she held me. Her tall, slender frame. Her milky, smooth skin. Her jet black hair in that bun. That blue, skin-tight cotton dress. Those full lips, brown eyes.....those eyes....

God she was perfect.

I found myself, while thinking about her, getting really horny and decided it was time to go get my things out of the Jeep, take them to the spare room down here on the first floor and getting ready for bed. So that's what I did.

The bottom guest room was awesome. It was right across from the kitchen, right off the hallway and had its own bathroom attached. It had a California King pillow-top bed and was decorated to feel very comfortable and secure. Once I got my things situated I decided I had been in my clothes for long enough, and it was time to shed them for the night. I threw off my shirt, pants and socks in the hamper and stood in front of the full-length mirror on closet door in my boxer-briefs. The one thing the Army did to my body that I was happy about is fill out my body with muscles in the places I always wished I had growing up. I was six foot three inches when I went in, but I was a measly one hundred and forty-seven pounds. Very thin. Too thin. Almost too thin to enlist. Well 5 years of an hour and a half of Physical Training every morning and now I weighed two hundred pounds even and almost all of it was muscle thankfully. Bigger arms, broader shoulders, fit stomach, and I went from having no ass to having, in my opinion, a very nice one.

I had suddenly found myself really thirsty and decided that a trip to the fridge and a glad of ice water was the way to go before I went to bed. Since everyone else had rooms upstairs, which they were in, and my Uncle Paul was out of town on business for the rest of the week, it would be perfectly safe to go about in my underwear, so I did. Once taking 5 steps out of the room, I immediately regretted my decision. The fridge was open, and I could see a pair of feet under the refrigerator door. Perfect, beautiful feet.

Once my footsteps gave me away, the door shut and I was standing two steps away, staring Jane in the face. No alarm showed on her face, actually NO emotion came from her face. Just the same poker face she had always shown me. I didn't know what to say, but it didn't matter because she was the first to speak.

"Just came down to get a drink, I won't be down long" she said.

I said nothing. I just watched as she put her glass under the spigot on the refrigerator door, watched it fill up, and then turned to leave.

She was just about to pass me and round the corner to the hallway when I instinctively grabbed her by the arm, which stopped her dead in her tracks.

She looked up at me with her eyes wide and questioning.

"Jane..." I said. "..I am sorry for whatever I said earlier that made you up and leave the kitchen"

I was prepared to hear a curt accepting of my apology and to release my hold on her arm, but like most of the evening, I got more than I had expected.

She looked up into my eyes, tears starting to fill them.

"No, I should be sorry. You were speaking the truth about us. I guess it must have seemed kind of strange, all of a sudden me trying to comfort you, and hold you, and dry your tears."

As she uttered the last three things she was describing, her hold on her emotions got progressively weaker, until she couldn't hold back the lone sob that escaped her lips.

I didn't even think, I just turned her towards me and wrapped my arms around her.

It took me a moment to realize that I had tears in my eyes as well. Without thinking about my words first, they started escaping my mouth.

"I have wanted you to hold me like that since we were children. I haven't been able to access my emotions like that since I was a child. I don't know if I have ever felt that safe before, in my life. Even when your mom hugs me"

That last one seemed to do the trick, as she started to stifle her cries and sniffle.

I went to loosen my hold and let her go, feeling instinctively that socially this was about when human beings usually end a hug. She, apparently had different instincts. Her hold didn't loosen so much as change. She glided her hands from around my waist, up my chest and up over my neck and shoulders, while I reciprocally moved my hands from around her shoulders to around her waist, one hand left to slowly roam up and down her slender, half bare back.

Her loose hand went to the same place it had been before, stroking my neck, our bodies up against each other, absorbing the heat off of one another

There we stayed, for what seemed like an hour, but was probably more like 5 minutes. In that time, I was making a mental note of every single inch of our bodies that were touching one another. How her soft, slender, perfect body felt in my hands, how her dress felt against my skin. How her stomach felt against my.........oh, right.

Suddenly I remembered that I wasn't really clothed, and that the longer I enjoyed holding Jane in my arms in such an intimate way, my cock was growing larger by the second. It was hard enough to be at three quarters hard and erect if not constrained by my underwear, and her body. She HAD to be able to feel it. If she did, she made absolutely no movement or made no indication.

We just stood there, both of us breathing deeply, bodies pressed together.

Finally, she loosened her hold enough to look into my eyes and smile. I mean like a genuine smile, one that lights up your whole face.

"I am happy you're here Paul." was all she said.

"I'm happy too Jane. I hope we can get to know each other better while I'm here." I said. "Also, sorry that you had to hug me without my clothes on" I added.

At that she suddenly burst out laughing, and looked down at my underwear, loosening her hold on me completely.

"It's totally fine. Not a big deal at all. Actually it's so warm in here tonight you probably have the right idea. I'll probably sleep in just a bra and panties." She said, smiling while motioning to her own body.

We both chuckled and I was about to say goodnight and head to my room when she suddenly had an idea.

"Hey, I am not really tired at all, Are you?" to which I replied that I wasn't.

"Wanna stay up and talk. Catch up. Reminisce? OOH I know..." she started, almost jumping with excitement, " I'll go get my pillow and a movie, we can put it on, talk and if I get tired I'll

either go to bed or probably just fall asleep in your bed. Is that ok?" she asked, mistakenly sensing my silence as apprehension.

In truth, the idea of spending the night having Jane pay any kind of attention to me was the most exciting thing I could think of.

"Yeah, of course. Sounds awesome. I'll go put on some clothes and you go get changed for bed, and get the movie." I said.

"Wait, I thought we just established this, YOU have the right idea in just your underwear, and it's HOT in this house." She replied chuckling. "In fact, you already have enough pillows, so I don't need to go get one and I will just go grab a movie from the cabinet down here next to the TV. I'll be right back."

With that she walked over to the DVD cabinet next to the TV and I went into my room, wondering just how long my good fortune would run

She was perfectly ok, hanging out in my bed for the night, with me in just my underwear. What about her sleep wear? Was she ACTUALLY being serious about stripping down herself, to her panties and bra, and lying in bed with me? I had to be dreaming. This couldn't really be happening.

As if to answer all my questions, she waltzed into the room, laid a DVD on top of the TV stand in the bedroom, and kicked off her flats.

As she bent down to take a hold on either side of her dress, she looked up at me and smiled sheepishly.

"Are you sure its ok, us hanging out in our underwear tonight? You don't think it's weird?" she asked, suddenly the confidence wavering from her face.

I could NOT let this chance escape me. Escape us! I wanted to see her without that dress on. But, What if I sounded too eager, wierded her out and she had second thoughts?

Screw it. This day has been dishing me heaping amounts of truly amazing things all day. I don't see it stopping now. I was going to go for broke.

I felt something happening between us, and not only from my side. Her willingness to entertain the idea of, after a lifetime of not giving me the time of day, suddenly want to spend the twilight hours of the night together almost naked had to be about more than the "heat" in the house. Hell, it was only 78 degrees. She liked what she saw of my body, but more than that, she wanted to show me what hers really looked like as well. I wasn't going to chicken out now.

"It's more than ok Jane. I don't mind a bit. Besides...." I said, and working up the courage to wink so she could see, "...like you said, it's 'awful' hot in here."

This was the moment of truth. Either the wink was too much and this whole thing would get weird, or.....I didn't even want to think about an 'or'.

Her faced turned into a knowing smirk and, to my surprise, she returned my wink as she slowly pulled her dress up her body, over her head and tossed it on the floor beside her.

...And there it was. The perfect body God could have only made through my detailed directions.

As the dress flung itself from her fingertips, she reached for the ceiling with both her arms outstretched. With a smile she closed her eyes, lifted her head and stretched her entire body towards the heavens. I skipped the ceiling because when I beheld with my two eyes was nothing short of an angel. No...an Arch-Angel. Only the highest office of heavenly being could have held her spirit in that moment.

Every part of her body, from her serene face, to her slender and perfectly formed body, must have been precisely and artfully planned with the divine ratio used by the Italian masters of the Renaissance. Only....no, that wasn't quite right. Those principals were written by men. Men were flawed, capable of error. Jane had no errors. Every single muscle, every follicle of hair, every bone was placed in perfect symmetry. Her black lace boy-short panties held a perfectly firm yet endowed bottom. Her matching bra held flawless A cup breasts.

Just as I was getting to this thought, she stopped her stretch, took her hair out of her bun and teased it out to its full length. A curtain of raven black hair cascaded down to cover her shoulders and hypnotized me with its beauty.

Just at that moment I realized I was, indeed, staring at her and had been for quite some time. A fresh wave of embarrassment started to wash over me, and would have succeeded to make the situation awkward if I first hadn't looked at her face instinctively to see if she had noticed. She had, only her face showed no awkwardness. It was a beaming smile, and her eyes were looking directly at me.

With a single eyebrow raised, smile still held, she luckily spoke first.

"Ya like what you see, handsome?" she asked, smile never fading

At this moment, there are any number of ways that I could have said that I did indeed like what I saw...because I did.

I did so very much.

But that's not what I said.

"Why did you give me the cold shoulder all these years?" ....What was I saying?

The smile started to fade from her face, and a look of confusion was looming.

"Why didn't you like me?" ....What. Was. I. Saying?...and why was my vision blurry

Confusion gave way to worry over her face. I noticed her bottom lip start to quiver slightly, but I remained undeterred.

"What was so wrong with me Jane?" I asked, tears now streaming down my cheeks and my breathing becoming uneven. "I wanted you to like me so bad, and you couldn't even give me the time of day, my entire life. Why? Was it because I was poor? Because I didn't have nicer clothes? Because my family was such an embarrassment to the rest of you?"

My voice was starting to take on a loud timbre and take up the entire room now. I was shaking with pent up rage, but Jane--to her credit—didn't retreat, but started to take small, slow steps towards me.

"....and then I come back here, after literally the SHITTIEST year I have ever had. Failed marriage. Failed military career. Broken body and mind.....pills so I can sleep, and function throughout the day...." I paused.

Pain I wasn't allowing myself to see was now forcing me to see it at literally the worst time I could think of. I wasn't finished however.

Because suddenly, her beauty didn't make me happy. Her perfect body didn't make me happy. Her luminescent smile didn't make me happy. The fact that all I wanted to do was lie down next to her and listen to her breathe didn't make me happy. It made me angry.

"...and you choose right now, to come in here..."

She had taken a step closer to me, tears starting to run down her delicate cheeks.

"....flash that smile...."

She took another step, left hand slowly starting to reach out to me.

"...take off your dress...."

There was only one more step in between us.

"...and stand there..."

She stopped. She was trembling from head to toe, streaming tears down her face, but her poise never left her face. She looked like she wanted to close the gap, but she was clearly going to wait until I had finished.

".....God, Jane you are so beautiful. I have never....in my life.....seen a work of nature or art which you do not transcend....You are my Christmas morning." The rage had given way to an all-encompassing desperation.

"But I'm just not good enough." With that, I could say no more. I was shaking with more anguish and anger than I knew what to do with, and my eyes betrayed me with its stubborn determination to flow like twin rivers.

This was where it was going to end. She was going to pick up her dress from the floor, run out of the room and we would go back to related strangers. I had pined for this sublime creature's attention for my most of my life, and here she was, giving me more of it than I thought possible given that we were so closely related. Yet, what did I do? Did I keep my mouth shut and count my blessings? Did I take my place, lounging in bed beside her while relishing in the opportunity for us to get to know each other?

No.

What I chose to do was passionately release years of repressed resentment towards her. Now she was gone. Wait......no she wasn't. She hadn't in fact moved at all, except to fix her gaze on my face. I was prepared for her to lash back at me. I was prepared for yelling, for crying, for any number of negative things which I didn't want to consider.

Instead she took a step sideways, between me and the bed, and held out her arms towards me, but not with open palms facing up, which would have signified a beckoning for me to move towards her, but with her hands open and palms facing town as she so very slowly started to make her way towards me as she spoke. I suddenly realized that I had backed myself into the corner of the room and that I was shaking.

Her face was a carefully chosen mix of calm and controlled concern, but her tears and trembling voice betrayed her.

"Can I come to you now Paul?" she asked.

I couldn't make myself speak. I didn't know what to do or say.

"Can I come to you, and take your hands Paul, please?" she asked again.

I couldn't make my hands move out to reach for her. I felt the desire to, but I wasn't sure. She spoke again, but her calm and poise in her voice was starting to crack. What sounded like desperation was showing through.

"You don't have to move a m-muscle Paul, I promise...I...not until you want to, b-but can I please come to you and take your h-hands?"

She closed the one step between us, and yet, did the most unexpected thing. She lowered herself unto her knees, gently took my trembling hands into hers, and then looked up at me, into my eyes. Her face was now devoid of all of her graceful calm which was replaced by a face full of shame and anguish. She made no effort to hold back her tears, or her sobs from me, but nor did she avert her eyes. There was shame in her gaze, but from what I could tell, she was either too proud or too good inside to attempt to hide it from me. This was the most genuine moment I had ever experienced in my whole life. I knew it. I felt sure that she knew it too.

"I'm so sorry P-Paul....im so sorry, please forgive me. If you only knew all of these years....I'm so sorry....God I'm sorry. Please Paul....if only I was as strong as you....I was so weak....I wasn't good like you...." She was starting to trail off, and finally averted her gaze to my hands in hers.

The tears were coming so fast and in such streams that I could tell she couldn't see straight anymore. She pressed her lips to the tops of my hands, and cried. I stood there for what was probably around ten minutes while she cried into my hands.

When were things going to make sense? I was expecting to come home, stretch out, visit for a while with Aunt Laura and Jane, admire Jane from afar like usual, eat food, then go to bed. I was coming here to heal. To pick up the pieces of my life, not take the shambles and break them into smaller pieces. What the fuck was going ON here?