Unforgivable

“We’re doing your hair,” he stated, setting down his cup of coffee and grabbing the boxes of color and frost on the table, “come on.”

I think I was still numb up until he rinsed out the first batch of dye. He was towel drying my head and had gotten a little too rough when I snapped out of it.

“Yikes, give me that towel. You’re about to remove my scalp!”

“Oh, sorry,” he said and then went for the blow dryer.

“I can do that part myself.” I handed him back the towel. It usually took me twenty minutes or more to dry my hair when it was long, now it seemed to be dry in five.

“Okay, now we’ll streak it,” he stated matter-of-factly, getting the product out on the bathroom counter with all the little foil papers. “Crap, this looks complicated.”

“I don’t have to have streaks,” I argued.

“We bought it, you’ll look good with them so you’re getting them, got it?”

“All right hair-god, but if my head goes up in flames, it’s your fault.” Why did I worry? He could work in a salon, even if that isn’t what he considered macho enough for his persona. I looked fabulous when he was done with me.

The red dye didn’t go quite as smoothly as the blonde. He just didn’t have enough hair to keep from getting it on his skin. Once the time was up and I rinsed it off his head, it wasn’t so bad, but it was certainly different. I didn’t, and I don’t think he did either, consider the shocking contrast with the red hair and the blue eyes.

“I look freaky,” he remarked as he studied his reflection in the mirror.

“We’re dying you back to black before we leave here.”

“Nah, it’s cool.”

“Ryan, it looks like your heads on fire-you’re going back to black.”

He grinned as he put himself cheek to cheek with me as we looked at the blonde and the redhead in the mirror, “Whatever you say.” He kissed my temple and walked away.

The rest of the day was spent lounging on the comfortable couches in the living room and flipping between the news and the weather channel. Ryan snoozed most of the time. He wasn’t kidding about not being a morning person. At the rate he was sleeping, I’d be lucky if he was a late afternoon person.

It didn’t surprise me there was nothing on the news about me, especially since we’d kept every detail about the wedding hush-hush from the press. I chuckled to myself as I considered we had the tightest security possible during the wedding because it was provided for us by the mob; even the most die-hard paparazzi would have been dissuaded.

D’Angelo had not been on the guest list because Micah felt having the person who hired him to kill me there, would have been like bringing Robert to the wedding. The reason for the change in our wedding date was now abundantly clear to me. Had we tried to keep it September 15^th, D’Angelo would have gotten to me before Micah and I had the opportunity to experience each other. I wondered if it was possible that I might be pregnant. What a sad, but beautiful way to keep a part of him with me.

When nighttime came Ryan was fully awake and I was exhausted from not sleeping the night before. I felt bad leaving him sitting there with nothing to do, but I had to go to bed. I honestly don’t know why I even tried. Within an hour, I was awake again. I tossed and turned and finally got up and watched a late movie with him until one a.m. and then tried once again to go to sleep.

I needed my sleeping pill; he was just over six feet tall with muscles and a way of crooning my name, and wrapping his arm around my waist as I drifted off to sleep. But there was no Micah to lull me into the rest I needed, only his memory; and a memory of him could never replace what I needed.

The next morning, the effects of two sleepless nights were starting to show. Ryan was up by ten and rather chipper for having risen before noon, but he could tell immediately I hadn’t done well through the night.

“I think you need to get out and get some fresh air and exercise that way you’ll be so tired you’ll sleep tonight. I found a trail last Christmas that leads to a waterfall, wanna go?”

“Give me a few minutes to pull myself together,” I said as I stumbled to the bathroom and got ready.

He was right about the walk, I felt so much better as we took off down the mountainside. We discussed leaving perhaps by Friday and going to our final destination, final as long as there were no signs that Micah had figured out where we went. We were both pretty sure our location here had been a good choice and that was why we wouldn’t leave for another three or four days.

The waterfall was tucked off to the side of the path, but the sound of the falling water could be heard for a good distance away. It was small, but still impressive as it poured over the rocks and continued as a small stream running down the mountain. We splashed around and acted like a pair of kids for a while and then finally started the journey back up the mountain.

Okay, now I understood what he was saying about being tired enough for sleep tonight. The trip up the trail was arduous where as the trip down had been pleasant. We were both sweaty and drained of all the positive energy when we reached Harvey’s place. Ryan took a shower and flopped on the couch, passing out almost immediately. I took a shower and tried passing out, but as tired as I was, I simply couldn’t sleep. When he rolled over two hours later, he found me sitting there watching him.

“I made you some lunch,” I said as he looked at me expressionlessly.

He blinked a couple times, yawned and rubbed his sleepy face, “Did you take a nap?”

“I tried; no luck.”

“Crap, Leese, you’ve got to get some sleep before you turn into a zombie.” He sat up, putting his feet on the floor and running his hand over his shock-red stubble, “If you don’t sleep tonight, we’re going back to town and getting you some sleeping pills.”

“I don’t take pills,” I retorted.

“Well you got to do something. Did you have problems sleeping before all of this?”

“I did until Micah started staying at the house. He was my ‘sleeping pill,’” I said, smiling for once at a memory instead of crying. “Some nights he’d slip in my room and-”

Ryan’s hand went up to shush me, “I don’t know if I want to hear about what he did to get you to sleep.”

“Ryan,” I stated with surprise, “we didn’t have sex until after we got married. He would just crawl in bed and hold me and then we could both sleep. It’s like we became so bonded when we had to stay together because of the contract that now it’s as if something inside me is actually…” The tears were coming to the surface as I looked away so he wouldn’t notice, but it was too late.

He reached over and turned my chin toward him, “It’s okay to cry, Leese. Go ahead and finish what you were saying.”

I sighed as I let the tears fall, “Something inside me is missing and I have to wonder if he’s been able to sleep at all either.”

“So how does he hold you when you sleep together?”

His hand gently caressed the side of my face and then swept slowly through my hair. I closed my eyes in response to the touch, “We’d… Why?” I asked suddenly more alert than before the soft lull snagged me when he touched my face.

“How about a replacement?” he whispered.

That caused a heated flush through my system as the thought of Ryan holding me in bed hit me, “No-I don’t’ want to give you, or me, the wrong idea.”

“Just tell me how he holds you? Please, Leese. I’m not going to try to jump your bones. I’ve got a little more restraint than that.”

“But what if I don’t,” I said softly.

I could see that took him completely off guard as a light smile came to his face, “I could only hope, but I think we both know you’re more level headed than that.”

“Usually, yeah, but I swear it hurts so bad that I just feel…” It was time to shut up and not tell him what had been going through my head when I focused on the physical instead of the mental. Mentally I was strong enough for a lifetime of denial, but physically? That had become another issue entirely.

“Tell me how he holds you,” he repeated, “or I’m buying you some sleeping pills, and I am big enough to make you take one.”

I was thinking there was no way he was big enough to do that, but right now I wasn’t up for the challenge, “I’m usually on my side and he just fits behind me and wraps his arm around my waist.”