Chapter Five

s it turned out, Sonny didn't have to contemplate making his escape wrapped in nothing but a bath towel. When he came out of the bathroom, he found she had left him some clothes for him to wear. They weren't the greatest clothes. Just a pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt. The jeans were brand new, never worn before. They weren't going to be very comfortable to wear until he broke them in, especially without wearing any underwear underneath them. Still, they were better than nothing. He dropped the towel and slipped them on. Then he pulled the t-shirt over his head. The jeans chaffed him as he walked, but he didn't care. He knew it was a false sense of security, but he felt less at a disadvantage now that he had something on. He noticed she also neglected to provide him with any shoes or socks, but she had left him a note behind.

He picked it up and read it. She asked that he would come to the kitchen after he was dressed. Apparently, he was being allowed to leave her bedroom. This was getting better and better. He was finally going to get a lay of the land and find out just what he was up against to prevent him from escaping. Unfortunately, the trip to the kitchen turned out to be a very disturbing journey for Sonny as it so happened.

As he walked through the house in his barefeet, he was overwhelmed by this feeling of familiarity. Almost as if he had been here before. But he knew that wasn't true, especially since he realized this house had been recently built. There was no way he could have been here before. Also, without having to search, he knew just where to go to find the kitchen where she was waiting for him. All-in-all, he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all. He felt like he had fallen into the Twilight Zone where nothing was as it appeared to be.

"Good." She greeted him as he entered. "I'm starved. What are you in the mood to make us for breakfast."

"You kidnapped me." He couldn't help from declaring incredulously. "And now you expect me to cook for you." He suddenly knew how women had felt for centuries when men had treated them like there was only two places they were good for. On their feet in the kitchen cooking for them and on their backs in the bedroom satisfying their sexual needs for them. But instead of wanting to keep him barefoot and pregnant, she wanted to keep him barefoot and naked.

"Well." She replied. "I figured you'd prefer to cook, since you won't have to worry that I've slipped you something again. Besides, you think no one can cook as good as you anyway, so I won't have to listen to you complain about how the food was prepared like you always do when Mike prepares dinner for you."

"How do you know that?" Sonny looked at her sharply. "You couldn't know that unless you knew me. And this isn't the first time you've said things that you couldn't know unless you knew me."

She'd just made a very big slip, she cursed herself. She'd have to be careful not to make anymore in future. "So," She tried to change the subject. "How do you like your new clothes?"

"I could use a pair of underwear." He told her bluntly, as he went to the refrigerator to see what he could cook up, realizing she had no intention of giving him any answers. "By nightfall I may be too raw to be of any use to you."

"If that's the case." She replied, relieved he was going to let this drop for the moment. "I'll just rub some cream on you and make you feel all better."

The image that presented in his mind had his body instantly reacting. "So." He tried to ignore his body. "What's on tap for today."

"Nothing much." She told him. "Just us getting to know each other." She left off the again. He was already suspicious enough. "Lovers should know each other intimately in and out of bed, don't you agree."

He resisted the urge to declare they weren't lovers, but that was exactly what they were. He had become lovers with a woman whose face he hadn't seen and whose name he didn't know. A woman who had kidnapped him and brought him to a house that seemed familiar to him, even though he knew he'd never been inside it before. He cracked some eggs into the frying pan and tried to ignore how uncomfortable he felt in his own skin.

"So," He replied. "Do you want to start with telling me why you're hiding your face from me?"

She had given this some thought and had come up with a lie she knew would buy her some time. She knew Sonny and he would never force her to show him her face if she gave him a good reason for why she was hiding it from him. "If you saw my face." She told him, and this wasn't exactly a lie, she told herself. "You might not want to be with me." In a way it was the truth. She was afraid is she revealed herself to him and everything she had done to finally find him, he wouldn't want to be with her ever again. She left the rest unfinished, but she knew the conclusion he'd come to.

"I'm sorry." He looked at her over his shoulder. "Can't anything be done to help you? A plastic surgeon? What happened? Were you in some kind of accident."

"Yes, I was in an accident." She answered. "And, no, nothing can be done." Sonny was sensitive to other people's hurts and he would respect her need to wear the veil and not question her about it any longer. "But that's why I prefer to keep my face covered and why I'll only uncover it in a darkened room at night." She added, knowing if there was something wrong with her face, it wouldn't matter to him in the least. "It doesn't repel you to know you made love with a woman whose face is disfigured?"

"I guess you don't know me as well as you seemed to know me a moment ago." He retorted as he put the eggs on two plates and sat down at the table with her.

"It might bother other men." She began to eat her eggs. "It might repel them."

"Not me." He shoved a forkful of eggs in his mouth. "Other things mean more to me then the way a woman looks." He added. "Things like loyalty and honesty. I've been with plenty of women with pretty faces who were as deceitful and disloyal as they were beautiful."

She wondered if he included her in that list of women. What she was doing now wasn't about to make him change his mind. "Still." She pushed home her point. "I'd prefer to keep my face hidden for the moment. When I feel the moment is right I'll reveal myself to you."

"Whatever you want," Sonny sighed, not sure he really believed there was anything wrong with her face at all. That she had just used that as an excuse to get him off her back about why she was hiding her face from him. "So, what were you doing at my wedding?" He suddenly asked, throwing her off-balance.

"You noticed me?" She was ridiculously pleased by that. His next comments shot her down.

"Not really." He answered. "When we made love you didn't touch me like a stranger would touch me. Your touch wasn't of a lover learning her lover's for the first time."

"I told you." She tried to throw him off the track. "When you were passed out I bathed you, among other things. There wasn't a part of your body I didn't touch. Of course I'm familiar with it." She reminded him. "When you woke-up you could still feel all I did to you. That's all it was."

"It was more than that." He declared. "There was a familiarity to the way you touched me that didn't come from groping me while I was passed out. Yours was the touch of someone who knows my body well. Who knows exactly how and where I like to be touched when I make love." Then he shrugged. "Anyway, I wondered if you might be Carly."

"You thought I was Carly Roberts!" She exploded in anger. It was one thing to want to make sure he didn't know who she was, but for him to think he was that woman made her see red. "What would make you think something like that."

"It would explain the effect you have on my body." He replied. "Carly knows my body in ways no woman ever has. She knows every pleasure spot on my body. Carly's a very sexual woman and I'm a very sexual man. We spent hours learning each other's body better then we know our own." He added. "And you seem to know my body the same way Carly does."

"So the sex is good between you?" She said through clenched teeth.

"Why do you think I married Carly twice and I was about to remarry her for a third time." He retorted. "She knows how to give me the kind of pleasure in bed most men only dream about." He sighed. "Unfortunately, she also knows how to cause me more pain then any other woman ever has out of it." He added. "Anyway, as I was wondering if you could be Carly pulling yet another stunt to get me back like she did when she faked her own death, I remembered seeing you sitting in the back row of the church when I stormed out."

"You really loved Carly, didn't you?" She hated the thought about it. Up until now she hadn't really thought that he had and it hurt to think that he did.

"Yeah." He admitted. "I did. And it wasn't just the sex. She was the only woman to give me the one thing I've always wanted most. A real family. If our baby had lived, I think we might have made it."

She was suddenly very scared. The knowledge that he loved her the way he had never loved any one else had made her sure this might work. But what if he actually loved Carly Roberts more than he did her. "Do you still love Carly?" She held her breath in dread.

"No." He said without even thinking about it. "This last betrayal burned all the love I once had for her out of me. In fact, I haven't even thought about Carly once since I've been here with you." He added. "That's another reason I thought you might be Carly. Last year this woman named Angel Ellis did the same thing to me that you have. She kidnapped me and took me to some secluded house. All the time I was there I couldn't stop thinking about Carly. Angel made it clear she wanted me, but she didn't even get to first base with me, no matter how she tried to come on to me. And believe me she tried. I thought maybe that's where Carly got the idea from and it would explain why since I've been with you I haven't given Carly one thought." He thought to himself, it would also explain why he'd made love to his kidnapper the night before, as well. Because his body recognized who she was.

She breathed a sigh of relief. It was all right. Still, she needed to know the truth, even if it risked revealing her true identity to him. "I also heard you mention someone named Brenda." She informed him. Who is she?"

"Brenda's dead." With a tone of finality, he got up from the table and began to wash their dishes. "End of story."

"Tell me about her?" She pursued the issue relentlessly. "You've told me how much you loved Carly and how well she knew your body. Did Brenda know your body as well as Carly did? Was the sex as good with Brenda as it was with Carly? Who did you love more? Brenda or Carly?"

"I said," he suddenly threw the plate he was washing down and it smashed as it hit the floor. "End of story." He turned to her glaring at her. "I don't talk about Brenda. I don't even like to say her name. She's dead. End of story." With that he stomped out of the kitchen.

She smiled in pleasure. He still loved her as much as he ever did. Now she knew that with a certainty. Nothing he had ever felt for another woman had touched or came close to his love for her. To be able to go on and to fall in love with someone else, he had bottled up all his feelings for her and made himself forget the way it was between them. He had incased all of his love for her inside a hard block of ice inside of himself, where it had remained frozen and untouched just waiting for her to return to him to melt it and set it free. And that's exactly what she was going to do.