Taking The Risk Ch 04

This is a slow, romantic build to eventual hot sex in later chapters, between two lovers who find each other. Character based the story is about people who care and want to give pleasure to each other, in all aspects of their lives.

If you like romantic stories please enjoy, and give feedback as the ending is not yet written! Just like in real life.

*

Robin sat opposite his friend, looking at him with a look of complete shock.

"So, how the mighty have fallen." he laughed, "She must be something else."

Misha lifted the beer bottle to his mouth and took a long drink, the noise of the lunchtime crowd in the bar swirling around the two men.

"Yeah, sweet and curvy, with deep green eyes a man could drown in. She's a little shy and not very confident, I think due to her marriage and her ex husband, but inside of her I can sense real passion, and tonight I'm taking her and the kid out for a burger."

"Misha, how olds the kid?"

"Four, almost five."

"In that case my man you had better go loaded with a gift for the kid, to win him over and score some points with the mother."

That is how Misha ended up buzzing up to the apartment at six o'clock that night, his arms loaded with a Batman action figure for the kid, and a bunch of white roses for Froo.

Her disembodied voice came through the intercom, "Hello."

"It's me Froo, Misha."

"Push open the door and come on up, I'm on the first floor."

Taking the stairs inside two at a time, he ran up until he came to her door; with her standing there, door ajar, a small boy his face peeking out from behind her.

"Hi babe and I guess this is Jace."

The face disappeared behind his mothers' legs, and Misha looked up at Froo, his left eyebrow raising high, a quizzical look on his face.

"He's been excited about going out all afternoon, come on Jace, say hello to Misha."

The small face reappeared, green eyes like his mothers staring solemnly up at him.

Misha put out his hand to shake, "Hi, I'm Misha. How're doing?"

A small hand came out to shake his, "Hello. Is that Batman for me?"

"Yeah, you like Batman?"

"Yes, my dad bought me one; I've also got Spiderman."

"Cool. Well here's your old Batman's twin brother to keep him company, and here's some roses for your mom."

Froo took the flowers and blushed, "Thank you."

Following her into the small apartment's hallway, Misha watched as Froo walked through a door and into the kitchen, bending over to take out a vase from a lower cupboard, admiring her round bottom encased in faded blue jeans, as her baggy shapeless sweater fell forward revealing a small expanse of skin on the small of her back.

"I'll just put them in water and then we should go. I normally put Jace to bed around eight, and the nearest place that does burgers is down in Croydon."

Leaning his hip against the kitchen counter, Misha watched Froo cut the stems and place them in an elegant vase, filling it with water from the tap. He could hear the young boy running up and down the hallway, making noises, two Batman's, one in each hand, pretending that they were flying.

"Can I have a kiss hello?"

"I thought you said you would behave tonight!"

"Yeah, well I lied." and moving close slipped his arm around her waist, bent down and kissed her sweetly, until they heard a small voice say, "What are you doing with my mummy?"

Froo jumped back, her face flushed, her eyes wide and bright.

"Just saying hello to your mom."

"That's not how you say hello to people."

"Mmm."

Froo looked down at her son, and then up at the man standing looking so out of place in her small kitchen, "I think we had better get going. Get your jacket Jace; let's get the show on the road."

oooOooo

Misha sat at the wooden table, the boy sitting on his lap, showing him how Batman could do a handstand. Froo sat opposite, fussing that her son was annoying the tall man, not having left him alone since they had entered the American Style Diner on the outskirts of the town.

Patiently letting the young boy bounce around on his lap, Misha asked Froo, "I thought you said he got tired around now, seems to me he's found a second wind."

"Is he annoying you?"

Wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, "Nope, but I would prefer it if you were sitting on my lap,"

Laughing out loud, she looked around and that is when she noticed a couple of woman sitting at a table across from theirs, looking at Misha, whispering, their facial expressions obvious to her. They were wondering how someone like him could be sitting with someone like her. The laugh died in her throat, and she looked down at the remains of her meal, all enjoyment gone.

Misha watched her and glanced over to where she had looked, the two woman openly appraising him, and then back at Froo.

Leaning across the table he picked up her hand and held it, smiling at her, the little boy chattering away. "Hey, how was your burger? You want anything else?"

"No thank you. Can we go now? I need to get Jace to bed before he gets over tired."

"No problem, I'll go pay the bill."

Misha was so used to those looks from women. He'd had them all his life. He knew he was good looking. It wasn't vanity. He had been told it enough times in his life, and he looked in the mirror in the mornings to shave. But it had never been important to him, at least not that important. He was comfortable with himself, working out a couple of times a week at the gym and swimming regularly to keep his body trim and in shape, but more interested in using his brain and his talent as a producer of video's and his organisational skills than in exploiting his genetic good looks.

Walking over to the till to pay, he looked over at Froo who was busy fussing with her son, helping him to get his coat on. He mentally ticked off in his head to put this on the list of things to sort out, and find out why she was so easily intimidated.

oooOooo

By the time they had got back to her place, the young boy was asleep in the back of his car, and reaching in, Misha hoisted him in his arms and carried him up as Froo unlocked the door to the apartment.

"Which room is his?"

"The door on the right, at the end of the hall."

Walking into the room he laid the sleeping boy down, and stood back as Froo started to undress her son, the child never waking up.

"I'll go and put some coffee on for us." he whispered as he backed out the room leaving her to finish seeing to the child.

Walking into the kitchen he opened up cupboards until he found what he was looking for and started to make the coffee. Slipping off his jacket and laying it over the back of a chair in the kitchen he leaned against the counter waiting for the kettle to boil, and that is how Froo found him, arms crossed over his chest, leaning back, feet crossed at the ankles, his bottom lip being bitten pensively between his teeth, a small frown on his face, deep in thought.

Looking up as she walked in, he watched as she just stood there in the doorway, looking like a little child about to be told off.

Opening up his arms he invited her wordlessly into his embrace, and held her against him, his chin resting on the top of her head, her face buried into his chest, and then he felt her start to cry. Rocking her gently back and forth in his arms, he let her weep. The kettle boiled and he reached across to turn it off, and still she cried. His hand came up and stroked the side of her face, pushing her hair behind her ear and bending his face down, whispered, "Let's go into the other room and sit down, where you can tell me all about it babe."

Leading her through to the lounge, he sat down on the sofa and pulling her onto his lap, cradled her against him, as she sniffed trying to hide her face from his sight.

"Every time we meet I seem to break down and cry. You must think I'm mad."

"No sweetheart I don't think you're mad, I think maybe you need someone to unburden yourself to. I think you've been hurt very badly and held it in for so long that it's all trying to come out, and I'm here and ready to listen if you want."

Glancing up at him through tear soaked lashes; she said "You'll be bored, and I'm just being silly."

"How do you know? Not unless you try me."

"I don't know why you want to be with me? I must be boring you to death."

Misha smiled, a wry smile, "Because my little Froo I really don't want to be anywhere else other than with you, and no you are not boring me to death. Stop judging me and comparing me to others. I'm not them, I'm me and I want to be with you, tears and all."

Settling her head back down to his chest he asked her in a deep rumbling voice to tell him the story of her marriage, and slowly it all poured out about the hell she had been living the last nine years.

How from the moment they got married her ex would shout and hit her, telling her she was nothing. She had only ever had one lover, and that was him, and he ridiculed her, saying she was boring in bed and he had girlfriends during the marriage that he would compare her to. He had told her that they knew what to do and how to please him, and how ugly and inept she was. How when she'd fallen pregnant with their son he had made her give up her job, and that she'd become totally dependent on him, financially and emotionally, until last year when she could take no more and filed for divorce, only to find he still controlled her.

The abusive phone calls started, and now when he turns up at the flat to collect their son for visits, he makes her beg for her son's maintenance money, and intimidates her.

Misha listened, his heart breaking for the woman in his arms, kissing the top of her head, and rubbing his hand up and down her back, soothing her when it got too much.

Froo hiccupped as she told him that the last year she had found it difficult, lonely as many friends just did not invite her anymore as a single woman, it seemed that couples prefer couples and she was no longer one.

Telling him about the three husbands of friends who did turn up on her doorstep expecting sex, she started to cry again, and he hugged her close, murmuring soothing noises to her as he stared across the room sightlessly, imagining in his minds eye how scared and alone she must have felt in the past and now understanding why she was so lacking in confidence and so emotionally raw.

Froo went quiet, laying there against his warm body, her eyes burning from all the crying, totally exhausted. The silence in the room was deafening, and suddenly flushed with embarrassment she started to struggle to get up out of his lap.

"Where do you think you're going?" and his arms held her tight against him, pulling her back down into his body, "Just lie still for a while, relax, and rest." So she lay there, listening to his heart beating against her ear, unsure whether he would ever want to see her again after that outburst.

Misha sat and thought about what he was going to say, and how much he could tell her about his feelings without scaring her completely. After about ten minutes he decided to put his cards on the table, so to speak, and in a quiet rumble started to tell her about himself and how he felt.

"I told you four years ago the person I thought I was in love with left me. We had been together for just over two years. We met in New York where I was living at the time, working for one of my uncles and learning the ropes. Suzanne was stunning, blond, tall and highly strung. She loved to party, to be the centre of attention, and I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She moved in with me a couple of months after we met, and it didn't take me long to realise she had a serious drug problem, and that the highs were from cocaine and the lows were when she was coming down."

Kissing the top of Froo's head, he continued, "I tried to look after her, to keep her away from her friends that encouraged her, but when I did she went mad, going off for days at a time, bingeing and coming home a mess, obviously having been with someone else and just screaming at me. It broke my heart, but I kept on, trying to make it work. Eventually one of my best friends, John, was offered a transfer with his bank over to London from New York, and Robin, another friend and I decided to take the risk and go as well. I thought that if Suzanne and I moved over here, away from the suppliers and her crowd she might have a chance at coming off that filth. So we moved, and after four months I came home one night to find she had fled."

Lifting up Froo's face to his and kissing her mouth, a soft kiss, his lips gentle and reassuring, "I was heart broken, and I never thought I would feel that way again. But Froo I have. The moment I walked into that room the other night and saw you it was like I'd been hit by a bolt from the blue, I can't explain it, and I don't know how it happened, but I know that I'm in the right place, with the right woman. I'm here for you and I want to look after you, and make things all right from now on. Just give me the chance to look after you, to help you to become strong again, and to let go of your past."

Froo sat looking up into his eyes, his words a complete shock, unsure she had heard correctly.

Suddenly the phone rang, and the electric moment between them broke as the shrill ringing interrupted the special moment.