I've Loved You Before

Chapter 30 - I've Loved You Before

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When I think of how you know me

No doubts, no thinking twice

When your smile can be so soothing

A familiar paradise

When there's no one else that makes me whole

I am never needing more

I get this feeling

That I have loved you before

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What have I done? Marlena closed her eyes, feeling the sting of the hot water against her skin. Her lips were swollen from John's aggressive kisses, and her body still thrummed with sexual energy. She'd been impulsive. She'd been reckless, and yet she didn't regret a single moment of it. She could still feel the rough caress of John's palms across her sensitive skin. As much as she questioned her choices, she didn't regret them. Back and forth in her mind she argued with herself. She should leave and get a room at the Salem Inn. She could stay in John's spare bedroom. But ultimately she knew if she stayed, she wouldn't be in the spare bedroom, and that was even more dangerous. It was too fast. Entirely too fast. Wiping her hands over her cheeks, she pushed her hair back and tipped her face up to the spray. She shouldn't have come there.

The shower door slid open, and Marlena felt the cool air on her skin. She had to tell him she couldn't stay... but then his palm slid over her hip to settle low on her waist with excruciating slowness and the ache deep inside her started all over again. "John, I–"

" –I see the wheels turning, Doc," he whispered as he stepped up behind her. His palm slid across her abdomen, resting below her navel and he tugged her spine up against his chest. "Stop thinking."

"I can't," she said softly, staring at the intricate pattern of marble tile on the wall. John had done so much work on the house, and the master bathroom was a dream. A large shower with double shower heads. A spa tub in the corner. It was beautiful. "I shouldn't have come here."

He kissed her neck gently, "But you did."

Her body was tense. Being in his arms felt so natural, and she was fighting it. Samantha was always the impulsive twin who acted on emotion. Marlena had spent her life fighting those inclinations because she watched her sister make mistake after mistake as they were growing up. Seeing Roman in the shower with Taylor had upset her so much, she'd simply acted, and she was mentally berating herself for it. "I acted out of impulse. I didn't know where to go, and now I've–"

"Stop," he told her, holding her against him when she tried to put space between them. "Tell me what happened tonight... with Roman."

Marlena's head fell back against his shoulder, and she gave up. He was warm, and strong. His skin was slick against hers, and the kindness in his soft voice nearly broke her. Feeling the tightness in her chest, she whispered, "It's our anniversary. Roman and I... and I came home early because I thought... I thought I could surprise him. You know, dive in."

He rubbed his cheek against the top of her head, "Something happened?"

Her voice was barely audible over the sound of the water hitting the tile at their feet. "He was in our shower with another woman."

John stopped breathing for a moment. Roman had cheated on her? His first impulse was to ask her if she was sure. Of course she was sure. She could have gone anywhere. She could have gone to Kim, or the Salem Inn. She could have gone to Caroline, but that fact that she'd come to him meant something. It meant that he hadn't been alone in his recent realization of his feelings for her, and what he'd felt from her side of things hadn't been imagined. She'd been feeling it too. "So, you came to me?"