The Emmanuel Sisters

Chapter 14 Love Awoken

Love was dreaming about the first time she met John, when she heard knocking on her door that woke her. After a few seconds of being disoriented she realized where she was, that she was in a hotel in Africa with John.
She felt like she had just dreamed about her entire life. It seemed no matter how much she tried to escape her painful past it always found a way to haunt her, in her sleep.
She had been sleeping so deeply, she wondered just how long she had been asleep. The knocking started up again and along with it was John calling her name, "Love, you okay, Love?"
She felt a little unsettled that John was her last thought in her sleep, and the first voice she heard once awoken.
"Love, are you okay in there? I thought I heard you crying. Is everything okay? Look I've been knocking for a while, I'm coming in, I hope you are dress."
There was no lock on the enjoining door to Love and John's hotel room. Love had been crying in her sleep, reliving every moment of her past. She oftentimes cried in her sleep, because she rarely cried when awake. She figured it was her body's way of releasing tension she didn't have time to release in the day time. She hadn't
slept overnight with a man after having sex in years, not since she was with Connor.
So no one knew she routinely cried in her sleep. John was the first person to overhear Love crying in her sleep, since Connor.
John was in the room before she could get her wits about her and get out of bed. When John opened the door Love was sitting up in the bed, her eyes blood shot red with her most recent journal opened up and the other journals laying all over the bed. John assumed the books on the bed had to do with work.
"Look at you Love you're overworking yourself, you're going to work yourself right into a breakdown."
"John, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine."
"You're not fine I heard you crying. What is it if it's not work that's got you all stressed out and crying?"
"Oh I just had a bad dream, but really I'm like I said, I'm fine now."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No I don't, but I do want you to get out of my room, so I can get out of bed and get into the shower. That is unless you've came in here for another reason."
Love tried flirting with John to get him off the subject of worrying about her, and her flirting with John really wasn't anything out of the ordinary. She flirted with everyone.
"No, I came in here, because I was really concerned, and as much as I'd like to take you up on your fake attempt at flirting to change the subject, I know you are just trying to get me to stop asking you questions about why you've been in here crying?"
"Hey you're the one that's always right about everything." Love gave him a little smile.
After John left Love's room, she whispered to herself, "girl you gotta get yourself together." Then she got out of bed and turned the shower on, and while the water warmed she made sure her journals were put away, safe and secure.
As soon as she was out of the shower she heard John knocking on the door again. She thought to herself, "he is definitely a busy bee this morning."
"Hey Love I heard the shower turn off and I took the liberty of ordering us room service. Are you decent enough for me to come in your room yet with the food?"
Love decided to have a little fun with John, so she said, "oh sure, come on in." John walked in backwards while rolling the room service cart into the room. When he turned around he saw Love standing there in just her towel. Her skin was still moist and her hair was still damp. She walked over to him and gently brushed up against him while she sat down at the little table in her hotel room. John couldn't help but notice how short the towel wrapped around her was and how thin and clingy it seemed to be on her damp body. The towel just barely covered her thighs and through it you could see the full imprint of her nipples.
He knew that she was toying with him and what she knew to be his Christian convictions, but she had never done anything this outlandish.
After a brief momentary lapse of lust, John regained his self control and he looked down at his food and said, "Love, I thought you said you were decent."
What are you talking about John, I'm decent, I mean I've got no lady parts hanging out. Everything is covered."
"Very funny Love, go put some clothes on, before you catch a cold."
Love thought, "what a kill-joy he is, in the past he use to at least say a few flirty comments, at least he'd attempt to have a go at it, but now he acts as if we've been married for twenty years, (or at least what I assume marriage would be like after twenty years), boring as hell."
So Love got up to go put on her clothes, but then she felt sort of challenged and she decided she wasn't giving up on trying to get a rise out of John. No her ego wouldn't allow her to give up that easily. It just wasn't in her character to readily accept defeat. So she went over to her suitcase on the dresser and pulled out some undergarments. She gently put her feet through her lace thongs while leaving the towel on, and then she placed her arms through the lace bra, as she simultaneously let her towel fall to the floor.
"Can you come over here and fasten the clasp on my bra John? I just did my nails before leaving town, and I don't want to mess them up."
John couldn't help but look at her out of the corner of his eye. They had known each other for too long now and he knew she was just playing games. He knew she would never really sleep with someone she worked with at the firm, and that made it even easier for him to pretend that he was not interested. Plus he knew it would drive her crazy thinking he didn't want her anymore. He smiled to himself when he said,
"what all these years of wearing those things and you can't fasten it up yourself without chipping your nails? I really thought you were more self efficient than that Love?"
Love never backed down to any challenge, and she felt like John had just made this a test of wills. She knew most women would have felt rejected or at least embarrassed by now, but not her. She was determined to test John's religious convictions, break him down and then of course she would walk away and leave him hanging. So she slowly walked over to him with no towel on, in just her underwear and her unfastened bra. Once she was arms length away from him she stopped and stated.
"John, usually I have no problem fastening my own brazier, but like I said I just did my nails. I really do need you in the worst way to lend me a hand right now."
John got tense when Love started walking towards him, so he stood up from his seat in an instinctive response. For a second he thought about her crying earlier and he thought maybe she's having a breakdown. Now that she was standing so close to him he could feel the heat off of her body, and she could feel his hot breath on her forehead.
Love was tall, but John was much taller and she loved a tall, dark, sexy man. John was every one of those things. She turned around in front of him, and then grabbed his hands from behind. He had his hands clenched tightly to his sides.
John couldn't deny how good it felt to have her standing so close to him and to feel the touch of her soft hands. She placed his hands on her waist and then she rested her hands on top of her head as she waited for him to fasten her up. John let his hands softly slide up Love's waist and he took his time fastening her bra. He thought to himself, "she smells like cocoa butter and lavender." Just as he was having that thought, without realizing it he took a deep breath in of her aroma.
She was standing so close to him he couldn't help himself, and he absentmindedly brushed his lips gently against the crook of her neck.
Love wasn't expecting that, and she felt a sudden jump in her heart and a chill go down her spine.
After he had her fastened up she walked away quickly into the bathroom to put on her sweats and she yelled to John, "thanks".
John thought, "thank God she is just a tease, because a whole year of abstinence almost flew out the window."
So now that it appeared Love's games were over; John decided to act as if what had just happened had never occurred and get down to business.
"So where do you want me to start first? After we eat do you want me to follow up with the embassy and the government officials about the adoption, or do you want me to track down the doctor's son?"
"Why don't we split the duties up between the two of us John? I'm partner now but my arms aren't broken. I can still carry my weight." Suddenly Love felt the need to apologize to John for her somewhat rude behavior during the last few days. "John I guess I owe you an apology for the way I've been acting lately."
"You think so?" John said sarcastically. "Don't worry about it Love, I know you've been under a lot of pressure, and it's true that we haven't really been as close as we use to be lately."
"I have to admit John I think my behavior has been about more than me just being under pressure. I've sort of resented the way you just became distant so quickly after you got back into Jesus, and the church."
"But I've asked you lots of times to come to church with me Love."
"Now you know good well I wasn't about to go to church with you. Anyway, no matter what the reasons are that we have drifted apart, I want you to know that I still consider you a good friend, and those things I said I didn't mean them at all. It is just going to take some adjusting for me to get use to you acting like a "real" Christian now. You use to be like a carbon copy of me, except male. Work was our first priority and now it's like we are so totally different."
"I'm still your old friend, John. Accepting Christ and God in my life has just made me reevaluate my priorities. God is my first priority now, and He is always going to be first with me for now on, but make no mistake about it, you are still and will always be a top priority to me too. I will always care very much for you."
"I know you do, and I care about you too." Love started to feel a little uncomfortable, so she decided to change the subject. "How about you get on the phone in your room and work on tracking down the doctor's son, and I will get on the phone in here and work on following up with the adoption office, they have already been notified that we were heading out here, so that shouldn't take me long."
Once they finished eating John went back to his room and Love got on the phone in her room.
Love found out that the government would allow her to do what they called a pending adoption, which would allow her to take a child out of the country on a temporary Visa until the adoption was finalized with the Ethiopian Courts. The only problem was, all the children at the local orphanage, ran by SACAA were missing, due to the recent political uprising. The adoption official explained to Love that as they spoke they had military forces going out to the orphanage site because there had been no return communication in days. Love asked how long it would be before she would hear anything else. The official had no answer for her, but he said he would definitely contact her as soon as he heard anything.
Love went into John's room to see what he had found out about the doctor's son and to let him know it looked like they were going to have to sit tight and just wait in regards to the adoption.
John was in the bathroom. So Love walked over to the desk in the room thinking he would have written down notes on whatever he found out. Instead she saw on the desk John's bible and it was opened up. She couldn't help but notice that his bookmarker was a picture that they had taken on the day of his baptism. Even though Love didn't believe in church, she still went to John's baptism, because she knew that to him, it was extremely important. Seeing that old picture of the two of them made Love realize, how much John really did care for her. It had been over a year since they took that picture and it seemed they grew farther apart as friends ever since his baptism day.
She was so touched that he had saved the picture and carried it with him in his bible. Seeing the picture of them also made her realize how strong her own feelings for him really were. Even if, she would never admit it, her feelings for John, were real, realer than anything else in her life right now. She quickly stepped away from his bible and looked up when she heard the bathroom door open.
"Oh hey Love, so what did you find out?"
"Not much, they havn't had any contact with the orphanage in days, and basically they said they will contact us as soon as they hear something. So although we have the go ahead to do a pending adoption, we don't have a child available to adopt."
"I've sort of had the same problem finding the doctor's son. I found out he is traveling with a SACAA representative and that they went out with a military convoy to check out the whereabouts of the orphans. But he is staying in this hotel, and he has to come back here eventually."
"So basically John unless we are willing to risk our own lives and go and find the doctor's son and the orphans ourselves, we are going to have to wait until they return before we can get anything done. This is just wonderful. I knew things just seemed to be going too smoothly. It took us no time to get the paperwork needed together, the clearances, the whereabouts of the doctor's son and fly all the way out here to Africa of all places, just to end up playing, sit and wait. I mean, I don't even think there is air- conditioning in this hotel, and I just realized what the comforter smells like, cotton balls. I hate the smell of cotton balls John, absolutely hate it!"
"I'm sorry Love. I know this assignment is really important to you. So what do you want to do? Do you want to try to hire someone to take us out there?"
"Heck no, I love Mr. Swanson, but I'm not, the risking my life type. So we will just have to wait for a while and make the best of it, I guess. Since neither one of us have ever been to Ethiopia before, let's figure out what there is to do here, that's still safe. Just call and give everyone our International cell phone numbers to contact us if there is any news. Basically I think since we're here we might as well enjoy being tourist."
"That's fine with me, looks like we can finally start having a little fun on this trip."
So John explained to the hotel concierge their predicament and that they decided while they were waiting they would enjoy the town. The concierge set Love and John up with a driver from the hotel, and gave him strict orders to take them wherever they wanted to go, as long as it was deemed a safe traveling destination by the government. Love said hello to their driver and got into the back of the little red Cherokee jeep with John.
For the first time since they started this assignment Love felt a hint of her old carefree attitude. She was happy she had made amends with her dear friend John. She thought, "today may be uneventful and unproductive, but at least I'll have John to hang out with; I'm glad Mr. Swanson sent him on this assignment after all." This should be fun.