She wipes tears from her eyes, then lifts her hands. She holds up her left index finger, brings her right index finger close to the left and circles it around, and then the tips of her fingers touch.
I can’t move.
She just signed for me.
She just said “when.”
Seeing her sign is something I never expected. It’s something I never would have even asked her to do. Learning how to communicate with me the whole time we’ve been apart is the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me.
I’m shaking my head, unable to get it through my mind that this girl is willingly mine and she’s perfect and beautiful and good and, holy shit, I love her so much.
She’s smiling, but I’m still frozen in shock.
She laughs at my response and signs the word again, several times. “When, when, when.”
Brennan shoves my shoulder, and I look over at him. He laughs. “Go,” he signs, nodding his head in Sydney’s direction. “Go get your girl.”
I immediately drop my guitar to the floor and rush off the stage. She pushes away from her table as soon as she sees me making my way toward her. She’s only a few feet away, but I can’t get to her fast enough. I take in the dress she has on and make a mental note to thank Warren later. I have a feeling he had something to do with that.
I look into her tear-filled eyes when I finally reach her. She’s smiling up at me, and for the first time since the moment I met her, we’re looking at each other without a trace of guilt or worry or regret or shame.
She throws her arms around my neck, and I pull her to me and bury my face in her hair. I hold her head firmly against me and close my eyes. We hold on to each other as if we’re afraid to let go.
I can feel her crying, so I put enough space between us so I can look into her eyes. She lifts her head, and I’ve never seen tears look more beautiful.
“You signed,” I say out loud.
She smiles. “You spoke. A lot.”
“I’m not very good at it,” I admit. I know my words are hard to understand, and I still feel uncomfortable when I speak, but I love seeing her eyes when she hears my voice. It makes me want to speak every single word I possibly can right here and now.
“I’m not good, either,” she says. She pulls away from me and lifts her hands to sign. “Warren has been helping me. I only know about two hundred words, but I’m learning.”
It’s been several months since I last saw her, and while I’ve been trying to believe she still wanted to be with me, I did have my doubts. I was starting to question our decision to wait before starting our relationship. What I never expected was for her to spend those months learning how to communicate with me in a way my own parents didn’t even care enough to learn.
“I just fell completely in love with you,” I say to her. I glance at Bridgette, who is still seated at the table. “Did you see it, Bridgette? Did you see me just fall in love with her?”
Bridgette rolls her eyes, and I feel Sydney laugh. I look back down at her. “I did. Like twenty seconds ago. I fell completely in love with you.”
She smiles and mouths her next words slowly so I can understand her. “I fell first.”
When the last word passes her lips, I catch it with my mouth. Since the second I walked away from these lips, I’ve done nothing but think about the moment I would get to taste them again. She pulls me tightly against her, and I kiss her hard, then delicately, then fast and slow and every way in between. I kiss her every way I can possibly kiss her, because I plan on loving her every way I can possibly love her. Every single time we refused to cave in to our feelings in the past makes this kiss completely worth the sacrifices. This kiss is worth all the tears, all the heartache, all the pain, all the struggles, all the waiting.
She’s worth it all.
She’s worth more.
Sydney
We make it to my apartment somehow between all the kissing. He releases me long enough to let me unlock the door, but he loses his patience as soon as it’s unlocked. I laugh when he shoves the door open and pushes me inside. He closes the door, locks it, and turns around to face me again. We look at each other for several seconds.
“Hi,” he says simply.
I laugh. “Hi.”
He looks around the room nervously before his eyes fall back to mine. “Is that good enough?” he asks.
I cock my head, because I don’t really understand his question. “Is what good enough?”
He grins. “I was hoping that was enough talk for tonight.”
Oh.
I get his question now.
I nod slowly, and he smiles, then steps forward and kisses me. He bends slightly and lifts me by the waist, wrapping my legs around him. He secures his arms around my back and begins walking me toward my bedroom.
As many times as I’ve seen this happen in movies and read about it in books, I’ve never actually been picked up and carried by a man before. I think I’m in love with it. Being carried into a bedroom by Ridge is quite possibly my new favorite thing out of any and all things.
That is, until he kicks my bedroom door shut behind him. Maybe Ridge kicking doors shut is my new favorite thing.
He gently lowers me to the bed, and even though I’m sad that he’s not carrying me anymore, I’m a little bit happier to find myself beneath him. Every single move he makes is better and sexier than the last one. He pauses for a moment as he hovers over me, and his eyes roam sensually over my entire body, until they come to a pause on the hem of my dress. He reaches down and pushes it up, and I lift myself up off the bed just enough for him to pull it over my head.
He sucks in a breath when he looks down at me and sees that the only thing coming between him and a completely naked me is a very thin layer of panty. He begins to lower himself on top of me, but I push on his chest and shake my head, tugging on his shirt to let him know it’s his turn. He grins and quickly pulls his shirt over his head, then leans in toward me again. I push against him once more, and he reluctantly lifts himself up, shooting me a look of amused annoyance. I point to his jeans, and he backs away from the bed, and in two swift movements, the rest of his clothes are somewhere on my bedroom floor. I don’t quite catch where he tossed them, because my eyes are sort of preoccupied.
He makes his way on top of me again, and I don’t stop him this time. I welcome him by wrapping my legs around his waist and my arms around his back and guiding his mouth back to mine.
We mold and fit together so perfectly it’s as if we were made for this sole purpose. His left hand fits perfectly into mine as he brings my arm above my head and presses it into the mattress. His tongue melds perfectly with mine as he continues to tease my entire mouth as if it were made for this very purpose. His right hand seamlessly conforms to my outer thigh as he digs his fingers into my skin and shifts his weight perfectly against me.
His mouth leaves mine long enough to taste my jaw . . . my neck . . . my shoulder.
I don’t know how being consumed by him could lend clarity to my purpose in life, but it absolutely feels that way. Everything about me and him and life makes so much more sense when we’re together like this. He makes me feel more beautiful. More important. More loved. More needed. I feel more everything, and with every second that passes, I become more and more greedy, wanting all of every single part of him.
I push against his chest, needing space between us so I can sign to him. He looks down at my hands when he realizes what I’m doing. I hope I get it right, because I’ve practiced signing this sentence no fewer than a thousand times since I last saw him.
“I have something I need to say before we do this.”
He pulls back a few inches, watching my hands, waiting.
I sign the words “I love you.”
His eyebrows draw apart, and relief floods his eyes. He lowers his mouth to my hands and kisses them, over and over, then quickly pulls farther away, unwrapping my legs from around his waist. Just when I begin to fear he’s come to some
absurd notion that we need to stop, he lowers himself to my side but leans over me and presses his ear against my chest.
“I want to feel you say it.”
I press my lips into his hair, then lightly secure him against me. “I love you, Ridge,” I whisper.
His grip tightens around my waist, so I continue repeating it several times.
I keep his head pressed against my chest with both hands. He releases his grip on my waist and trails his hand over my stomach, causing my muscles to clench beneath his touch. He continues stroking his hand in sensuous circles over my stomach. I stop repeating the words and focus on where his hand is traveling, but he stops abruptly.
“I don’t feel you saying it,” he says.
“I love you,” I quickly repeat. When the words leave my lips, his fingers begin moving again. As soon as I’m quiet, his fingers stop.
It doesn’t take me long to figure out what game he’s playing. I grin and say it again.
“I love you.”