“I expected this to be just a job,” she admits, looking down at her lap. A loose strand of her hair falls over her face and she pushes it behind her ear. Her signature mark. She always does it when she’s nervous.
I want to ask her if I’m the one who’s making her nervous, but the question remains only inside my mind.
“Instead,” she continues, “I found so much more.” She bites her lower lip as our eyes lock in the semi-darkness.
A part of me wants to pull away. This isn’t the right time for this, not the right moment. Then again, is there a right time for anything in life? Or do we make any moment the perfect one by allowing something monumental to happen?
I don’t want to frighten her with the strength of my emotions. I want to take things slowly, if that is what she wants, as well.
“This is a very difficult time in life for me, Lilly,” I admit, cupping her chin with my fingers, feeling more vulnerable than ever before.
Yet somehow, this vulnerability made me feel stronger, if such a thing is even possible. By revealing my true self to her, I have shared my fears with her, therefore lessening them.
“I can’t tell you what your presence here means to Marley,” I whisper, as I get closer to her. “To me…”
She gasps silently, leaning towards me. She isn’t blinking at all, and neither am I, as if we don’t want to lose each other out of sight even for one fraction of a second. I feel she is drinking me in, just like I’m doing to her. We are mirror images of each other, frightened and bare, but not wanting to be anywhere else but here.
Slowly, gentler than ever, my lips find hers. All the pent-up desire inside of me remained there, giving way to something far more primal, something far deeper. Our kiss is slow, and there is very little tongue. Her hands cup my cheeks, holding me close to her, as if she’s afraid I might disappear and never come back. I know that feeling. I want to keep my hands on her all the time, because sometimes, I don’t trust my eyes that she is here. I want to feel her presence as well, to be twice as sure.
Neither of us wants to pull away. We keep kissing, smiling against each other’s lips, our bodies motionless in time and space. It is a kiss unlike any other. There is no desire in it. No wish for sex, but rather a wish for something else, something we’ve both been too afraid to confess.
When our lips finally come undone, she uses the tips of her fingers to brush against my lips gently. Then, she leans over to me and puts her head on my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her, our hearts beating as one, pressed to each other.
I don’t know how long we stay like that. It could be one second, it could be several hours. I don’t know. I feel like I’ve completely lost track of time and space, in a moment that is too beautiful to describe in mere words.
When I look down, I realize that her body has gone limp.
“Lilly?” I whisper, but there is no reply, other than the unified breathing signaling that she has fallen asleep.
I smile to myself, gently taking her into my arms. She stirs a little, but she doesn’t wake up. Carefully, I take her to the guestroom, and put her on the bed. I am tempted to take off her clothes, just so she’d be more comfortable. I doubt it’s very pleasant sleeping in jeans. But I decide against it. I don’t want her to think that I wanted to take advantage of the situation, while she was unconscious.
I tuck her in as she is, then leave the room. That same smile is still on my face. I don’t know what all this means. Another conversation is due very soon but, perhaps, it needed to happen like this. We needed to open up to each other. There is a door, and we both want to go through it. Only, the time may not be right just about now.
I simply need to get out of this whole mess with Morris. I can’t allow her to have anything to do with it. Once I prove my innocence, I will also prove to her that I am a man of honor, a man of my word.
With those thoughts in mind, for the first time in a long while, I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow, and I don’t wake up until the morning.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lilly
I wake up, but I refuse to open my eyes. I know where I am. The smell of my surroundings is different. I would recognize it anywhere.
I know where I am. I also know that there is nowhere else I would rather be, but at the same time, I feel like I don’t deserve to be here.
My mind is flooded by memories of what happened last night. I remember the kiss, the way he spoke to me. It was the way lovers talk. I wouldn’t know for sure, but I felt it was something like that and the heart usually isn’t wrong.
I’m fully awake at this point, but I still don’t want to open my eyes. Doing so would confirm that I am doing something behind the back of the man I love. The thoughts formed so effortlessly in my mind, as if it had been there all along and it was. I just didn’t dare admit it before.
I can’t open my eyes, although I know I should. I have to get up, start getting Marley ready for school. The thought immediately makes me jump from the bed, and to my relief, I realize I have enough time to spare but I don’t go back to bed.
I take a quick shower and put on some clean clothes. As soon as I open the door to my guestroom, I almost bump into Dominic. He seems confused, as if he’s been lingering in front of my door, trying to knock, only I beat him to it and opened the door.
“Morning,” I smile, wondering if my hair looks OK. Hopefully, it does.
“Good morning,” he greets me back, with a happy grin. Ah, those dimples. They will be the death of me. He continues, and I hear his words through the haze of my enchantment. “Did you sleep well?”