furniture, though, because his leg is touching my thigh, and the simple contact causes heat to roll through me like a riptide. I look down at our knees when they brush together and realize I’m still wearing the T-shirt I threw on right before I went to bed. I guess I was so shocked by the fact that he said he was at my apartment door that I didn’t concern myself with how I looked. I’m in nothing but an oversized cotton T-shirt that falls to my knees, and my hair is more than likely a wreck.
He’s in jeans and a gray Sounds of Cedar T-shirt. I would say I feel underdressed, but I’m actually dressed appropriately for what I was doing before he showed up, which was going to bed.
Ridge: I don’t know if I’m okay. Are you okay?
I forgot I even asked him a question for a second.
I shrug. I’m sure I will be fine, but I’m not going to lie and tell him I am. I think it’s obvious that neither one of us can really be okay with how everything has turned out. I’m not okay with losing Ridge, and Ridge isn’t okay with losing Maggie.
Me: I’m sorry about Maggie. I feel awful. She’ll come around, though. Five years is a lot to give up for a misunderstanding.
I hit send and finally look up at him. He reads the text, then eyes me. The concentration in his expression makes the breath catch in my lungs.
Ridge: It wasn’t a misunderstanding, Sydney. She understood a little too well.
I read his text several times, wishing he would expand on it. What wasn’t a misunderstanding? The reason they broke up? His feelings for me? Rather than ask him what he means, I cut to the question I want the answer to the most.
Me: Why are you here?
He works his jaw back and forth before responding.
Ridge: Do you want me to leave?
I look at him and slowly shake my head no. Then I pause and shake my head yes. Then I pause again and just shrug. He smiles endearingly, completely understanding my confusion.
Me: I guess whether or not I want you here depends on why you’re here. Are you here because you need me to try to help you win back Maggie? Are you here because you miss me? Are you here because you want to try to work out some sort of friendship?
Ridge: Would I be wrong if I answered none of the above? I don’t know why I’m here. Part of me misses you so much it hurts, while part of me wishes I never even met you to begin with. I guess today is one of the days I was hurting, so I stole Warren’s keys and forced him to give me your address. I didn’t think this through or come up with any kind of speech. I just did what my heart needed me to do, which was to see you.
His brutally honest reply melts my heart and pisses me off all at the same time.
Me: What about tomorrow? What if tomorrow is one of the days you wished you never met me? What am I supposed to do then?
The intensity in his stare is unnerving. Maybe he’s trying to gauge if that was an angry response. I’m not sure if it was or not. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that he doesn’t even know why he’s here.
He doesn’t respond to my text, and it proves one thing: he’s having the same internal conflict with himself that I’ve been having.
He wants to be with me, but he doesn’t.
He wants to love me, but he doesn’t know if he should.
He wants to see me, but he knows he shouldn’t.
He wants to kiss me, but it would hurt just as much as it did the first time he kissed me and had to walk away. I suddenly feel uncomfortable staring at him. We’re way too close together on this couch, yet my body is making it very clear to me that it doesn’t think we’re close enough at all. What it’s wishing would happen right now are all the things that aren’t.
Ridge looks away and slowly scans my apartment for a few moments, then returns his attention to his phone.
Ridge: I like your place. Good neighborhood. Seems safe.
I almost laugh at his text and the casual conversation he’s trying to make, because I know we’re no longer in a place for casual conversation. We can’t be friends at this point. We also can’t be together with so much against us. Casual conversation has no place between us right now, yet I can’t bring myself to reply any differently.
Me: I like it here. Thank you for helping me out with the hotel until I could move in.
Ridge: It was the least I could do. Absolutely the least I could do.
Me: I’ll pay you back as soon as I get my first paycheck. I got my job back at the campus library, so it should only be another week.
Ridge: Sydney, stop. I don’t even want you to offer.
I have no idea what to say in response. This whole situation is awkward and uncomfortable, because we’re both dancing around all the things we wish we had the courage to do and say.
I set my phone facedown on the couch. I want him to know that I need a break. I don’t like that we aren’t being us.
He takes the hint and lays his phone down on the armrest beside him, then sighs heavily as he drops his head against the back of the couch. The silence makes me wish I could experience the world from his perspective for once. I find it almost impossible to put myself in his shoes, though. People with the advantage of hearing take so much for granted, and I’ve never understood that to the extent that I understand it now. There’s nothing being spoken between us, yet I understand by his heavy sigh that he’s frustrated with himself. I understand how much he’s holding back by the way his breaths are being sharply pulled in.
I suppose his expertise in a silent world gives him an ability to read people, just in different ways. Instead of focusing on the sounds of my breaths, he focuses on the rise and fall of my chest. Rather than listening to quiet sighs, he more than likely watches my eyes, my hands, my posture. Maybe that’s why his face is tilted toward mine now, because he wants to see me and get a feel for what’s going through my head.
I feel as if he reads me too well. The way he’s watching me forces me to try to control every facial expression and every breath. I close my eyes and lean my head back, knowing he’s staring, trying to get a sense of where I am.
I also wish I could just turn to him and tell him. I want to tell him how much I’ve missed him. I want to tell him how much he means to me. I want to tell him how horrible I feel, because before I showed up in his life, everything seemed perfect for him. I want to tell him that even though we both regretted it, that minute we spent kissing was the one minute out of my entire life that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
At moments like these, I’m thankful he can’t hear me, or there would have been so many things spoken that I would regret.
Instead, there are so many things left unsaid that I wish I had the courage to say.
Ridge’s weight shifts on the couch, and my eyes naturally open out of curiosity. He’s leaning across the arm of the couch, reaching for something. When he turns back around, he’s holding a pen in his hand. He smiles softly, then picks up my arm. He turns his body toward mine and presses the pen to my open palm.
I swallow hard and slowly look up at his face, but he’s looking down at my hand as he writes. I could swear I almost see a faint smile flash across his lips. When he’s finished, he brings my palm to his mouth and blows softly to dry the ink. His lips are moist and puckered into a pout, and holy hell, it just got really warm in this apartment. He lowers my hand, and I look down at it.
Just wanted to touch your hand.
I laugh softly. Mostly because his words are so innocent and sweet compared to the things he’s written on me in the past. I’ve been sitting here on this couch with him for ten minutes, wishing he would touch me, and then he goes and admits he was thinking the exact same thing. It’s so juvenile, as if we’re teenagers. I’m almost embarrassed that it pleases me this much that he’s touching me, but I can’t recall a time I’ve ever wanted anything more.
He hasn’t released my hand yet, and I’m still looking down at his writing, smiling. I brush my thumb across the back of his hand, and he gasps quietly. The permission I just gave him with that
tiny movement seems to have broken some invisible barrier, because he immediately slides his hand over mine and presses our palms together, then intertwines our fingers. The warmth of his hand doesn’t come close to the warmth that just shot through my entire body.
God, if just holding hands with him feels this intense, I can’t imagine what everything else with him would feel like.
We’re both watching our hands now, feeling every bit of the connection pulsating through our palms. He brushes over my thumb and flips our hands over, then takes the pen and presses it to my wrist. He moves the pen slowly up my wrist, drawing in a straight line all the way up my forearm. I don’t stop him. I simply watch him. When he reaches the crease in my elbow, he begins to write again. I read each word as he writes it.
Just an excuse to touch you here, too.
Without releasing my hand, he lifts my arm and keeps his eyes focused on mine as he bends forward and blows softly up and down my arm. He presses his lips lightly against his words and kisses them without once breaking eye contact. When his lips meet my arm, I feel a soft flick of his tongue tease my arm for a split second before his mouth closes over my skin.
That might have just made me whimper.
Yep. Pretty sure I just whimpered.
God, I’m so glad he couldn’t hear that.
He pulls his lips away from my arm and continues to watch me, gauging my reaction. His eyes are dark and piercing, and they’re focused all over me. On my lips, on my eyes, on my neck, on my hair, on my chest. He can’t seem to take me in fast enough.
He presses the pen against my skin again, starting where he left off. He rolls the pen slowly up my arm, watching it intently the whole time. When he reaches the sleeve of my T-shirt, he pushes it up carefully until my shoulder is exposed. He makes a small mark with the pen, then slowly leans over me. My head falls back against the couch when I feel his lips meet my skin. His breath is close and warm against my shoulder. I’m not even thinking about the fact that he’s drawing all over me. That can be washed off later. Right now, I just want his pen to keep going and going until it’s completely out of ink.
He pulls away and releases my hand, switching the pen to his other hand. He pulls my sleeve back down over my shoulder, then slips his fingers inside the collar of my T-shirt, tugging it to expose more of my collarbone. He puts the tip of the pen on my shoulder and glances up at me while he proceeds with caution, making his way to my neck. His expression is heated, and I can tell he’s proceeding with caution despite the fact that I know exactly what he wishes were happening right now and where he plans to go with this pen. He doesn’t have to verbalize it when his eyes clearly state it for him.
He moves the pen slowly up my neck. I naturally tilt my head to the side, and as soon as I do, I hear a rush of air hiss quietly through his teeth. He comes to a stop just below my ear. I squeeze my eyes shut and hope my heart doesn’t explode when he leans in, because it definitely feels as if it could. His lips press gently against my skin, and I swear the room flips upside down.
Or maybe that was just my heart.
One of my hands slides up his arm and grasps the back of his head, not wanting him to pull away from this spot. His tongue makes another quick appearance against my neck, but he doesn’t let my desperation stall him. He lifts away and looks back down at me. His eyes are smiling, knowing how crazy he’s driving me.
He rolls the pen from the spot below my ear, back down my neck, and around to the dip in the base of my throat. Before kissing the spot he just marked, he grabs me by the waist and lifts me up, sliding me onto his lap.
I grasp his arms and suck in a rush of air the second he pulls me against him. My T-shirt slides up my thighs, and the fact that I’m not wearing anything under it except underwear pretty much guarantees that I’ve gotten myself into something that’s going to be damn hard to pull away from.
His eyes drop to the base of my throat as he slides a hand up my thigh, over my hip, and all the way up and into my hair. He grasps the back of my head, then pulls my neck against his mouth. This kiss is harder and not at all cautious like the rest of them. I slide my hands into his hair and keep his mouth pressed against my neck.
He works his kisses all the way up my neck until his mouth meets my chin. Our bodies are meshed firmly together, and one of his hands has found my lower back and is keeping me flush against him.
I can’t move. I’m literally panting for breath, wondering where in the hell the strong Sydney went. Where’s the Sydney who knows this shouldn’t be happening?
I’ll look for her later. After he finishes with his pen.
He pulls away when his lips come close to my mouth. Our bodies are as close as they can get without his mouth being on mine. He removes his hand from my lower back and brings the pen back around to my throat. When he touches the tip of it to my skin, I gulp, anticipating which direction he’s about to go with it.
North or south, north or south. I don’t really care.
He begins to scroll upward, but then he stops. He pulls the pen away from my neck and shakes it, then touches it to my neck again. He makes another movement upward with the pen but stops again. He pulls back slightly and frowns at the pen, which I’m assuming has just run out of ink. He looks back at me and tosses the pen over my shoulder. I hear it land on the floor behind me.
His eyes drop to my lips, which I’m assuming would have been the pen’s final destination. We’re both breathing heavily, knowing exactly what’s about to come next. What we’re about to experience again for the second time, knowing how much our first kiss affected us.
I think he’s as terrified as I am right now.
I’m leaning all my weight into him, because I’ve never been this weak. I can’t think, I can’t move, I can’t breathe. I just . . . need.
He brings both hands to my cheeks and looks directly into my eyes.
“Your call,” he whispers.
Jesus Christ, that voice.
I stare at him, not sure if I like that he just put the control in my hands. He wants this to be my decision.
It’s so much easier having someone else to blame when things go where they shouldn’t. I know we shouldn’t be putting ourselves into a situation we’re only going to regret once it’s over. I could put a stop to it right here. I could make it easier by asking him to leave now, rather than when things get even more complicated between us. I could slide off his lap and tell him he shouldn’t be here because he hasn’t even had time to forgive himself for what happened with Maggie. I could tell him to go away and not come back until his heart isn’t confused anymore about who it wants.
If that day ever comes.
There are so many things I could and should and need to do, but none of them is what I want to do.
The pressure picks the worst possible time to break me. The worst possible time.
I squeeze my eyes shut when I feel a tear begin to work its way out. It trickles down my cheek, falling slowly toward my jaw. It’s the absolutely slowest descent a tear has ever made. I open my eyes, and Ridge is watching it. He’s following the wet trail with his eyes, and I can see his jaw growing more tense with every second that passes. I want to reach up and wipe it away, but the last thing I want to do is hide it from him. My tears say a whole lot more about how I’m feeling right now than I’m willing to say in a text.
Maybe I need him to know that this is hurting me.
Maybe I want it to hurt him, too.
When the tear finally curves and disappears under my jaw, he brings his eyes back to mine. I’m surprised by what I see in them.
His own tears.
Knowing that he’s hurting because I’m hurting shouldn’t make me want to kiss him, but it absolutely does. He’s here because he cares about me. He’s here because he misses me. He’s here because he needs to feel what we felt in our first kiss again, just as I do. I’ve wanted that feeling back since the second his mouth left mine and he walked away.
I remove my hands from his shou
lders and grab the back of his head, then lean into him, bringing my mouth so close to his that our lips brush.
He grins. “Good call,” he whispers.
He closes the space between our mouths, and everything else falls away. The guilt, the worries, the concern over what happens after this kiss ends. It all melts away the second his mouth claims mine. He gently coaxes my lips apart with his tongue, and all the chaos running through my heart and head is eliminated when I feel his warmth inside my mouth.
Kisses like his should come with a warning label. They can’t be good for the heart. He runs a hand around to my upper thigh, then slips it beneath the hem of my T-shirt. His hand glides across my back, and he grips me tightly, then lifts his hips at the same time as he pulls me harder against him.
Oh.
My.
Goodness.
I become weaker and weaker with every rhythmic movement he creates with our bodies. I find whatever parts of him I can hold on to, because I feel as if I’m falling. I grab his shirt and his hair while I moan softly into his mouth. When he feels the sound escape my throat, he quickly pulls away from my mouth and squeezes his eyes shut, breathing heavily. When he opens his eyes again, he’s staring at my throat.
He pulls his hand from beneath my shirt, then slowly brings it up to my neck.
Oh, my dear, sweet God.
He wraps his fingers around my neck, gently pressing his palm into the base of my throat while he stares at my mouth. The thought of him wanting to feel what he’s doing to me makes my head swarm and the entire room spin. I’m somehow able to glance into his eyes long enough to see them transform from a calm desire to an almost carnal need.
With his other hand still curved around the back of my head, he pulls me to him with more urgency, covering my mouth with his. The second his tongue finds mine again, I give him more moans than he can possibly keep up with.
This is exactly what I’ve wanted from him. I’ve wanted him to show up and tell me how much he’s missed me. I’ve needed to know that he cares about me, that he wants me. I’ve needed to feel his mouth on mine again so I could know that the way his first kiss made me feel wasn’t just in my head this whole time.
Now that I have it, I’m not sure I’m strong enough for it. I know that the second this ends and he walks out the front door, my heart will die all over again. The more I open up to him, the more I need him. The more I admit to myself that I need him, the more it hurts to know that I still don’t exactly have him.
I’m still not convinced that he’s here for the right reasons. Even if he is here for the right reasons, it’s still wrong timing. Not to mention all the questions still running through my head. I try to push them away,