Connected (Connections, #1)(43)
Looking at his gorgeous smiling face, his smooth chest, well-defined abdominal muscles, and gleaming green eyes now ablaze, I know I should say no, resist the temptation, but I can’t, so I shake my finger at him in warning. “Okay, but you better behave, I need to finish this interview.”
Walking into the living room to get my small portable notebook, I hear him mutter, “I promise nothing.”
I can’t help but smile at his remark as I reach for my things. I’m in awe of how his charming smile makes me smile. Before going back to the bedroom, I walk over to the kitchen counter, press play on the docking station, and hit the room change button directing the music to the bedroom. Immediately, I hear the band Fuel singing I Should Have Told You. I love this song.
When I walk into the bedroom, I see River lying on his side, leaning on an elbow that is propped on the pillow. His head resting on his hand, his other arm is slung loosely over his hip. His legs are slightly bent with one propped up, and he’s watching me intently. He is so hot. He starts to anxiously bite his thumbnail and I can’t look at this complete vision of perfection any longer, so I avert my eyes. I know I won’t be able to concentrate if I’m too close to him; I decide to sit at the foot of the bed.
Taking my portable notebook out of my bag, I turn it on and pull up the list of questions we started on yesterday. He takes the thumb he was just biting and starts rubbing circles up my legs. His still moist touch sends shivers up my spine. I can’t even think about focusing on my list of questions.
“Behave,” I admonish as I glance at him from my computer screen. Putting my hand over his wandering one, and in a more playful tone, I say, “Sound Music paid me to come to Las Vegas and do an interview, not do you, not to have a one-night stand and get on the plane empty-handed.” I say the last few words in a much more teasing tone to help lessen the blow of the truth in the reality.
Removing his hand from my hold, he quickly sits up and he grabs the notebook from my lap, placing it on the floor. Wrapping his fingers around my wrists he pulls me right up to him, face-to-face, eye-to-eye. He slides his nose across my cheek to my ear, and with a low, quiet, but almost harsh tone says, “Dahlia this is, was, in no way a one-night stand on my part. Is it to you? Because if so, I totally misread this, you, us.” As he says this, he continues resting his cheek and his lips against the side of my head.
His words momentarily take my breath away as emotions surge everywhere, in my mind, throughout my body, and within my soul. I’m not sure what to say or what to do, but I feel strangely at peace. So tugging my arms from his grip, I grab his face and look into his eyes, knowing I can make this better, that I can take the sting out of my words. Words only thought, only spoken, to protect myself, to guard myself from what I thought was only a night of casual sex.
With my heart beating faster than the music playing, I respond with only fragmented thoughts. “I’m sorry, I just thought… No not a one-night stand on my part. I wasn’t sure…” Then sitting up straighter, gently sweeping the hair from his eyes, I point between him and me. “I just thought you did this kind of thing all the time.”
A frown appears on his face. He shakes his head no as Coldplay’s song Yellow starts to play throughout the room.
Hovering his lips over mine, he lightly brushes them across each corner of my mouth. “No I don’t do this all the time,” he says while gliding his lips to my neck. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever spent the night in a hotel room with a girl and shared breakfast with her the next morning,” he continues as his lips start to make their descent. “And I’m glad we feel the same way,” he finally whispers before pausing his kisses and directing his gaze at me. Then with a huge grin, he finishes the conversation. “So now is it okay if I misbehave?”
Placing both my hands on his strong jaw, it’s my turn to rest my head on his, and in an effort to right my wrong, I say, “You know every time you move your nose to my ear like that, it drives me crazy.”
Pulling back, softly gripping my arms with his hands, he nods and a slight grin appears, a smirk really, and he says, “Yeah, I know that.”
LIVING FOR THE FIRST TIME
As our bodies move across the bed
We look out the window into the brightness
The doubts that clouded my head are gone
They have all faded away
And I’m living for the first time in a long time.
The throbbing pulse that travels through my body every time he kisses me continues to increase as his kisses turn into more, and his lips meet my most sensitive spots. Every time he touches me, he makes my breath quicken, my heart beat faster, and my temperature rise. Never have I felt like this before.
We didn’t finish the interview. My plane departure time came and went. We fell asleep sometime in the late morning. After more amazing, can’t-get-enough sex, River asked me to stay the weekend with him, and without any doubts, I agreed. How could I not? I feel alive again—living, breathing, and experiencing life like I never had before—because of him. He took me to places within my body and my soul I’ve never been, and I wanted to discover more.
Something happened within me when he asked if I considered our night just passing casual sex, because he clearly didn’t. The sorrow, grief, and sheer loneliness I was carrying with me for almost two years passed much quicker than seasons change. I feel a sense of new beginnings, hope sprung alive. It’s as if I’m heading into spring, and winter is finally fading behind me. My mind begins to see the leaves turning green; no longer are they brown and lying lifeless on the barren ground. I can hear the chirping of the birds, they are no longer flying south, and as the harsh cold winds of the Santa Ana morph into gentle cool breezes, I can say I’m alive once again.