Maybe Someday (39 page)

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 shoulders 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, and for brief moments, it works. When his hands graze my cheek or his lips close over mine, I forget all about those questions that I can’t seem to run away from. But then he’ll pause to catch his breath, and he’ll look me in the eye, and all those questions just cram right back into the front of my head, until they’re so heavy that they’re forcing more tears to want to escape.

I clench his arms when the uncertainty begins to take over. I shake my head and try to push against him. He pulls away from my mouth and sees my doubt building, and he shakes his head to get me to stop analyzing this moment between us. His eyes are pleading as he strokes my cheek, pulls me flush against him, and tries to kiss me again, but I struggle out of his arms.

“Ridge, no,” I say. “I can’t.”

I’m still shaking my head when his hand grips my wrist. I slide off his lap and keep walking until his fingers fall away from me.

I walk straight to the kitchen sink and dispense soap into my hands, then begin scrubbing the ink off my arm. I reach into a drawer and pull out a rag, then wet it and press it to my neck. Tears are streaming down my cheeks as I try to wash away the reminders of what just happened between us. The reminders are going to make him that much harder to overcome.

Ridge comes up behind me and places his hands on my shoulders. He turns me around to face him. When he sees that I’m crying, his eyes fill with apology, and he pulls the rag from my hand. He brushes the hair off my shoulder and gently rubs my skin, washing away the ink. He looks incredibly guilty for making me cry, but it’s not his fault. It’s never his fault. It’s no one’s fault. It’s both our faults.

When he’s finished rubbing away the ink, he tosses the rag behind me onto the counter, then pulls me against his chest. The comfort that surrounds me makes this even harder. I want this all the time. I want
him
all the time. I want these tiny snippets of perfection between us to be our constant reality, but that can’t happen right now. I completely understand his earlier comment, when he said that there are times he misses me and times he wishes he never met me, because right now, I’m wishing I never set foot out onto my balcony the first time I heard his guitar.

If I never experienced how he could make me feel, then I wouldn’t miss it after he’s gone.

I wipe my eyes and pull away from him. There’s so much we need to discuss, so I walk to the couch, retrieve our phones, and bring his to him. I move away from him to lean against the other counter while I type, but he grabs my arm and pulls me back. He leans against the bar and pulls my back against his chest, then wraps his arms around me from behind. He kisses the side of my head, then moves his lips to my ear.

“Stay here,” he says, wanting me to remain pressed against him.

It’s crazy how being held by someone for just a few minutes can forever change how it feels
not
to be held by him. The second he releases his hold on you, it suddenly feels as if a part of you is missing. I guess he feels it, too, which is why he wants me near him.

Does he feel this way about Maggie, too?

Questions like this refuse to leave my mind. Questions like this keep me from believing he could ever be happy with the outcome of his situation, because he lost her in the end. I don’t want to be someone’s second choice.

I lean my head against his shoulder and squeeze my eyes shut, trying my best not to let my mind go there again. However, I know I have to go there if I ever want to find a sense of closure.

Ridge: I wish I could read your mind.

Me: Believe me, I wish you could, too.

He laughs quietly and squeezes me tightly in his arms. He keeps his cheek pressed against my head as he types out another text.

Ridge: We’ve always been able to say whatever is on our minds. You still have that with me, you know. You can say whatever you need to say, Sydney. That’s what I’ve always loved about us the most.

Why do all the words he says and writes and texts have to pierce my heart?

I inhale a deep breath, then exhale carefully. I open my eyes and look down at my phone, terrified to ask the one question I don’t really want the answer to. I ask it anyway, because as much as I don’t
want
to know the answer, I
need
to know the answer.

Me: If she texted you right now and said she made the wrong choice, would you go? Would you walk out my front door without thinking twice?

My head stills when the rapid rise and fall of his chest comes to a sudden halt.

I can no longer hear his breaths.

His grip around me loosens slightly.

My heart crumbles.

I don’t need to read an answer from him. I don’t even need to
hear
it. I can feel it in every part of him.

It’s not as if I were expecting his answer to be any different. He spent five years with her. It’s obvious that he loves her. He’s never said otherwise.

I was just hoping he was wrong.

I immediately break away from him and walk swiftly toward my bedroom. I want to lock myself inside until he leaves. I don’t want him to see what this does to me. I don’t want him to see that I love him the same way he loves Maggie.

I reach my bedroom and swing open the door. I rush inside and begin to shut the door behind me, but he pushes the door open. He steps into my bedroom and turns me around to face him.

His eyes are searching mine, desperately trying to get across whatever it is he wishes he could say. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to speak, but then he closes it again. He releases my arms, then turns around and runs his hands through his hair. He grips the back of his neck, then kicks my bedroom door shut with a frustrated groan. He leans his forearm into the door and presses his forehead against it. I do nothing but stand still and watch him try to fight the war within himself. The same war I’ve been fighting.