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.”
His fingers slip inside the top edge of my panties, and my voice grows quiet again. It’s really hard for me to speak when his hand is that close. It’s really hard to do anything. His fingers come to a pause just inside my panties when he doesn’t feel me talking. I want his hand to keep moving, so I somehow breathe the words.
“I love you.”
His hand slides further inside and stops. I close my eyes and say it again. Slowly.
“I . . . love . . . you.”
What he does next with his hand causes me to repeat the words again instantly.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again and again and again, until my panties are somewhere on the floor, and I’ve said the words so many times and so fast that I’m almost screaming them now. He continues to prove with the expertise of his hand that he’s quite possibly the absolute best listener I’ve ever encountered.
“I love you,” I whisper one last time between faltered and shallow breaths. I’m too weak to utter the words again, and my hands fall away from his head and land against the mattress with a thud.
He lifts his head away from my chest and scoots upward until his face is so close to mine our noses brush. “I love you, too,” he says with a smug grin.
I smile, but my smile fades when he rolls away from me, leaving me alone on the bed. I’m too exhausted and spent to reach out for him. However, he returns to the bed as quickly as he left it. He tears open a condom wrapper and keeps his eyes focused on mine, never once looking away.
The way he’s looking at me, as if I’m the only thing that matters in his world, makes the moment take on a whole new feel. I’m completely consumed, not by waves of pleasure but by waves of raw emotion. I didn’t know I could feel someone this much. I didn’t know I could need someone this much. I had no idea I was capable of sharing this kind of connection with someone.