19. Chapter 19
Chapter 19
Riley
“E mery, I don’t know about this dress.” I twisted in the mirror, my hands hovering over my stomach. The dress Emery shoved in my hands as soon as I told her I didn’t have anything to wear was a black bodycon maxi dress with a square neckline that hugged every curve of my body. The things it did for my boobs, hips, and butt were nothing short of magical, but I couldn’t get over how it did nothing for my stomach.
“You’ll change your mind as soon as Matt sees you.” She moved my hair behind my back and sprayed the soft curls she spent the last half hour working on with more hair spray, fixing the spots that had been ruffled while I dressed. She pinned the top half back to show off my favorite pair of small chunky silver hoop earrings. “I have an idea.”
She disappeared into her room and returned with a cropped leather jacket. The addition helped, but my eyes kept going straight to my stomach. Emery turned me away from the mirror and added a dainty silver necklace around my neck. “You look great,” she told me. “Now go, Matt’s been waiting.”
“What? When did he get here?” I asked as she shoved me out of my room.
“I let him in while you were changing.”
Matt jumped up from the couch when his eyes met mine, the bouquet of red roses across his lap and his phone dropping to the floor. “Riley, wow you look…” his words trailed off as I got closer to him. “Fuck,” he said as he bent to pick up the roses and phone.
I laughed and took the flowers from his hand and passed them to Emery. He pushed a hand through his hair as his eyes moved over me. I pulled his hands to my waist, needing his touch. “Hi,” I said to him.
“Hi.” His hands moved down my hips and then back up.
“Do you like the dress?”
He nodded. “You look amazing in everything, but wow.”
I laughed again and brushed a kiss against his cheek, light enough that the rosy pink lipstick I wore didn’t transfer to his skin. “You clean up pretty well yourself.” I ran my hands over his chest, my breath caught at the feeling of how hard his heart beat against my hand, and then smoothed my fingers over his blue tie.
“I can’t decide if I want to show you off like this or if I want to keep you all to myself.” His hands clutched my hips, rocking me forward until our bodies were flush against each other. Heat flooded my body. I’ve always felt like I couldn’t get enough of his touch, but for the first time I felt like I couldn’t get close enough to him. The way his eyes traveled over me, the way his fingers dug into me, I thought maybe he felt the same way.
We had rules to keep, boundaries we couldn’t break yet no matter how much we had been blurring them lately.
“You’re going to take her out and show her off,” Emery yelled from the kitchen. “You better not bring her back home before sunrise.” I didn’t know if she was kidding or not. Quite frankly I didn’t care. All that mattered was the way Matt looked at me.
I slipped my hand into Matt’s, fighting back a whimper at the loss of his fingers digging into the soft curve of my hip and pulled him toward the door. We needed to leave before we both decided staying home was a better idea. “Come on, I believe you promised me a real date.”
***
Matt drove with his right hand on my thigh right above my knee, alternating between tapping along to the radio and squeezing. Sometimes his fingers would drift a little high before he would catch himself and move his hand back down. I could see his mouth moving but I couldn’t hear the words over the pounding of my heart. Every squeeze of his hand made it hard to breathe. I covered his hand with mine and threaded our fingers together.
All the time we’ve been spending together felt so easy, so natural. This felt like too much. This dress felt too tight. The seat belt felt like it was digging into my skin. The jacket was smothering me. The way Matt looked at me felt so good, but all I could think about was what would happen when he stopped looking at me like that.
I wanted the romance of the small, everyday things. The dancing in the kitchen, fresh flowers every day, cuddling on the couch after work, the way he smiled at me. I knew how he sounded in the morning, the way his eyes sparkled when he was excited, the way his mouth twitched to fight back a yawn when he tried to hide how tired he was because he wanted to stay just a little longer. We’d gotten good at those things over these few weeks.
I didn’t know how to do romantic date nights. I didn’t know how to act when all I could think about was how this fabric stretched over my stomach. I didn’t know what to do when he decided that me being bad at this meant I wasn’t enough.
The car stopped and I jolted, looking around the empty parking lot. Matt unbuckled his seat belt and twisted in the driver’s seat to face me.
“Where are we?” I asked.
He unbuckled my seat belt and moved his hands to his lap. “You’re panicking.”
Panicking. That’s what this was. Why was it so hot in this car? I pushed the jacket off and laid it over my lap.
“Riley, please talk to me. Tell me what you need.” I looked at his hands clenched into fists in his lap. I couldn’t tell if he was mad or if he wasn’t fighting the urge to touch me until I gave him permission, all because I told him once that sometimes touching me when I was upset could be overwhelming.
“What are we doing?” I asked him. I couldn’t take my eyes off his hands. Why were they so far away?
“I’m taking you on a date, sweetheart.” His voice was calm and low, it didn’t match the tension in his hands. That had to mean he wasn’t mad at me, I tried to reassure myself. The realization hit me that I didn’t know what he was like when he was mad. He could be, and I wouldn’t know because I had never seen it.
“I don’t know how to do this kind of date.” I couldn’t take it, I needed him to touch me, to know that he was here with me. I pulled one of his hands to my face.
His lips lifted in a small smile as his fingers stroked my cheek, the tension melting from the hand still in his lap. Seeing his smile loosened the pressure crushing my chest. “It’s the same as all our other dates. We spend time together and have fun, like always.”
I shook my head and bit the inside of my cheek. “This feels different.”
“It’s just us. Remember our first date? It’s just like that.” His hand moved the back of my neck and pulled me toward him. “Is it okay if I hug you?” Was it just like our first date? That one had been practice, no risk. There were risks now.
I leaned into his pull letting him wrap me into a soft hug. The pressure gripped around my chest melted away, the pounding in my ears slowed. His arms felt like home. “This just feels like so much more pressure than the first date.”
He combed his fingers through my hair. “Just us sweetheart,” he whispered into the top of my head.
“I really like you.” I think I’m falling in love with you. “I’m so scared you’re going to change your mind.”
He pulled back until he could look in my eyes. “I like you too and I’m not going to change my mind.” His hand cradled my cheek again, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. His eyes dropped to my lips, then back up to meet mine. His thumb at the corner of my mouth pressed against my lip. I dropped my eyes to his mouth, noticing how his mouth parted, and his top teeth scraped lightly over his bottom lip. “I really want to kiss you,” he whispered, his cheeks turning pink.
“But your rule,” I said, meeting his eyes. I didn’t give a shit about that rule, hadn’t for a while. I knew that we didn’t need it anymore, that he wouldn’t push me to do something I didn’t want. I thought about kissing him constantly lately. Were his lips as soft as they looked? What would it feel like to have his smile pressed against my mouth? Would it feel like home too?
“Just one kiss.”
“You’ll mess up my lipstick.” I knew I was just making excuses, giving him time to change his mind. It was his rule after all.
His hand slid down my face and settled on the side of my throat. “Riley, I think about messing up your lipstick every time you wear it.” He leaned closer, his breath mingling with mine. “Tell me if I can kiss you.”
I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled him forward, closing the distance between us, bracing for him to pull away like he’d done in the past. I couldn’t go another second without knowing what his mouth against mine felt like. I've been fighting the urge to ask him to modify the rule constantly lately. Our mouths collided without hesitation this time.
Kissing him felt like hot chocolate on a snowy day. Like walking into the AC after spending all day outside in the summer heat. Like coming home after a long day. We were both pulling on each other, trying to get closer as our lips moved together. His teeth scraped along my bottom lip before his tongue slid against mine. All I could think about is how right this felt, how this must be what people mean by true love’s kiss. I’d been kissing wrong my whole life up until this moment.
If this is what kissing him feels like I can’t imagine what more would be. More. Did I want more?
We broke apart, both breathing hard. He pressed himself back into his seat and pushed his hand into his hair. “Fuck, I’m going to need a minute,” he said. My eyes flicked down to his lap, and I saw that, yes indeed he was going to need a minute.
“That was – wow,” I started but I couldn’t find the words to finish the sentence.
“That was us, sweetheart. Do you see what I mean now?” He pushed his head back against the headrest, turning toward me and flashing that beautiful smile. One of his hands twisted a strand of my hair around his fingers. “We’re something special together. This isn’t something people just walk away from. This is what people fight to keep.”
I pulled a napkin from the center console and wiped the lipstick smudged on his mouth. “That’s why I’m scared.”