He caught me staring and cocked his head, a full grin breaking across his face. “Like what you see? Meet your expectations?”
I smirked. “Definitely exceeds them. Come here.” I reached for him.
He moved over me and his forehead came down to mine. He planted a sweet kiss to my lips, then just looked at me. Then another kiss to my jaw, then pulled back and just looked at me. Then another, and another, after every small kiss he’d pull back and just stare.Reallylook at me. Like the fact of me being present and willing was something he needed to witness.
I wasn't ready for that. I had been slowly accepting, over these months, that Julian wanted me. Letting that be true in small increments, at a careful distance. But this was him looking at me in the most undefended moment of my life and me looking backbelievingit all the way down. Believing I waswanted. That I wasworththis. This woman who had spent years being managed and avoided and tossed cellophane flowers was actually someone who moved this man.
I stared back into his eyes, and quiet tears came before I understood they were falling, spilling sideways into my hair. I made a small and broken sound, and hated that I couldn't take it back.
Julian stilled completely and immediately. “Hey. Are you okay?”
Theyeswas right there. Fully formed and ready to go.Yes, I’m fine, I’m sorry, ignore me, keep going.
“No,” I said.
He shifted his weight, making space, and brought me with him until we were lying facing each other in the dark.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to explain it,” I said.
“Try.”
I looked away.
“Hey.” He pulled me back slightly. “We don’t have to?—”
“No.” It came out fast. “That’s not it.”
I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and tried to get myself together, because this was humiliating. Genuinely humiliating. I was a grown woman, and I’d started crying in the middle of?—
“Stop,” Julian said. “Whatever you’re telling yourself right now. Stop.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to be fine.”
My eyes were still wet and I was acutely, miserably aware of exactly what I looked like and how far this had traveled from where it was going twenty minutes ago.
“I just—” I pressed my fingers to my eyes. “You were looking at me and something just—” I gestured vaguely at my own face, and the general disaster of it. “I don’t know.”
He waited, still reading me, in no hurry at all. “What was it,” he asked.
“The way you look at me. It’s… overwhelming. In a good way. It just caught me off guard and I wasn’t—” I tried again. “I’m not crying because I don’t want this. That’s not what this is. I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed. I killed the moment.”
“You didn’t kill anything.” He ran his finger down my arm. “I’m here.”
“You look at me, and I feel…”
“Tell me.”
“Desired. Wanted.”
“I do want you, Alyssa. You’re gorgeous. You’re sexy. Smart. You’re incredible. I’ve thought it since the day I met you. I’m thinking it right now.”
Another tear came and I let out a small watery laugh. “See? What is this?”
“This is you getting the minimum of what you deserve. Theminimum.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry you’ve been deprived of that for so long. But I feel lucky to have the chance to correct that.”
I closed my eyes again and he brushed my hair down with his hand.
