Lover (Betrothed 3)

I love you.

I stared at the three words but couldn’t trust the information my eyes were relaying to my brain. It seemed like a dream, a trick my mind played on me. Instead of reading what I was supposed to read, I just pretended it said what I wanted to see. But I read it again.

I love you.

It must’ve been at least ten seconds of me staring. I’d loved this woman for so long, so many years, and I’d abandoned the notion that she could ever feel the same way. Just when I thought I’d broken the curse, the most terrible thing happened to her, and I thought I’d lost my chance forever.

But it looked like I was getting another shot.

It looked like I’d accomplished the impossible. I righted my wrongs, I atoned for my sins, and I became worthy of the woman I loved. I became the man she needed, became the man who was ready to accept his soulmate.

Instead of just feeling unbridled joy, I actually felt pain. It was too good to be true, made me wonder if this was a dream. I wanted this so much, and I couldn’t believe it was happening. All those years of heartache had been worth it. Watching her leave me had been worth it. Everything I did to get here had been worth it.

My hand shook slightly as I held the watch, and I eventually gripped it tightly in my fist. I lifted my gaze to meet hers, to look her in the eye for the first time. But instead of meeting my gaze head on, her eyes were down on her coffee.

The woman who wasn’t afraid of anything…was afraid of me.

She was afraid of my rejection, afraid I wouldn’t feel the same way. Now, she thought she might have sabotaged our relationship, that all the closeness we’d achieved had been destroyed.

How could she be so blind?

How could she not see how much I loved her?

I put the watch on my wrist and clasped it into place. “Look at me.”

She took a deep, audible breath then raised her chin to look me in the eye. She was still scared, afraid of whatever I would say next. Like a prisoner waiting for their verdict from a judge, she could barely keep herself together.

I wanted to tell her the complete truth, that I was stupidly in love with her, that I’d been in love with her for years. I wanted to tell her that I married her because my heart wouldn’t stop beating for her. I wanted to tell her that she was my soul mate. But that seemed like too much, too many words to describe what I felt. “I love you too.”

The moment felt right.

Once I read those words from her heart, I became a new man. Somehow, I loved her more. I fell even deeper in love. After all the heartbreak we’d suffered, I finally felt like I was put back together. My scars and bruises were gone, and I somehow felt stronger than I had ever been before. Her love healed me, made me new.

I stood in front of her in our bedroom, the patio doors closed and the candles still flickering in the window. My eyes were locked on to hers as I moved in closer. I pushed my jacket over my shoulders and let it fall to the floor. It was so quiet I could hear it thud against the rug. My hands moved to her coat, and I slowly pushed it off, let it slide down her slender arms until she was in just her black dress. I could see the slight hesitation in her eyes, but I could also see the love I’d never noticed before.

My arms moved around her back, and I gently pulled her closer to me. My bare hands felt her soft skin, the small muscles that surrounded her spine. My fingertips could feel her frantic pulse under her skin. I brought our faces close together and held her like we were dancing. I wanted to kiss her but didn’t want to start something she wasn’t prepared to finish. In any other context, I wouldn’t say a word to ruin this beautiful moment, but I couldn’t be wrong about something like this. “May I make love to you?” All the lust was gone from my body because that was not what I wanted from her. I wanted her soul, her heart, and everything else in between.

She held my gaze without flinching, her hands slowly moving to my chest, where she fidgeted with the top button of my collared shirt. Her eyes slowly moved down to my lips like she wanted to kiss me, like she wanted to feel me as much as I wanted to feel her. A minute passed as we stood together in the darkness, the tension rising between us. Her hand suddenly tightened on my shirt as she tugged me to her.