EXCEPTional

Ch. 33 (Chance)

*Chance*

I knew I had been longing to taste her and feel her, to learn what it was like to hold the absolute ordinary and the complete uncommon in my hands. My body had been telling me this for days, probably years if I had been listening better. What I didn't know was how much Bridget had been longing for this, too.

Light shivers rippled through her, and it was obvious she wasn't aware they had captured her body. I felt them on my hands, on the small of her back, even in the strands of her hair. I could feel her slipping, but it was towards me as opposed to away. She melted at my touch, breathing secrets into my mouth so deep she probably didn't even know she had them. Her heartbeat was everywhere: in my hands, moving through my veins and feeding my own heart. It was even in her teeth, in her tongue. It was pounding, bringing my heart and my body to a throb.

I tried to compare her—this—to someone else. What was kissing Adriana like? I knew I had kissed her. But I couldn't make the comparison. All I knew was Bridget's lips were wet and soft and tasted like memories.

In high school, I had kissed her, this same person now in my arms who was falling apart and coming together with every heavy exhale and inhale. I remembered her lips against mine. They were tight and unwilling. My kisses were left unwanted on that pale pink mouth. But now as I kissed her, her lips were open and willing. She had changed.

I knew she was tasting me, savoring me. I felt it in her body language, in her skin and bones, in her breath. I wondered briefly what I tasted like to her, because to me, she tasted like winter air and lemonade and cherry chapstick.

As her hands gripped my shirt, I felt my restraint slip from me. This urge wasn't foreign—I had felt it with Adriana, and the women before her. The thing that held me back was the line between sex and making love. But with Bridget, that line was blurring. I couldn't tell yet if what would conspire between us would be sex or making love. Somehow, I had known with the others. Even with the woman I breathed, "I love you" to, I knew—it would just be sex. That deeper connection hadn't been there. I couldn't find it.

With Bridget, I couldn't find anything. I was in utter darkness, stumbling about blindly for anything: my restraint, my thoughts, my feelings. It was just her melting into me, and I could feel that beginning to unravel me.

My hands tensed, tempted to move to the hem of her shirt. I wanted to feel the skin beneath her clothes. Did it feel like frosting, like her kiss did?

I struggled to find a light switch in the darkness. Something was starting to click on in my brain, a realization that stalled me: Bridget wouldn't stop me. I could remove everything on her, strip her down to nothing, and she would let me. I winced internally. Was it true that Bridget would give herself so easily to someone?

As we kissed, I also realized that she would, if that someone was me. She had already given into me. The moment I took her in my arms, she was mine.

My hand untangled from her hair, trailing down the slope of her neck, over her shoulder, and along her arm, feeling the goose bumps beneath my fingertips. My other hand lifted her shirt slightly, and my finger brushed against her skin. I felt her shiver in my arms.

I couldn't. I couldn't take her, not like this. God knew I wanted to—dear God I wanted to—but I couldn't. Knowing she was mine should have given me the green light, but instead a red flag was lifted. I needed her to know that I was fully and completely hers, before we did anything more. I had to belong to her alone.

Yet, something inside me couldn't quite accept that; I wasn't sure if I belonged to her, wholly and truly. I had the intrinsic knowledge that she had been designed perfectly for me. That she fit effortlessly in my life, in my arms. But could I love her the way she deserved?