Fallen for you

Chapter 22

If there had ever come a time in my life where I had gone speechless and been close to passing out, this was it.

I'd sat there on his lap for a good two minutes without saying anything before I realized I was staring off into space with my jaw hanging open and all the while my mind was as empty as my mom's wallet on Black Friday. 

Somewhere far off I heard Hunter say my name, but I wasn't quite there. I was locked in my mind trying to absorb what he had just said, and to my surprise I wasn't nearly as scared as I thought I'd be. I wasn't scared at all, if anything it wasn't really registering to me that this man, this beautiful man could possibly be falling in love with someone like me.

"Paige? Did you hear what I said?" He asked and I was brought back to the reality of this sweet angelic face, who'd been there for me in the past few months more than any person I had ever met within the past eighteen years of my life. I stared into those grey orbs of his, and as cliche as it may sound, I saw every moment we'd shared. 

I saw every look he'd ever given me: soft, hard, dark, amused, honest, emotional; and it had taken me almost three and a half months to realize that with all of those looks, there were the same raw emotions that I until that very moment in time, was too naive to acknowledge.

Love and Passion.

I stared at his lips and it was as if I could feel every brush of them, every kiss he'd ever given me across my skin like a spreading wildfire. In my mind I played back everything we had ever said to each other, and I found butterflies breaking free from their cacoons in my stomach. My hands were in his and I found myself recalling everytime he'd ever touched me and realized how gently he'd handled me.

I found that I was falling in love with him, and I had just been too cautious to admit the fact. I wasn't falling in love with the beautiful face, or the ways that he'd treated me, I was falling for the way he loved his family and the way that he loved others, how kind he was between that sly smirk of his and the way his laugh was contagious, how his voice could send the most delightful shivers up my spine, and the way that a single look or touch now had the power to make me weak at the knees.

Here he was, sitting infront of me patiently waiting for my answer, as he had just poured his heart out to me. My hands rested in his and he looked at me as if I were the one in control of him, and not the other way around. 

"Paige?" he whispered, and I could see the anxious feeling in his eyes and that alone snapped me out of my fog. It came out like a whisper, kind of like a sigh and I didn't truly realize how much until I said it aloud, frankly because I'd never realized that love has no true amount of time. You could be with someone for two years and feel nothing, and you could be with someone for two weeks and feel everything.

And so when it came out, it came out as a whisper; as if I were admitting it to both him, ourselves and the world.

"I love you," I said, and it came out shaky as if the words themselves were eager to jump off my tongue.

"You what?" he asked, as if he couldn't believe that I said it more than I could believe I didn't realize it earlier.

"I love you, Hunter." I said, and this time my voice didn't shake it stood firm and rang true.

He held my face in his hands and his bottom lip shook as he spoke again, this time his voice broke.

"You love me," he said as if him saying it could make it any more real, as if he had to clarify.

"I love you, I love you." I said, and this time I smiled as I said it because I knew, I really truly knew.

He kissed me in a way that somehow stole the breath from my lungs in that one moment that our lips touched.

He looked down for a moment and furrowed his brow before looking back at me and this time his eyes were clearer, as if he too had realized what he'd known all along.

"I love you, too." he said, and I could literally feel my heart begin to race.

We sat there, for how long I have no idea and repeated those three words, and I never felt so close to him and I'd never felt so true to myself.

He cupped my face and kissed me again, it was sweet, soft and gentle like him and I decided that I never wanted to be anywhere else. I didn't want to go anywhere that he wasn't, I wanted to make him happy because that in itself would make me happy. I smiled against his lips as I played with his hair, this was now a familiar thing to me.

In that moment I knew, that no matter how long he and I would be together I would never get enough of him. I inhaled his sent and pulled away from him only to caress his face and stare down at him as if I had never had the chance to look at him before.

"I just want you to know that meeting you, was truly the best thing to ever happen to me, Paige. You are the best thing to ever happen to me," he said, and I knew that he meant it.