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He still hasn't responded.It's the thought that repeats in my mind over and over as I drive to The Lincoln. It troubled me as I slipped into my black floor length dress and black heels. It plagued me as I did my hair and got my purse, phone, and keys to go. And now, they even follow me on the road to the hotel, making me fear that Law isn't going to show up at all.
When I pull up to the hotel, the place where it all began, memories assault me; his face when he first opened the door, his first words to me once I'd entered the room, his first touch. Everything. And here we are again, or... maybe here I am again. Alone.
It's funny that the same nerves I felt the first time I walked across this parking lot rush through me now, but for very different reason. Before I was worried about what he would do when I got in the room. Now, I'm worried about if he's coming to the room at all. I get into the hotel and check in, handing them everything they need, and receiving a key card.
I get into the elevator and check my phone one more time. It's eight thirty. Still no text or call from Law. I beat a nervous rhythm against my thigh with the keycard as I rise. Then the doors are opening and I'm walking down a hall I remember all too well. I slide the card into the slot, open the door, and take a deep breath as I look at a room I've been in before. Then... I wait.
I sit on the end of the bed. But my legs bounce too much, so I walk around the room. My walking quickly becomes pacing. But it's all I can do to not to check my phone again.
There's a knock. A single knock, and it stops me in my tracks. I stare at the door, wondering if I imagined it. My mind supplying the sound because the alternative is just too cruel. Then there'sanother knock, harder, louder. I squeeze my eyes shut, giving myself a moment before I open them and walk to the door.
I open the door and there he is. Lawson Kane. In a three-piece all-black suit, looking like sin and sex himself. Hair brushed back, beard trimmed perfectly. He doesn't smile, doesn't even let his eyes roam over me the way he would any other time.
"May I come in?" he asks.
I swallow and step aside. He enters and walks to the other side of the room. My brows furrow at him keeping a distance between us. Maybe he's just here to tell me we really are over. My heart clenches in my chest. It only gets worse when he puts his hands in his pockets. What is going on?
He takes a deep breath before speaking. "All I want right now is to grab you, hold you to me, and never let go. But I can't because I have things to say. Things that need to be said."
He looks down, and I try to prepare myself for whatever he's about to say. But I really can't. Not when I don't know if he's about to repair my heart or finish demolishing it.
His head rises again, the lick of his lips betraying his nerves. "I need to apologize. For lying, for deceiving, for manipulating. For making you think you were nothing but a woman I wanted to meet every Saturday instead of telling you that you were a woman I was unable to get off of my mind for weeks before I ever spoke a single word to you. I apologize for every tear you cried. For every single ounce of pain I've caused you. I apologize for making you doubt me, for making you doubt us. Because, Sophie, there is an us."
He takes a step toward me now. It's unsure. Such a sharp contrast to the confidence usually surrounding everything he does. It softens me a little more.
"You and me are not done. We can't be because I don't know how I'd go on if we were. Because while I apologize for all the wrongs I did to you, I do not apologize for the Saturdays we spent together. I'm not sorry for every moment that came from what I did wrong, that it got us to what was so right. Like holding you, kissing you, making you smile, making you laugh, even that look you give when you arch your brow at me. I'm not sorry for giving you my heart. I'm only sorry for the way I ended up hurting yours."
Another step.
"But if you give it to me again, if you trust me with your heart one more time, I promise I will never let it fall again. I promise I will do whatever I have to do to fix all the bruises I put on it, all the scars I inflicted. I will treat it the way I always should have. And I know..." His eyes close for a second, an agonizing second, before opening again. "I know I have no right to ask you to trust me again, but I'm asking anyway. I'm hoping everything we shared is enough of a reason to take pity on me."
Another step and he's reached me. But his sad, pleading grey eyes are only meeting mine for a second before he's lowering. To his knees before me. His head bowed, arms hanging at his sides, hands balled into fists, and his heart on the line.
"I have never begged for anything. Never been on my knees for anyone or anything. But for you, I would do this and so much more. All for one more chance. All for you to give me your heart one more time. Please, Sophie. I love you. I have loved you longer than my pride would let me realize. I will love you far beyond this day, whether you come back to me or not. But I'm pleading with you not to let that love be one-sided, to let me fix what I fucked up. To let me erase all that I did and said."
Then he's silent, but his words resound in my mind, tugging on my heart to forgive him. My mind repels the very thought, asking me if I want to let him in only to be hurt again. I must silence one to embrace the other, to make a decision I know now I'd made long before I arrived in this room.
"I can't give you my heart again," I say.
His shoulders slump, and when I put my hand under his chin and lift his head, his eyes are full of regret and anguish. Turmoil and heartbreak. Until they widen when I too drop to my knees.
"I can't give it to you again because I never truly took it back from you. You've been walking around with my heart in your hand, even when I hated that you had it."
"Are you saying..."
"I'm saying I love you, have loved you, will always love you. I'm saying if you ever-"
His fingers come up to cover my mouth as he says, "Never. Never." More adamantly. "God, I love you."
He grabs me to him, finally, for a kiss. A kiss where our tongues immediately seek out each other's. Where my moan and his groan sound at the same time. Where our hands begin tugging at the other's clothes as soon as our lips break apart.
My fingers make quick work of his jacket, pushing it off of his shoulders. He unzips my dress before he removes his hands from my back so I can finish taking his jacket off. Then I'm unbuttoning his shirt as that scratch of his beard that I missed so badly comes when he kisses along my jaw.
"Stand up," he tells me once I've gotten his shirt off.
I do and he pulls my dress down, past my hips, down my thighs, to my feet. Putting my hand to the wall, I step out of it. And then he's smirking up at me. Lord, how I missed that smirk.
"Did you wear this long a dress to stop yourself from fucking me the moment I entered this room?"
