Fireflies

49

"You really want me to stay?" she asked him as if she had just not heard his plea.

"Yes, I do."

Claire sighed and then she clasped her hands together.

"Does it not matter that I—"

He shushed her. "I only believe that what matters is the choice we take. And this time, we will choose to look beyond the chains that are holding us back."

"Mark, I do not understand. You seemed so distant when you woke up and—"

"—And it matters more to me that I hear your voice and I see you."

He cupped her face again and realized how familiar it had been.

His palms were on the warmth of her cheeks, her body leaning in closely without even her noticing, and her tinged skin of red emboldened every second that passed.

"You do not understand how strange it is that my heart aches seeing you."

She peered over him, returning the softness of his gaze and enclosing the proximity between them as if they were energies meant to magnet close to each other.

"I do not wish to give you the hurt, the ache," she whispered in nervous breaths as he caressed her face. "I do not wish to erase the light in your eyes."

He chuckled lightly and then he realized how close he had been to her. Mark leaned all of his weight to an angle that narrowed the gap between their faces.

To top it off, he was holding her face with such ease as if his touch belonged to her.

He belonged to her.

"I do not wish to recall the unknown if a smile from you will make me realize what I had been missing out on," he murmured without drifting away.

If she could dare to manage the heat between the distance of their bodies, then he could do the same.

Mark closed his eyes and urged himself closer and closer. He heard her tensed breaths but he could have been doing the same.

Even if they had only met again and reconciled with voids of how they were intertwined by fate, he just felt like the right moment had come.

Her lips had been so entrancing. They were plump and pink, even more astoundingly protruded after her little tears.

For a moment right there, Mark swore that his mind had not thought of anything else but to kiss her.

To kiss her would have been both maddening and enticing.

To kiss him would have pushed all her dark thoughts away.

To kiss her would snare all his demons at bay.

But he stopped himself.

And she did too.

"I can't," he mumbled in haste and then he quickly regretted it because he saw the hurt in her eyes.

"Please do not misunderstand, I am only giving you the thing you deserve."

Claire's lashes curled up and down as she blinked at him. "And what do I deserve?"