Lost In Love | ✔️

25

~Clementine's POV~

The next day, I exited the bathroom after I had taken a shower that morning and was surprised to find Ryder was back in our bed, which had been empty when I left it. I blinked in surprise and cocked my head to the side as I looked at him, adjusting the multicolored dress I wore so my breasts weren't oddly positioned or falling out of the tear-drop shaped cutout down from between my breasts to above my belly button.

"Ry?" I said his name, glancing down at the two plates full of food that were sat on top of the blankets beside him. "What is all this?" I asked, walking over to the side of the bed. He just smiled and gestured for me to get in the bed with him, patting the blankets. "It's breakfast, duh." He told me, a playful sass to his voice. A tiny smile formed on my lips as I crawled into bed with him, my stomach rumbling at the sight and smell of food. He had made us omelettes, but I wasn't sure where he had gotten them. As far as I knew, we didn't have any eggs here. "Where did you get the eggs from? I don't remember seeing any in the fridge." I asked him, a little confused. With a smile on his lips he leaned into the pillows that he had propped up a little, looking as handsome as always. "There's hens and roosters on this island. I've been keeping the eggs in the drawer of the fridge for about a week. You must not be very observant." He told me, a teasing look on his face.

I huffed and pulled the blankets over myself, crossing my legs as I glanced down at the food. "Well, you always cook, so I don't usually have much of a reason to go in the fridge anyways." I said defensively, pouting a bit.

True to his fashion, Ryder just chuckled softly, an affectionate look in his dark brown eyes. The more I saw that, it seemed the harder it was for me to stop myself from falling for him, which was already hard enough as it was. I was powerless against a man such as him. He made me weak in every sense that there was, and I wouldn't be surprised if he knew that.

"Go on." He said, waving his hand at me as he scooted over to me until his thigh pressed against mine. "Eat, before it gets cold, Clementine."

For a second I just watched him as he began to eat, taking in his side profile that somehow made him look just as attractive as he did from any other angle. His lips were full and tempting even from the side, the length of his long lashes something that I found envious. They might've been on equal par with my own, in fact, and I had always had very long lashes. It was the main reason why I had never bothered with wearing fake eyelashes, actually.

Not wanting my food to get cold, I focused my attention back on the plate of food before me and began to eat, humming in delight at the taste of it. "I love it when you cook." I said softly, glancing over at him as I licked the taste of the omelette from my lips. He looked over at me and a smile formed on his face as he looked at me, a look in his eye that never failed to make my heart pound.

I was no idiot. After all the time that we had spent together in the almost two months that we'd been stuck on this island, I recognized that look, and I knew what it meant. In a way, it almost made me a little bit sad because, when I really thought back, nobody else had looked at me like he did. None of the men who claimed they wanted me, not even men that I had been in relationships with, had ever looked at me like that. It was a very strange thing to realize, to know that the man before me was perhaps the only man that ever had felt so strongly for me. It was even stranger when I contemplated how deeply I had always wanted for someone to look at me the way that he was now, and yet I still didn't know what to do within that. He was looking at me the way I had always wanted to be seen, and no words could be formed still. They were all stuck within my throat, within my head.

"What's that look on your face for, Tiny?" Ryder asked, cocking his head to the side curiously. A blush crept up my neck and into my cheeks, likely coloring it a deep shade of pink. "Y-You keep looking at me like that." I stammered, unsure what to say or how to explain it. "It's overwhelming." I said softly, looking down at the blankets bashfully. I couldn't seem to help when I grew shy around him, for some reason.

A brief silence settled between the two of us before I felt him gently tilt my head up to look at him, his lips in a little smile. He was looking at me like that again, as if I was actually something special to him, and it just had my face turning an even brighter shade of pink that probably bordered on red. "Ah, I see." He whispered, the edges of his lips pulling up into a small smile. "You're not used to this sort of thing, are you, Clementine?" He asked, his voice coming out so gentle and caring that tears threatened to prick my eyes. "P-Please, Ry." I practically croaked, blinking rapidly.

Ryder just smiled and leaned over, placing a gentle kiss on my lips before he leaned his forehead against mine, as if trying to calm me. "You don't need worry, or be scared." He assured me. The way he spoke was so soft yet so certain that I couldn't stop myself from actually believing him when he said it.

We stayed like for a while, our foreheads gently pressed together as he whispered words of comfort and re-assurance to me. I could feel the tension hanging in the air around us, as if even the universe was waiting for more to be said, those three little words just hanging in the balance. It was tangible between us, the care and affection. The love.

Some part of me knew he could feel it too, but neither of us found the courage to say it right then. Instead, we just went back eating breakfast, which had grown cold by now.