Winter Hearts

Have Me. Be Had.

Siana's heart leapt. She wanted to squeal and dance. She wanted to vomit.

She stared at Taekwoon, feeling at first irritated that he had interrupted their kiss yet again - and giddy that he had done it to say THAT.

I love you.

The urgency with which he said it, the intensity in his voice. It was a declaration and a plea.

Please have me. Please give yourself to me.

He looked so earnest. He was still, tense. His eyes were searching, concerned. He was awaiting her response with trepidation.

In a split second she recognised the kind of breathless anticipation he felt - she had felt it too when she had danced for him that night at the hotel. Then, she had said what he was saying, but  wordlessly.

Have me. Have my heart.

But she had been so frightened by the intensity of what she had put out there, so frightened by what he might think, that she had turned away and hidden in the crowd.

And now, she knew that although he wasn't hiding, he was feeling that same fear.

The fear that she might say no.

I love you meant I want to be with you. I want to live with you. I want to make your life mine and my life yours. I want us.

She thought of what that really meant - that Taekwoon would no longer be the same, and that she would no longer just be Siana. She would be his, and he would be hers.

It was something she had thought about so fancifully for so long, that having it be on the brink of coming true seemed like a fiction.

She had also spent the last two weeks trying to keep her heart firmly in its place, knowing that no matter how wonderful his demands and his promises were that they should commit to each other, the probability of them not making it past the end of their time together was the reality that she felt would ultimately manifest.

She felt a deep need to assuage him of that fear, to accept his plea, to give him what she had asked of him that night, too.

She felt her eyes welling a little with the intensity of her emotions. Her throat felt constricted as she tried to swallow away the tears that threatened to fall. She didn't think she could speak.

So she answered him the way she had asked that questions herself that night at the hotel, on the dance floor.

With her eyes, and with her body.

She brought her hands round to his front, sliding them up to gently cup his face, her fingers playing at his ears and hair, and gently, tenderly pressed her lips to his.

She felt her lips tremble, and heard his breathing becoming erratic as he swayed towards her and opened his mouth to kiss her back softly. Despite how gentle and soft the kiss was, she found it electrifying. She came up for air gasping, her emotions at the surface. She felt as if she were about to start crying, and her breaths were irregular. There was a catch in her throat that she was trying to release by breathing sharply.

She looked to find him looking at her as if she were a rain of succour after a long drought. He cupped her cheek, tilting her chin up. She turned her face into it, and felt the tears begin to stream down her cheeks. She leaned back against the bench and let him gently caress her cheek as she blinked away the tears.

"Shh... what is it?" his voice was soft, kind.

"What do we do now?" she felt that she sounded like a little girl, needing him to lead the way.