You, You, You

COME BACK WITH ME?

Izzy’s P.O.V.

The sound of Eddie’s heavy breathing scratched at my eardrums like the white noise of ocean waves crashing up against a sandy shore.  He filled my senses so completely, and memories of all the familiar tastes and smells and noises of our bodies joined together came rushing back at a hundred miles per hour.  

I could feel warmth trickling across my lips, Eddie’s tears slipping between our mouths, salty and slick.  I couldn’t keep my tears at bay either as we kissed and kissed and cried together.  I didn’t remember ever feeling a more sweet or sorrowful combination of emotions in my whole life up to that point– not even when I left Eddie the day I came back from tour, knowing how badly I still wanted him, how much I still loved him, and how he never trusted me enough to make our love a lasting one.

Eddie’s strong hands glided down the front of my body, from my jaw to my shoulders, sliding over my chest and down my stomach, reaching the edge of my hoodie and slipping beneath the fabric. I made no move to stop him.  He ran his warm palms firmly and slowly up the skin of my back, and the sensation caused me to moan softly and grasp at his shirt in desperate handfuls.  The intensity of the moment wouldn’t allow me to open my eyes, and I was so disoriented that I would have fallen right down on the floor if not for Eddie supporting me from behind.

“Isabelle, I… Jesus… I don’t…”  Eddie stammered out these words against the flow of his labored breathing, his elevated tone of voice revealing both deep emotion and a bit of hesitation.  The impassioned movement of his hands and mouth against me communicated anything but hesitation, though.  I sensed the conflict between how Eddie reacted to me physically and how he seemed to be feeling, and I drew back from him slightly.  Our kiss now broken, Eddie’s hands forced down a little to my sides, I opened my eyes at last and took in his expression.  He spoke almost immediately.

“Isabelle, I don’t know if I can… I want to, but…“ He stopped short, the mental struggle to find the right words etched all over his face, lines of frustration forming on his forehead and brow.  He gripped my sides beneath my sweatshirt so tightly that any harder would have hurt.  

“I don’t know.  I’m not sure this is right.  I’m not sure this is how it’s supposed to happen.  God, I want you so bad, Izzy,” he whispered.  

“I know, Eddie… I want you too,” I whispered back.  One more tear that Eddie had been fighting to keep in rolled slowly down his face, and it was agony for me to watch it.  I untangled a hand from his hair and wiped it away, and before I could withdraw it from his face, his lips were pressed against my palm.  He kissed my hand several times and nuzzled his burning cheek into its curve, taking comfort there.

“I feel like there’s so much more to sort through—this information you’ve given me, you’re trying to get your divorce pushed through… I’d hate myself even more than I already do if I fucked this up.  I don’t want to jump the gun.  We don’t even know what this is,” Eddie explained.  As much as I ached to feel his mouth against mine again once more, I knew he was right.  I had just given Eddie the truth about Portland, and neither of us had had adequate time to sift through it all.  If we rushed it, we would just be setting ourselves up for another potential failure. Neither of us could handle that again.

“You’re absolutely and completely right,” I said reluctantly to him, forcing a weak smile and dropping my eyes down to the floor for a moment.  “You should… uh, you should probably get out from under my shirt now, though, if you want this plan to work?”  I looked back up at Eddie and he was beaming with relief at my reaction.  He slid his hands from my waist and faintly laughed as he gathered me in his arms and drew me to him in a hug, his chin resting on the top of my head.