You, You, You

LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS

Eddie’s P.O.V.

I awoke gradually from a deep sleep just as the very first rays of pink morning sunlight began warming the windowpanes of Isabelle’s loft bedroom.  I loosened my arms from around her waist and stomach and hoisted myself up on one elbow to get a good look at her face while she slept.  

Here, now, with the rosy daybreak reflecting off of her skin, she was so beautiful she looked like she was made of honey and rose petals.  Her face was peaceful and her eyelids still under the heavy tranquility I knew we both felt as we fell asleep in each other’s arms last night.

Last night…

I almost offered Izzy the ring last night.  After we made love for the third time and she lay panting against me, her glorious, unruly post-sex hair covering most of my chest and stomach, I excused myself to the bathroom.  As soon as I shut the door behind myself I sank down to the floor and removed the ring from my pants pocket, staring at it intently.  I was almost breathing as hard as I was a minute ago in Izzy’s arms.  

I battled with myself.  My head against my heart.  I knew that it was probably still too soon, and that I should give our relationship time to normalize—everything was so ultra-charged at this point.  My head was showing tremendous restraint, but then again, my head had never been my problem.  My heart was another story and always had been.

Every massive feeling locked away in my chest screamed out for Isabelle.  I felt I loved her then more than I ever thought possible before, and I wanted her to be my wife… to ask her to spend her life with me as an equal… to finally make things the way they were always supposed to be.

My impatient heart would be the death of me.

Luckily, I gathered enough sheer willpower to force the ring back into my pocket and pace the bathroom floor a couple of times until the urge to be impulsive subsided—then I came back to Izzy’s side and kissed her in the moonlight until I forgot why I had gotten up from the bed in the first place.  

I was glad I held back and could enjoy the peaceful morning now—waking up to Izzy this way and watching her as she slept with a little smile across her lips.  Who knew what might have happened if I had asked her to marry me last night.  I could have spoiled everything and missed out on seeing the love of my life dressed by the dawn, glowing like an angel.  I leaned my head down and lightly kissed behind her ear, breathing in the scent of her hair and sliding one of my hands up to caress her chest that peeked out from the bedsheets.  That was enough to wake her.

“Mmm,” she sighed, slowly emerging from her dreamy slumber.  “Eddie?”

“It’s me, darlin’.  I’m right here,” I murmured next to her ear, squeezing my arms gently but firmly around her.  

“You’re here…” she breathed out, still not opening her eyes but instead releasing the tension in her spine and curling her back into my chest.  She pressed against me so perfectly from head to toe, it was like we were made to fit together.  

“You look beautiful right now, Iz.  You look like an angel without wings,” I softly spoke into her neck, dropping my voice down as deeply as I could.  I ran my fingers lightly over her breast and kissed her shoulder.  If Isabelle were a cat, she would have been purring.  She placed her hand over mine, holding my palm to her chest, and rolled over so that she was on her back.  She slowly opened her eyes and looked my face up and down, collecting her drowsy thoughts and taking her time.

“I see what you mean,” she whispered, smiling.  

“What’s that?”

“You’re glowing too, as a matter of fact,” she told me, biting on her bottom lip.  I grinned shyly down at the sheets then back to her, and she brought her hand up to touch my cheek.  “This is it, Eddie.  Being here with you like this.  This is what I needed…”  She drifted off and seemed to process something in her mind before she spoke again.  “This is what I always needed.”