Breathless

Chapter 17: Luscious Lips - April 1

Now she was convinced that there had been many such occurrences with Owen. As she looked back on their relationship over the past decade, she could see them. He had often canceled plans she'd made with him. Especially if they had involved any of her other friends. Her mother had been unaware that she'd had a falling out with her friends after she'd begun to date Owen, so Mom had invited all of those old friends to her sixteenth birthday party. They had been too polite to refuse her mother.

No one had been able to resist Mom. She had always been such a sweetheart. Ruby could still remember how each of her guests had greeted her mother. Some of them had even chatted with Mom for a little while. But very few of them had spoken to Ruby that day. Mary hadn't said one word to her. She'd simply hidden in a corner for the duration of the party.

"Ruby?" Blaze's voice broke the stillness lingering between them now as her mind revisited a day nearly eleven years ago.

Suddenly, she was startled as his hand cupped her cheek without warning. Those strong yet soft fingers slid along her skin, raising more tingles to fly along her nerve lines. She shivered again. His thumb slid through a wet track on her cheek.

"Why are you crying?" he whispered as he bent close to her.

"Oh," she sniffed.

She hadn't realized she was crying. But Blaze had heard her sob. Now his thumb was tenderly grazing her tear stain. His head bent again, and he began to gently brush his lips across that afflicted cheek. Her eyes fluttered shut as she began to yearn for his comfort. For someone's comfort. For anyone's comfort.

She was all alone. Mom was long gone. Owen had left. Ruby had no one to solace her in the dark. She lay every night in her bed alone.

It wasn't the same bed in which Owen had broken his marriage vows to her. She had made him take that bed with him. She'd spent the money to buy a new one. Money very well spent in her opinion. She needed no more haunting echoes of his infidelity. She already had enough of those.

Still, her new bed was lonely as well. Lying in that empty bed made her heart ache. That forlorn heart was yearning to be loved. Comforted. Embraced.

Suddenly, without thinking, wrapped in the solacing presence of a very sweet man, she turned her face towards Blaze and breathed across his lips. He lost it in that moment. He had dreamed of kissing Ruby for over eleven years now.

So he softly closed the distance between them until he'd found her lips with his own. Her stomach flipped upside down, spilling a vat of warmth against her innermost parts. The colors of his kiss were bleeding into her. Delving deeply under her skin. Beneath her lips to race along the lines of her soul.

She was so drawn to him that she leaned into his kiss. His fingers left her face to wrap around her as his other hand slid around her back too, drawing her near to him. His lips pressed gently against her own. Though he desired more. So much more. With his precious Ruby. The girl he'd loved for over a decade.

But he would tread carefully. Slowly. He hadn't meant to kiss her this soon. Even as he exulted in the glory of their first kiss, his heart was beating out a crazy tattoo because he couldn't believe his boldness. He was now afraid that he would scare her away with his forwardness. But he couldn't draw back from those luscious lips. They were tempting him to lose himself in them. So for a few beautiful moments, he did.

His soft lips were playing gently along the bow of hers. Blaze was tenderly kissing her! She had never been kissed like this. Not in all her days. She had never felt what she was feeling now. Her eyes had fluttered shut at the touch of his mouth against her own. Closing out the last little bit of light that had been illuminating them both.