My eyes go wide as I shake J. Elliot’s hand. “I can’t believe you just said that,” I say to Ian, even though I’m looking at Mr. Elliot. Focus, Fisher.
They both laugh and Elliot says, “Miss Fisher, I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time. I needed to see the girl who turned Ian Sterling around.” I study Mr. Elliot then and try to read how much he knows.
“Hello, Mr. Elliot,” I reply.
“No ‘Mister’, please. Call me J … or Elliot. You know what? I’ll answer to anything you say,” he says smoothly.
Ian introduces Tessa, and she quickly takes the pressure off of me.
“We’re going dancing!” she says with excitement.
“Is that right? Well, let us take you—no need to get a cab, right, Ian? We were about to head out on the town ourselves.”
I wonder what mischief they were about to get up to … on second thought, no, I don’t want to know.
Jared walks in just then, saving us once again.
With the three of them chatting around us, Ian touches my elbow. “Sparrow? I’d love to be wherever you are, but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Will I? Can we be together tonight?” Ian asks it innocently enough, but my mind goes to all the nights we’ve had and it’s far from innocent.
When I go purple, Ian smiles a wicked grin and leans down by my ear, his breath tickling my neck and sending chill bumps all over my skin. “I’ll behave,” he whispers.
“You don’t know the meaning of being ‘have’,” I whisper back. It’s amazing how easily we fall back into our lusty banter.
The Maison 508 is going strong when we get there. Tessa and Jared start dancing immediately. J sees a musician he knows and gets engrossed in a conversation.
Ian stays by my side, not touching me, but no more than an inch away at all times.
“Dance?” he asks.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Okay.” He nods, as if I’ve said something very intelligent.
“You know what? I do want to. It’s been a long time since I’ve danced.”
He lights up and holds his hand out for me to take.
It’s a strange feeling after you’ve known someone so intimately, to maintain any sort of distance or to pretend that you don’t know their body better than you know your own. When Ian pulls me in and his body makes contact with mine, the currents pulse through us both. I know what he feels without looking at him. I know if I touch the small of his back like this or slightly rub my chest against his just so, it will drive him wild. He knows that my neck is sensitive and that I love it when he pulls my back against him. We try for about ten minutes to avoid these triggers, but the rhythm picks up in the room and the impulse is too strong. He swipes my hair off my neck first to say something in my ear, I rub my chest against his, lightly touch his back, he whips me around and presses me against the front of him.
Like dominoes falling one by one, our pretenses fall away and we dance.
My hands say what my mouth cannot. I look in his eyes and see the love I feel gazing back at me.
He touches my face, my hair, my shoulders, my heart, my back, my thighs. I get lost in it. I move into him, matching him touch for touch. It’s intoxicating. His hands on me feel like finding water after years in the desert. It fills me up, as only he can do.
- 31 -
Jared and Tessa are long gone. Elliot left before them. Ian promised to take me to the hotel as soon as I said the word, but his look also pleaded with me to not stop this—whatever this is that’s happening.
We close down the club and get a cab to the hotel. Ian is awkward with his hands now that we’re not dancing. He keeps touching me somehow, but stopping when he realizes what he’s doing. He is full of nervous energy. In the elevator, he studies me.
“Talk to me?” He reaches out and grasps my hand in both of his and holds it up to his chest as he waits for my answer.
I nod.
Air whooshes out of his lips when I agree.
It’s silent as we climb up, up, up. When we get off the elevator and wind around the floor, the only sound is our feet padding on the carpet. It’s when he shuts the door behind us—I lean my back against the door and he stretches both arms on either side of me—that I realize I won’t be able to talk at all. I look at him and all I see are his lips, so close that if I move even slightly, I will bump into them. I rest my head against the door to get some space, but then I can see the desire in his eyes.
“Tell me you don’t still love me, Sparrow, and I won’t touch you. Tell me you don’t still need me, that your body doesn’t still ache for mine. Tell me,” he whispers urgently.
I close my eyes and turn my head away. He draws me back by taking my chin and straightening it again. “Look at me, Sparrow, please.”
I open my eyes and a tear rolls down my face. I’m weary of fighting it.
He kisses each tear that falls.
“Aren’t you worn out from running?” His lips follow a tear down my neck, and then he brushes my face with his hand. “I don’t want to live without you another day. I’m begging you for another chance. Please.”
He’s holding his hands on my cheeks now, his eyes searching. He waits for me to say something, but for now, I’m unable to speak. I don’t want to talk. I just want to be with him—without having it all figured out or knowing the future—I need to be with him one more time.
He sees the shift in my eyes. That’s how well he knows me.
“Are you sure?” he asks.
I give a faint nod.
“Little Bird,” he says softly as he comes in for a kiss. It begins as gentle as a sunrise, but quickly gains ground as the urgency of all the feelings and heartache and pain and years of anguish collide. I open my mouth to him and he groans as his tongue meets mine. I clutch his hair, pulling his head harder into me. There is not a breath of space between us, and still, I cannot get close enough. Ian feels the same because as he’s kissing me, he’s also picking me up and carrying me to the bed.
He lays me back carefully and touches my face softly before crushing my mouth again. I want to feel skin. He’s being so cautious with me. I unbutton a few buttons of his shirt and then pull it over his head, taking the opportunity to look at him. His chest looks even more defined than it did before. Maybe he’s upped his weights routine. I approve.
He grins. I sit up and trace my tongue along his skin, his neck, his pecs, his tiny nipples that are puckered from my touch. He moans and unzips my dress and pulls it over my head.
He reaches out and cups my breasts with reverence and then with a slow and deliberate touch, he rubs my nipples through my blue lacy bra before reaching around to undo it altogether. When it drops, his pupils dilate with lust and he pushes me back and follows with his head. His tongue flicks around and around my nipple, and then he grabs it in his mouth and sucks until I can’t think straight. Now that my bra is off, his hands are everywhere. His fingers push aside my panties and he strokes me there, teasing: in an out, in and out, until I’m gasping.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispers.
And then he’s ripping my panties off, and I’m un-doing his pants and pulling them off as fast as my hands will let me. His briefs and pants come down at the same time and he leans over me, holding himself up with his arms, staring at me.
“I love you, Sparrow Kate,” he says. I pull his mouth down to mine, and show him how much I love him. He kisses me back hard and then leans back. “I haven’t done this—with anyone—since you,” he says and then he slowly eases inside of me. I’m so ready for him. I’m processing what he just said, but I can’t focus on that right now. I’m so ready that I don’t wait for him, I wrap my feet around and push him the rest of the way in, until he’s in so deep, my eyes blur and roll back in my head.
We begin to move, unable to go slow or take our time or wait one second longer.
I start to moan first and then, when I can’t take it any more, “IAN!” rushes out of my throat i
n a ravaged wail.
The tears pour out of me while my body shudders. Ian slows, but as my body comes down from the high, our pace picks up again. He drives in me deep, all the way out, in deep, slowly out, deep, DRAGGING out, IN, out. And just when I can’t take anymore, he drives in again. Hard. It sends me over the edge. Ian lets out a hoarse groan and the pulses overtake us both. And then he’s kissing my face. He searches my eyes when he realizes my face is wet. He slowly pulls out of me and holds me tight, wrapping his arms around me and bringing the blanket up to my face.
“Baby?” His hands wipe the tears and they just keep coming. “Are you okay?”
I’m not.
I feel as if my whole chest has been cut open and laid bare. My body feels content and sated, but my mind has just woken up after a long sleep. I start shaking uncontrollably.
Ian lets out a choked cry. “Sparrow, baby...” He kisses my hair and pulls my face back to look at me. His eyes are terrified, and I wish I could stop, but the flood-gates have opened and there’s no stopping it now. His tears drip onto my face and he tries to wipe them off. He leans his forehead to mine. “Talk to me, please, Sparrow. Anything, please say something.”
“Why?” It gushes out, sounding foreign through all the tears. “Why, Ian? What did she have that I didn’t? Why wasn’t I enough? How could you take my feelings and just toss them aside like trash? I lived for you.” I’m choking now and making horrific, gasping sounds, but I can’t stop. “I believed you loved me. I trusted you. I thought what we had was beyond any love I’d ever seen. Why did you throw it away? Again and again?” I sit up and the blanket falls around my waist, I yank it up quickly, uncomfortable now with my nakedness. I rock back and forth and try to shake off the tremors.
The moon streaks lines of light through the room, casting strange shadows. Ian and I are in the middle of one, our skin highlighted by the moon. Ian sits up beside me and crushes me to his chest.
“I’m so sorry, Sparrow. I know it will never be enough, but I am. You were more than enough for me. I didn’t think I could ever deserve you. With every ounce of breath in me, I wish I could go back and make it right. I would run from Laila. I would tell you every single self-doubt and insecurity and fear. I would break all my bad habits and never be far from you again. When we were together, I could almost dare to hope that I could have you, but when we were apart, I was tormented, knowing I would never be good enough. For a long time, I tried to prove that theory right. But I did stop. You know when it was? Not long before that week I came to you—you were so worried about me that week, saying I wasn’t myself. But we were engaged and it had hit me that I might really be able to be happy. I never believed that before. I thought I was stuck…” He leans back and looks at me, pushing back the hair that’s sticking to my face.
“Tell me again, how did it all … start?” I ask. “I know we’ve hashed and rehashed, but I just need to hear one more time.”
“Not long after our day in San Francisco, I flew to L.A. and stayed in their house. I was sleeping one night and Laila came in. I thought I was dreaming about you, to be honest. I was still high on our date, but she’d told me how young you were. She knew I didn’t think I had a real, lasting chance with you and played on that, and on all my craziness. I woke up and she had me in her mo—” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear this again.”
“I do need to hear. I know you’ve tried to tell me many times, and I haven’t been able to fully hear it all.”
“I could have stopped it. I can’t blame her for all of it. I can’t. I should have cut off all ties with her…”
We talk until the sun comes up, and our stomachs are growling. Neither of us move from the bed. I listen—it’s all things he told me from the moment I found out, but the details are finally clicking into place, and I’m finally able to register all of it. The ache doesn’t go away; it still hurts like hell. There are some pieces I will never understand, ever. And a lot that I do understand.
I take deep breaths and slowly start to feel calmer. “What made you believe in us finally? And would it have lasted? It was seven months that you weren’t with her, but if I hadn’t found out, would it have happened again? And if not her, with someone else?”
“No, I really don’t think I ever would have again, Sparrow, even if you had never known. What I do know without a doubt, though, is that after the truth came out and I realized what I’d risked and the agony of knowing the hurt I caused you—” a ragged sigh comes out of him and he angrily swipes the tears off his face, “—I changed. For good. You did that. I know it was too late, but I vowed to be the man you thought I was. I have never been the same, thanks to you. Even though I should have already been that man when we met, you’re the one who made me finally grow up.” He shrugs. “None of it sounds significant enough when I say it, but it’s still the truth.”
I look at him and really see, maybe for the first time in all these years, the truth in his words. I run my hand along his cheek. “I believe you,” I whisper.
His breath hitches and he rubs his eyes before looking at me, his expression haunted. “Thank you,” he whispers back.
We sit there longer still, our limbs tangled under the sheets, not saying anything else, but feeling as if a lot is being said.
Finally I speak up. “You haven’t had sex since you were with me? What about your 9-month relationship? I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true. Tara would be glad to confirm,” he laughs softly. “I feel bad for hurting her. We were friends, but she had feelings. She knew I wasn’t over you, but she wanted to try to help me forget. And at that point, I knew I was losing my mind, so I agreed to try to have a relationship with her. I just couldn’t get past you.”
I can relate to that. I also feel guilt for the guys who wanted to help me forget. Why did I put them through that?
“We kissed, but every time it got to a certain point, I stopped. I felt like I was betraying you. I was such a mess. One night, Tara was watching her niece and Beauty and the Beast was playing. I saw Belle in the library with all those books—she even looked like you—and I fuckin’ lost it.” He leans down and kisses my hair. “All the crying is also thanks to you. I’m kind of ready for the tears to go back inside now,” he confesses. “A few degrees back from wussdom would be appreciated.” His mouth quirks up slightly at the corners.
“We went to a movie another time, and the actress had hair similar to yours. I started in again with the crying jag,” he shakes his head, “so fucked up. Tara got me out of the theater and we fought about it. She said you were never coming back. I told her I knew that even if you weren’t, I’d never stop waiting and hoping for you. We broke up then and actually stayed friends. She’s dating someone else now and is a lot happier.”
I think this through and realize my shakes are long gone. I look over at Ian and he’s watching me tentatively, looking almost scared to breathe.
“I’ve never gotten over you either, Ian. I’ve gone from one relationship to the next, trying to fill the void you left. The night before I left to come here, I was still crying over you, looking at old pictures and missing you…” I look at him and bite my lip. “I have had a lot of sex—” I feel his body cringe next to mine. “I’m sorry.” I scrunch up my nose and keep going. “I have. And none of it has made me feel loved or cherished like I did last night … even though I had the breakdown after…” I end awkwardly and take a gulping breath. “After everything, I still know that you’re the only one for me…”
Ian kisses my hand and rubs it along his cheek. “Every day that I wake up, I think about you,” he says. “When I go to sleep at night … you. The other day when I got ready to leave for the airport, I wondered what you would think of my shirt, if you would still like to look at me,” he says shyly. “I think about what you’re doing and who you’re laughing with—it has killed me that you might be happy without me, and yet, I’ve wanted you to be happy more than I’ve wanted to live.” He tu
rns to face me, lightly running his fingers across my shoulders. “To have this time to talk to you and hear what you’re thinking—it’s all I’ve ever hoped for. I’m sorry I didn’t know how to go about it the right way. That first year, I just—I lost it. I apparently have some stalkerish tendencies when it comes to you. I just couldn’t NOT try to tell you everything that was in my heart and mind. Maybe if I had just let you think it through for a while and quietly proven myself … I don’t know … I just didn’t know what to do.”
“We can’t go back. To be honest, I don’t know what I even want right at this moment, but I’m so glad we’ve had this time.” I lean over and kiss him.
This time when we make love, we take our time. And when he whispers that he loves me, I whisper it back.
“Sparrow?” he says softly when we’re catching our breath. “If you give me another chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you how much I love you. There will never be a doubt, I promise you.”
When I leave his room to go to mine, it’s early afternoon. I have some explaining to do with Tessa. I’ve texted her a few times, but she will want details. I lightly rap on the door, and she opens it immediately, pulling me inside. She can’t stop smiling and I can’t stop smiling back at her.
“Tell me everything.”
So I do.
That night, Tessa and I have dinner with her parents, Jared, and his parents. We discuss a few details of what needs to be done for the rehearsal dinner the next night, but other than that, we simply catch up with one another. It’s a lovely night. I feel like a huge weight has lifted off of me. I’ve been dragging a big boulder around, trying to live with the heaviness for so long, that I don’t even know what to do with this airy feeling. My emotions are all over the place, but in the best of ways.
I finally gave Ian my phone number, and he calls as we’re riding back to the hotel.
“Hi, Sparrow,” he says tentatively.