I inhale. How much am I risking here? “There’s the calm from being in your arms and feeling as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist and doesn’t need to.”Oh, God, I sound like a bad romance novel.
Jem stares at his feet. “Yeah. That too. Okay.”
“Help me out here, Jem. I’m opening up to you.”
“There’s an emptiness when you’re not here.” Jem looks up warily and I raise an expectant eyebrow. “Shit. Okay, there’s the way time stands still when I’m away from you and passes too quickly when I’m with you.”
“Yes?”
He stands. “I can’t do this.”
“I didn’t think you could. That’s okay,” I say and smile through the lie.
“No, it’s not okay. Shit.” Jem rubs his temples and closes his eyes. As he releases the breath, something else comes too and he closes the gap between us.
Jem strokes my cheek with the back of his hand, the touch soothing the hollow ache that was beginning. “One smile, one look, and one touch from you blasts my world so full of colour it fucking blinds me.”
Only Jem could use the word fuck in an explanation of his feelings… He circles an arm around my waist and grips my back, holding me to him so I can’t move. This is safe. I can tell him. Tentatively I put my arms around his neck; if I touch him, I can say this.
“What hurts is, here with you is the most natural place in the world, and I’m frightened one day you’ll push me out. Like today,her…”
Jem nudges my cheek, winding his fingers into my hair. “No, not her. She means nothing and never has. I’m not interested in anyone else because I have a gut wrenching fear of my own. If I lose you, I’ll lose a part of myself I recently found.”
I loosen his hands. “No, I’m not trying to take part of you.”
“I mean you match me, a reflection of my past come back to show me who I can become again. I get you. You get me.”
This. Why weren’t these words spoken before? “You make me feel I’m okay to be me, not who you want me to be,” I whisper.
“Never be anything but yourself, because that person means a hell of a lot to me.” Jem cups my cheek in his hand and kisses me. His lips barely touch mine, but push away any remaining desire to walk out of the door. “Don’t leave. Please.”
“So what is ‘this’?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but this is ours.”
I smile. “I guess everything else about us is different to normal.”
“Ruby, I’m crap with words and expressing myself, that’s bloody obvious. But each time I touch you or kiss you, I’m telling you everything I just said.” Jem runs his fingertips across my skin, tracing the heart-shaped tattoo on my chest. “I’m telling you, you have my heart.”
“Jem, that’s edging close to romantic. Next there’ll be flowers and teddy bears and texts with kisses.”
“No way!” I laugh at his doubtful look. “But you’re staying, right? I said enough?”
“Yes.”
“Thank fuck for that!” Jem seizes me around the waist and lifts me; I wrap my legs around Jem’s waist, take his face in both hands, and kiss him.
Kiss Jem as if it’s the first time and only time, desperate and hungry. This isn’t the first or last, but he’s finally my Jem. He tastes of the man who’s turned my body from something used or beaten to something filled with an intense desire I’d never dreamed I’d experience. This desire burns through, intensified by the words exchanged and the pull into our safe place again.
“I don’t deserve this,” Jem says.
“What?”
“You. I do so much wrong to people; I’m scared I’ll hurt someone else again.”
I rest my forehead on his. “Jem Jones, shut up and just fucking kiss me.”
He nips my bottom lip, and smiles against my mouth. “Ah, Ruby Tuesday, your mouth…”
No more words—enough have been exchanged today. If we carry on talking, I’ll obsess about the words we can’t use, at the place in our souls we can’t allow anyone in. Jem’s heart thumps against my chest at a speed to match mine, our hearts marching in a new rhythm.