This is my gift to the exceptionally lovely Clarkeyfangirl as part of WFCTGIO's Secret Santa 2011
'Get you a glass, shall I?'
(With a twist!)
I look at the clock again. He's not going to show is he? He's been avoiding me all day, he obviously feels awkward about what happened. Still, it's his loss.
Except it doesn't feel like that. The increasing sense of my own loss, of rejection, builds to an ache in my chest and it confuses me. It shouldn't matter. I shouldn't care. But I do. I don't feel like myself, yet somehow I'm feeling more than I have felt for a long time, feeling like I have… never felt. Because of him.
Syed. The echo of his name through my thoughts finds that image that has remained imprinted on me since Friday night. It is more than an image though, it is real, I can feel it, feel him. The gentle heat of his mouth on mine, lighting a fire that just builds and builds until it burns with an intensity that blinds me to anything but him. He is still there, inside my mind, the memory of the feel of him against my skin, my fingers around him, my mouth devouring him, his gasps, his sighs, the shake and tremble of his body as it melts into mine.
He gave something of himself to me, some part I didn't even know existed until then. Something I can't quite comprehend, something… unique, special, something no one has ever given me before, and now that I've seen it, held it in my arms for even such a brief moment, I don't want to let it go. I… can't let it go. Images and feelings flare and shine so brightly and fiercely that I fear they will never fade, yet at the same time I never want them to. I want to see him again. The word that enters my head is not a word I want to hear, that I want to feel and I resent it's intrusion. Need. I need to see him again, to touch him, to feel him once more. More. I need more. It fuels a nervousness in my veins, an uncertainty and fear that leaves me cold and craving to be warmed.
I need a drink.
As I pour the smooth amber liquid into a glass I hear his footsteps as he enters the unit and feel a fluttering in my chest and a flip of my stomach. He came. He's here.
"What kept you?" I ask quickly, "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."
It doesn't matter to me, it doesn't, it shouldn't. I keep my voice cool and in control, my demeanour relaxed as I try and detach myself from the wayward drumming in my chest. I recline in the chair, tilt my head to rest against the back. But I don't turn around.
"What with the way you've been acting today I was quite surprised to get your text really."
It's said casually, but I wonder if I were to turn around, if I were to look at him, would he sense, would he see the residue of panic, sense the desperate need in the undercurrent that charges through me? Would he see the power that one look from those gorgeous golden eyes has over me already?
Get a grip Christian. He's here. He couldn't stay away after all. Like a moth to a flame. Seems like playing hard to get does have some benefits. He wants a repeat performance, well, who wouldn't? Why else would he be here?
"So where's the lovely lady think you are?"
With a rotate of the chair I steal myself and turn to face him, but the challenge is a challenge to me as much as him. To take in the sight of him once more without taking leave of my senses.
He's standing in the doorway, his posture defensive, eyes glaring at me. Although he is silent the air crackles between us and instantly becomes heavy and laden with an energy that makes the nerves in my skin jolt and demand to touch him this instant. He remains tense and immobile, like the slightest movement could cause an avalanche that he, we wouldn't be able to control. Somehow I keep my head and hold back. His very presence and obvious discomfort a boost to my bravado.
"Alright fair enough. None of my business. Drink?"
"I didn't come here to drink with you."
I know why he came here. I look into his eyes, into him, and I see the Syed that I saw on Friday night, I see his body beneath the cotton of his clothes and I want to touch it. I want to touch him. And I know he feels it too. I can feel the intense pull of the sexual magnet between us. I'm almost daring him. Touch me. Kiss me. I know you want to.
Suddenly he breaks eye contact and looks away and I see it so clearly. The fear. He's so scared of his feelings that he doesn't know what to do with himself. He looks so lost, so young, so vulnerable. My heart lunges and my composure softens. Suddenly all I want to do is to reach out to him, to help him, to make him see that it's ok, that's it's more than ok. To make him feel what I feel, to see what I see.
"Look, last week, what happened…" he starts, but I interrupt.
"It was good." and it was. So bloody good.
"It was a mistake. It never happened. I've forgotten about it and I want you to forget it too." He says with agitation, and a little desperation thrown in for good measure.
Right. This is how he's going to play it. Deny it. If he could forget it so easily, if it were so unimportant why would he be here, why would every cell of my body be telling me otherwise? The lie is so glaringly obvious, I don't know whether to feel angry or pity the poor sod. But mainly what I feel is sad, disappointed, and even a little bit desperate myself. Bugger. I let out a sigh.
"And that's why you came here is it? To tell me that."
He's trembling. I see his strength and defiance dissolve and the tension in his limbs crumble as he self-consciously slips his hands into his pockets. It's like he doesn't trust his control over them, over himself. And God, his eyes, those beautiful eyes. They dart nervously from side to side, trying not to look, to look at me, but they do, they finally do, like he can't not look at me, and I have never seen anything so beautifully mesmerising in my entire life. He is adorable, and so goddamn sexy, but he has absolutely no idea. It just makes me want him even more. But I also sense the risk. I see how close to the edge he is. One wrong word, one wrong look and he'll be running for the hills never to be seen again.
He nods his reply, like he can't even trust his own voice anymore, trust his lips to say the words. How could he when his body is screaming the complete opposite at me? I don't like this. It's feels all wrong. I'm not quite sure how to handle it. His rejection, his obvious discomfort and fear cuts through me and chains me, yet at the same time I hear his indisputable call, feel the connection that begs to be made. It confuses me. He started this, but now he's finishing it.
But what do I care? It was one night, fun while it lasted. Not like I'm not used to it, been there a thousand times before, though admittedly the shoe's usually on the other foot. I don't need this hassle, and by the looks of him he'd certainly be hassle, hot hassle, but hassle nonetheless.
"Okay, we're through. Maybe time will mend my broken heart." I say and mockingly place a protective hand over my heart, hiding it's flutter in my flippancy.
"And I don't want you talking to anyone about me." He's making demands now, involving me in his deceit. Has he forgotten it was him who started this? It's a joke, but I'm not laughing.
"What about when Amira asks me why I'm so sad?" I say derisively.
"You keep your mouth shut!" he cuts in sharply, moving towards me, eyes blazing in fear and anger.
Despite the coldness of his words I can feel the fire emanating from him and again I'm confounded by the contradiction that is him, and confronted by the knowledge of how much I want him still. As if I have always wanted him and Friday night was merely my awakening.
"Okay." I say with a beleaguered frown, as he glowers over me.
"Whatever assumptions you made about me you were wrong."
"If you say so."
"I'm not like you. I'm normal."
"Right." Jesus, is he for real? Ok, he's definitely gone past the mildly annoying stage now. "I'm normal." I tell him.
"I'm proper normal… and my girlfriend's waiting for me."
His words hurt. Cut so much deeper than I could ever admit. But his anger has dissipated and I see the resigned sadness, the despondent desperation in his eyes. But there is something else that sings to me from somewhere inside, inside both of us. Loneliness. He goes to leave. I can't let him. Not like this.
"Syed, I get it alright, you're not interested in me." He halts in the doorway and half turns back to me. "At least stay and have a drink."
"I don't drink." His voice is flat, there is a heaviness and hopelessness that seems to crush the spirit out of him.
"Orange juice then. We've got to work together, we're gonna have to get along."
He swallows, and it's there again in the nervous flit of his eyes and gentle parting of his lips. He's torn. As desperate as he is to get away he is just as desperate, if not more so, to stay. His body sways slightly, but it's like his feet are rooted to the spot. So I move for him.
I put my glass down and stand up, crossing the few feet to the doorway in easy strides, until my body is mere inches from his. I sense his body stiffen at the presence of mine so very close, the charge between us sending pulses and nerves and cells into a correlating, maddening, deafening rhythm. It fills my head, my body, my heart, the pounding so loud it drowns out all else and I'm sure he can hear it too.
He doesn't move, he doesn't appear to even breath.
"Get you a glass shall I?" Despite the words, it's not really a question and he doesn't answer. Besides, I already know what he really wants.
I make to move past him, to fetch him a glass. I swear I do. But still he doesn't move and in the confines of the doorway I can't resist leaning my face towards his, the memory of the feel of his rough jaw grazing mine as we kissed as real a sensation as the vacuum of air between us as I try not to touch him. I try, I really do, but the drumming in my head drowns my senses. As I slide past it happens, my hand accidentally brushes his hip. The seemingly necessary completion of touch as inevitable in hindsight as Friday night, something unexpected and without intent but that was somehow unavoidable and meant to be.
It sparks. The connection. In the lightest of touches. He breathes, a deep intake of breath that releases his muscles and he moves towards me. In an instant I feel the warmth and pressure of his body pressing against mine, his lips soft, yet hard as they make contact with my own. He kisses me with ferocity, closed mouthed at first, but any attempt at restraint is fleeting as his lips part and the breath passes between us.
The energy surges and flows, it's heat enveloping me as my tongue finds his and my arms wrap themselves around him, holding his body tight against mine. We melt into each other and suddenly everything seems to make sense after all. Only apart does everything seem wrong, together it is right.
Oops. My imagination ran away with me at the end, helped along by talk on the thread at the time I was writing, saying that people still expected Chryed to kiss at the end of this scene, even after watching it a million times :D Merry Christmas Clarkie and everyone at WFCTGIO!