Kate buzzed on Rick`s apartment door. Rick opened and put a smile on his face as he saw her standing in front of his door: "Hey, Kate,... please,... come in!... What`s up?"
"Can I talk to you privately?" He had an asking expression on his face but didn`t say anything. She followed him into his writing room. As he closed the door he asked her to take a seat. Kate didn`t feel comfortable at all, he could tell. And he had no clue what she was up to, so much she could tell. But nonetheless, it had to be. She knew that it would hurt him what she was now going to tell him. But ... there was no way around it.
"Rick... I lied to you." Her eyes had been concentrating on his desktop but as the words had been out she lifted her eyes to his face.
She saw surprise... but nothing more. She didn`t see suspicion, mistrust, anger or something else she`d expected. His eyes were full of questions. So she swallowed but looked him straight in the eyes as she said: "On the day of the funeral ... I heard you saying that you love me ... and I remembered it all the way on every minute of the day since... " Now she saw something in his eyes twitching and he frowned. But he didn`t say anything. So she went on: "I am truly sorry that I lied to you." As he still said nothing at all, she sighed. She paused another moment before continuing. "But let me explain. I realized that you told the truth. I not only heard your words ... I saw the truth in your eyes, too. We weren`t that close at this time but I loved you, too." She paused because she saw his eyes flickering with hope but the silver lining went dark again seconds later. "But first I had to sort out all the things I had to go through. And I didn`t know how to respond then. I knew I`d been on the edge of surviving but as I woke up and I remembered everything very vividly - I had to face all the facts raining down on me ...! There was me... in the weakest state of heart and mind ever ... a bunch of uncertainty like never before. And first I didn`t trust myself if I heard you right." She saw him swallowing and touched his hand. First she thought he would pull back on her but he didn`t. Then - encouraged enough - she continued to speak: "Then I had to face that I was in a relationship I thought of myself being happy in it up until then. You remember our fight in my apartment? Did you know, you woke me up?" She looked at him and saw his slight nod. "Hm, thought so ... I didn`t admit to myself that I wasn`t in love with Josh. I thought I was. But I wasn`t. I realized that the morning in the hospital. So I had sort of to face the ruins of my happiness. And I had to put a finger on it and clear the situation before I could act up on your confession. Then I had to realize that I wasn`t ready to act up on it. I didn`t know that before. I would have reacted if I had known it before. I would have told you, if I had known. Do you believe me?" She saw tears in his eyes, and now she had to swallow hard to go on. "In this time of confusion with the whole situation my mum`s murder not only anymore an accident I was made to believe all the years, Montgomery being part of it, him having lied to me all the years, his sacrifice to keep me alive, his violent death in order to save me, the sniper attack in spite of him trying to save me, ... all that has made me messed up with everything happening around me. And as I would have liked it to just act on your confession as it were the very best thing happening to me, I knew it wasn t that easy. I knew I would be messed up, I knew I wouldn`t be myself, I knew I had to solve some other issues before so... I... decided... to act ... as I didn t remember. I know it was wrong. But I really hope you`ll try to understand me. I`m truly and very deeply sorry about that." She hesitated. She looked at him and only saw his eyes closed.
"Rick ..." Her voice broke and she had trouble to hold her tears herself. "Please ... say something. I didn t mean to hurt you. But I have. I know it. And that hurts me, too. Please, ... speak to me ... I couldn t bear to lose you. I love you." With each begging word she tried to slip into his consciousness and tried to manage to get through to him. She didn`t know how to react. She would have been able to handle it if he would have been angry or furious or if he let her known he was hurt. But as he didn`t react at all like she would have thought she was pretty helpless. She more or less cried tears herself. She forced herself to reach out to him and took his hands in hers. He let it happen. That took her by surprise. She held his left hand and took his right hand to her lips and kissed it.
In tears, murmuring, her voice was hardly to be heard. "Rick, I love you. I`ve been in love with you like I never was before in my entire life. You are my everything. I am very, very deeply in love with you."
As she had closed her eyes like praying she now opened them again and she saw his beautiful blue eyes looking into hers. The hurt expression wasn`t there anymore. She saw... no ... it couldn`t be! She blinked her tears away to get a clearer sight. Yes, now she could see all the love he was showing her all along in the last few months just right in his eyes. She just wanted to place a kiss of joy on his hand as she still held it in hers. But she couldn`t react that fast.
He had pulled his hand holding her hand to his lips and placed himself a kiss on it.
He was watching her constantly. She was fascinated. She was happy. She didn`t know what happiness was until this very moment.
She let her eyes tell him all he wanted to know. She let her eyes take over the talking.
And so it went on for minutes. They just looked in each other`s eyes. They melted into one.
After several minutes in this position he pulled away his hands from her. But only to embrace her like he wanted to embrace the whole world. There was a power she felt that she never felt before. Her being in his arms felt so right ... so wonderful... so extremely beautiful she began to cry silently.
She felt his jaw on her forehead. He murmured words she couldn`t understand. She didn`t get the sense of them because her inner ears were ringing like she would stand beneath a bunch of bells. She looked up to him to see what he was telling her. All she could see was a very happy smile on his lips and all the joy of the world in his eyes. And her look was forced back to his full sexy lips which were meant to be kissed.
So she lifted herself up to the tips of her toes and put a kiss on these sexy lips she simply couldn t resist.
Her voice was back as she said with the same smile: "Yes, Rick, I am very serious. I am really in love with you."
"Wow!" It was all he said for about a minute. Just watching her.
Then: "You really know what to do to take a guy like me the one second through hell and yet the very next minute back to heaven again, don`t you? More, indeed, I feel like I was catapulted like a rocket on cloud 9."
She was so relieved that she couldn`t but break into tears. She broke down on his shoulder and her sobbing was heartbreaking to listen to. All he could do was to let her out of his tight embrace and to caress her back, her neck and her hair with his hands. "Shhhh... don`t cry ... please, ... I don t know what to do." He forced her to look at him. Then he saw her smiling through the tears and took a deep breath. He kissed away her tears.
And that was when it happened.
The one minute they both were under control of their actions. But then ... something magic happened!
The same moment she pulled her arms out from in front of her from having been wedged between her and his body she felt that his arms tightened around her. She began touching his jaw, his cheeks and his lips and caressing his ears with her fingers. One second later she felt his lips on her neck. Where his lips touched her neck she felt her skin burning. She began to detach from his embrace in order to get eye contact. And as she was lifting up her eyes to look into his she wouldn t come to do this.
He was kissing her with all the passion and all the love he had been feeling in the last few months. She wasn`t able to think. But she realized that he expressed all his love for her in this kiss.
All she could feel was a wonderful burning and glowing inside of her. That was overwhelming. She couldn`t react she just wanted to feel it. She moaned because she liked it.
This was when he interrupted his passionate kiss to growl at her with a breaking voice: "It maybe would be better if you could kiss me back, Kate."
She had to laugh at this remark. It could have been a comment she would have made.
His eyes were darkened with passion and she just couldn t breath because of what she saw in his eyes.
So she decided to kiss him back. All of his efforts to deepen that kiss into a passionate one she defeated. She pressed herself in his arms but her lips were not that forceful. She let her lips sliding more or less slowly over his, caressed the edges, and then she took his lower lip between hers. Next, she took his upper lip and bit it slightly. She heard him moaning.
All the emotions that broke lose in this moment she wasn`t prepared to feel took her a heartbeat to cope with. For a split second she opened her eyes and looked into his and got the reflection of the same deep impact this kiss had on him. The forceful power of this love struck her in this moment. She had known it all along that he was her one and only. And these emotions both were feeling right now proved it true. These emotions were so deep she never experienced something like that before. This must be pure and undying love.
So she let herself fall into the most beautiful and best romantic kiss they both ever experienced.