"Tony. What?"
She must have misheard him. She must have done. But he was the one who was having trouble grasping what was real. And he thought they had gone to Paris together, been-…
"Kiss me."
"Yes," she murmured, "That's what I thought you said."
But she sat still. She didn't move. She couldn't. She didn't know what to do.
"What's the problem?" he asked her, quite reasonably, "Maybe that's a stupid question. You don't want to. You just said, didn't you, we weren't lovers. Why would you want to? I shouldn't have asked."
"No, Tony. It's-…"
She fell silent. She couldn't find the words for it with about being more direct than she wanted to be.
"It's what?" he pressed her.
She would have to be direct.
"You've never asked me to kiss you before. You said yourself, you can't think straight at the moment. I'd just, feel more certain if you'd ever asked me to when you could think straight."
"Do you think anyone is ever thinking straight when they ask them to kiss them?"
Always so bloody academic, especially when all she wanted him to talk about, no, refer to, explicitly, was them.
But he did. He said he thought you were lovers. You, and he. Explicitly.
And he was right. If they were going to talk about thinking clearly, it would be a bit of an overestimation to say that she'd been thinking completely clearly at any stage since they had met. For once, the roles were reversed, but what difference did it really make? They had never kissed before. That was a difference.
"How do I know you really want me?" She meant to say, "To kiss you." The words never found their way out.
But he seemed to think nothing of it.
"Would I ask you if I didn't?" he asked her in return.
"I don't know," she replied truthfully.
There was a moment's pause.
"It's up to you, Carol," he told her a moment later, "I want you to kiss me. If I die I would like to at least know what it was like. If you want to, do, if you don't want to, then don't. Of course."
What was she supposed to do? She wanted to. She had always wanted to, how was she supposed to not, hearing him saying the words now, I want you.
Slowly, she stood. She moved to stand before him. He sat looking plaintively up at her. He did not move, he was waiting for her. She fell to her knees before him, kneeling just between his legs.
She cupped his cheek in her palm. Stroked the skin with the pad of her thumb. Of course, she had touched his face before. He was so alive, she thought, now more so than ever before. The proximity to danger, to death, heightened everything about him.
He was watching her steadily, almost tensely, she wanted him to relax.
"Here's to Paris," she told him.
It worked. He exhaled gently as their lips met.
Please review if you have the time, I'd love to know what you think.