Page 8 of Soaring and Saucy

“Do you want to get out of here?” he asked, leaning forward and whispering in her ear. The feeling of his breath against her skin made her shiver in delight and awareness – even if his words made her heart sink.

“I’d love to… but no,” she replied and saw him hesitate with a strange look of comprehension on his face.

“You’re waiting.”

It wasn’t an accusation.

Lance wasn’t upset. There was a look of understanding, respect, and admiration in his gaze that didn’t make her feel embarrassed about being innocent and believing in the sanctity of marriage.

“I am,” she said firmly in a gentle voice. “I know my value, and I don’t intend to throw it away. Life is precious – and love even more so. Someday, I will get married to someone special who recognizes that I’m his person, his partner, his someone that he’s been waiting for, and he deserves to know that I respect him enough to wait.”

“You know, making love and actually being in love don’t have to go hand-in-hand.”

“Then you aren’t making love,” she said sadly, surprised that he uttered those words.

“And you didn’t let me finish again, my lovely librarian,” he chided tenderly, touching her cheek. “They don’t go hand-in-hand because people like you are rare indeed. You make me feel ashamed that I’ve ignored my deepest wants because…”

“Because why?” she interrupted again and saw his smirk. “Sorry.”

“Because I’m lonely,” he admitted quietly. “I throw myself into the mix, looking for friendship and companionship, but always come up short. I’ve found out over the years you can be in a room full of people surrounded by conversation, but some people don’t understand you - or don’t try to get to know you. They take one look at you, how you act, and have already made up their mind long before you’ve said a word.”

Her lips parted in surprise at his uncanny understanding. She had been in groups, at parties, at events and was always the wallflower or the ‘purse holder’ because others would take off and melt into the crowds, yet the only people who ever talked to her were the ones who deemed her as unworthy and she knew it. No one who was actually interested in getting to know her actually took the time to chat with her – except Lance.

And he was lonely?

He was feeling the same way she did?

“How are you lonely?” she whispered, disbelief clouding her judgment. “I mean, you are… gorgeous. People surround you, cheer at you when you do keg stands, and you’ve got friends with you. They are here, all around you.”

“You too,” he reminded her, his thumb caressing her jaw. “You are here with friends, and while they talk to you and hang out around you, there is still something off-putting there no matter how hard they try to include you. It feels like pity to me – and that is hard to explain without it sounding weird.” There was a humble, pained look on his face as he met her eyes warily. “Please don’t repeat this or say something. I don’t want to hurt them because they are good guys deep down inside. I mean, when I’m on the ship, I talk to my buddies, but there’s a difference, too. Orion has his secrets. Tic-Tak is like a brother to Memphis and Shellac? Well, he’s Shellac… and goofy as heck. That man has a screw loose somewhere upstairs, and we all know it.”

Stephanie didn’t say anything. She was too busy processing his words, thinking of her own situations, her own sense of self. He was right. You could be close to someone yet alone – and she’d experienced that several times over the last few years. When they tried to go out of their way to include you – and you felt like you didn’t fit – it did come across as almost pitying, and she had thought that before.

“What are you thinking?”

“I think I would like to get to know the real you better.”

“I’m thinking the same thing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he smiled tenderly at her, before leaning forward to kiss her cheek. The feeling of his warm lips along with the combination of alcohol in her system made her extremely forward. Stephanie turned toward him as he pulled back slightly… and both hesitated with awareness.

Lance was right there, his lips perched over hers with his head angled slightly, no longer backing away. Stephanie was there, waiting, wishing he would close the gap between them. She desperately wanted him to kiss her, to magically be the ‘one’ for her, even though warning bells were going off in her mind.

“Are you sure… about this?”

“It’s just a kiss.”

“Not to me, it’s not,” he said hoarsely. “I really like you. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen? I want us to talk after we say our goodbyes at the end of the night. Maybe we could stay in contact, and I could take you out for dinner or something?”

“I would really like that,” she whispered, waiting.

“Then how come neither of us is moving?” he chuckled softly, still remaining where he was, so close to her lips.

“I don’t want to break the spell…” she whispered thickly, as a trembling hand reached out to touch his hairline at his temple and then caressed his ear, before tracing the nape of his neck. It was like touching a warm, beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful statue like you’d see in a museum – yet he was warm, breathing, alive. His eyes were churning with intensity as he stared at her, his breath broken as he waited, immovable.

“What if this spell, this moment, lasted for hours or days,” he invited huskily. “This feeling inside of both of us… what if I promised I could make sure it was something neither of us forgot.”

---