26

The words fell out into open, blank silence Even the animals seemed to go quiet. The three words filled the room like a thick mist. You could almost feel them in the air, as if they had done something to the very atoms themselves.

I looked up at Riaan expectantly, it felt like hours before he actually spoke.

You have no idea how I’ve wanted you to say that.” He moved closer and knelt down on the floor in front of me, ‘And I’ve been wanting to say it to you for so long.”

He took my hands, pulled them to his chest and looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time, “Zara Bennett, for some reason I cannot explain, I think I might have fallen in love with you the first time I saw you half naked on that runway,”

I smiled and stiffled a coy giggle, “Really? Even though I was such a bitch?”

He shrugged, “What do they say… love works in mysterious ways.”

“Something like that.”

“Okay, lets stop speaking now so I can kiss you,” Riaan leant in and kissed me. Really, really kissed me. Like he'd never kissed me before. Our eyes were open and we just stared at each other while our lips did their own thing. What do they say about icebergs, that only 10% of them stick out the water and that the other 90% lies unseen underneath the water. That’s what this kiss was like, underneath it was a huge well of unseen emotion. The actual act only made up 10% of it all, the real kiss lay somewhere in between us, in the emotions that seemed to electrify everything around us. In us.

His eyes seemed to be telling me something, and I knew exactly what it was. Because I wanted it too. Only a few minutes ago the air around us had been cold, but now I could only feel warmth, even when he slipped my top off. His hands and mouth were hot against my skin, especially my breasts and neck. I pulled his shirt over his head and pressed my body into his. He wrapped his arms around me and we fell to the floor together.

He lay on top of me and I could feel the full weight of him pressing into me, pressing me into the rug below. He pulled a blanket over us and smiled at me. I smiled back and we kind of melted together like hot candle wax. Pants and underwear somehow came off and a condom was slipped on and we were completely naked. And it wasn't just about having our clothes off, I was more naked than I'd been in my life.

“Zara,” He whispered my name and it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. It made every cell in my body scream out for him. I wanted him, needed him to be apart of me.

“I love you,”

“I love you too.”

I opened myself up to him. All of myself. It was as if he was the last puzzle piece that completed me, as if we had been made for each other, as if we had been designed to fit together perfectly. Now that he was inside me, I never wanted to be without him again.

He was gentle at first.  It was slow and fluid, like mercury running down a hill- it might momentarily separate into droplets-but they soon have a way of finding each other again and merging, until they are one entity once more.  The floor beneath me felt like it disappeared and we were floating together underwater.

But the frantic desperate feeling of wanting more- so much more- was building in us both. He grabbed my wrists and held them above my head, pressing them into the floor. I was unable to move, except for my hips which were lifting and falling faster and faster in response to his hard, deep thrusts. He was in control now and I let him take over. We moved faster and harder and with each movement, the hunger grew. I wanted to consume him.

I’d never wanted anything, or anyone more in my entire life. We weren’t in control any longer, something primitive had taken over. Our sweaty, sticky bodies slammed into each other. He finally let my wrists go and I wrapped them around him and pulled him into me as far as he would go.

We raced to the finish line together, until we both crossed it. The moment was so intense, I felt so present in my body, it was as if I could feel absolutely everything, the smallest, tiniest thing to the biggest; the sweat bead that fell from his chest onto mine, the feel of his hot breathe on my face as it came out in a moan and of course the feeling of him inside me. Once all our muscles relaxed again we fell into each other.

I was never going to let him go.

He was mine and I was so happy to be his.

“I love you Riaan. And I love our house.”