Free Web NovelChapter 50: THEN HIS LIPS FOUND MINE
Chapter 51
Lumi
Ren didn’t blink. He didn’t smile. He just kept his eyes fixed on mine, his large hands twitching slightly at his sides as if he was already preparing to slide them beneath my waist and lift me straight out of that chair in front of everyone.
I looked past his arm at Neve and her boyfriend, and both of them were standing near the door completely grinning at me.
Neve even waved her hand, shooing me away like I was being dramatic.
"Go with him, Lumi," she laughed, shaking her head. "Me and babe have got Theo covered, and he’s just going to be sleeping anyway, so do you think I can’t watch my own nephew for a few hours? Trust me."
I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry as I looked back up at the towering man standing in front of me.
It wasn’t Neve I didn’t trust. I trusted her with my life, and I trusted her with Theo without a second thought.
But the terrifying truth was that I didn’t trust myself. Not after everything that had cracked open in that hospital room last night and the devastating realization that had settled over me.
Not after knowing that the moment we got into that car and locked ourselves inside a quiet hotel room, I would be completely alone with him...and I genuinely didn’t know if I had anything left in me to keep myself from falling right into his arms.
But Ren was already stepping back from the chair, giving me space to stand, and the look on his face made it very clear that sitting back down was not one of my available options.
So I stood up.
I turned back to Theo first, because I needed a moment, leaving him was something I had to do properly. freёwebnovel.com
I leaned down over his small, sleeping face and pressed my lips to his forehead, then to the warm, soft curve of his cheek.
I breathed him in, all of him, that sweet specific warmth that was just him and nobody else, my chest ached so hard I had to press my lips together and breathe through my nose just to hold myself together.
My pretty little baby.
His lashes fluttered and his eyes opened slowly, dark and blinking.
"Aunt Mama," he mumbled, his voice rough and thick with sleep.
"Hey, baby," I whispered, smoothing his hair back carefully. "Aunt Mama has to go and sleep for a little while, okay, but I need you to be a very, very good boy until I come back."
His brow pulled into that small, serious little furrow he got whenever something felt important to him, and his eyes searched my face slowly.
"You coming back?" he asked.
I pressed my lips to his cheek one more time before I answered, because I wanted him to feel it before he heard the words.
"I’m coming back," I said, low and steady and completely sure. "I promise you, Theo. Aunt Mama always comes back."
He looked at me for a long moment, still deciding, then his face relaxed. He gave a small, sleepy nod, his eyes already drifting shut again.
"Okay," he breathed. "Okay, Aunt Mama."
I straightened up slowly and pressed the back of my wrist to my mouth for just a second, then I picked up my bag from the floor, looped it over my shoulder, and turned around.
Neve was already there, arms open, I walked straight into them without a word and she held me the way she always did.
Her chin rested on top of my head, and I let myself stay there until the tightness in my chest loosened just enough to breathe properly.
"He’s fine," she said quietly against my hair. "He’s completely fine, Lumi."
"I know," I said.
She pulled back and looked at me with a soft smile, I squeezed her hands and let go.
When I turned toward the door, Ren was already holding it open, his coat on, his eyes steady on mine.
I walked out past him into the corridor and heard the quiet shift of movement behind me.
When I glanced back he had turned briefly to Neve and given her a single nod, short and certain, she nodded back with that same small smile at the corner of her mouth.
Then he fell into step beside me and we walked out together towards the park.
The drive back was quiet.
I sat on my side of the back seat with my hands folded in my lap, my eyes on the window, watching London slide past in the early grey light, the streets still mostly empty and the pavements damp and dark under the sky.
Anything to keep myself away from looking at driver who was also acting to focus on his driving, but failing miserably.
As I follow Ren down the wide carpeted corridor of the fourteen floor in the hotel, I couldn’t help to wondered who had booked the suite.
I made a mental note to ask Neve later.
The door opened into a wide, warm living room with tall windows, soft light and a low sofa in the center.
Two separate doors branching off either side of it into their own rooms.
I stepped inside and set my bag down on the table near the window and stood there for a moment with my hands resting flat against the surface.
The room was quiet and Ren was somewhere behind me. I was already looking at the door on the left and thinking about how quickly I could get behind it.
"Thank you," I said, to the table, because I was a coward and I had fully accepted that. "For everything, Ren. Genuinely."
I picked my hand bag and turned toward my door, I was already reaching for the handle when his voice came from behind me, low and quiet, carrying just enough weight to stop my feet completely.
"Lumi." I turned slowly.
He was standing in the middle of the living room with the morning light catching the exhaustion on his face, the deep shadows under his eyes, the tight line of his jaw.
But underneath all of that was something open and unguarded that I had never quite seen on him before.
Like the long night had quietly taken down the last wall he kept between himself and the world, and what was left underneath was just him, just Ren, looking at me like I was the only thing in the room.
He crossed toward me slowly and stopped close enough that I felt the warmth of him before he even touched me.
He reached out and wrapped both his large hands around mine where they hung at my sides, his thumb moving once across my knuckles in a slow, deliberate stroke, and something I had been holding tightly in my chest for weeks came quietly loose.
"Back in that room," he said, his voice low and rough at the edges, "when you asked me why I was doing it. When I told you that you were my strength." He paused, and his jaw tightened for just a second before it let go.
"I meant every single word of that, Lumi."
"Ren..." I started.
"I’m not finished," he said, quietly, and I went still.
"For a long time I told myself I was here because of Neve," he said, his thumb still moving slowly across my hand.
"And that every time I showed up it was because she asked me to, but that hasn’t been the reason for a while now. And I think you already know that, even if you won’t say it."
I looked up at him properly, because I couldn’t keep my eyes down any longer.
But the look on his face made my heart slam hard and sudden against my ribs.
"I don’t know when it changed," he said, holding my eyes without flinching, "but I know that when you’re hurting I feel it, and when something tries to break you, I want to destroy it, and none of that is for Neve anymore." His voice dropped lower.
"That’s mine. Protecting you is something I want for myself, and I’m done pretending it isn’t."
The room was completely still around us, I stood there holding his hands and feeling the last of my resistance drain away so quietly.
I thought about Neve.
The thought, pulling at something loyal and protective in my chest. Because she was my best friend and he was her younger brother.
I had always known exactly where that line was and I had spent months making sure I stayed on the right side of it.
But standing here in this hotel room, with his hands around mine and his eyes not letting me go, the pull of it was softer than it had ever been before.
But underneath it was something so much louder that I couldn’t hear anything else, and the truth was I had been trying for a long time and it had never worked, not even once.
And I was done. I wasn’t sure if I have the strength left to fight against it anymore.
His forehead dropped slowly until it came to rest against mine, the warm space between us went completely still.
My eyes closed on their own because there was nothing left in me strong enough to keep them open.
Then his lips found mine.
