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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 12, 2009 16:53:09 GMT -5
"It wasn't pointless. Maybe all those fights and those arguments and the walls we put up were good for us. We may have fizzled out if we never fought.... it certainly built up the passion between us, didn't it?"
She didn't need to tell Roland that she had been terrified too. She never felt so strongly for anyone as she did for him, and it had finally hit her with such a force that it was really scary. She understood where he was coming from.
"Anyway.... all we can do now is just keep looking forward, right? I'm still worried about your mother. Maybe it's just meant to be that I'm always going to be scared of one person in your family. At least it's not you anymore."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 12, 2009 23:13:06 GMT -5
He laid his hand on her cheek and leaned in to kiss her. There truly was something frightening about love.... it was so powerful and exciting and left a person so terribly vulnerable. And yet, it was also unbelievably sweet, when the stars aligned just right and the person you loved returned your feelings. He'd never imagined it could feel like this.
"Don't you worry about my mother," he told her calmly. "She might be a little mad right now, but she'll be OK. She loves me and wants what's best for me, and that's you. I'll talk to her... She'll be fine."
After all, wasn't this what she had wanted for him all along? For him to fall in love? For him to get married and have children? She had tried to push him together with Riley... she couldn't go back on that now. He knew why she was angry, and he even understood it, but he still thought her anger was misplaced. She should be angry with him; it was his plan. It was because of Riley that he had survived at all.
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 15, 2009 5:55:21 GMT -5
Riley sighed. "Yeah, I guess she'll be fine. I just don't think I can do anything right by her for a while. But I want her to like me, to accept me as yours."
Riley couldn't blame the woman for being angry. She saw how Cars treated Lina, and on top of that, Riley had made her believe that Roland was dead. She didn't know if she could ever get back on Cara's good side.
"If she won't listen to you, our baby will be so irresistibly cute that she'll never be able to stay angry with us." That part was true... The two of them would make one very beautiful baby.
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 15, 2009 22:17:25 GMT -5
It was sort of ironic. After all the times his mother had commented about wanting grandchildren, she would soon have three of them. She had Mara already, and it wouldn't be long before Jamie and Roland both gave her more grandchildren. Of course, poor Amandine would probably be locked in a tower somewhere to prevent her from repeating what seemed to be the family tradition.
"We're only giving her what she wanted," he reasoned. "She wanted me to fall in love, and she wanted grandchildren... It all may not have happened under the most ideal circumstances, but once she's holding her granddaughter in her arms, she'll forgive us."
He leaned a little closer to her, a soft smile on his face. "I hope she has your smile," he said, trying to picture what their child would look like. "In fact, I hope she mostly looks like you."
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 15, 2009 22:31:25 GMT -5
"Yeah, just not in the timeline she wanted, either. Which reminds me... we need to have Jamie and Scarlett over for dinner. I can't imagine how terrified they both must be."
Her smile reappeared when he leaned closer to her, and she couldn't help but feel more at ease. "I hope she has your eyes, and I hope she has your passion. And neither of our stubbornness." She had such a strong feeling that it was going to be a girl. She didn't know if she liked the idea of having a girl or not... were they harder to raise than boys? But she liked the idea of seeing Roland with a daughter.
"She's going to have you so wrapped around her finger."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 15, 2009 23:52:11 GMT -5
"Well, I'll admit, it happened a little sooner than I would have liked, too," Roland replied. "But you know I don't regret it. It's kind of the way I've always done things; I just jump in with both feet and don't look back."
Jamie, however, was not like that; at least Roland didn't think he was. Scarlette probably was, though. Maybe she'd be good for him; she'd draw him out a little more. Roland rather hoped so. It troubled him that he still wasn't close to his youngest brother.
Roland chuckled softly and brought her hand up to his lips for a kiss. "You're right.... I can already feel myself being wrapped around her finger and she's not even born yet. Between the two of you, I'm going to be completely whipped. But I kind of like it."
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 16, 2009 13:29:06 GMT -5
"It happened a lot sooner than I would have liked. But sometimes, I'm a little 'act first, think later,' too. Even if I feel like I think too much around you."
She laughed and entwined their fingers. She knew that Roland would give her the world if she asked for it, and their child, especially if it was a little girl, would never even have to ask. As terrified of motherhood as she was, she just kept picturing Roland getting up for late night diaper changes, feeding her in the morning, holding the both of them... he was going to be such a perfect father, and she just prayed that he would make up for her shortcomings.
"Yeah? I kind of like it, too," she laughed quietly, leaning in to press their lips together. "You're good for me," she whispered. "Thank you."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 16, 2009 23:39:35 GMT -5
"You never have to thank me," he said against her lips. Just the fact that you love me... that you look at me every day and decide that you still want to be with me is more than thanks enough. I just love you so much.... Don't ever doubt that."
He shifted slightly in order to be closer to her, and as he did, he felt the ring box still in his pocket, waiting for that perfect moment. He was tempted to get it out now and ask her to marry him, but it still didn't feel quite right. Not yet. But soon.
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 17, 2009 0:10:34 GMT -5
"I don't doubt it."
No, it wasn't Roland's love for her that she doubted, but rather, her sanity. She would just wake up in the middle of the night and panic before she reached out for him, or he'd be in the bathroom or something and she'd forget that he was still even there.
But when he was there, and she was so close to him, she never doubted how very much they loved each other.
She grinned. "Come on. There's still a lot to show you, and I've finished my scone."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 17, 2009 0:26:22 GMT -5
As he had suspected, the moment wasn't right. She was eager to move on, and the location, though beautiful, wasn't quite what he had pictured. There would be another chance. He nodded and pulled away reluctantly. "I'm finished, too," he replied. "And I can't wait to see more of the town."
He gathered up the empty bags and took them over to a nearby trash can, then picked up his half-empty coffee cup before extending his hand out to her. "And now I can hold your hand while we walk," he added triumphantly. "I don't feel right unless I'm touching you somehow... I need to feel you close to me."
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 17, 2009 0:30:20 GMT -5
Riley looked at him as he took her hand. Was it possible that he went through the same things she did? She always needed to feel him close to her. She just didn't feel alive herself unless he was closeby.
Her contemplative look dissolved into a soft smile as she squeezed his hand. "Me too," she confided with him. "And I hope that never, never changes."
She turned and took a sip from her coffee cup. "We could go a little further south... the next city down is the tourist spot, really, and there's more to do there. I'd feel awful if you were bored with all the sightseeing here."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 17, 2009 12:32:11 GMT -5
“I hope so, too,” Roland replied, moving a little closer to her.
It felt like there was always a sense of urgency to their love, and Roland didn’t quite understand it. But he needed to be close to her, to feel her, to touch her. Maybe it was because he instinctively knew that she needed contact with him to be sure that he was really there, that he really existed. Or maybe it was because there was a part of him that needed to reaffirm his own existence to himself. The two months he had been pretending to be dead had affected both of them profoundly. In some ways, it had been so perfect, like a wonderful dream. But it hadn’t really been perfect. He had been isolated from the world with no outside contact except for Riley. And she had been forced to leave him every day and go back to a world where he was supposed to be dead. It left them both living for the moments they had spent together. And now that they were back in the real world, some of that urgency still remained.
He shook off these thoughts and took one last look out over the cliff at the ocean swirling below, then turned back to look at her. “I’m not bored,” he assured her. “And I don’t care for touristy things. I wanted the insider’s tour, remember? Now, we were going to look for a bookstore, right?”
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 18, 2009 2:33:12 GMT -5
Riley nodded. "I wanted to, yes. I know where one is... Let's just go get lost. Some of the streets are so entwined, I got lost in them all the time. There's something romantic about being lost in a foreign city, isn't there?"
She turned them away from the path along the clif's edge and into the town. "Once, I was coming home from school and it was raining... I just took random turns and was so hopelessly lost... It was liberating somehow. I can't explain it. I don't even know why I did it that time. It's strange, but it's one of my most vivid memories. I can still tell you how warm the rain was, the way it smelled... That's strange, right?"
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 18, 2009 16:59:51 GMT -5
Her story made him smile and ache all at the same time. It was so like her that she would enjoy being lost, at least as a child. She wasn’t happy, and she wanted to lose herself, maybe to find some other life where she could be happy. Instead of feeling out of control because she didn’t know where she was, she saw possibilities and opportunities and the chance to start over again.
That was how he interpreted it, anyway. He didn’t say any of this to her, however. Instead, he planted a kiss on her cheek. “No, it’s not strange. It sounds nice… like it was your own little adventure. I’d love to get lost with you.”
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 20, 2009 18:20:09 GMT -5
Riley looked at him, pulling her lips between her teeth. She still had that filter in her head that kept her from throwing herself wholeheartedly into love with him. That didn't mean she wasn't hopelessly in love with him, it just meant that she still put up walls, even if she didn't mean to.
So it took her a moment, but she finally said outloud what she was thinking. "It reminds me of how I feel with you," she said, blushing slightly. "Because I get lost in you, every time I look at you. And when I get lost in you, I feel like we're on our own little adventure. And I don't ever want to stop losing myself in you."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 20, 2009 23:09:14 GMT -5
She just couldn't say things like that to him and not expect him to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. Actually, he wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that, but they were in public, so he settled for taking her into his arms and kissing her deeply.
He knew she was still putting up walls. They weren't as high or as thick as the ones that had been there in the beginning, but he knew they were still there. The average man might not have noticed it at all; most people still put up walls in their relationships, no matter how close they were. And as close as he and Riley were, that was still closer than many people ever got to each other. But Roland had given himself to her completely, holding nothing back. And he knew that she wasn't quite doing the same. Not yet.
So when she said things like that, declaring her love for him, it had a powerful effect on him. Just when he thought it wasn't possible to love her more than he already did... she would say something that would make him fall a little more deeply in love with her.
"I feel the same way," he whispered against her lips. "I'm hopelessly lost in you, and I never want to be found."
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 26, 2009 0:52:47 GMT -5
Riley smiled softly, not moving away from the warmth of his body or his smile. "What are we going to do with each other?" she asked with a little laugh. "We're both so hopeless."
She kissed him again, a quick, shy kiss. She could stay folded up in his arms forever, but she did want to show him some of the town, so she sighed and squeezed his hand. "All right... pick a street to turn down, and we will. It doesn't matter which one, or which way."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 26, 2009 1:10:06 GMT -5
What he really wanted to do at that moment was go back to the hotel and make love to her. But she was going to make him wait. He was positive that by the time they got back to the hotel, they'd be so frantic for each other that they'd be tearing each others' clothes off.
He captured her lips in one more quick kiss, then forced himself to pull away and just hold her hand. He looked down the streets and randomly chose one. "That one looks good," he said, pointing.
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Post by Riley Neves on Nov 26, 2009 1:29:32 GMT -5
Riley nudged him in the direction of the street he had chosen. Often, her mind didn't wander towards sleeping with Roland. Not at first. When she kissed him, and when he held her in his arms, she was thinking of nothing else. She was focused so completely on him that it often wasn't until a little later when the thoughts hit her.
So it surprised her when she had some of these thoughts, like the one running through her mind now that they may not even make it back to the room. It made her blush slightly, but she could pass it off as the cool air.
They spent a good while weaving through some of the smaller alleys, getting lost in the very heart of the city before they happened across a tiny bookstore that was nearly deserted. "Perfect. Come on."
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Post by Roland Ferrera on Nov 26, 2009 1:47:31 GMT -5
He was trying to be on his very best behavior. But Merlin, it was so difficult sometimes. He just loved her so much and he wanted her constantly. But they had come all this way, and he'd said he wanted to see the town, so they should really spend some time out of the hotel room.
And he did enjoy wandering the streets, looking at the buildings. It was all very quaint, like they had stepped back in time.
When they found the bookstore, he smiled and opened the door for her. It almost seemed like she was on a specific mission at the bookstore, and he was curious to see what she was up to. "So what are we looking for?" he asked at last.
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