Chapter 31

Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long. School, life, drama, and writing my other story got in the way of this one but I'm determined to be better about balancing both stories.
Frankly it's a miracle that I've managed to write as much as I have but it's definitely because your comments motivate me so much to keep going. So I love all of you and the fact that you take 5 minutes out of your days to read my stuff :) Enjoy the gooiness ahead!



Emma's POV:

All my life, I had never understood how other women put up with their husband's or boyfriend's snoring. It was awful, plain and simple. The guttural, back of the throat noises that emitted from a tired and satiated man was one thing that I just couldn't listen to and I openly praised my friends who put up with it on a regular basis from their men.

I guess I had never been able to understand why they put up with it until now.

As I discovered on the first day of the new year, watching Sidney snore was something that sadly, I knew I would be happy to do for a long, long time. As we laid there, my back sticking to the leather fabric of the couch from the weight of his body on top of mine, I felt an incredible sense of peace listening to the air move in and out of his chest and feeling the breeze of it on my neck where his head was resting.

Seeing him in such a relaxed state calmed me too and it was as if I had been zapped awake for the first time in my entire life. Why hadn't I ever felt this way before? Why hadn't I known that all of those tiny crevices of my heart could be filled with something so pure and overwhelming for just one individual.

It wasn't hard for me to realize that I was in love with him. Maybe I had been suspecting it for awhile now and god knows that I had been dying to get in his pants for forever but this was different. This morning I had simply woken up, opened my eyes to see his black, tossled hair in my face and I just knew.

This was the man that I was supposed to love.

His weight on top of me kept me warm as I craned my head a little trying to read what time it was. It was still dark outside indicating the early morning and I could see the outline of littered clothes on the floor and Sidney's shirt draped over the TV from where we had frantically thrown off each other's clothing.

He shifted with me and sighed, his mouth puckering slightly from his breathing and inviting me to kiss him again. Instead I settled for letting my hands run lightly through his hair, finger-combing through the tangles that my hands had previously created.

I had almost fallen back asleep when I felt the arm against my side shift and rub gently along the curve of my breast and side. I opened my eyes to see him staring down at me seriously in the intense way that only he could manage.

"Morning" I said smiling up at him shyly. The way he was looking at me made me feel like a girl confronting her first crush and I was also a little worried. Whether or not he realized it, or wanted to realize it, something monumental had transpired between us and there would be no taking it back. Now that I had something good,  I wasn't going to be letting it go anytime soon.

"Am I hurting you?" he said shifting again as if he was worried.

I shook my head no and scratched his scalp lightly to reassure him. If it were up to me, we would stay in this position all day.

"Good" he stated grinning slightly and making me feel relieved. He leaned down to capture my waiting lips with his and I could taste my lipstick and champagne from the previous night on his skin.

Kissing him was a guaranteed toe-curling experience everytime and infinitely better now that my hands could freely roam his body as if it were mine. We finally broke apart from our teenage-like making out session because his stomach ruined the mood by growling loudly.

"Want me to make something?"

"If you don't mind" he said smiling sheepishly and pushing himself up and away from my body. As he stood up, I marvelled at the fact that I really was here with such a beautiful man. I wasn't sure that anyone was deserving of that kind of body with them in bed much less an average looking girl like myself.

He laughed as he helped pull me up from the couch and grinned, apologizing again at the sound of my skin separating itself from the leather.

"I'll make it up to you later" he smiled planting a kiss on my cheek and pulling on his shorts from where they had been discarded at the other end of the couch. Oh yeah, I'm definitely counting on that.

He went to pick up his crumpled white dress shirt that I had practically forced off of him the night before but I snatched it out of his hands putting it on instead and looking around for my underwear behind the couch. I didn't like being naked and I wasn't sure that I could cook us something without underwear on either. I located my red, lacy boyshorts on the floor and slipped into them. When I looked up and saw Sidney watching me intently, muscular arms folded across his chest, my heart skipped a beat.

"What?" I asked feeling shy under his gaze. I felt naked from the penetrating stare of his brown eyes even though I was now wearing his shirt. Instead of answering me, he crossed the short distance between us and pulled me by the arms to meet his body line for line. My lips were waiting as he met them applying just the right amount of pressure to make me sigh and melt into him like butter.

"What was that for?" I asked catching my breath and trying not to pant like a drowning woman. It was bad enough that I was already drowning in another sense.

"I like you in my shirt" he said smiling and releasing his grip on my arms.

If he kept it up, we were going to end up naked on my couch again. I had to re-focus my thoughts and force myself to step away and walk into the kitchen so that we could finally eat something. He followed me and leaned against the kitchen island still half naked and looking very tempting.

"So what do you want to eat?" I asked rummaging around in my fridge. I had a bunch of leftovers and some takeout but none of them looked very appetizing at the moment.

"Are those noodles?" he asked, his eyes practically lighting up at the sight of the chinese noodle container.

I nodded staring at the container in question. "Lets have those instead" he said grabbing it from me and going for the dish cabinet.

"Wait, lemme get this straight. I offer to cook for you and you want chinese takeout instead?"

He nodded looking uneasy between me and the box of noodles. "I'm sorry- I just thought that it would save you from having to make something."

I laughed cutting off his apology and hip-checking him gently to push him out of the way. I pulled out a large bowl and dumped the noodles in, sticking them into the microwave. "Do you mind sharing?"

He answered me by pulling out two forks from the silverware drawer and wiggling them in the air.

We decided to eat upstairs on the bed rather than the couch. I was too grossed out to eat on the couch after having sex on it and the kitchen table wasn't comfortable either. Sidney paused in the doorway of my room, eyes scanning the room as he looked over everything that made my room private.

I pulled down the covers to the bed and crawled in, trying to ignore the fact that he still hadn't moved from his spot. "Is this too weird or something?" I asked unable to hold the question in any longer. Suddnely I was worried that maybe he didn't feel comfortable in my room or felt that we shouldn't actually spend the night together yet.

Luckily he didn't keep me hanging in suspense for long and joined me on the opposite side of the bed, careful to hand me the noodles to hold while he got settled underneath the covers. I passed him a beer and a fork from the nightstand and set the noodles between us while he turned on the TV automatically flicking through the channels before settling on NHL on the Fly.

We were silent for a few moments focusing on the noodles and old hockey news on the TV in front of us. It was a comfortable silence, both of us relaxed in each other's presence and hardly fighting over the noodles even though he beat me out for the last bite.

Still I couldn't help feeling like the shoe was about to drop. This was almost too perfect a moment for it to be real and I wanted to know what he was thinking. One of the downsides to being a girl was the uncertain paranoia that could close in at any time during a new relationship. By now I should be used to Sidney and his quiet ways but after everything that had transpired in the past 24 hours, I was an emotional battlefield.

Of course I couldn't tell him that I was in love with him but it wouldn't hurt either of us for me to know what he was thinking. Did he regret it? Did he want this to be a one time thing? All signs so far indicated that he wasn't freaked out or regretting anything- he was even cuddling in bed with me eating chinese food. If he had wanted to leave he would have already, right?

"Could you stop doing that?" he asked nudging me slightly with his arm. "You're twitching."

"I'm not twitching" I state trying not to fidget anymore. I shifted putting our empty bottles and bowl on the bedside table away from my clean linens.

"You just did it again" he said chuckling and lifting his arm up so that I could lean against his side. He pulled me closer and I bit my lip trying to hold all of my insecure and probably psychotic questions inside. Everything was already so perfect that I didn't want to ruin the moment by acting clingy and strange.

"Okay, what's bugging you?" he asked turning the volume down and looking down at me expectantly. "I can hear wheels turning in your head."

"Nothing" I sighed, thinking of a way to phrase my question before something humiliating popped out instead.

"No seriously, what is it? You look worried or something."

This was awful. I was officially on the spot now and blushing from how anxious and embarrassed I now felt. It didn't help that he looked torn between wanting to laugh and concerned as he saw my face turn three different kinds of red.

"Come on, seriously" he said laughing now as he tried to pull my arm away from my face. "Do I need to force it out of you?" He leaned closer to me as if trying to intimidate me and I caved, the words errupting from my mouth before I could think of something else to say.

"What are we doing?"

He paused looking confused. "What do you mean? We're watching TV."

"No" I groaned realizing that I was going to have to spell it out for him. "I mean what happens now. With us" I clarified. My eyes remained trained on his face looking for any tell-tale signs of uneasiness or fear.

He laughed outright at me turning it into a stammering cough as he saw the frown on my face. "That's what you were worrying about?"

"I'm serious, Sidney" I said not liking how funny he found the whole situation. If he only knew how I felt about him, then maybe he wouldn't find it so funny either.

"Em, I wouldn't sleep with you of all people if I thought it was going to be a one night stand." He picked up my hand and placed a kiss on my palm. It almost distracted me until I reviewed what he had just said.

"What do you mean by 'me of all people?" I asked feeling slightly offended.

"Don't take it the wrong way" he said anticipating my anger. "I just mean that you and I are more complicated then two people casually dating. We're friends too, no matter what happens. It complicates things more."

When he said it that way, the fact that it really was complicated all sounded so simple. Too bad it really wasn't.

"So since it is complicated, what do you think we should do?" I asked hoping he would give me the type of response I was looking for. I couldn't force him into any sort of relationship no matter what I wanted.

"I think that you were right earlier" he stated leaning over me and pushing me gently back against the pillows. One hand kept him poised above me while the other fiddled with the top button of his shirt that I was still wearing. "I like you" he said in a low voice that was suddenly giving me goosebumps on top of goosebumps. "You like me." He leaned down and planted a kiss on the hollow curve of my neck making my breath expell out on a sigh.

"Can we just take it from there for awhile, see what happens?" His lips were now giving thorough attention to the most sensitive part of my neck and I tried to nod, too turned on to speak and give him a real response. He continued to trace patterns on my neck and jawline with his lips and I gripped his hair, using it as a tool to lift his head so that he could meet my eyes.

He wasn't ready to hear the truth from me yet but there was something else I needed to tell him before we continued.

"Hey Sid? I like you too."