His fingers crawled from her hips to about where her ribs began. Her breath caught somewhere along the line and her heart was beating rapidly. She opened her eyes, only to see a pleasant expression on Vaughn’s face, his eyes fixated on her lips. “Vaughn,” she exhaled.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he slowly closed the space between their lips, kissing her slowly, but most certainly with the most passion he could muster. She, clearly, responded in a like manner. They were so close to each other, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough.
Her hand ran absently through his hair, messing it up time and time again. His cupped her neck and then somehow found itself tangled in her hair.
Unwillingly, they parted, and Sydney allowed her forehead to rest on Vaughn’s shoulder. Courteously, he tried smoothing out her wet hair. “We should probably go back out now,” Vaughn said. “Or else Weiss’ll think we’re breaking up or something.”
The words “breaking up” shocked her back to life and out of her post-kiss reverie. Frantically, her mind briefly processed them in a context where it was real. She gulped for air, an action which did not go unnoticed by Vaughn.
“Hey,” he said worriedly, his forehead crinkling up, “Are you okay?” He lifted her chin with a finger and searched her eyes fearfully, trying to get a read on how she was. Almost automatically, Sydney clung onto Vaughn and buried her head into his neck. Lightly, she placed a kiss on the back of it. Vaughn held onto her while she wrapped her long legs around his waist. “Syd, what’s wrong?” he asked concernedly. Her behavior, and its abnormality, was scaring him a little bit.
He rubbed small circles on her back, trying to calm her. “Syd,” he said again, awaiting a response – any response. Feeling her shake her head against his skin, he knew she wasn’t going to admit whatever had caused this change in her mood. “I love you,” he said, not knowing what else to tell her. “I love you, you know that, right?”
She nodded and smiled against his bare skin. She lifted her head and wiped away the tears which had been welling. Vaughn looked at her worriedly once more. Delicately, she pressed her lips to his again.
Vaughn was all for kissing his girlfriend, but he was still bothered by whatever was bothering her, so he broke it abruptly. “Syd, you have to talk to me,” he encouraged softly.
She nodded knowingly. “I know.” Looking down, she said just barely audibly, “It’s just…,” she took a deep breath, “Don’t say the words ‘break’ and ‘up’ in the same sentence, okay?”
Vaughn was taken aback. “That’s,” he lifted her chin once more so that he was looking her straight in the eyes, “What you were so scared about?”
She wanted to look down again, but he didn’t let her. “Syd,” he said in a very authoritative voice. “I don’t…. I mean, I wouldn’t.… Why would you think…,” he stumbled. “We just got together,” he said. “And I love you. There’s no way in hell right now that I’d even let you leave, even if you wanted to,” he smiled.
“Good. And I love you, too,” she smiled back, giving him a peck on the lips. She let her legs slide down his so that they were on the floor again. He didn’t let go of her yet, though.
A few minutes later they walked back out to the pool, hand in hand. Weiss just rolled his eyes. “I knew you guys weren’t fighting,” he sighed.
Just to annoy him, Vaughn stopped suddenly, placed his hands on Sydney’s cheeks, and kissed her fervently.
“Mike, you suck,” Weiss announced as he got off oh his inflatable lounger. “I’m going home. Thanks for inviting me over, Syd.”
