Back Into Your Arms

Chapter 66

I woke up in the morning on John’s bare chest.
John’s bare chest.

In a slight panic, I sat up quickly to analyze the situation.
To my relief, there was nothing to analyze. I was still wearing what I had put on yesterday and so was he, except for the shirt.
I made my way out of bed, I showered quickly, brushed my teeth and walked back to bed.

John was still completely asleep.

I crawled back into bed. I had to wait for him to get up, so I decided to keep busy by counting his tattoo’s and trying to decipher the meaning of them. He had so many it amazed me.
I had to look up the meaning of the one in Latin. It was then that I realized there were blogs dedicated to John’s tattoo’s.
There was one tattoo in specific that caught my attention. The light switch.

“On and OFF” I read aloud. The switch was on.

“Coat of arms?” I questioned as I admired the strange tattoo.

“Hm?”

He startled me, he had woken up now.

“Staring at me chest, eh?” he said with an Irish accent. His Irish accent was spot on.

“You’re an Irish man?”

“Goodness Mel you are slow, the O’Callaghan didn’t give it away?” he laughed. Sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“I’ve never met an O’Callaghan before…I didn’t know and you never told me”

My brain was barely beginning to piece things together. He was an O’Callaghan, the fifth of his name to be exact, he had a coat of arms tattooed onto his body. He also didn’t look like a typical American. I really was slow.

“So… you were just going to wait until our Irish wedding to find out?” he laughed, standing up and walking to the restroom.

Irish Wedding. Why did that appeal to me so much now?

I laughed as I reached for my phone and finally turned it back on after a long while of keeping it off.

Texts from mom, from Julie’s mother in law, messages from the girls back at home. I ignored them all and instead turned off my phone one more time.

John made his way back to bed. I tossed my phone on the carpet.

“Did you just toss your phone?”

“Yup, too many people trying to implore of me”

“Yeah me too” he said tossing his phone on the carpet, next to mine.

“No phone until the end of the day?”

“I agree 100%”

I smiled as we both continued lying in bed.

“Should we do something today? Go out somewhere?” he suggested.

I thought about it for a moment, I don’t know if it was the lighting in the room, or the apartment itself but something drew me in, it practically begged me to stay. The room glowed from the sun seeping in through the windows.

“Do you feel it too?” I asked.

He rested his head on his hand.

“Feel what?”

“There’s just this vibe in the room, this glow, this warmth, it almost feels as though we are somewhere else, not New York City, rather Italy or something” I laughed trying to explain my feelings but he nodded.

“You want to stay in today?”

“Yeah, let’s just stay here in bed all day, when we get back home tomorrow it’s back to the usual busy lifestyle we lead, but for today, let’s just lay here and enjoy the time we have off”

“You’re very right” he said leaning closer.

“Tell me about your tattoo’s”

“What do you want to know?”

“When this mural began, your favorite, and the meaning behind them all”

He smiled excitedly as he began to tell the great tale of his body art.

Every tattoo had a story, some had very deep meanings, other’s not so much, but they meant a lot to him.
He then showed me one I had not seen before.

“YOU tattooed YOUR FREAKING LIP!” I said amazed as I sat up to get a better look at it. I pulled his lip down.

“Live” I read, I let go of his lip and looked at him confused.

“Really important to remember that”

“True…but on your lip? Who are you trying to send this message to? Your dentist?” I teased.

“Hey, dentist tend to be pretty cranky all the time, they’re stuck with a lousy job, I was just looking out for them” he defended himself, “But no, really, I faced a lot of difficult times before getting this tattoo and I knew I would face more, I needed this reminder myself”

“So, do you feel you have been living?”

“Oh, heck yeah, I haven’t held back from doing anything I’ve wanted to” he said with complete confidence.

“There’s nothing you’ve held back from doing?” I questioned not really believing him. He thought about it for a moment.

“Well there is something”

“What is it?” I asked oblivious.

He started to laugh and shook his head.

“I can’t”

“You can’t what? Tell me?”

“Kiss you”

“Wait, what?” I asked confused and turning pink, I had to have heard wrong.

He sat up and leaned in closer. He reached for my hands.
If we had both wanted to kiss each other so bad, we both had to have had very valid reasons for waiting this long. I knew my reason, but I did not know his.

“What’s holding you back?” I whispered to him. I looked at his hazel eyes, they looked unsure.

“Irrational fear”

“What do you mean? Tell me”
He took a deep breath.

“I’m scared that once I kiss you, you’re going to disappear, and I’m going to wake up and find out all this happiness, all this bliss, was just a dream”

He didn’t sound like he was lying, or being sarcastic or trying to be charming, he was being honest with me. He was truly scarred of the possibility.

“I’m not a dream” I said to him as I tried to smile.

I traced his nose with my hand. His skin on my fingertips.

“That’s my reason, but why haven’t YOU kissed me?” he asked, although it sounded more like a complaint. I inched a bit closer to him.

“Because I didn’t want to completely fall in love with you and then see you leave”

“I’m not going anywhere”

“I know that now” I laughed softly.

He caressed my cheek with his hand. A sweet gesture that only made my heart race even faster than it already was racing. Tachycardia in full effect.

Then with both hands he held my face as he leaned in and kissed me.

My eyes closed automatically as I kissed him back. I had wondered what it would feel like to kiss him for too long, but it was much different than I had imagined.

The way he kissed me told a story. He wasn’t kissing me like a new lover, he wasn’t kissing me full of lust and desire, he was kissing me like if I were really going to disappear after it was all over.

He began to pull back and it was then that I realized that he was crying.

“10 years Melody, I waited 10 years…”

They were both tears of happiness and tears of longing. He had been waiting since we were teens to kiss the girl he loved. If I thought I had waited long, nothing compared to his wait. I began to get teary eyed as I leaned in to embrace him tightly.

This man, he loved me, he had really loved me back then, but he loved me now too. I was holding back my feelings for my own sake, but he needed to hear how I felt.

“I won’t make you wait again, I promise”
I took a deep breath.
“I love you John” I whispered slowly to him as I held onto him tighter.

“You’re the love of my life Melody, I’ve always loved you”

And we just sat there, crying and hugging and kissing like if it were the end of the world, but it really wasn’t the end of the world, in the contraire, it was the beginning of a new chapter, it was the first time in a long time that we had finally ended up on the same page of the same book.
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Hope you guys enjoyed this! I plan on taking some time to read my entire story and then continue working from there. So depending on how long that will take me, I may not be posting until 2 weeks from now, maybe sooner, maybe later. Thank you for all your support! Comment, subscribe, there’s still more to come!