Vanessa followed Riley down the path to his suite.  “Really, if you’re tired, I can find somewhere…”

“Don’t be silly, Vanessa,” he said matter of factly.  He tried getting a read on her emotional state, but his signals were jammed by his tiredness.  He hoped playing it cool was the correct approach. 

“I owe you an explanation,” Vanessa said.  “And a number of apologies.”

“You don’t owe me…”

“Yes, I do.”  They reached his door, and Riley keyed open his room.  He opened the door for her and closed it behind her.  Vanessa continued.  “You deserve better.”

Riley decided not to ask what she meant.  He feared she might say something stupid like he deserved better than her.  In his mind, there was no one better than her, and he really was too tired to argue that point.

“First I’ll start with an apology.  I am truly sorry for running away.  Charles used some things, things he should not have known, against me…”

“I thought he was my friend, Vanessa.  I never dreamed he would ever…”

“Riley, I’m not blaming you,” she defended, then she took a deep breath to calm herself.  “I really don’t want to talk about him at all, but let’s just say he tore open some old wounds that I thought were healed.  I needed to work through them.”

“And did you?”

She thought for a second.  “Mostly.”  She took another deep breath.  “Back to the apologies, I’m also very sorry for asking you to leave when you came to find me.  I was thrown.  It doesn’t excuse my rudeness, but I never expected you to show up.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She looked him in the eye.  “I didn’t say it was something you wouldn’t do; I said I never expected it.  I’m not used to anyone caring enough to come after me.”  This time she took two deep breaths.  “Riley, honestly, I didn’t know how to handle this.  My heart and my head were kinda not speaking to each other.  All they wanted to do was scream at me.  And both made sense.  I couldn’t seem to get a handle on which one to listen to. 

“Then I talked to my dad.  He told me stories about my mother that he had never told me before.  I had never asked because whenever I brought her up, he always changed the subject or found a way to leave the room.  Her memory seemed to deeply hurt him, so I just let her go.  But what he told me now about their romance and marriage helped me sort a lot of feelings, and surprisingly, it helped me understand things about my childhood and why he married my stepmother.  To be honest, I still had the warring head and heart issue.  That is,” she reached in her bag and pulled up a picture on her phone, “until I saw this.” 

She handed it to him, and what he saw made him drop on the couch.  It was a picture of him and Sandy from last week when she kissed him on the cheek.  From the angle it was taken, it looked, well, bad.  His heart skipped a beat in fear that Vanessa was about to tell him that she would never be with a jerk who would claim to love her and seemingly hook up with the next woman he saw.

He stared at it disbelievingly.  “Vanessa, this might sound cliché, but it isn’t at all what it looks like.” 

She chuckled.  “Heck, Riley, I know that.  But I have to admit when I first saw it, I felt jealousy like I’ve never felt before.  I wanted to kill her.  I wanted to jump on a plane and come fight for you – literally.  Then, I really analyzed the picture.  First of all, she has a wedding ring on.  I’m pretty sure I know you well enough to know you would never get involved with a married woman.  Not your style.  Plus, she’s kissing your cheek; you didn’t kiss her. 

“Secondly, look at your face.”  She pointed to his face in the picture.  “You look so sad.”  She paused to let him see what she saw.  “I realized that if I did that to you, that if I am the one who made you feel miserable enough to make that face,”  her voice cracked,  “then I’m not okay with that.” 

He looked up from the picture to see her first tear fall.  He stood and wanted so badly to wipe it from her face or take her in his arms, but he was still a little confused about her presence and wasn’t sure if touching her was allowed.

“So, why are you here then, Vanessa?”  He realized after the words came out of his mouth that they sounded sharper than he intended.  “I mean… jeez, I’m not sure what I mean.”

She wiped her face.  “I’m here to tell you something.  It took that picture to make me get it.  When I saw how miserable you were, it made me understand how incredibly selfish I have been.  You told me I was, but it took this to understand what you meant.  I ran away with no explanation and pushed you away when you wanted to tell me you love me.  You were right, I should have had faith in you.  I didn’t.  It is unforgivable.  Then, when I remembered how I got so jealous, I realized that my head and heart were finally saying the same thing – rip that chick’s face off and shove it down her throat.  I figured they must have worked out their differences because they seem to both be saying the same thing ever since.”

He reached out to hold her hand, and when she didn’t pull away from him, he gently pulled her closer to him.  “And what are they telling you?”

She placed her free hand on his chest, leaned into him and looked up at him innocently.  “That I am one-hundred percent, totally, head over heels, completely in love with you.”

He took his free hand and caressed her face, still a little in awe that she was actually standing in front of him.  She leaned into his hand and closed her eyes.  A surge of emotion energized him to kiss her lightly on the lips.  “As luck would have it,” he said against her lips, “I love you, too.  Call it impossible, call it crazy, call it too soon, call it whatever you want, but I felt it when I first laid eyes on you.  I knew it for sure when you told me in my sleep that you were falling for me.”  He kissed her again, this time not so lightly.  “Sorry, I know that sounded a little unnecessary, but I practiced that speech on the plane on my way to see you in Texas.  I didn’t get to use it then, and I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

“It was perfect.”  They kissed again, but she pulled her head back and looked in his eyes.  “For the record, I told Emily that I loved you when we were out to lunch, but then, well, you know.  After I saw this picture.  I wanted to call you when I figured it all out, and so I found the note where you wrote your number and finally looked at it.  You actually took the time to list rock love songs for me to check out?  Really impressive.”

“You were right, though.  There aren’t a lot of romantic rock love songs.  I mean, there are, but from the style of music you like.  Took me most of the plane ride there to get the list I made.  Did you get a chance to listen to any of them?”

“Yeah.  I looked up every one of them.  I knew some of them, but I listened to the lyrics.  I even download a few from your list.  I’d never heard some of the songs that I really liked.”

“Good.”

She averted her eyes and tucked her head under his chin.  “Riley, I’ve been awful to you.  I don’t understand how you can be accepting of my apology.  If I were you, I’d make me grovel or something.”

He reached down to her thighs, grabbed her sundress and lifted it quickly over her head, smiling devilishly at her surprised expression.  “Making you grovel is not really my style,” he unhooked her bra and removed it, “but I can think of proper ways to have you make it up to me.” He removed her panties, fell back on the couch and pulled her on top of him to straddle him.  He lifted both breasts with his hands, working his tongue and mouth over each nipple individually until she moaned. 

“Do you really want me after all this?” she asked, pulling his shirt over his head before ripping open the button and zipper of his jeans.  She stood slightly, leaned over him as he lifted his hips, helping her to remove his pants. 

He slid one hand down her stomach to between her legs and worked her with his fingers to prepare her for him.  When he guided his hardness to the right spot and slid her down to completely accept him, he looked in her eyes.  “What do you think?”  They moved against each other in unison.  “You are everything I’ve been looking for.  I’m never letting you go again.”

She stopped and looked deep into his eyes.  She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her breasts against his chest.  “I’m never leaving again.  I promise.”

He urged her to move again.  “I love you.”  He kissed her softly at first, but as his need for her grew, the kiss deepened, mouths open, tongues engaged.  He prodded her to move faster, sliding his hands up her waist to her breasts to massage her nipples with his thumbs.  She broke from the kiss, leaned back, grabbed his right hand and moved it between her legs.  Not long after he began stroking and pinching just the right spot with his fingers, she groaned and writhed against his hand.  He watched her face and the complete ecstasy she felt, and it caused him to come fiercely inside her. 

She fell against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her protectively.  He waited for both of them to catch their breath.  “You are my everything,” he whispered into her hair.  They stayed like that for a little while, neither moving nor speaking.  Eventually he carried her to the bed where she settled on top of him and they fell asleep. 

The next morning, they both took turns in the bathroom and returned to the bed, entwined in each other’s arms.

“You don’t know how good it feels to have you here in my arms,” he whispered in her ear.  “I thought I had screwed up royally when I yelled at you and left like I did.”  He kissed her forehead.

“Believe it or not,” she said, “it helped.  The fact that you can get angry enough to break your moral code and cuss at me made me see that you aren’t too good to be true.”

“Okay, that I don’t understand.”

She pushed up and looked him in the eye.  “Part of the problem I had was believing you were for real.  You seemed too perfect, kinda like a mirage, a fantasy I’d built up in my head.  Too good to be true.  Since you got mad and cursed at me, I knew you were the perfect guy for me.”

“That seems backward somehow.”

“Yeah, well.  It means you are a real person.  You had every right to be mad at me.”

“So why did you let me leave?”

“I said it was part of the problem.”  She propped her head on her hand.  “Emily said she told you about some of what my mom said to me, that men would only love my body and lie to me.  When that’s all I heard from her for about six or seven years, it hurt.  Consciously, I knew her words weren’t true.  But sometimes her voice comes back to me, especially when the only two boyfriends I ever had made her words ring true.  I really did work it out in therapy, but enter Charles reminding me that you are an actor who lies for a living and that you were just using me, kinda hit home.  All the issues I thought I’d worked out were wiped out in one afternoon.  I knew what kind of guy he was, and I allowed him to get to me.  He knew what buttons to push, buttons I thought weren’t there anymore.  Not only did it shake up things about you and me, it altered my perception of who I thought I was.  He had me fooled.  I mean, I always got a bad vibe from him, but he actually had me believing that he cared about you.  I’m not used to being wrong about people.  Plus, I let him rattle me so easily.  Some psychologist.  I thought I was stronger than that.”

He rolled on his side so he could face her and placed his hand on her waist.  “You are strong.  Not too many people would suffer the verbal abuse you did and come out better for it.  Isn’t abuse like that?  A cycle?”  When she nodded, he continued.  “Instead of giving into it and letting her words define you, you worked very hard to prove your mother wrong.”  He ghosted his fingers up her side, across her breast, up her neck to trace her cheek.  “All that you’ve been through?  It makes you a better psychologist.”  He lowered his face to hers, skimmed his nose along her cheek and whispered.  “I think you are great at your job.”

“Yeah,” she snorted.  “So great that you never agreed to let me treat you.”

Riley pulled his head back to look her in the eye.  “You wanna know why I never committed to therapy?  It’s because I was immediately drawn to you.  I felt the chemistry between us, and I knew you would never let yourself fall for me if I was your client.  And it wasn’t a purely physical attraction, either, I mean at first it was, but then it wasn’t.  I felt connected to you, like we had known each other for a long time.  While it’s true you have a great body, it’s not the only thing that drew me in.  Face it, if that’s all that was important to me, I’d already be involved with someone beautiful but vapid and shallow.  I do live in L.A., and there are plenty of those types around.” 

“Okay, that’s comforting.  And you were involved with Bailee.”

“I knew Bailee was temporary from the start.”  He paused and brushed the hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear.  “She never cared enough to really listen to me.  She was only in the relationship for what I could do for her.  And she never made me laugh, ever.  I would never ask her to sit with me and watch Phineas and Ferb.  She would never just sit and talk.  I knew there was no way I would ever love her.”  His eyes held hers, longing to read her mind.  “I was waiting to fall in love,” he said huskily, “with you.  I told you already… you are the last one, Vanessa.  The only one… for me.”

She leaned into him and kissed him.  His hand slid up to caress her face, tracing the contours of her jaw line with his finger and eventually, wrapping his hand around the back of her neck to pull her closer.  He felt her surrender to his touch and give in to the kiss.  He knew she was surrendering more than her body to him at that moment. 

He rolled on top of her, not breaking the kiss, and nudged her legs open with his knee, moving his hips to rub her entrance gently with the tip of his cock, knowing exactly what spot drove her crazy.  She wrapped her legs around his hips. 

“Riley.  Please,” she whispered, and he smiled against her lips, resuming the kiss.  He continued his teasing.  “Riley, I need you inside me.” 

“And I will be,” he murmured.  He pulled back and looked in her eyes.  “But not just yet.”  He kissed down her throat to her breasts, lingered a few moments on each one and moved down to his destination.  He kissed the inside of her right thigh, grazing her with his tongue briefly before moving to the other thigh, enjoying her slight jump at the contact. 

“Oh. My. God.  Why are you doing this to me?” she breathed as he gently pushed her thighs as wide as they would go, studying what they revealed.

He trailed his finger lightly over what he studied, barely grazing her clit and running it to her opening and back.  “Think of this as part of your penance.”  He kissed her clit lightly.  “Learn patience… and to enjoy it.”  He reversed the trail made a moment ago with his tongue this time, intensely enjoying the teasing torture he was inflicting on her. 

She reached down to perform the act he was intending to do with his mouth, but he grabbed her wrist and pinned it down to the bed before she reached her spot.  “No cheating.”  He blew out gently and she squirmed.  “It just earned you a penalty.” 

“I thought you liked to watch,” she purred.

“I do.  But right now, I’m thoroughly enjoying driving you crazy.”  He touched her opening briefly with his thumb.  “So, shhhhh. I plan to take my time.  Don’t rush me.”

She growled, but when he slid his finger teasingly inside her, she arched and moaned, grabbing handfuls of the sheet.  “Please don’t stop,” she whispered desperately.

He smiled.  He removed his finger from inside her and flicked his finger against her clit a few times.  She jumped and cursed softly at each touch.  He rubbed and teased and stopped intermittently, watching her reactions, smiling each time.  Realizing he had played enough, he tongued her, plunging two fingers deep into her wetness, curling them upward.  Two good thrusts with his fingers and she came viciously, moaning loudly.  He immediately moved up her body and plunged inside her, feeling her muscles still contracting around him.  He stayed still until she whimpered.  He pulled out at an antagonizing slow pace, slammed into her again and stayed motionless.  When he repeated the process once more, she wrapped her legs around him again, prodding him to go faster. 

“I told you I wanted to take my time.”  He kissed her and felt her give in.  “So… Relax.  We have all day.”