Signs of Love

by Skye, Harper

  She had fucked something up. She didn’t know quite what, but Ailsa could feel the energy pouring off him from the other side of the room.

  “Ahhhh” Zach sighed as he swallowed the last of his second glass of whiskey. He looked up and when he saw her standing there, her long hair falling in waves across her shoulders and down her back, his eyes locked onto her as if he couldn’t tear himself away.

  Hoping this was an invitation, Ailsa began to edge closer to where he stood in front of the counter, his dark blue shirt heaving with his stifled breath. He had so much pent up inside that he wasn’t letting out. Ailsa could barely breathe herself. The intense look on Zach’s face was doing things to her, pulling out feelings she was desperately trying to keep buried.

  “Zach.” She said his name. Softly. As if she were calling to him.

  “What?” He couldn’t disguise the gruffness. He was barely trying. She reached out, her fingertips grazing his upper arm, but he shook her off and reached for the bottle instead.

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Ailsa could feel something churning inside of her. Down in the depths of her. She could feel the intensity of his presence against her skin, and even though they were both so still they seemed frozen, Ailsa could feel her heart racing in her chest. Zach’s brown eyes were staring into her blue ones, boring down into her. For a split second, Ailsa thought he was going to say something. She could see the battle going on behind his eyes. Love and the fear of losing love. The need to tell the truth and the fear of what that truth might mean.

  “What do you want me to say, Ailsa? That I’ve been fucking lonely? That Leah was right? What?!”

  She had made light of his pain. She saw it now. She was a fucking drunk asshole. “Zach, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it…”

  “But it’s true,” Zach shot back. He was standing before her like a tree. Solid and unmoving. And she realized this was why she hadn’t recognized his pain before. He kept it all inside, like the life force that moves within the very depths of the tree.

  She watched Zach pour a third measure of whiskey. Then he turned his back to her. Walking into the darkness of the living room he opened the side doors and stepped out into the sunroom that was filling with the shadows of that brief Alaskan night. Ailsa watched him and suddenly she felt an immense feeling of relief wash over her. Somehow knowing that he wasn’t invincible, that he also knew loneliness and pain, made her feel less confused and broken herself.

  She knew how he felt. She knew that feeling, the place of lonely pain that felt too difficult to share. She knew how it felt when you walked away from someone not because there was nothing left to say, but because even though the words were right there in your heart, they were stuck like a solid rock in your throat and wouldn’t come out.

  Following him into the shadows of the glass room, Ailsa waited, letting her heart be open, telling him she was listening.

  “It’s not the same for me here as it used to be.” He began slowly. Pausing as if trying to find the words for the things he had tried to keep locked away. “My cabin. Alaska. This wild place.” He was pulling out the words as if they were secret thoughts he had never wanted to admit.

  “When I first came out here I was twenty-four, and it was the best place on earth. I hated my job in Illinois so much. And going from a desk job where I never saw daylight to all this, to this land and forests and wild animals. It felt like there were so many adventures to have.”

  The muscles of his shoulders squared against his thick arms. His forearms raced with hard bands of muscle that Ailsa could see pouring out into his hands. He worked with wood, but the wood worked him. It had made him strong and solid. It had shown him who he was, what he could do with just his hands and his mind. And it had somehow shown him how to speak simply, to speak his own truth.

  “But now I’ve done all of that. I’ve been here almost ten years. I’ve had all the adventures I want to have by myself. Leah’s right, something inside me has been growing restless, and I haven’t understood it. I haven’t let myself really. But…”

  “Ailsa…” Her name came out low and quiet, and hearing the way he said it, Ailsa felt something she had been hiding inside her crack open. She waited for him to continue.

  “Not everyone meets someone,” he said at last, his back still to her. “Not everyone gets to have what Seb and Leah have found. Growing up I never really thought about it. I just figured I’d meet the right person. But now I get it. Some people don’t get that. Some people spend their whole life alone. And loneliness is a son of a bitch.”

  “Yes.” She said quietly.

  Zach threw the last of his whiskey down his throat and took a deeper breath. Then he turned around to face Ailsa where she stood under the glass roof and the eternal sky. “It’s been gnawing at me. Worse than anything else I’ve known. Not finding someone I connect with…I started thinking maybe it wasn’t in the cards for me…”

  “Zach I’m so sorry. It was so insensitive of me.”

  Zach’s gaze slowly lifted from her face and rose until he was staring up at the wide sky above them. He was looking for something. Ailsa could feel it. He was looking for answers in the place she always looked too. The forest. The sky. The places that really knew things.

  He paused and took a deeper breath. “Then I met you at the lake house last summer, and it was like something inside of me came alive again. All winter I’ve been thinking…what is it? What is it about that woman? What is it about you…”

  It was only when he reached out to touch her that Ailsa realized how close he had come through the shadows. His hand cupped the side of her face. Just for a moment. As if he was allowing himself only the briefest taste of her. She could feel herself shiver at his touch. He was right. There was something there. Between them. Something that also brought her alive, just as he had said.

  “You weren’t wrong,” she whispered.

  “About what…?”

  “About me. About us.” How could she explain something that she didn’t understand yet herself? “About the reason I was more open tonight…it’s not because I was drunk.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Ailsa felt herself swallow hard. Her habitual guard was fighting against this opening. But she was tired of being locked inside herself, and she fought against the rock that held down so much of what she felt and kept it from coming out.

  “It’s because I feel safe when I’m with you.” She looked up into his eyes and saw them flicker with life again. This was it, Ailsa knew. The truth she had tried to hide from. The fact that she could feel him bringing something out of her that had been hidden away for all these years.

  “You’re the first person in a long time…I know I don’t let people in. I keep people at a distance, and it seems like I’m being a cold bitch.”

  “Ailsa!”

  Ailsa laid a hand across his chest. “It’s true. I’m not easy for people to deal with sometimes. Relationships need both people to share things. And it’s difficult for people when they are the only one opening up.”

  She shook her head. The wine was still fogging her thoughts, and she was losing track of what she was saying. “It doesn’t matter. I just...I felt safe tonight with Leah and Seb. Because of you.” Ailsa could feel herself breathing faster now. She was trying to get the words out before the fear shut her down again. “Because I know you’re holding me. I know I’m okay when I’m with you. It’s the only time I feel okay. And I don’t know what that means or what to do about it because it fucking terrifies me. But…you’re not wrong about us, Zach. Please don’t shut down…”

  She stopped talking then because she didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t understand what was happening between them or where it might lead. But Ailsa knew for the first time in many years she was leaning out into the unknown with a bit of her heart in her hand, and although it was terrifying, it also felt like she was clawing her way back into life.

  Chapter 20

  She
had barely taken a full breath after the rush of words when she felt both of Zach’s hands thread their way through her hair and gently tilt her face into the light. He looked at her. For a long minute. And he let her see down into him through the depths of his brown eyes that shone with flecks of gold in the light. They were trapped in that space where they couldn’t bear to say any more and also knew nothing more needed to be said because it was obvious to them both.

  The next moment Zach’s mouth pressed against Ailsa’s. She opened her mouth to him, her senses filling with the whiskey and warm taste of him. Then his arms were all around her, encircling her body, lifting her from the ground. She surrendered immediately to him, melting into his body. He kissed her slowly and deeply as he carried her towards the bedroom, letting her slide to her feet on the soft carpet once the walls of the bedroom surrounded them.

  Slowly he drew her shirt over her head, and then waited while she began to unbutton his shirt. One button. At a time. She watched his broad chest slowly appear, and she ran her fingers down through the hair at his chest, towards his belly button. She couldn’t say the words, but she could tell him with her fingers, with her tongue, with her body the way he made her feel. Zach peeled his arms out of his shirt, never taking his eyes off Ailsa.

  With his fingertips he traced the line of her collarbone that jutted out through her skin and under the straps of her black bra. Slowly he turned her around, unhooking her bra and stepping into her so that her naked back pressed into his warm chest. His hands wrapped around her, one hand at her breast, the other slipping down past the waist of her jeans. His finger found the spot immediately, and Ailsa felt a cry slip from her throat as she pressed back into him. His facial hair tingled against her neck and upper back as he bent his head to kiss her behind her ear, down the side of her neck, along her bare shoulder. He moved slowly, but his body had regained its confidence and he moved against her with a tender determination. Slowly his fingers stroked against her clit, making her so wet that she trembled and called out to him again.

  For a moment Zach shifted his hand and Ailsa turned in his arms, fumbling at her jeans while he pulled at his own trousers. They moved down onto the bed, and Ailsa pulled herself on top of him, using her mouth to work her way down the length of his body. She let her fingers wander, teasing the skin up the inside of his leg. When she took his cock into her mouth, tension shot up Zach’s body, and he moaned deeply as Ailsa brought him deeper into her mouth, playing with her tongue, drawing noises from him that brought chills through her own body.

  At last she felt Zach reach down and lift her off him. With precision he rolled her onto her back and suddenly his mouth was on her, teasing her clit with his tongue, entering her in the most profoundly intimate way she could imagine. She heard her breath catching high in her throat as she gasped again and again, while again and again he moved his tongue against her.

  “Zach.” She finally managed to form the sound of his name. “I need you.” She could barely speak. She was desperate for him. She reached her hands down to him and he came to her, kissing her full in the mouth, letting her taste herself in his mouth, letting her know all barriers were broken between them. He moved to reach for the condoms but she pulled him back.

  “I’m on the pill.” Her cunt was swollen with pleasure, and she could feel the intense hardness of him as he moved against her.

  “Are you sure?” She could tell by Zach’s voice that he was just as desperate for her.

  She nodded, pulling him back into her and reaching to guide him through the soft wet entrance of her cunt.

  “Ahhhhh.” Zach breathed into her as his chest arched and he moved deep inside her, feeling every part of her, filling every part of her that had felt empty and broken without him.

  She felt him shudder slightly, and he paused trying to keep himself together.

  “Zach…”

  “I’m here,” he reassured her, taking hold of her hip and beginning to move into her.

  “Don’t stop…” The words left her mouth, and she knew she meant so much more by them than just this sex that was blowing her mind. She meant everything. And she hoped he would understand.

  “Don’t stop.” She repeated, gasping for breath as his cock rubbed against her clit and pushed deep inside her.

  “I won’t,” Zach promised as he moved against her. “I’m here…Ailsa…”

  Again and again he plunged himself into her, bringing them as close as they could ever be. “Ailsa…” she heard him call out her name. “Fuck I can’t…”

  She pulled him down against her as he shuddered and came inside of her. She could feel the rhythmic pulsing of her own orgasm meeting his as they both gasped, pulling air into their lungs.

  “Zach…” she whispered after a moment’s stillness, and she gave him a slight nudge to let him know he was crushing her with his weight.

  “Sorry,” Zach was still breathing heavily as he went to move off of her.

  “No. Don’t go too far, just…less crushing…” She gripped the sides of his chest with her hands, and she felt the weight on her chest ease as he lifted himself onto his arms.

  Zach leaned up onto one elbow. Looking down at her, he stroked the side of her face with his free hand. “You are so fucking beautiful, Ailsa,” he whispered. “Sometimes I can’t take my eyes off you. You were so beautiful tonight sitting next to me at the table, lifting your wine glass with your beautiful hands, touching it to your mouth. The way the back of your neck curves with these delicate hairs, and the way your black top hugged your body, across your breasts and at the curves of your waist.” He brought his mouth against hers. “I could barely stand sitting next to you. Not touching you felt like torture.”

  “I love the way I feel when you touch me,” Ailsa answered back through the darkness of the bedroom. “When you put your hand against my back, or when we’re driving and you wrap your hand across the back of my neck and make those circles with your thumb. I feel like I might shake right out of my skin…”

  “You do?” He smiled gently.

  “I do…” She nodded. “And when you touch me…” She traced the line of his jaw with her fingers, and she could feel as the muscle beneath it working underneath the skin.

  “When I touch you where?” Zach’s voice was low and deep, and Ailsa felt his hand run down the length of her thigh and then move like a whisper between her legs.

  Ailsa shifted her hips, raising a knee in response to his touch. “Don’t stop…” she whispered and she felt his finger begin to move gently between her legs again. “I mean…” she breathed. “I mean all of it…”

  “I know,” Zach said, moving down to kiss her. “I won’t stop…”

  Chapter 21

  Another week passed. Ailsa noticed herself moving into a new rhythm as she and Zach began to fit their days around each other. Sometimes Zach had to work, and Ailsa found to her surprise that she also loved being in the cabin on her own. She sat on the couch reading, drank coffee, played her fiddle and watched the woods from the sunroom. After the crazy schedule she had worked all winter and through the spring, it felt like the greatest luxury to lose track of the hours, to read until her eyes hurt, to play music until her fingers ached, to gaze out across the landscape and let her mind wander without direction.

  “So how’s the wild?” her friend Rossyln asked when Ailsa finally picked up her phone one morning not long after she had heard Zach’s truck pull out of the drive and down the track. “Seen any bears yet?”

  Ailsa laughed. It was great to hear a familiar voice. She had known Rossyln since university. Ros knew all her secrets. She had seen Ailsa at her worst, on the days when she wouldn’t get out of bed. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Rossyln she would never have bothered going to her final exams or finishing her degree.

  “No.”

  “Not even one? I thought that place was crawling with them!” Rosslyn’s voice pressed against Ailsa’s ear through the phone, and Ailsa tried to lose herself in her friend’s
voice for a moment. She hadn’t realized there was a part of her that always missed home. But then, Ailsa missed home even when she was home. Because Scotland wasn’t the same home as it used to be, and somehow she could never capture the feeling of it that she remembered when she was away.

  “Yeah me too!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Near Fairbanks.”

  Ailsa knew she was never going to pull off lying to her friend. Ros would see right through her.

  “Isn’t that a town? No wonder you’re not seeing any bears, Ailsa! What are you doing there?”

  Ailsa tried to think of what she could say but her long drawn-out pause said everything.

  “Oh my god! It is a guy!” Rosslyn’s voice rose several octaves and her words suddenly came at one hundred miles an hour. “Did you meet at a hostel? Hiking? What’s he like? Is he from Alaska?”

  Ailsa felt her face burn. She hadn’t told anyone about Zach. When she had gotten back to Scotland at the end of last summer, it had been too hard to admit how much she missed the man who was supposed to have been a summer fling. Silently Ailsa thanked the gods Zach was out at work and didn’t have to witness her turning seven shades of red and fumbling over her words. “Actually I met him when I was here last summer…”

  “Last bloody summer! You bitch!” Rosslyn started to laugh. “I should’ve known when you were heading back there it was for a reason. You never go back to the same place twice.”

  “I didn’t come back for him…” Ailsa started to explain, but Ros wasn’t listening.

  “I know, I know. It’s about the bear you still haven’t seen. Fine. Now tell me what he’s like…”

  “Well…he’s got light brown hair…he’s a carpenter…” What could she say about Zach? How could she tell Rosslyn about the way he made her feel when they stood together in the woods both seeing the beauty of the wild land? How could she describe the safety she felt when she nestled her back into his chest in bed and he lay his arm across her? How could she explain the way he looked at her as if he already understood the deep things in her heart and was only waiting to hear the way she would decide to tell it.