Caleb's POV
The wind was still howling outside, the dark clouds finally delivering what they had been threatening of since morning, and the temperature around us was frigid, but I barely noticed it.
All of my senses were enthralled by Ruth. The very house could be on fire right now, and I would barely notice.
My hand brushed the ribbon knot that was holding both sides of her jacket-like dress together, and I felt her breathe hitch. I realised that we had stopped kissing, and she stood staring at me just as I stared at her.
But I knew that even though we both looked at each other intently, all of our attention was fixed on my hand that was slowly pulling at one end of the ribbon, loosening the knot.
Just as I felt the knot give, Ruth tightened her grip into my hairs and pulled me down for an urgent kiss.
I obliged, and let her twist and turn as she pulled me down on the couch that was now behind her. She lied down onto it, forcing me to hunch over her for a moment before I placed one of my knees on the couch without breaking the kiss.
A funny thing about couches was that they were wicked fun to play on, but not so much for what we had in mind. Even though she laid down flat onto it, and pulled me over her, the space was too constricted to hold two people at once.
But as unwilling to give up as we were, I placed my other knee on the other side of her waist, straddling her and she angled her body just right to let me have the space to do so, but I couldn't quite manage to find proper balance.
The position made me hover over her and gave me a complete visual access to her body. This time when I bent down to kiss her, it felt all the more hotter and hungrier than before. She moaned deep in her throat, no doubt feeling it too.
My heart was hammering away, making the blood rush into my ears in a rhythmic, thumping tune of a marching band.
Ruth's hands grappled restlessly against my back, moving up and down as she pulled me closer to her but I resisted. Not because I didn't want her with equal desperation, but because one of my knees was precariously balanced on the slippery end of the couch and her pulling me down was making it slip it further away.
As the beat of the marching band grew louder in my ears, she clawed at my back and I caught hold of her hands before pinning them on either side of her head against the couch.
Getting leverage against the couch, she pushed her upper body up towards me and I groaned, nearly at the end of my wits.
Using my distraction, Ruth pushed herself upright and towards me again, but her surprise jerk upwards made my knee slip completely off the couch.
"Fuck!"
"Caleb!"
Shouts and curses flew out as I felt myself topple sideways, one of my knees thumping hard against the floor while other dragged Ruth down with me.
In the blink of an eye, I found myself down on the floor sideways with a throbbing knee to match my toe, and Ruth halfway down the floor, wide-eyed and looking deliciously dishevelled.
For a moment, none of us spoke a word as we stared at each other in a stunned silence. But then Ruth's lips - red and swollen from the force of our kisses - twitched. She tried to smother it, but the corners of her lips continued to lift up into a smile.
"You think this is funny?" I narrowed my eyes at her and tried to sound intimidating, but probably failed miserably.
Because she simply continued to smile unaffected and replied, "I think this is hilarious."
In that moment, she looked so beautiful, her face shining with an early onset of laughter, her eyes dancing with mirth at ridiculousness of it all, that I couldn't help but smile in return. She lowered herself completely on the floor with a thump and a tiny chuckle escaped her.
Soon it turned into a full-blown laughter, and I joined her, laughing like I had never laughed.
She fell back against the couch laughing helplessly, sounding louder than the storm outside. I turned to lie on my back as howls of laughter poured out of me.
The floor was cold beneath, but neither of us cared. This wasn't a laughter you had on a shared joke. This felt cathartic, relieving. Therapeutic.
As if all the stress, the pain, the indecision, the anger and insecurities that were poisoning us from within were slowly seeping out of us.
We laughed until we were breathless, and then laughed some more. By the time we calmed down, Ruth was wiping tears from her eyes and I had probably rolled around the whole length of their sitting area.
I sat up and situated myself next to Ruth by leaning against the couch and gave her a wide smile. She smiled back at me.
"Are we cursed or something?" She asked hoarsely, holding the side of her hip and still chuckling lightly.
"Or something," I replied on a sigh before dropping my head back on the couch for a second, smiling up at the ceiling. I didn't even want to count the number of times we had come so close to making love, only to be interrupted in some way or other.
As Ruth tied the two sides of her dress back on, I lifted my head back up and looked at her.
"Hungry?"
"Starving," she replied mischievously, making me narrow my eyes in warning.
"For breakfast," I clarified, but couldn't help returning her smile.
"Oh, there's breakfast too?" I shook my head at her, both in admonition and wonder, before pushing myself up and off the floor.
I stretched a little, getting the kinks out of my back and neck before I turned and offered a hand to Ruth, who was still sitting on the floor.
As I pulled her up, she looked so utterly enchanting with her eyes shining and a glow of happiness on her face that I couldn't help but swoop down for another tiny kiss.
"Happy Birthday, love," I said, before stealing a quick, chaste kiss.
"Now go and put something on over this... this dress, before we accidentally set the house on fire this time," I spoke as I moved towards the kitchen.
I thought I heard Ruth mutter a 'yes sir' before walking into the bedroom.