Fiction: Speechless

She called him into a room and he said "Ok, what do you...". Her kiss had stopped him. He didn't know what to say after that as he also hadn’t known what to say before.

He was speechless and ultimately could only look at her in awe and then with some tenderness...not too much. He had learnt that women didn't like men who were too sensitive. At least, he thought that much he knew.

She looked at him and saw all his flaws: his inability to just "live the moment", his quirky way of dealing with awkward moments as if he was trying to justify the other person's behavior. She looked at him and said: "Did you like that?"

He thought it was a trick question. Either one that he shouldn't reply to or one where there was something that he was supposed to say, as if it was the dialogue of some movie or TV series that he had unfortunately missed. He kept quiet and just has she was turning her head to the floor as if in dismay ... "Why doesn't he answer?" - he thought that she thought... just as she was turning her head down, he said: "I love you".

Her face turned to shock and he realized there are things you simply can't say like that: without preparation, without a hint. But he should have known this. He had done similar things in the past and had always seemed to suffer from loss of timing, from loss of ability to read an intimate situation not unlike that one.

"Why not?" - he said while moving towards her. He grabbed her and kissed her. Not as if he was taking possession... no, he was just showing her that he belonged to her now. That her kiss had had a price and there was no returning him now to his former self.

She smiled and bit her lips. He smiled as well.