He rested his hands upon her shoulders, cupping them solidly, but hesitated just short of gathering her in a firm embrace. He looked down into her eyes, they glistened with tears as she stood before him. Here was her lover, not her husband, and she felt rippled by the emotions of wanting to have her true love and wanting to honor the vows she had already pledged to another. She could not have it both ways, and the decision shook her moral foundation as she withheld her feelings in the face of infidelity.
"I have to make my marriage work." she whispered. "I have to at least try to make it work," her voice had risen to a pleading, but neither of them were sure of who she was trying to convince. Her bottom lip quivered and she shuddered as she held back the emotions sitting on the edge of spilling over.
He could feel her pain, and he could feel her pity for him, but he dismissed it. He dismissed it because he knew--he felt--there was something much deeper. She held an intense love for him, although she defied its very existence at times. She was no more in denial about it, however, than animals were in hiding their natural instincts. He sought that out from within her and grasped onto it, and, in that very moment, he leaned down and pressed onto her an enchanting kiss.
Breaking all boundaries, all fears, all vows, they enveloped each other passionately. The taste of raw emotion wet on their lips, the pounding of their hearts beating at their rib cages, and all inhibitions were lost. Working his right hand around to the small arch of her back, he steadied her stance as his left hand wove through her hair to the back of her head. She did not pull away, but succumbed to her own emotions and allowed them, and him, to overtake her. Every doubt she had, every second thought, had been instantly disregarded, and she found her hands pulling on the buttons of her shirt in a frenzied fury.