"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
The words incinerate her, speaking to that place in her soul that was only his, always his. She cannot stop it when it comes, that low whimper of longing like a song on her lips, so she presses it into him instead, buries it against his mouth in a kiss that starts so softly. But it isn’t enough, not when he looks at her like that, dark eyes soft and searching, awed. The silver deepens like a blush across her skin, spun starlight like silk in every curve of blue and white, an echo of the pleasure thrumming for him in her chest. “Dovev.” She manages in a breathless whisper, presses this, too, into the heat of his mouth. She whimpers again, such a small, inconspicuous sound – and the kiss changes, suddenly deep and searching, claiming him.
Mine. Her eyes say when she pulls back breathless, her chest heaving and aching and burning for him.
She is surprised when he doesn’t recoil from her confession, my heart knew you, surprised when he doesn’t scowl or laugh or frown. Instead those eyes watch her searchingly, deep and black and beautiful like the space between stars. It is enough to make her wonder if he feels it too, this impossible, undeniable tie that binds them so closely together. But then she wounds him with her next question and he sucks a breath in and turns from her, shaking his head.
She doesn’t give him the chance to dwell on it, though.
“Dovev.” She says in a voice that is soft and firm and filled with so much want, so much unconditional affection that she can hardly find room to breathe around the weight of it. His eyes slid to her neck and she ducks beneath his, presses kisses down the front of his neck from throat to chest, finds the edges of a wound on his shoulder and kisses that too, suckles softly in the way she knows will make him tremble and moan. She doesn’t want him to torture himself with the memory of that night, regrets having mentioned it, having asked. It means something different to her. She doesn’t remember his fury and his teeth as he does, so intimate and ruinous. To her it feels like a distant memory, something she watched instead of experienced.
It wasn’t his teeth that had hurt the most, it was the cold on her skin when he released her to the dark and turned to leave.
It is only when the silence extends and she returns to a gaze that still refuses to settle on her, that she speaks again. A treacherous, beautiful secret from the dark of her heart. What if I was meant to be yours? At first he doesn’t react, doesn’t say anything even though she can see the thoughts swimming like fish between dark eyes that watch her again, his silence tying a knot in her belly that she cannot undo with such trembling hands. Those brown eyes darken to a strange shade of bruised quiet, half-hidden beneath the furrow of a suddenly uncertain brow as she opens her mouth to say something. But what? She wouldn’t take it back, even if he didn’t feel the same, even if he looked back at her and laughed. “I –” she started to speak anyway, maybe a soft, blushing apology, but he moves, finally, closes the distance between them with his lips against her cheek.
She lifts her face to him in relief, meets his eyes as they find hers and sink deep, deep until she is cradling him inside. I’d do anything for you, Luster. He says in a whisper, pressing a kiss to her forehead and then his brow to hers. Her only response is a soft whimper of surprise, pleasure maybe, a breathlessness that erupts from the pounding in her chest. Anything. She pulls away to collide against his chest, curls there in a quiet way until she can make sense of the kiss, of the confession, of the way even now he bends his head over her to hold her close.
It – it reminds her of her parents. Of the way they always stood tangled together as one, of the way they watched each other when they thought no one else was looking. Soft, so soft, like they shared secrets in the way they touched one another, in the way their eyes found home together. As though there was no world outside the one they had carved for their small family, nothing else that could ever matter so much as this.
She understood that now, felt it flood her burning body like cool, healing water.
He is her balance in this world.
“Me too.” She answers finally, shifts so she can touch her lips to his jaw, pull his face down to where he can see her again. “Anything, everything. Always.” It is an inevitable thing for her thoughts to wander to darker places, for her imagination to breathe life into sudden nightmares of a world turning against him, of scenarios where he was in danger and did need help. Her help. It wasn’t such a far stretch after the way Heartfire and Wyrm had threatened him that afternoon. “Promise me,” she says quickly, pressing worried kisses to the curve of his jaw and the corner of his mouth, laying her worry out for him to see, to feel the depth of its pain, “promise me you will always come to me, promise, if you need anything.” Her voice is a note higher than it usually, tight and worried and aching when she touches him with a possessive kind of concern, a hint of that wild she had shown earlier.
But then he bends over her again, traces a row of kisses to the curve of her neck and she is quieted, if only a little. A breathless kind of whimper slips past her lips and she pushes her face against his shoulder, arching into his touch, practically levitating to be closer to him. He stops though and when she turns her face to him it is to a fading look of reluctance that spills like cool water over his face. For as long as you like, love.
Love.
It is not a strange word or a new word, in fact it is one he had used on her before and so freely. But in the dark of this cave and beneath his neck, with skin that is still damp and glowing with his kisses, there is a new weight to it. An important weight to it. “Love. ” She says in her soft way, whispered like chime, pressed in a kiss to the galaxies at the corner of his mouth. For a moment her eyes linger there, quiet and curious even after she’s pulled away from the kiss, watching the gleam of stars embedded in the deep blue. With a quiet kind of smile she pushes her light into him, into the stars at his mouth and the ones on his legs so that they twinkle even brighter than she does drenched as she is in silver. Then, whispered, another kiss pressed to constellations at the corner of his mouth, “My whole universe.”
She turns then, slips past his chest and to his shoulder, finding the dampness of raw skin around his bone plates with the soft of her exploring tongue. Despite the heat that flares deep in her belly, beautiful and unnamable, she is gentle when she pushes deep, suckling kisses against such tender skin, careful and coaxing when she claims so much of him with her lips. She makes her way to his hip, runs a trail of nips down the front of his hind leg – skin, not bone, soft and smooth and rippling beneath her mouth – and then turns back to fit herself beneath his neck again.
When she pushes her hip against his chest and lifts her face to his, it is bright with longing, with the depth of her affection for him. Her mouth finds his again, urgent and needing, and she reaches out with tendrils of mixed shadow and light like spun silk to pull him closer to her, to coax the reluctance from his eyes with the desire in hers. Her lips claim his, teasing them with her teeth and then pushing them apart so her tongue can slip between to taste him. “Dovev,” she begs softly into his mouth, giving him room to deepen the kiss and press her further beneath him, to claim her as she has claimed him, “don’t stop.” She pulls away from his mouth but it is only to kiss the corner of it, to follow the line of his jaw to the curve of his throat, to alternate kiss with nip until she is certain his pulse must match the pounding of hers. Breathless, wide-eyed, she draws the silken magic tighter, tangling in his mane and pulling him down against her waiting mouth again. “Dovev,” she whispers between kisses, looking up at him with aching, earnest eyes, “I want you.” A pause, eyes closing uncertainly, “I need you.”
html by Toli, overall design and quote style based on "Dovev" by Laura
I'd do anything for you, Luster. Anything.
She was quiet for a while as he held her to his chest, gently brushing through her hair and letting the promise sink in. He meant it. He'd do anything at all for her, give anything at all to her. She was everything.
"Me too," she said finally, twisting enough to trail her lips along his jaw. Her voice tightened with worry as she begged another promise from him, that he would always come to her if he needed anything. Anything, everything, always. He couldn't imagine asking her for anything, or even needing anything. Not in the way she meant it, with that pinch of concern in her precious brow. Worried for his safety. As you wish, love, he murmured anyway, kissing away her quiet distress.
"Love," she repeated, pressing it to the corner of his mouth where star-blue met black. Love. He'd always called her that. No one else, only her. He'd never thought about it. It had always just felt right, even when he'd said it as he'd violently bitten into her. But she had already scolded him for letting his mind wander to those dark memories. Still, the endearment was hers, only hers. Always had been. Always would be. Only hers. Love.
As she lifted from her kiss, her eyes on his mouth, he felt something new enter him. A new glow brightened her face, highlighted that soft smile as a tingling sensation plucked at the glittering white of his markings. Cautious and gentle at first with a prick of quiet pain, like a needle piercing into each little star of white. The light grew brighter and the sting burned hotter as she pushed more of her magic into him, but the pain riddled all over his legs and at his mouth was minor compared to what he was used to, so it went easily ignored as he kissed a smile into her cheek. God, she was so adorable. She made his stars glow brighter than the sheen of silver coating her skin so magnificently.
”My whole universe,” she claimed quietly. Mine, too, he whispered back in agreement, his heart racing from the admission.
She was everything. Universe sounded close enough.
She slid from his chest to his shoulder and he tensed, knowing what was coming next. Luster, he tried, his voice tight with almost a warning, almost a plea. No more back and forth. Couldn't she see how agonizing it was for him? To make him want her so bad and have to hold back, just a tease of everything he wanted and could never have. All her perfection. She was killing him so gently.
But the moment her tongue met his skin, he softened with a throaty whimper and immediately wanted more, would have begged her for more if she hadn't continued. But she did. She left him breathless and wanting as she passed over his ruptured flesh, giving each one the same maddening attention that had a tremble of need start in his legs and a burn rush through his blood. Her mouth played down the line of his hind leg, pinching the soft of his skin with little nips and kisses. She felt so good. Everything she did felt so good. So close there, he couldn't help but wonder how amazing those lips would feel on another part of him, so close, and he strangled a groan at his self-torturous thoughts.
She came back to his chest and he dragged helpless, loving kisses down her body as she moved, hungry and eager to bathe her with affection too from her neck and shoulder to her back. His lips made it to her midsection when she pushed her hip deliberately into his chest. He sucked a quiet gasp of surprise and his eyes snapped to hers, searching, burning brightly. She wanted him? This? All of it? The look of longing, yearning for him, was answer enough and once again stole his breath away.
Then her mouth crushed to his, urgent and needing, and he matched it easily with his own driving passion. She pulled him closer to her with her light-and-shadow thread, and he groaned against her, his pulse spiking quicker. Damn, he loved it when she did that, the way she claimed what she wanted and made him heed to her wants. He wanted to always heed to her pleasure, to be the only one to do so. Always.
With each press, each trade of kiss and desire, he felt something in him stir and awaken. It was as if her magic was buried deep inside him, or if he’d had his own secret power, and he glowed from the inside as it spread through his chest, and his belly, and his legs. He felt filled with light, dim at first but gradually building brighter, and for a moment it distracted him from their kiss and he paused, panting and out of breath.
But her teeth coaxed him back again, teasing at his lips until she slipped inside to taste him. It was fuel to this fire, and he hummed a quiet growl of pleasure as he met her seeking tongue with his. Kiss-for-kiss, he fed his desire into her as he forced her roughly against the nearest wall and trapped her between it and his body. His chest pressed hard against her shoulder, crushing her against the solid dark of his home as his teeth plucked at her jaw, her throat, along the muscle in her glowing neck. It didn’t have a taste after all, her light, but he didn’t need it. Her skin and scent alone was an aphrodisiac, driving him to this impossible need for her, all of her.
He thought he heard her whimper, and a sharp worry cut through him that he might have hurt her. Fuck, he swore under his breath, taking a step back with his eyes on the ground. His darkness. The wild, rougher side of him he tried to batten down and bottle up. He would never be rid of it. She would run from it. He was so rough, so forceful, so controlling.
”Dovev,” she stepped from the wall, her voice aching, begging, and her lips finding his again. He kissed her back, gentler this time. ”Don’t stop.” His breath lodged in his throat, but then she was there too, kissing it free and trailing further down, alternating with nips and kisses. His head tilted back with a quiet exhale, drinking in the moment, the feel of her affection and her lips on his skin. Luster, he whispered, infinite and endless longing pressed into her name. He would never stop wanting her, never stop needing her.
Never stop loving her.
Her fingers of shadow tangled in his hair, gripped him and pulled his mouth to hers again. He moaned long and low for her, the glow within him flaring brighter as he kissed her back with everything that he was, earnest and sure and deep. It was as if his soul, his spirit, were in him and expanding, consuming him and taking over with this power and this inner light. Sounds fell away under the roar of its demand, and the edges of his vision went fuzzy. He could only see her in perfect detail. Only hear her, feel her, taste her in flawless clarity. Nothing else existed but her, and this power’s need for her. A soul-binding claim of unbreakable love. Endless, ageless. Unstoppable.
”Dovev,” she whispered between kisses, and through his thick lashes he saw the aching look of impossibly deep desire in her eyes that must match the one in his own. ”I want you. I need you.”
He nodded thickly, lost in this haze like a dream as he bent his head to her neck and kissed her tenderly. Slow, sweet tastes of her skin were trailed to her throat, her jaw. He pressed another to her mouth like a quiet promise, filled with his endless devotion, then drifted back again to her throat and down her neck. Stepping slowly backwards, he continued his careful attention, lacing kisses in with the marble of her colors, along her shoulder and her side, down her spine. He paused when he got to her hip and met her eyes as he kissed the soft hollow beside it, and the sweet rise of bone at the joint.
A dream. Like a dream. He must have been dreaming. The very best dream. He prayed it would never end, never wake him. Let him be here with her forever.
I’m yours, he promised with another kiss at her hip. He was always claiming, always stealing, always taking what was his. Mine was his favorite word, his greatest threat. And now, instead, he gave himself. I’m yours, Luster. I’m yours. He pinched her skin with his teeth, firm and sweet, before finally stepping behind her. His head bent low to the back of her right leg and he trailed a row of slow nibbles and kisses up the back line of her hind leg. Her graceful curve of buttock was showered in deliberate, soft kisses, before he repeated the same careful attention to her other leg.
He didn’t need to tease at her for her to want him as badly as he wanted her. She already did. He already did. But he did it anyway, thrilling from the sounds of her pleasure as they made his blood crash through him and his heart race, fueled this light of power inside him to burn brighter for her. His soul, maybe. Or something else. But it was hers, regardless. He was hers.
I dont always mean to.. follow my ways I know they always lead me.. straight to the grave
