so we let our shadows fall away like dust
You’re beautiful. She tells him, and even in these dark depths she can see the sadness in the smile that shapes across his mouth, the emptiness that blossoms in the backs of those wild eyes. The frown that touches her mouth is instantaneous, stubborn, and she floats forward to kiss him again, to run lips across his brow and his temples, along the ridge of his cheek bone and the curve of his jaw, down to that impossibly soft mouth that fits over hers so reflexively that she cannot help the pleasure in the smile that clamors to her lips.
He is, too. Is beautiful to the delicate blue girl with light buried beneath her skin. He has only ever shown her his beauty, only ever protected her from the night, held her close and safe beneath the jagged rock ceiling of his cave. Has only kissed her gently, urgently, used teeth to coax her blood to an eager roar but never to inflict pain. She even left him after all of that, after that perfect night, stayed away for so much longer than she had promised. But he holds her again anyway, presses kisses to her face and her neck and her shoulders, uses his teeth in that way that makes her so eager beneath him, supple and soft and sinuous with her lips exploring all parts of him.
If she thinks he is beautiful, and she does, it is only because this is the man he allows her to see.
She does not know the beast below.
She sinks with his breath, his air, trapped against her tongue, sinks deeper and pulls him to her again because she cannot be without his heat, his kisses, his teeth pulling low, eager whimpers from new places in her chest. He is still while her lips wander over every inch of his dark body, unmoving when her kisses claim him with new and unabashed boldness, learn the tremble of a pulse that flutters like wings against her tongue. She thinks she is surprised at his composure, surprised at how still he is while she explores him, knows that should his lips find these same places against her skin, she would be wild and writhing and aching beneath him. But maybe, certainly, he is not so new to this as she is.
It is only when his chest vibrates and bubbles escape like white fire from his tense, dark mouth that she is satisfied, pleased that he is not the only one who can stir such an ache in the other. She pushes off the bottom of the lake and swims for the surface, breathing heavily when she crests the water – but it is as much a reaction to him as it is to the lack of air filling her lungs. When he appears beside her, fitting against her and sealing her to him again, she pushes her nose beneath his jaw, kissing his throat with a quiet, guttural hum. His lips find her face again, his tongue warm and tasting the lake water as it mixed with her skin, her sweat, the longing in her pores, and moans again, a soft sound, a hum of pleasure that makes something in her belly knot and unknot impatiently.
The lake shallows as they reach the edge and she can feel the sand waiting to catch her, so she struggles to pull away from him, to turn so she find out what he tastes like above the water’s surface. But he holds her tight, keeps her pinned to his side as he walks them to the shore, and then shifts to pin her beneath him, laying her half in and half out of his quiet waters. Beneath him she is wild, sinuous, shifting out of reflex as instinct takes over to make her body more accessible to him, to align her hips beneath his as she twists in the sand and soft muscles turn hard and smooth. His mouth finds her throat, nuzzling deep and she stretches her head back to give him more room, show him more skin until he says, Luster.. She is still at once, dissecting the sad and the regret and the murmured apology, all too aware of how it feels with his stomach pressed to her back.
“Don’t you dare.” She says quickly, sensing his reluctance. Breathing heavy, she turns to lift her face to him, ears pinned furiously beneath the dark tangles of a mane that falls around her face. “Come here.” She says again, reaching around to nip at his mouth, his jaw, his face – any part she could still reach pinned beneath him like this. The sounds she makes are low and guttural, a hum compared to his deeper baritone, but the meaning is all the same, the urgency unchanged. She shifts beneath him again, bucks her hips against his weight, forces him to feel what he is trying to resist. She knows he must be close, so close, could hear the desire in his voice despite his words, could see it swelling in those eyes, too. With a whimper that is as much pleasure as it is frustration, she arches beneath him, filling the curve behind his stomach with the curve of her slender blue hips. “Stillwater.” She says, she breathes, and it should be begging but somehow it is as sharp as she is, as firm as the weight against her back. Her voice is still soft though, still silver and starlit, even despite the way her ears remained pinned beneath her mane.
I need to stop, or I will do things we might regret later. He tries but she ignores him, silences his reluctance with her mouth against his, her teeth pulling impatiently at his lip. There is a rumble in his throat, low and urgent, aching, and she uses it against him, shifts beneath him again so that he will feel her warmth and crave it as she craves this weight across her back. His eyes close and she frowns again, uses gentle teeth against his jaw to draw him back to her. She thinks they are different when he opens them again, changed, but she is not afraid like she should be, has never seen the true beast in action. So she pushes, even as he reaches for the safety of distance, she pushes back, wondering at this strange new dark he has sewn into her belly, wondering at this deeper pull from somewhere she cannot name. “We’ll go home later.” She says, presses further, draws back to watch him with eyes so dark and aching and without doubt, desperate in their need to be fulfilled by him, to find relief from the weight of him stretched across her hips. Then, quieter, “This, now.”
