She comes, reluctantly, and he can feel the sharp edge of the storm within him begin to dull. He can begin to feel it start to turn—start to become something else. He should know better by now. He should know that this is a dangerous road to walk and they have no right to it. He should know that they have proven to be too volatile to ever work, but he does not stop. Not this time. He doesn’t run away.
Instead, his eyes just grow more intense. The light burning a little brighter.
She turns her face from him and he reaches out to run his mouth down the familiar curve of her cheek until he can dip under her chin and nudge it, pull it back toward him. She tastes as familiar as he remembered and that does not stop the electricity that sparks and flashes in his veins. It does nothing to stop the way his body grows warm and then sets on fire, It does nothing to quell that growing ache in him.
He takes a step forward to bring them closer together and there is a growing thunder in his chest. It is a pulse he can’t drown out. “Kensa,” he says her name again and like all of the times before, he feels his throat threaten to close around it. He feels it like the pressure growing within him as he kisses her neck.
He lingers there for a second, pressing kisses soft and slow and exploring over the curve of her neck.
“I wanted to see you too,” he whispers there, his voice a touch huskier than usual, the gravel making the edges of it darker. His teeth graze where his lips had been. “I do not sleep well when you are not there.”
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake