09-20-2021, 08:27 PM
It feels like climbing from the bottom of a grave, like clawing out of the dirt with a fight he only has because she is here willing it from him. Perhaps that is why it takes so long for him to make sense of the tangle of their bodies in the dark shadows of this forest, of their legs curled together and another pressed to his belly. He very nearly rankles at this closeness, at the heat of her skin where she lay pressed to him, poised with a wing over his body like she fell that way from the sky.
But he has wondered what it would be like to have her body cradled against him, to have this girl of satin black pressed close enough that there is no part of her that isn’t his. Except now that she is here he finds himself frozen with indecision, frozen by a sense of propriety that draws lines of tension along his jaw because she is here and curled against him, pressed so close she can likely feel the tension now climbing through his body, but she is not his. To touch, to taste, to learn - and he might have held that resolve if not for the way she reaches out to touch the velvet of her nose to the markings along his face.
He groans, and it is a quiet, aching sound that rises in his chest and breathes past lips so tight they almost frown. She cannot know that he had imagined what a moment like this would be like. Her fire quelled for him, that smolder in her eyes turned instead to a heat her lips brand him with.
But she is not his.
Not his.
His eyes are a shade of pain when they find her smiling face, silent and guarded, no longer trapped full of burning amusement as they had been on that first night in an apocalyptic world. She has weapons with which to wound him now, and he is certain she does not realize it. “Well, I was afraid you might try to heal me again.” He says, and there is gravel in the quiet sound of his words while he studies her beautiful face. “And while I am rather fond of this part,” he motions to their tangled bodies with a glimmer of that leonine amusement in his eyes, “the rest was rather unpleasant.”
He knows though, understands that she must have gentled none of herself when she reached to take him back from death. That there was no time to be slow and careful, no time to do anything but throw all of herself into him. And she had, without hesitation.
It is reflex when he reaches for her, when he presses his nose to hers in a moment of wordless gratitude, when he is too selfish to stop there and lets his lips wander up along the curve of such a dark, midnight cheek. “And you,” a pause, because he had heard the word she had begun to speak, the one that felt like a jolt of lightning beneath his skin, because he wants her to know that he had heard it even if she had swallowed it back, “care about me?” His eyes are open against her face, sharp and searching for any hint of vulnerability as his breath warms the curve of her jaw. “Only care?”
Suddenly it is there again, that living amber flame buried in the backs of eyes too bright and warm to be any simple shade of brown. “Is your power how you found me here, Cheri? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but not even the sunlight can find me in this place.” He might have risen then if not for the way she buries her face in the curve of his dark neck, but the moment she does it, it tears a possessive growl from someplace deep in his chest that is far more lion than equine. Never mind that there is no one here but him and her to hear it. “Stay where, Cheri.” He says, and his mouth is against the curve of her neck, his lips and his teeth and the gentle wandering heat of his breath as he wills her to be bold enough to claim him.
To tell him to stay with her.
But he has wondered what it would be like to have her body cradled against him, to have this girl of satin black pressed close enough that there is no part of her that isn’t his. Except now that she is here he finds himself frozen with indecision, frozen by a sense of propriety that draws lines of tension along his jaw because she is here and curled against him, pressed so close she can likely feel the tension now climbing through his body, but she is not his. To touch, to taste, to learn - and he might have held that resolve if not for the way she reaches out to touch the velvet of her nose to the markings along his face.
He groans, and it is a quiet, aching sound that rises in his chest and breathes past lips so tight they almost frown. She cannot know that he had imagined what a moment like this would be like. Her fire quelled for him, that smolder in her eyes turned instead to a heat her lips brand him with.
But she is not his.
Not his.
His eyes are a shade of pain when they find her smiling face, silent and guarded, no longer trapped full of burning amusement as they had been on that first night in an apocalyptic world. She has weapons with which to wound him now, and he is certain she does not realize it. “Well, I was afraid you might try to heal me again.” He says, and there is gravel in the quiet sound of his words while he studies her beautiful face. “And while I am rather fond of this part,” he motions to their tangled bodies with a glimmer of that leonine amusement in his eyes, “the rest was rather unpleasant.”
He knows though, understands that she must have gentled none of herself when she reached to take him back from death. That there was no time to be slow and careful, no time to do anything but throw all of herself into him. And she had, without hesitation.
It is reflex when he reaches for her, when he presses his nose to hers in a moment of wordless gratitude, when he is too selfish to stop there and lets his lips wander up along the curve of such a dark, midnight cheek. “And you,” a pause, because he had heard the word she had begun to speak, the one that felt like a jolt of lightning beneath his skin, because he wants her to know that he had heard it even if she had swallowed it back, “care about me?” His eyes are open against her face, sharp and searching for any hint of vulnerability as his breath warms the curve of her jaw. “Only care?”
Suddenly it is there again, that living amber flame buried in the backs of eyes too bright and warm to be any simple shade of brown. “Is your power how you found me here, Cheri? Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but not even the sunlight can find me in this place.” He might have risen then if not for the way she buries her face in the curve of his dark neck, but the moment she does it, it tears a possessive growl from someplace deep in his chest that is far more lion than equine. Never mind that there is no one here but him and her to hear it. “Stay where, Cheri.” He says, and his mouth is against the curve of her neck, his lips and his teeth and the gentle wandering heat of his breath as he wills her to be bold enough to claim him.
To tell him to stay with her.
sorren
i'll take my heart clean apart if it helps yours beat