you know you're my happy clouds, & i'm bob ross

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

The first thing that slips through is not a sentence so much as a pulse with words caught inside it—always her—and Flora nearly comes apart right there, not because it’s polished or pretty or meant to be given, but because it isn’t, because it rises out of him clean and unguarded, so purely, stupidly, impossibly Kai that it steals the air from her lungs before she can even name the feeling he so easily causes to bloom. A soft shiver travels up the length of her spine, quick and helpless, and when his hand catches her wrist against his face holding her there, the touch keeps her from tipping straight into whatever glittering disaster her body is apparently trying to become, because she can feel him now; not just what he says, not just what his mouth and hands and heat are telling her, but the actual shape of him behind it, the confusion giving way to wonder, the bright, breathless rush of realization, the love that comes flooding across the bond so honestly it makes her smile before she can stop herself.

Her mouth curves wider as he blinks at her, her expression turning luminous as she waits for him to understand it, waits with her thumb still near his mouth and her breath caught somewhere high in her chest, and the laugh that starts to spill out of her is warm and bright and already half-victorious when he surges forward and cuts it off against her lips, stealing it straight from her before she can decide whether she’s smug or wrecked or both.

Heat blooms low in her belly with immediate, devastating disobedience, not only from the force of his mouth or the solid line of his body pressing into hers, bullt from the arousal pouring out of him and into her like someone has opened a door inside her ribs and set the whole room on fire. It’s unlike anything she’s ever felt, his want braided into hers until there’s no clean edge between them, until every breath she takes feels flavoured by him, every place they touch made twice as sharp because she can feel the hunger from both sides now. Flora moans greedily into the kiss, her body yielding backward with each step he drives her toward their bed while her hands cling to his hair as if she might pull every last spark of him through the bond by force if he’s foolish enough to leave any behind.

Do you feel that? she thinks, the words sent directly to him while her lips stay parted beneath his, breathless and hot and threaded through with a flicker of wicked satisfaction, because that is already rising inside her, a flutter of arousal building around her spine like a thin column of smoke suddenly caught by flame, pulsing higher and hotter each time his tongue brushes hers, each time the friction between them tightens and drags a fresh rush of sensation through her. It feels like a scream trapped deep in her chest, not frightened, not pained, but wild and bright and waiting for the exact right touch to let it burst outward, and her fingers slip from his hair to his hips with none of her usual elegance, one hand tugging impatiently at the bottom of his shirt to pull it up and off him while the other presses flat against the caged erection beneath his boxers, bold and deliberate and hungry to feel his mind sear hotter through the bond in answer.

But then Flora pulls back only enough to find the copper of his eyes, not enough to give him any real distance, not enough to let the heat between them cool into anything sensible, her hand still pressed where she can feel his cock straining beneath the fabric of his boxers, while the other clings to the shirt she’s already trying to drag off him. She could put the words straight into his mind now, could send them down that new golden thread between them wrapped in every flicker of want and laughter and ridiculous, overwhelming love currently making a spectacular menace of her, but this she wants out loud. Wants it given shape by her mouth and breath and voice, wants it to exist in the room the way it had existed once before when everything between them had been sharp-edged and new, potentially caustic and uncertain aboard the Sugar Tide.

Her smile barely moves, only the corners of her lips twitching as her heart flutters hard against her ribs and a low, pounding roar of arousal beats warm in her belly, her whole body lit up by him. She looks at him, entirely undone by adoration, entirely in love and on fire with need, and the words leave her softly, deliberately, an echo of what she’d said a year before. "Like you love me." But this time she isn’t hoping, isn’t standing at the helm of uncertainty trying to read the truth from the way he touches her and to pretend that it wasn’t what it was; this time she knows, with the ring warm against her finger and his heart blazing through the bond into hers, that he does.

Let me paint a picture for you, I'm feeling like Bob Ross

The grin that shapes Flora’s face is all the answer that he needs. It’s got just enough mischief to it to speak in place of her words, or now, her thoughts. The satisfaction that’s brimming off her splashes into him, the sensation continuous enough to establish a tide that pulls at him, relentless. It’s a nearly physical force that leaves him breathless and soaked, as though grabbing breath after survivng a rogue wave. He has all the intention of getting his sealegs properly in order.

It’s nearly overwhelming. Not the bond itself, but the glowing, effervescent rush of her joy doubling back on his until they’re thoroughly tangled and weighted together. It feeds itself, but unlike the snake consuming its own tail at the end of times, this feels like something that’s just starting—eternity, maybe.

Gods, it’s not just the sparkling happiness either, it’s the heat that lords over every thought and impulse with a dictator’s benevolence. His own had been staggering enough, but as her’s flares and jumps over to burn him too, well he can finally understand why phoenixes are always turning themselves to ash. It pulls a rough breath from him around the edge of her mouth, his head tipping just slightly into her cheek as if bracing against the feeling of their multiplying desire, even as his body leans further into her, unwilling to give an inch.

He can feel his own hands on her. Not just her skin beneath his fingertips, but the skate of his touch rolling across her and every prickle it ignites in turn. Fuck a mirror on the ceiling to watch yourself, this transcends it all. He feels, suddenly starving, though his appetite is only for her, and there’s an eager hunger to know her anew.

It seems to have a similar effect on her with the near frantic pace they set. The absolute claim of her hands dragging him through his hair, their bodies bowing into the space of each other with more certainty than ever before, each step unflinching as they both direct and retreat in unison towards the bed. The shape of his erection has become more defined behind his boxers, chasing every fleeting bit of contact against her that arrives just before she steps away.

I feel the way you want, his thought shudders out in response to her, a barely cohesive thing, but in far better shape than his mouth, which is currently mapping out fresh trails against her neck and collar, alert to every spike and shift of feeling she lets through. It comes in bursts, responding like a living thing being caught, and he pursues it with all the intent of hunting it down thoroughly.

Her hand where she presses against him drags out a ragged sound of breath. It’s immediate, the way his grip tightens, the way his hips answer without thought, cock twitching with an ache to have her. The bond ripples with the rabid sensation, and it’s something he’s already decided he’s not going to survive quietly tonight. His hand catches hers, pressing it more firmly into him, wanting her to feel just how completely her touch drives him to the edge as the feeling mirrors properly through the bond.

His shirt slides up and over with little thought. His free hand impatiently gathers the rest of her torn dress, worn now like some homage to the apocalypse with the way its glittering sequins hang torn and open against the front of her, the elegance completely at odds with the strewn mess of stitching holding fast. Unfortunately, his other hand has to lift to help get it fully from her.

He is at once stopped by the sound of her voice. Not because it’s already become a foreign, too-loud thing—they have always had conversations in several forms, the addition of one not removing another. Like you love me. Not everything stills. Not the heat, still spiraling through every inch of him. Not the pull of her, a magnitude he has no hope or want of escaping. Not the way his body is still very much caught in motion, committed to a path of momentum. Something else in him stills, just enough that her voice lands the way it’s meant to—devastatingly.

His gaze finds hers properly then, lifting from the mess of gold and sun-kissed skin. "I don’t know another way." It’s low, but firm with an unshakable steadiness just like the first time he’d said it. She’ll feel it. Not just the words, but the shape of them—the way they settle go without resistance, or effort, without any space for doubt to exist alongside them.

Not that he needs to prove it. He can feel the belief pouring out of her, and that breaks the last of his composure. Instead of pushing now, he pulls her back into him with a rough insistence, mouth finding hers again with a renewed hunger that carries that looped certainty with it now. He lifts her easily into his arms, just long enough to turn the momentum, before letting it carry them both down onto the bed. It’s tender in the least polite way possible, a controlled aspect to the way he places her, catching himself over her, arms braced on either side of her head. His hips follow a second later, pressing firmly between her thighs, the contact drawing a sharp shudder through his teeth as his cock throbs in expectation. I think I finally found out how to hold onto forever. It’s her.

Kaisel

They don't gotta ask 'cause they know I'm him

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

For a second Flora doesn’t know which way is up, because the room is still the room and the bed is still where it’s always been and Kaisel is still pressed against her in all the ways that matter, but the rest of the world seems to tip violently off its axis beneath her, spilling sensation through her mind in bright, impossible currents. His want rushes into her with the force of something physical, not imagined, not guessed at, but felt, echoing the heat already coiling through her until she can’t tell where her own hunger ends and his begins, only that the two of them have become some terrible, gorgeous feedback loop with no off switch and absolutely no adult supervision. Being able to speak to him while her lips are otherwise occupied should be something she appreciates properly, should be something she marvels over with wit and sparkle and at least one smug little comment about how this is the most efficient upgrade of all time, but she’s too far gone beneath the drag of his mouth over her skin, too bountifully drowned in the doubled weight of wanting him, and when he presses more firmly into her palm and she feels the friction of it flare through his mind, Flora exhales sharply, the heat in her belly answering so fiercely that it almost feels unfair, like they’ve trapped themselves inside a storm made entirely of hands and breath and greedy decisions they are absolutely going to stand by.

The insistence of his hand over hers pulls a greedy moan from her, low and helpless and not remotely birthday-girl dignified, her fingers spreading where he wants them before curling with intent, because if he’s going to let her feel what she does to him, then she wants all of it, wants the full ruinous chain reaction of pressure and response and the way his desire broils through the bond until her own body answers by tightening everywhere at once. It’s obscene how quickly she learns to chase it, how immediately she wants to make the heat spike just to feel it come back to her, her lips parting against whatever piece of him she can reach while her thoughts flicker bright and messy through the new thread between them, all want and love. Her torn, custom-made birthday dress hangs open around her like a crime scene made of blue sequins, glittering pieces of it already scattered underfoot, and the ruined fabric should probably matter at least a little, but all Flora can think is that she has never loved a dress more than she does now that he’s destroyed it for her.

The words land with the force of a door opening onto that early version of them aboard the Sugar Tide and that first time, the raw edge of wanting him when everything had been new and caustic and uncertain, when she had said like you love me without knowing whether she was asking too much or naming something neither of them could hold yet. Back then they had brushed against love like bare skin against a flame, close enough to burn but not yet rooted deeply enough to survive the weather, and now the same words return with his hands having mapped her, his mouth knowing her, his heart pouring straight through the ring on her finger and into whatever part of her had once been so desperate to guess correctly. It makes something in her chest ache so sharply she could cry, or laugh, or scream into the nearest pillow like a deranged woman in a romance novel who has finally lost the plot in the best possible way, because Kaisel is it for her; the whole devastating, ridiculous, sunlit, maddening thing, her husband and her love and her forever.

When his mouth finds hers again, Flora meets the roughness of it with equal abandon, love pouring through the bond like the sweetest gasoline over a fire already too hot to touch, her hands clutching at him with the sort of greed that has no interest in pretending to be graceful. The shift onto the bed steals another sound from her, sharper this time, her body responding before thought can even pretend to be in charge, and the moment she’s beneath him, her legs hook around his waist, tightening there with immediate, shameless insistence as his hips settle between her thighs. The pressure drags a moan from her lips that is anything but polite or restrained, her back arching into him as the sensation sparks low and heavy through her belly, and through the bond he gets all of it, the needy, molten rush of arousal, the fluttering greed of her wanting more, the way every point of contact makes her feel lit from the inside and still somehow starving. Her fingers slide up into his hair again, holding him close enough that there is no room for misunderstanding, her lips brushing ragged against his as she sends the thought straight into him, breathless and wicked and completely undone: I'll never let you go.

Let me paint a picture for you, I'm feeling like Bob Ross

Surrender is there in the palm of her hand as it cups and drags across him. She already knew how to tease him into shape, but now there’s no guesswork to it. She can feel exactly what it does to him, the precise pressure, the exact angle, and adjust before it ever falters. It builds faster because of it, sharper, the climb sudden and unrelenting as she walks him straight to the edge and holds him there. He's helpless to it, his entire body tingling with what he imagines is the closest thing to feeling divine. Everything tightens further as sensation sparks endlessly, and what should be overwhelming and send him thoroughly toppling over is instead a raw breath dragged between them as the contact shifts. She gives him just enough space to find footing in the chaos, not about to ruin him so needlessly early, just walk the line of it so the risk is always there. It drives him mad.

The bed doesn't feel like safety from that edge. If anything, it's putting them closer to it, but at least here they can equally dangle against the line of it. Her vow rises like sudden wind from the depths, stoking what has already flared and caught. There's nothing more desirable than this certainty that they'll always have each other. The feeling doesn't linger in the heat, but settles deep and steady in him, anchoring while the rest devolves.

His mouth drags from her lips, finding her neck with a slow descent that trades urgency for something more controlled, and ultimately more devastating. Teeth skim lightly along the path he takes, reacquainting himself with her through this new lens, though the feel of her nails roving through his scalp makes the departure almost impossible. Every shift of contact lights up through the bond like bioluminescence darting through the dark, and where he's always sought the way she grows taut beneath him or follows the sound of her need as it passes from her chest, this sings back into him without losing volume, making the very pursuit its own intense experience.

His hand follows suit with the descent, but where his lips stop at her collar, his hand glides with intent down her side. Pulling the pressure at their hips away just enough, a momentary sacrifice for the greater potential of working her apart, his fingers spill in between. They roll light and testing over her panties, bearing down against her clit, adjusting until he knows precisely how to set the pace of her undoing. I take back all my doubt for your interruption to give us this, his thoughts arrive with the same panting quality as if spoken, interrupted not by breath but feeling as it bursts and winds through him. Against her skin his mouth curves with the wicked satisfaction that's rollicking through them both, the hickey surfacing beneath the movement. He leans into it fully, into her, into the relentless feedback of want and warmth and certainty that refuses to be separated now, his breath roughening as the space between them tightens and blurs into something that feels like pressure waiting to give.

Kaisel

They don't gotta ask 'cause they know I'm him

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

The moment Kaisel’s mouth leaves hers, Flora feels the absence like something pulled straight from her chest, an immediate, hungry little loss that rushes through the bond before she can even think to hide it, raw and embarrassingly needy. Every brush of his lips across her throat and collar is painted in the shape of what she wants back, the drag of his mouth over her skin making her arch and shiver because even though it's him and it’s perfect, it still isn’t enough; not when some greedy, spoiled part of her wants his kiss and his hands and his weight and his thoughts all at once. When the pressure of his hips shifts away to make room for his hand, she gasps softly, the sound catching in her throat before she hisses the breath back in through her teeth as if that can disguise how sharply she feels the loss of him there, but of course it can’t, not anymore, not when the bond spills everything between them like overturned wine, flowing and dark and impossible to pretend wasn’t deliberate.

His fingers find the lace of her underwear and Flora shivers hard beneath him, toes curling as the first light brush of pressure sends heat snapping up through her body, her own fingers tightening at the base of his head and in his hair, tugging him closer with a warning that is only half a warning because the rest of it is want dressed up in teeth. If you tease me, Kaisel, I will make this hell for both of us, she thinks directly into him, the shape of her mental voice breathlessly amused and glittering at the edges, but underneath it there’s a seriousness she can’t soften, a desperate little flare that tells him exactly how badly she wants him now, how little patience she has for pretty torture when her body is already drawn tight beneath him. 

The hickey blooms against her skin at the same time his finger presses more deliberately against her clit, and Flora’s head tips back against the bed, lips parting on a moan that breaks out of her with no manners at all, no polish. The sensation pours through the bond in a rush of blood roses blooming in the dark, lush and red and opening too fast, tangled with untamed fire that catches along every nerve and climbs until her breath stutters beneath it. Her back arches, thighs tightening around his waist as the pleasure sharpens exactly where he touches her, and the bond throws it all back at him with shameless clarity, the pulse of need low in her belly, the wild, flaring impatience of her body, the way every small adjustment of his fingers makes her thoughts scatter like petals thrown into flame. "Kai—" she breathes aloud, because even with the bond singing between them she still wants his name in her mouth, still wants the sound of it shaped by her lips.

Let me paint a picture for you, I'm feeling like Bob Ross

Her threat only deepens the grin already ghosting against her skin. He can feel the impatience beneath the amusement, the way her body draws taut around every little shift of his hand, and it sparks through him with devastating clarity now that there’s nowhere left for either of them to hide it. It shudders down to the tip of his cock, the shape of it ticking behind the curtain of his boxers with an answering urge. Without the material as his last restraint, he'd have buried himself in her long ago.

Who’s teasing? the thought slides back to her, warm with the current of his want that matches the march of fire in his veins. His mouth drags lower, teeth catching and pulling up her bra, making room for the slow sweep of his tongue against newly bared skin while his hand continues its deliberate work between them. Every adjustment comes quicker now, more precise, because he can feel exactly what it does to her—the sharp hitch of breath, the tightening of her thighs, the rush of it all pouring back against him through the bond like a bottomless well he's drinking from.

It’s intoxicating, being able to guide her apart like this and feel every step of it with her. That well must be spiked. The pace of it builds under his hand, never so hasty as to drive the intensity towards an overwhelming summit, but he's relentless all the same, each touch chosen with an increasing certainty that leaves him breathless beneath the weight of her reactions. I want to feel you come apart, again and again. Whether he manages to stay whole in the process is a hope he's thrown out to every deity he can still remember the names of past the sound of her own divine one.

His own hunger is one he’s no hope of trying to soften, the flood of it readily pouring down the connection to her. Fingertips curl against the border of lace and shuffle beneath it, dipping into her with a new pressure. The cup of his palm and the anchor of his thumb trap her in a persistent, rolling pleasure. His mouth exhales a hot groan against the nipple he's been attending the moment he feels the slick embrace of her, and it's all he can do to fight the rising urgency to trade his hand for something more.

Kaisel

They don't gotta ask 'cause they know I'm him

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

If Flora had enough breath for it, she would absolutely inform him that yes, he is teasing, actually, because the way his hand builds the fire inside her only to shift just enough to keep it from devouring her whole feels less like mercy and more like a crime committed with excellent technique. Instead all she manages is a broken little sound that doesn’t help her case at all, toes curling harder against the bed as her fingers clench in his hair, holding him there while her body keeps betraying her in sharper, hotter ways, every carefully measured movement of his hand dragging her closer to the edge and then leaving her there to shake and swear silently at him through the bond.

When his fingers slip beneath the lace of her underwear and into her properly, Flora gasps hard enough that her chin tucks toward her chest, aqua eyes hazy and blown dark as she looks down at the ruin of herself beneath him, at the torn birthday dress, at the spread of blue sequins, at the place where his mouth is busy against her nipple. Heat bands across her cheeks and nose, bright and unmistakable, her lips parted around the quick, shallow breaths she’s sipping in because anything larger seems impossible with the way pleasure is climbing through her body, heavy and slick and greedy. Her hips lift against the movement of his fingers before she can think better of it, seeking him with an urgency that makes her thighs tense and her thoughts scatter, all the clever little pieces of herself knocked loose until there’s barely anything left except Kai and more and a few distant, useless scraps of language floating somewhere behind the roar of want.

Her palm presses harder into his hair, fingers spreading against his scalp as if she can guide him by touch alone, but the bond makes even that feel insufficient when she can simply give him the shape of what she wants without dragging her mouth away from all the broken little breaths he keeps pulling out of her. Use your tongue, she thinks, the words breathless and ragged and entirely lacking in subtlety, while her body stretches beneath him in immediate explanation, back arching, hips shifting, one leg tightening around him as she silently makes it very, very clear that she does not mean for him to keep using it on her nipples. But slowly

Let me paint a picture for you, I'm feeling like Bob Ross

He feels the tremors running through her. Quite literally, when she shakes beneath him, no other sight is nearly so pleasing as witnessing the betrayal of her own muscles, each of them surrendering to his attention. More than that though, now, it echoes back into him through the bond like undertow, her need attempting to drag him under alongside her. The urgency in her hips, the ache tightening through her, the way thought itself is starting to dissolve. All of it pours into him hot and immediate, and it's all he can do to keep his head above the surge. He's exactly where he wants to be though, waterboarded by her want.

The command hits him with all the force of a hand gripping his jaw and turning his attention exactly where she wants it. A rough sound leaves him, his satisfaction pressing his breath like a second kiss against her skin as he moves to obey. You're so hot when you use your queen-voice, comes the returning deluge of his own desire, the sound of it flushed with heat even in thought, the current of his composure steadily churning away with every roll of her beneath his grip.

He departs from her with reluctance. Unfortunately, she has to lose something to gain the other. The line of her beneath him is lost as he slides off, his hair tugging in her fingers like an unruly dog on a leash. He kneels at the edge of the bed as if this too is a temple, and then, because he wants to be closer to this god, he reaches up with both hands to haul her closer towards him. Forgive me for I am sinning, comes the almost mournful thought as his fingers are forced to slip out of her for the sake of the greater good.

The end result leaves her ass just hanging over the bed, ripe for the taking. He doesn't waste a moment, peeling the the panties off her and chucking them behind him like a wholly unwelcome rind. The bare fruit of her is eagerly set to his tongue, the pace kept maddeningly controlled. It's not withholding or cruel, but it's deliberate in a way that lets every reaction stand apart. His fingers drag gently in tempo with his mouth, running a light trail down her limbs towards the core of her, two sinking back in as the hot glide of his mouth sweeps against her clit.

Kaisel

They don't gotta ask 'cause they know I'm him

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Oh, you think that’s my queen voice? Flora thinks back, the shape of it glittering with the slightest edge of playfulness even though most of her mind is already a sparkling, useless mess of heat and want. It would be sharper if she had more of herself available, if her body weren’t still tuned to every place Kaisel touched and every place he’d left behind, but even that little flicker of teasing comes wrapped in arousal, breathless and bright and fraying fast at the edges.

The loss of him as he moves down her body is almost unbearable, a devastating wave of anticipation that makes it nearly impossible to stay still, her fingers tightening uselessly against nothing for the few seconds his hair is no longer where she can properly knot her fingers in it. She’d asked for this, wanted it, told him exactly where she wanted his mouth, and yet the distance between wanting and having becomes its own physical thing, something stretched tight over her ribs and hips and thighs, something she has to wrestle against while she lies there, waiting. The urge to tell him to hurry is so strong it burns behind her teeth, but a larger, pleasure-drunk part of her also wants him to go slow; wants the unbearable build and the vicious little sweetness of having no choice but to feel every second of it, and when her hips are caught and drawn toward the edge of the bed, Flora exhales the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, the sound leaving her in a shaky rush that says far too much.

The first press of his tongue against her sends relief through her so sharply it almost feels soft—not gentle, not even close—but soft in the way a summer storm is soft when it finally breaks over skin that’s been waiting too long beneath impossible heat. Her thighs drape over his shoulders and immediately tense there, trembling with restraint as she fights the absolutely feral urge to lock him in place against her. The sweep of his mouth lights her up in one clean, arching rush, every nerve answering at once, and Flora gasps loudly before she can swallow the sound down, head pressing back against the bed as pleasure rolls through her with such force that it borders on painful, too bright and too concentrated and still not enough to make her want less of it.

Through the bond, there is nowhere for any of it to hide. The newness of it, the fact that she is already so riled up she can barely keep her thoughts in a straight line, turns every stroke of his tongue into something devastating, dragging her closer far faster than he has any right to manage while still being so meticulous, so slow, so infuriatingly exact. It drowns her in waves, each one pinning her harder against the bed even as her hips lift with helpless little answers, the pleasure blooming low and spreading hot through her belly, up her spine, out into her shaking hands until she can’t tell whether she’s pushing into it or trying to survive it. "Kai," she moans, his name breaking out of her breathless and wrecked, her body tightening around the rising force of it as the bond spills everything back to him in shameless colour and heat, all need, all yes, all there, all the greedy, trembling certainty that he is going to undo her far too quickly and she is going to let him, so if he wanted to feel her come undone any other way than this, he had about 5 seconds to stop what he was doing.

Let me paint a picture for you, I'm feeling like Bob Ross

The dare of there being more queenly command buried in her still strikes him with such savage appeal he's tempted towards disobedience just to unearth it. Given the seat of her legs shortly around his head, he thinks better of it than teasing the guillotine of a woman's want when it's this close to the edge.

The ride of her against him is like the sea breaking around a dock. Her hips undulate with all the restless nature of waves, her body alive with the push and pull of the tide, retreating from the sensation just to roll right back into it with a suffocating force. He doesn't relent to the crash of her against him. Not the vice of her thighs trying to pull him into her own gravity, and not the rush of feeling that's blurred every remaining line of where one of them ends or begins. All he knows is that he means to drown himself in her.

He doesn’t speed up. If anything, the control of it turns sharper, more focused, each movement chosen with devastating care to ensure he alters nothing that'd pull her away by anything less than her choice. The bond leaves no room for guessing. He can feel the hitch just before it reaches her throat as if it's sitting in the back of his. Every tremor that crawls through her thighs trembles within his, each aching pulse of mounting pressure echoes inside him in equal response, straining for release. Instead of backing away from it, he leans in.

His hand tightens to hold her, anchoring her there while his mouth continues its unbearable attention. He draws the feeling out instead of rushing it, lets it climb higher and tighter until even the seconds between breaths seem stretched thin with it. Flora, he returns, the sound drawn out as his thoughts fray further to the feel of her. The curl of his fingers inside her beckon for her to break, his thumb sweeping off the slope of her ass and pressing in at the back as if he intends for no pleasure to hide out there either. That’s it, he coaxes, approval pouring through, the bond so open now there’s no point pretending restraint still exists between them. Let me feel it, he demands, merciless in the pursuit of their relief. Come undone.

Kaisel

They don't gotta ask 'cause they know I'm him

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Her orgasm pulls at Flora from somewhere too deep to name cleanly, not a neat climb, not some pretty little crest she can moan her way through, but something vast and violent and tidal that catches her beneath the ribs and drags, hard, until she feels suddenly tiny inside her own body, like a little sailboat caught in the centre of a maelstrom with its mast splintering and its sails gone bright with lightning.

Before the bond, she thinks she might have broken sooner, might have tumbled over the first bright edge of it and let pleasure scatter through her in quick, hot waves, but now Kaisel can feel too much, knows too much, follows every hitch and shiver and unbearable tightening with devastating precision until the pleasure doesn’t just build, it towers. The drop beneath her feels impossible in its height, almost frightening in the way it opens up inside her, and through the ring she can feel her own anticipation feeding back into him, can feel the wild, shaky rush of adrenaline bursting through the heat in her veins as the pressure inside her finally swells past anything her body can hold.

"Kais—" she cries, except his name fractures before it can fully leave her mouth, breaking apart into sounds that spill half into the room and half down the bond, syllables torn between breath and thought as the release takes her completely. It rips through every part of her at once, a full-body convulsion of pleasure so bright and consuming that for a second she loses the edges of herself, weightless and falling even as her back arches sharply from the bed. Her hands fist into the sheets, knuckles tight, the torn shimmer of her dress dragging against her skin as her body trembles through the overglow, helpless to the rippling aftershocks that keep rolling through her again and again. Her mouth stays open around the shape of his name, breath caught in broken little sounds she can’t control, the feeling too enormous to fit inside her and yet trapped there anyway, flooding the bond in hot, shameless waves of pleasure, love, and stunned, greedy need.

Let me paint a picture for you, I'm feeling like Bob Ross

The force of her storm, finally breaking, crashes through the bond with enough intensity to rip away all the sheltering walls of his own sensation and thought. For one dizzying second, he loses all sense of self, her pleasure drenching everything pretending to still have control. It's such a staggering force that it's all he can do to fight his return from it, impulse begging his lungs to breathe in again, pulse kicking wildly in his veins like his heart considered stumbling into paralysis for a moment and has to make it up now. It's effectively his own body convulsing beneath the weight of it, the feel of it all connected with her a consuming, beautiful thing even when it's his own name that fractures through his mind.

"Gods." he begs, Flora's name right there with them.

The groan that leaves him against her is wrecked. Soaked, his own mind lifts up through the current, thoughts helplessly reverent as every aftershock rolling through her echoes back into him in relentless succession, a phantom orgasm that isn't his own. He feels the trembling in her thighs inside his own muscles, the violent pull of release still wringing through her body while her love and want and stunned greed flood the bond so completely that it leaves him aching with the sheer excess of it.

His grip tightens instinctively. Not to hold her down, but to hold onto something, castaway on this tide and in desperate need of some driftwood. All of it drives straight into the pressure already wound unbearably tight inside his own body. His hips jerk once against the mattress beside the bed before he catches himself hard, breath punching out of him through clenched teeth as his own pressure strains violently under the impact of her unraveling.

His mouth has gone soft and slack against her, flopping against the mattress as he rides the ache of his own edge like a live wire threatening to snap at any second. Fuck, Flora… The thought reaches her frayed and heated through with awe, with satisfaction, with so much love it overwhelms him. I felt all of that. And gods, he wants more. He's trembling where he kneels, cock so tight behind his boxers that it nearly hurts.

Kaisel

They don't gotta ask 'cause they know I'm him

your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand

Pleasure is still moving through Flora in heavy, pulsing waves, each one slower than the last but no less consuming, leaving her limbs loose and shaking while her thoughts try very unsuccessfully to gather themselves into something with even a passing resemblance to coherence. Through the bond, though, she can feel him too, and that awareness cuts straight through the afterglow like teeth: the tension still locked through his body, the hard strain of his cock against his underwear, the way his hips had jerked as she came as if even the echo of her release had nearly dragged him over with her. It leaves her breath catching all over again, because even as her own pleasure reverberates back to her through him in warm, stunning fragments, second-hand ruin is not where this night is ending for Kaisel, not after the Everkeep, not after the ring, not after he has spent the entire evening making her feel adored within an inch of her life.

She lifts her head from the bed enough to look down at him, curls spilling messily around her face, cheeks flushed, lips parted around breath she still hasn’t quite managed to reclaim. "Gods," she says, voice broken and breathless, the word dragging itself out of her like it has to crawl over every shivering nerve he just set alight. "You’re good at that." It comes with the faintest twitch of a smile, all wrecked affection and unsteady smugness.

Her hands find the torn remains of her dress, and with none of the reverence she felt for it when she put it on, she tears at what’s left until the fabric gives more fully, the ruined shimmer falling away from her like broken butterfly wings, blue sequins catching against her skin and the bed before she pushes herself up as much as her trembling body allows. Her thighs slip from his shoulders with visible reluctance, the loss of contact dragging another shaky breath through her, but her hands are already reaching for him, fingers flexing in invitation and demand all at once. "Now come up here," she tells him, her voice still rough from the force of his name and everything he’d pulled out of her, before a breathless little laugh escapes her. "If you can, that is."

The tease lands with the heat of what she can feel through the bond, because his legs are trembling and she knows it. She looks at him with flushed cheeks and aqua eyes gone dark with desire, her body still open and humming from what he’s done to her, one hand reaching for him while the other braces against the bed, and every part of her—her mouth, her hands, the greedy ache low in her belly, the molten spill of love and want pouring down the bond—says the same thing before she ever has to shape it into words: she wants him closer, wants the weight of him over her, wants to feel exactly what he’s been holding back finally break.

Let me paint a picture for you, I'm feeling like Bob Ross

"No," the sound of his voice drags out slow and reluctant, like surf retreating from shore during high tide. "You're good at that." That being plummeting straight into the heart of euphoria and pulling him along for the ride. His head lifts from where it had half-collapsed against her thigh. Copper eyes find her through the lingering haze of her pleasure that's still rippling through the bond, warmth licking up his nerves with each pass.

The sight feeds his want so thoroughly, he has to press his teeth into the side of her leg and grapple with his breath. Strewn out beneath the torn ruin of sequins like some beautiful disaster of his making, she is magnificent. The curls that crown her in complete disarray have never looked better. Her skin, glowing hot and heaving with shallow, shaking inhales after being thoroughly adored is the finest thing she's ever worn.

Sequins flash with the light as the remains of her dress are discarded. Although there's nothing truly new on display, the line of her having been drawn out of the flayed fabric earlier, his gaze can't help but darken with the fresh awareness that she is fully available to him now. “There's not a thing in this world that could keep me from you right now,” he manages, voice roughened nearly beyond recognition with the invitation to satisfy so close at hand. He pushes himself upright despite the visible tremor that runs through his legs. It’s stubbornness that gets him moving as much as desire, soldier-instinct refusing to surrender to something as simple as temporarily nonfunctional limbs. Though gods, it’s close for a moment, like sealegs adapting back to land.

He catches her reaching hand halfway, using it to pull himself the rest of the way up the bed toward her, crawling like he's coming ashore after willingly drowning, although the tide's bound to drag him back out. His boxers last only until he reaches the edge of her knees. Already strained beyond tolerance, the fabric has become less clothing and more insult. He hooks a thumb into the waistband with an impatient sound under his breath and yanks them down hard enough to kick them loose behind him somewhere onto the floor.

The relief of it drags a low groan from him as he finally frees himself, hot cock dragging slow against her thigh while he closes the remaining distance between them. Covering her fully with his body, there's an immediate relief, as if he's finally found the place it was trying to get back to all along. One arm braces beside her head while the other slides beneath her waist to drag her flush against him, leaving barely enough space for the rise and fall of breath. Through the bond she can feel exactly how wrecked he still is by her, every pulse of want wound tight and burning inside him, sharpened further by the memory of what he’d just felt through her.

Much better. The thought shudders out, entirely ransacked by the warm embrace of her beneath him. His eyes are half-lidded and dark as they lift back to hers, lingering just a moment on the color in her cheeks before he leans down to press a kiss to her lips that lacks any caution or delicacy.

Kaisel

They don't gotta ask 'cause they know I'm him