flora
Flora’s heart skitters as Kaisel sweeps her up effortlessly, stealing the breath from her lungs and scattering all her careful composure across the Sugar Tide’s sunlit deck. The warm slide of his arm beneath her knees, the way he holds her so securely—it’s so painfully gentle, so tenderly protective, that all she wants to do is drown herself in it. Flora's love language is all of them, but perhaps none more so than physical touch. A dangerous wanting sparks hot in her belly, heat spilling low and honeyed, the need to turn this honest, careful affection into something familiar, something she knows how to control.
Her legs instinctively wind tighter around his waist, her fingers tangling into his hair like a lifeline, the silk-dark strands twisting softly around her knuckles. She feels his heartbeat against her own chest, achingly close beneath his cartoon shark shirt— her own a rapid staccato that pulses behind her eyes. Her breath comes in small, delicate sips against his neck, each exhale whispering a half-prayer to stay in this moment, to keep holding on even as she feels her grip on everything else slipping.
But as quickly as desire blooms, reality crashes in after it: the crushing certainty of how it would ruin what they had. That she'd turn Kaisel’s quiet strength and earnest kindness into something she could shatter into pieces between her fingertips, leaving them both burned and brittle; a poor trade for a momentary bliss. She stiffens slightly in his arms, fighting the trembling urge to ask him below deck where putting her to bed would turn into asking him to stay, and where she could easily turn harmless cuddling into something that would set them both burning bright. But using sex as a balm against all of her jagged pain? At Kaisel's expense?
Gods, when did she become this?
She closes her eyes, breathing slowly through the ache, feeling impossibly small and fragile despite the sunshine haloing her curls and the larger-than-life presence she usually carried like armour. This Flora—the one tucked up small in Kaisel’s arms, uncertain and vulnerable, stripped of bravado—feels far more real, far more breakable than she's been in a very long time.
Instead of speaking, she tightens her arms around him, fingers softly flexing against his neck, silently pleading him not to let go. Not yet, anyway. She presses a soft, trembling kiss to the skin just below his jawline, lingering a heartbeat longer than she should, holding the moment on her lips as if it might anchor them both and that he might feel her appreciation over and above anything else.
Her legs instinctively wind tighter around his waist, her fingers tangling into his hair like a lifeline, the silk-dark strands twisting softly around her knuckles. She feels his heartbeat against her own chest, achingly close beneath his cartoon shark shirt— her own a rapid staccato that pulses behind her eyes. Her breath comes in small, delicate sips against his neck, each exhale whispering a half-prayer to stay in this moment, to keep holding on even as she feels her grip on everything else slipping.
But as quickly as desire blooms, reality crashes in after it: the crushing certainty of how it would ruin what they had. That she'd turn Kaisel’s quiet strength and earnest kindness into something she could shatter into pieces between her fingertips, leaving them both burned and brittle; a poor trade for a momentary bliss. She stiffens slightly in his arms, fighting the trembling urge to ask him below deck where putting her to bed would turn into asking him to stay, and where she could easily turn harmless cuddling into something that would set them both burning bright. But using sex as a balm against all of her jagged pain? At Kaisel's expense?
Gods, when did she become this?
She closes her eyes, breathing slowly through the ache, feeling impossibly small and fragile despite the sunshine haloing her curls and the larger-than-life presence she usually carried like armour. This Flora—the one tucked up small in Kaisel’s arms, uncertain and vulnerable, stripped of bravado—feels far more real, far more breakable than she's been in a very long time.
Instead of speaking, she tightens her arms around him, fingers softly flexing against his neck, silently pleading him not to let go. Not yet, anyway. She presses a soft, trembling kiss to the skin just below his jawline, lingering a heartbeat longer than she should, holding the moment on her lips as if it might anchor them both and that he might feel her appreciation over and above anything else.
I want to be when you fall on me like night
I wanna kill the lights
I wanna kill the lights
