you can call me honey if you want
Flora bursts into laughter as Kaisel kisses her upside-down, the ridiculousness of it perfectly timed, like he's Spiderman and she's Mary Jane. The sound is all sun-drunk affection, bright and warm and wholly unbothered by the seaweed squishing beneath her as he draws back. She lets the echo of it linger, her chest rising with another soft giggle before she settles again, arms limp at her sides in delighted surrender.
When Kaisel begins to smear the paste across her front, Flora lets her head loll dramatically to the side, turning just enough to catch him watching her. It makes her want to squirm—not from discomfort—but because his touch always seems to be haloed in something golden that she's helpless to resist wanting more of. Still, she holds mostly still as his fingers trail lightly over her skin, declaring where the seafoam would go, where the green swell should break, where the ocean current might swirl. "I’ll do such a good tide impression," she grins, voice honeyed, "you’ll think you’re standing knee-deep in the surf."
But then he starts to speak of himself—orange, gold, brown—and the joke catches in her throat and her smile softens. One hand lifts from the table, fingertips finding his hair, still damp from earlier. She toys gently with the curls at his nape, letting them slip between her fingers as her eyes trace the features of his face from this new angle.
In her mind, the colours bloom across him like the brushstrokes of an old painting: the low golden hush of dusk pressed to his cheekbones, the deep wood-brown smudged across his jaw, flickers of auburn and amber catching in the strands of his hair. He’s a walking sunbeam filtered through canopy leaves, a last light through the trees kind of beautiful; quiet, not because he is, but because the moment feels that way.
Her voice drops to match it. "That sounds like how I made my room at the House of Midnight," she murmurs, brushing her thumb along the line of his temple. "When you came to see me there."
Twisting slightly onto her side, she shifts her elbow beneath her and tries to prop herself just enough to look at him properly. Her fingers don’t leave his hair, just continue their gentle fussing—absently, affectionately—as her expression tilts thoughtful. "But I don’t want it to be just the colours I like," she adds quietly. "What ones do you like?" Her gaze flicks down to his chest, then up again.
When Kaisel begins to smear the paste across her front, Flora lets her head loll dramatically to the side, turning just enough to catch him watching her. It makes her want to squirm—not from discomfort—but because his touch always seems to be haloed in something golden that she's helpless to resist wanting more of. Still, she holds mostly still as his fingers trail lightly over her skin, declaring where the seafoam would go, where the green swell should break, where the ocean current might swirl. "I’ll do such a good tide impression," she grins, voice honeyed, "you’ll think you’re standing knee-deep in the surf."
But then he starts to speak of himself—orange, gold, brown—and the joke catches in her throat and her smile softens. One hand lifts from the table, fingertips finding his hair, still damp from earlier. She toys gently with the curls at his nape, letting them slip between her fingers as her eyes trace the features of his face from this new angle.
In her mind, the colours bloom across him like the brushstrokes of an old painting: the low golden hush of dusk pressed to his cheekbones, the deep wood-brown smudged across his jaw, flickers of auburn and amber catching in the strands of his hair. He’s a walking sunbeam filtered through canopy leaves, a last light through the trees kind of beautiful; quiet, not because he is, but because the moment feels that way.
Her voice drops to match it. "That sounds like how I made my room at the House of Midnight," she murmurs, brushing her thumb along the line of his temple. "When you came to see me there."
Twisting slightly onto her side, she shifts her elbow beneath her and tries to prop herself just enough to look at him properly. Her fingers don’t leave his hair, just continue their gentle fussing—absently, affectionately—as her expression tilts thoughtful. "But I don’t want it to be just the colours I like," she adds quietly. "What ones do you like?" Her gaze flicks down to his chest, then up again.
