we show off our different scarlet letters
Flora gazes up at him through the glow of the water, each ripple of bioluminescent blue lighting his features like the sea itself is conspiring to make him look devastatingly handsome. And gods, it’s working. The angles of his face are carved in salt and blue starlight, his expression open in a way that unravels something low in her belly, and when his hand comes up to cup her cheek, she leans into it without hesitation. Her own fingers rise to cover his, slipping into the spaces between, warm and wet and adoring.
His words—I like you—draw a breathless chuckle from her throat, the sound a little too shy to be smug, a little too pleased to be casual. Heat flushes across her cheeks, and she shrugs, lips curling as her gaze drops for a second. "You say that now, when everything’s still new." The words come soft, not accusatory. There’s no doubt in her tone, only caution gilded with hope because she knows what it's like to not be enough. But if it ever changes..." Her voice drifts softer then, the words trembling on the edge of a breath. She lifts her gaze, searching his face like she’s memorizing every flicker of light that plays across it, every drop of water gliding down his jaw. The hand over his tightens, her thumb brushing along the ridge of his knuckles, the gesture small but desperate, as if she could anchor the moment there between their palms. "You don’t have to keep it secret, okay?" she murmurs, lashes lowering for half a heartbeat before her eyes meet his again, clear and aching. "I’d rather find ways to keep you happy than ever risk losing you."
There’s a tremor beneath her tone; not from fear, exactly, but something rawer, more instinctive. Beneath the surface calm, there’s a flicker of feral need, the kind that drives deeper than lust or laughter or even love. It’s the urge to keep, to protect what she’s found in him, to hold it so close that nothing—not time, not doubt, not anyone else—can take it away. The heat that had simmered in her before is replaced by something quieter but far more dangerous, a devotion that presses itself into every heartbeat. Her fingers squeeze his once more, and she breathes out shakily, the confession sitting between them like a vow: she’d give anything—body, heart, soul—to keep him, to keep this, forever.
At his explanation about Mel, she wrinkles her nose in understanding, blinking slowly, still wondering how Melita had been able to walk on water in the first place, and why she'd laid down on top of the ocean if Kaisel had channelled her to help him win a race.
Taking a step back, Flora still holds tightly to his hand, reluctant to let go. The crashing urgency that had gripped her earlier—the mad dash toward the shore, the imagined moment where he’d catch her in the shallows from behind, and they’d fall together into some steamy, surf-drenched fantasy onto their knees, giving anyone watching a proper show—has settled into something steadier now. He’s not pulling her off her feet anymore, but he’s grounding her instead, and that’s its own kind of sweep.
She turns her head, glancing up the beach until she spots the dark slouch of his backpack. Tilting her head in its direction, she nudges his arm with hers. "I think your bag’s up there. If you want to get dressed first..." If not for Kaisel's sake, Flora could almost guarantee being pulled away from wherever Mel had been a second time just to be faced with Kaisel's concern as well as his cock was probably not high on the Honeybee's list of LongNight activities.
His words—I like you—draw a breathless chuckle from her throat, the sound a little too shy to be smug, a little too pleased to be casual. Heat flushes across her cheeks, and she shrugs, lips curling as her gaze drops for a second. "You say that now, when everything’s still new." The words come soft, not accusatory. There’s no doubt in her tone, only caution gilded with hope because she knows what it's like to not be enough. But if it ever changes..." Her voice drifts softer then, the words trembling on the edge of a breath. She lifts her gaze, searching his face like she’s memorizing every flicker of light that plays across it, every drop of water gliding down his jaw. The hand over his tightens, her thumb brushing along the ridge of his knuckles, the gesture small but desperate, as if she could anchor the moment there between their palms. "You don’t have to keep it secret, okay?" she murmurs, lashes lowering for half a heartbeat before her eyes meet his again, clear and aching. "I’d rather find ways to keep you happy than ever risk losing you."
There’s a tremor beneath her tone; not from fear, exactly, but something rawer, more instinctive. Beneath the surface calm, there’s a flicker of feral need, the kind that drives deeper than lust or laughter or even love. It’s the urge to keep, to protect what she’s found in him, to hold it so close that nothing—not time, not doubt, not anyone else—can take it away. The heat that had simmered in her before is replaced by something quieter but far more dangerous, a devotion that presses itself into every heartbeat. Her fingers squeeze his once more, and she breathes out shakily, the confession sitting between them like a vow: she’d give anything—body, heart, soul—to keep him, to keep this, forever.
At his explanation about Mel, she wrinkles her nose in understanding, blinking slowly, still wondering how Melita had been able to walk on water in the first place, and why she'd laid down on top of the ocean if Kaisel had channelled her to help him win a race.
Taking a step back, Flora still holds tightly to his hand, reluctant to let go. The crashing urgency that had gripped her earlier—the mad dash toward the shore, the imagined moment where he’d catch her in the shallows from behind, and they’d fall together into some steamy, surf-drenched fantasy onto their knees, giving anyone watching a proper show—has settled into something steadier now. He’s not pulling her off her feet anymore, but he’s grounding her instead, and that’s its own kind of sweep.
She turns her head, glancing up the beach until she spots the dark slouch of his backpack. Tilting her head in its direction, she nudges his arm with hers. "I think your bag’s up there. If you want to get dressed first..." If not for Kaisel's sake, Flora could almost guarantee being pulled away from wherever Mel had been a second time just to be faced with Kaisel's concern as well as his cock was probably not high on the Honeybee's list of LongNight activities.
