is this the end of all the endings?
The moment Kaisel begins to unravel inside her, Flora only half-knows it, her own body still echoing with the shuddering afterglow of release. Her limbs feel too soft to belong to her, as though she’s been melted down into honey and seawater and scattered across his skin, her thoughts no longer tethered to anything but the wild beat of her heart and the breathless way he holds her like he might never let go. Even so, as his forehead presses against hers and his groan vibrates through her shoulder, she finds herself moving instinctively, wordless sounds of encouragement slipping from her lips and into his temple, gentle and gasping, as if her voice can offer what her body can no longer manage. She can’t lift her hips anymore, not really, but she tightens her legs a fraction around his waist, tilting to give him what’s left—what’s always his—until the last of him surges through her.
She barely registers the press of her back against the wall, not with the roar in her ears still fading and the pulsing between her thighs a rhythm she can't quite escape. Her mind flirts with the idea of untangling herself, of letting her legs fall away and her arms loosen, but the moment she imagines it, she knows she won’t be able to stand. Whatever strength she had has been poured into him, and what’s left is just smoke and silk and a girl who has never felt so thoroughly undone.
As he lowers them down, her body shivering lightly as it adjusts to gravity again, a strange sensation rises up from somewhere low in her belly, sweeping through her chest and lodging itself tight and high in her throat. It isn’t fear, and it isn’t pain. It feels almost like the first inhale before a sob or the trembling edge before a laugh; something too big for her lungs, too tender to name. Her breath comes in broken pants against his neck, the steam around them curling like a veil, soft and sacred. Whatever just happened between them, it isn’t like before. It isn’t lust spilling over or comfort sought in fevered need. There’s something quieter beneath it, something that makes her want to curl into him and weep with the enormity of it, though her body is far too spent to do anything but let it pass through her in soft, stunned tremors.
Still, her hands rise—slow, clumsy with the weight of her exhaustion—and find his face. Her thumbs brush the water from his cheeks, not that it matters in the still-falling spray, and she leans in with a softness that feels brand new. The kiss she gives him is molten without burning, forged from the same fire as the rest of them but tempered now, cooled just enough to be held without pain. It's slow, impossibly sweet, the kind of kiss that feels like the answer to every breathless question their bodies had asked a moment before. She kisses him like a secret folded into golden light, like she never wants the world to exist again without this taste in her mouth.
And when her lungs finally force her back, the kiss breaking with a trembling exhale, she rests her forehead gently against his, her breath still short and shallow. Her hands remain cradling his face as if to keep him there, as if to keep herself steady, and in a voice so low and intimate it barely survives the steam between them, she whispers; not a confession, not a declaration, just a truth as simple and as staggering as the sea. "I love you."
She barely registers the press of her back against the wall, not with the roar in her ears still fading and the pulsing between her thighs a rhythm she can't quite escape. Her mind flirts with the idea of untangling herself, of letting her legs fall away and her arms loosen, but the moment she imagines it, she knows she won’t be able to stand. Whatever strength she had has been poured into him, and what’s left is just smoke and silk and a girl who has never felt so thoroughly undone.
As he lowers them down, her body shivering lightly as it adjusts to gravity again, a strange sensation rises up from somewhere low in her belly, sweeping through her chest and lodging itself tight and high in her throat. It isn’t fear, and it isn’t pain. It feels almost like the first inhale before a sob or the trembling edge before a laugh; something too big for her lungs, too tender to name. Her breath comes in broken pants against his neck, the steam around them curling like a veil, soft and sacred. Whatever just happened between them, it isn’t like before. It isn’t lust spilling over or comfort sought in fevered need. There’s something quieter beneath it, something that makes her want to curl into him and weep with the enormity of it, though her body is far too spent to do anything but let it pass through her in soft, stunned tremors.
Still, her hands rise—slow, clumsy with the weight of her exhaustion—and find his face. Her thumbs brush the water from his cheeks, not that it matters in the still-falling spray, and she leans in with a softness that feels brand new. The kiss she gives him is molten without burning, forged from the same fire as the rest of them but tempered now, cooled just enough to be held without pain. It's slow, impossibly sweet, the kind of kiss that feels like the answer to every breathless question their bodies had asked a moment before. She kisses him like a secret folded into golden light, like she never wants the world to exist again without this taste in her mouth.
And when her lungs finally force her back, the kiss breaking with a trembling exhale, she rests her forehead gently against his, her breath still short and shallow. Her hands remain cradling his face as if to keep him there, as if to keep herself steady, and in a voice so low and intimate it barely survives the steam between them, she whispers; not a confession, not a declaration, just a truth as simple and as staggering as the sea. "I love you."
my broken bones are mending
