flora
There is a half-formed protest gathering behind her teeth when Kaseil says he hopes she doesn’t mind being set down—because she had just said she liked being lifted, thank you very much—but the world tilts before she can weaponize it, and the couch catches her in a breath-stealing bounce that knocks the complaint clean out of her. Laughter bursts up instead, bright and startled and shameless, the fish hat flopping sideways like it too has been scandalized by the betrayal. Her hands reach for him automatically, not to stop the fall but to make sure he follows, because if she is going down, she expects him to be going down too.
He is on her before the cushions finish settling, and the weight of him—solid, warm, decisive—presses a sound out of her that feels like approval written in velvet and heat. The brief sip of air between them disappears almost immediately, and when his mouth finds hers again she answers with no hesitation, legs winding around his waist like she’s locking a door behind them. The world shrinks to pressure and breath and the wild, ridiculous knowledge that they were just discussing nearly ruined proposals and murderous ex-boyfriends and now she is thinking about the way his hands fit around her ribs like they were designed for that exact stretch of her.
When his palms drag along her sides she shivers openly, spine arching into the path of him without any performance left in it, wriggling to help him peel her shirt away because patience is suddenly intolerable. The air touches where his hands were and she barely registers it before he replaces the absence with heat again. Her chin tips back as his mouth descends, offering her throat without conscious though, laughter catching low in her chest because the sheer indulgence of making out with her husband on their couch feels obscene in the best way. "You could always ask Frey for more hands," she breathes, the tease spilling out even as her pulse hammers, because she cannot resist needling him even when she is the one unraveling.
Her fingers bunch in his shirt, tugging stubbornly upward. She is less efficient than he'd been, more frantic, fabric catching and resisting, but she refuses to let him have the advantage. She forces him to part from her long enough to drag the shirt over his head, and the second his skin meets hers fully it is like striking flint. A quiet, reverent sound escapes her—softer than the laughter from before, deeper than teasing—because the heat of him against her feels less like play and more like gravity as her hands spread over his shoulders as though reacquainting themselves with something wild and entirely hers, thumbs tracing the breadth of him, the strength that lifted her without effort. She moans under her breath, low and pleased, fingers tightening as she pulls him down again, unwilling to waste even a second. There is no more fight between them, no Jack, no Koa, no secrets to be kept. There is only the way his body fits against hers, and the wild, dizzying joy of being wanted exactly like this.
He is on her before the cushions finish settling, and the weight of him—solid, warm, decisive—presses a sound out of her that feels like approval written in velvet and heat. The brief sip of air between them disappears almost immediately, and when his mouth finds hers again she answers with no hesitation, legs winding around his waist like she’s locking a door behind them. The world shrinks to pressure and breath and the wild, ridiculous knowledge that they were just discussing nearly ruined proposals and murderous ex-boyfriends and now she is thinking about the way his hands fit around her ribs like they were designed for that exact stretch of her.
When his palms drag along her sides she shivers openly, spine arching into the path of him without any performance left in it, wriggling to help him peel her shirt away because patience is suddenly intolerable. The air touches where his hands were and she barely registers it before he replaces the absence with heat again. Her chin tips back as his mouth descends, offering her throat without conscious though, laughter catching low in her chest because the sheer indulgence of making out with her husband on their couch feels obscene in the best way. "You could always ask Frey for more hands," she breathes, the tease spilling out even as her pulse hammers, because she cannot resist needling him even when she is the one unraveling.
Her fingers bunch in his shirt, tugging stubbornly upward. She is less efficient than he'd been, more frantic, fabric catching and resisting, but she refuses to let him have the advantage. She forces him to part from her long enough to drag the shirt over his head, and the second his skin meets hers fully it is like striking flint. A quiet, reverent sound escapes her—softer than the laughter from before, deeper than teasing—because the heat of him against her feels less like play and more like gravity as her hands spread over his shoulders as though reacquainting themselves with something wild and entirely hers, thumbs tracing the breadth of him, the strength that lifted her without effort. She moans under her breath, low and pleased, fingers tightening as she pulls him down again, unwilling to waste even a second. There is no more fight between them, no Jack, no Koa, no secrets to be kept. There is only the way his body fits against hers, and the wild, dizzying joy of being wanted exactly like this.
you don't know that you're living til' you're carrying scars
you're either falling in love or falling apart
you're either falling in love or falling apart
