your touch brought forth an incandescent glow, tarnished but so grand
For a second Flora doesn’t know which way is up, because the room is still the room and the bed is still where it’s always been and Kaisel is still pressed against her in all the ways that matter, but the rest of the world seems to tip violently off its axis beneath her, spilling sensation through her mind in bright, impossible currents. His want rushes into her with the force of something physical, not imagined, not guessed at, but felt, echoing the heat already coiling through her until she can’t tell where her own hunger ends and his begins, only that the two of them have become some terrible, gorgeous feedback loop with no off switch and absolutely no adult supervision. Being able to speak to him while her lips are otherwise occupied should be something she appreciates properly, should be something she marvels over with wit and sparkle and at least one smug little comment about how this is the most efficient upgrade of all time, but she’s too far gone beneath the drag of his mouth over her skin, too bountifully drowned in the doubled weight of wanting him, and when he presses more firmly into her palm and she feels the friction of it flare through his mind, Flora exhales sharply, the heat in her belly answering so fiercely that it almost feels unfair, like they’ve trapped themselves inside a storm made entirely of hands and breath and greedy decisions they are absolutely going to stand by.
The insistence of his hand over hers pulls a greedy moan from her, low and helpless and not remotely birthday-girl dignified, her fingers spreading where he wants them before curling with intent, because if he’s going to let her feel what she does to him, then she wants all of it, wants the full ruinous chain reaction of pressure and response and the way his desire broils through the bond until her own body answers by tightening everywhere at once. It’s obscene how quickly she learns to chase it, how immediately she wants to make the heat spike just to feel it come back to her, her lips parting against whatever piece of him she can reach while her thoughts flicker bright and messy through the new thread between them, all want and love. Her torn, custom-made birthday dress hangs open around her like a crime scene made of blue sequins, glittering pieces of it already scattered underfoot, and the ruined fabric should probably matter at least a little, but all Flora can think is that she has never loved a dress more than she does now that he’s destroyed it for her.
The words land with the force of a door opening onto that early version of them aboard the Sugar Tide and that first time, the raw edge of wanting him when everything had been new and caustic and uncertain, when she had said like you love me without knowing whether she was asking too much or naming something neither of them could hold yet. Back then they had brushed against love like bare skin against a flame, close enough to burn but not yet rooted deeply enough to survive the weather, and now the same words return with his hands having mapped her, his mouth knowing her, his heart pouring straight through the ring on her finger and into whatever part of her had once been so desperate to guess correctly. It makes something in her chest ache so sharply she could cry, or laugh, or scream into the nearest pillow like a deranged woman in a romance novel who has finally lost the plot in the best possible way, because Kaisel is it for her; the whole devastating, ridiculous, sunlit, maddening thing, her husband and her love and her forever.
When his mouth finds hers again, Flora meets the roughness of it with equal abandon, love pouring through the bond like the sweetest gasoline over a fire already too hot to touch, her hands clutching at him with the sort of greed that has no interest in pretending to be graceful. The shift onto the bed steals another sound from her, sharper this time, her body responding before thought can even pretend to be in charge, and the moment she’s beneath him, her legs hook around his waist, tightening there with immediate, shameless insistence as his hips settle between her thighs. The pressure drags a moan from her lips that is anything but polite or restrained, her back arching into him as the sensation sparks low and heavy through her belly, and through the bond he gets all of it, the needy, molten rush of arousal, the fluttering greed of her wanting more, the way every point of contact makes her feel lit from the inside and still somehow starving. Her fingers slide up into his hair again, holding him close enough that there is no room for misunderstanding, her lips brushing ragged against his as she sends the thought straight into him, breathless and wicked and completely undone: I'll never let you go.
The insistence of his hand over hers pulls a greedy moan from her, low and helpless and not remotely birthday-girl dignified, her fingers spreading where he wants them before curling with intent, because if he’s going to let her feel what she does to him, then she wants all of it, wants the full ruinous chain reaction of pressure and response and the way his desire broils through the bond until her own body answers by tightening everywhere at once. It’s obscene how quickly she learns to chase it, how immediately she wants to make the heat spike just to feel it come back to her, her lips parting against whatever piece of him she can reach while her thoughts flicker bright and messy through the new thread between them, all want and love. Her torn, custom-made birthday dress hangs open around her like a crime scene made of blue sequins, glittering pieces of it already scattered underfoot, and the ruined fabric should probably matter at least a little, but all Flora can think is that she has never loved a dress more than she does now that he’s destroyed it for her.
The words land with the force of a door opening onto that early version of them aboard the Sugar Tide and that first time, the raw edge of wanting him when everything had been new and caustic and uncertain, when she had said like you love me without knowing whether she was asking too much or naming something neither of them could hold yet. Back then they had brushed against love like bare skin against a flame, close enough to burn but not yet rooted deeply enough to survive the weather, and now the same words return with his hands having mapped her, his mouth knowing her, his heart pouring straight through the ring on her finger and into whatever part of her had once been so desperate to guess correctly. It makes something in her chest ache so sharply she could cry, or laugh, or scream into the nearest pillow like a deranged woman in a romance novel who has finally lost the plot in the best possible way, because Kaisel is it for her; the whole devastating, ridiculous, sunlit, maddening thing, her husband and her love and her forever.
When his mouth finds hers again, Flora meets the roughness of it with equal abandon, love pouring through the bond like the sweetest gasoline over a fire already too hot to touch, her hands clutching at him with the sort of greed that has no interest in pretending to be graceful. The shift onto the bed steals another sound from her, sharper this time, her body responding before thought can even pretend to be in charge, and the moment she’s beneath him, her legs hook around his waist, tightening there with immediate, shameless insistence as his hips settle between her thighs. The pressure drags a moan from her lips that is anything but polite or restrained, her back arching into him as the sensation sparks low and heavy through her belly, and through the bond he gets all of it, the needy, molten rush of arousal, the fluttering greed of her wanting more, the way every point of contact makes her feel lit from the inside and still somehow starving. Her fingers slide up into his hair again, holding him close enough that there is no room for misunderstanding, her lips brushing ragged against his as she sends the thought straight into him, breathless and wicked and completely undone: I'll never let you go.
