she's my kind of rain

VESPER

Vesper snorts against her skin, the sound rough and amused where it grazes just below her ear. "Oh, I intend to," he drawls, low and deliberate, and though his voice is lazy, his mind is already half a world away—walking her backwards into one of Torchline’s tide caves, the press of cool stone at her back and her wrists wrapped in shadow-slick rope... dragging her down beside the lamplight pool in New Haven and making her scream beneath faraway constellations. There are so many places he’s wanted her: against the fence of her ranch, across his desk at the Hanged Man, bent over her own kitchen table.

But he can’t fuck her in his head forever.

So he pulls back, just enough to drag his shirt over his head in one smooth motion, not bothering with the buttons. His hair is tousled from her fingers and the friction of cloth, pale against the candlelight, and his breath hitches as the air touches sweat-damp skin. Then he’s leaning down again, hands sliding with precision over the bunched folds of her dress. It’s pooled at her waist like an invitation, that he happily accepts. He gathers it, slow enough to savour the way the fabric skims over her body, then draws it up and over her head in one long pull. His fingers trail down the length of her spine as the dress slips away, pressing into each vertebra like he’s memorising her by touch. When he reaches the curve of her hips, his grip shifts—firm, possessive—and he presses her down onto the blanket.

"This is why I pulled you off that wall," he murmurs, and his voice is a darker thing now, hunger coiled around every word. His eyes rake over her, unhurried and unkind in the best possible way. "Couldn’t look at you like this if you were all balled up in my arms." He kisses her collarbone, bites a trail down the slope of her breast, heat blooming behind every scrape of teeth, but he still doesn’t rush, not with his hands already gliding lower.

Shadows stir at his command, dark tendrils coalescing like silk around her thighs. They band there, cool and firm, wrapping with a slow, teasing drag that lifts her hips in the air with a showman’s flourish. With one hand braced against her hip, the other finds the seam of her underwear, and with the barest flick of his fingers, he peels the last barrier away, letting it slide down and off her legs. "Fuck," he mutters, half to himself, half to her, the word reverent and filthy in equal measure.

Then he lowers himself again, slower this time—not out of restraint, but ritual. The press of his mouth below her navel is hot and lingering, his stubble scratching against her pale skin. And though he has every intention of burying himself in her soon—of fucking her until she forgets the name of the constellation he’s named after—he’s going to taste her first.  Vesper presses his tongue into her with deliberate slowness, the first stroke long and deep, tasting the heat of her like it’s something sacred. His fingers tighten on her hips as he drags his tongue back again, only to sink in once more—harder this time, with purpose. He sets a rhythm not unlike the celestial ocean he was born beside: ebb, surge, retreat—only to crash again with more intent, more hunger. Every flick, every pressure is calculated, not just to tease, but to unravel. To reduce her to nothing but need and sensation beneath his mouth, his ministrations guided by her thoughts.

Will I ever quit playing with matches?
Why am I making angels in the ashes?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

You put the cool in the breeze
You put the weak here in my knees
You put me right where I'm supposed to be
In your blue-eyed sea, and I wanna sail away

The idea of future tumbles with him shouldn't rattle her when she hasn't even finished having him now, but it does. More of this? Right now, wound around him like the glow around the moon, she'd accept any opportunity to place him in her future. It's utterly selfish, taking every good thing he has to give when she's only got fragments to offer in return, but she'd chase that damn smirk and all the treacherous things it can do for as long as she can manage. She'd agreed to time, and every thought of denying him had withered the moment she'd pulled this dress out. Forgetting him had been impossible anyway, so all she's got left is the hopeless belief that she can keep him from slipping any further into her chest.

A delighted grin chases after him, stealing one more kiss before he pulls too far away, an unfortunate trade off in order for him to appease her view. The golden wash that spills over his bare chest elicits an appreciative hum, gaze sparking as she drags it over each slope of muscle, his freckles charting a new night sky that's all hers. Her fingers drag lightly over the gilded edge of him, reluctantly releasing him only when her garment slides up her sides beneath his hand, skin prickling where the echo of the touch lingers for a beat, then lost beneath the fresh settle of cooler air. The flower and all her plans have since been forgotten, steadily chased away beneath the sweep of his hands.

Even if she'd had something smart to say back, every sense gets clipped between his teeth, a gasp edging out bit by bit with every deliberate mark as he heads south. It feels like every nerve is straining for the next placement of his touch, need growing wilder with every moment he stretches further with his purposefully slow torment. "You're terrible," is all she manages to hiss out between the scattered inhales of breath, the last comprehensible thing she can muster before he steals the rest.

The sinful grasp of his shadows and the angle they beckon makes it a wonder that he isn't lost to a cloud of steam. The sudden flush of heat that courses through her as he flicks the last bit of fabric away from her feels scalding, but he appears to be impervious to it, stoking it to something hotter even as his mouth finds her. Her hips jerk against his hold on the first stroke, a low, strangled sound catching in her throat as her fingers fist in the blankets. Each shift of his tongue, every graze of stubble, pulls a different sound of want out of her, and she can’t hold any of it back.

Her head tips back, hair spilling loose from some of its pins after all this maneuvering, breath breaking against her own bitten lip as his pace adjusts. Always perfect, like he’s reading every desperate thought she can’t say. Desire whimpers sharper each time he retreats, her body straining for him like he’s the only thing left in the world that matters. "No," she starts to complain, but it cracks on a moan. This has been building since the last time he held her during longheat, undone with her hand and moonlight several times since, but never fully. He'd been torturously slow before, but now it's rising too fast, altogether too much and not enough. She wants him in his entirety. "Give—all—of you," she begs, thighs straining against the tethers he's arranged. Hurry, before she can't hold on.

As his tongue crashes into her harder, her fingers claw at the quilt beneath her, chest arching up toward him like her body’s trying to offer him everything. Her hips roll helplessly into his mouth as the tension finally snaps. A shudder tears through her as she tips over, head thrown back against the blankets, pulse hammering visibly in her throat. "Vesper—" his name tumbles out like salvation, every part of her softening into the lingering pulse of his devil's work.

Her gaze flicks bright and sharp to him though, slanted from the tilt of her head near her shoulder. Though satisfaction simmers there, so too does hunger. "Take your fucking pants off," she demands as she tries to regrow her bones.

You knock me out kiss by kiss
I need you baby, sip by sip
Sit back and let me drink you in
I'm fallin' for you, over and over and over again

VESPER

It’s entirely selfish, the way he worships Colt now—his mouth relentless between her thighs, tongue fast and methodic against the aching centre of her. Not just to make her fall apart beneath him, though gods, he wants that—but because every time her body shudders, every time her pleasure crests and spills over, it reverberates through him like a second heartbeat. Her climax flares in his mind like lightning behind closed eyes, raw and blinding, and he groans into her as it breaks, as her orgasm slams into him like a wave breaking over both of them at once. His shadows tighten around her thighs, curl possessively through her fingers like phantom hands, and he rides out every pulse of her release with his mouth still moving, coaxing every last jolt from her.

The taste of her, the sound of her—his name tangled in a breathless cry—has his cock throbbing behind his zipper, almost painfully hard. And when her sharp voice cuts through the haze, he laughs low and wolfish against her skin, the sound slick with satisfaction. "Yes ma'am," he murmurs, lips dragging wet and hot up the inside of her thigh.

More shadows bloom across the blankets like smoke, slipping into his waistband and yanking the last layers of cloth down his hips. He shifts back to strip them the rest of the way, baring himself completely, and the candlelight carves golden shadows across every line of his body. His cock stands heavy and flushed, the head slick with need, and his eyes—sharp and dark and entirely focused on her—burn with the promise of what comes next.

He slides between her legs with the same fluidity as his shadows, encouraging one of her thighs to hook high around his hip while the other curls around his ribs. His magic forms an arch beneath her lower back, lifting her just enough to angle her toward him. And gods, he savours it—the view, the stretch of her body beneath his, the sweat-slick glow of her skin, her chest rising and falling fast. One ringed hand slides toward her hip, anchoring her, the hold rough and possessive as he lines himself up, while the other presses into her hair as his forearm brackets around her. When he pushes forward, it's slow and deliberate; the length of him filling her inch by inch. The moment she stretches around him, the heat of her wrapping tight, he groans—groans—and it’s not quiet. His mouth drops open against hers, his fingertips bruising into her hips as he bottoms out with one long, deep thrust. His shadows pulse beneath her with every breath he takes, matching the flex of his hips as he holds still inside her for a beat, letting the intensity settle like stormwater in his lungs.

"Fuck, Colt..." Her name is a growl this time, spoken into her mouth as he rocks forward again, and again—slow at first, but deep, every thrust hungry and measured. His eyes don’t leave hers, not even when his brow draws tight from how good she feels around him. He wants to watch her fall apart again. Wants to feel it crackle through his mind like thunder.

Will I ever quit playing with matches?
Why am I making angels in the ashes?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

You put the cool in the breeze
You put the weak here in my knees
You put me right where I'm supposed to be
In your blue-eyed sea, and I wanna sail away

He's relentless in his endeavor to unmake her. He's not even content when she breaks, he keeps going—like he means to pulverize every last thought and every lingering sense she’s ever had against the drag of his tongue, the cinch of his shadows, the dark grip he weaves into her hands. A second orgasm threatens to ride in behind the first as he continues to orchestrate pleasure like he means to dethrone Frey. It's only by some small mercy that she can speak, and that he listens, that she receives any reprieve. He leaves her a quivering mess of heat and need that withdraws into a steady beat between her thighs at the absence of him.

There’s nothing soft about the way she looks at him the instant he's bare, just a ravenous want that coils tight, making every other idea of hunger seem laughable in comparison to this. The back light cast by the candles frames every part of him in a warm glow that makes him appear almost holy. Well, he was heaven sent, but he's no angel, and thankfully so.

She reclaims him with each ring of her leg, an embrace that's potent with heat as it sinks around all the potential of him. The tilt he arranges for her hips with his magic is tantalizing, ever surprised by the depth of his devious mind when it comes to bending his shadows to his whims. The firm hold he sets to her hip earns an appreciative hum, thighs tightening against him like they can keep him there forever. The sound is cut short as he pushes inside, every scrap of air stolen, her chest caught in a sharp, tight flutter that drags its way all the way down to where he’s filling her. Her fingers curl instantly into his shoulders, nails biting hard against him as her head tips back into the blankets with a ragged gasp that almost sounds like a laugh, like she can’t believe he can feel like this.

His groan that catches on her mouth is one she can't meet with anything sensible, her own breath just a pant into the space between them, lost to every bit of friction he sets against her. "Gods, Vesper—" her voice catches on a moan as he rolls into her perfectly. "You feel so damn good," the words splinter, low and breathless, spilling out against his jaw as her body arches up into his, desperate to meet him thrust for thrust. Every sound she makes, every stutter of her hips, belongs to him now.

You knock me out kiss by kiss
I need you baby, sip by sip
Sit back and let me drink you in
I'm fallin' for you, over and over and over again

VESPER

His fingers tangle in Colt’s hair, tugging hard enough to tilt her head back, to bare her throat like an offering he’s more than willing to take. He claims her mouth with a kiss that isn’t soft, isn’t sweet—there’s nothing gentle in the way his lips crash into hers. It’s a brand, a conquest, the kind of kiss that steals the breath from her lungs and replaces it with his own. His tongue slides deep, matching the slow grind of his hips as he fucks her harder, deeper, his body flush against hers, every thrust deliberate and possessive.

The hand anchored at her hip slips lower, dragging across the curve of her ass until it finds the back of her thigh. He grips it tightly and pulls her leg higher around his waist, fingertips pressing into her like he’s trying to write his name in stars across her skin. His shadows ripple with his pleasure as they slide across her back in a wave of living silk, curling up to cradle her shoulders before slipping down, sinuous and cool, to cup her breasts. They toy with her nipples like teasing fingers, grazing and pinching in slow rhythm, while another tendril slithers along the flat of her stomach and pools low between her thighs.

It forms there like a teardrop of smoke until it’s pressing against her clit in steady, rhythmic pulses timed precisely to the drive of his cock. Selfishly, he doesn't want her hands to leave his skin; he wants her clutching at him, nails in his shoulders, hips rolling up into every thrust like her life depends on it. And fuck, the way she feels—tight and slick and pulsing around him—is almost too much. His thoughts splinter with hers, waves of need and ecstasy crashing through his telepathy, every lightning strike of her pleasure sparking through his own spine. The hunger in her mind feeds his own, a wildfire in dry grass, and the grin he gives her is feral as his hips pick up pace.

"That’s it," he growls against her lips, forehead pressed to hers now, breath shared and ragged. His voice is low and ruined, shaken loose from his usual poise. "You feel—gods Colt—I—" He thrusts into her harder, shadows tightening around her thighs, her ribs, her clit—every part of her held by him and his magic, every inch a battlefield of pleasure.  "Cum for me—gods, cum—" It starts as a plea, raw and cracked from the strain, but twists into something sharper as his eyes flutter, fighting to stay open. "Before I fucking lose it, Colt." His voice is jagged now, a command laced with desperation, the kind of edge that promises he won’t last much longer if she doesn’t fall first.

Will I ever quit playing with matches?
Why am I making angels in the ashes?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

You put the cool in the breeze
You put the weak here in my knees
You put me right where I'm supposed to be
In your blue-eyed sea, and I wanna sail away

Her gaze flicks up briefly as he wrests her head back, and for a moment all she sees is the crown of stars around his head, sparkling through the opening in the ceiling. It's lost to a vision of heat and her own lashes as he descends upon her, claiming her breath like all the rest of her that's got his name written on it still isn't enough. She returns fire for as long as she can manage, but every wicked addition he adds to his rhythm pulls her deeper into oblivion, his mouth the least of her worries now.

Her hands claw at his back, his shoulders, anywhere she can anchor herself against the storm of him. Every thrust is a starburst of pleasure that rings through her entire body. Her toes curl with the effort to hang on for more, riding the edge of near madness until she'll inevitably tumble off, nearly unable to stay with him as he guides her leg up higher, altering his pitch.

The feel of his shadows slinking in against her breasts, dropping lower still, earns a whimper of defeat. The way they cradle, tease, press, they unravel her too perfectly in tandem with his hips. The pressure against her clit is cruel in its perfection, synced so precisely she can’t tell where the magic ends and his cock begins. Every nerve in her body is alive in a chorus of electricity, body tightening against the sparks he creates. She's pinned in every way—by his grip, his weight, his voice, the pulse of shadows curling into every tender, trembling edge of her.

She’s already gone, but the rough sound of his unraveling, the stark need he has that she can grant, will always be her weakness. This orgasm tears through her like it means for her to never recover, every muscle straining against the swell of pressure and it's final, rippling relief. A tremble runs through her full body, back arching hard as she gasps up into him, hair taut in his hands. Her hands spasm against his shoulders, digging in as she shatters on the sharp edge of his demand. Her lips slide against his arm, lingering there for a beat before spilling back into the quilts, unable to manage anything but a wrecked moan, helpless and lost to him entirely.

You knock me out kiss by kiss
I need you baby, sip by sip
Sit back and let me drink you in
I'm fallin' for you, over and over and over again

VESPER

The moment she breaks, it slams into him like lightning tearing through a forest—hot, bright, and utterly consuming. He feels it build in her first, because of course he does; because her pleasure is his own, the bond between them electric and intimate in ways neither of them had words for. Her orgasm blooms like wildfire through his mind, and his body answers before reason can argue. His rhythm falters, hips stuttering as every sinew of him strains to hold back. Shoulders taut. Arms trembling. His grip on her hip turns bruising with effort, a possessive anchor against the torrent crashing into him.

His mouth parts, lips peeling back in something too raw to be called a smile, too rapturous to be pain. It's everything. It's too much. And still, he presses deeper, shadows lifting her to meet the final thrusts of his body as if even they can’t bear to be separate from her in this. Her name is ripped from his throat in a sound more moan than word—low, wrecked, reverent—as cums hard, the heat of it spilling in rhythm with the pulse of his magic.

Then—stillness.

His body slumps, boneless and glowing with the haze of it all. His head drops into the crook of her neck as if gravity’s decided to keep him there, the heat of her skin an anchor to keep him from drifting off entirely. He stays like that, shivering faintly with aftershocks, his breath mingling with hers in the silence. All the fire and noise gone now, replaced with the static quiet that fills the space between heartbeats—just her thoughts crackling faintly through his telepathy, and the soft, ragged inhale that proves they’re still tangled together in the afterglow.

Will I ever quit playing with matches?
Why am I making angels in the ashes?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

You put the cool in the breeze
You put the weak here in my knees
You put me right where I'm supposed to be
In your blue-eyed sea, and I wanna sail away

The feel of his breath against her neck is almost too much, every sense frayed and gradually trying to reassemble under the stillness that captures them both. She doesn't stir though, just wraps her arms against his back as he settles, legs growing limp, but still caught around his.

She can't move, actually. Not when euphoria runs like a current just beneath her skin, spilling into her pulse until every bit of her feels the prickle of immense and complete satisfaction. Trembles course through her every so often, the echoes of his work still finding a way out. Goosebumps ripple where the cooler air strikes the parts of her not contained beneath him, heat dispersing like invisible smoke. Gods, she hasn't been fucked like that in... ever? Never.

Some agency seeps back in, her fingers twitching with it, tracing whorls up his back before they slide into his hair. Each motion is slower now, gentler, carding through the sweat-damp strands like she’s trying to remember how to let something stay soft. “You're still too good Ves,” she breathes against the line of his jaw, voice husky still, worn raw from every sound he'd tugged free. "The best, actually." She tilts her head just enough to press her mouth to his skin, lips brushing there with a kind of affection she doesn’t let herself think too hard about.

A heavy sigh slips out after a pause, lips still resting near the edge of him, each inhale dragging him in. Though she'd like nothing more than to cradle him like this all through the night, a new hunger sets in with a vengeance. "I hope you stocked more than wine up here," she murmurs against him.

You knock me out kiss by kiss
I need you baby, sip by sip
Sit back and let me drink you in
I'm fallin' for you, over and over and over again

VESPER

Her thoughts coat his mind like light pouring through a glass of red wine—sticky and slow and glowing with residual heat. Vesper smirks against the curve of her neck, pride licking at the edge of his senses, and it isn’t just because he’s made her come undone. It’s the way she’s thinking it, the saturation of satisfaction that still pulses faintly through her with every breath. It ought to be enough to keep his grin crooked and sharp, but—

Then it shifts.

Something gentler curls through the static. A flicker of affection she doesn’t name, doesn’t even aim, but he feels it nonetheless. His smile stills, caught mid-spark like a match held too long against the box. He doesn’t speak at first, just lets her voice roll through him, lets her fingers comb through his hair like a lullaby he’s never been sung. It's unfamiliar territory, that kind of softness, and while he doesn’t flinch from it, doesn’t recoil—he doesn’t quite know what to do with it either.

Instead, his mouth brushes the hinge of her jaw, more breath than kiss, and he exhales a soft chuckle into her skin. "Mm. You are a cheap date, if this already counts as the best," he murmurs, the words warm with pride and teasing edge both. "We ain't even got to lookin' at the stars yet."

But the shadows that pull away from her thighs linger like fingertips, reluctant to let go. He shifts slightly, not out of urgency but necessity, his body still thrumming in that afterglow haze. Gods, if he could go again already, he would. Wants to. Every part of him that’s not currently humming with the ache of used is ready to start again. The thought slides through his mind with a touch of wistful longing, chasing the way her leg still curls around his. But his body, damn it, has other plans. His hand drags down her side, slow as honey, from the curve of her ribs to the jut of her hipbone, fingertips reverent in the way they linger. He doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to lose the way they fit just like this. But when she murmurs about food, that slow, teasing grin curls back into place.

Vesper sighs dramatically, as if the request is terribly inconvenient, though his smirk gives him away. "Right. You didn’t eat anything." He acknowledges with a slow, wicked curl of his lips. "Can't relate."

With a flick of his fingers, the shadows slither toward the basket, dragging it across the blanket with a lazy scrape. He sits up just enough to lean on one elbow, raking a hand through his hair until it falls back in that casual, tousled mess.  Inside: neatly sliced cheeses for crackers, salted meat, chilled fruit cut into neat bite-sized pieces, and a small cloth-wrapped bundle of still-warm bread.

Will I ever quit playing with matches?
Why am I making angels in the ashes?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

You put the cool in the breeze
You put the weak here in my knees
You put me right where I'm supposed to be
In your blue-eyed sea, and I wanna sail away

A laugh shakes free at his tease, forcing movement she'd rather avoid, so she tosses her head to the other side, burying her humor and the too true foundation of it into the blankets. His lips skate more along her neck with the motion, a tickle that ends with the drag of his stubble, a feeling she relaxes into with a stilling of her hand in his hair. "I said you were the best," she rouses the correction, rolling her eyes faintly before tilting back towards him with a smirk. "A title which I just might take away, on second thought." Though as before, her threat is entirely hollow, no telepathy required to see through it.

"Speak for yourself," she sighs as he begins to part from her, hands sliding from his back to tug up the strands of her own mess of hair. She remembers the flower suddenly, and feels around carefully for it while relieving herself of all the wayward pins that had grown displaced in his earlier grip. "I saw plenty of stars." Her grin implies there's more than the ones in the sky that she means, although she saw those too, even if they didn't really receive the full weight of her attention. She finds the flower just as his fingers skim too slow, too light along her side—drawing a quiet gasp that hiccups her focus and sends the bloom slipping from her grip again. She rounds an accusing stare on him, but equally her thighs tighten with meaning, holding firm against him just for a moment, unwilling to give him up so soon, especially not when he leaves a fresh trail of suggestion in his wake. Appeasing that line of thought isn't likely right now, but all her hungers are drifting in and out of each other, and the idea of burning out the starlight with him is infinitely appealing.

His devious comment and the roguish look he takes on sets her mouth ajar. Her hold turns to a shove as she hooks a leg and sets her knee against him in a half-hearted attempt to topple him, scandal embedded in her grin. Her laughter follows suit quickly though, bright and breathless with all her affection for him folded up in its seams. She wriggles up into a sitting position, leaning over her knees as she eyes the basket's retrieval with anticipation. "So you're too full, is what I'm hearing?" One eyebrow lifts up with the question, a coy glance thrown his way. "Shame, more for me I guess."

She leans forward to steal the basket from his reach. If her timing’s poor, she’ll be in a tug-o-war with his shadows, but she means to tuck it behind her back and guard it as long as she's able. Which, everything she does know about him, likely won't be long at all, so blindly one hand reaches into the flap to try and grab a bundle of crackers just to be safe.

You knock me out kiss by kiss
I need you baby, sip by sip
Sit back and let me drink you in
I'm fallin' for you, over and over and over again

VESPER

His mouth curves lazily against her jaw as she laughs, a low sound slipping through his teeth like smoke. "My bad," he murmurs, voice a little wrecked still, like he's been drinking her in and hasn't quite come up for air. "Guess I was distracted."

Colt is flushed and golden, her hair a sun-slicked mess where it falls around her shoulders, bits of starlight catching in the strands like they want to stay close to her too. There’s a crooked pin still tangled behind her ear, and as she tugs the rest free with those deft, dirt-slick fingers, the flower he stuck there earlier tumbles loose again—only for her to press it back into place as his fingers drift slow across her skin. The glare she gives him is sharp, but not serious; nothing about her is ever just one thing. She’s wild and amused and glowing from the inside out, skin still humming with what he’s done to her, and what she's done to him.

"Mm, not me," he says softly, eyes hooded as he stares up at her from where he’s still sprawled on his side. "Didn't see anything but you."

As her thighs tighten again, brief but deliberate, it sends a jolt through him, one he doesn’t try to hide. His lashes flutter, tension cutting a faint line through his jaw as his body hums with the cruel knowledge of what she wants—what he wants—and the fact that neither of them are quite ready for another round. It’s a unique kind of torment, to feel her arousal rising like smoke through his mind and not be able to do a damn thing about it.

She shoves at him with a laugh, not enough to move him, but enough to earn his grin. He doesn’t bother sitting up like she does, just shifts closer, slouching with boneless grace until he’s leaned against her knees. One arm hooks loosely around her calf, casual as a curl of shadow. "Haven’t gotten my fill, no," he murmurs, silver rings catching against her skin. "Not even close."

When she steals the basket, he lets her. His shadows slither free, uncoiling like smoke, only to pour up her legs instead—curling around the curve of her thigh, the slope of her shoulder. "Help yourself," he drawls, watching her fish for a cracker like she’s elbow-deep in contraband. "But if you think I’m not gonna steal it back..." He lets the threat hang there, teeth flashing as his gaze drops to the hollow of her throat, still faintly marked by his mouth. Gods, she looks good like this. Ruined and smug and already plotting. His kind of trouble.

Will I ever quit playing with matches?
Why am I making angels in the ashes?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

You put the cool in the breeze
You put the weak here in my knees
You put me right where I'm supposed to be
In your blue-eyed sea, and I wanna sail away

Everything he says always manages to drag through her with barbs. Not sharp enough to hurt—just enough to catch, to linger like something that means to stay a while. It tugs leisurely against her now, each slow drawl and quiet chuckle, saturated with their mutual satisfaction and persistent cravings, lodging themselves wonderfully into the corners of her mind and the lines of her smile.

She'd been wrong, before. It's not him leaning on rails she could never tire of, it's the way he looks now—lazy and smug with afterglow, coiled against her legs like there's comfort in keeping them nearby. The skip of his rings against her skin, the indication of more layered into his voice, the heat of his gaze, it all sparks against her like a fire that doesn't intend on going out any time soon.

The basket slides into her command freely, triumph found in the package of crackers that fit into her grasp among the wicker, a feat in and of itself honestly given all the assorted goods he'd stuffed into it. It's too easy, which is the first hint that he's angling for something worse, but the thrill of immediate success blots out such thoughts for the moment. The absolute menace of his shadows sweep in though, gliding with an all too familiar pattern as they wind against her thighs. The scavenged sleeve of crackers are at risk of turning to dust resulting an involuntary clench of her hands. With the added harness against her shoulders, the weight of his warning fully settles. She leans back against the dark embrace though, pulling at the binds, testing them, the press of her edging the basket further away.

Mischief cradles her resistance, a toe lifting off the ground to press into his side with her own dose of caution to him. An empty gun can still turn a situation around. "I think you can try," she draws the words out between her grin, full of false confidence given that she nearly buckles under the heavy look of his admiration. One hand curls protectively against the handle, while the other holds her prize against her teeth as she tears the pack open, shaking the broken pieces into her mouth like it'd been intentional all along.

You knock me out kiss by kiss
I need you baby, sip by sip
Sit back and let me drink you in
I'm fallin' for you, over and over and over again

VESPER

The toe pressed into his side earns her a look, amused and slow, as if she’s just poked a sleeping cat and dares it to pounce. Vesper doesn’t rise to the bait, though, not immediately anyway. Instead, his fingers trail down her leg where it touches him, slow and idle as thought. They follow each waypoint left by time with deliberate ease, tracing the edge of a barbed wire bite like he’s learning the shape of a map only he’s meant to read. His touch doesn’t linger out of pity—he’s not that sentimental—but it is reverent in its own way. Like each mark tells a story worth knowing, worth remembering. His thumb passes over a freckle near the bend of her knee, then skims along the outside of her thigh, as if he’s mapping constellations into her skin with nothing but heat and silver rings.

"Mmm," he murmurs, too focused to bother smirking yet. "Or I could just keep doin' this." This of course being touching her slow. Even as he speaks, the shadows are already slinking into place. Slick and silent, they coil around the base of the basket tucked behind her, lifting the lid just enough to begin their silent thievery. A wedge of cheese disappears. Then another. A curl of fruit, a slice of bread. He doesn't look at them—doesn’t have to—but the corners of his mouth twitch just slightly with every successful swipe even as his attention remains firmly fixed on her: On the way her mouth curls around the edge of the cracker sleeve, shaking the crumbs into her mouth like a wolf playing dress-up as a girl. On the way her fingers grip the handle like she knows she’s losing ground but refuses to admit it.

Will I ever quit playing with matches?
Why am I making angels in the ashes?

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

COLT

You put the cool in the breeze
You put the weak here in my knees
You put me right where I'm supposed to be
In your blue-eyed sea, and I wanna sail away

The crinkle of the cracker sleeve stills suddenly. Her gaze slides out from under it, slow as molasses drips, settling onto him with the acute awareness that if she looks too long, she'll be surrendering more than just the picnic basket. She chews slow, gaze narrowing slightly, an assessment of just how much she wants to rise to the challenge he laid out, or grant them each a victory and let him win. The candlelight still coats the ridges of him in something warm, at odds with the sterling shine that glints down from above, catching in the chaos of his hair. She enjoys the mess of it, that she had a hand in its creation.

"You think that's all it'll take?" she asks with a scoff, the answer already written in every shiver his fingers leave behind. Each brush of his fingers is one more reason to give in, and she just might have... if not for the curious twitch of his amusement stretching out longer and longer. She sets the crackers down at her side, her own smile replacing the thin determination. "What?" she asks, wanting to be let in on whatever little joke or happy thought has got his lips curling. It's then that she notices it, a slip of the basket and its weight, the faintest bit of movement in her periphery. She glances over her shoulder just in time to catch one of his dark tendrils red-handed. False outrage comes as a gasp and she reaches for one of the vanishing cheeses, a laugh breaking free around all the weak walls of her feigned dismay. "You absolute cheater!"

It doesn't take long for her to resign to her defeat, tricked by the damn wolf in sheep's clothing. She swings the basket around and puts it back between the two of them, lid tipped open for easy access. "Alright," she says with a huff, "you win, this time." The promise of a next time lingers like something sweet, and the weight of it doesn't even register to her now. Not as she's claiming some fruit in one hand and setting her other to skim against his shoulder, like this is how every night is supposed to go.

You knock me out kiss by kiss
I need you baby, sip by sip
Sit back and let me drink you in
I'm fallin' for you, over and over and over again