tryna get my Usher on but I can't let it burn

Flora

Sand. It's always there, just waiting. If you look for it out of the corner of your eye...oh, well you'll absolutely see it, building up while you sleep, just waiting for you to try and blink it away.,

"Oh?" Flora purrs innocently, lashes fluttering as she pauses mid-sweep to smile up at Kaisel with sugary brightness. "Did I accidentally touch you?" Her tone is so wide-eyed and gentle it practically comes with its own halo. "Just being thorough," she coos.

When he flaps about the meat like he’s discovered gold in a riverbed, Flora narrows her eyes, leaning in just enough to squint suspiciously at the molten landscape of cheese and crunch. Her brow arches like a very judgmental bridge and while her eyebrow game might not be as strong as Ronin's, she has learned from him over the years, and the arch of her brow speaks plainly: bullshit.

As Kaisel pokes her Flora inhales, sharp and dangerous, like a cat who’s just been flicked on the nose. Her mouth opens—ready to list, alphabetically, categorically all the reasons why he’s clearly wrong—when suddenly he swerves, claiming fault, throwing himself on the royal sword with a smirk and a chip and a wiggling pepper.

She freezes.
He turns his back.
Her jaw drops. And while he may not see the dagger glare she launches at his shoulder blades, there’s no doubt he’ll feel it, like a paper cut across his aura.

Then—calm, too calm—she hums a pretty, sing-song note. The kind of note that belongs in a lullaby right before the bass drops into chaos. "You know what?" she chirps sweetly. "You’re absolutely right. You’ve definitely earned it." Swanning past like she’s gliding down a red carpet made of vengeance, she pats his shoulder with all the grace and condescension of a queen forgiving a fool. "Enjoy your banquet," she murmurs, curls bouncing with the motion as she heads for the little hall, one finger hooked in the hem of her tank top.

The last thing Kaisel will hear before the doorway steals her away is her voice, light and lazy: "I’m gonna take a shower while you finish your well-deserved meal." And just before she vanishes from view, her white tank is peeled off over her head—casual, unhurried—revealing a flash of sun-kissed skin.

I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Honey wherever you go, I know

Anticipation waits for a shove or a scream, maybe even a plume of frost guided from Spice in joint retribution—anything that'd argue against his absurd declaration. He can feel it hovering there, poised just near enough that that it could descend at any moment. He's rigid with preparation, grin cocked as all his chewing halts. Instead, she consents, and too gently at that. She is somehow more unnerving for her layered sweetness, the kind of sugar that you'll get sick on.

He glances slowly back to her, as cautious as stumbling across a bear that he doesn't want to trigger into a mauling. His attention lingers where her fingers graze him for a moment, trying to work through the trap he knows is being built, but can't get a sense for the mechanism. His focus shifts back onto her, a lens adjusting over the haze of his shoulder, to watch as she waltzes down the ship with all the languid strut of a cat that will beg for belly rubs with it's claws out. She moves every curve subtly, but with the intent for each outline to be known, and gods he must have been held back in school with the way he means to learn every shape again. He cranes his neck to provide more space to witness her retreat without moving, a faint exhale parting from him as her skin flashes out of sight.

A chip crunches loudly.

Moving swiftly he flings open every cabinet until he finds a plate, using the offending spatula from before to scoop the nachos out neatly onto it. He pulls his shirt off one handed as he trots after her, plate of nachos held aloft in his other, swapping so he can shake the clothing off. It swings carelessly into the hallway corner as he nudges open the door, striding in like room service, though his gaze is anything but polite and professional. "Shower nachos are all the rage these days, you know. Like poolside, but rebranded for the comfort of your own home."

Kaisel

I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you

Flora

Flora can feel his gaze before he ever speaks. That anticipatory hush that clings to her skin like steam, the weight of it settling right where her curls spill over bare shoulders and the delicate line of her spine slopes into the hourglass arc of her hips. Her jeans sit low, hugging the swell of her backside, every motion deliberate now—syrupy and slow, like a song built for swaying. Her toes sink into the warm wood of the hallway as she walks, hips ticking to an unseen rhythm, all lazy confidence and calculated allure.

She hears the door nudge open—timing impeccable, of course—and doesn’t bother to look right away. That would be too easy. Instead, her head turns partway, profile catching the light as she casts a glance over her shoulder, chin lifted just enough for her golden curls to tumble and catch against her collarbone. Her expression is all mock surprise, exaggerated in a way that’s unmistakably teasing. "Haven’t you heard of knocking?" she hums, sweet as candied poison.

The moment lingers—his silhouette backlit by the hallway, shirtless, bearing a plate of nachos like some absurd, shirtless room service fantasy—and her gaze does sweep over him, unabashed and slow. He has kept his tan, surprisingly. The kind of sun-kissed that speaks of boat decks and bad decisions, not as rich as hers, but close enough that when they stand side by side, the summer still glows from them both.

With the ease of practice, Flora hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her jeans and begins to peel them down, back still fully to him. She shimmies the fabric past her hips, pausing halfway down her thighs in a move that’s far too choreographed to be accidental. Her skin gleams, all curves and confidence, the lace of her underwear delicate and soft against the golden hue of her body. By the time the jeans are kicked aside, she’s barefoot, bare-legged, and standing in nothing but underwear and the lingering scent of jasmine that follows her around. With a little hum—not a word, just a sound that threads through the tension like a silk ribbon—she reaches for a towel and very loosely covers herself before turning around.

It’s not sudden, it’s not dramatic, it’s casual; far too casual for a girl standing in nothing but lacy underwear. Her aqua gaze lands on him like a hook slipping beneath the surface, catching something deeper than breath. She eyes him—not the plate, not the door, him—as she moves to brush past, close enough that her perfume lingers and her thigh brushes his as lightly as wind stirring a curtain.

Then, as if remembering something so mundane it’s almost comedic, she pauses, fingers reaching for one of the nachos. Still holding his gaze—unchallenged, unhurried—she brings it to her mouth and bites down with a crisp little crunch. "You know," she murmurs, the words light as seafoam but shaped like a dagger made of sugar, "not everything tastes as good when it’s wet."

I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Honey wherever you go, I know

The drift of his eyes is one that slowly retraces each slope and curve that he remembers over the expanse of her bare back, skipping across the small marks or lines that designate the location he's rebuilt in memory alone night after night. Even the lines carved into her sides by Dahlia. It halts as it finally finds the tilt of her stare over her shoulder, her feigned offense worn just as well as any of her clothing. Her performances are something he could never tire of, always eager to see her cleverness on display, to test the limits of her commitment (the limit does not exist, in his experience). A smirk answers her false shock. "I have, yes, thanks for asking," he murmurs as though she'd offered nothing more than to teach him something he already well knew.

Beneath the careful study of her gaze he stands a little straighter, expression openly devouring her in return. He'd not intended for anything to grow hot besides the shower when he'd first suggested it, but all the past desires he'd had here of what to do with her in this cozy space, they return wild with the temptation of her bare skin and fishing stare.

They race like unleashed greyhounds in his mind, new ones threading in amongst the pack, as he bears witness to the show of denim removal. It's a wonder he doesn't end up tipping the plate of nachos completely to the floor at that point, awareness of his own whereabouts utterly dispersed—he's there where the fabric glides off her skin, unfurling beneath the line of her thumb, rolling under the hem that she drags down. He finds his way back into his own body when the towel falls as a curtain over the end of a show, and he is left blinking, chasing the after images of nothing but lace cupping her ass.

When she draws close, the jasmine arrives with her, curling like a finger beneath his chin. He tilts his head faintly, gaze sliding with her as she skirts past with a whisper of contact. His hand twitches at his side, begging for restraint to yield and drag her thigh back.

The snap of the chip is one he feels in his toes. "I beg to differ." It's drawled out long and low, the faintest tug of a smirk pulling on one side. "Everything is poolside these days, so seems many people prefer it wet." Nachos, in fact, would be terrible wet. They would also be terrible cold and hardened, so it seems their only solution is to eat them before they get soggy, or, as he's fully intending, to forget them entirely for the sake of a different meal.

"Worth trying to find out," he murmurs, setting the plate down to the side of the sink, doing whatever bending is necessary to keep her wholly in view as long as possible. "You don't seem nearly soaked enough for this to even count though," he remarks with concern, flicking his attention down to her feet and then back up, one hand reaching out to claim an edge of her towel.

Kaisel

I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you

Flora

There’s no storm to announce the shift, no shiver in the walls or tremble in the floor, and yet she can feel it, thick as humidity before rainfall, curling with heat along the bare stretch of her spine where his gaze lingers. There is no line between them anymore—no clever little boundary in the sand to toe or cross, no bright red thread stretched taut to mark the difference between want and decision. That night on the Sugartide, they blurred the edge so thoroughly with fear and exhaustion and affection that by the time she kissed him, it wasn’t rebellion or impulse—it was gravity, inevitable and quiet as tidepull. And again at the House of Midnight, that kiss had come like a lit match dropped on something dry and waiting, but even then, the line had still existed. Obvious enough to know what she was stepping over. Safe enough, in its way, to let her feet find purchase on its boundary.

Now, there is only water beneath her, wide and depthless and dark. The kind of nothing that frightens sailors when they look over the edge of their boats and realise how little the sea cares whether they float or drown. It’s thalassophobia, wrapped not in fear but in uncertainty, in the way her heart thumps its restless rhythm behind her ribs as she turns back to face him, still clutching the edge of the towel as if it might keep her steady.

Wouldn’t it be easier to laugh as they had been doing? To slide his fingers into his mouth and murmur something outrageous, something obscene and brilliant about wetness, something that would wind his composure tight as a noose? She knows exactly how to do it, too. Knows just how to tilt her hips, how to reach for his wrist and guide him between her thighs, how to part her lips and let the implication of a kiss curl into something filthier, something that might drown them both.

But none of that is what she does.

Instead, she lets the towel fall just enough to reveal what she knows he isn’t expecting—the darkened rosettes of colour that stain the tender space beneath her collarbone, sprawling into the hollow of her throat and blossoming over the soft swell of her breast like a constellation designed by someone possessive and proud. They belong to the mouth that placed them there, to the captain whose name still echoes in the quiet between waves. And in revealing them now, it feels less like seduction and more like confession. Not because she’s ashamed, but because she can only assume what it will do to Kaisel if he looks too long, because he’ll see the rest; the shadowed print of a hand on her hip, the bruises that bloom in perfect mirror to a body that is not his.

She doesn’t lower her gaze. Doesn’t let her mouth twist into something flirtatious to soften the blow. There’s no silver-laced laughter, no quirk of a brow or sly little smile to make this easier. Only the steady climb of her eyes to meet his again, her expression unreadable save for the slight trembling of her breath and the way her hands curl into the edge of the towel like she’s holding on to the last of something fragile.

"Are you sure?" she asks, and this time it isn’t an invitation to see how wet she is, or a wicked suggestion that he find out with his hands or his mouth. It’s quieter than that. Heavier. A question born not of desire, but of doubt, of weariness, of all the unspoken things still trailing them like seaweed caught around their ankles.

I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Honey wherever you go, I know

They say laughter's the best medicine. It doesn't really fix anything though. Can't close up a hole in your side or dial back a fever. Won't remap ruined nerves or curtail destructive impulses. It just adds a layer of something new over the hurt, covering it up a little until it soaks through. He'd been trying to slot it inbetween the friction, building what could be their new normal into a barrier that everything still sharp could grow dull against.

The bandage of it pulls back with her towel, bruises sitting on stark display. There's nothing left to seal up his pounding thoughts now, knocking with each hammer of his heart on his ribs. This hasn't felt real, yet. Every touch just an attempt to stay beside her through the haze of it all, searching for clearer skies and even ground, the kind he knows is out there if they just keep going. The sort of fog where lines don't matter because you can't see them anyway, but it doesn't make the wandering any less.

It's one thing to be told she'd been with someone else, loved someone else—that feels distant, forgotten, a dream scattering with waking. To see it though, to bear witness to the mark of another man's claim, knowing she didn't heal them so she might admire them like temporary jewelry he'd made just for her, well that just feels like shit. His smile becomes lost.

There's a card deck of thoughts fanning out in his mind. They're still so fresh. Is she gonna regret this choice, choosing him? Is that the way she likes to be loved? Does he actually know how to love her the way she wants?

He flicks his gaze from them to her, teeth set together as a means to hold back the swelling tide of worry. Then her question falls, a twin to the one sitting on his tongue, and he realizes she isn't displaying this necklace as a way to get him to go. She's showing him, in all the ways she can, the broken parts of her and asking him if he actually wants something that she deems a little too ruined. His jaw works once, gaze narrowing, then he claims her his way.

He moves without hesitation, crashing against her, hand fisting at the base of her head as he bends to her mouth. His stride doesn't break, driving her back until the wall at the end of the shower halts them. His affection is unrelenting, intending to suffocate every doubt like this she dares hold, killing it for as long as he can at least. His free hand fumbles for the shower controls, desperate to wash away the grit that keeps rubbing against him, uncaring that his pants are still on.

Those bruises, they'll fade.

Kaisel

I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you

Flora

The silence is immediate and infinite. A vast, aching nothing that stretches out like a shipwrecked pause between the fall of her towel and the fall of his expression. And it cuts—clean and fast and merciless—as Kaisel's smile fades. For a single, breathless moment, she wants to twist the ring on her finger and vanish. To fold in on herself like damp paper, to shrink back and pull the towel tighter and pretend she hadn’t said anything at all. That she hadn’t shown him anything. She feels cold all of a sudden, so abruptly naked in a way that has nothing to do with fabric. The bruises bloom heavier now, as if they’re answering his silence with their own awful chorus, and the sharp swell of frost that curls beneath her ribs tells her she’s made a mistake.

He’s changing his mind.

She can see it—feels it in the feathered tension of his jaw, the tightening in his eyes, the way something ripples beneath his skin like a man realizing too late that he’s in over his head. That all those easy words about not minding the mess, not being scared of the wreckage...maybe they weren’t lies, but they were only true when he didn’t have to stare it in the face. When he didn't have to see firsthand the intimacy wrought from another man across her skin.

Flora's grip on the towel edges tighter. Her heart stutters once, then begins to fall.

And then he moves. Surges, really, crashing forward like a wave made entirely of want and something just short of fury, and her breath catches as the force of him fills the space between them. Her chin tips up on instinct, aqua eyes wide, tracking the copper flash of his gaze, the hard set of his jaw—and then his mouth is on hers, and the noise that leaves her is half-mewl, half-fractured relief.

It isn’t sweet, this kiss. It isn’t careful. There’s nothing reverent in the way he slants his mouth over hers, in the fist that curls into her hair or the way he walks her backwards without pause until the shower wall halts their momentum. The towel drops from her hand, forgotten, as her fingers flutter up to catch at his wrist—more anchor than protest—as her back meets tile with a thud that sends a flare of heat skyward through her body.

She doesn’t realise he’s reaching for the controls until the water bursts over them. Freezing, because of course it is, having just left the tap. She gasps against his mouth, the shock of it searing against her skin like sea spray in Deepfrost, adrenaline blooming bright and instant in her chest. But she doesn’t pull away; she’s still terrified this might all evaporate if she stops moving, if she gives him too much time to think. So instead she chases it—chases him—curling her arms around his neck, sweeping her hands into his hair as she rises onto her toes and bows her back to match his lean. Her soaked underwear clings with every breath, every shift of friction between them, but it doesn’t matter. She only feels the line of his belt pressing against her lower belly, an iron-hot contrast to the cold water sliding down her spine, a jarring reminder of what still separates them, even as their mouths refuse to let go.

Her body curves into his like muscle memory, like they’ve done this a hundred times in dreams, and every sound she makes now—every sigh, every whimper, every need-struck gasp—is soaked through with the unsteady, aching relief of being chosen still despite the obvious damage.

I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Honey wherever you go, I know

For one aching moment he feels suspended, waiting for the fall or the float. He imagines she'd duck away and ward him off, a harried laugh lifting in expert fashion to deflect all his advances to something that'll let him keep his pride nearly intact. She'll have realized this isn't what she wants, the markings on her a reminder of what she's leaving behind. He'll have read it all wrong, finding invitation in refusal.

The sound that parts from her sends him floating.

Reassurance cleaves through him, almost violent, a swell that shoves him deeper into the kiss. Every press of his mouth is his refusal for the thought that she could ever believe herself unwanted, that she could ever be too wrecked for him to take into his arms. Each one she returns, the way her body moves with him, it's every trembling answer he needs.

The only time he relents is for the sharp inhale of shock, stiffening as cold water sputters against the heat of her. She drives it away with her lips, with her hands, with her need that he answers in full. As she rises up into him, his hands drop lower, fingers flexing against the fabric at her hips and curling beneath the curve of her ass. He grips her, lifting her higher into him, just barely—a small stint in air jail. He tilts, locking her into the line of his belt, pulling in each of her sounds like they're air.

One hand abandons its grasp to hook against the line of her soaked panties and drag them down, rough and insistent, the end result lopsided and bunched against the press of his thigh. His fingers slip between them to find her, stroking, pressing, circling against her clit to set the word mine into every trembling nerve. He breaks away from her tongue, sliding over her lips with reluctance, head tilting to hers. "You're everything I want, Flora. Always," he breathes against her the edge of her mouth, voice low but unshakable.

This won't be the end, he's sure, but it's a damn good place to start. A place to begin dismantling the rot, beam by beam, rebuilding her with every day he loves her. He'd once thought her unmarred by such ruin, her confidence untouchable and bright, but he's since seen the dark and how it sits like a blemish on her. Moments where she dims herself for the sake of others, where she traces back the path of her choices like the starting point had always been so clear. Times where she has not been loved long enough or held tight enough, and for it she has wept and broken just to dry and reseal over and over again. He's holding onto her now, with everything he's got.

Kaisel

I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you

Flora

Flora expects to be lifted; the way Kaisel's hands slide down, the sudden grasp against her ass as he puts her in brief air jail such that she instinctively tightens her arms around his shoulders, ready to climb him like ivy. Her breath skips as the rough press of his belt digs against her skin, the hard leather biting a hiss against his lips as she twists just slightly in his hold. It’s too much, not enough, completely uneven—her slick skin against soaked lace, his body wrapped in all the barriers hers is stripped of—and though her hands stay tangled in his hair and shoulder, she twitches with the urge to strip him bare, right there, right now.

"You te—" she begins, breathy and hot against his mouth, meaning to push the word with a smirk or a challenge, maybe both, but then his hand slips between her thighs and the words don't just scatter, they incinerate, reduced to cinders in the time it takes for one finger to find her clit, circling, pressing, staking his claim in soft, relentless pulses. Her moan rips through her throat without grace, startled and helpless and aching all at once, a gasp of exquisite surrender as her fingers dig into his hair like she’s falling and needs something to anchor her. She trembles outright in his arms, the heat of his touch flaring through her like lightning; bright and sharp and impossible to ignore.

And then he speaks. Gods, how he speaks. His mouth leaves hers, and even in the narrow space he gives her, she’s left gasping, undone, hips pressing into the line of his palm like her body belongs to it. His voice is low and certain, that deep timbre that always makes her bones feel fluid, and the words he says don’t just reach her ears, they flood through her like a tide. Her moan breaks again, softer this time, desperate and full of want, blooming into the space between them as if it were a prayer.

Still balanced on the tips of her toes, she pulls back just enough to see him. Just the copper of his eyes through the steam, the intensity of them burning straight through her. One hand falls from his shoulder to find his wrist, curling delicately around it, and with a breathless shiver, she guides his fingers lower. Not teasing, not coy, just an offering, or maybe an answer. Sliding them inside her so he can feel exactly what he’s done to her, how wet she suddenly is in a way that the water can't help to compete with.

She gasps softly again, lips parting as another ripple dances through her. Her other hand, the one still braced on his shoulder, begins its descent too, trailing down over soaked fabric until her fingers catch the waistband of his pants. She slips beneath it, curling suggestively, possessively, and then tilts her chin with a wicked glint beneath all the softness and heat. "I’m so sorry to tell you this," she whispers, voice honeyed and sultry, "but I have a very strict no clothes in the shower policy..." Her smile curves slow and wicked, blooming like a sin across her lips. "And I really have to insist."

I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Honey wherever you go, I know

A satisfied line winds its way against his lips, still lingering on the corner of hers, growing more wolfish with every sound and shiver coaxed free. The urgent scattering of her fingers through his hair, the shock of pleasure that keeps jolting her breath, it's thoroughly unlacing every part of his remaining composure. "That's it Flora," he encourages, half a grip on the words still in his chest. "Give into it. You're perfect, like this." Hunger laces each word that rolls across her cheek, nipping at her ear with want. She is unbearably tempting when she's falling apart like this, especially to his hand. He'll hold her through it all though, every scream and shudder that scatters her into pieces, he'll cradle them until she's whole and breakable all over again with bliss.

As their eyes meet across the steam, he pins her with the stare she's made molten, liquid bronze spilling over the aqua tide of her. He intends to watch every wave that rises up in there and crashes through her, starting with the way his hand slides further in at her insistence. The slick heat he finds between her thighs is unmistakable, nothing he could ever attribute to the shower, and an approving groan huffs free as his touch coils into her. Desire rises like a blaze in response to that kerosene, running rampant and flaring with each curl of his fingers in her core.

Breath is something he chases between every pulse of agreement that falls from her lips, but it escapes him entirely as her hand seizes everything that she's done to him. His erection strains into her palm, eager for the warmth of the contact. He tilts into her without thought, eyes shuttering for a moment. A short, almost soundless laugh rouses at her words, and his gaze flicks back towards her with a devious glint. "Oh, you think you're in control here?" he wonders with a slant to his smile. "Consider me a rule breaker for now," he remarks with a casualness that absolutely takes effort to use with her hand coiled around his arousal and his fingers still buried between her legs.

His hand that's cupped her ass this whole time departs with a drag and a snap, letting the one side of her cheek jiggle as he grabs at her wrist angling into his pants. Gradually he slides out of her grip, a shuddering retreat as he sinks onto his knees before her. "I still owe you for last time," he accuses, glancing up at her with a lingering stare and a wicked smile as he presses the pad of his thumb to her clit. Then, bowing to this worship, he hoists her thighs over his shoulders and sets his tongue against her.

Kaisel

I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you

Flora

For all the downsides of fucking someone who isn't a telepath, there are benefits, like the fact that Kaisel can’t feel the way surprise skims down Flora's spine like sunlight through a wave. The way her nerves light up, one by one, as his hands settle with too much certainty to be accidental. If he could, he might be insulted. Not because she doesn’t want this—gods, she wants this—but because she hadn’t known to expect it from him. The last time had been a spark, reckless and tentative and dizzying. This is something else entirely, born not out of exhaustion and fear and a little bit of literal fuck around and find out.

Her cheeks flush with the realisation, her lips parting around a shallow breath as he presses in closer. She’s shivering against him now, water and heat and want all blending into something far too much to contain. Through lashes wet with spray, she lifts her eyes to his, and something in her gaze cracks open, raw and wanting. "Gods, I want you," she whispers, voice fragile with need. Her fingers flex as much as they can around him despite his clothes, knowing it wouldn’t take much—just a shift, a tug, a breath—and she could have him bare to her, all the way.

But then he speaks again in that same low voice, and it halts her, carves her into stillness. Her lips curve into a breathless smile, nearly starting to argue—it is her houseboat, after all, so if anyone is in charge surely it is her—but her retort barely forms before he’s pulling her hand away. She gasps softly, an oh caught in her throat, only for the sharp, open-palmed slap to her ass to melt it into a heady inhale. But it’s when he drops—knees to the shower floor, eyes lifting to meet hers with all the force of a rising tide—that she nearly buckles entirely.

Golden skin drips water in rivulets down her stomach, trailing into the soft valleys of her hips where faint violet constellations still bloom from Jack's hands. Her breath shudders out of her as Kaisel gathers her, lifting one leg, then the other, until her thighs are settled on his shoulders and her spine presses to the warm tile behind her. The suddenness of it, the intensity, the helpless certainty of what he means to do. She doesn’t stand a chance.

His mouth finds her like he’s known her like this all his life, and her gasp fractures into a moan almost instantly, high and startled. There’s nothing to brace on, nowhere to run. Just her fingers scrabbling for purchase on slick walls, then curling into the damp curls of his hair, as the pad of his thumb and the slow, sinuous press of his tongue begin to unravel her. "Kai—" she pants, and it’s more curse than name. Her head tips back with a soft thunk against the tile, throat arched as the heat inside her coils tighter, higher, rising wave by wave with every flick and pass. Her cheeks are flushed, her chest rising in rapid, shallow movements, the colour blooming downward; rosy and ripe across her collarbones, her sternum, the soft underside of her breasts.

When she finally dares to look down at him again, her mouth hangs open, eyes wide with something like awe and disbelief. There’s no cleverness left, no retort or flirtation, just Flora, slack-jawed and trembling, staring down at Kaisel like he’s rewriting her entirely from the inside out. "—gods that feels so good," she breathes, voice catching again on the edge of a moan, her thighs quivering with restraint. The admission slips out before she can stop it, dizzy with pleasure and still stunned that he’s the one making her feel this way. That Kaisel, with his ever-present backpack and shameless grin, the gummy worm-eating menace of a man is somehow also all focused hunger and devastating control, is a revelation she's finding it suddenly quite hard to breathe around.

I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Honey wherever you go, I know

Every small flex of her thighs, trembling with the result of his attention, is one that he hunts down. Each broken cry that escapes her feeds him, like this alone could sustain him for days. Her hands clutch at him, thread amid his hair, anchoring herself like she’ll be swept away otherwise—and maybe she will, because he’s not letting up until she's pulled under with her release. He pins her tighter to the tile, shoulders braced wide beneath her legs, pressing her open so he can serve every inch of her. It's a prayer of devotion whispered just for her with every flick of his tongue and pass of his thumb.

Around them water gathers in streams, dripping from their corners, pooling where they connect. It lends more heat to all the ways he's already burning, the steam that's rising as likely to be rolling off their skin as the showerhead. Fuck he wants her. The strain in his pants throbs with a fresh ache for every panted breath she delivers. His name, gods his name cracking through her like that is sublime. The sound drives him harder, stroking deeper, circling firmer until she's shivering against his jaw.

A groan reverberates against her core, low and primal in response to her spoken pleasure. He pulls back only a fraction, lips slick, voice rough with hunger as he breathes, “Let me hear it all, Ro.” His fingers sink back into her as he lifts his gaze, each flushed curve of her on display a new throb of desire that thunders through him. "I could get used to this sight," he croons as his curling smile presses into her inner thigh, dragging featherlight kisses along each one before his mouth seals to her again, relentless. He works her like a storm breaking, drowning himself gladly in the swell she’s building, holding her until she breaks apart on his touch.

Kaisel

I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you

Flora

The pressure starts in her toes—a warning, a whisper of what’s coming—and it curls up through her calves, her thighs, each trembling muscle wound so tight she can barely breathe. His mouth is right there, maddeningly close but not quite, his words brushing against soaked skin instead of sinking back into where she needs him most. Looking down at him, breath ragged, cheeks flushed and body all but vibrating in his hold, Flora narrows her eyes in a way that’s more plea than threat. "If you stop again, I swaer to all the gods," she gasps; light-hearted, yes, but there’s a raw edge of desperation threaded through the humour. Her fingers in his hair say the rest, guiding his mouth back exactly where she wants it.

The moment he obeys, her body nearly bows in relief. But then the wave begins to crest—no longer a tease but a full, surging swell. Her breath catches, eyes wide. "Gods—Kai—you're gonna make me cum—" It spills out before she even understands it herself, her voice a tremulous mix of disbelief and heat. He’s the one doing this, he's the reason her entire body is tensing around the spark that’s building to wildfire, and not her hand this time, not her rhythm, but his mouth, his fingers, him.

And then it breaks.

Her orgasm crashes through her, unstoppable and searing, pleasure splitting her open from within. "Kaisel—" she cries, voice torn into something wild and helpless as her hips jerk forward into his face. Her fingers tangle tighter in his hair, but she doesn’t press—doesn’t need to. He’s already there, his mouth relentless and worshipful against her as the tremors take over. She’s moaning freely now, her voice high and breathless and wrecked with pleasure, her body shuddering in his hold like the tile itself might give way beneath her.

It’s all too much, and exactly enough. Every nerve is alight, every sound that slips from her lips some variation of his name, some gasp of need or praise, until finally she goes soft in his hands, trembling and breathless, panting through the haze he’s pulled her into.

I hope you're sweating the bigger stuff,
finding some peace in an honest love
Hope you stop when you've had enough & throw the towel in

Code stolen from Queen Sky

Honey wherever you go, I know

It'd been a risk, he knew, surfacing to steal a look and using his mouth for anything other than pleasing her. One he'd not be making again, but he doesn't regret his thievery for a second, not when he gets to keep the image of her nearly wrecked and brushed in crimson. He submits fully to her lead, pressing and driving until she's back to a state where every inhale tangles with her moans.

The way she tightens around him is something he feels before she speaks, drawn up into a coil that begs to spring free. He does not alter from the rhythm he's maintained, nor stray from the pressure he's set to her. He's steady, patient, and entirely greedy for the spill of her. His name rises through the surf of her climax, his name. What bruises she wears don’t matter—not when he can claim every bone.

Her body convulses against him, trembling in his hands, and he doesn’t pull away—if this is how he breaks his nose or suffocates, he'd do so happily. He lingers, mouth gentle now, softer passes of his tongue as if to catch every aftershock and swallow it down. He's persistent even in tenderness, keeping her until her thighs quiver around him and she’s melting against the tile.

Only then, when she's thoroughly spent, does he lift his head. His breath is ragged, copper eyes nearly feral as he looks up at her, licking the corners of his lips. “You have no idea,” he rasps, voice hoarse with restraint, “what it does to me, seeing you like that.” One hand reaches up, the pad of his thumb stroking the curve of her hip slowly, reverent in contrast to the storm he’s just pulled her through.

He presses a last kiss to the inside of her thighs before gently sliding each of her legs off his shoulders and to his waist, lowering her down the wall and onto his lap. She’ll feel every hard line of his want, straining hot and insistent through soaked fabric, created just for her.

Kaisel

I'd give up half of forever, just to be with you