Evie
When hope and peace begin to fray
The heat of the springs feels negligible when compared to the burn of his hands as they hold her gently, or the fever in her chest that she’s sure he can feel as their bodies press close; seeking stability or unification she can’t tell. It’s a fire she’s unfamiliar with. Stoked from embers proven reliable from years of steady warmth instead of the flashburn of lust like the leaping flames born from gasoline and matches. It’s a familiarity, a turning of the head to see something from a different angle and going, ‘Oh, it’s you. You’ve been here all this time?’ Like a pleasant surprise.
Despite every time she has touched him, this time it feels new. The way he shifts and bends, the twitch of skin beneath her hands, the long press of his body in a line against her own is all new territory despite the familiar partitions. What is entirely novel is his lips against her own. Pulling away feels impossible, like she’ll suffocate in this new atmosphere without him, but the warmth of his breath against her lips as he laughs breathes air back into her own lungs and reminds them how to work on their own.
Her smile is bright and unrestrained as he tilts their foreheads together, and she can’t help but laugh softly at the first words that he chooses to grace her with after something that was paradoxically so small and yet so momentous. “Can I just kiss you three more times and call it even then?” Playful hope in her tone, that they might indulge themselves in this instead of further work and exercise.
Despite every time she has touched him, this time it feels new. The way he shifts and bends, the twitch of skin beneath her hands, the long press of his body in a line against her own is all new territory despite the familiar partitions. What is entirely novel is his lips against her own. Pulling away feels impossible, like she’ll suffocate in this new atmosphere without him, but the warmth of his breath against her lips as he laughs breathes air back into her own lungs and reminds them how to work on their own.
Her smile is bright and unrestrained as he tilts their foreheads together, and she can’t help but laugh softly at the first words that he chooses to grace her with after something that was paradoxically so small and yet so momentous. “Can I just kiss you three more times and call it even then?” Playful hope in her tone, that they might indulge themselves in this instead of further work and exercise.
know that daybreak is not far away
