02-04-2017, 09:18 PM
Trapped. He says, he repeats darkly, and she realizes too late how lightly she had used the word. Her dark eyes fall briefly to the chain around his ankle, the magical tether that bound him here, that kept him in this place she would to leave once morning found them. She looks away from it, stung, resenting what the silver meant, the way it glinted like a promise, a curse, against his leg. Her lips find his neck, tracing the hard lines of muscle underneath that tell her just how much the word, the reminder, had affected him. She wants to apologize, but the word tastes like pity on her tongue and he deserves so much better than that. “Stillwater.” She whispers instead, shifting in his embrace to trace those wandering lips further than they had before – across his withers and down his back, dropping to leave kisses against the tender skin behind his foreleg. But then his voice pulls her back, and she turns in time to feel his lips brush her face, bury kisses beside her eye. Not by you.
Her heart is soaring in her chest, flying on wings carved from the tenderness of his kisses and the affection painted into his words. I stay with you because I want to, he says, I try to run because it frightens me, he whispers. I'm not one to get attached, and here I am wishing you wouldn't have to leave. She pushes her nose beneath his chin, drawing his head closer so that she can trace every bone and muscle and gleaming dark hair with lips that are soft and heated and so delicate against his face. His own mouth brushes her skin again and this gentleness is almost more overwhelming than the fervent kisses and heated glances, the hunger he had kept barely buried and the fire that roared in her veins for him. Somehow this, these whispered words and careful touches, his lips softer than sunshine on her face, was almost too much. Her heart felt heavy in her chest, swollen and aching and he was the only thing that made it easier to breathe.
“I wish it, too.” She assures him softly, sinking deeper against him because nothing will ever, ever be close enough. Not with morning looming beneath the edges of the sky outside. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.” Her skin remembers his kisses and his teeth, the way electricity had snapped between them, and she blushes. I wish you could come with me, she wants to tell him, to whisper in kisses across his skin, stay with me always. But she remembers the way he had tensed earlier at her reminder of being trapped, she knows, this time, how cruel those whispered words would be.
He sighs and pulls her closer, wrapping his body around her smaller blue one until they are a bruise in the dark. She is soft in this embrace, soft for him, slowing her breathing until it matches his. When she chances a glance up at his face, always curious to see what those dark eyes are doing, she is surprised to find them soft and closed, his face focused. She can guess why, if only because she had done the same thing herself. She reaches up, touching her lips to the corner of his mouth, dropping them lower to trace along his jaw and all the way to his throat. “Remember this, too.” She is soft and breathless when she drops her lips from his face, quiet when she drops her head across his forelegs and beside his chest to listen to the thrumming of his heart in his chest. Then, so quietly, so tremulous, “I promise I’ll be back.” Her smile is soft in the dark, and her voice, although sleepy, is light and bright with gentle teasing, “I’ll be leaving my heart behind, I’ll have to come back for it eventually.” This is not a confession (it is, but not now, not in these words or in this newness), and such is clear even in the dark with that gentle, easy smile and the gleaming of soft brown eyes.
We should rest now. He says, and she wishes he hadn’t. But he is right. She sighs, still curled against his side and with her head across his legs, and murmurs her reluctant agreement anyway. Despite what it means, despite knowing what will happen once her eyes close and open next, there is something so right about falling asleep to the sound of his heart and his breath warming her neck. Her breathing slows and steadies, and it takes all of about one single minute for her to find herself at the edge of sleep and consciousness, staring uncertainly down at the dream waiting for her below. But before she is gone, before sleep can claim her fully, she shifts slightly against him, settling closer to his warmth and his safety and mumble-murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like, “goodnight, my Stillwater.”
Her heart is soaring in her chest, flying on wings carved from the tenderness of his kisses and the affection painted into his words. I stay with you because I want to, he says, I try to run because it frightens me, he whispers. I'm not one to get attached, and here I am wishing you wouldn't have to leave. She pushes her nose beneath his chin, drawing his head closer so that she can trace every bone and muscle and gleaming dark hair with lips that are soft and heated and so delicate against his face. His own mouth brushes her skin again and this gentleness is almost more overwhelming than the fervent kisses and heated glances, the hunger he had kept barely buried and the fire that roared in her veins for him. Somehow this, these whispered words and careful touches, his lips softer than sunshine on her face, was almost too much. Her heart felt heavy in her chest, swollen and aching and he was the only thing that made it easier to breathe.
“I wish it, too.” She assures him softly, sinking deeper against him because nothing will ever, ever be close enough. Not with morning looming beneath the edges of the sky outside. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.” Her skin remembers his kisses and his teeth, the way electricity had snapped between them, and she blushes. I wish you could come with me, she wants to tell him, to whisper in kisses across his skin, stay with me always. But she remembers the way he had tensed earlier at her reminder of being trapped, she knows, this time, how cruel those whispered words would be.
He sighs and pulls her closer, wrapping his body around her smaller blue one until they are a bruise in the dark. She is soft in this embrace, soft for him, slowing her breathing until it matches his. When she chances a glance up at his face, always curious to see what those dark eyes are doing, she is surprised to find them soft and closed, his face focused. She can guess why, if only because she had done the same thing herself. She reaches up, touching her lips to the corner of his mouth, dropping them lower to trace along his jaw and all the way to his throat. “Remember this, too.” She is soft and breathless when she drops her lips from his face, quiet when she drops her head across his forelegs and beside his chest to listen to the thrumming of his heart in his chest. Then, so quietly, so tremulous, “I promise I’ll be back.” Her smile is soft in the dark, and her voice, although sleepy, is light and bright with gentle teasing, “I’ll be leaving my heart behind, I’ll have to come back for it eventually.” This is not a confession (it is, but not now, not in these words or in this newness), and such is clear even in the dark with that gentle, easy smile and the gleaming of soft brown eyes.
We should rest now. He says, and she wishes he hadn’t. But he is right. She sighs, still curled against his side and with her head across his legs, and murmurs her reluctant agreement anyway. Despite what it means, despite knowing what will happen once her eyes close and open next, there is something so right about falling asleep to the sound of his heart and his breath warming her neck. Her breathing slows and steadies, and it takes all of about one single minute for her to find herself at the edge of sleep and consciousness, staring uncertainly down at the dream waiting for her below. But before she is gone, before sleep can claim her fully, she shifts slightly against him, settling closer to his warmth and his safety and mumble-murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like, “goodnight, my Stillwater.”