Bethas 16, 2720 - After Midnight
Cerise made her claim on his time, half convinced Em would take the chance then to tell her that she couldn't stay. Maybe not with her blouse undone; if he said that now, she might have punched him square in that pretty mouth. No matter how fond she was of it, no matter how much she liked all the things he usually used it for. But his eyebrow pulled up in that way he had, expressive and endearing, and he looked up at her instead. The gold of them seemed brighter than usual; she could feel the sigh underneath of her hands.
Do you think I'm going to leave, after all this? she wanted to demand. You'd have to tell me to go. No, you'd have to drag me out—you know how stubborn I am, don't you? The words sat somewhere between her heart and her mouth. Cerise knew she'd never say them, not quite like that. Her fingers spread up over his chest, mapping out every ridge and dip and all the landmarks along the way.
She grinned when she leaned in, a mix of wicked and soft. And of course he didn't pause, not even for a moment. Frustratingly, wonderfully taking it in stride, tilting his head. Practice, she thought, made perfect; she focused only on the practice she knew about, and not what she didn't. When he shifted she laughed, surprised, the sound muffled by his mouth. She found herself on his lap, settling skirt and limbs both to get as close as she could. The hand on his back held her in place.
"You keep making me promises like that, and I don't know how I'm ever going to leave."
This was much better, she whole-heartedly agreed. It had been a long time since she felt this kind of heat in her blood, the way all of it seemed to settle over her skin, the rapid drumming of her heart. Only you, she thought, too sentimental to bear being said out loud. True, maybe. Maybe one day she might have properly moved on, found somebody else. Emiel Emmerson certainly wasn't the only handsome man in the world. It just felt like he might be, right now. The only one who mattered. But just because she was, factually, a schoolgirl didn't mean she had to talk like one.
She hadn't wanted to move on, though, not one tiny inch. Hadn't wanted to find someone else, hadn't wanted any of the whole last year and a half. She had filled it with school and with dueling and with all the strange twists of her life. And she hadn't thought of him, not every day, of that not-quite-a-year they'd had. Just enough.
Cerise had never been quite so frustrated with the dictates of fashion in her entire life. His breath turned heavy, impatient. That was, really, all that she could bear. Impossible, terrible, frustrating Emiel—she loved him for being every one of these things, honestly. Or she had, and she thought she still did. Unless more had changed than it seemed like. Unless he'd grown away from her, somewhere her hands couldn't really reach after all. The thought hit her somewhere still sore; she shoved it aside for being as unnecessary as her blouse and everything underneath it in this moment. The layers were peeled off and tossed carelessly aside; she didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to where they landed.
Impatient as she was, as much as she had growled and groused and sighed at Em for taking his time, Cerise found herself lingering a little in this moment. Sprawled out in that sort of comfortable discomfort on Em's lap, threading the fingers of one hand (carefully) through his violet hair. Holding him close. He could assuredly feel the strength and speed of her heartbeat, the way it clamored against her ribcage. She turned her head to brush her mouth softly over that bruise above his eyebrow. As an afterthought, she reached up and shook out all of her hair, longer and wilder than it seemed when she had it pulled ruthlessly up on the back of her head.
"Was that enough fun for you?" she teased, her mouth hovering over his ear. The chaos of her dark curls tumbled around them. Cerise arched her back, pressing up as close as she could get. Settling a little deliberately, a little dramatically, over his lap again. More than a little wickedly, too. "Or did you want more buttons to undo?"
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