Rhapsoidein
to stitch songs together
He feels the pull of her hand as she all but scampers down the path, laugh bouncing around in his ears. He saw the same giddy joy in Alexis when he used to take her to the park, tumbling through the trees on too short legs. Only now it's mixed with sensuality and womanhood and Kate. Kate Beckett is giggling her way through the park and she's holding his hand while doing it. He stops for a moment because the feeling is going to erupt if he doesn't let it settle.
She keeps going though, fingers flexing as if still grasping for his hand. Making her way over to a tree, leaves already turning, she fingers the bright foliage. He simply watches her, framed by a burnt orange halo. She turns back to him, biting her lip like she always does but now it's mixed with this adorable light in her eyes that he's still getting used to. He put it there, that's what she told him once, that he pried her open so light could find its way in.
When she raises her eyebrows he knows he's been staring too long. She sways a little, cants toward him, and that's when he makes his way over, purposeful strides in the direction he always knew he wanted. Always to her. He sees her searching his face, deciphering the code secreted away in his laugh lines and that spot she likes to nibble right under his chin. He smiles at her, rubs his thumb at her hipbone just because he likes the jut of it. Just because he can now. Because she's tracing the veins in his wrist for exactly the same reason.
She quirks an eyebrow at him, wiggles her hips a little, but he just smirks at her and wriggles his hand. She looks down and he just manages to catch a hint of pink tongue and teeth before her hair hides her. He laughs at her, can't help it when she's looking so pink-cheeked and girlish and thoroughly caught. She laughs too, harmony to his melody. And then she's laughing into his mouth, the notes of her joy trickling down into his ribcage. He'll store them there until he can give them back to her.
He opens for her, lips and body and heart, and gives her his own song. He knows he tastes like pumpkin spice latte because it's just not fall without a pumpkin spice latte and she tastes like a babbling brook, fresh and natural against his tongue. When she pulls back, he sees the light again. It's twinkling in her eyes and in her breath as she puffs onto his collarbone.
She's not wearing heels today, something he's utterly joyful about because it's so new. He loves it when she stands beside him in flats, so very not Beckett yet so very Kate. His favorite though is when she isn't wearing shoes at all, plods into his kitchen barefoot and looking for her morning coffee or saunters toward him as she kicks off her oh so sexy heels. He especially likes what comes after she kicks off her heels – naked skin and roaming hands and sweaty embraces. Mmm, he likes that a lot. He likes the beat of her heart against his lips, as if straining to get closer to him. He loves how it speeds up when his tongue comes out to play.
When she sighs and falls against him, the haze of his thoughts clears. But it's when she licks at his throat that he jerks back to reality. She smiles against his skin, he can feel the press of her upturned lips, when he gasps. He kisses the crown of her head, hair golden and deliciously soft against his lips, and lets out a honey-soaked sigh. Her lashes slowly brush against his skin as she blinks, answering his sigh of contentment with her own. They breathe together, lashes fluttering and lips moving but no words coming out. They don't need to.
He wraps his arms around her, feels the inverted parentheses of her hips against his exposed skin, chilled from the autumn air. She told him to wear a jacket, scolded him like a child when he refused, but he's so glad he did. Now she can keep him warm.
In the silence, he realizes that it isn't silent at all. He hears the subtle beat of their hearts against each other, the steady bum bum bum of their life. Wind rustles her hair, the leaves, anything it can touch. Leaves tumble around on the ground, fallen and lost. She breathes against him, ever closer under the maple tree, a constant against all the random. He feels the life move through her, vibrating against him. He feels the light trying to get out, too much of it flowing through her lithe body, and he knows.
He doesn't even need her to say it.
He feels it. He feels her love.