"Carrot sticks!"

Warren quietly knocked on the door frame to get her attention and leaned against it, folding his arms. He shook his head slowly, smitten as Layla crawled around the bathroom floor, dearly frustrated and at a loss when she raised her eyes to him.

"Obviously you've lost something," he entered the small space, trying to be careful with her and she grunted in response. "unless you have transmuted into a cat." he leaned against the sink, watching her in a daze.

"I've lost the little push back to my earring, Warren. It's a small butterfly ..." she trailed off, unfurrowing her brow as she continued on her way. He bit his lip, distracted by her thin dress, which almost seemed transparent. He blinked, trying to focus on her words. "Layla, I-"

"I don't mind you not helping. Really." she murmured, peering by his feet. Layla absently reached out and clutched at his trousers as she looked behind him, oblivious to his sudden intake of breath. "This is impossible." she whispered as she pulled back and realised then what she was holding onto. She raised her eyes to her hands then slowly up, pausing for a ridiculously long moment, up, up, until she found his face. She kept his gaze as she distractedly smoothed down the crinkle she left behind.

"What?" but his voice was too low, too rough round the edges and he cleared his throat. Her eyes seemed glassy as she stared at him. "I found something else it seems."
He sighed. "I can't help it, Layla." he said through gritted teeth as he adjusted himself. He stopped when her hand came over his and he looked at her, his mouth dry. "What, Layla?" he didn't mean for that to sound so exasperatingly... off-putting. What was wrong with him all of a sudden?

"I like that you are never soft."

She came close and got on her knees, taking hold of his belt. He swayed a bit and shook his head.

"No?" she whispered and gave him this look of utter bewilderment as he removed his hand from underneath hers. He duly noted he truly-madly-deeply loved every expression she had. Even though at this very moment, he figured he ruined it by being uncharacteristically considerate and her look of bewilderment bordered on vexing. It confused him. He deserved to be punished for days, reprehensibly so for having the audacity to interrupt her. His eyes widened.

"Layla...?" he winced, gripping the edge of the sink until his knuckles hurt. He looked elsewhere, his fingers stinging, affected by her warm, playful breath as she lifted his shirt and closed his eyes. Oh god, he thought. "No, no." and felt pained when she left such feathery kisses upon his stomach. He swiftly came down to her level, taking her wrists and quickly apologised when he took them too hard. She slightly pulled back, positively confused with his behaviour.

Was her lower lip trembling?

"Layla, Layla, come here, no, no, please." and he let go as he embraced her tightly against him, breathing her in. She smelled so clean, her skin so soft, jasmine and flower remnants in her hair. She leaned into her arms against him, burying her face into his throat. "I love you. I love you." his confession fading into her skin. He could feel her lashes fluttering, her lips grazing his collarbone with every modest movement she made. Warren pulled back to look at her but she kept her face hidden by her hair. He buried her in his arms again. "Are you sure about this?" he whispered into her ear. She was still, so silent against him until he felt her nod. He pulled back. "Look at me." and she held on for a moment longer before doing so, her eyes wide and wet. He caressed her face, without rest. She rushed forward and kissed him. He responded back with equal fervour, infatuated with her mouth. Her hands caught his shirt, deliberate this time round. Her lips tasted like blackberries from that morning's breakfast.

"I want to know every secret in your heart." she murmured when she came up for air and he held onto her face. She peeked from one eye. "That was for the kiss."

He smirked, touching her eyes, her mouth, wiping the sweat from her brow, her upper lip. "Will you miss this room?" he asked after a moment. She giggled as she stopped his ministrations. "You are not helping, you are adding to it." she reminded him. He mouthed his apology. She took him by the shirt, pulling him close to her and kissed him again. "Hmmm, you are doing that thing with your tongue." she breathed, nipping at his lower lip. His fingers spider walked toward her inner thighs. "Want to trade places?" She smacked his hand and pushed him back. "Stand up." and smiled on the sly when he hesitated at her demand. He didn't tell her he liked it. He grunted when she ran her hands down his legs as he obeyed.

Warren tucked his hair behind his ear, watching her carefully as he grasped the edge of the sink again. He kept reminding himself to breathe, his eyes turning when she unbuckled his belt, every one of her movements somnolent, achingly so and hissed under his breath when she unzipped him, taking him in hand. He clenched his eyes tight when she made her usual sound of commendation, the smallness of her hands ghosting up and down the hardened length and he leaned his head back, praying he would not keel over. He tasted her name, running his tongue along the back of his teeth when he felt the unpleasant numb in his gums, within his chest, down his arms. She licked, kissed the tip of it.

"You lead me if I go astray." she said so silently, her breath like sandpaper as it chafed against the sensitivity of his skin, as if she were turning him inside out.

He shut down, realising how terrified he was of her fragility. No. Not terrified. Warren gripped the sink harder. She was made that way, he thought. When he felt the faint scrape of her teeth at first, he touched her head lightly, compelled to say something but she caught on quickly. She was not fragile.

Breathe.

His face distorted in abject passion, succumbing to her whim. In total, blinding subjugation to her bewitching mouth. The lambency of his heat swirled around them and through its veil, he could see her pale skin blushing, the thin dress beginning to stick to her body and he was not convinced as she dug her nails into his hips for a moment within all her docile glory, that the unchaste incantation of her mouth and her tongue was anything other but pure superstition. Lies? Is that what she tells him? Lured like the entanglement of her vines leaving behind the traces of her obsession on his arms when he wakes... she was confusing the hell out of him and this incendiary turn of events was surely to consume them both. Her perfect pink mouth was sucking, laving, and she was making such exquisite noises and she tried, oh did she try to take in as much as her small mouth could allow. He flinched when a hand palmed his stomach in firm dissolution, scratching down until she took hold of him again and he could feel the painful heat circulating within his body, flaring within his belly, his groin. He faltered, his hand reaching for her head. To not mislead, not persuade but to assure, somewhat bowing at her acquiescence, her name a silent, heady promise at his lips. He could feel his breath hitching as she teased the underside with her tongue... and her wicked hands taunted, stroking him off, stripping him of logic.

How the fuck am I still standing?

The realisation hit him so hard, he caught the wall to his side with a hand, in a desperate attempt of culminating some sort of control. Smoke was unfurling, seeping out from beneath his palm like ribbons and he stared at it, lost. And when she purred, when he could feel its vibration to his core, he forced himself to look at her. The dress was sticky, her face debauched, lips slightly swollen and he could feel his searing pleasure humming through his body, spreading, ready to extinguish him. She was incessant and dreamy and this was better than anything he could have gotten off on in the past with her in mind. The idea of her was so embedded however the actualization of her illustrative divinity escaping the sanctuary of his soul, to be alive and true and to emulate his desire, to give in return? A bead of perspiration from her collarbone was traveling down, down and he followed it until it disappeared in-between her breasts and he convulsed, curving his body to its breaking point. As he thrust forward, his release was seismic in its rawness, ripping the cry from his throat, like a benediction across his lips. He drowned within a river of obscenities inside his head, undone by the brutal seduction of her hands, by her honeyed tongue. Not wanting to know how he remained standing, he watched as she swallowed every inch of him. Initially he did see the faint grimace and when he brought a finger to the side of her lip, wiping off the trickle on her chin, she surprised him by moving her head and taking the finger into her mouth, sucking at it. She seemed like a satisfied kitten, fed and as he struggled to breathe, she kept pulling away from his finger but kept sticking it back in, her warm mouth clashing with his heat. When she finally raised her eyes to him, kissing his palm, he had to look away, wondering where all the air went. He could still feel her on his dick and he didn't think it was too late to combust entirely. She was always on him and not that he ever wanted it any other way. As he parted his lips, he was repelled by the dryness within his mouth, his throat aching as he swallowed. Warren tucked himself in with shaky hands, fumbling with his zipper, the belt and gave up as he almost lost his footing when he gave his back to her. He blindly turned the tap, wetting his face. "I think my cells are disintegrating." and his voice was like a rumble within his chest, foreign to his ears. He breathed into his wet, cupped hands. The silence in the room thereafter made him boss-eyed, his ears hurt.

"Was it... bad?"

Warren leaned forward and held onto the basin, making sure he gathered all of his bearings before he turned completely. She was not asking out of innocence as he could plainly see but embarrassment. He slid down and extended his arm, watching how she took his hand slowly but earnestly. "Layla, please, don't even..." his ragged breath a nuisance. He cleared his throat. "Layla, I'm overcome." he rolled his eyes, sighing heavily. Now it was clearly his turn to be embarrassed, that for every word he could ever know, he chose such simple ones to relay his message. He drew up his knees, covering his mouth with a numb hand, muffling his apology.

"There is a pun in there, right?" her eyes bright with mischief as she gathered her hair over her right shoulder. "We are still here."

He bit into his smirk. He watched her stand and he dropped his arms to either side, abandoning himself as she stood over him, her fingertips touching the hem of her viscid dress, teasing with the devilment of her sex so close to his face. Her dizzying odor of flowers, of her femininity, was an opiate to his senses. She straddled him, an addicting habit of hers that drove him mad and where she could rule the world, if she had no other options left. She made him draw up his knees again, to feel entrapped.

"This was the first time-"

He made his eyes small, looking at her with suspicion. "You would never lie to me, right?"

"Warren, I'm-"

He stared at her incredulously. "Layla?"

She blinked several times, her eyes wide until she laughed. She grabbed his face, kissing him all over. "What, Warren?"

"Layla, no."

"I was referring to your confession to me. When you said you loved me."

"Oh. Yes. Right." he cleared his throat again, leaning his head back. He caught another countless petal from her hair. He held up his palm, showing her.

"I love you." she disclosed with a tug at his collar, blowing the petal away. "Would you like some?"

"Hmm?" She pointed to her mouth as she came close. Her sweet, warm breath caressing his dry lips. He drew it in bit by bit, wishing to suck her in completely. "I can't move, Layla." he eventually said, pulling at the strap of her dress.

"Don't burn it." she commanded, running her fingers through his hair.

"Last time-"

"How many, Warren? There is no one last time. Many. You owe me."

He shook his head. "No, Layla. Absolutely not." he growled. "That's the one and only thing I won't do for you." she quickly covered his mouth and he pinched her thigh, taking her hand. "If it were up to me-"

"If it were up to you." she echoed, trying to break free but he held on.

"It would be an endless bed-in... and we won't have use for this." unsticking the dress from her body by the hem.

"We could go together and you can slip right in. To button me, zip me up... tie... me down. But it will be all wrong, too small and tight and then you have no choice but to-"

"Undress you. Repeatedly." he almost changed his mind. "Or we can stay in bed. Have you not noticed, Layla, that we get in trouble out of it?"

She feigned innocence. His eyes lazily drank her in for a long while as they sat within their silence, as she kissed his hand insistently yet so gently. "I'm so in love with you." he said after a moment.

"Say you can read my mind, Warren." Despite how weak he felt, he was overly careful to lay her on the cold floor, amid flower petals and kissed her again. "I love you." she sighed.

Warren reached into his pocket and brought the little push back close to her face. "Is this what you were looking for?"

She smacked his arm. "Warren, did you-"

"I found it in the hallway. And don't consider any sort of punishment, Layla. I stepped on it. That's how I found it."

Layla stared at him, contemplating his words.

"Well, we can talk about punishment that fits the-"

She placed her finger upon his lips.

"I got distracted."

"So did I." she raised an eyebrow, tapping his lips with her finger. "Leave it in your pocket."

As he did as she asked, he took advantage of touching her freely before he came back up to face her.
He touched the delicate skin beneath her eyes until he removed the lash from her cheek.

"You can't steal wishes, Warren." she drew her arms around his neck, wanting to kiss him again.

"Only if you share them."