Disclaimer: Desperate Housewives is not mine, and it never will be.
Story Summary: The snow is falling when they first kiss. Tom/Lynette. Pre-series.
A/n: Very random tonight, y'all. I'm in a strange mood. Feedback would be most excellent.
Glass
A story by Ryeloza
She slices her finger on a piece of paper, a cut so thin it's barely visible save the drops of blood that ooze forward and drip scarlet on white and black. She sits back on her heels, lets the letter float forgotten to the floor; stares at that tiny, insignificant wound in surprise.
"Are you okay?"
Eyes find his feet first, climbing slowly up his body but never quite meeting his gaze. She settles instead on his chin, skirts up to his lips, and then drops her head back to the thin train of blood running down her finger. "Just a paper cut. No big deal." She stands and turns her back to him, plucking a tissue from her desk and wrapping it around her finger.
Outside, the weather can't make up its mind. The snow falls like rain, indistinguishable except for the fact that the streetlights illuminate the flakes as they descend to earth. She misses decisive weather—winters that took her breath away with their cold, icy demeanor. Tomorrow, she'll awake to a world of slush, one that will be back to tones of deadened brown and dulled green by noon.
"I'm heading out."
There's a question in there she doesn't want to acknowledge. One born of a stolen kiss in the snow-not-rain as she'd tilted her head skyward and he'd been swept away by the rosiness of her cheeks and the ringing of her laughter. Lips on hers with a promise of so much more if she wanted it. Men don't kiss her like that; they demand, not offer, and she thinks it would be easier if he just said it (come home with me, kiss me, fall into my bed and give in to everything we've been feeling for weeks). The heart of control rests in emotionlessness, and he's making that impossible by treating her like glass.
He can see that she will break. It's only possible to shatter when someone sees that you are made of the finest crystal.
"I should probably leave too," she says, the silence expanding to swallow these words, allowing tension to forever stretch between them. "Before the weather gets bad."
She pulls the tissue from her finger, red teardrops spattered on the canvas. But it's just a paper cut. The bleeding has already ebbed. "Is it okay?" he asks as she turns to face him again, so much damn concern in his voice and his eyes, and why does she mean that much to him?
"Fine. Already stopped bleeding." She crosses the room to get her coat, and he stops her with a hand to her wrist. Gentle, gentle, always asking permission, he runs his thumb over her pulse point and then flips her hand so he can examine her finger himself. "See," she says like her heart isn't pounding and her throat isn't dry and her hand doesn't feel every spark of electricity as his fingers examine her. "No big deal."
"Can't even see it," he agrees, but his eyes are on her face, and when she looks up into their depths, she blushes. She thinks of earlier that night, returning from that meeting and the cold and the snow and that moment right before he kissed her when he looked at her so damn hard that she'd swear she felt that connection before his lips even touched hers. Slowly, he leans down, nose ghosting against her cheek, breath light and warm against her skin, and she shuts her eyes and wonders if it's possible to die from anticipation…
"Kiss me," she whispers, but the words are lost in his mouth as he closes those last centimeters and captures her completely, still asking for what is already his.