Dreams.
The dreams started after their second meeting. He couldn't fully remember them, just flashes of Cinder smiling. Cinder laughing. Cinder pulling back her brown hair. Cinder tinkering with machine parts. Cinder.
He knew that he had a crush on the pretty young mechanic he could talk to easily. He was glad for some respite in his sleep.
Then the dreams became more vivid. The scenes before him more constructed. So much had happened, the ball, her escape, his proposal but the dreams remained. He dreamt by night and remembered by day.
She was close. Her head was tilted up slightly. Smiling lips just parted. So close.
He went to sleep that night, knowing that he would greet her face. It would probably be the best part of his day after dealing with Levana. So he went to sleep, fully expecting to talk and laugh with her. What he did not expect was to be in her shop, wrapped around her.
They were kissing, his hands wrapped tight around her small waist while hers clutched at his neck. He could feel the rough calloused skin and cool metal against his skin. As the kisses grew hungrier, his hands wandered to her hips, gripping them, pulling all of her closer.
When air became necessary, they pulled away, only for him to start kissing her jawbone. He nipped and licked and sucked, made her moan softly, made her whimper, made her gasp his name. He moved down to her neck, leaving a trail of wet, open-mouthed kisses. When he reached her collarbone, he moved back up and blew air over her neck, making her shiver and shudder and arch her body to give him more space.
He was groaning over her collarbone. He bit and suckled at her collarbone. He tasted her skin greedily, the salty and sweet taste with a tinge of grease tasting better than anything he had ever known.
As he lavished attention on her collarbone, she began to kiss his ear, pull at his ear lobe. The pain was a sweet one as she bit and tugged at the lobe. Her hands were in his hair, threaded in the strands, stroking them repeatedly. His own moved, one to her hair and the other just below her breasts.
As their lips were busy, their hips were moving furiously against one another. As they moved together, frantically and hungrily, his blood seemed to rush and it all became too much when he jolted up with a start.
His breathing was laboured. He tried to calm himself down. As his body calmed, his foggy, dreamlike thoughts cleared as the reasonable side of his mind took over.
He felt guilt rising up. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about her. It might be depraved or perfectly natural but the fact was that he thought about her in more ways than one.
He couldn't do this. He couldn't fall for her. He couldn't dream of her. He knew this. He knew his duty as emperor. He knew that she was a cyborg, a Lunar and now a fugitive. He knew far too he shouldn't do this.
But the memory of holding her close would not fade away.
