…
Space
…
She doesn't resist any more when he steps into her space, smooth and gentle, like he knows her deepest secrets and wants to keep them with her. His breath whispers across her face, his scent invading every sense of her being and giving her a new reason to stand upright. To be apart from him would be too much to bear and yet the feelings she gets around him are too much in their own right.
Her fingers itch to touch him, to reach out and bridge that gap, to undo those infuriating clasps of his vest and pull that unbuttoned shirt over his head. She wants to show him what fun is and tell him her biggest secret – she wants everything that he's throwing at her, everything that he wants.
"If it's broken, it means it still works."
That she hadn't been expecting. His honesty in that moment outweighed any deceit in his prior words and she had known that he'd come to her and divulge his year of adventures when it was the right time.
The tight knot in her belly had unwound a little and she'd allowed herself to flirt with the idea of closing that final gap. But it wasn't the right time.
So she had stepped away.
But Killian's grand declarations don't stop coming. In their quiet moments alone and away from everyone else, his feet carry him into her personal space. And she finds herself minding less and less.
He asks her about her family and how she's feeling about having a little sibling. She tells him about her life growing up and why she's so damn afraid that she's going to get hurt again. He asks about what the future holds for her and she shares her fears. Every moment a new way of understanding each other.
She tries not to let it get to her that without his advances, they'd be nothing, tries not to get too mad at herself for not being able to reciprocate his actions.
"Swan," he says, his voice suddenly so much closer than it was a moment ago and Emma realises, with a start, that the pirate has done it again. He's found his way into her immediate vicinity. "Do you ever think about what could be?"
She shifts her focus from the farmhouse (which they really should be watching right now) to Killian Jones, his face lit only by the moon in the otherwise blackened sky, "What do you mean?"
He shrugs, "If this wasn't all a part of our lives. If magic and curses were somehow just gone from us and we were able to live in peace?"
She smiles slightly, "It's a nice thought. But not one that can exist in this reality."
"Why not?"
Words fail her for a second, the reason dying on her lips because really, excuses should not be able to exist here. Not between them. They've developed an intimate honesty between them and she wants to honour it.
Her silence gives him the opportunity to move again, shifting on his feet and giving himself a few more inches of gain, his hand reaching out to cup her cheek, thumb brushing her skin. And she finds herself, once again, longing to touch him back, to show her support in the same way.
He's so close. It would be so easy to allow themselves a moment of pure pleasure.
Too easy.
She draws a quick breath and steps back from his intense gaze, apologies written in her own eyes that she knows he can see.
"We need to watch the house."
His hand is still poised in the air where Emma had been standing just moments before, but it drops to his side in defeat as their duties crash in around them, "Aye lass."
It breaks her to think how much she's breaking him, but she knows that the end of this war is coming soon, can feel it in the way her magic is fired up inside of her. And when it is over, she has no doubts in her mind that she'll be the one stepping into his space.