Cherry Wine
Her face was turned into the soft of the cushions, her glasses clasped loosely in her hand, balanced on the spine of the old book open across her chest.
The pale expanse of her neck beckoned for him, drew him to his knees before her, his fingers ghosting a familiar path to the open collar of her blouse. She hummed a quiet sound in her sleep, russet hair rustling gently against the worn leather.
The lines that tormented her brow did not seem quite so deep now. And he sat suspended. Caught like a moth in her muted flame.
The soft, butterfly twitch of closed lashes. A gentle, upward quirk of her mouth.
Quietly mapping every faint mark against her skin, rising and falling, over and again, with every gentle expanse of her chest. The rhythm of his own heart falling away... Overcome in the tide of her breathing.
"You would have forgotten me." She murmured against the distraction of his fingertips.
"Hmm?" he breathed against her skin, lips tracing the path his fingers had laid, watching her face break into a lazy smile, still delicious with sleep.
"If I hadn't come back…" she sighed, lashes fluttering to reveal the warm glow of her eyes, "you would have forgotten me."
He could have brushed her off, reminded her that, if she hadn't come back, if she had not fought for their lives; fought for his life, that he wouldn't have had time to forget anyone… but he found himself unable to dismiss her this time.
There was something important in her voice, a question she'd buried in her sleep. So he pressed his lips against the sleep warmed skin of her temple. Buried his nose in the rough silk of her hair. Murmured his words against her flesh as softly as a priest would offer a prayer; as if he hoped her Gods would hear,
"I would forget the stars before I could forget you."