After countless re-writing attempts, I give up and simply going to complete this story even if I failed to resolve this properly. But I hope at the very least it makes light reading. This was supposed to be the chapter with one and only plot twist I have, but my tired soul wanted fluff and I allowed this chapter to become very fluffy nothing. Is it weird to write fluff about main antagonists?
Well, everyone is allowed a little self-indulgence :) Please, expect a little humor, fluff and silliness, nothing more!
Kitchen and scorpions
Reila thinks her plane is cozy. In a way. She hates the concept of having her own plane, but the place has a chaotic charm, the one you feel when you look at demon statues used as a place to hang clean underwear or stone abyssal monsters turned into towels dryer.
And its heart, the best place on her plane is undoubtedly kitchen.
Kitchen, where she has misshaped chairs and tables, created by Cespenar overactive imagination. Where dirty dishes tub is decorated like an ominous ritual object, black polished stone engraved with runes in weird forgotten languages, but instead of virgin blood, it is full of dirty plates and pots.
She tried to explain the concept of home plants to Cespenar, but this imp creative surges got the best of him, and now her kitchen is inhabited by mandrakes in large black pots and flesh-eating plants from distant planes.
Mandrakes sometimes dive out of their pots to scream at her, reminding they need watering. Insect-eating flowers are very picky eaters, and traveling through plains and hills, Reila had to caught flies for them.
See?
A great place, her kitchen.
Reila loves it, and not only because she is always hungry despite her thin looks.
There is something utterly human in caring for mandrakes in your own kitchen (especially when you know all Mandragora plants are hallucinogenic).
Oh come on, heroes do not visit kitchen. They can assist in slaying, say, Sink Demons, surely, but apart from this, they simply do not have anything to do in the kitchen.
Children of Bhaal, mighty heroes and main antagonists, they have other plans, they are currently engaged in another quest or heroic adventure. Their reputation cannot hold if they are seen in a cute little apron, making eggs with bacon and humming slightly under their heroic breath.
Oh, Reila loves her kitchen. It is such a rare, unique banality – to sit in her kitchen, sipping hot herbal tea. She can't cook, she hates cleaning, but she loves this place, where you can teach adolescents mandrakes to make indecent gestures while watering them.
Heroes are not admitted here.
Humans are.
"Kitchen is the heart of every house," says Jan who certainly knows what he is talking about.
It definitely is.
Day by day, step by step, her sort-of-a-family of five has learned it, too, to love this place. Mighty ranger from Rashemen and his tiny hamster will find a large chair, pies and breadcrumbs. Little pink haired wizard learned it is an excellent place to sit with her sister, painting nails and gossiping – a haven for sisters and friends. Chatty gnome has an excellent cooking surface here and a special shelve for paintings of all his nephews which Jan made himself (they all look the same, as Jan can't draw, but that was a sweet notion nevertheless).
Even one certain drow knows she will find a quiet corner here to drink a glass of light white wine and share a compassionate silence with her abbil. The wine is usually shit, but their silence is tender and undemanding, like weightless bird feather.
There are rules. Every home has a set of rules. Even this not-really-a-home, an illusion, an idea of having a home has them.
No talks about anything important. No tomorrow, no plans, no quests.
Also, you must change before visiting the kitchen, leaving your weapon and armor behind the door.
Kitchen is for humans, leave the drow priestess over there, you are no allowed to bring her here. Leave your shield behind the doorsteps, lower your sword, put your biting arrows back at your quiver.
The world is a binary space. Dichotomic. Yes-no, good-evil, up-down, cruel-kind.
But the kitchen, the kitchen is a place without labels.
"You are using this word far too often, I mean "the drow". Don't you want to drop it sometimes? Just live without it for a while?"
"Easier said than done, abbil," Viconia said slowly, finishing her glass.
"No-o," Reila answered happily as Immy came in, bringing another bottle. "It's done very easily – at least for a short moment. And don't you ruin our girls night out with anything sad."
"So, girls," Immy said, "there's one thing we simply must discuss now. Name one companion or someone we met over the past years, you'd definitely have sex with given the opportunity?"
"Oh, Reila can name one man she wants so badly that her robe melts and smolders, aren't you, abbil?" Viconia smirked.
"And you guessed wrong, because I'd name Saemon Havarian."
"That man lied to you three times, Reila, and three times you have fallen for his tricks like a naïve little scribe you are. Sis, you're crazy."
"I know – for three times in a row, like I'm a convent girl, I can't believe it. It's so hot."
"Abbil, you must learn a thing or two about choosing men."
"You don't choose them, they just happen to you. Like adventures. Or disasters. Or cats."
"Cheers to that, Reila, cheers to that. "
See? Kitchen is a multidimensional space, where there is no good and evil and no up or down, but wine, family and girl talks.
That evening, one particular tattooed man learned there are things in this world that just scream "fly, you fool" no matter if you are a mighty deathbringer or a simple commoner. Because when you venture to the kitchen and find there three completely drunk females doing we-don't-know-what-it-is-but-we-are-drinking-it shots who giggle in unison the moment they see you, every instinct of self-preservation advises to evacuate as quickly as possible.
Naturally, one murderer and villain had no desire to visit her kitchen for the longest time. He held onto his reputation and public image, while Reila just shrugged her shoulders - it's your own loss, you know.
You never know until you tried.
Until, one day, tall man with a slight frown decided to make her company. For a longest time, he just stood at the doorframe, looking at how Reila bickers with carnivore plants and coos over her mandrakes - at their age, they are fragile creatures, they have sudden mood changes lately and require gentle approach - until he sighed and came in.
He put his ridiculously long legs on the little bench so that they block literally every path, Reila now must either learn to teleport, or step over his legs each time to move around her kitchen.
Such a talented person.
Maybe, his limbs are just too long for her tiny kitchen.
Maybe, he placed them in this highly inconvenient manner deliberately.
Reila throws him an accusing glance - you're doing it on purpose, damn you - as she steps over his legs for a hundredth time this evening.
"You think so?" asks his slightly coked eyebrow.
Place of action: kitchen.
Time of action: almost. A fragile, delicate border between "you and me" and "we".
Reila loves moments of almost.
When the air around them is itchy, anticipating, thick. When there was little room for privacy since that moment on the canyon to discover depths of almosts and transform them into yes or no, but undercurrents run deep, and undercurrents can change everything even if on the surface things will stay exactly as they were before.
She was walking on light unstable knees, not touching the ground with her feet, until wyverns and wyrms and salamanders brought her back on Toril.
That evening, she was treating deep scratches on his neck left by flock of baby wyverns, just hatched from eggs, no bigger than dogs (flying screeching carnivore dogs, lots of fun).
They are sweet, moments of almost.
"You look like you have met angry baby shapeshifter," she laughed, handing him the cloth drenched in dwarven jin. "Disinfect it, their claws are not venomous, but wyverns never wash their paws."
"I'd prefer to apply it from the inside of me," Sarevok hissed.
"It's strong enough to corrode iron. No one but the dwarves risk to even sniff it."
"And how come you obtain one?"
"I won it in a bet. One funny dwarf wagered his axe one gulp would knock anyone off his feet, and Minsc drank the whole glass, hiccupped and said this drink was good and strong. I told the dwarf he can have his axe back if I can have the bottle. Don't let Minsk see it, by the way, he is a sing-y drunk. Turn back, let me do the back of your neck."
"Might give me a massage while you're at it," he said, pulling his head to his chest with a groan.
"Would you also like naked dancers and some wine?"
"Is that a proposition?"
She just pressed a finger hard on a bite marks instead of an answer.
But tried to, nevertheless.
Strange how life turns out.
How it twists and turns until Reila has the back of Sarevok's neck under her fingertips, this most defenseless spot on human body - one spell aiming here can make a human dead in a split second or leave him disabled for the rest of his life if he's unlucky - but her every touch communicates the very opposite of hostile.
Impossible to imagine that Sarevok of all people would open his back for her.
What a stupid feeling it is, this feeling that will make you open the base of your neck to someone else's hand.
Aren't you afraid, warrior?
Probably, the process of slowly mapping someone's neck and scalp with her fingertips in tender light strokes should not have been called a massage.
Shh, don't ruin the silence.
Her soft palm slid lower, to one of the black tattoos that encircle the back of the neck - traces that life leaves on both body and mind of those who lead such a life as they do.
Sarevok froze like a statue under her hand, which could destroy him in less than a second, pressed his back to her, and a quiet sigh escaped him, that she could not fully interpret.
When tsunami wave comes at your doorsteps, ready to crush, change, reshape, it's useless to be afraid anymore. It is also impossible not to be afraid.
The base of one's scull is a very delicate spot.
The skin here is tender, very soft, and people may change, may be coveted with scars from head to toe, may harbor regrets and boxes of pain deep within them, but this little spot will stay the same, just as soft as it was the day when we were born.
Maybe we are all still humans while we have this little defenseless spot?
Maybe we're humans for as long as we trust someone to touch it?
Ah, what a fragile, tender, impossible silence it was.
And while the silence enveloped her with a dense, mind-blanking fog, and two people were teaching and learning moments of defenlessness, Viconia came up and firmly took her by the hand stating that she would love to watch this show further, but if Reila is going to cast spells tomorrow, she needs sleep. Alone. Because everyone saw what wonders can one sleepy spellcaster produce and she's literally their main firepower.
Unfortunately, Viconia was right.
(Oh, the looks Sarevok and the drow exchanged were worth carving in her memory forever: she never saw funnier expressions on both their faces).
So, place of action - kitchen.
Time of action: present, only present simple tense can exist in the kitchen.
Or maybe, it's not about the kitchen, but there are feelings between people that leave nothing but present simple tense?
I. Am. Here. With you.
Characters: one man and one woman (that promises quite a predictable story, right?)
Reila smiles as she steps over his legs yet again - there is nothing better than predictable stories. She lacks banalities in her life.
The air is hot, itchy, drunk.
The day was tiresome, long, and Reila is so spent she feels she can fall asleep right here, if she closes her eyes for more than one second.
Sarevok is sitting, relaxed, with his hands under his head, drinking something - the smell of this something makes Reila want to sneeze. His eyes are half closed and Reila can see he too tired for any movement too - but that doesn't stop him from viewing with interest how she tugs her shift higher to overstep his legs without tripping.
Great place, kitchen. Wine, pies, free striptease performances...
"You're going to fight wyrms drunk?" she asks, eyeing him skeptically.
"You don't have enough bottles to get me drank," he answers lazily, eyes half closed.
"Well, suit yourself. Do we have something sweet?"
She is looking through all the packages and plates and pots - what a mess they managed to make here - in search fo some cake. Or candy. Or...
"How you manage to stay such a bone bag while almost constantly chewing something is beyond me," he smirks, too relaxed to make it sound taunting.
"Magic takes energy, and the best thing to eat after a hard casting day are sweets. Look for a stash of candies, if you ever find yourself in the den of evil necromancers, I bet they have some. After high-magic spellcasting, you're just ready to sell your soul or kidney for a piece of cake."
Although he is obviously too tired for "want to ravish you right here" vibe after a long tiresome day, this does not stop him from putting one leg on top of the other so stepping over his limbs becomes even more uncomfortable. And then looks with interest at how she lifts her shift even higher, exposing the white column of her thigh.
Characters: one woman who enjoys the fiery itch of dragonflies flying in circles in her stomach, one man who kissed her thighs with his gaze from the knee up, while she was turning her kitchen upside down in search for something sweet.
Probably, were it not for all the wyrmlings and salamanders they had to fight, he would apply more than gazes, but alas...
Your know what is even better than the moment when you found your hidden stash with something sweet?
Anticipation, when you know it should be here somewhere, just a little more and you'll find it. Anticipation, which make you shimmer slowly in the heat of expectation.
Such a sweet, sweet feeling.
"You owe me your full tale, Reila. You showed me glimpses, but I want the whole story. "
His gaze runs around her bare shoulders and rests on them like a warm mantle.
Raila turns around a little, placing a candy in her mouth.
"What tale?"
"About your Athkatla time. I feel there is something important that you're not telling. What were you doing there?"
"Tried to grasp what's going on, most of the time," Reila says honestly, sitting down right on the coffee table. She leans sideways on his knee, places her feet on the edge of his chair and yawns heartily. "Are you the last to the beach? After me?"
"Yes, if we both don't fall asleep here while your little pest of a sister bathes."
"You suggest I entertain you with tales preventing you from falling asleep, like this beauty from the southern fairytale? I bet I can make it longer than 1001 nights."
"Make your tale a short one and I can show how to entertain men properly, imp. Maybe she wasn't such a beauty after all, if this king was alone with her for a thousand nights and all they did were talks?"
"Maybe she was a good storyteller," Reila objects. "And I remind you, he married the woman afterwards."
"Maybe that was the only way to prevent this woman from talking for another thousand nights."
"Gag is cheaper than a wedding," Reila laughs.
He dives to her slightly, trailing his palm from her ankle to her knee.
Ankles are poorly innervated, by the way. One can stick needles in there and people won't feel a thing, but his touch made this poorly innervated body part on fire.
Because there's magic and there's magic.
But, some boundaries should not be crossed with a cavalry-like rush. Either in hope to prolong this sweet anticipation when you hang on the doorsteps for a few more moments, or because you are not fully sure you are ready to be crushed by this tsunami wave.
It is useless to close the door before the tsunami wave, but few are ready to run and meet it with open arms.
She manages to make her story a comedy play.
How she used to own a playhouse. How she helped a tywyan wizard obtain a Nether Scroll.
How she bought herself a nice pair of boots to learn they were cursed and made her shower everyone she met with compliments – funny time, by the way, you never know many friends you can acquire by compliments.
If Reila could, she would give everyone - dragons, demon princes, devas and gods - the same one piece of advice. Get yourselves a kitchen.
Pots with madrakes, pies, an attractive man with long legs and heavy hand, whose gaze will stroke your bare shoulders and you will see a sincere almost smile on his face while you manage to transform your heroic adventures into comedy play.
A kitchen where you can sit with your cheek resting on someone's knee, and there will be nothing except for the two human faces.
Only here and now.
I. Am. Here. With you.
Just like that, without reason or beginning, without any purpose.
Such a simple, human thing. When you share half an hour while waiting for your turn to the beach and soap, and some humorous stories, and a little warmth.
Why and how do they happen?
Why people are somehow come to one another, as the sea beats up you ashore, and only corners or curves of their nature, their human essence remain – and with that they adjust to fit each other as puzzle pieces?
Genre: a comedy about how one mighty daughter of Bhaal tried to take out a loan for 20 thousand golds, and after filling out hundreds of forms, it turned out she was considered unfitting for a loan - and she also had to pay for this priceless piece of information.
"There was this very strange line of questions, about my sources of income and my closest family, and I thought, why the hells not, and wrote "Father: Bhaal, god of Murder, currently deceased" and you know what this woman told me? She looked at it for a longest time, coughed and asked me if I had any living relatives. She didn't even flinch, I swear you. And then she read my autobiography and said I should have just written that I am officially unemployed, they don't need my whole quest list."
"Dwarven bank treats everyone in the same manner, I had the pleasure of dealing with them. I am positively sure Bhaal himself could have walked in and they would ask him, if he can prove his income or did he file his taxes last year."
"That's the scary shit, and not the dragons, isn't it?" she snorts, laughing. "But I would love to see how you delt with people whose ego is even bigger than yours."
"Shorten your story already, so we can move on to the enjoyable part," he murmurs – and lies, because Reila can see, despite what he is saying, he is enjoying that too.
Simple, small, human things.
It's true, maybe, what they say that women love with their ears. She probably loves with her words – she's a talker, she could have spent a thousand and two nights talking.
Plot: an intriguing story of how she is now a proud owner of a unique offer - a crumbling house in Athkatla docks sold to her by some jerk in the government district.
"You should have heard him; this man was all about how it would double his price by fall. He took me to the nicest dinner and wham, I am signing some papers all of a sudden. And when we've arrived, well the only thing the goddamned building could double were rats and spiders."
"You haven't read about real estate during your Candlekeep life?" the corner of his mouth twitches.
"Somehow, I thought magical creatures and foreign lands are more important, so all know about investing is that it's a fancy word rich people use."
"You could buy half of the Athkatla now with the Council of six as your lackeys."
"I know, but I still don't feel like rich people. Maybe I just don't think the rich stink of wyvern blood as much as I do. Anyway, I bought the nicest chair for this house. You want to sit in it all day long and spine sings."
"You should get used to it, then. We are richer than some kings now, little imp."
The kitchen is the heart of every home, its soul.
Only in the kitchen can this sudden "we" appear, slip easily and imperceptibly, and he may not have noticed this tiny word, but her heart leaps like a circus aerialist high up in the air.
Characters: we.
Build a kitchen, demons and mighty gods, that's a unique place - without tomorrow and without fate, where this little "we" can slip from your own lips, and all your nerve endings will be concentrated under the warmth of someone else's palm on your lap.
Passion resigns in the bedroom, but kitchen is a place of intimacy.
Reila's eyes are shining. They do not glow by taint's fire, they simply shine. Every human in the world know this kind of shining.
"And what do we rich people do, pray enlighten me?" she murmurs.
"Whatever we want, Reila. Any plan your windy head can produce. I am sure, that you - as you have so gracefully put it earlier - are able to drag us, rich people, into a surprising amount of new exciting shit."
His fingers slide a little higher - after all, there are situations in which no fatigue is a hindrance to a man. The second wind empowers you with a new strength when this "we" shines in the eyes of the woman across you, with an invitation and acceptance.
Shines brighter than a small sun.
"No kings have enough money to buy everything I want from this world. I want to be everywhere, from edge to edge," Reila leans back, looking at the grumbling mandrakes – you both are noisy jerks, can you let us get some sleep – and sighs.
She didn't say a word about Spellhold.
She did everything so that Spellhold and everything what happened after would be simple out of place here, in her kitchen and in her funny story.
Isn't that why "now" exists – so you can run into your now, hide into it from all what is breathing in your neck with threats and promises and fates?
Shh, don't spoil the moment.
"I never saw life at this angle before you," he says suddenly, bending to her.
Sarevok has a strange expression: as if he is drinking, absorbing her every feature, as if he allows this alien creature with alien way of living to get inside of him.
Opens a window into a very different version of the world and gulps its air.
"I was repulsed by it, until I realized - it takes an incredible level of selfishness to consider the whole world your own property simply on the basis of your greediness for impressions. Speaking of ego bigger than mine, little imp, your gipsy way of thinking everything belongs to you simply for the fact of your existence is setting quite an example."
"That's the essence of nomads. Kings own the world doing boring stuff. Nomads own the world simply by existing in it. We don't need to conquer anything to own it."
Focusing, Reila suddenly moves both her palms and her small kitchen is transformed when the exact map of Faerun appears on the walls around them.
There are no borders and capitals on it, but all the places she has read and heard about and dreamed of visiting them are marked by her memory and her imagination.
Lakes so salty that they corrode living tissue, and rivers running bright pink from tiny crustaceans living in it, lizards spitting their own poisonous blood from their eyes; elephant cemetery and a grove in which, as they say, grow the sweetest oranges in the world.
Waterfalls and forgotten temples, supposed dragon lairs, ancient ruins, pastry shops, market squares and famous bathhouses.
Dozens, hundreds of points on the map.
"How long are you planning to live to visit all this?" Sarevok chuckles, looking at her future routes. "Your routes are irrational at best, you can't seriously plan to wander in those weird zigzags."
"Of course I am, I hate plans and direct routes," Reila responds serenely. "Plans, promises and anything constant, I don't like these things."
"That's useless waste of time, your routes are literally circles."
"They are enjoyable circles. I am not allowing rationality into my whims, if I am ever free to travel these routes not only in my dreams. Come on, get up. Stop glaring at me, get up now."
Dragging him by the arm, Reila stands up herself, presses her torso to his back with a laughter, and then start to swirl them both.
The world swirls, two people swirl, pressed to each other in the most unpredictable embrace, and all the places there are in the world are dancing around, as stars.
Characters: two humans, two people, two persons.
Two someones whose story winded and swirled and dances and twisted its tail in the most unpredictable way, to finally end up here and now.
With the two of us. With I. With you.
"Close your eyes. Don't be difficult, just close your eyes and extend your arm forward."
Sarevok snorts, and obviously focuses not on her words, but in the fact he little frame is pressed firmly to his back.
"Now what, little imp? Keep spinning until I'm nauseous?"
"Aren't you already from being so nice for the whole evening? Stop now, freeze!"
They both freeze, eyes still closed, and Reila breathes his scent. His finger points somewhere far South, in the middle of Calim desert.
From nowhere to nowhere - a perfect spot.
"That's how I always dreamt to choose my direction. To close my eyes and just spin around... With no plan and zero idea, what do I want to do there. Or where is this "there" for the matter. With your luck, I'm surprised it's not a swamp. Wait, I know – not just a swamp – it should have been something like Deadly Marshes of the Hungry Skeletons."
"I am not sure that middle of the desert without any housing or amenities, and without the slightest idea what to do next is better than a swamp. But I must admit, middle of nowhere has its allure somehow. Blank space, blank page…"
"…a nice long eye to eye with yourself? I would like that, you know," she blurts suddenly. "All my life there was never a single moment for that. What would I do when I wake up if…"
"If there wasn't anything you need to do, no goal, no pressing need and you have literally nothing but yourself, with your past and present and future," He pauses, letting out a heavy sigh. "You have to lose much, of both strives and illusions, to start wondering that."
"You don't need to lose if you don't have anything to start with. You start wondering that the moment you realize your life… is a nonexistent illusion or overstretched joke."
The world revolves around them slowly, around two people who are standing on the very similar spot. Maybe that's what happens to any creature of destiny - when you have to run so hard and fast to catch up with your fate, that you never have a moment for a long eye to eye with yourself?
When sometimes you wonder looking at the mirror - do I know you at all?
Reila is pressed against his back, burying her face between his shoulder blades and sighs slightly.
"I never found my answer, what I want to be when I grow up. What's my favorite taste, what does owning a silk dress feels like, what I like or hate when I'm done being a puppet for another heroic quest. I would have liked a nice long date with myself in the middle of some desert, I'd even bring myself flowers and chocolate."
"A chance to.. figure things out, yes, " He mutters quietly. "About you, I assure you, your madness will remain intact, as that obviously is a trait rather than gift of your tainted blood."
"Is that good or bad news?"
"Good," he answers quietly, letting his head fall back. "At least you know who you are if all of your grand destiny is stripped away. You know what you'd be left with, except for your fighting skills."
His slow, soft breathing she feels with her body.
Her fiery salamanders are curled up in a ball, purring, and dragonflies are putting up a nest somewhere in her throat.
All at once, he turns around, catching her now in front of him, wrapping in a strong arms.
Get yourselves a kitchen, demons, or better - find yourselves a human.
"So, it's me and myself, you and yourself? But I fear I will just end up ditching other me, because this girl is a weirdo."
She throws her head back and only her own reflection can be seen in his eyes, illuminated by the world revolving around the two of them.
Sarevok leans closer, and Reila slightly touches the tip of his nose with her own: sweet, sweet is the moment when you hold your stash with sweets in your hands and slowly unfold the first wrapper.
"Then we'll exchange partners."
"Like a swinger party? One weirdo me or two sets of a man who uses insults for small talk?"
Their breath is mixed and the remnants of her mental activity are trying to find emergency exit, but what can you do when a person next to whom the whole world revolves around the two of you and everything except now disappears, weightlessly touches the tip of your nose with his.
Who would be thinking about anything at all at that moment?
He leans down to place a lightest, almost chaste kiss on her lips, and her lower lip brushes slightly over his in a tender caressing touch. Thoughts desert head, like little running beetles, one by one, leaving only sensations and a heavy hand, warm even through the shirt and firm, caressing her back with slightly more pressure with each stroke. Of warm, of full lips, of a human, a person, a man who smells so damn good pressed to her.
"They say, people in harsh environments eat everything, I've read one travel diary that mentioned even baked scorpions. Imagine, somewhere out there every fried scorpion cries, lamenting, when, oh when Sarevok Anchev will stop being fate's fuel and will come to eat us," she says softly without pulling away, and every sound is another gentle touch of lips.
"I certainly could not have imagined any form of fried insect in my future."
"They are arthropods, not insects, don't insult scorpions. A date with yourself, eating arthropods in the middle of the desert, with no plan and no idea what's next... Do you know people who would think this sounds like something they would want?"
"Only if they are idiots," he whispers her between slightly, oh so slightly deepening kisses.
She answers them, lightly, mildly, tenderly, and that makes the darkness shine and his hand curl possesively around her bare shoulders, while the other caress her back slowly.
But, alas, he has no whatsoever patience to shimmer slowly heated by anticipation.
He wants a "yes", hot and breathless and final, and his hands dives in Reila's hair, tugging her head up, deepening the contact.
Heated kisses melt the mind, melt the world, melt two bodies into closeness that should be highly uncomfortable due to height differences.
He wants a "yes", whispered, and whimpered and moaned to his lips.
So much for almost and hints.
But, she wants a "yes" too.
Jagged kisses cover her face and run along the line of her chin, while her hands acquired a mind of their own studying his shoulders, back and torso. Hot lips travel to her flushed warm ear, that contrasts so sharply with her white cheeks and neck, greeting it like a well-studied from afar scenery he can finally meet in person. His palm dives into her shift between buttons, caressing her breasts, and little sounds Reila is making are sure to attract Cespenar soon, but who cares about that now.
There is no order, no logic in this entwining of two people - kisses landing on cheeks or jawline, or finding lips again, kisses growing deeper and hungrier.
Mind is defeated, mind is clouded, mind is gone.
"Sis, I'm done," Immy's cheerful voice breaks the spell.
With a little squeak, Reila tries to disentangle herself (how did she end up with her shift lowered exposing her upper body?), like a cat trying to escape a tight embrace.
"Now, let me go, before Immy's here."
"I don't care," he tells her with an irritated groal. "Let her stand and watch for all I care."
"She will comment and that will distract even you, Immy has a sharp tongue," she warns, as warm lips kissing down her neck wipe out every though in her mind. "Or she will die from a stroke, and that will distract me. Now let me go, we can always continue later."
"We will, and that's a promise," Sarevok snorts, but lets her go.
"I hate promises," reminds Reila.
When she gets up, trying unsuccessfully to even out her breathing, she turns around. Desire glistens in his gaze and his expression looks like a promise indeed, a solid plan he has every intention to carry out.
She extinguishes the world around them with a movement of her little finger and winks: this very same thing is waiting for us outside; can you imagine it?
Can you truly believe there might be a chance, however small, to actually be there?
Plan a date, warrior. Prepare for a new words on your blank page, for middle of nowhere and fried arthropods.