River crawls and swirls over him, languid and warm like a gentle tide pulling in, water warm and playful. Everything about her ripples: her hair brushing his skin, her fingertips searching, her lips across the skin of his throat, her dress, slipping down her shoulders. But wait. He is the one pushing the gossamer fabric away from clear, healthy flesh, marred only by medical scars - pinpricks, tiny ghosts of incisions dancing moonlight-coloured against the soft creaminess of her skin, miniscule marks that make him feel regretful for an instant, sorrowful.
"River-" he whispers, and she swallows up her name with her own lips, pressed insistently to his. He can't stop himself, his arms tangle around her and he pulls her close, skin to naked skin, showers kisses upon her shoulderblade. So delicate, yet with a strength that is not so much hidden as it is unmentioned. It's unmentioned now, as she flows around him - no sharp edges, no violence. Just something so deep and warm and...
"Oceanic," she murmurs. Simon gasps for breath. He's drowning. He doesn't want to be saved.
"What are you doing? To me. River, I...this..."
"Shhh," she whispers against his earlobe. Then the strangely gentle-fierce sensation of her dragging her teeth over it. "These are forbidden waters. You're not supposed to be in them."
She's in my head, he thinks, giddily. She's making this worse. Or better. I don't know. This is like possession. I thought it would be terrifying, I thought-
River tilts her head back, moans, lids fluttering closed over the twin galaxies that are her eyes. Simon nearly drives his teeth through his lip at the sensations that flood through him.
"What...what..." he pants, unsure as to what he should do - to cover her with kisses or to search her body slowly with the tip of his tongue or to pull her down towards him and possess her utterly, to commit one of the most dire sins - but wanting to do all three. At once. For the rest of his life.
"River, you-"
She just grins, and brings her mouth to his again, and again.
"I am the great wave!" she giggles. "I'm taking you over. Inundation, flood. Times and tides." Her eyes glisten like the darkest ocean. "Now, it's time."
"Xiao meimei," he groans, his breath hitching as she slides her skirt up to her hips, and then silken wetness is surrounding him. "Dear God-!"
"Forbidden waters," she murmurs, and her voice curls around him, aquatic, feral, beautiful. "Mm. Simon. Maybe you are supposed to be in them."
"River..."
"Like the sea," she replies, and moves with the tide.