Short chapter. Sort a cliff hanger, I guess. And by cliff hanger I mean 'I have too many things to do and don't need this open document staring at me'
He can't keep his eyes off her as they work, and she can tell. His gaze is like water on her back, pushing against her, drowning her until she is forced to turn and look, if only to save herself.
He smiles, but keeps his focus steady, his eyes locked to hers. He refuses to turn away and continues to watch intently. He's good at everything, she though as she watched him pull weeds from the deep earth, gently enough to make her mother shed a tear, careful enough to leave every petal unbruised, and yet strongly enough to make her admire the ease he did it with.
After hand watering the flowers, Aerith decided to start weeding, half because she wanted to stay with Zack longer, and half because it really needed to be done. Zack didn't seem to notice, and, in fact, seemed to enjoy the simple work.
"I'm from a rural town," Zack was saying, "So I'm kind of used to all this manual labor."
"Yeah," Aerith started, "I can tell. You seem pretty comfortable."
She had her hands in the fertile earth, but paused for a moment to wipe her forehead. She went to get her phone, but realized she had left it at her home.
"Zack, what time is it?"
He flipped open his phone (how she loved when he did that!) and read the LED screen. His face was tinted aqua blue as the light illuminated the church. "Quarter to one." He said simply.
Aerith looked up at the hole in the church, but it was too dark. Only the ghostly street lights dripped down from the plate, but they were so far up that they provided no illumination.
"My mother thinks I'm asleep right now." She said whimsically. She turned to Zack, suddenly, as if realizing something. "Zack, where is your mother?"
"My mother?" He mused with a smile. Zack leaned back on his palms, keeping his legs crossed. "I didn't want to get her involved. It's just me in this big, bright city."
"You must have been terrified leaving home." Aerith was sitting in the stream of pale light that fell from the broken plate above. The very same halo of light Zack had fallen through only days before.
"Yeah, I was." He confided uncharacteristically quietly. "I left Gongaga when I was just a stupid kid. It was . . . lonely. No one cares about young kids here in the Midgar slums"
"You lived in the slums?" Aerith asked with a yawn. Not from boredom, but from sheer exhaustion. Sensing her tiredness, Zack gave her the abridged version.
"Yeah, I made some money selling scrap metal and weaseled my way into the SOLDIER training camp. I didn't live there – here, sorry – long."
Zack straightened and edged his way closer to Aerith. She nearly fell onto his shoulder, wrapping her arms around his neck as she did. He was about to pick up her near sleeping body when she stopped him. "Please, Zack, don't."
He relaxed his arms. "huh?"
"Don't - " She yawn again, this time longer, "Bring me home. I want to stay out here and be with the flowers . . ." She buried her face in his strong, solid shoulder. "And with you."
He smiled, more to himself than anything, and tightened his grip on her. "I'm going to try get more comfortable, okay Aerith?" Zack asked slowly, as if speaking to a child. He felt her nod.
Zack edged closer to a moss covered pew, and leaned back. The wood was soft with age, and made a pretty comfortable back rest with the moss covering it. He was content with just sitting there, watching Aerith sleep in peace and stroking her hair, but just as he got comfortable, Aerith seemed to awake with a wave of alertness.
She was in the notch of his legs, her head resting firmly against his chest. Her legs draped over one of Zack's thighs. He had his head back and pointing towards the sky (if there had been one to point at). Aerith's doe eyes looked up at him, and he turned down just as she went to kiss him. His lips fell on hers, hard, even harder than either of them had expected because a small laceration on Aerith's bottom lip began to swell with blood.
"Oh – Aerith, I'm sorry. Are you okay?" Zack whispered, rocked by the blood on her lips. She started to turn away, painfully embarrassed, but Zack took her chin in his hand and turned it carefully back towards him. She looked everywhere but into his eyes, but when they did meet Zack was smiling. An apologetic and understanding sort of smile, with his brows furrowed.
Zack pulled her closer, barely hesitating before running his wet tongue along her lip, clearing the minimal blood that was there. His mouth was open in the most delicious of ways, and his eyes, his bright eyes, stayed locked with her own, but shrouded with thick lashes as he looked down. Aerith was an inferno of emotions under her frozen state. Fire ebbed at her belly.
"SOLDIER saliva is a natural coagulant." Zack explained after pulling away. But Aerith was not done.
She reached up and pulled his face down to her level, this time sure that he knew what she wanted. Turning her head to the side, she leaned in, pressing her bruised mouth to his, hard. He gathered her in his arms as if acting on instinct.
Aerith was trying with all her might to stay in control, but Zack's heady scent was overwhelming her. His mouth was moving against her in the most spectacular ways, his tongue just barely brushing her lips with every new kiss. She tried with all her might to get closer to him, to feel his mouth fully on hers, but it was like he was teasing her.
She was wrapped around him. Her hands were in his hair for the second time that night, only this time they were moving with passion and purpose, rougher, more aggressive. She tugged at his hair and he replied by sliding his tongue into her mouth. She relished the slick muscle and the wonderful things that Zack did with it. The way he moved was without effort. He we leaning so hard into her, pushing her back with every new press of his mouth. She tried to keep up, but this was only her second kiss.
His kisses began to slow and become less draw out as he noticed Aerith struggling for breath. As much as he didn't want to, he finally gave her one last, slow peck before retreating from her red lips. Their foreheads were anchored together, and Aerith was wrapped inside of him, his bent legs creating walls around her. He could feel her round breasts brushing against his upper abdominal every time she took a breath, causing his whole body to go rigid.
Zack wrapped his arms around her, too restless to just sit and watch her try to calm herself. He lowered his head to her shoulder, totally enveloping her. He inhaled, catching the smell of her shampooed hair and resting his cheek on her bare shoulder. He ran his lips along her earlobe, really for no reason other than to do something and he was surprised to hear the most beautiful sound. She moaned, an incredibly endearing and soft sound, directly into his hear. He almost didn't recognize the gesture, after so many years of rough, forced grunts from other women.
He licked her lobe again, and, unsurprisingly, elicited another sound. She gave a small push against him and he pulled away.
"Whats wrong?" He murmured into her hair.
"That's embarrassing . . ." She answered shyly.
"It's beautiful."
Aerith's face was red, but anyone looking could see that it was more from the heat of the kiss than her own embarrassment.
"Why are you so perfect?" She asked him, barely audibly.
He didn't answer with words, but instead brought his lips down to hers and continued to ravish her with his mouth. If Zack had any doubt in his mind that she was still a virgin, it was gone after that. She just looked so helpless and lost. He wanted to show her how great these kind of things could be, but he also didn't want to be the one to expose her. She should make her own decisions.
He was slow and sentimental with his kisses, making sure each one counted. They hadn't moved much since they began, and had really only been twisting and contorting their upper bodies. Aerith was the first to move, sore from her butt being on the hardwood floor. As she was repositioning herself, her thigh brushed slowly against something hard. She broke her face away from Zack's and looked down.
A curved bulge was protruding from between Zack's legs. Aerith's heart began beating erratically. She had never seen, let alone felt an erection before, and fear clung at her throat. As she looked up at Zack she must have seemed terrified because he gave her a lopsided, reassuring smile.
"Sorry . . ." Not an ounce of shame or embarrassment, just eye contact. He licked his lips quickly, but Aerith was mesmerized. She wanted him. She wanted to touch him more than anything. But she felt so lost. She felt like she was drowning in an ocean.