Issa mewls and writhes, her breaths spiraling past her lips in series of gasps and sobs. Her hands above her head with their fingers entwined.

The electricity zings between them like a static tremor. And it's only a kiss.

He has a way with his touch, stroking his fingers into the valley of her back, brushing her neck with his lips, dipping his tongue on her trembling stomach. She shivers, electrified from the shockwaves washing over her senses.

"Je suis venu te voler cent millions de baisers..." He chants and she's arching like a feline when he blows on her stitches.

He kneels between her legs and gathers the middle of her back and pulls it up. And like the exorcised or an offering, her body flexes over and bows midst his ministrations. He dunks his head and scrapes his teeth against her ribs; licks the freckles constellated across the valley of her breasts to her taut tummy then her navel, savoring her upper body keenly.

"Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre," He whispers against her skin with a softness only clouds could deliver.

A poem. He's reciting a poem.

"Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour" Each verse earns a soft kiss, her skin tense with suspense. "Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour." A gentle bite. "Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière."

Her head dips in the depths of her pillows and his poetry- finding it hard to differentiate the tenderness between the two. He treasures her lips once more, suckling her like a bee to a blossom.

"You are nothing less of a woman Issa." He whispers to her, "Nothing less"

He kisses her head, around her face then peppers her lips with even more electric delight. "And nothing more"

She finds herself crying again. The way his eyes gaze upon her skin like they would on a starry night, wiping her rainy cheeks, avidly kissing her knowing every second is endangered yet never once retreating when her sun-lit glow grew dull; it's unforeseen in her world.

They embrace each other tightly for air, his head blithely stroking her stomach while her trembling limbs find solace in the long wisps of his curls.

━ And they breathe, for the longest while.

She finally exhales, for real this time.

"What happens when I have to go?"

She knows it was only a matter of time where he returns to his life and she finds hers. So, she says nothing and cuddles him closer as if to make it last; his arms clutching her waist and her legs wrapping around his.

She feels gravity lugging her ribcage, her eyelids yielding to his soft hums of the tune they swayed to the night before. And as she breathily joins him, she succumbs to a serene slumber.

✿ - - - - ✿

the color pink actually has a calming effect. ...