She draws him closer, eyes half-lidded and terribly fond. Melfina isn't so shy anymore. She knows who she is, what her purpose is. So maybe it isn't so surprising that she takes matters into her own hands, drawing up on her tiptoes until they're centimetres apart. When she speaks, it isn't a question. It isn't laced with uncertainty. She smiles; a soft, teasing gesture. "---吻我。"
Watching Melfina had been like watching a flower bloom.
She’d been so small, so unsure of herself, often curling inward whenever she felt insecure or lacked the answer to a question. She’d always curled away and Gene had found himself positioning himself around her, shielding her, while she tried her hardest to stand in the sunlight and grow. Getting the answers to her identity, her memories, her purpose—it had done wonders for her, as if she’d suddenly exploded into shape and colour, blossoming before his very eyes. With every passing day she became more sure of herself, more secure in her identity, more playful and teasing. Her smile was genuine, growing wider and wider with every rising of the sun on the horizon, her laughter more breathtaking with each setting of the moon.
He’s so proud of her. So proud of who she’s become, who she will be, of what she’s done for herself. He’d promised he would find out who she was, answer all of her questions for her, and the end result is so dazzling that Gene has trouble looking at her most days. She shimmers in the sunlight, her smile bright enough to strike him blind, her eyes filled with mirth and joy and everything he’d ever wanted for her. Seeing the confidence in her stride, the steel in her spine, the laughter painted on her lips like fine rouge… Gene feels like she’s every bit deserving of the butterfly imagery the Leyline had attributed to her. She’d changed completely, from caterpillar to butterfly—a stunning metamorphosis of the heart.
She was always beautiful, but Gene has never been more in love with her than he is in this exact moment.
His arms move on instinct to cradle her smaller form to his chest, chin tilting down in immediate compliance as she wraps her own arms around his shoulders and lifts onto the tips of her toes. When she stops just shy of kissing him, her whisper dancing across his lips and her mouth a mere breath away from his own, a soft and wholly genuine smile twists his lips. His heart aches in his chest, a soft feeling that leaves him breathless as he gazes down at the woman in his arms—the only woman he ever wants in them again. The only woman in his heart.
❛ Say it again… ❜ Fondness laces his words, his eyes half-lidded as he murmurs against her lips, a ghost of a kiss passing between them. He knows what she’s asking for, knows exactly what she wants from him, but he’s never thought any language could be as sexually charged as Melfina seems capable of making her words seem. Keeping one arm wound around her waist and tugging her ever closer to him, Gene’s other hand reaches up to entangle his fingers in her hair at the base of her neck, angling her head up so that he can brush the skin of his lips against her own with another whisper.