08 . a kiss in secret / a forbidden kiss . [ dario / @veilsongs ]
There is something about him that almost makes her forget where they are—sitting at the fraying seam of the end of the world as they know it. He reminds her of home. The scent of the sea lingers on his clothes, provoking visions of the shores she would so often walk as a girl. He is the remedy for the homesickness that plagues her, always threatening to spread like a thick poison through her veins.
More than that, though, is the comfort in his familiarity. His presence is a balm to her thinly veiled anxiety, an anchor for a mind prone to wandering.
And, perhaps, in the simplest of terms: she missed him.
The wine glass in her hand is half full when she sets it down on the table near them. By now, the fire in the hearth has begun to dwindle. She would need to depart from him soon, as much as it pains her.
“I am glad you are here,” she confesses with a softness that implies a raw vulnerability. “Somehow, you have a way of finding me when I need it most.” Her gaze rests warmly upon him, taking him in, his handsome face carved in the dancing lights and shadows of the starving fire.
In an act of boldness, she reaches out, a delicate palm to his face, her eyes still searching. He is warm beneath her hand. The pad of her thumb ascends the height of his cheek, feather-light.
She should let this go no further. Rather, she will add this to the growing pile of things she should do—and then another to the pile of things she should not.
Josephine’s eyes drop to his lips, which she has watched convey hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of thoughts over the years. Lips that she has often wondered if they are soft and pliable or firm and unyielding. Lips she has chased by day in idle fantasies and by night in dreams she would never speak aloud.
She grows so weary of restraint.
What little distance remains is gone in an instant as she bridges the divide. This tension, building over time (over years), fails beneath the strain.
She kisses him with certainty, a soft sigh heralding the end of this dance—shirking feeling for duty, for circumstance. The hand caressing his face shifts to rest in the space between his jaw and ear. She does not draw back to take a quiet, albeit trembling, breath, as she soon kisses him a second time with more fervor, emboldened by this collapse of a stalwart resolve which sought to deny them this in cruel perpetuity.
“Ti penso sempre,” she confesses against his lips. “Devi sapere.”
