I'm the hero of this story
I don't need to be saved
I don't need to be saved
It did not occur to him that she might be as broken as he until she greeted him with a kiss that lingered, that turned into a bite, that shivered up to his ear until he felt like nothing but gold-plated nerves.
August had met, charmed and bedded many people with a hunger as ravenous (if not as bold), but all of them were broken in some way. Usually it was obvious - they were lonely, or jealous, or desperate - and always when he discovered their secret he thought ah, so that is why you’re here with me. He thought he was done with secrets, with no use for them anymore, but he finds it isn’t true. He wants to know hers.
But not yet. Not when it felt so good to be wanted, not when her need matched (perhaps outpaced) his own, not when he’d forgotten how much better the burn from a kiss felt than the one from a fist-fight. August drank slowly, and noticed how she did not. He let his body fit firm against all the curves of hers, and the times she met him with teeth or lips he replied in kind.
It was his turn to laugh, low and soft, as she rested her chin between his shoulders. The familiarity of the action, as though they are old lovers, makes him ache in a way he’d rather ignore. “I’m as surprised as you.” August doesn’t say to which part, doesn’t point out that what she said did not necessarily mean she did care; he’s not in a hurry to dispel the slow fox-smile the words put on his mouth.
“I guess I didn’t find what I was looking for.” He doesn’t know what they put in his glass; it tasted a little like the sea, salt-sour, the kind of thing that only made you thirstier. Her eyes drank down the dim light of the bar, looking endless, a well of gold, something fathomless you could fall into. He wondered what she saw in his own, but not enough to ask. “You don’t strike me as the kind to tolerate a dull world.” Once, he’d thought the same of himself. “Tell me what you’d change it to.”
@Al'Zahra
