Him (Part V)

Theo looked at her and kept on staring as he felt a strange sensation bubble up in his chest.

[...]

[Am I having a seizure?]

[What's wrong with my fucking heart?]

He needed her to stop...

But at the same time, he didn't.

[What should I do to make her stop?]

His heart clenched as she looked at him with her mesmerizingly beautiful chocolate-brown eyes and Theo suddenly knew what he had to do.

It was dangerous.

Not to mention risky as hell.

Raising his internal walls as high up as they could go, he strode toward her, and his hands automatically went toward her skin.

His hands cupped her face, lips ghosting hers once.

Twice.

Eva parted hers surprised and shocked beyond measure just as Theo exhaled and kissed her fully. The action exposed an undercurrent of rigidity, caused by unfamiliarity and uncertainty, and then his resolve was evident.

Air rushed from Eva's lungs, her body rigid. She knew what she needed to do: push him away in rejection.

He wasn't himself right now...

But she did no such thing, letting him explore with a series of slow, closed-mouth kisses. A warm-up to... something. Something that promised to be electric.

Thrilling.

Dangerous.

Everything that she knew he was...

The reason Eva opened herself to the experience was completely selfish.

She wanted to explore him. Just as thoroughly. Just as completely. Without the responsibility that came with such an act. Without the weight of the consequences that came with such a person.

She drafted excuses, laid them bare, and…

But after everything she had gone through, he was the only one who had remained constant and stable in her life.

It was natural to fall into him. Warm and firm, it was all too easy to kiss him, to keep kissing him, to grip his shirt and ground herself before she floated into oblivion. Eva shut her eyes and explored him, all while cataloging each sensation.

The ferocious pounding in her head.

The fluttering in her stomach that she couldn't associate with nerves.

Only excitement.

'They talked about butterflies, but I feel the whole zoo.'

Each time that he had kissed her due to an incident, she couldn't correspond his touches to the previous ones. Each one was incomparable and stole her breath each and every time.

It was human nature to seek connection, knowledge, and meaning through a route as primal as touch. And she allowed herself to stop denying that she was hungry for it.

Starving to be seen.

Ravenous for somebody that was all hers.

Proof that she wasn't alone.

To feel something.

Anything.

Her feelings were natural as she began working Theo's mouth open with hers, feeling each new sensation as they rolled in like the tide. An electric tingle ran through her veins when she moved her hand to his hard chest, right over his heart, and felt the way it thumped against her palm.

His pulse pounded, just like hers.

Just as chaotic.

Even if he didn't remember...

It was the darkness. The silence. The atmosphere. The charge from their conversation. It was the faint smell of ash and smoke in the air around them.

It was his absence.

Or perhaps it was a combination of nothing and everything that created the need for her to squirm and struggle against the rising emotions in her chest.

The hard clench of her belly.

The want.

The beat of her heart, the pulse in her veins, the breath in her lungs.

It all reminded her, chanting repeatedly, that this was Theo kissing her.

Theo touching her.

Theo that had her heart lodged in her throat, had her hands shaking from the stress and strain of angling her head just so.

Theo who had her powers wanting to release all at once, him making her want to lose control of herself.

Theo that made her want to let go.

But it was also Theo that blindly walked them forward, still holding on, kissing her thoroughly, not breaking the tenuous new bond. Not even when her legs hit the back of the wall Eva had all but forgotten about. His fingers lingered down her neck and she shivered, unaware of the cold.

Aside from talking and arguing, breathing and sighing, kissing each other may have been what their mouths were made for.

But that wasn't right. This meant nothing. It couldn't.

'You're nothing...'

He must've sensed her sudden hesitancy as he backed away, his chest heaving as if he'd run a hundred miles.

"Are you sure—"

Theo swallowed her question with a kiss so shockingly skeptical it hurt.

She bit into his lower lip, following her senses, and the groan that escaped his lips made her want to keep doing this forever.

For years.

For decades.

For centuries to come.

Why did he let her? Why didn't he push for more?

Theo was restrained. Contained. Constricted. Tense. He usually was around her so what was different this time? He didn't even know her...

Why did she want more?

She knew better than to tickle a sleeping dragon, but Eva did anyway.

"You don't remember me, do you?" she questioned and he scanned her face, his eyes hungry and dark. The flames in his eyes seemed identical to her own and when she tilted her head in challenge, she knew she'd fucked up big time.

His flames were far larger than hers.

Incomparable.

And they spread.

When Theo's eyes sharpened, his grip tightened, and his hand left its respectable place on her thigh to slide low on her hip, that was when Eva realized that she might have a containment issue.

The fire was stronger.

Unavoidable.

Undeniable.

Irresistible.

Her hands tangled in his locks as she pressed her mouth harder against his. He tilted his head ever so slightly, those bruising kisses and nips returning as his fingertips began to brush against her neck and collarbone. Eva gripped his shirt tightly with her hand as astral projections exploded behind her eyes.

Alarm bells sounded as she let herself burn.

Listening to the deep noises he made as their lips and tongues touched and retreated before crashing against each other once more. Like an irresistible force that had met an immovable object. And sure, she might've instigated it, pushed him, woke him, but now it was Theo that changed everything from too good to devastating.

From a spark to a blaze that was now burning unchecked. Every vein and artery in her body felt like a string drawn too tight as he slowly drove her out of her mind.

'Let go. Stop thinking. It's nothing.'

Eva knew she shouldn't listen, but she was curious. Of course, she was. It was natural to wonder about something she hadn't truly done, about something that didn't make any sense in her chaotic world of darkness.

Theo didn't fit.

Neither did her intrigue with him.