You walked through hell and brought the sun.
Your shadow blooms where desire rose,
Every step you take, my garden grows.
When I finish, the silence that follows is the kind that feels alive. I look up. Her eyes catch mine, bright, wet at the edges, and the sight hits me square in the chest. It feels like she just took aim and drove an arrow straight through me.Her love made a weapon I’d die happily on.
I start rambling, trying to steady myself, talking about the chord progression, why I changed the bridge,anythingto keep the nerves from surfacing. Trying to calm what’s emerging in me, now that whatI’vebeen chasing, is walking this way like she’s chasing me right back. I turn on the bench to face her and she steps between my legs. Her hands settle on my shoulders, glide up the back of my neck, then frame my face, thumbs brushing across my cheeks. I smile up at her, my hands rubbing gently along the back of her thighs, and she leans down.
The kiss is gentle at first, then deeper, a blend of light and sound and everything we’ve been building toward since that first look our eyes shared. I pull her in, cradling the back of her head, nipping her lips in small teasing bites, her mouth opening against mine like it’s something she’s finally taking with both hands. Her breath catches as I let my hands roam, tracing the lines of her waist, shoulders, back.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers into my mouth. “The song.”
I pull her closer still, the words barely a breath against her lips. “It was a dream,” I say between kisses, each one slower than the last, building heat in their wake. “The day you arrived. I felt this moment before it happened. Knew it. I couldn’t stop the way my heart fell into yours, even before I realised what was happening.”
She sighs, the sound dissolving against my mouth as I move to her neck, kissing the skin there. Her pulse beats against my lips. I trail lower, along her collarbone, tasting the faint salt of her skin, the warmth of her.
“You’re a dream,” she murmurs, fingers sliding through my hair, pulling through it like an anchor when I touch her, her voice caught and aching. “You have to be.”
I look up at her, breath uneven, every part of me caught between wanting to speak and just letting the moment pull us under. The candle flickers beside us, the light bending over her skin, and for asecond, I can’t tell if I’m awake or still inside the same dream that started all of this.
Her fingers slide beneath my shirt, tracing the lines of my chest. “Every night Icouldn’t sleep,it wasthisI was trying not to think about,” I confess in between soft bites along her neck.
“You can do more than think about it now,” she manages, words breaking into soft moans and sighs against my ear. The sound breaks me open, calls me by name. I lift her onto the edge of the piano; she laughs when a few startled notes sound beneath her. The melody hangs there, unfinished, like the song itself is watching.
“Sorry,” she breathes, smiling.
“Don’t be,” I whisper. “He likes you.”
She laughs again, the sound trembling through both of us as I kiss her, deeper now, hungrier. The bench scrapes back when I move, one kick sending it aside, chords clinking under the weight of our shifting bodies. Every sound becomes part of it, the press of her hands, the soft gasp of skin meeting air, the rhythm of the piano beneath us echoing in broken harmony.
She pulls me closer until her words melt against my mouth. A smile along her face, fading into a laugh. “We should move... all the noise.”
I smile against her lips. “Noise? Get used to it. I won't stop until I hearevery soundyou have to give me.”
Without another thought, everything that stands between us is gone, clothes discarded, stripped and peeled away, thrown across the floor by the piano. At first we try to stay upright, pressed against the keys, but everything about the angle is wrong. We laugh in frustration until Kasia glances at the floor. She pushes me down and I immediately relent, on my knees, looking up at her, my hands trailing up, down, along everything at once. I kiss her stomach and she trembles. I trail lower and look up at her through the fall of her hair.
“Lay down before I tackle you.” She raises an eyebrow and we both laugh again. I keep my eyes fixed on her, kissing her hips, her stomach, slow enough to make her shiver.
“Tackling sounds like a fun proposition right now,” I grin up at her.
She pulls herself away from me and shoves me, and finally I give in, lying down on the floor, our clothes a scattered mess beneath me. She straddles me and my breath disappears. The sight of her above me, the warmth between her thighs, the slow curve of her body moving with focused patience, all of it pressed against the edge of my control. Every second I’m not inside her feels like I’m losing my mind. Like I’m splintering off into different pieces of desire, love, form, touch until she brings me back together again, under her body, under her care.
She moves closer and the air between us grows thinner, heady with heat. I feel it before she speaks, that seductive pull that turns control into worship. She leans down, slow enough that I can see every breath, every thought flicker behind her eyes, the tremor that makes a fool of me for wanting her this much. It’s too much and not enough at once. I catch it, the ache, the moment she realizes how easily she can undo me. One small movement from her and I let out a sound I don’t recognize. It’s rough and wanting against her ear, my body no longer mine. A lyric I’d pushed down, discarded in a flurry of ideas and feelings, surfaces without my permission. It comes out like I’m reciting poetry, choked by the motion of her against me.
“I tremble with the hope of you…” My voice comes broken, tangled. “Just let me watch you. You lead, I’ll follow. Wherever you go.”
“Rafe… what does that mean?”
“Youknowwhat it means.”
Her breath catches as I pull her down to me and press against her at once, teasing. The sound she makes, caught between shock and pleasure, turns me helpless. I match it without thought, drawn intoher rhythm until it feels like instinct. Then she smiles, sure in her sway over me and the power in it nearly finishes me right then. I let my hands fall away, open, waiting.
“Go on,” I say, my voice breaking. “Show mewhat you want from me.”
When she finally does, taking me inside her, moving with a breath-taking certainty, it’s not command, it’s reunion. Every glance, every breath becomes a conversation. My body answers hers before I even realize it. I don’t move until she does first, and every way I respond to her feels right. Harder, deeper, fuller, then softer again, a dance we match with each movement. Each shudder, each thrust, each startled gasp is the only language I want to learn.
“Just like that… you’refucking perfect.” I whisper as I sweep her hair away from her face to take her in. “I could watch you forever.” My eyes sweep over her beauty, my hands so in awe they can’t decide where to touch. She pulls me into her again with a deep roll of her hips and I lose the ability to speak. Finally, I hold her face in my hands, trying to give depth to a kiss but it dissolves into breath and urgency. Sounds escaping I can’t control anymore. Until I manage to give one last gift in a sigh. “You feel… words aren’t enough,Kasia.”
