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Sunny
Ilaylimp,nestledclose to Byzantine’s body, his arm wrapped tight around my waist, my leg folded over his. My mind takes its time meandering back to earth from the sex we just had. Neither of us have spoken since he plopped onto his back next to me. I shouldn’t expect anything different from the two of us at this point.
I can already feel the familiar terror of over-thinking crawling its way back inside of me. For now, I refuse to focus on anything but Byzantine lying naked beside me.
And what a glorious sight that is.
His entire body is adorned with traditional tattoos, bold lines and hard edges, reminiscent of the sailors who inspired the style. They cover him from his feet up to his shoulders. Lazily, I trace my finger on his stomach over one of his tattoos—a skull with a dagger through its head—and his abs contract with the touch. A small thrill zips through me at the sight, trailing my fingers even lower, needing to explore and discover every inch of his skin by touch alone.
Byzantine lets out a low groan and I shoot him a devious smirk. I want more. More of him. More of this moment that feels so fragile yet so potent. With one swoop of a leg over his hips, I straddle him, his hands landing on my own hips, his thumbs digging into the soft skin where my thighs and hips meet. He gazes up at me, his features relaxed. It’s a rare sight.
“Let me see you,” I simply say.
I place my palms flat on his broad chest and settle into my position with a small wiggle of my ass.
“Easy,” he mutters, his hands squeezing my hips harder.
A small giggle escapes my lips as I continue my exploration. All of his tattoos are black. Except for one—a blue flower over his heart. I pass my hand over it and Byzantine’s body twitches under me as if I burned him. My eyes pop up to meet his and I study his expression. The question dies on my lips when he just nods and then looks away.
It’s a windflower.
My heart squeezes when I see him try to hide that same damn haunted look he typically gets when I get too close. Too close to what? I don’t even know. I just know that when it happens, he slips behind his favorite mask just like I watch him do now.
This suddenly feels much larger thanjusthis favorite flower. Heavier than just a word spoken softly into the air after we first kissed. I swallow hard, dread sticking to my chest like tar. It’s my turn to look away, and eventually I slump down into the warmth of his chest, my cheek resting close to the tattoo near his heart. There’s a desperate need to just hold him like this forever, especially now, when the air is thick with the unspoken truths still existing between us.
But just as fast, reality crests over me, the enormity of what we just did and what it all means feeling like it could suffocate me half to death. The need to self-sabotage takes hold of my limbs and I slink off him, crawling out of bed and pretending I didn’t just have an existential crisis within the span of a few seconds.
“Where are you going?” he asks, his tone severe. I glance at him, his arm bent behind his head leaning against the pillow, his eyes betraying his casual pose.
“Home?” I meant it as a statement but it comes out as a question instead, feeling suddenly ridiculous as I stand awkwardly beside the bed—naked. Byzantine doesn’t even bother to speak, his body does it for him. His muscles tighten, his jaw clenches and unclenches, and his eyes describe in vivid detail how wrong I am to have thought he would let me leave after all this.
My mouth opens and then shuts, until I finally let out a huge sigh and crawl back in bed and under the soft covers, finding his body heat like a moth to the flame.
The sense of falling jolts me awake. Startled, I sit up in bed, taking a few seconds to situate myself, the room still dark because of the black-out curtains in Byzantine’s room. The man in question stirs beside me as I gulp down air, my lungs burning as if I had been holding my breath while asleep.
That damn dream again.
“You okay?” Byzantine mumbles his voice thick with sleep. His hand reaches over, pulling on my arm and I follow his tug without any resistance. He settles behind me, his arm wrapping around my waist, dragging me even closer. My body is still coiled tight as he runs his nose up my neck, his lips tracing a path over my frantic pulse.
“Talk to me,” he whispers into my ear.
My eyes flutter shut at the sound of his voice.
“It’s silly. It was just a dream.”
“I don’t care. Tell me,” he says, his voice low and dreamy still as his hand ghosts over my hip and down my thigh, goosebumps flaring across my skin as I try to relax into his touch.
His soft caress centers me enough to collect my thoughts and I finally speak. “It’s just this recurring dream I keep having. It wasn’t always this frequent but ever since I moved to Noxport, I’ve been having it almost every other week…” I trail off as Byzantine’s hand moves back up and across my stomach, slowly tracing the curves of my breasts and then up my neck.
“It’s always the same, I’m at the edge of this tall cliff, the wind pushing against me.”
Byzantine’s hand stutters to a slow stop, his body growing rigid behind me.
I notice the shift but continue. “There’s always a person standing in front of me, their face too blurry to make out. And it always ends the same way…it feels like I’m falling off the cliff and then wake up”
Byzantine feels like he’s stopped breathing altogether and I move to turn around to look at him but his arm squeezes me like a vice around my waist, forcing me to stay facing away.
My curiosity is peaked but still, I choose not to pry. Unsure if I even want to know why he’s reacting so strongly to a dream of mine. He seems to realize the shift in the air and clears his throat.
