Post by Ashlyn Swallow G5 on Mar 21, 2021 12:17:27 GMT -5
They're seventeen when Ashlyn kisses Damon for the first time - kisses with intent, at least. There have been kisses before, just a few, just quick presses of lips against skin, sometimes brief and chaste, sometimes curious, but never anything more. She doesn't have the confidence and experience she can see in Damon's family; she can’t imagine feeling so self-assured and comfortable as to casually curl up in someone's lap the way Lita does with Gaenor, and certainly she wouldn't condone brazenly kissing in a corridor as Gabriel's girlfriends seem to so enjoy.
This, though, this feels so inarguably right that Ashlyn is suddenly struck with a bone-deep certainty that they have wasted three years of their lives by not doing this sooner. It’s something in the slow, careful way Damon presses closer when she doesn’t recoil from his long fingers trailing along her jaw, as if he needs the air from her lungs to breathe properly and has only been waiting for her to allow him something he’s craved for so long. Her lips curve against his mouth when Ashlyn smiles helplessly, breathless and dizzy but stupidly unwilling to draw back and return to their usual morning routine of making coffee and sharing the newspaper across their kitchen table while Layla sleeps a few hours longer until the teenager finally pays heed to the bright summer sunlight spilling in through the window and deigns to wake.
Damon's eyes are dark and warm when they finally part but the silence lingers warily between them for a long moment, as if he’s waiting for her to flush with delayed embarrassment and huffily declare that this would never happen again. He’s half right, because Ashlyn can feel the warmth in her cheeks that signifies a deep pink blush crawling over her skin, but she says nothing to break the tense stillness that has settled over her kitchen. I might be in love with you, she thinks instead with a dawning sense of terrified wonder that she does nothing to hide from the bond that ties them together as she stares back at him. She doesn’t quite know what to do now that they’ve parted, not when she now knows the taste of his mouth and the feel of his shirt wrinkling underneath her fingers and the scrape of his stubble against her face, but they can’t very well spend the entire morning staring at each other like fools so Ashlyn drops her gaze and reaches for their mugs, cheeks still flushed pink. “I’ll start the coffee,” she murmurs. “It’s your turn to cook breakfast.”
This, though, this feels so inarguably right that Ashlyn is suddenly struck with a bone-deep certainty that they have wasted three years of their lives by not doing this sooner. It’s something in the slow, careful way Damon presses closer when she doesn’t recoil from his long fingers trailing along her jaw, as if he needs the air from her lungs to breathe properly and has only been waiting for her to allow him something he’s craved for so long. Her lips curve against his mouth when Ashlyn smiles helplessly, breathless and dizzy but stupidly unwilling to draw back and return to their usual morning routine of making coffee and sharing the newspaper across their kitchen table while Layla sleeps a few hours longer until the teenager finally pays heed to the bright summer sunlight spilling in through the window and deigns to wake.
Damon's eyes are dark and warm when they finally part but the silence lingers warily between them for a long moment, as if he’s waiting for her to flush with delayed embarrassment and huffily declare that this would never happen again. He’s half right, because Ashlyn can feel the warmth in her cheeks that signifies a deep pink blush crawling over her skin, but she says nothing to break the tense stillness that has settled over her kitchen. I might be in love with you, she thinks instead with a dawning sense of terrified wonder that she does nothing to hide from the bond that ties them together as she stares back at him. She doesn’t quite know what to do now that they’ve parted, not when she now knows the taste of his mouth and the feel of his shirt wrinkling underneath her fingers and the scrape of his stubble against her face, but they can’t very well spend the entire morning staring at each other like fools so Ashlyn drops her gaze and reaches for their mugs, cheeks still flushed pink. “I’ll start the coffee,” she murmurs. “It’s your turn to cook breakfast.”