THIS IS SO BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN OMG💥💥💳💥💥💳💥💳

THIS IS SO BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN OMG💥💥💳💥💥💳💥💳

He can’t help the slow, gentle shift of his weight. It begins right as he’s settled in to the embrace, letting gravity ease him downward until his body is pressed against hers. His head leans to the left, where he can feel her chin on his shoulder, her breath wafting past his neck, soft and cool. Nathalie’s hold on him is delicate, prepared to yield at any moment, but though she is not grounded, she is gracious. Standing in her arms, he is healed. His woes wither under her warmth. The slightest smile, the slightest weightless joy, draws itself across his lips.

Caught in his mellow rhythm, she sways too. She lets him take her comfort, lets him swallow it into his soul. Gabriel wishes he could stay here forever, wrapped in her marvelous touch, drenched in the outpour of her affection. 

He loves this. He needs this. He…

Wants this. 

Wants her. 

The movement ceases, and standing firm, Gabriel briefly pulls his head away to look at her face. Already, she is looking back, and her eyes ask what her trembling lips do not, Have I done it? Have I helped you? Have I taken your pain away?

The pain always comes back. But with every brush of their skin, it is drawn out, little by little, and sometimes all at once. 

What else has the power to do that, but the feeling that washes through his heart and mind now, as they stand there? The feeling that, once acknowledged, begins to ease the troubles that remain, close the space between where he is and where she carries him, and make the distance known? 

“Nathalie,” he breathes. 

Ever so slightly, in a movement that would have been imperceptible was she not so close to him already, she raises herself closer to his lips, and then, quickly descends again and looks to the side. 

That could have been the end of it. He could have turned away.

But Gabriel grabs her by the rush of rose in her cheeks and pulls her through the space she teased. Then, their lips are pressed together. The taste of her is on his tongue. She is sweet and earthy, rich and vivid. She returns the kiss once the shock gives way, and his heart flips in his chest when her hands reach around the back of his neck and plant themselves firmly. She will not so easily relent now, and he doesn’t want her to. He wants her to take everything from him. He wants to see what she can do with him when she holds him longer than it takes to make him new. 

A pair of soft sighs lapse together as Gabriel gives more of himself away. The kiss deepens and expands. He learns the shape every ridge and crevice he can find. He feels her smile and feels her body ripple with a soundless, breathless laugh low in her chest. She backs up as he steps forward. One hand releases from his neck to grab hold of something as he pushes her against the dresser, moves his touch to her hips and then -

A loud scrape! rips through the air and something hits the floor. Gabriel and Nathalie break away. At their feet, a potted plant lays on its side, dirt like wet coffee grounds scattered on the rug. 

For a moment, there is stillness and silence apart from the racing of his heart, the pumping of his blood.

Nathalie curses under her breath as she bends over slowly to restore the pot on the dresser. She adjusts the leaves, ensures the plant itself is not damaged, and then casts him a bashful glance. Her face is pink. Her blue gaze sweeps across every inch of his face before it falls, and she tightens the belt around her robe. 

“I’ll,” she clears her throat, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, “I’ll go get a vacuum for this mess.” 

But she doesn’t make it far. Gabriel’s hand slips around her wrist and tugs her back his direction. Her eyes have a new question for him, a disbelieving, What are you thinking, Gabriel Agreste?

He answers her with a long, tender, gentler kiss, and to feel her melt against him the way he knows he has done to her sends a burst of light into his heart. 

Brushing the loose hair behind her ear, he pulls away and whispers, whispers with the taste of her on his tongue, “I meant every second of that, Nathalie.” 

She looks…shocked, in this endearing sort of way, like she lingers at the boundary of believing him, and does not yet dare to lean her weight over the line. 

But she smiles, and leaves him with the soft stroke of her thumb across his jaw. “I did too,” she confesses, before she goes, and Gabriel is alone for a moment or two, left the space for his head to straighten, his heart to catch a breath.