soul meets body | arden

Sorry. His voice was quieter now; if she hadn’t been looking right at him, it might have been drowned out by the rain. It was quite loud now, but not overwhelming; the constant, rhythmic sound of rain falling all around them was like a white noise barrier between them and the real world. It felt intimate here, tucked away in the dark and the water and the sound.

She shook her head, but the movement was small. Only just enough for him to notice, really; with his hand spreading lightly across her cheekbone she wasn’t particularly inclined to move from exactly where she was. Her smile was smaller — faded somewhat by the tension of anticipation — but it was still there, just. Just a gentle one, now. Her eyes were on his.

She felt like a teenager again.

It had been a while, a long while, since she’d had a moment like this. Romance wasn’t exactly at the top of her agenda these days, but even so, most of her dating experiences as an adult had started with someone asking her out for a coffee or a drink or something — maybe a friend had set them up — but not this. It had been so long since she’d had a cinematic sort of moment — rarely was there such a leap in tension before it was even explicit whether the context was anything other than friendly. Before it was explicit whether the chemistry was mutual, or not.

Not that she really had any doubts, with the way he was looking at her, or the hesitation as his fingertips lingered by her ear. It was loud enough that his fingers distorted the sound slightly, things sounding more echoey on that side. Her own hand had slid down his damp wrist, and she lingered, too. She shivered again, goosebumps rippling from her ear to her hip.

Dash turned her head towards his hand slightly. His thumb brushed over the corner of her lips and she felt a flutter in her stomach. She smiled, feeling a little self-aware and amused about the feeling. “Feels nice,” She said softly, her lips moving half-against his thumb, her eyes still on his.

Had the rain around them slowed? Or was it all in his head? The wave-like sound as it made landfall morphed into something else entirely; a blanket of static in the middle of a dream. At the same time, Neville could feel his heart as it pumped in his chest, his breath as it metered. He hadn't intended on syncing up with Arden's own but he was fixated on her chest as it rose and how her mouth parted. 

Of course, he hadn't missed the way her lips felt on his skin or the way that she was looking at him or— feels good.

A chill moved over every inch of him.

"You missed a bit," Neville repeated after a moment, tentatively pushing it back from her cheek. He found that his palm lingered there, clearly not quite ready to will himself to stop the feeling that their touch had created. It felt like a fire had been lit somewhere deep in his chest and sent sparks down every limb. The sensation was intoxicating and alarming in equal measure.

Neville wasn't sure what was more terrifying; what would happen if he did or if he didn't. The nagging voice that showed up early in his life in the back of his mind felt more distant than ever— thankfully.

You missed a bit.

“You said,” she breathed, the smile tugging at her lips again. She was too sober to feel so ridiculous, she thought, feeling a frisson of something pleasurable zip down her spine. Too sober to feel so caught up in it. It was cold here, for Merlin’s sake; she was wearing a damp knitted sweater, and the knit was loose enough that she could feel the breeze through the gaps. Cold and damp and uncomfortable. She wasn’t wearing makeup and her hair was messy and kept sticking to her face (as he kept pointing out!). And yet.

He seemed twice as caught up in it all as she felt; Dash didn’t have a massive ego, but the look in his eye was stoking her self esteem in such a particular way that she almost wanted to laugh it all off. Like it wasn’t meant for her, that level of intrigue or admiration or whatever it was that he was feeling. Felt good, but not quite familiar. Their eyes were on each other in the dark; she broke eye contact first to glance at his lips as she moved in a little closer.

He was on the taller side, but that was fine; she was on the taller side too. She’d barely have to lean up, she thought. Her hands came to rest on either side of his neck as she leaned in and pressed her lips to his. She left a feather-light kiss on his lips and pulled back just enough to speak, their chests still touching and lips only barely apart. “Can I?” she breathed, her eyes still closed. The question was belated, but it still felt right to ask, to make sure. Or maybe it just felt good to be wanted, and to hear it out loud. Either way, she could feel his breath on her lips and his skin was damp under her palms as she kissed him again.

He said. Of course, he had. Neville might have been more hard on himself for fumbling around like he was if he wasn't so distracted. "Yeah, I did," He mumbled numbly as he watched unblinkingly as Dash's gaze flitted unmistakably to his mouth that was pulling into a sheepish grin.

Merlin, help him.

At once he could feel his heart in his chest more profoundly. It beat slow and steady despite the blood that was coursing through his veins. The pumping in his ears made it hard for him to think, let alone hear the rain as it ebbed and flowed outside of their threshold. The sensation was familiar and foreign at the same time, foraged in a long-forgotten memory of Blackpool pier.

The question after the kiss was distant, and it registered a moment later in his mind. A part of him was amused that she asked after she already had, but then he realized that her question meant there was something more to come and all at once he could feel his pulse in his every cell all over again.

"Please," The response was teetering between pleading and obvious. Neville wasn't sure who moved from there but before he knew it his hands were moving slowly and intentionally up her back and to her neck and her and her hair, her neck. He couldn't be sure where he ended and she began but it was a natural procession as they moved together.

A cold wind blew and Dash shivered again, her damp skin catching the chill.

Please. He breathed the word out, warm and quiet, and her lips tingled. She kissed him again, slow and curious, her lips moving against his at a leisurely pace. They weren’t in any rush that she knew of, aside from the fact that they were both wet and getting steadily more soaked and cold as rain made its way down through the branches in fat droplets, or blew against them as mist. She could feel the cold tip of his nose as it brushed her cheek.

The temperature only mattered in that very practical sort of way, though. She didn’t want either of them to actually get hypothermia or something, but a little discomfort didn’t matter to her.

Eyes closed, Dash let the white noise of the rain blur everything else out. There were just his hands on her back, just his lips against hers. She kissed him a little more insistently, brushing his lips with the tip of her tongue. If they were somewhere a little more public she might feel self conscious — and moreso because it was a first kiss — but it was difficult to feel self conscious when it really felt like they were the only people who existed.

And then there was the very explicit, voiced, single-worded consent-slash-request he’d answered her with, too. It was difficult to feel self conscious when it felt like he liked her so much. Or, at least wanted to kiss her so much. Please. She felt a little amused at how obvious he was. More obvious than her, somehow, even though she’d been the one who kissed him. Again, she felt like that sort of interest was better levelled at someone more interesting than she was, but the thought was amused rather than self deprecating.

She shivered once more, but tried not to be too obvious about it, reluctant to stop. Okay, so maybe the weather was just a touch too hostile for this sort of thing. That thought led her to thinking about warm, dry hotel rooms, and feeling rueful that she was sharing with multiple other people. She smiled into their kiss, slowing, then pulling back a centimetre before punctuating the longer, more laguid kisses with a smaller, lighter one.

She did feel a little self conscious as she looked up at him, a little self conscious and amused and embarrassed, but he didn’t look like he wanted to be anywhere else right at this moment. She brushed the side of his cheek with her fingertips like he’d done to her, wondering if they’d be warm like hers felt. She wiped some droplets off of his cheek. “Well,” she murmured, catching her breath, a smile spreading across her lips.

Neville lost himself.

He was aware that the sky had opened up around them just outside  where they were safe under the pseudo-cover of tree branches. In the midst of it all he hadn't even noticed the heavy drops of rain that fell from the limbs and onto them. Arden pulled back and he studied her again, easily mirroring her smile without thought. It felt like he was watching it all unfold from somewhere else, like it wasn't really him there at all.

"Well," Neville repeated with an exhale of their shared breath from his mouth. He wiped the rain from his brow that suddenly felt real after she brushed it from his cheek.

"I—" He started a thought, then paused, leaning into her. The thought crossed his mind that they could go inside, together. They could dry each other off, run a bath, put on hotel robes— he easily got ahead of himself in the imaginary scenario. Logistically, it was impossible. "S'pose we should head in?" Neville didn't sound entirely convinced. In truth, he wasn't. He didn't want to go back to his room, Bancroft still asleep on the armchair, and left with his lingering what ifs.

fin

Dash hesitated, eyes on him as she waited for him to finish that thought. You what? she asked silently. She almost laughed when he actually spoke though, amused at the particular way he’d decided to break the tension. Practicality tended to be one of her strong suits, but if he’d just kissed her again instead of saying something, she wouldn’t stop him. Rain be damned.

“Sounds good,” she replied, an easy smile lingering on her lips as she drew back a little, letting damp air fill the narrow space between them. It was presumptuous of her to wish she had a hotel room to herself tonight, but she wished she did anyway. She wasn’t entirely sure that she’d ask him up, but at least there’d be the option. Another part of her wished he had a room to himself, so he could be the one to risk rejection instead.

Though, from the way he was looking at her right now, she didn’t think there was much of a risk.

“Okay,” she said, after a moment of the pair of them standing in silence. She was already drenched, so they might as well try to make it back through the rain. Wordlessly, she took his hand, giving him another gentle smile before leading him out of the little world they’d created here under the tree.