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The Trance (A One Shot of Young Hearts)

Summary:

In the stillness of a November night, on a mattress that creaks under the weight of two tangled bodies, Elias and Alexander lose themselves in a trance of kisses and caresses that drags them beyond the known. Between the moonlight filtering through the window and the cold brushing their skin, they discover a new, deeper intimacy, where each touch ignites a fire that threatens to consume them. It's a moment suspended in time, where only the two of them exist and the promise of everything still left to explore.

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Lukas’s room smells of old wood and burnt popcorn, a peculiar mixture that permeates the air with a sensation of nostalgia and neglect. The dry cold of November filters through the half-open window, biting my skin and making me shiver slightly, though I don’t know if it’s just from the temperature or from something deeper and nameless that tangles in my chest. It’s almost two in the morning, and outside the world lies in absolute lethargy, as if someone had turned off time with an invisible switch.

From the living room come distant laughter—Zoe hurling angry accusations at Matteo for cheating, while Lukas’s soft, constant snoring mixes with their voices; he fell asleep unintentionally in the game room, sprawled among cushions like a small animal in hibernation—but here, in this small, silent room, reality feels different, more contained, as if it were suspended in the air along with the faint flickering of the lamp. The walls, covered in worn and aged wallpaper, seem to absorb every whisper, every breath. And in the midst of all that, there’s only Alexander and me.

—You know… we could steal his bed, I mean, I don’t think he’s going to use it anymore —I say with a mischievous smile, barely turning toward him.

Alexander looks at me, and a smile escapes him too, as if the idea were so absurd that for a moment we forget about everything else.

We’re lying on the air mattress we brought, an improvised bed that creaks with every small movement, as if it kept memory of our closeness. It’s Alexander’s mattress, the bigger one, and although I also brought mine, it ended up unused because we wanted to sleep together from the beginning. Alexander is stretched out, with his brown hair falling carelessly over his forehead, loose and disheveled in that way that always hypnotizes me. He plays distractedly with the edge of his gray pajamas, lost in some thought I can’t decipher. I, on the other hand, am half sitting up, leaning on an elbow, unable to take my eyes off him.

The moonlight filters through the bare branches of the trees, breaking into pieces before reaching him. Silver strokes draw fine lines over his cheeks, slide down his hands, tangle in the wrinkled sheet that half covers us. It’s a silent spectacle, almost sacred, and my chest fills with that familiar warmth, that racing heartbeat that always invades me when I’m near him. But this time it’s not a storm, it’s not the anxiety of the unknown; it’s a warm and serene glow, a contained spark that burns without consuming me.

—Hey, I thought you wouldn’t wear pajamas… not that you always sleep shirtless.

The phrase takes me by surprise. I choke on a nervous laugh and turn barely, shrugging as if that could dissipate the heat I suddenly feel rising up my neck. Even so, I try to cover it with a half-disguised smile.

—Silly… you already know that whenever I don’t sleep at home I wear pajamas. Or also when I sleep with… someone. Besides, it’s cold —I respond, giving him a light push on the arm, without much force, as if that could cushion the embarrassment that saying it provokes in me.

Alexander turns his face toward me, his eyes shining with mischief, as if he had been waiting for exactly that response. That lopsided smile that always seems to hide something more forms on his face.

—Too bad. And I had hopes —he says, lowering his voice a bit, almost as if it were a secret, before letting out a small laugh that tickles my chest.

I laugh again, this time calmer, though I can’t help that my cheeks remain flushed.

—Pervert —I murmur, though my voice sounds more amused than accusatory.

Alexander doesn’t respond right away. He just smiles a bit more and settles on the mattress, with a satisfied air, as if he had already won something without needing to say it out loud.

We look at each other for a few more seconds, both smiling, and for a moment the creaking of the mattress, the dim light, and the world outside become distant.

Three months have passed since we said “boyfriends” out loud, three months since I stopped fighting against the inevitable, against what was always there. I like being like this, without the pressure of words, just breathing the same air as him. So close I can feel the clean, warm smell his freshly bathed skin leaves, like a subtle caress of warm water and his essence that is only his, mixed with the faint sweetness of the cookies he ate a while ago, an aroma that permeates the space between us like an invisible blanket.

I’m wearing an old sleeveless shirt and loose pajama pants, garments that November’s cold pierces without mercy, but in here the air is different. There’s a warmth that doesn’t come from any blanket or from the scarce insulation of the walls, but from him, from his body just centimeters from mine, from his mere existence, filling this air mattress that feels too small to contain everything I feel.

—Are you tired? —his voice is low, soft, as if he feared breaking the delicate stillness of the night.

I shake my head, though my eyelids are heavy and sleep drags me with invisible hands. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want this calm, this moment suspended between wakefulness and sleep, to dissolve into darkness.

I look at him, and he smiles, that crooked, carefree smile that has the power to disarm me in seconds. Then, unhurried, he stretches out a hand and lets his fingers sink into my hair, sliding between my blonde strands tousled by movements on the mattress. It’s a simple contact, but the warmth it leaves behind spreads in my chest like a slow fire. I sigh, unable to help it. But I’m still here, in this silent room, on this air mattress that creaks under our weight, with the cold brushing the exposed skin of my arms and the erratic flickering of the lamp projecting trembling shadows on the walls.

—Elias… —he whispers, and the way my name slides between his lips makes me look at him more fixedly, as if I wanted to engrave this instant in my memory.

He moves barely, a minimal gesture that’s enough for his knee to brush mine under the sheet, and suddenly he’s closer. So close I can feel his warm breath against my mouth. The moonlight reflects in his brown eyes, giving them a liquid gleam, and his gaze anchors in mine with an intensity that leaves me breathless, as if in this moment I were the only thing that exists for him.

Before I can say something, he leans in and kisses me. At first it’s just a brush, light, a fleeting caress of his lips against mine, as if he feared breaking something if he gets too close. But that instant is enough for everything else to dissolve, for the world to remain suspended outside this room. I love how he kisses. I’ve always loved it. There’s something in his kisses—their warmth, their sweetness, the almost shy clumsiness of someone still discovering—that makes them irreplaceable to me. As if they were made just to my measure.

My heart races, its disordered rhythm pounding against my ribs, and my breathing becomes faster, more shallow. But I’m still here. I’m aware of the cold filtering through the window, of the mattress sinking under our weight, of every small detail that composes this night.

And even so, the only thing that really matters is him. His mouth against mine. His body so close. And that warmth that grows slow, but unstoppable, like a bonfire that’s just beginning to ignite.

His hands rise to my face, and his thumbs trace slow circles on my cheeks, as if trying to memorize every curve of my skin. Then, the kiss changes. It becomes deeper, more confident. His lips, previously soft, now move with firmness, with a purpose that ignites me inside. One of his hands goes down to my nape, his fingers sliding between my hair until they tangle with a soft but decisive pull. And there I feel it.

The trance begins.

It’s as if a spark jumped inside me and, suddenly, everything caught fire. My head spins, the world blurs at the edges and things—the flickering lamp, the worn walls, the bed that barely holds us—melt into a dense, golden haze. His breath against my skin is warm and agitated, and my hands, almost without thinking, find his waist. The fabric of his shirt wrinkles under my fingers when I pull him closer to me, needing to feel him closer, more real.

The trance grows, expands, becoming an invisible current that drags me helplessly. It’s so strong that, for an instant, I have the sensation that my body floats, that I’m no longer on this bed, but suspended in the air, spinning in space along with the broken moon watching us from the window. My chest tightens, and my breathing becomes erratic, as if my body had forgotten how to follow the rhythm of what’s happening.

We kiss more, and he intensifies the caresses. His fingers descend down my neck with the slowness of a whisper, leaving a burning trail in their path. A shiver runs down my back, but it’s not from November’s cold filtering into the room. It’s because of him. Because of what he makes me feel. My hands rise up his back, tracing every muscle that moves under the thin fabric of his pajamas, trapping the heat of his body as if it were something that could be held between fingers.

The trance climbs another step, enveloping me in a dense fog that smells entirely of him. November and fire. The mattress creaks beneath us, a sound that’s lost in the dull buzzing that has settled in my ears. But it’s not an external noise, it’s not the house or the wind. It’s this. It’s what I feel when he touches me like this.

The trance becomes stronger, more urgent. It’s a rushing river that flows faster and faster, and for a moment I think I’m going to disappear, that I’m going to lose myself in it until I become an echo trapped in this night, in its light.

—I love you, Eli —he whispers, pulling away just enough for his lips to brush mine as he speaks.

His breath, broken and warm, crashes against my skin, and those words hit me like silent lightning, making their way through the whirlwind that envelops me.

The trance vibrates, expands, grows until it scorches me completely. My skin burns, though the cold continues brushing my bare arms. I don’t answer. Not because I don’t want to, but because my voice is trapped in my throat. But he knows. He always knows.

He kisses me again, harder now, more desperate, and the trance unleashes. It’s a whirlwind that drags me without resistance, that consumes me whole. His hands go down to my shoulders, gripping with the exact intensity to anchor me to this moment while, at the same time, releasing me to the abyss of what we’re feeling. My arms rise by instinct, tangling around his neck, my fingers burying in his brown hair when I pull him even closer to me.

He responds with the same urgent need. His hands slide to my waist, gripping me firmly, and we come together completely, with no space between us. Chest against chest. Legs tangled under the sheet. His smell invades me—the vanilla shampoo in his hair, the cookies he had eaten, his very essence—and his warmth merges with my skin until I no longer know where I end and where he begins.

Until his breathing mixes with mine, until everything else disappears.

The trance is a fire now. A scorching flash that grows from within, devouring everything with its blinding light. I smell him stronger, his warm skin right in front of me, his neck so close that my nose brushes his collarbone in an involuntary touch, intimate, almost trembling. His aroma mixes with the heat emanating from his body, enveloping me completely, like an invisible veil that takes my breath away. I feel his breathing, slow, heavy, and for an instant the world reduces to that point of contact, to that electric proximity that ignites every corner of me with an urgency I didn’t know I could feel.

I feel his heart.

It’s a drum against my chest, beating at the same rhythm as mine, a dull vibration that pierces through me and confuses itself with my own blood rushing through my veins. My hands clutch his nape with desperate need, and his fingers squeeze my waist, sinking into my skin with the same intensity. We meet at that exact point where there’s no longer space, where our bodies merge into a single knot of heat and broken breaths.

The world disappears.

The room blurs at the edges of my consciousness until it vanishes completely. Only this remains: his mouth on mine, his fingers pressing my skin, my hair brushing his face as we move in a slow, electric swaying.

And then the trance expands.

It becomes an abyss of light and sound, a vertigo that shakes me to my depths. Behind my closed eyelids, colors explode. But from one moment to another, what I see is not blue or golden or white. It’s the reflection of his eyes when he looks at me tenderly. It’s the exact warmth of his laugh on a July afternoon. It’s the stillness of the sky when we walk together in silence. Everything reduces to that: to the way Alexander suspends pain, as if his mere closeness calmed the noise of the world. To how, just by being, he makes any night unreal, almost sacred.

My body trembles, my head spins, and I feel like I’m falling.

That I’m floating.

That I’m breaking into a thousand pieces that he gathers with each kiss.

We move barely, and suddenly I’m completely lying down, sunk in the mattress that creaks under our weight. Alexander is on top of me, his body pressing me against the unstable surface, his warmth enveloping me like an unstoppable wave.

The trance intensifies.

It’s a hurricane that drags me without resistance, a whirlwind that pushes me toward the edge of something immense, something I can’t name but that I feel vibrate in every fiber of my being.

His hands rise up my sides, tracing lines of fire on my skin, a caress that is both soft and urgent. My own grip tightens around his neck as I bury my face in his hair, inhaling his smell, feeling him, wanting to absorb him in every possible way.

His hot breath brushes my mouth, my cheek, and my hands slide lower, running over his back with mute reverence.

He responds.

He squeezes me harder, his fingers anchoring in my waist, bringing me even closer, as if he wanted to eliminate even the last barrier between us.

And then the trance becomes pain.

A brilliant, stabbing pain that pierces my chest and makes me gasp against his mouth, because it’s too much, because it feels like burning and drowning at the same time.

I see the summer lake.

The water pounded by rain.

I feel that day’s heat on my skin, the electricity suspended in the air just before the storm.

I see the bridge where we kissed for the first time.

The rain falling in silver threads.

The cold water soaking me though here, now, I remain dry.

I see his eyes in Brussels.

The reflection of neon lights shining in his gaze while he played the piano for me.

The lights burn me though the only thing here now is the moon.

Everything comes together.

A whirlwind of memories and sensations that drags me deeper, stronger, until I no longer know where I am.

His kisses become desperate, a fierce hunger that drags me with him, losing ourselves together in this abyss that consumes us.

And then I feel it.

His mouth opens wider over mine, his tongue sliding between my lips with a feverish urgency that completely disarms me. It's a burning, wet, visceral touch that makes me gasp against his mouth as if air had become liquid, as if breathing were an act of communion. The kiss changes, mutates, evolves—it's no longer just lips seeking each other in the dimness, it's a whirlwind of heat and saliva that sets me on fire from within, a fire that devours me cell by cell.

His tongue tangles with mine, first soft, feeling out the limits of my mouth like an explorer in sacred territory, and then firmer, deeper, bolder, exploring me with slow, deliberate movements that make me dizzy, that make me lose my sense of balance, of time, of everything that isn't this eternal moment.

He tastes sweet.

Like cookies, like something more raw, more primitive, more his. Like secrets shared in the darkness, like promises we don't yet know how to formulate.

The slippery brush of his tongue against my teeth draws from me a low, guttural moan that stays vibrating between us, a wet, broken echo that seems to be born from my entrails. His lips trap mine with a pressure that makes me shudder to the core, and when his tongue ventures deeper, tracing the interior of my mouth with a new, hungry, desperate boldness, an electric spark runs through my entire body like a discharge that illuminates me from within.

It's the furthest we've gone.

This kiss, this clumsy and desperate intimacy that ignites us like dry tinder, is the limit of what we know how to do, the edge of the emotional precipice we've peered over without knowing if we're going to jump or step back. And it drives me crazy. It consumes us in a liquid heat that rises through my chest like lava, cuts my breath and leaves me trembling beneath him like a leaf in the storm.

But something is changing in me, something deep and primal that I can't control.

His hands find my face, his thumbs tracing slow circles on my cheeks while his lips become more insistent, more voracious. I can feel his racing pulse against my neck, the erratic rhythm of his heart that beats in unison with mine, creating a chaotic symphony of desire and need.

And then the trance explodes.

A supernova of light and chaos, a cosmic roar that tears me from within, ripping me from myself until I no longer know who I am, until my identity dissolves in this kaleidoscope of sensations that pierce through me like silk blades.

I only feel.

The brush of his brown hair against my forehead, rough and soft at once, like a caress and torture simultaneously. His nose bumping against mine in his hurry, clumsy and tender. His smell—vanilla and warm sweat, musky and familiar—filling my lungs as if it were oxygen, as if it were the only thing I need to live, to exist, to be.

My hands tremble uncontrollably on his nape, fingers tangled in his hair like claws clutching life, and he holds me with the same desperate intensity, his nails digging through the fabric of my pajamas as if he feared I would vanish in his arms, as if he feared all this was just a cruel dream.

We kiss with everything.

With every fiber of our being, with every neuron ignited, with every synchronized heartbeat. It's a clash of tongues and broken gasps, a desperate attempt to merge into one, to break the barriers of skin and find each other in that place where souls touch without shame.

And the trance drags me deeper.

It's a vortex without up or down, without past or future, only him, only us, a throbbing knot of feverish skin, scorching heat and intertwined heartbeats until lost in the infinite echo of our shared moans.

The intensity pierces through me in waves, each one more powerful than the last, carrying me beyond the limits of what I thought possible to feel. His lips move against mine with an urgency that borders on desperation, and I respond with the same fever, the same insatiable thirst.

But it's too much.

Too intense, too overwhelming, too real.

My body tenses beneath his, every muscle contracted in a symphony of pleasure and panic, and I feel something in me is about to break, to yield under the weight of this revelation that consumes me completely.

And finally, I can't take it anymore.

My head begins to spin in dizzying spirals, my mouth can no longer keep up with this unstoppable crescendo, my tongue tangles with his in a clumsy and desperate dance, and suddenly, the trance overwhelms me like a giant wave. I drown in it, I dissolve in its intensity. My head tilts involuntarily, seeking air with the urgency of someone emerging from the ocean's depths, unable to sustain this kiss that consumes me from the foundations of my being.

But Alexander doesn't stop.

He's as trapped as I am in this labyrinth of sensations, equally lost in this unexplored territory where only we exist and this primal need that devours us. His breathing is a broken gasp that mixes with mine, creating a chaotic symphony of pure desire.

His mouth abandons mine with torturous slowness and descends down my face with an almost fierce avidity, like a predator who has found his perfect prey. His kisses are scattered, urgent, wild, as if he were trying to devour me, claim me with each contact of his lips against my skin that burns under his touch. I gasp louder when his wet mouth rests on my cheeks—those round cheeks he always says drive him crazy—and covers them with short, hungry, almost desperate kisses, as if he wanted to memorize every centimeter with his lips.

I feel his tongue brush my skin in feverish and delicate strokes, leaving warm, wet trails that shine like small silver rivers under the moonlight filtering through the window. His teeth barely graze me, enough for an electric shiver to run down my spine like a high-voltage discharge, and my body arches against his, moved by a reaction I can't control, that is born from a primitive and wild place within me.

He kisses one cheek with a reverence that disarms me. Then the other, with the same sacred devotion.

His lips, parted and wet, exhale their hot breath against my skin. They set me on fire, transform me into ashes that are reborn with each caress.

I tremble beneath him like a leaf in a summer storm, unable to bear my own weight, lost in the overwhelming sensation of his mouth, in the primary need that emanates from him like radiant heat, in this trance that tears me apart and rebuilds me, turns me into a chaos of pure light and nameless sensations.

My body burns in invisible flames.

My mind fractures into a thousand bright flashes, like a prism decomposing light into all its colors.

I'm going to explode like a supernova.

I'm going to dissolve into him, into this endless fire that consumes us both.

But he doesn't stop. It's not enough. He needs more, always more.

His mouth slides lower, seeking my neck with the same primitive fierceness with which he kissed my cheeks, but now there's something more urgent, more desperate in his movements. There, at that point where the skin is most sensitive, where my pulse beats visibly beneath the surface, his lips open and suck with an intensity that makes me gasp without reservation, without shame, without control. His tongue presses against my collarbone, wet and warm as red-hot iron, and his nose buries in my neck, inhaling deeply, as if he wanted to absorb me completely, as if he wanted to carry me inside him forever.

For a moment, I'm surprised by the raw intensity of his need. It's rough, primitive, wild. His mouth moves with an almost violent desperation, biting gently, sucking, marking my skin with the imprint of his desire. His kisses aren't just kisses, they're a taking of possession, a silent declaration engraved in my flesh. His breathing becomes even more agitated, intermingling with my own erratic gasping in a symphony of broken moans.

Gently, but without stopping, he buries his nose deeper in my neck, seeking my most intimate essence. He smells me, inhaling with such intensity that I feel his hot breath filtering into every pore of my skin, marking me from within. His body trembles against mine like a violin string tensed to the limit, and the sensation drives me crazy, transports me to a state of ecstasy I didn't know existed.

His urgency should scare me, the force with which he takes me, the raw and unfiltered need that radiates from every pore of his skin. But it doesn't scare me. I don't dislike it. It doesn't bother me.

I love it.

I'm fascinated by this version of him, this Alexander stripped of all masks, reduced to his purest and wildest essence.

He growls low against my skin, a deep, raspy, guttural sound that is born from the deepest part of his chest and pierces through me like an incendiary arrow, leaving me breathless, without coherent thoughts. But then, as if something in him softened, as if he remembered where he is and with whom, his kisses begin to lose their desperate urgency. They remain intense, deep, but now there's something more in them, something sweeter, more reverent, more charged with a tenderness that completely disarms me.

His mouth rises slowly, sliding from my neck to my cheek in a warm trail of parted lips, leaving a path of fire that marks me from surface to soul. Then he kisses my forehead, with a tenderness that completely disarms me, a delicate, prolonged touch, as if he wanted to seal something sacred in me, as if he were telling me without words everything he feels, everything he can't express with the limited language of words.

Then, his lips find the tip of my nose, leaving me a soft, almost playful kiss, an absolute contrast to the primitive fierceness from before. I melt like wax under a flame, I become liquid in his arms.

One last kiss on my cheek, a warm touch that barely lasts a second but that engraves itself in my memory like an indelible mark, and then his mouth stays still against my skin. His lips remain there, barely touching me, while his breathing intertwines with mine in an intimate symphony of shared gasps.

My heart beats wildly, like a war drum announcing an already won battle.

My body still burns in flames that won't go out.

But now, alongside the devastating fire, there's something more. Something deep and eternal, something that settles in my chest with a comforting warmth, like embers that will keep the heat alive throughout the night.

I cling to him with the desperation of someone drowning who finds a lifeline. I don't want this to end. I don't want to return to the real world where things have limits and consequences.

His weight sinking me into the mattress, his breathing crashing against mine, the trance buzzing on my skin like an echo impossible to silence, like a frequency that vibrates in my bones and transforms me from within.

And I know, without any doubt, with a certainty that terrifies and liberates me at the same time, that I'm never going to forget this.

This moment where he completely undid me, where he disarmed me piece by piece and rebuilt me into something new, something that didn't exist before him.

He pulls away a bit, gasping as if he had run marathons, and looks at me.

His eyes shine in the dimness, dilated and dark, charged with an intensity that makes me tremble. In his gaze I see my own reflection: undone, transformed, reborn.

His eyes shine like stars in the dimness, dark and burning, and they pierce through me like lightning, making me tremble harder.

—You're trembling —he says, with a low, hoarse laugh that shakes me inside.

His voice drags me back, pulling me a bit out of the whirlwind, but the trance is still there, vibrating on my skin like a wild echo, like a second heartbeat impossible to silence.

—Are you okay, mon petit? Was I too rough? Did I hurt you? —he asks in a murmur, his warm breath brushing my lips while his hand caresses my cheek with an almost unprecedented delicacy, as if he feared I might break.

His eyes scrutinize me with genuine concern, with that tone of guilt that makes me want to hug him and tell him that never, never could he hurt me. His thumb brushes my skin in slow circles, searching for some sign of discomfort, some trace of pain, but all he finds is my skin still burning under his touch.

He seems so cute like this, so tender in his concern, so sweet in his desire to make sure I'm okay.

How do I explain to him that he has nothing to worry about?

How do I tell him that when he kisses me like this, when he touches me like this, he drags me to a place where I don't exist, where only he remains and this fire that consumes me?

I swallow, my breathing still erratic.

—Yes —I murmur, my voice hoarse, broken, and this time I'm the one who moves closer.

I kiss him.

Softly.

As if I wanted to give back all the tenderness he's given me. Because I need to return to that abyss, even if just for a while longer.

He follows me.

And the trance returns.

Slower now, but just as immense, burning beneath the ash like a fire that refuses to die.

His hands remain on my waist, his warm fingers brushing my skin under the fabric of my pajamas, and mine rest on his neck, feeling his racing pulse under my thumbs. We kiss slowly, smelling each other, feeling each other, pressed together as if the entire world could wait on the other side of this bed.

His lips brush mine with a softness that makes me sigh.

I smell his skin—soap, a sweet hint, him, an aroma that envelops me like a warm cloud.

The mattress creaks under our weight, a dull sound that gets lost in the room's stillness. November's cold brushes my bare arms, but his warmth embraces me, his breath fills me, and the trance doesn't leave.

It's still there.

Beating in my chest like a second heart.

After a while, we look at each other.

Our eyes shine in the dimness, and there's a quiet nervousness in the way we look away, in how our trembling hands stop before going further. But now that doesn't matter.

This, his kisses, his body against mine, this moment is all I want.

All I need.

We finally separate, exhausted, and let ourselves fall on the mattress.

Not side by side.

Tangled.

A strong, urgent embrace, our bodies pressed together as if they never want to let go.

His arms wrap around my waist, squeezing me against him with a force I feel to my bones, and I encircle his neck, my hands clutching his nape with a slight tremor, my chest pressed against his.

We look into each other's eyes.

So close I see the dark specks in his brown irises.

So close our eyelashes almost touch.

And there's something there, in his gaze, something immense, superhuman, as if we were seeing beyond ourselves.

As if the entire world had been reduced to this space between our breaths.

The trance calms, but doesn't disappear.

It continues shining on my skin, vibrating in every corner where his warmth touches me, a living echo that refuses to extinguish.

—I love you —I whisper, my trembling voice melting against his breath.

He looks at me more intensely.

His eyes burn.

Something in his chest expands and contracts at the same time, and then he says it.

—Me too, Eli. So much...—

His voice is low, raspy, and his grip tightens a bit more, as if he wanted to engrave me on his skin.

We stay like this, trapped in that gaze.

His smell—vanilla, cinnamon, sweat, him—still fills my lungs.

The trance is still there, a whirlwind of light vibrating between us as I look at the moon's shadows reflected in his pupils.

And I know it will return.

Stronger.

More intense.

The next time he kisses me like this.

The next time he holds me like this.

Because this is what Alexander does to me:

He takes me to an abyss of fire and light.

And I let myself fall.

Whole.

Lost.

Alive.