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Fluff Fest 2020 Day 4 Prompt: Hand Touching/Holding
“Jasper...”
His name from her lips, the sound of it, that was magical enough. Eva drew it out each time, made it resonate like something that was worth saying. But this time, as she said it, she held his gaze and her hand reached out to rest on top of his.
The moment her skin touched his was electric.
He stared at it in surprised disbelief.
“...you don’t owe me anything.”
Jasper could feel the softness of her fingers atop his. She’d touched him, was touching him. Usually he could control himself, his features schooled to scowl and frown for so long, twisted almost painfully into a bright happy, but bashful grin, that he found he could not stop.
“I certainly don’t want you to associate yourself with me because you think you...owe it to me.”
He tripped over his reply as she withdrew her soft touch, the loss of it keenly felt. There had been no physical warm to the flesh of course but, he imagined that the chill without it was somehow worse than it had ever been before.
He didn’t expect it to happen again but the second time, he was a little more prepared. Still he stared transfixed as she reached out for him. Her hands were small, delicate, the white lace she wore beautiful if deadly.
Jasper was grateful for them, the burning wards had given Eva all the power tonight. They were a burning reminder to let her do as she wished and what she wished was to curl her fingers around his.
How different would this have been without that restraint on him? Jasper wondered as she drew his hand away from him to sit between them. Would she have been so confident, so bold if she had not held all the power over him? Would he have been so vulnerably open to it?
Eva placed both her hands around his this time. Jasper could feel her eyes on his, but he couldn’t meet them, so transfixed was he on the way her fingers ran across his skin, the absent way she caressed him with real tenderness and not a hint of disgust.
He stumbled over his words at the sensation.
“I um...I-I...I don’t wan-I know-I know“.
The air between them grew thicker with everything unsaid, there was anticipation around them now, a promise of more if he just let it happen. The warded lace meant he would have little choice but to accept what was offered instead of taking it.
Passivity was alien to him but the rush of it, the rewards...Jasper was dizzy with it all.
He tore his eyes away from their entwined fingers staring up at the ceiling to desperately try and form a coherent sentence.
Finally he managed to say the thing that left him the most vulnerable, the words that bared his heart to her in away he could not take back even if he wanted too.
“I don’t want you to go away again. I don’t want to have partially or wholly been the cause...I didn’t like that.”
Eva shook her head but didn’t remove her hands. If anything he felt them grip his just a little tighter.
“You didn’t...cause me to go away...I just felt a little lost...”
Her own vulnerability, unexpectedly was suddenly laid open before him.
“I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing, I still feel a little lost but...I decided...I should...follow my heart...”
Jasper’s poor undead heart swelled, his eyes locked on their hands again as he heard her say the impossible.
“...and it led me back here...”
Her meaning was not lost on him. Her smile suddenly bashful but an echo of his. Embarrassed joy coloured his features and he could do nothing to conceal it.
Eva’s fingers lingered, played with his. In his wild joy he dared to hope that hand holding was just the beginning.