|
Post by Nina Fortner on Nov 30, 2015 19:13:39 GMT -5
It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders to finally talk to Curt about her feelings. She had gone in expecting rejection and experienced a validation of true friendship. She hadn't even realized how much she'd expected he would cold-shoulder her - of out resentment or envy, even just a cold calculating desire for her physically - until he had not done so. She'd spent the rest of the evening with him in gratitude and the simple pleasure of his company, now considerably less guilty-feeling.
In such a situation as this, without everyone seeming to judge her such that she felt she had to sneak out to see Raoul, she didn't creep away in the early hours of the morning, instead lingering around until about 11 o'clock to chat with people and then heading out to meet her boyfriend. Only when completely out of sight of anyone who knew her did she pull off the pretty, very innocent dress she had been wearing to reveal the belted white bikini she had bought in New York City and buried at the bottom of her trunk. Somehow she'd quickly decided this was too much to show Curt, even though he had kissed her breasts, of all things.
It was probably not too much for Raoul, though. She cheerily waved to him as she saw him approaching.
|
|
|
Post by Silva on Nov 30, 2015 20:50:40 GMT -5
Few things were too much for Raoul, though the figure of his young mistress was still a pleasant blur of shining skin and glare at this distance. Something about it strained the eye even from behind the frames of his sunglasses. Trying to counter her beachy good cheer, Silva had overshot from companionable to a little wolfish, all white teeth and sun-bleached hair and calculated beachside disarray. His face already ached, but he looked so very handsome.
Another chance to stay behind, and she'd come back to him -- not that he wouldn't have dragged her out again one way or another if she had turned cowardly and taken refuge with her father and her sad one-armed admirer. This was much easier for all four of them, and flattering. Silva tweaked down his sunglasses to leer and the girl came into sharper focus.
|
|
|
Post by Nina Fortner on Nov 30, 2015 20:55:55 GMT -5
Nina greeted him on the dock with a hug that betrayed the sincerity of her feelings. Had she been all burning lust, he'd have been met with a kiss.
|
|
|
Post by Silva on Nov 30, 2015 21:04:27 GMT -5
Silva cinched her close with the affectionate roughness of an uncle who sometimes forgot his own strength. (Though he himself never forgot any such thing.) It was difficult to do anything but look at her -- even staring down through the gold web of her hair at the white band of her bikini and trying to remember if it was one of the pieces he'd bought on an ugly whim and then thrown at her, or not.
"Aren't you looking well?" If he had been in a more lascivious mood it would have been accompanied by a pinch.
|
|
|
Post by Nina Fortner on Nov 30, 2015 21:07:17 GMT -5
"Am I? It must be your influence, I was very wan and pale until I met you."
She did indeed look bright and sunny, not at all like a drawn suicidal woman suffering with grief and identity loss.
|
|
|
Post by Silva on Nov 30, 2015 21:24:48 GMT -5
Silva kissed her on both temples.
"You should smile more often."
|
|
|
Post by Nina Fortner on Nov 30, 2015 21:27:12 GMT -5
She beamed at him.
"Oh, like you?"
Raoul did smile often, but he just as often had black moods and sulks. She could tell, because she could tell he generally tried to get rid of her before they came on, but that didn't mean she hadn't glimpsed them.
|
|
|
Post by Silva on Dec 1, 2015 21:59:21 GMT -5
"Oh, much prettier."
With a hand behind the small of her back, he led her a little ways to admire the view.
|
|
|
Post by Nina Fortner on Dec 2, 2015 12:55:08 GMT -5
She gazed at the sun shining on the waves with visible admiration, but when her gaze turned back to him all the beauty of the ocean was reflected, and leagues more tenderness besides. All she wanted to look at was him.
|
|
|
Post by Silva on Dec 2, 2015 21:00:53 GMT -5
In the moment where her face had been turned away from him, Silva's face had settled into a heavy mask, one that suggested he also was looking on something a considerable distance away.
|
|
|
Post by Nina Fortner on Dec 2, 2015 21:23:08 GMT -5
Her fingers crept down his palm; she took his hand gently. "What's wrong?"
|
|
|
Post by Silva on Dec 4, 2015 20:34:19 GMT -5
"Did I say something?"
It was said quietly, more than a little dreamily -- his eyes slinking shut for a moment -- but not without a warning in it, either. Nor without some germ of doubt that he had said something without meaning to and that worse, that the girl had noticed. Her hand looked terribly smooth and small against his own.
|
|
|
Post by Nina Fortner on Dec 4, 2015 20:37:12 GMT -5
"You didn't have to say something," she said quietly, meeting his eyes and holding her ground, as though waiting for an explosion and telling him she would not be moved by it.
|
|
|
Post by Silva on Dec 4, 2015 20:47:05 GMT -5
His other hand rose, stiff and thick-fingered, to brush just below the hollow of her collarbone with two knuckles.
"How lovely you look."
|
|
|
Post by Nina Fortner on Dec 4, 2015 20:55:55 GMT -5
It startled her. Her heartbeat sped up, just for him.
"And you," she responded with tender sincerity, touching his face just barely with her own hand.
|
|