#dearest: jo

"You seem happy." Jo jerks his head towards her, or perhaps it's better to say that he finally looked directly into her eyes. Gold meeting with umber to take her hand into his own. How his lips curl coquettishly into a grin, chin resting up on his chin. "Hmmm, what makes you say that?"

She quirks a brow, using the blunt end of her tweezers to poke his wrist. "You were looking at me so intensely I thought I would burn up."

"You normally do, don't you?"

She puffs and huffs, a cute little ruffle of a scruff. "Whatever...just..." she's concerned, adorably so. "What's on your mind." "You." it flows out of his mouth far too easily, unexpected but the truth. There was no need to shroud it in smoke, nor twist mirrors to see something else that wasn't meant to be there. No, it's just her that he sees. "I merely am happy to be in love."

She doesn't speak and only smiles, a small one, but a gentle primrose. "Hand." she set down her tool to take his scarred hand into her similarly worn one.

Her lips to his knuckles, coating his skin with camellia pink, before moving to that ring that rests lovingly upon his finger.

How his chest tightens, stutters, a wheeze of a breathe the moment it was dashed out of his lungs. "My true love..." it's the only thing he can say at this moment; coated with that same incense.

"And you are mine, because love looks beautiful on you."

He rounds the table to her side, a kneel between her legs, to take her hand and press it to his own lips; skin caressing warm metal.

What else could he do but succumb to such a wave? To let it take him to where he wants to go.