#estinio

✨💗✨

Io closes her eyes and nods. Her annoyance softens.

She lifts her hand to his chest. It whispers over his collarbone, winds around the back of his neck. The sounds of the stable fade from his mind when she lifts her chin and licks her perfect lips. He watches her make these tiny decisions; each one could bring their ruin, and she chooses to take the risk anyway. The rise and fall of her chest matches his frantic heartbeat.

His lips fall to hers.

There is something sacred in that first brush of their lips. A dizzying, deliberate attempt to drag it out, to breathe together, to crystalize the shape and taste and feel of this moment into something they might be able to keep.

Io stretches up, pressing closer. Her tongue rolls into Estinien's open mouth, soft and wanting–and she's smiling, for him. He answers in kind, his smile for hers, his tongue moving with hers. He tangles his hand in her hair and she moans, a little sound that fills his mouth.

Godsdammit, he needs to feel that again. There is no consequence Ishgard and all her high lords could dispense that would compare.

They could be closer without her fucking cloak in the way. He tugs the loose knot at her neck and it falls to the floor. He pulls her against him, hands roaming over her back, her waist, and down to where her dress drapes her ass. Her moan again, louder, shaking through them. His desire is no longer mere yearning; the reality of Io's reciprocations–once speculation, now unquestionable–earns a bodily reaction. He hardens, pressed between the tight squeeze of their bodies. She reaches for him, an indelicate, appraising touch that sweeps the front of his pants. Estinien groans and–

Io jerks away, a hand to her mouth and breathing hard. "Oh, gods."

It pains him to do so, but Estinien moves back. "Forgive me."

"For what? I should be the one apologizing."

They say nothing, standing in the dark with their hands at their sides.

Io's hair is tousled, a halo of flyaway strands catching in the light. Her dress is off-center, and she has taken the night's solitude to display her tattooed chest, if only for herself and the chocobo. Her expression has fallen into something serious, but her lips are swollen from his kiss. It is impossible not to want her, and she looks at him with the same conflict.

A breeze whistles through the open door, the birds coo and click, and the seconds drag on without extinguishing the heat in his chest or the greedy coil of need in his belly. Estinien closes the distance between them again. His knuckles ghost over her neck, and Io sighs at the touch. How long has it been since Haurchefant touched her like this? Estinien hopes he will never touch her again. He drifts to her chest, the jut of her clavicle, the barely-raised tattoo. He traces the bold triangle, lingering at its point until his hand skims the front of her dress.

Io holds his face between her hands, keeping him at a safe distance, refusing to let him go. Her dark stare is hard. She struggles with herself. Kiss him or don't. Estinien holds her waist.

"We can't."

"I know," he says. His grip tightens, and he guides her backward to the wall. Io's mouth parts when she meets the stone.

Her hands move from his face to his shirt. She toys with a button, looking from his chest to his lips. "If someone sees..."