blackheart ➵ m. clifford

➵ thirteen

➵ jett

It was feather-light; soft and gentle, his lips treating mine like his hands treated my body. The little brush of his lips against mine almost felt non-existent, a barely-there caress of his mouth, but it still made my blood feel static. Bumps rose on my skin, and I was sure he could feel my heart racing in my throat. His thumbs stroked against my cheeks, his fingertips threading through the hair behind my ears and his nose pushing softly against mine.

It was like my entire world had gone blank, and all I could feel were the grooves of his fingertips and the soft cracks in his lips. All I could smell was smoke and all I could taste was candy floss. He wasn’t even kissing me properly, but I felt like there was electricity in my veins and a fire in my chest. The screams of the fireworks filled my ears, and I rested my elbows in the grass as I let my fingers roam to his hair.

And it was like something snapped, and I had to be closer.

My body moved back, and I pulled at his shirt in an attempt to get him to follow. His face was still close to mine as he sat up, his breath fanning over my face in ragged exhales that seemed to shake his entire frame. Even though it had barely been a kiss, we were both gasping for breath like we’d been attached for hours. I tossed my arms over his shoulders and pressed my chest flush against his, tilting my head so our noses didn’t smash together as I pulled his mouth back on mine.

His arms wrapped around the curve of my waist, and he pulled me closer until his forearms were parallel to my spine and his palms were against my shoulder blades. Though still slow and soft, the kiss that had once been barely a kiss was now something different. We exploded into a cacophony of different sounds, his lips eliciting a buzz on the back of my brain as tiny sounds tore through my throat.

My lungs were full of him, breathing in every inch of his essence as I crossed my arms over each other at the elbows to keep him close. There was pulling and tugging and biting and I loved kissing Michael. I loved the taste of his lips, the coarseness of his hair, and the softness of his hands. I loved how his chest felt as it rose and fell against mine, and I loved how my heart seemed to have put the pedal right to the floor.

Heavy gasps of breath turned back to shallow inhales, and my grip on his hair loosened until they were barely tangled in the strands at the nape of his neck. The kiss turned from breathing in one another to treating each other like glass, and he sucked gently on my top lip before our lips parted entirely. When his eyes fluttered open, I was met with a glistening ring of peridot green surrounding his blown-wide pupils, and the quiver of his bottom lip as his tongue dipped over to trace it.

Little explosions of colour danced across his face, and I struggled to tear my gaze away from him to tilt my head back to look up at the sky. I felt him press an open-mouthed kiss to my throat, before he leaned back to watch the fireworks as they burst in the clouds. Smoke swirled around us and the smell of woodsmoke filled my nostrils, but the fireworks were the prettiest thing.

We were still tangled together when the fireworks stopped, his forehead pressed against the curve of my shoulder and the lips I couldn’t stop thinking about were leaving tiny kisses against my skin. It was like our worlds had shifted, and he must have felt like he was allowed to do anything now. He could kiss my mouth whenever he wanted, and my neck, and my shoulders, and I wouldn’t get bored of it. After one kiss, I was completely, utterly and unfathomably attached to him.

“Fireworks are the most beautiful thing,” I sighed, watching as the remnants of the display fell from the stars.

“I find that hard to believe when you’re right in front of me.” Michael chuckled, wrapping his arms so far around my waist that each hand sat on the opposite hip. A blush heated my cheeks, and a grin spread across my lips as he shook his head at his own idiocy, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Anyway...” He trailed off, rubbing gentle circles into the small of my back and leaning his head against my neck. I could still feel how heavy his breath was, and I could feel his heart racing beneath my fingertips as they ran across his throat.