[ He plans to keep it that way. Not just because he's kissing her, deep delving licks that he needs all his breath for -- but because when the little cogwheels start grinding, it excavates mental shrapnel from the sediment of memory -- jagged bits and pieces that glint with an ugly truth. Memories of past cruelty, deception, inequality. Things Hei doesn't want to dwell on, because he'd much rather enjoy this momentary braid of then and now, everything looping together like a big bow around the present, where he can be blissfully startled to realize how little he could have predicted any of this if he'd put his mind to it. ]
[ It isn't summer in South America, the bright humidity stirring the trees into greenybrown pulsations and the narrow outline of Amber's bra-strap beneath her blouse as he gathers her close, the smell of her body like fresh-picked spearmint. Nor is it winter in the City, Korra's kisses like licks of melting snowfall in the gray evening, her hot skin throwing off a wonderful heady aroma like fresh bread out of the oven. ]
[ Why should it have to be any of those times and places? It can be here, now -- and maybe that's all right. ]
[ Still kissing her, he gathers her in closer, his widespread palms stroking across the curve of her waist and up the slope of her belly, cupping the dangling weight of her pretty breasts, warm handfuls of flesh. When he breaks away to look at her face, her smirky amusement is a radiant spotlight; it gives him a strange, gripping feeling, as if he's suddenly been pushed onstage without time to dress and is expected to perform a part he hasn't memorized. The honest, clumsy, human part. ]
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[ It isn't summer in South America, the bright humidity stirring the trees into greenybrown pulsations and the narrow outline of Amber's bra-strap beneath her blouse as he gathers her close, the smell of her body like fresh-picked spearmint. Nor is it winter in the City, Korra's kisses like licks of melting snowfall in the gray evening, her hot skin throwing off a wonderful heady aroma like fresh bread out of the oven. ]
[ Why should it have to be any of those times and places? It can be here, now -- and maybe that's all right. ]
[ Still kissing her, he gathers her in closer, his widespread palms stroking across the curve of her waist and up the slope of her belly, cupping the dangling weight of her pretty breasts, warm handfuls of flesh. When he breaks away to look at her face, her smirky amusement is a radiant spotlight; it gives him a strange, gripping feeling, as if he's suddenly been pushed onstage without time to dress and is expected to perform a part he hasn't memorized. The honest, clumsy, human part. ]
[ But maybe that's all right too. ]