Re: S. Bronx: Sam & Cris
She didn't tell him that he'd freaked her out either. That the yelling wasn't something she could handle when she was messed up. That she wasn't strong all the time, even though he knew that. But it wasn't just him, and that wasn't something for now. And her mind like to play that trick on her, yeah? Gauze and film over the fact that she intended to give him back to himself. She forgot her motivation with every breath he took, his belly against hers, and she counted the inhales on lips that weren't glossy anymore.
Why, he asked, and white teeth ran along his lip, and he smiled, and she didn't get why the fuck he was smiling. She didn't think of herself as particularly small, even when the world tried to make her feel that way, and that was just growing up with boys, yeah? Protective fuckers that she'd trailed behind until she'd found dresses and realized grass stains on her cheeks weren't fucking cute.
His question, though, that stilled her. Shut her up. She stared back at him, ink and the circles beneath her eyes showing themselves through the concealer with the passing of time. She stared. Gaze on his mouth, on that smile. She stared.
And then she shoved her weight forward at the hips, to topple him back. To climb atop him. To straddle him at the waist. It was the upperhand, yeah? But there was no aggressive beyond that. She didn't stop to think that he let her do it, because he had to. The power beneath skin, the muscles that lined his shoulders and bulked his biceps, they all declared him a lot fucking stronger than she was. But she didn't worry that he'd keep her down, pin her, not let her. It was there, in her face, that certainty, and the fact that there wasn't any fear there.