Love and Deepwater • A Rafayel story

Playing with fire

Rafayel was left all alone for what seemed an eternity. He ended up standing up and passing up and down, up and down, up and down...

These days, the maids left Enoria without her usual chains, believing that she would never be able to escape her tower. So the chains rested against a wall and Enoria was free to move around her room. That mean that she was also able to stay hidden in that bathroom for hours.

Rafayel walked to the closed door, the feverish desire from earlier now replaced by worry.

He leaned down in front of the door, wishing his breathing to be slowed down a bit as he listened to Enoria still trying to calm herself. She had calmed, but not fully.

He decided to sit down mirroring her position, back leaned against the door. Rafayel was calm but worried. Yet, he waited until she became more calm and back to herself.

He tilted his head as he looked at the door handle, trying to decide if he should wait a bit longer... or... open the door.

He decided not to, choosing patience. Trying to focus on the bond, what he could feel from it, still pink, still green, but also content. The bond was growing with each day, the more he was in contact with her, the more he touched her, and the more she opened up to him. At first, he could only feel what she was feeling, now, he could even grasp what she did, what she thought, just fragments of it.

Enoria felt more calmer now, as she listened to Rafayel mirror her position against the door. They were waiting back to back with just the door separating them, wood weak against fire.

Rafayel could also feel tiny sentiments of her, the want to feel back to normal but also the newly found feeling of wanting to feel desired and pretty, for him, just because they flirted. It was her first time feeling like this. Rachael knew that she was still young, trapped inside a tower without previous experiences with the opposite sex. Even more, affairs with Lemurians, who were known to be flirty and clingy with their affections. It was clear that she had never felt like this, it was an uncharted territory for her.

Rafayel glanced at most of the novels that adorned her bookshelves, especially those belonging to genres like adventure, fantasy, and romance. However, as Rafayel's love interest, he wanted to establish a deeper emotional connection with her. He wanted to get closer to her so that merely reading about the experiences of characters in books wouldn't suffice anymore. He longed for them to explore those same feelings themselves, using their relationship as a platform for shared experiences, now that they could explore said feelings themselves.

Rafayel craved the tangible, the shared moments that transcended fiction.

A wandering thought whispered: not yet. He wanted to keep her waiting, to prolong this game. The first one to break would lose. Tired of sitting on the hard floor, Rafayel stood, pacing the room for a while like a trapped animal, then settled back into his chair.

He smirked. Rafayel could feel his heart fluttering, this waiting became another game to play between them, so he braced himself to endure it, the first one who made a move to see or speak would lose.

He knew that he could wait for hours. So he placed both of his hands on his thighs, took a deep breath, and remained quietly on the chair.

His mind was occupied now, his thoughts became hazy as he focused on what made her blush. If he had known that eating strawberries in front of her would have led to that outcome, he would have done it earlier.

He couldn't wait to see the full outcome of this new game.

He rested his head against the back of the chair. This was now a game of patience, and knowing Enoria, he knew that this would end up going for quite a while. It would test his self-control for sure, even if he had to wait until the guards came back to take him out of there... but he was going to enjoy every moment, even if he had to endure for hours and hours.