"Stop following me, Catton."
Lyssa peered over her shoulder at her now significantly taller, more masculine shadow that walked behind her as he unbuttoned his sleeves.
"I'm not following you, Sol." He chuckled beneath his breath, still undoing his cufflinks - two gold ovals incrusted with the Catton family initials.
Matching his signet ring he wore unapologetically on his little finger.
"Yes, you are."
"I'm not, honestly," Felix raised his hands, stopping in his stride to reassure Lyssa by lengthening the distance between them as they walked - to appear less intimidating.
"Our rooms are on the same floor."
Lyssa tugged at her lip between her teeth.
Of course they are.
"Well, stop giving that impression, then."
He scoffed lightly, shaking his head towards the floor - continuing to walk a now safer distance behind Lyssa up another set of stairs.
"Is me walking behind you that threatening?" He jeered, tutting.
"-Do you find me that scary, Lyssa?"
She sighed, her heels snicked against the wooden steps of the stairs, for she was determined to dismiss how his presence, especially during close proximity when they were left alone, bothered her.
However this bothersome presence of him proved Lyssa's favourite entertainment.
Her stubborn temperament tried to chalk this up with being deprived of attention - but really, the culprit was the blindfold of denial that had shrouded her rationale.
"I find a bee proves intimidating than you, Fe."
Lyssa chuckled as she continued walking up the continuing steps, pulling her dress down every couple of seconds as it rode up with her movement, the material undulating at her hips.
"Really?,"
Lyssa hummed.
"You're a liar, Sol." He lowly spoke, his steps significantly quietening - causing Lyssa, who's back was still turned away from him - to grow suspicious.
"In what way am I a li-," She stopped, planting her hands firming on her hips as she reached the landing of the second floor, the aged oak flooring planks groaning beneath her weight.
She pivoted her body around, expecting to see Felix a lengthly distance away from her at the bottom of the stairs.
Before she could comprehend her sudden jolt backwards to where her back was thrust into the corridor wall opposite the mouth of the staircase, Felix was now millimetres away from her face.
He had - in a trice, yet attentive manner so he wasn't to harm her body - moved furtively behind Lyssa up the stairs while the noise of her heels proved a adequate concealer for his steps.
While she was busy vivisecting his answers, Felix used her rare moment of utter unawareness to usher her against the nearest wall.
Lyssa's laddish shadow was now facing her - his high stature instantly reversing their roles - for Lyssa was now overshadowed by him.
"You want to know why I think you're intimidated by me, Lyss?" He craned his neck to align with her ear, his thigh between her legs.
"Felix-," Lyssa breathed, but was interrupted by him placing his index finger upon his lips, then mirroring the action with his finger pressed against her own.
And his queue was astoundingly correct with it's coincidental precision, for at that exact moment, Venetia burst out of her room around the corner at the other end of the corridor.
She hadn't noticed a now silenced Lyssa and a silencing Felix fifteen feet away from her down the corridor, for she headed straight towards the guest bathroom - her body jolting forwards as she dry heaved.
Lyssa wondered why Venetia didn't throw up in her en-suite instead of the guest bathroom opposite her room.
But Lyssa also tends to wonder about things that aren't relevant to her, nor to her well-being.
And so, on to the next.
Felix's thigh between her legs.
His finger still pressed delicately against her lips.
"Close one, hm?"
Felix chuckled, dragging his finger downwards from her lips to remove it - catching her bottom lip and tugging it downwards as he did so.
"Why are you doing this, Fe?"
Lyssa whispered, wanting the boy to explain his drastic change approach towards her - for the most physical interaction they had last year when they were closer was a kiss on the cheek at most.
She watched him, studying his features as they shifted to align with his thoughts - he looked like even he were unsure.
"I don't know." He adverted his gaze to the floor.
Hesitation briskly fuelled the air of the room, and Lyssa beginning to fluster as a result of it.
A result of him.
"You don't know?," Lyssa mimicked his bleak response, now overcome with the same agitating confusion.
"Fuck, Lyssa-,"
Felix stepped backwards from her as if she were a mystery - a riddle, a puzzling paradox that he was unable to solve, yet he was far too invested in her to retreat.
He dragged his hands down his face.
For he wasn't frustrated at her, for it was himself. His attraction to her was simply inexplicable - and he was ashamed he didn't have any verbal reasoning to give the girl.
"I just-," He paused, an apprehensive glint in his eye as his face caught the moon's deep evening luminosity that seeped through the windows of the second floor.
"I just need you, Lyss."
He emphasised, for these were the only words he could excavate that, even though they equated to not even half of how he felt, were comprehensive enough for her to understand.
"-Like, all the time."
"You need me?"
"It's so fucking embarrassing." He let out a bitter chuckle - accepting his fate of confessing his vulnerability the girl wielded from him that he wasn't even aware he had.
But, Felix Catton wasn't a sore loser, at-least, not with Lyssa Sol.
And so, he knew eventually and very much succumbed that he were to wave the white flag of ineffable attraction.
"I tried to keep it hidden, Lyssa - I really did."
"-But having you back in my life, at Saltburn. It's changed everything for me."
"Are-," Lyssa paused, taking a step away from the wall and towards Felix - who's face was riddled with weariness.
"-Are you confessing your love to me, Catton?"
Lyssa jested, her index finger peircing his chest, leading him backwards until his hands automatically propped themselves up on the balcony as his back hit the banister that overlooked the reception of the house.
"Love? Now, Sol - I wouldn't go that far."
Felix prodded back, his expression finding comfort again in his distinct, witty smirk that he found to appear whenever he were bickering with Lyssa.
"Well, it sure sounds like you are." She shrugged, letting her finger trail down his chest and abdomen as it settled at her side.
"Say everything you said again, that was hot."
"Are you being serious?"
He joked, stifling a laugh, dipping his head to hide the mild embarrassment that was a result of his poorly-communicated feelings.
Felix wasn't used to the feeling of embarrassment, but luckily, Lyssa Sol was to be his designated teacher.
"Dead serious, baby." She grinned facetiously,
"I love it when you can't make any of your cocky remarks - when your confidence disintegrates around me." She whispered, husk as she looked upwards at him.
"Yeah?," He replied, removing a hand from the banister and placing it on her hip.
He partly did this as a way to steady them both, for his back was leant slightly over the balcony rail, and Lyssa was pressed against him.
"Mhm," She nodded, placing her hand over his on her hip.
"There's nothing better than watching you fall off of your pedestal, Catton." She ludicrously admitted.
"-The way you whimper for me like a lost fucking puppy."
This seemed to have driven Felix to his boiling point, for he - at breakneck speed, like a moth to a flame - raised his grip from Lyssa's hip to her neck, guiding her into him.
Yearn and absolute ravenous hunger fortified their kiss.
For it was wet, savoured; at a quick enough pace to where they struggled to control their breathing, nor their bodies.
As if their attraction towards one another was left to hopefully famish to death in the desert of deeming themselves playfully platonic -
Yet they'd overstepped so many of the unspoken platonic boundaries that their label spiralled into absurdity.
However, despite both Catton and Sol's efforts to bury these feelings deep beneath the sand, the rekindling of their relationship mangled their efforts.
Flooding their fortresses with undeniable want.
For when they'd spoken for the first time since last summer, it had felt as though their malnourished souls, the forecast of the desert in which they laid these feelings to rest in hopes they'd decay, had been ruined.
For the second first conversation gave the affect of spring showers, or a summer storm that was unforeseen after a deep heat.
The desert that had once been the previous cemetery for their shrivelled hearts had moistened - the dew of, despite not being newfound, intensified attraction sept into their hearts - and so, they began to beat again.
Since this, it had started to rain in their desert.
Lyssa wasn't familiar to this rain. For she were a cactus. Prickled, desiring little for others' touch nor attention.
An acquaintance of self-inflicted isolation and she thought was naturally a part of her.
Yet, after feeling the exhilarating douse of liquified tension that made her feel as if she were intoxicated minus the hangover, the feeling of adoration that was reciprocated, she flourished from a hopeless cacti into a Labyrinth.
For she was a Labyrinth regarding her thoughts - endless possibilities, uncanny connections, inquisitive combinations that lead to different encounters and conclusions.
Yet, she was blossoming. Her walls had become decorated with evergreen and wildflowers.
And she enjoyed letting one particular ambitious adventurer explore her depths.
For to Felix Catton, she were everything.
A Labyrinth he loved to get lost within, a sun in which he desired to burn beneath, and a heiress in which he'd surrender his kingdom to.
Desperation can take a drastic impact on one's perspectives, passions, and thoughts.
And this desperation for Lyssa Sol proved a disease to his brain.
A infesting parasite that gouged into his head and his heart, tearing out all rationality.
For the further he hesitated, his his feelings beneath the platonic sand, the more he deranged he became.
A undetectable, yet hysteric internal war to which, since holding Lyssa Sol for the first time again in months, he'd decided to submit to.
And she knew this, for there were no other reason she'd be degrading the one of Oxford's favourite, spoiled-rotten Saltburn heir.
And so, Lyssa claimed this territory.
First through bruises upon his neck, but now, through tainting his lips - that were previously deprived of the unmatched flavour that was of raw passion.
But, as the rain that was undeniable attraction moistened their skin, and their lips - they found themselves not being able to get enough of it.
Lyssa gasped against Felix's lips as he deepened the kiss, for the final product of their, at first, oblivious pining tasted better than he could have ever fantasised.
Lyssa Sol had officially taken her first bite of the apple, the ripest, most tempting one decked upon the forbidden tree.
And Felix Catton had reached the centre of the sun, moulding against it, unwilling to let go.