"So, uh… what should we name this thing?"
It was just a bonsai tree. Tiny, fragile, tucked into the corner of our windowsill. But Violet had a habit of naming everything we owned, from chipped mugs to ceiling stains. So I asked for her input.
"You're better at names than I ammm~" She added with a grin, dragging out the last word like always. I mirrored the sound, to tease her, and tilted my head thoughtfully. Her eyes, almond-shaped, feline, caught the moonlight just right. I could get lost in them forever.
"Hm… how about Yggdrasil?"
"The world tree?" She asked, raising a brow.
I nodded, smiling.
"A lot of responsibility for such a tiny tree, don't you think?" She added.
We both laughed. The soft kind of laugh you only share in the quiet glow of night, when the world is still and you feel like you're the only two people left inside it. The moonlight spilled across the floor through our only open window, pale and delicate like a silk sheet, draping itself around her.
I couldn't resist anymore.
I laid her down gently onto the floor, brushing her locs aside as I pressed kisses along her neck. Her fingers tangled in my locs, her breath catching every time my tongue traced her collarbone. I loved the way she shivered beneath me, loved the way her body trembled under my hands, delicate and wanting.
I started slowly, grazing her skin with my lips, sucking gently until the sounds she made began to unravel me. Her soft squeals, her little gasps, I wanted to live in them, stretch them into forever.
"I wish this moment could last forever," I whispered into her ear, nibbling the top gently, then trailing my tongue down along its edge. She murmured my name, a breathy "Rose~" that lit my chest on fire. No words could capture what she made me feel, not fully.
I pulled back to look at her. Her slim eyes blinked up at me, glazed and pleading. I smiled, speechless. I was about to say something, anything, when the room shifted.
It was subtle at first, almost unnoticeable. But something was off.
There was no ticking.
The clock.
I stood, blinking. The familiar metronome of our wall clock, ever-present, grounding, was gone. The silence rang louder than our breathing.
"Sorry," I muttered, almost to myself. "I… I can't really focus without it."
Violet looked up, her expression half-curious, half-concerned. "What are you talking about?"
She was still tracing the fresh marks on her neck, her fingers lingering on the skin I'd claimed. I moved into the hallway and climbed up onto the small chair beneath the clock. Its hands were still. Frozen.
But that couldn't be right, I'd just replaced the batteries last week.
Puzzled, I pulled it down and reached for my phone in my pocket. Pressed the button.
Nothing.
No glow. No buzz. Just black glass in my hand.
My chest tightened. I don't let my phone die. Ever.
"Hey, Violet!" I called, trying to keep my voice steady.
She padded toward me, still looking half-lost in the moment. "Yeah?"
"Can you check your phone? Mine won't turn on."
She frowned, pulled hers out, pressed the button a few times. "I think it's dead… sorry." She slid it back into her pocket, but I could hear the worry creeping into her tone now.
I stepped off the chair and peered into the bedroom.
Rocket, our kitten, was curled in his bed. Still as stone. Not even a twitch of his ear when the door opened, no pounce, no meow. That wasn't like him.
I rushed outside. Violet followed, barefoot and confused.
And that's when we saw it.
The sky.
Birds, suspended mid-flight. Not flapping. Not falling. Just… hanging. Like someone had pressed pause on the entire world.
The stars didn't twinkle. The wind didn't move. The clouds, the air, everything was still.
Time had stopped.
We stood there, swallowed by silence, staring in awe at the sky above us, stars suspended mid-motion, frozen like shattered diamonds in time.
"This… this is awesome."
The words slipped out of me before I could stop them, not planned, just honest. The sheer beauty of it all was overwhelming. Violet's eyes darted from the sky to me, wide and shimmering. She leaned in close, her breath tickling the shell of my ear.
"Well… now we have forever, don't we?"
My heart lurched. It felt like it might tear through my ribs and spill onto the lawn.
She pulled me into a kiss, backing up until her spine met the cool wall of our home. Our lips crashed together, messy and desperate, our tongues twining like snakes in a slow, burning dance. My hands slid down the soft line of her body, from her midriff to her waist, gripping the curve of her hips as if letting go wasn't an option. Wasn't even possible.
We clung to each other like gravity, like the stars needed the sky, like the earth needed the pull of the moon.
"I love you so damn much."
The words fell from my lips unannounced, unfiltered, but true. So painfully true. I'd been thinking them all night, and now they were finally free.
"I love you too, Rose. So much."
Her voice was ragged, breathless, her fingers digging into my back like she was anchoring herself to this moment.
I moved to the side of her neck and sunk my teeth into her skin, not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to leave a mark, to stake a quiet claim. She bit down on her bottom lip, trying to muffle the sound bubbling up in her throat.
"Don't hold it in," I whispered against her skin. "It's just us right now. No one else. Let me hear how pretty you sound."
And she did.
Her cries rang out into the frozen night, raw, unfiltered, beautiful.
Time had stopped, but everything we felt in that moment pulsed louder than any ticking clock.
This, this was everything I'd ever wanted.
"I… I don't think you want to get down out here, do you?"
The words stumbled out between ragged breaths, my chest still rising and falling with aftershocks of her touch.
She smiled, that slow, knowing smile, and dragged a single finger down the length of my torso, feather-light, teasing, until it reached the very tip. The sensation sparked through my nerves like a surge of electricity, clean and blinding.
"C'mon, my love," she said, her voice smooth and dangerous, like a siren luring me to shore, or ruin.
She turned, hips swaying side to side in a rhythm that hypnotized me. Each step was a swing of the pendulum, and I followed it without question, caught in her gravity like a moth drawn helplessly to flame. The only thought in my mind was how badly I wanted to devour her.
Inside, she led me to the bedroom and perched on the edge of the bed. She crossed her legs slowly, deliberately, her eyes never leaving mine. Those feline eyes, unreadable, inviting, all-consuming.
I dropped to one knee before her like a worshipper at an altar. With deliberate care, I began to undress her.
Her sweatpants slid off easily, pooling at her ankles to reveal long, slender legs that shimmered in the low light. Her skin was smooth, statuesque, like something carved with reverence. I peeled off each sock, one by one, revealing feet that were somehow beautiful in a way I couldn't explain, like a delicate sculpture.
I lifted one gently and pressed a kiss to the top of it. Then another. And another. I could've stayed there, adoring her like this, forever. There was peace in the act, a slow, quiet reverence that made time feel sacred.
The kisses turned into long, tender strokes of my tongue, dragging slowly from the top of her foot to her ankle… then to her calf… and then to her thigh. With each inch, her breathing shifted, soft, scattered sounds escaping her lips like the tentative keys of a piano.
As I neared the inside of her thigh, her gasps came more frequently, delicate and rising, like the first notes of a sonata barely played.
The slow trail of my tongue turned back into gentle kisses as I neared her most tender place, soft, trembling, divine. Every inch brought me closer to the sacred space between us, a quiet altar I approached with reverence. Each kiss deepened, became slow bites, lingering licks, more worship than hunger.
I wanted her to feel every second of it. To melt into pleasure before I even took my share.
Her black lace panties lingered before me like a veil before the holy, delicate, intricate, the final barrier to something eternal. I slid them off with my teeth, slow and deliberate, and Violet bit her lip as she watched, her fingers slipping into my locs again, her grip tightening.
So did mine, my hands gripped the curve of her thighs with longing and care. I was ready to plunge into the water that beckoned me forward.
But then, she stopped me.
"I-I'm sorry. I can't."
The moment froze. I gave her inner thigh one last kiss, and she shivered at the touch.
"It's alright, my love." I kissed her forehead, smiling softly. I would never take her beyond where she was ready to go, that's not what love is.
I sat beside her, reaching for her pants, but she gently declined. Instead, she leaned back, letting her legs drape over mine. My hands, drawn to her without thinking, began massaging her calves and feet, slow and tender, like I was still speaking to her through touch.
"So," she asked, tilting her head at me. Her locs, a vivid blue that melted into deep violet, flowed down her bare shoulder like ocean waves under a twilight sky. "Do you think we're the only ones who can move?"
I looked at her, really looked. "Honestly? Yeah. But I think we'd get pretty bored if time stayed frozen forever."
She laughed, soft and real. "Yeah… but at least I'd get to spend it with my darling fiancé."
The words made my heart catch. I smiled, opened my mouth to speak-
Tick.
The sound stabbed through the silence like a blade. The clock.
We froze.
Fumbling for our pockets, we both checked our phones. They lit up.
1:02 AM.