Falls

He expects her to pull away as soon as she regained her balance. After all, he was a strange stallion in a strange place. Instead, she curls into him and he is helpless to resist her touch. The smile that curls along his lips is a reflection of the happiness growing in his chest, and he could not have held it back if he wanted to. The press of her lips against his neck was innocent in theory, but that didn't stop it from sending tendrils of desire racing across his skin.

He speaks to fill the silence, but he can hardly think beyond the press of her muzzle to his withers and he wishes he could reciprocate without scaring her away. It feels a bit like the moments he'd spent stalking the rabbits of the Cove; it was not often that the golden colt found himself without playmates, but in the rare moments when he'd been alone, he'd been unable to stay still and had spent many an hour learning to move slowly so as not to scare them away.

"Ariah," he echoes in a soft murmur, his breath pluming into small clouds of water vapor. It was a pretty name - delicate and fitting for the gentle mare at his side and he committed it to memory, wanting to cherish this moment even if she fled away from him and he never saw her again. He curls around her, not wanting to dislodge her but wishing he could cradle her closer in every way possible. Ever so gently, he touches his pale muzzle against the milk-white expanse of her neck and breathes in the soft feminine scent of her, only to feel his throat burn with the undercurrent of the season. Again that urge to press closer - to be fiercer, to be more demanding, to push his luck - rose in his mind and again, he fought it back.

The insistence of the thoughts disturbed him, considering she had just fallen down the embankment. His mind seemed to consider that fact only a minor inconvenience that could easily be overlooked, rather than a fact that made taking advantage of her sweetness a doubly reprehensible act. Still, his body well remembered the indulgences he'd engaged in with Silka the year before and the beautiful Raksha earlier this season, and it was ever eager to repeat the same action.

Are you warmer now? she asks innocently and another strangled chuckle escapes him. He was, in fact, quite warm, although not in entirely appropriate places. He swallows hard and nods, trailing his lips through the delicate ribbons of her mane before he manages to gather himself enough to speak again. "I am." Even those two syllables were a feat of concentration in his feverish mind, and it's all he can do to keep himself from falling apart at the seams as she hums against his coat. He's so focused on keeping himself together that he almost doesn't catch her next question; when his mind comprehends it, another desperate sort of chuckle ripples from him. The cold rarely affected him. In fact, he hadn't been the slightest bit chilly when he'd approached her, but he wanted an excuse to invite her closer.

To keep her against him for as long as he could.

"No," he finally murmurs, mirth mingling with the strain of talking in this state. Trying to keep his mind on their conversation rather than on envisioning what it might be like to slip further back, to trail his muzzle down the crease of her back. "I love the cold," he finally manages, smiling against whatever part of her he could still reach. "You can't really snuggle in the summer… it's why I love living where I do."

The thought of his home in the context of this moment with Ariah made him want it to happen so poignantly that he pulled himself back from being wrapped around her. The few sidling steps back that he took - just enough that his shoulder rested near her ribs so that he could look her eye to eye - were torture for a few different reasons. Not only did he hate separating himself in any way, but it also put him far closer to the back half of her body and the temptation that accentuated.

"Ariah," he murmured, his voice thick with need. "Would you-," his voice breaks and he swallows, burying his muzzle as close to the point of her wither as he could and drawing in a steadying breath. Trying again, he gathers what few remaining wits he has and forces more words from his lips. "Will you-," again, they falter into an unintelligible mumble. He isn't even sure what he is trying to ask her. Whether he's pleading for her to be his, or to come home with him, or to let him take her now, propriety aside.

Suleiman does not yet have the self-control built by other older, more mature stallions who have learned to temper their impulses. He is young, and eager, and overwhelmed. His whole body was flush with attraction and desire. Ariah is beautiful and sweet, and she seemed to need him. This in and of itself was a more powerful aphrodisiac than anything else he had ever experienced. Perhaps that was why he was so devoted to Silka. She, too, needed him.

Silently he ran his lips along her side, unable to give voice to the desire that sparked hungrily in his eyes. His muzzle trailed upward, and he hooked his over the ridge of her withers, the movement a plea of its own.