Burn

A spark in the dark begins it. The stolen lighter flares and goes out, flares again with the flip of a thumb. Tongue between lips he worries what she thinks of him, not even man enough to start a fire on a cold night in the middle of that bushland. The middle of nowhere really. Just a clearing with a random mass of rocks arranged in the middle. Someone else’s little construction he’s claimed as his own. This is his place now, and that his monument.
And she is his girl, at least for now, in this particular special moment in the history of their lives. He smiles as the lighter flares again, and the flame hold in the night. With shaking hands, anticipation maybe, or nervous fear, he inches towards the small pile of sticks arranged in the centre of the rocky mounds. Their craggy edges catch the light, a million tiny shadows that only he can see. Flame touches paper and ink flares purple and green as the fire grabs hold and the crackle of sticks whispers their surrender to the flames. A spark jumps towards his face, and falls onto his lip with a sizzle. With a slight grimace at the sting he licks his lips, tasting burn.
She is still sitting exactly as she had been when he turns to face her. A slight grin plays on the edge of her features. A strange expression, he isn’t quite certain. She’s unsure, that’s what it is. So is he.
Sitting next to her, the heat from the fire seems to barely matter. It is the body heat that grabs him, flared nostrils and resisting the urge to lick his lips again. Don’t want to be too obvious. Don’t want her to know. He wonders what she is thinking. Gathering up the courage for a glance he finds she is already staring at him. Hungry. Waiting. Opportunity enough.
A subtle lean with no confidence starts another kind of fire.
That burst of light at the same time his lips touch hers and neurones fire to synapses a million explosions of pleasure. She, reaching around the back of his head for a better grip on that mouth, feels the fire inside begin to roar, a burning growing from the patient embers waiting for the right wind. There is a taste in him that she longs for, that she craves. Tongues reach to the back of throats in a frenzy only known to desperate teens and those reliving teenage moments. A pause for breath, another grin pushed up close against his face. His breath is a tornado of fire, singeing the hairs on her cheeks, her eyelashes. More kisses, more tongue. Bodies mesh together, mould into one. He breaks off to whisper in warm words:
“You’re hot.”
“I know,” she whispers back, and her hands find his hair again, pulling hard. She can feel him flinch. This is her favourite part because they never notice the other hand reaching the chin and latching on. Muscles tense as she brings his head around to place it’s never been. There’s a slight tension, but she pushes through. A crack rewards her effort, and the fire shivers in return as one last hot breathe escapes the empty cavity of that warm mouth. Eyes roll back to blackness and the night sky shows no stars beyond the two lights in the girl’s eyes. She drags the body, no longer a boy, towards the centre of the clearing.
Another foundation for her rock pile, she thinks. That is her own little claim on this space. Her monument.