Pumpkin Spice: messy hair, and warm mugs; our muses are sitting around, having the perfect lazy day…most of it a daze of stolen kisses, and the taste of pumpkin spice on each other’s lips

A little rum never hurt anybody, and especially not when paired with good old pumpkin spice. Jinah stared down at her mug, enchanted by the ripples forming across the surface of the steaming liquid as it splashed around its ceramic prison. It smelt absolutely intoxicating, and if she was to be brutally honest with herself, so did he.

An indistinct shift in position of the man she was leaning against broke her trance and she glanced at him under hooded lids to meet eyes that were darker than spilt ink. Her gaze flickered over his features - his pupils were dangerously dilated, and the fading, effervescent light of the ocher hued evening seemed to almost bleed into his hair, dying his locks a warm orange color. His thin cashmere sweater exposed his collarbones - stained with dark red blossoms.

Jinah touched her scarlet lips with a tiny, wicked smile. Ah, she thought. That may have been my doing.

The entire afternoon had gone by in a flurry of kisses, and most of what she vaguely remembered included her knuckles strained white with haste procured as she knotted his hair with her fingertips, creating her own curly haven of dissonance. She had recollections of her soft hands blindly mapping out each and every line of his palm as they engaged in idle, detached chatter, and her lips absentmindedly mouthing his name like a prayer she had forgotten a long time ago while she curiously played with his wrist - varicose veins bubbling beneath translucent skin. “James,” was all he said about himself, and she was perfectly content with that.

Jinah also recalled that his swollen mouth had tasted rather like fire, or perhaps that had simply been the pumpkin spice. 

All too soon, her eyes grew heavy and the room started to become a little too warm for her taste. She curled up just inches beside his shoulder, lips parting just as the world became mute to her ears and her surroundings went dark. “Spare key’s on the table. Lock up when you leave and drop it into the mailbox,” she instructed with a throaty murmur.

After all, she only knew his name, and Jinah was hardly a naive little girl. Strangers never stayed.