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Eames slipped in and out of strangers skins like breathing. It was a talent at the very heart of her job, obviously, but more than that Arthur knew she enjoyed it. Eames had been a chameleon in real life long before she’d hit the dream scene, slipping into minds and forms with an ease that made Arthur uncomfortable. It had taken years just to feel at ease in his own skin, he couldn’t imagine living in someone else’s.
They weren’t the same; he would never want them to be. Eames was all dark ink and soft skin and curves against his own straight, hard implacable lines.
She lay across their messy sheets in her panties and tank top, breathing slow and shallow in the heat. An ancient desk fan blew lethargic air across her, making barely enough of a breeze to ruffle her tangled curls. Arthur watched surreptitiously while she bit and licked lazily at her dry lips until they were red and bee stung.
“Darling?”
“Here,” he held out the cold, perspiring glass in his hand, decorated in kitschy sunflowers.
Eames too the glass with a soft sigh and sipped slowly, licking sour sweet tea off of the rim where his mouth had touched a minute ago. She slitted a sly look up at him and held the glass close to her chest when he made to take it back.
“It’s too hot to lie around in bed together,” Arthur protested.
“Nonsense.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then do it anyways.” Her cool blue eyes slid closed, dark lashes against her flushed cheeks.
He couldn’t remember why they’d decided to summer in Mombasa, it was hot as sin. Eames liked it though; liked slipping out of all her clothes and simply existing, all messy blonde hair and full lips and wicked eyes teasing him until he caved.
Arthur lay down carefully on the empty side of bed, dressed in a linen shirt and board shorts, his only deference to the weather. They didn’t touch except where the trailing edge of her hair tickled his cheek; the soft brush of her calloused fingertips against his; the fan wafting gently across both their skins.