#random clato snippet that has no place in any of my aus yet!!

[cloverskentwells]

"Never thought you'd get on your knees for anyone," Clove snarks at him with an upbeat, teasing lilt in her voice, carefully disguising how her pulse spasms as she feels his long fingers brushing her ankle before working at the laces of her boots with confident, dexterous hands.

That sense of humor he has, which at first came as a shock to her, makes an appearance. Her district partner grins up at her, holding her foot aloft and patting the top of her boot with his left palm. His large hand slides up until it is wrapped around her shin - it comes as no surprise that it completely circles around her leg, but Clove flushes scarlet anyways - and squeezes in warning, even as he jokes with her. "Maybe only for you." Those words, and the deep cadence of his voice, conjure unspeakable images to her mind.

All she'd wanted to do was focus on packing up their remaining supplies and prepare for the day of hunting ahead of them, and he had the nerve to do this. Maybe the rule change had made him more forward, or her more tolerant. Nonetheless, Clove had been too stunned to say anything when he'd pointed out her laces were untied, and then reached her in smooth, confident strides to tie them himself, periodically making eye contact with her and forcing her to tear her gaze away from him, focus on anything else but the fact that his short blonde hair looked so easily grabbable from this distance, and how gentle his touch was.

Now, as he rises until he is once again at his full height, his hand never seems to want to leave her, maintaining contact with her body the entire time. Gliding up the back of her leg, the side of her thigh, then finding a position on her waist, an area that signifies a danger zone for him and the risk of having his hand cut off. She makes no move to do so, her lips twitching upward in a pleased smile she can't seem to control, practically confirming to her ever observant district partner that the contact wasn't unwanted.

The smug expression on his face tells Clove that he recognizes this all too well.

He tightens his grip with a pressure that is paradoxically gentle, so unlike his brutish nature. "Ready to go, Clove?" Damn him for sounding so casual, so unaffected, when her own thoughts are racing in a swirl of chaos, when he is so close to her, just inches away, a remarkably convenient distance for her to - kill him. Yes, that would be more appropriate than whatever else she was thinking.

Clove brushes past him roughly, not bothering to answer him, with the hopes that if she kept him out of sight, her erratic heartbeat would calm and her hands would stop twitching eagerly. Even so, her best efforts can't seem to remove the image of him on his knees from her mind.