Calden allows her that distance. He doesn't touch her except incidentally. He doesn't reach for her or reel her in or -- any of that. He doesn't push. So they share the shower but little else; they wash themselves clean, wash the sweat and the sex and the smell of their odd little date, if it can even be called that, off of their skin. Down the drain. They don't speak.
When she steps out, he's standing under the spray still, letting that warmth soak into his bones. He opens his eyes as the door opens or the curtain slides back. His hair is flat against his skull, not a trace of wave or auburn to be seen; there's water caught in his eyelashes, water plastering even the hair on his body to his skin. He smiles at her a little. She steps out.
He follows a few moments later. A hotel like this provides bathrobes, so he takes one from behind the door; slides into it, opens the bathroom door, follows Avery out into the bedroom -- or wherever she might be.
"Hey," he says when he finds her, quietly. "I'm sorry I..."
He trails off. Looks for the right words. Doesn't find them, but finds some words nonetheless:
"I'm sorry I got a little intense. About us," he adds. He'd waited for her to look at him before speaking, but now it's his eyes sliding away from hers, glancing out the window at the city. The mountains.
"I like what we've got," he says at length. They return to her, those eyes of his that seem merely warm and hazel in all but the most direct light. In all but the most intimate distances. "It doesn't have to be anything more or less than this if you don't want it to be."
Seems like there should be something else; an else to the if. After a moment he simply shrugs, though, those broad shoulders moving under the thick, plush robe.
Avery ChaseIt's alarming how well some people can be physically present, even feign the picture of human connection that smiles and eye contact indicate, and not be there at all. It's alarming, and sad, to see that at least for a while, Avery is there but seems to be ignoring the fact that he is, too. They wash, and she's polite and she's even friendly, but it's nothing like when she was leaning against his side at Ziggie's.
He smiles at her as she gets out of the shower. She is drying her hair with a towel, and she doesn't seem to notice. She hangs her towel. She pulls on a bathrobe, smaller than the standard one that comes with the room because she called and asked for one that wasn't made for an obese six-foot-tall man, please and thank you. She walks out, wet-haired, to find the bed linens changed and turned down, little chocolate-almond truffles on the pillows, and the tip taken from the nightstand. It pleases her, and she smiles as she climbs onto the sweet-smelling bed, breathing in the freshly laundered smell and picking up one of the truffles.
Avery is lying on her back, wer hair hanging off of the opposite side of the bed, savoring the chocolate, when Calden emerges. Her legs are stretched out, the shadows and cloth of her robe barely concealing that pussy he was so eagerly fucking so very many times not so long ago. She looks quite luxurious. And she lifts her head when he says Hey, propping herself up on one elbow to look at him.
Her eyebrows tug together. He's apologizing and she doesn't know why. Neither does he, at first. He looks away, but she goes on looking directly at him, trying to puzzle out what has him so wary of her, so wary of talking to her with the ease they normally have. He apologizes for being intense, and for a moment she's about to tell him it wasn't too rough this time, he didn't hurt her or anything. As it turns out, however, that isn't what he's talking about.
Avery opens her mouth to respond, then exhales and closes it again. She sits up more fully, finishing her truffle. While she's chewing it, she pats the bed beside her. She welcomes him over, and he comes to her. She smiles as she hands him the other truffle. Whether he eats it or not, she sits with him in the very bed where they just destroyed each other, watching him.
"I like you," she says, and it's one of those moments where she is not being coy, not being flirtatious, not witty. "So... I want to be up-front with you." She licks her lips, tasting chocolate, and smiles thinly. "There was someone, and for a long time, and not very long ago." Avery takes a sip of air there. "He had a difficult choice to make, and he did what he thought was best."
This is perhaps the most heartbreaking thing: she means that. It was long enough ago for her to even hate him.
"It's part of why I'm living here now," she admits, meeting Calden's eyes. She says that baldly, honestly: she moved herself and her family and her servants god knows how far to get away from this man, to get away from seeing him, having to talk to him, from being unable to go anywhere or see anyone without thinking about him. And in its own way, that is a kid of weakness. A running-away. Escaping. Putting as much distance between herself and that pain as she could. On the other hand, she admits it without balking. It is what it is. She shows no shame for it.
Her slim hand reaches out and covers his, eyes taking his and holding them far more firmly than she holds his hand. "I did not expect to meet you at all, much less end up in bed with you scarcely an hour after that meeting. And to be blunt, it is... extraordinarily good with you. Which can be confusing." There's a small pause. "Perhaps for both of us," she adds, but moves past it. She doesn't really know him. All she knows is that not so long ago, what she saw in his eyes and heard in his voice was so complicated, so conflicted, that she couldn't even tell if he was pleased or distressed by what he was feeling.
"I don't think you were 'intense' about us," Avery murmurs to him, her thumb stroking between his knuckles, her gaze turning down to look at his hand for a moment, watching the passage of her own flesh against his. "I just don't want to jerk you around. Or confuse you." Her hand slips under his, drawing his hand up. She holds his hand in both of hers then, laying a soft kiss on the back of his hand before she lifts her eyes to his again. They are so intensely, perfectly blue, darker now than they are in sunlight, the silver at the edges turned to smoke. "But I do enjoy simply being around you. And I adore the way you fuck. I just don't know what else I may be able to give you, or what else you might want.
"So that's where I stand," she says quietly. "What about you?"
Calden WhiteAvery does, in fact, look luxurious there on the bed -- her wet hair pouring off the side of the mattress, chocolate on her tongue. She looks like luxury itself, like gold, like ivory and pearls, like a prize. Something priceless. Calden comes to sit by her, and the truth is it's hard for him not to reach out and undo that knot on her sash. Not to lay her robe open in two smooth flicks of his wrist, one to each side, and devote himself to her skin.
He doesn't, though. He tells her what he does: that he likes this. He likes her. He likes what they have, and he is satisfied with it. No; wait. He didn't say that. He said: it doesn't have to be more.
And she says
what she does. Which fills in some of the gaps. Pieces of that story she began to tell him last time, in his wine cellar, long before they'd even crossed the line between acquaintances and sexual partners. He'd made some assumptions then; he sees that most of them -- though not all -- were wrong.
When she's finished, he's quiet a while. There's a slow smoulder in his eyes when she kisses his hand; looks up at him. In this form, she seems far more delicate than he. Slim, elegant, curvaceous, gorgeous. His eyes go to their hands for a moment. He remembers that glorious white beast leaping over the bed of his truck. Remembers it lifting the half-eaten elk, far too heavy for him to manage alone, with hardly any strain at all.
"I love your honesty," he says; it's the first thing on his mind. Then his mouth quirks. He loves, he loves, he loves. He looks at her again, the smile more in his eyes than on his lips. "And to be honest in return: I don't even know where I stand.
"I meant what I said. I like you. I like being with you. I like this. The sex, the conversation, the company." He laughs a huff, "I even like having a semi-secret lover. It's ... exciting. You're exciting.
"And I am okay with what we've got. Nothing more or less. At least ... for now, I am."
A small pause.
"As for what I want -- that's a little more confusing. I don't know. I didn't expect to meet you either, Avery," a hint of wryness, "let alone end up in bed with you an hour later.
"Four times. Or maybe it was five." He huffs. "I don't know. I never even stopped to think what if about someone like you. I'm still... not really thinking about the what-ifs. I just know I like being with you. And I know -- "
This is a little more difficult. He thinks, there's a frown deepening those lines across his brow; his thumb brushes over her knuckles as he thinks.
"When we have sex, sometimes it feels like we've got a real connection. I don't know what it is and I don't know what it means. But I like it. And then sometimes afterward it feels like that connection just goes away. And I didn't like that much."
He looks at her again. That frown is still there, but it's not anger. It's something closer to worry: that he's upsetting her, that he's ruining something for her.
"I get it, though," he adds. "What you just said. It makes sense to me, all of it. And I don't want to be unreasonable. I don't expect anything more from you than what we've already got."
Avery ChaseSome of the look in his eyes when he sees her draped over the bed like that lingers as she's sitting up, facing him. Avery notices it, but isn't surprised or dismayed by it. The truth is, now that she's taken a bit of a break, just looking him in the eye has her thinking it isn't such a bad idea if he stays, it isn't a horrible idea that he might get on top of her again. He does look nice in that robe. Without the markers of his jeans and boots and red-checked shirt and well-worn hat, he could be the sort of man who stays regularly at the Ritz-Carlton.
Avery thinks to herself that if he walks over to the bed and opens his robe and climbs onto the mattress with her, she'll eat him alive. She has no other choice. She won't be able to help herself.
That isn't how it goes. He sits with her and they talk. Quite honestly, and quite boldly, with his hand in hers and their voices quiet because they have no reason to speak even at a normal tone of voice when they're this close. They talk about her history, and his feelings, and he uses the word love again but seems to realize for himself, right away, how dangerous a territory that might actually be. Or, if not outright dangerous, at least confusing. It does, after all, feel good to be loved. Even a little.
In his words, including the ones he chooses not to say aloud, Avery senses what he means. He's okay with this. For now. He doesn't say he's satisfied. He, too, has lost count of how many times they've gone round the bend with each other. What comforts her, rounding her shoulders down and releasing some of the tension from her, is that he hasn't really thought of all the what-ifs either. He isn't thinking about Their Future Together or any of that. She hasn't, either. And neither of them need to.
As he goes on, though, he admits the crux of the matter: what he feels, or thinks he feels, when they're fucking. What it feels like when it goes away. Avery just listens. She doesn't frown or look away or get suddenly sad. She listens to him, wholeheartedly and with an intention and directness that people seldom give each other anymore. In that vein, she isn't rushing to apologize or to fix that, to promise him that it won't happen again, it's okay, she'll make it better. It is what it is. They are as they are, even if they aren't quite sure what that is.
In the end, Avery leans over and kisses him softly on the corner of his mouth. A tender warmth spreads through her from that point of contact and she kisses him again, this time fully on his lips, but she tries not to let it go too deep, too hard, too fast. It stays slow. It does go on a little longer than she intended, though, and she tastes his mouth slightly. She tastes like salted almonds and milk chocolate, for a moment there.
Her eyes are open when she lets go of that kiss, drawing back a little but staying close, brows almost touching. "Okay," is all she says. It seems they don't need to say more than that.
Calden WhiteReally, it's rather amazing that they had such a thoughtful, honest conversation just now. It's amazing considering the way he looked at her laid out like that. It's amazing considering the way she looked at him looking at her and thought
she could eat him alive.
But they do. They have a real conversation. Just like sometimes they have playful, scintillating conversations that keep him on his toes, allow him to use those not-inadequate brain cells of his for something more than tallying cows and calves and profit margins. They talk about -- them, he supposes. Or this. And when they're done she says, okay.
And leans over. And he tilts his head, and her lips touch his, and
it is okay. It's more than okay. His lips are closed but relaxed at first; then they part. She tastes like chocolate, salted almonds. She tastes like Avery Chase.
When she draws back, she can see his eyes closed for a moment. Dark lashes, dark eyebrows. A face carved by the elements and his own admirable genes, the brow lined by those extra ten years and that lifetime of work. His eyes open, then. He smiles at her, exhales like a sigh.
"You gonna take it wrong if I tell you what a beautiful woman you are, Miss Chase?" he whispers, and ah: there it is again. That hint of play, of flirtation. "Think I'm just using you for your body, and all?"
Avery Chase"No," she says, which seems plain enough at first, but she's smirking dryly, her eyes sparking in response to him. She kisses him again, quicker this time, and before it ends her hand has reached into his bathrobe. Her hand touches his chest, smoothing over the slab of his pectoral, and though she never quite touches his nipple, her fingertips nearly graze it. It's tantalizing. It's teasing.
Avery stops kissing him, but by then her hand has retreated as well. "No," she repeats. "But if I let you fuck me again I think I might die. So,"
and her fingertip taps his chin as she draws back. She slips back up the bed, elbows to the pillow, leaning against the headboard. "I'm going to watch television. You may cuddle me if you like, but none of those octopus hugs that impede my respiration. And nothing too handsy," she adds, giving him a stern Look.
Calden WhiteCalden looks down as that second kiss parts: at her hand slipped under the lapel of his hotel bathroom, her palm warm against his skin. Withdrawing, her fingertips brush through the hair there; he looks at her with a faint smirk, one eyebrow quirking. That's the expression her fingernail taps when it hits that square jaw of his.
"I wouldn't dream of it," he promises solemnly, "though for the record, you're the one getting a little handsy here, Miss Chase. Not that I'm complaining.
"You should give me a tour," he adds as he gets up, offering his hand. That smirk widens: "We brutish cow-herding peasants don't see digs so fine as these very often."
Avery Chase"Excuse you," she says primly, as he starts to get up off the bed. Her eyebrows lift as she looks at his extended hand, then back at him. "You've seen all you need to see, Mr. White. Get back in the bed this instant."
Calden WhiteDice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[i'm gonna note for posterity that we've rerolled our rolls instead of C&Ping... and WE GOT THE EXACT SAME # OF SUCCESSES BOTH TIMES.]
Avery Chase[for empathy read!1: she's really just being playful2: she's TIRED after all that cuz she is not Stamina 4 like SOME people lol3: she would not mind cuddling with Calden a little without it turning into secks]
Calden WhiteCalden turns to look at Avery. There's something keen in his eyes, just for a moment; a tip to his head that's very nearly animal. Then he grins, relenting, their outstretched arms relaxing again as he comes back to bed.
He lets go her hand, then. He undoes the sash on his robe, and she might think for a minute that he was going to try to fuck her again, god, did he not hear what she said? He doesn't, though. He peels the robe off his shoulders and tosses it onto an empty armchair, then pulls back the covers on one side and slides in. Those freshly changed sheets dip and wrinkle under his weight. Smooth and white and pristine as they are, they contrast sharply with Calden himself -- tanned, vital, potently alive.
He props the pillows against the headboard, leans back. And he pulls the covers quite modestly up to his waist, one arm open for Avery to come and cuddle against his side. There's a remote control on his nightstand. He picks it up and hands it to her.
"No rom-coms," he says. "That's my only request."
Avery ChaseAvery does watch him as he disrobes. What was in his eyes when he looked over at her was nearly animal; there is nothing nearly about the way she looks at him as he unties that sash and drops it on a chair. She looks regal in everything but her eyes, which track hungrily down his body. She watches him as he comes to the other side of the bed and turns down the covers, slipping in between the smooth Egyptian cotton sheets.
The remote, as it happens, is on Avery's 'side' of the bed, the one closer to the door. It isn't that she sleeps there every night. She sleeps in the middle of the bed, in fact. But if he indeed picks it up, he does so by reaching over her, half-covered by sheets while she is mostly covered by her robe. Her hand traces along his arm as he gets it for her.
"Your request," she informs him, enough of a slight emphasis on that word as though to verbally underline it, "is duly noted."
She turns on the television. It's on Animal Planet. Avery smiles to herself and starts flipping channels.
Calden WhiteCalden does, in fact, reach over to grab the remote. And so Avery does run her hand along his arm, which makes him glance at her, half-smiling as he sits back. The arm she caressed settles around her shoulders, just the way it did at Ziggie's, heavy and familiar, intimate without being erotic.
She's still wearing her robe. The cotton is thick and soft against his side, his shoulder, the inside of his arm. She turns the television on and he remembers that truffle she gave him earlier; tears the wrapper open with his teeth. He doesn't savor his the way she did hers. It goes in wholesale, all in a gulp; he tosses the wrapper on 'his' nightstand while she finds Saturday Night Live.
Which they watch together. And no, Calden doesn't recognize most of the guests. He laughs at the jokes, though -- quite hard at the better ones -- and during one of the commercial breaks he gets up and finds his way to her kitchenette and comes back with two glasses of water. One's for her, and he sets it on her nightstand before coming back around.
His arm goes around her shoulder again. She leans against him a little more this time, and then a little more, and then a little more still until her cheek is pressed against his upper chest, her head drooping. He glances down and realizes she's dozed off: eyes closed, mouth relaxed, lips soft. Calden has enough time to think oh no before
his heart does that thing again, makes a little pirouette in his chest and ends up standing on its head. Carefully and gently, he smooths her hair back out of her face. The remote has slipped loose in her hand, so he eases it out of her fingers, mutes the TV, turns on the captions. There's only a few minutes left, anyway.
When SNL ends, Calden turns the television off. He sets the remote aside, and then -- after a moment's consideration -- he twists on the bed, slides his free arm under Avery's thighs, lifts her smoothly and easily from the bed. She wakes; she pulls back the covers, and he leans down to set her gently down on the fresh sheets. Loose-limbed, half-asleep, she shrugs out of that robe. He takes it from her, pulls it out from under her, tosses it over on that armchair atop the one he wore. Then he moves around the room, naked and comfortable in his nudity, turning out the lights one by one until only the bedside lamps are lit.
She's beautiful in that light. She's beautiful in any light. An enchanting creature, he called her. A beautiful woman. He comes to her side of the bed, and he looks down at her, his rough hand stroking back her hair, touching her cheek. He's smiling, if she opens her eyes to see it. His chest rises on a breath he doesn't need to take.
Then -- ludicrous, she might think him -- he folds back the covers and gets in beside her. He crowds her over to the center of the mattress, to the other side of the mattress where his body has left a warm hollow. Reaching back, Calden turns that last light out.
In the darkness, he settles beside her. True to his word -- or to her imperious decree -- he doesn't glomp her. He's near enough that their warmth is shared, though. Near enough that their shoulders brush. Near enough that she can easy roll over and sleep against his side: and if she does, his arm settles around her shoulders just as easily and naturally as it always has.
"Goodnight, Miss Chase," he murmurs. She might not answer. She might already be asleep.
Moments later his breathing grows steady. He drops into sleep easily himself, without reservation.
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