a detour from dinner.

Calden

Oh, she is precious to him. Right now, folded over him, curled against his chest and laid out on his body: she is precious, she is dear, she is adored. He wraps his arms around her as she comes down to him. Tired as he is, well-worn as he is, utterly strengthless with just too much sexing as he is,

he still holds her tight.

And for a long time, that's what they do. They lie there on the ground, atop a rumple of pillows and comforters. She sprawls over him like he is her bed now. He wraps his arms around her, all the way around her with his hands cupping her opposite sides. He could sleep like this. Perhaps he does, but not deeply. When she sighs his eyes flicker open. When she kisses his chest, his heart turns over beneath her lips. He wonders if she can feel it. She must be able to; he can feel it straight through to his spine. Straight through to the crown of his head, the soles of his feet.

Avery pushes herself up then. Calden is reluctant to let her go; wants very much to keep her. He doesn't, though. His arms loosen, slide down her back. Follow her thighs to her knees to her ankles as she rises. He doesn't make a move to follow. He's all right with this: lying all-asprawl on the ground like some conquered goliath while she looks at him with the corner of her mouth quirking up. He smiles back at her, lazily and wryly, well aware of the mess he is. Sweaty, tousled, flush-cheeked, traceries of her wetness still on his quiescent cock: the term thoroughly fucked comes to mind.

She wants his hand. He stirs, shifting his head on its pillow of ... well, pillows. And sheets. And blankets. He looks at her curiously, and then he obliges. What a well-made creature he is, all broad shoulders and thick muscles. That arm he raises is heavy; that hand he gives her is large, beautifully proportioned, strong knuckles and prominent veins, calloused and warm right to the fingertips. He wonders if she's going to try to pull him up. He doesn't think she'll be capable of it. Not in this form, anyway, and not if he just lies there like a dead dog. Which is about how strong he feels right now -- well-made physique or not.

That's not her intention, though. A pledge: that's her intention. And his eyes change as he listens; grow keen and aching. Worry less. Not feel ashamed. Allow you to go through this with me. Those two words put a banked fire in his eyes again. He's too -- satisfied, we'll call it -- to get angry right now, or argue with her. But his smile hooks for a moment there.

Just for a moment, though. Then it fades into something poignant.

"Thank you," he murmurs. And she releases his hand.

He lets it drop back to his chest to a soft slap. She moves away and he turns his head, watching her feet pad toward the door. Curious turning of the tables, that. When all this started, she was the one lying on the floor, watching his feet move.

"Should we?" He sounds sleepy, and like he's smiling. "I left my tuxedo at home. You'll have to slum it."

Avery

Her hair looks so different, straight like this. He's only seen her occasionally with it both down and straight: after showers, mostly. Sometimes she pulls it up or braids it back, donning tank top and yoga pants. Right now it hangs down her back, and partially obscures that scar on her back. Sometimes he kisses its match on her other side when he caresses her breasts, licks them. His tongue runs over a piece of skin that feels different; she remembers her own death, and how she did not die, and she feels intensely alive as her heart hammers beneath his mouth.

Avery's hands brace light as birds against the doorframe. She breathes in the sunlight, exhales it softly. "I was hardly intending to take you anyplace requiring a tuxedo this time, darling," she chides him lightly, closing her eyes to the day for a moment. "I suppose I shall take you wherever I like, and you shall go dressed in dungarees and red checks and I will outshine you by default."

Her fingers slide down the jamb. She turns, and gets down on the floor on her knees and hands, looking at him from under the bed. Again. Only farther away this time. Her brow quirks.

"I don't suppose you would like to see my library first."

Calden

They look at each other across the bottom-of-the-bed. It's bizarre, and it's absurd, and it's hilarious, and across the way Calden gets that lazy lopsided grin again.

"I don't think you even know," he says, "just how charming I find you." A moment. He adds, "I would love to see your library."

Avery

"I have an idea," Avery murmurs with a wry little turn of her mouth, and it's bizarre and absurd and she finds it absolutely delightful. It was an hour, hour and a half ago that she was crying on the terrace. The sun has passed its apex but is nowhere near setting, still. She remembers her pain, boiling up out of her, untouched for months now but spilling out of her because of -- not in spite of -- the way he gives himself over to her so freely, so entirely. No wonder she has not accepted a pack, does not even seem to be looking for one. Her greatest fear appears to be harming those she cares for by failing, somehow, to manage the gravity of her responsibility to them.

She pushes up off from the ground again, like Atalanta beginning the race, her hair sweeping up from the carpet, her fingertips and then her knees rising up from where they touch earth. The bed rustles, but does not creak, as she climbs up onto it and crawls over, peering down at him.

"You have to get off the floor for that," says she, raising her eyebrows.

Calden

"Miss Chase, you are absolutely right," Calden replies gravely,

and doesn't budge. Not for a while, anyway. He stays right where he is, sprawled, buck naked, utterly unashamed. It feels nice, actually. There's a breeze coming in those opened doors, and it's warm and soft, sliding over his skin. He looks up at her as she appears over the edge of the bed. And he reaches up to her too, his outstretched fingers skimming the ends of her hair. Batting at it, almost. Playful.

"Straight now," he says, quirking a grin: like this charms him too. "It's magic." And then he sits up, casting about, finding his boxers somewhere in the mash. "We should shower before we get dinner," he adds. "I smell like cows and sex."

He's on his feet a moment after. He's picking up the blankets in great big armfuls, dumping them back on the bed. And then he's picking up the pillows too, flinging them to the head of the bed.

"Show me your library first," he says, smiling, holding out his hand. "We'll just walk around naked and scandalize whatever peeping toms you might have."

Avery

Her nose wrinkles at him as he bats at her hair. Her eyes sparkle slightly. He amuses her. He has since the beginning; perhaps it's part of why she keeps him around, keeps letting him come over, keeps going to him, reaching for him, welcoming him. It's magic, he says of her hair.

She thinks of how good he can make her feel, at her most miserable. How peaceful, at her most chaotic. Like magic.

"Mostly sex," she corrects him, because of course she does, and then she smiles. He gets up and she eases back to sit on her heels, watching him. Her brow quirks as he picks things up: "Oh, that's really not necessary," she says as he's tossing pillows and lumping coverlets, as though his behavior of tidying up after himself is utterly ludicrous, and he's only doing it to be ludicrous.

Avery smirks, sly as a witch, looking sidelong at his hand. "Oh, I think we may have already. No matter. Though you have to put your boxers on," she informs him, quite seriously nodding at,

well,

his cock.

Her eyes lift up to his. "Or I'm liable to suck you off among the histories and books of art."

Calden

Calden gives this low rumble of a laugh. "You'll have to remind me again," he says, "why that would be a bad thing."

He acquiesces, though. He picks his boxers up again, steps into them, pulls them up and lets the elastic snap into place just below his obliques.

"There." His hands spread in demonstration, one to either side of his hips. "I'm safe from the threat of library oral. Shall we?"

Avery

Watching him get dressed, Avery thinks, reclining on the bed while he pulls on his boxers, is almost as pleasurable as taking his clothes off of him herself. She lets her eyes grow hooded, thoughtful, stretched out on her half-bared bed, still quite naked despite demanding he cover that thing up. She stares at his groin, however, even as he's opening his hands, telling her he's safe. Her fingernails drum on the sheet she's lying on.

Then her eyes track upward, taking in those tidy obliques, that ridged abdomen, the hard slabs of his pectoral muscles. She looks all the way up to his face again, considering him. And proves that yes, on some level, even the most stable, steady Silver Fang is a bit mercurial:

"Or we could stay here," she murmurs, her voice warm and low. "You could fuck me again." Softer, but no less certain: "Hard, this time."

Calden

"Out of the question," Calden replies immediately, even

as he's coming toward the bed in long strides. Even as he's cupping his hands behind her ankles, tugging her forward by the legs until she's within reach to be scooped right off the mattress. Which is what he does: wraps his arms around her, scoops her right off the mattress, gathers her softness and her leanness and her length of leg and sleekness of back all up in his arms -- not unlike the way he gathered up her comforters a moment ago, actually.

"I have a rule, Miss Chase," he says, quite seriously. You'd never know he was doing what he was doing by his tone alone, "And I'm afraid I must insist on it. I'm dressed for dinner and I've been promised a tour. So there will be no more sex until these activities are completed. So, regrettably -- "

Well. Until now. Until he tips his head up and catches her mouth, kisses her full and slow and sweet on the lips.

Draws back. Drops her backward on the bed. The mattress jounces. He smirks at her: " -- we will not be fucking again."

Avery

At first, Avery takes him seriously. He says out of the question and she sits up halfway on the bed, propped on her elbow, affronted. She looks like a woman two breaths shy of a rousing how dare you?, even as he's walking over to her. Perhaps she thinks he means to lift her off the bed, throw her over his shoulder, and toss her in a bath, and if so, he had better prepare for a fight, because she is not going quietly.

Then his hands wrap smoothly around her ankles and drag her, slowly, to the edge of the bed. Avery takes back the words not yet given to the air, breathing in the conditioned air, and when she realizes he is neither getting on his knees nor folding over her, she chooses option C and sits up, wrapping her arms around his neck as he gathers her up. She moves to kiss him, instantly, tilting her head and sealing her lips to his, drinking the sound of those words out of his mouth, interrupting him halfway, somewhere around promised a tour. Her legs wrap around him. She parts that kiss and takes his eyes and he tells her there will be no more sex and she is about to tell him to fuck her, there, standing, you filthy son of a bitch.

She is wet against his abdomen. He pauses his own words, kisses her again, and Avery leans into it, breasts pressing to his clavicles, arms closing around him, a soft groan shivering through her. And he --

he drops her, and she bares her teeth back at his smirk, a quick flash of reaction, of inflamed pride mingling dangerously with a tenuous grasp on sanity, a swelling moon, and lust that rakes at flesh like claws formed of music. For a moment, dealing with that flare, Avery cannot comprehend a word Calden says. She can't see anything that isn't dimly, hazily tinged in red and white.

Clarity, in a manner of speaking, returns to her as he removes the boxers that not five minutes ago she demanded he put on.

Avery does not wait. She sits up, grabbing him by his hips, and puts her mouth on him. There's no teasing first lick, no playful, wanton stroking with her hand. She takes him as deeply in her mouth as she can, groaning around him at nothing more than the feel of him. She sounds relieved. She sounds longing. She holds him there, wet and warm and tight, for only a moment before she begins to move on him, her tongue sliding along the underside of his erection as she starts to,

well,

suck his cock.

Calden

For a moment there, Calden plays a dangerous game. He denies her: if only in jest, and if only for a moment. That's a line they've never pushed before. She is outrage itself, and then she is rage itself, and somewhere before and between and after

she is molten, vicious hunger.

That kiss makes him hard. The way she wraps her legs around him like maybe she'd like to shimmy down and just ride him like that, standing up, makes him hard. Her tits against his upper chest make him hard, and that groan he can feel shivering all through her makes him hard.

The flash in her eyes, too. He knows it's dangerous. He knows it's risky. He knows where the moon stands and where she stands, and that for all her politesse she is savage at heart. Even her politesse is savage: I think that sounds quite nice, she'd said once. But

right now,

here,

he's so fucking turned on by the look in her eyes. By the way she snarls at him, and by the way she lunges at him when he drops his shorts. There's no resisting her, and he doesn't even try. He half-stumbles that half-step forward, and then his knees bump the bed, and he throws back his head to laugh as she

takes him into her mouth.

That laugh shears sideways into a groan, low and loud. His eyes close, his head snaps back another few degrees. He puts his hand on her hair, gently, and then his fingers thread into that glorious hair of hers. Now he's gripping her a little more firmly, and she's sucking him, and his balance is in his hips; his weight pushes the bed against the headboard. She makes his cock jerk, his breath catch; she makes every muscle in his body spasm, sometimes, with the way her mouth moves.

--

"I want to be inside you."

She's only been on his cock for a few moments. A minute, two on the outside. His hands are in her hair; he's combing his fingers through, again and again; he's easing her gently backward, off, slowly -- stooping the moment his cock slips free of that miraculous mouth of hers. Catching that miraculous mouth of hers and kissing her hard, hungrily, eating at her mouth the way he ate at her cunt.

Muttered, his hands pulling at her, urging her up to her knees, up on his body, just up so she's within reach: "Come here. Come up here so I can fuck you."

Avery

Since April -- which does not seem so very long ago but was months -- they have had each other countless times. It has never been like this, because Avery has never been like this.

Her rage is something to be controlled, something to be kept ready for the appropriate moment, and not something to inflict on her brother, her father, or her lover. Should it rise to the surface, it is her duty to excuse herself as gracefully as possible, calm herself, and then return with renewed, redoubled courtesy to those who she could tear in half if annoyed just. A bit. Too much.

Calden has seen her rage, and it is as potent as her madness and is as easily, readily tapped. He has seen her hungry, too, and that was no less terrifying in its own right than the night she ended up shaking the corpses of men-with-guns, slamming their lolled heads against stone walls, iron railings, asphalt as though even their deaths could not slake her fury. When she was hungry, she leapt over his Silverado, took down not the weakest or the smallest of the herd but the one that appealed to her most, and devoured half of it in the time it took him to catch his breath, fangs grabbing hold of entrails and yanking them out to get at the juiciest organs, the choicest meat.

He has not seen her rage, nor her hunger, directed quite so keenly at him. On some level it has to be unnerving, but it is clearly, obviously not the primary level that Calden lives on. That snarl, that dark look in her fair eyes, only makes him want her more.

And she senses that. Oh yes.

--

Avery holds him by the hips and the hips alone. He touches her hair like he can't help it, leans into that steady, ravenous suckling. She pants a breath out when his cock slips from her mouth but she's engulfing it a moment later, groaning again, nevermind the unnatural arch to her neck.

Here's the strange thing: the self-control it takes for her to be careful with him now, to be mindful of his pleasure and not her hunger, to not hurt him for god's sake... it calms her a bit. Not her lust. Not that. But it brings her back to the moment, brings her back from that knife's edge where the line between desire and wrath is dangerously blurred. She leans into her desire for him instead, and within those first couple of minutes, she slows a bit. She finds a rhythm, her mouth decadent, her groans softer but more seeking. Her hands on his body stroke him, caress his sides and his thighs and his ass, circle around to cup him in her palm while her lips

tremor

with a low purr.

--

Calden may never admit that he feels faint for a moment. Avery is rather certain that he does, seconds before he starts trying to -- not ease her off of his cock, for she growls at him for daring -- but slide himself back from her, away from her. It's all that will work. She may not be too proud to hold onto him while he's there, but she is too proud to go following him when he draws his hips backward.

Avery looks up at him, not for the first time, and he is on her a half-heartbeat later, kissing her as she's turning her body on the bed, moving from knees to ass, leaning backward on one elbow, the other hand lifting up to bury itself in his hair, holding his face to her face as she held his body against her mouth. Pulling him down, pulling him with her, over her if he'll just obey, if he'll just climb onto her and take what's offered and fuck her.

"Get on me," she pants back to him, as he's trying to urge her onto her knees again. Her lips move against his lips, his jaw, while she rubs her face against his, luxuriously animal, muttering whispers to his skin: "Calden --"

I'm so fucking wetjust get on top of me and give it to me

Which he can't be sure he hears, but that is what she's saying. One way or another.

Calden

It's hard to resist Avery. For anyone -- but most especially, it seems, for Calden. She pulls at him and he half-tumbles down onto her, one knee on the bed now, one hand braced on the mattress while the other

goes

ever so predictably to her breast. He moans into her mouth. He weighs that glorious thing in his hand, rubs her, squeezes ever so gently; all but tears at her mouth. His want is a palpable thing, a tangible thing, a thing she can almost taste. He kisses her and he kisses her neck and he almost kisses her tits but she's telling him,

get on me,

i'm so fucking wet,

get on top,

give it to me.

And he would. Oh, he would, but -- he lifts his head, all that thick hair with the touch of russet; those good strong bones. He kisses her mouth again, long and hungry, and then he slides his cheek past hers -- there's a hint of bristle again, just a hint of scratchiness -- to murmur in her ear:

"Weren't we talking about standing?"

And yes. Yes they were. And she wraps her arms around him, and he straightens his back, and she pulls herself up even as his hands are scooping her up. Her legs wind around him. Something about that, the grip of her thighs and the tightening of her arms -- even that makes him groan. His cock is still wet from her mouth, slick from what she was doing to him; slick from her, now, as he slides against her, finds her, lifts her up,

slides her down. His mouth locks to hers. He groans against her lips, against her tongue. Groans, shudders, wraps his arms around her tight. Those big hands of his all but cover her ass, and it's by that leverage and by the strength of her own body, her own limbs, that he lifts her. Widens his stance a little, sets his feet more solidly on the ground. Brings her down again, a little more firmly this time, a little bit faster. Fuck, he exhales.

Avery

When Calden reminds her that they were talking about standing -- were they? she can't recall, but she thought it -- Avery's eyes flash, flicker like heat lightning. She comes at him like the tide again, pushing his head back with the force of the way she kisses him. Sinuous and strong, she moves up off the bed and wraps her arms around him and lifts herself onto him, wraps her legs around his torso. That kiss is ardent, is fervent, is unending. Slick, hot wetness touches his skin again, then his hands brushing past her cunt, then his cock as they find each other.

It's almost too much. She gasps, tearing her mouth from his, the sound sharp and bright in the air between them, her head tipping back. Avery can't help herself, though; she's sliding down on him, groaning, using her thigh muscles, too eager for him to be guided, to be patient. He has to guide her, though, and he does, and her nails dig into his back as he enters her, as her back arches to press herself more fully against him, as she clutches at him with arms, legs, body. There is no part of her that can let go of him, that can even loosen her grasp on him. They kiss again.

And again. And do not, really, stop kissing. Avery rubs herself on him as best she can, tits to chest, panting when their lips slide apart for bare moments. Fuck, he says, lifting her, letting her slide back down. She has to trust him for this, in so many ways. She decides to; she leaves that kiss to look at him, to stare at him, watching him as she lifts herself up on him and rides back down again, gently now, though nothing is truly gentle about this position.

Calden

Nothing's truly gentle about this position. Or about her. Shining, vicious, incandescent Avery. Sometimes he thinks she's the soul of fire, the heart of glory. Sometimes,

times like this,

he can't think at all.

There is gentleness about him. Look at the way he approached her when she was retreating, when she was literally under the bed. Look at how he lay beside her, allowing her to come closer at her own rate. Look at how he accepted her, and enfolded her, and -- in some strange, poignant way -- warded her when she came to him. There is gentleness there, warmth of heart and spirit, but right now: right now he is intense, there's something almost relentless about him.

She rides him. They kiss again and again. She digs her nails her, wraps every part of herself around him. He holds her up; she drives herself down. His breath may as well be hers. They are that close, even when she draws back to look at him, watch the explosions in his eyes, watch the way his good humor and his smart dialogue fall away layer by layer,

strip him down,

reveal the raw, lusting core.

--

They can hardly keep their hands off each other, every time. They wear each other out and fuck each other senseless. Maybe she should go up to see him more often. Maybe he should come to town more often. But all of that suggests attachment, seriousness, relationship, and they have both so careful about that line.

Except in this. Except when they're fucking like this, molten, standing in the center of her bedroom. When all the world seems to shrink down to her arms tight around his shoulders, her legs locked around his waist; his hands under her thighs, his cock inside her. When everything they are and everything in their consciousness seems to hone down to what they're doing to each other. Nothing else matters but the way she moves. The way he moves her. The gasps that she looses past his ear, over his shoulder. The groans he hides against her neck.

It's never quite a fast fuck. It's a hard, close, driven fuck -- tightwound, ferocious, hitting a peak as short and devastating as a knockout punch. It's her orgasm that lights off his; something about the way she's gripping him, wrapping him in her arms and her legs, clenching and quivering around that cock of his. He wraps his arms around her and his hand is at the small of her back; he shifts her just a little, pulls her down, fills her up. It's so intense he can't even shout, can barely grunt, can barely breathe. It comes over him. It drags him down. He. almost. fucking. passes out.

Doesn't, though. His legs do threaten to give out under him when it starts to let him go. He takes a few half-stumbling steps backwards; comes uncoordinatedly down on the edge of her bed in a heap. His arms are still around her. His chest is moving against hers with every breath, he's panting, he's sucking breath after breath out of the air as his heart pounds, pounds, pounds against hers. There's a dull ache in his arms, in his back, in his flanks. He collapses backwards after a moment, and she can come down over him or she can remain where she is astride him; he doesn't mind either way. His arms fall away from her, one outstretched to either side, like he's reenacting some thoroughly inappropriate crucifixion of his own. He looks

transcendent. It's moments on end before his eyes open lazily to find her again.

Avery

Outside, stripping their clothes off, feeling out of step and not knowing why, Avery wanted this. She wanted him to lift her up just like this and fuck her, just like this, and she wanted to come just as she does, her head tipped back, her moans filling the room, riding back against him. She has forgotten to be wary, to wonder if he can hold her up, to be careful. She holds onto his back and when she comes her head is against his shoulders, her mouth opening over his skin, teeth raking over his flesh with a hard groan to echo against him. Her nails drag down his biceps; her cunt clenches around him, smooth and wet.

Calden follows. Calden loses himself in her, feels the blood draining out of his head, feels the room go bright and dark for a moment with the force of it. And Avery holds him closer, panting against him, wrapping her legs that much tighter around his body.

He sways, and perhaps doesn't even feel himself swaying, but Avery does and she lets out a sharp little gasp: "Darling --!"

But he sits. He collapses forward onto her bed, knees buckling. Avery always knew that should he drop her, even if they slipped, her bed was right there. She remembers it's there now and laughs softly. As Calden folds inward she gently but rather quickly slides off of him, so as to avoid being painfully jarred. He catches himself just barely over her, and though he might move to roll off, Avery keeps her legs around him, her arms around him, letting him rest against her at first.

Her eyes close, her head lolling to one side. She tries to remember how to breathe.

Calden

Darling--! -- that brings a muffled little laugh out of him, even as he's collapsing rather unceremoniously onto that glorious bed of hers. Into those glorious arms of hers. He does, in fact, start to roll off her: but she keeps him there. So he stays there, relaxing his weight, letting himself come to a rest against her.

"I wouldn't have dropped you," he murmurs. And he nuzzles her neck; kisses the top of her breastbone. "I wouldn't have done that."

Her eyes are closed. After a moment he closes his, too. He could fall asleep just like this, he thinks. Those doors to her terrace open. Her curtains moving softly in the summer breeze. His lover with her arms around him, her legs around him, her body so smooth and soft. He could be quite happy just like this, indefinitely.

--

Maybe he does sleep. If he does, it's for a handful of minutes; ten on the outside. The sun has barely moved when his eyes open again. When he stirs, and rolls half-off her. His hand drifts down her side to anchor at her hip. He looks over her shoulder, over her trailing golden hair, to see the open door, the blue sky.

Her blue eyes, when his gaze returns. He finds her looking at him, so he draws a breath and lets it out.

"Miss Chase," he whispers, and smiles.

Avery

When Avery notices Calden is asleep, it's the laxness of his body against her own, the steadiness of his breathing. She doesn't mind. There are few better ways to spend a summer afternoon, she thinks, than lying naked in one's bed, a breeze coming through the door, with one's lover naked and spent in one's arms. They could, she decides, just stay here for a nice long while and never need to leave. She shifts a bit next to him, half under him, drapes her arm over his shoulders, and lets herself drowse, too.

Of course, Avery is a woman. She drowses. Calden drops like a stone into sleep while his body rebuilds itself, as though some switch is flicked in his brain that he must rest now, he is not permitted to even attempt to mount this female again until he has something to give her. He sleeps for about ten minutes. Avery dozes off, a dim half-sleep. She could sleep all afternoon, really; the sex, the emotional upheaval, all of it. She could sleep until morning, but she doesn't.

Calden stirs after a while, and moves. Avery breathes in, turning her head to watch him, wondering how much time has passed, if he's leaving, but he doesn't. He stays with his hand right there on her body, looking at her as her eyes open.

The corner of her mouth curves.

"Do you like my new place, then?"

Calden

And his smile widens, takes on a touch of mischief. "I wouldn't know. I've hardly seen your new place, you've kept me so occupied."

He comes a little closer, then. Until the tip of his nose almost brushes hers. "I like you, though," he whispers. "So there's that."

Avery

She huffs. "One of these days," she mutters, closing her eyes drowsily as he rests their noses together, like it's a physical reaction, "I am going to see you for an evening and do little more than hold your hand. Then we'll see how you come up with an excuse for your inattention to detail."

Avery nips his lower lip, and then tucks her face close to his neck. "Thank you," she murmurs. "For earlier. For staying."

Calden

"Oh, I already have an excuse in mind," Calden assures her --

-- and inhales as she nips at his lip, tucks herself to his body. His hand slides off her hip; onto her back. His smile fades; a natural end. He's quiet for a moment.

"You don't have to thank me," he says quietly. "It never for a moment occurred to me to leave."

Avery

Avery says nothing. There is no need to say anything then. She wraps her arm around him, under his arm, reaching up to touch his hair with her fingers.

Calden

Calden's arm tightens around Avery. And they hold each other like that -- nothing to say and nothing that needs saying between them -- until gradually, and naturally, the gravity of the moment seems to abate again. Seems to let them go.

That's when he rolls onto his back. That's when she wraps her arm over his midsection. They lie there a while, his feet hanging off the end of the bed, the breeze gently straying through the room. At some point Calden's stomach growls, which makes Avery laugh, which is when they shift, they stir, they decide

that they really ought to go to dinner. And on the way to dinner Calden gets well acquainted with her bathroom, at least, because that's where he showers; that's where he cleans the sweat of the day -- and the eventful afternoon -- from his skin. He borrows her soap and her shampoo, and he borrows a towel from her rack. Perhaps he finds that safety razor of his magically transported to her new place, or perhaps her ever-helpful staff has managed to acquire him a new one. Any which way, he dresses again, somewhat counter-productively, in the same clothes he arrived in. Sans boxers. He did warn her.

They go to dinner. Her neighborhood is vibrant; they decide to walk. They're an eyecatching couple, though perhaps just a touch mismatched. He's so dressed down. She may not be dressed up, but a woman like Avery will never quite be able to hide that she is royalty amongst the masses, demi-divinity amongst the mortals. She has the sun in her hair and the moon in her eyes, and she turns heads.

There's a playful argument over where to eat. They debate Italian, French, Vietnamese. They almost go for gourmet burgers, but then they see a tapas bar. And that's where they end up: sitting out on the patio under a summer sky shading toward a summer's night, their small table cluttered with small dishes, spicy little bitefuls of savory and sweet; mango mojitos and entirely too many glasses of house sangria.

They are lighthearted and a little lightheaded when they leave the tapas bar, the mingled conversation of a hundred other tables up and down this street fading in and out around them as they walk back to her place. He held her hand on the way there; on the way back she slips her hand through the crook of his elbows, hugs his arm a little because

they are lighthearted, and they are lightheaded, and they are not terribly steady as they slip in the discreet entrance to her building. In the elevator up he leans on the wall with his eyes closed, a smile on his face. She nibbles at his neck, makes him laugh. The doors open and she leads him back to her new place by the hand, unlocking the door, taking him into that airy space with its fifty windows, with the night and the city wafting in on the back of the breeze that always, ever seems to thread through the place.

She shows him her library after all. They pour some scotch -- just a little bit of it; they've had quite a bit to drink already, thank you very much -- and they sit on those couches beneath that remarkable perimeter of books. She puts her feet in his lap and he kneads them absentmindedly, nursing his scotch, conversing about --

oh, all manner of things, really.

--

It is quite late in the night when they put out the lights. When they set their emptied scotch glasses in the kitchen sink, and wander up the stairs and into her room. He undresses her standing beside her bed, all the lights off, the moon filtering through the windows. He undoes her hair, he unzips her zipper, his hand supports her lower back as he lowers her dress from her shoulders. She was right. He does enjoy undressing her. He enjoys kissing every inch of her revealed, and he

certainly

enjoys the midnight snack he makes of her, kneeling at the side of her bed, her back arching against the covers. They are very quiet this time. He murmurs soft sounds against her cunt, and when she comes he covers her mouth gently, lovingly, as though there was someone to wake within earshot.

They make love under the covers. On their sides, her back to his chest, their hands tangling between her legs. A subtle, sleepy, sweet sort of sex with which to end the day. He falls asleep like that: his arms loose around her, her feet beneath his shin.

Avery

Calden does find the safety razor, boar-bristle brush, and disk of glycerin soap awaiting him in its supple leather kit within her bathroom. It is sitting out on the vanity, in fact, as though waiting for him. There are two towels hung near the shower. There is a new toothbrush, still in packaging, folded into a washcloth like set of silverware folded into a napkin. This place is more modern in style than her condo, the colors smoother, the chrome glistening.

When he gets out, his clothing is missing. The bed is still horrendously unmade, and Avery is perched atop the sheets, looking very pleased with herself, evading his questions, telling him to just wear his towel, wear his robe, don't worry about a thing. She goes off to shower, herself, and try as he might to peer under the bed or if he examines her hamper in the bathroom, he cannot find his dust-covered clothing.

(They are hidden downstairs, put in a bag, stuffed in a sideboard somewhere. He doesn't find them. Avery is clever.)

While she showers, long and luxurious and selfishly, applying an in-shower body creme and a purifying cucumber-mint mask and deep conditioning her hair, Calden eventually hears the distant ding of the elevator. He hears footsteps. Eventually, someone knocks on Avery's bedroom door. Should Calden answer, he finds the slender woman that he has met only once but seen the touch of on Avery's life time and again. Her name is Leteisha, his lover's personal steward. She has a young, tall man with her whose hair is black as a crow's wing, whose eyes look faintly haunted, who has a twitchiness to him that rests under the surface because the man, himself, is very, very still. Leteisha has a garment bag for Mr. White. Colin, for that is the footman's name, has two boxes with him, one smaller than the other. He offers, in a manner that bespeaks habit, to assist Calden in dressing, an offer that no one is surprised Calden turns down.

The smaller box has boxer-briefs in it, soft cotton, charcoal grey. In his size, of course. A pair of socks. A belt. The larger box has a pair of shoes, which do not fit perfectly, for they are new and leather and a bit more fashionable than Calden might choose on his own. No matter; the garment bag contains not a suit or a pair of slacks but a pair of jeans, quite dark in color, and not the sort he would normally buy, for they are a bit closer fit than something he would wear out on the range. They are not made for riding, however, and this explains the boxer-briefs. He can wear his boots with these and not look strange, if he prefers not to try the new shoes. The shirt is actually dead-on his own style. It fits his neck and his arms, but is not flannel and is not red checked.

When Avery emerges, her hair dried and pin-straight from a flatiron and her makeup much lighter and more natural than earlier today, she looks thrilled. She is as gleeful about the boxes and their contents as though they were a gift to her from an admirer and not a whim of her own to buy for Calden. She dresses to match him, in a skirt that swirls around her thighs and a pair of high-heeled sandals with a short-sleeved blouse that accentuates her décolletage. She drapes a gauzy shawl over her elbows and leaves her penthouse with Calden, asking him at least three times if he likes the shirt, looking delighted whenever he says he does.

--

Avery prefers white sangria to red. She likes anything mango. She is entranced by croquetas. When they leave, it is dark and cool and she draws her shawl up, leaning against his upper arm and closing her eyes for a few steps at a time, trusting him not to lead her astray. But then: of course she trusts him. He's seen it over and over today. Sometimes it seems the one she doesn't trust is herself.

--

In the elevator, Avery confesses that she hid his clothing in the sideboard. She says softly, her mouth near his throat, that if he likes, he can leave it with her. Like the razor and the toothbrush; a spare set of clothes to be laundered and folded and put neatly in a drawer to wait for him when he comes.

They do not discuss it overmuch. The offer is laid out, and she shows him her library. The penthouse is very different in the dark, the windows looking out on the lit city, the lingering sunset, the nearby parks. The couch goes all the way around the lower half, and they take up so little space in it, sitting this close together. She drapes her legs over his lap and he takes off her shoes, unfastening the little buckles and dropping them to the floor to rub her feet.

Somewhere in there she excuses herself upstairs and comes back with a clean face, her makeup wiped off, her eyes looking a little clearer and paler. He has poured them glasses of scotch. She kisses him softly in between sips of scotch, softer and then deeper, slower, insisting that she's listening when he teases her that she's being inattentive.

If anyone takes glasses to the kitchen, it's Calden; Avery has people for that sort of thing. She slips her shawl off and he catches the end of it as they go up the stairs.

Her bed has been made. The terrace has been tidied and the door closed, the towels put away, fresh ones laid out. Calden lifts her shirt. Calden smooths her skirt down her legs. He unhooks her bra and tugs it from her shoulders, kissing her, kissing her neck, kissing her breasts as they're exposed, cupping them in his palms. Avery shudders in his hands, panting out a soft breath. He urges her to the edge of the bed and whispers to her to sit down, and when his fingers hook in her panties to drag them off of her hips, she lets out a soft moan before he's even put his mouth on her.

His hand covering her mouth when she comes only makes her groans deepen, her thighs quivering on either side of his face, her foot sliding down his back. She clutches at the covers, arching her back, scooting on the bed, not sure whether she's trying to escape him or get closer.

Avery looks up at him, naked and flushed, while he unbuttons his shirt, the cuffs first, the collar to the tails, then shrugs out of it. Lust renews itself in her eyes with that gesture, that powerful roll, the way it makes the muscles in his chest and his abdomen stand out, the way his biceps briefly flex. She licks her lips, slowly, as he undoes his belt, as he unfastens his jeans, as he steps out of them and the boxer-briefs below them. When he is naked, crawling atop her, she puts her hands on his sides, roaming them upward, lifting her chin to capture his mouth, whispering to him that she wants him.

So they pull the covers down, and aside, and he follows her under them, in between those cool, clean sheets, moving behind her, pressing against her with a warmth that makes them both gasp softly. Avery strokes her ass gently down his cock, all but purring at the feel of him. He touches her gently, as softly as he can with those calloused fingers, and she whimpers when he spreads wetness to her clit, eases her gently back to panting, gasping want before he fits himself to her opening and slowly pushes into her.

He doesn't cover her mouth this time. She is sweating, glistening, mindless when she comes, biting into her pillow to stifle herself, clutching at his hand and at the covers over them. When he comes she groans anew, holding him tightly, welcoming it.

This time, afterward, it's Avery who falls asleep first. She can't bear to stay awake any longer, not with the liquor in her system, sex three, four, half a dozen times today. She briefly, madly imagines admitting to her father, to Calden, to anyone that she's seeing someone, that it's exclusive, that she's very, very fond of his company and thinks he is a remarkable escort and he makes her laugh and he does not make her afraid and when she can't stand to be near anyone she finds herself begging him not to leave, and

he doesn't leave, and he waits for her to come back without a word.

Her eyes close. She makes no proclamations or promises. She holds his arm around her, and sleeps.

i will endeavor, i will allow.

Calden White

"Hey -- "

-- that, quick and low as she rises so swiftly. His hand catches at hers, misses, she's out of bed and out of reach and then out of sight entirely as he passes through the door, enters the bedroom.

He scrambles after her. That is the unflattering way to put it. Or, alternatively: he gets up, he grabs at his clothes out of some kneejerk streak of modesty or good-manners, he steps into his boxers and follows her into the bedroom at a jog.

"Avery, wait."

Avery Chase

There's no Avery in her bedroom. No sign of her. She moved quickly but not that fast. If he checks, there's no sign of her in her bathroom. There is, however, and just before he gets to her bedroom door to the hallway, a sound from under her bed.

A chuff. A whuff, actually.

Calden White

"Avery?" This time it's a question. He does check the bathroom. It takes him a minute to find it. He isn't quite sure where everything is. His first pass through this room was spent kissing her, eyes closed. Regardless - she's not in the bathroom. He comes out again, calls her name a third time, starts to head out the door, but:

a whuff from under the bed. And then he knows.

--

She can see his feet from where she hides. They are bare, and if we are honest they are a bit dirty from walking around outside. They pad over to her bathroom, and then they pad over to her door, and maybe she squeezes her eyes shut and hopes he'll just leave, go looking for her high and low, never find her. Except: then his feet stop, and they turn, and they come toward the bed and then they become knees and hands.

His head comes into view. He's down on all fours, peering under the bed like he's looking for a coin or a marble he kicked under the bed. He finds her, instead, and of course: he was looking for her.

"Avery," a fourth time, this time gentle, coaxing, "please come out."

Avery Chase

His feet pad across the carpet, which is new, over to the bed, which is new. Avery is torn between the desire to lean out and sniff at his feet and the desire to retreat. His feet stop wandering around the room and come close to the bed. She closes her eyes and in homid she would just be silent, be still, but this body is physical and instinctive and it

gives a soft whine.

Calden drops down, and there are her eyes in the half-light beneath the bed, bright and blue and as perfect as her coat, summer-sleek and pristine white. She scoots backwards, whining again, nevermind that this has her tail sticking out the other side of the bed now.

Calden White

He can't help it. There's a quirk, just a flicker of a twitch at the corner of his mouth. He knows, he knows: she's miserable, she's hiding, she didn't hide from monsters in the park or a charismatic monster on stage, but she's hiding now because he's made her miserable. Or she's made herself miserable. Or the situation, all of it, has made her miserable. It hardly matters: this is the outcome.

Still. He cajoles. She scoots backwards, but a wolf is not a dog, and a wolf is rather large, and now her tail is sticking out the other side of the bed. And so: his mouth twitches. He represses a smile.

And he stretches out on the ground, too. He flattens himself out on his stomach, getting comfortable, looking across the murky distance at his lover. Who is now in the form he first met her in. Well; not quite -- he first met her in her hunting-form, her killing-form. Still. Close enough.

"I'm not going to chase you under the bed," he informs her, "but I think both my dignity and yours will thank you later if you'd kindly take a form capable of human communication."

Avery Chase

She whuffs at him, almost a growl. He's hiding a smile, but she can see it. From whom the stars shall not be hidden by sunlight. Even in the dark, even in another form, she can tell. Avery makes a rr-rrr-rrrrr noise at him, nowhere near words, and watches him carefully as he flattens himself out, chin on hands or forearms. He won't chase her under the bed, and she relaxes a touch; her hackles, which were up, soothe somewhat.

Avery does not change. She doesn't show him the face he first kissed, or the body he's so infatuated with. It's the same body. It's a different form. She stares at him, not resentful but refusing all the same, and her tail thumps. Where it sticks out. On the other side of the bed.

Silence, then, at least for a while. She stares at him, comforted by the fact that he is not going to crawl in after her. Comforted, despite herself, that he did not actually sigh, pull on his jeans, go looking for her, give up, leave the penthouse to her solitude and silence, even if at first that's exactly what she was hoping for. The distance between them comforts her. The closeness, too, as though right now he is under a very specific restraining order: not to come within X feet, not to move more than X feet away. Like she dwells on Saturn, and he on the rings. There, but not touching. Visible, but not too close.

Her tail sweeps across the carpet. And after a while, holding his gaze, she scoots forward, and her tail goes in under the bed, but now her muzzle sticks out. She rests it against his forearm, turning her head a bit, closing her eyes. The contact is spare, and light, but her muzzle is soft and her nose is cold and her eyes look strangely happy when they're closed like that. She makes that sound again, that rrr-rrrr-rr sound. It isn't quite human communication. But it is communication.

Calden White

He laughs aloud, more startled by the coldness of her nose than anything else, when she comes to touch her muzzle to his arm. This is far from the first time he's seen her in some other form than the homid, but he realizes, with a bit of surprise, that this is the first time he's touched her. Or: she's touched him. He shifts his arm a little, away from her cold wet nose, more toward the side of her muzzle. There are whiskers there, neat little rows of them, stiff and sensitive. He's smiling again; he looks charmed even by this.

And after a while he reaches out to her in return. He doesn't pat her head. He doesn't even stroke her the way you might a pet dog. His hand rests on her withers, his fingers sinking into her fur. He discovers that wolf's fur, even the fur of a white Silver Fang, is not as soft as it looks. It is dense, and thick -- though sleek with summer -- and there is a certain coarseness to the texture. And warm, down at the roots, close to her skin and muscle and bone.

He's not smiling anymore. He just looks ... content, maybe. Comfortable, stretched out alongside the bed, one hand in the fur of a wolf

who is also a woman

who is really neither of the above at all.

Avery Chase

Her ears twitch away from the sound of his laughter, a flick of white. She nuzzles her muzzle under his palm when he touches her, sniffing by instinct and habit both. Til his arm comes to rest over her, and she still feels hidden like this, still under the bed, as though she can pretend for now that she's not really doing this, she's still by herself, she's still protected, she can just retreat into the silence enforced by not sharing a language and just

be.

Calden can feel her breathing, heavy and steady and deep, and the vitality and strength she carries with her in this form. It's so different from the way she feels when she's lying out beside him in bed after they've had sex. And it is not different at all, in a way.

She licks her chops. She has her eyes closed, her breathing rhythmic. Perhaps she's just going to sleep. But no:

when she shifts again, he can feel it. It's been minutes, not hours, but those minutes have dragged on for a long time now. Fur turns to flesh. Withers to shoulders, shoulderblades, a smooth long back. She looks new. Her hair is straight, for it is naturally straigt. Her face is somehow miraculously clean, but only because every cell of skin, every eyelash, has been reformed anew from the energy of nature and earth together. Her eyes have opened, though, and are the same glittering blue they were when he peered under the bed and found her there.

"Can we just stay here?" she whispers to him, after a few seconds of silent staring. "I'm not ready to come back out," Avery admits, and normally that would shame her deeply, but now she only feels tremors of that shame, quiet if not distant. With him lying out beside her on the floor, her body hidden under the bed from everything but him, she feels like it's okay. Or could be.

Calden White

Calden's eyes are open, full of wonder, as the change comes over her. All his life with the Nation and this is still a rare sight for him; something poorly understood, impossible within a rational frame of existence, and all too often barely-glimpsed in darkness, in battle, in instants.

It is daylight. It is calm. And her change comes over her slowly, without the assistance of rage. It is smoother than he has ever seen it before; not the gruesome instantaneous popping of joints and stretching of skin, the changes that come so quick outrushing air presses in on his ears. This is almost a subtle thing, miraculous to feel: fur receding to smooth skin, his arm drawn along with the sea change of her body.

Now his palm rests on her shoulderblades. She is lovely again, was lovely before; it is different, and it is the same. Her eyes are a blue that could be compared to sapphires, skies, the hearts of glaciers; in the end, it is a blue comparable only to itself. For a moment he thinks

maybe he's lied to her after all. Maybe he is falling for her.

--

"We can stay here," he replies, hardly more than a whisper himself. "We'll stay here as long as you need to."

Avery Chase

Avery was born in this body. She lived for more than twenty years like this, never expecting it to change beyond the ordinary: to grow hair and breasts, for hips to widen and curve, to later wrinkle and ache. She took care of it, and she liked it, and though she was a studious and creative child and adolescent and an effervescent young woman, she always paid attention to herself. The body is not less than or more than the mind or soul, and being what she is, she cultivated perfection in all of them. This body, this form of her body, is the one she is most familiar with and the one that she finds most easily no matter her state.

The change can be quick, and when she reverts to homid it often is, simply because her bones and tissue adapt most rapidly back to this arrangement. But in the silence and stillness between them right now, it feels slower. There's no carnage around them. She is not calling her staff to come clean up corpses with her to dispose of evidence. She is not leading the battle, and the after-battle. She is hiding from the world because her own shame and confusion is too overwhelming for her to bear. Under the bed.

Letting him hold her, as best he can, even though if anyone else came into this penthouse right now she would go so silent that they'd never ever ever ever find her.

Avery breathes in, and exhales, and closes her eyes. The carpet is brand new and still smells of newness; it is perfectly clean and not dusty at all. It is about as comfortable to lie on as it will ever be. So she lies on it, under her bed, on her stomach, bare as birth, with the one person who -- despite herself, despite tribal lines, despite all her fears about what she can feel and what she can't and what she might put him through or what she is afraid of losing all over again -- she can stand to stay anywhere near her right now.

She sighs, but she is not going to sleep. She is just going to stay there, in the dim under-bed half-light, with Calden's hand on her back, until she feels okay enough with herself to emerge.

It takes a long time.

--

Should Calden reach for one of the throw pillows on her bed or yank down the covers to make himself a bit more comfortable, Avery does not startle or protest to feel his departure. She opens her eyes, watching him in an almost eerie silence, but she does not stop him or whimper for him. Should he get up to go find his way to the bathroom or the kitchen to get a glass of water she just nods, closing her eyes again, staying where she is to wait for him. Should he go to the bathroom, go get their clothes -- essentially, if he gets up at all, even for brief periods, it does not seem to disturb Avery.

But she notices when he comes back. She opens her eyes to him and once, she even smiles a little before closing them again. Something about the silence is comforting to her, but that makes sense: her isolation is based in silence, in stillness, in retreat from things like human communication or even the intrusion of a pack's thoughts. No wonder she's wary of joining other wolves who would, by virtue of spirit bonds, need to be granted clemency for those intrusions into her space, her silence, her solitude.

Perhaps an hour or more passes this way.

She sniffs, and rolls her neck a bit, and twists under the bed to look at the cracks of light coming in from outside of her hiding place. Avery does not apologize for the childishness of the hiding place; better this than crossing through a mirror and utterly escaping. She did that once. She almost didn't find her way back. It was the only time that loneliness held terror for her, but the terror was great enough that she hasn't risked that again.

Breathing in deeply, nostrils flaring, Avery scoots over closer to Calden, til she's halfway out from under the bed. She nuzzles his chest and presses her face there and stays for another few minutes, perhaps five, perhaps ten, perhaps fifteen.

With a great long stretch after that, however, she moves entirely over him, her body atop his, her arms wrapping around his middle, her head tucked on his chest as though he's just her body pillow now, thank you, that's quite nice and he's quite warm. Never once does she speak to him, or answer him if he speaks in anything but a twisting of her head to hide her face again. But that closeness, that physicality, she seeks out and intensifies. Her arms around him are actually quite firm, quite strong, not just draping around him but holding him. Her feet twine between his legs, around his calf.

And she feels such gratitude, such comfort, even such reliance and trust, that she thinks: maybe she's lying to him, and maybe she is lying to herself.

She does not confess it. She nuzzles him, breathing him in, until she finally,

finally,

lifts her head and kisses him. The underside of his jaw, the corner of his mouth, the curve of his lips. Three soft kisses, though the third one deepens if he permits her, and if he has not pulled the bedspread down to the floor, well, now Avery does, reaching out one arm to grasp it and drag it, slowly but with demand, until its outer side cascades down over them, covers them, shadows them and shields them. And she is whispering to him, in between kisses that soften and then grow with hunger like waves advancing and retreating:

"Calden,"

his name, first, of course, because she knows him, and repeated because the first time is a sigh and the second time is an entreaty:

"Calden, may I make love to you now?"

Calden White

What a long, strange, bittersweet dance it is:

the daughter of falcon under the bed; the son of stag, her lover, waiting patient and aching for her return. One could make an allegory of this. A modern Orpheus-tale with the roles blurred: Eurydice lost in the darkness, finding her own way back; Orpheus at the mouth of daylight, waiting harpless, wordless, silent.

And she does come back to him. Little by little, inch by inch. He does not leave her. She's not under the bed so long that he grows thirsty or hungry. He does, after a while, pull a pillow off the bed. Two. He pushes one under the bed, if she wants it, but

what she wants instead is closeness. A little bit of it, anyway. Close enough that he can see the flecks of deeper blue in her eyes. The hints of silver. Close enough that she can reach out to him, nuzzle against his chest. He is on his side, and he folds his arm over her, accepting her without a word. Without hesitation. She wraps her limbs around him, then. They hold each other on the threshold, she half under the bed still, he -- not so much pulling her out as waiting.

After some time,

he feels her urging him to roll onto his back. He feels her coming out of the darkness in whole, laying herself over him, resting atop him like he is solid ground, like he is the rich dark living earth firm beneath her feet once more.

He can feel her trust. He can feel her comfort, and her gratitude, which breaks his heart a little. She shouldn't have to be grateful for such a thing, he thinks, though perhaps he's one of the few creatures in this world who would think that. But then: he is who he is; Calden of the Whites, Calden of the Stags, who threw open his home and hearth and heart to her,

liege-lady, lover,

precious, enchanting sylph that she is.

--

He tips his head up to allow her access when that first kiss comes to the underside of his jaw. The corner of his mouth, then, missing that spot under his lip where his razor didn't reach by a breath. And his mouth: opening to hers without reservation, deepening the kiss slowly and inexorably. She snakes an arm up to the bed and his hand follows it, caressing the slender bicep and the tender inner-elbow, inner-wrist. She pulls the covers down. They cascade over them, white as snow, lightweight because -- it's summer, after all.

The light mutes. He looks at her. She fits this world so well. Gold and white, clarity, filtered brilliance. He feels dark and rough and base, sometimes, when he is with her: elevated by her presence, by her glory and her rage and her passion, like clay fired into something finer than itself. His eyes close as she kisses him again; open when she speaks his name.

May I, she says,

and he interrupts: kisses her to shush her, keep the rest of that entreaty in her mouth.

"Like I told you," he whispers, "you can do whatever you want with me. I'm always yours and willing."

Avery Chase

Calden kisses her to shush her, and she thinks he's saying yes, that he knows what she was about to say, but he cuts off the crux of it: those words that she can't remember if they've dared use or not. She melts into the kiss, moving against him beneath that blanket, but Calden has words for her. He starts to whisper and they spar with their interruptions, because as soon as he begins to say you can do whatever you w--

a look of panic comes into her eyes and she covers his mouth with her hand, sudden and thoughtless, but her eyes don't hide their pleading behind a mask of wit or amusement. "Please don't keep saying that," she tells him, her hand smoothing off of his lips, her words aching despite their quietude. It's a moment of honesty she hasn't dared since the first time he said and the first time it simultaneously aroused her and intrigued her and terrified her. After the way she broke outside, molten with sorrow at her own freely offered, ultimately rejected self, perhaps it's easier to understand why the words cause her pain, uncertainty, fear. "I can't bear it when you say such things me, darling."

Avery curls closer to him, the inside of her knee sliding up his outer leg, but she's not trying to seduce him with the motion, only get nearer to him. Her eyes hold his. "I like to ask," she whispers. "I like to hear you tell me yes. I like hearing you tell me you want this. Every time."

Calden White

Her hand covering his mouth calls to mind, suddenly, the way she shushed him the last time -- mid-fuck -- her hand stemming those filthy things he was saying, his teeth scraping her palm. Fresh want breaks over him, flickers in his eyes even as he wraps his arms around her, tighter, keeping her closer.

Her hand slides away. He lifts his head to kiss her. She never did say the words they may or may not be avoiding now, half-consciously: making love. make love. love.

"I want you," he says. His mouth covers hers again, and then his body covers hers too: he turns with her, the blankets and pillows and carpet a cloud of heterogenous softness around them. They find each other within it, though: the solidity of their bodies together, his weight settling onto her. "I want this, every time."

Avery Chase

There's no answer to that. Avery sees the flare of desire go off in his eyes even before her fingertips pass over his lips, releasing his voice again. She breathes in as he holds her, closer now, and lowers her mouth to his, kissing him more fully, even as her body molds to his.

Calden lays his palms on her lower back, mid-back, to keep her against him when he turns, kissing her, rolling her under him. She could tell out on the terrace that this is what he wanted, how he wanted it: oh, how he wanted to cover her, come over her, sink into her. She can't help but remember what he said when she was kissing his chest, stroking him off, as Avery turns into the new nest, hair spread out over the covers, gold on silver. She has her hands on his sides, smoothing around from his back, coming to his chest. Her eyes close a moment, then open again as her lips part, breathing.

So.

She breathes out: "Put your mouth on me."

Calden White

His back is broad and smooth and powerful; all broad muscle and sloping lines. The skin of his sides shivers, animal-like, as her touch grazes past -- leaves a wake on his skin, a scintillating trail of phantom sensation. Then her hands are on his chest, her fingertips sifting through the hair, her palms flattening against his pectorals.

Put your mouth on me, she says. And he doesn't know where or how she means, and so he has the liberty of choice: and so he kisses her on the mouth, on that lush wanting mouth of hers, parting lips and moist breath. That kiss goes on endlessly, luxuriously. He nibbles at her lower lip -- with lips, and with the faintest scrape of teeth. His tongue touches hers, grazes hers, circles hers and moves on. He raises himself ever so slightly on his palms, braced over her taut and powerful. His mouth never leaves her: mouth to chin, chin to throat, throat to sternum, and there

he sinks back onto his elbows. Wraps his arms around her the way he always does when he does this to her, and for her: wraps his forearms under her back to arch her spine, raise her up, offer those exquisite breasts to his mouth.

She thinks he's the only one giving, giving, giving. She's wrong. She gives herself to him, too, when she lets him caress her like this. When she lets him suck at her breasts, lick at her nipples. Kiss her over each areola, gently, light as feathers before

his mouth opens to her again. He utters a low sound against her chest, vibrant and vibrating from his ribcage through hers; a connection forged by sound. It's some time, a long erotic eternity, before he moves on.

Moves down, his torso widening between her legs, opening her thighs as he descends. His kisses fall heavy now: her breasts, her belly, the tender flesh beneath her navel. He shifts his arms under her legs, then, and slides her knees over his shoulders. She knows where his mouth is going next before he ever gets there. Of course he's going there: kissing her over her clit, softly, adoringly, nuzzling against her cunt. He is like an animal in this: drawn to where her scent is sweetest, most concentrated -- drawn to her, rubbing against her, utterly without shame or disdain. He nudges her folds open with the tip of his nose, with his searching lips; when he finds her he pauses, draws the moment out to savor it.

The first touch of his tongue is as delicate as it's ever been; very light, very slow, stroking a spiral around her clit; parting her inner lips, stroking just within her opening. Then he withdraws, shifts his weight. Licks his fingers, watching her eyes. Parts her. Puts his mouth to her again, eyes closing.

Avery Chase

She knows exactly where she wants his mouth. She does not mind that it takes him a while to get there. Given license to find his own way, to choose his own adventure, Calden kisses her mouth, her neck, her chest. When he puts his hands under her she knows what's coming and arches her back towards him, reaches back wordlessly and lifts one of the throw pillows to support her neck and head while Calden kisses her breasts, mouth trailing around their inner and under curve, lips brushing her nipples until they harden sweetly in answer to him. Avery exhales, shivering, as those feather-soft kisses fall on her.

The tension in him is vibratory and resonant; Avery feels it right before he opens his mouth and engulfs one breast, one nipple, all hot mouth and wet tongue, licking her as he suckles. She closes her eyes and they roll backward, a harsh breath leaving her mouth. She does not stop him, or rush him onward; he moves between her breasts, trying to solve the eternal problem of one mouth and two nipples to adore, and perhaps he cups her in his hand and if she does she shudders, moving under him, sliding against him. Her cunt brushes the ridges of his torso. She makes a small sound, half whimper, half breath.

Calden sinks downward, and he starts kissing her where he always kisses her, eventually, sometimes before she can get her clothes off. He showed up cleanshaven today; she noticed. She doesn't even ask him to anymore; he shows her every time he arrives without stubble how much he wants to lick her. His tongue circles her clit and a shiver runs up her body from knees to shoulders, making her breasts quiver. Avery puts her hands on his shoulders, runs her fingers through his hair, aching for closeness, for contact, even as he is burying himself in her, breathing her, suffusing every sense he has in her.

Her breath hitches. When he licks her so carefully, so delicately, she makes a sharp sound, jerking gently. She barely fathoms anything else he does, though she feels his fingers come to her and open her so he can... eat her. That's as simply put as it gets. That's when she groans, when his mouth leaves her and then returns. That's when the sweat begins to build on her skin.

--

When Avery comes, it's surprisingly quick. Maybe not too surprising, given the lust she woke up with, the lust she greeted him with, the lust she felt even at her most awkward, her most uncertain. She keeps thinking of his cock, and then she keeps thinking of him between her legs, worshipping her the way he does, giving himself over to her, giving it to her the way he always does. That turns her on. That willingness, that readiness. There are times when it feels like her due. There are times when it simply strokes her ego as much as he strokes her breasts, her pussy, and her orgasm comes as much from that as from the physical sensation.

This time it comes from somewhere else. It isn't just lust, hormones, longing. It isn't just that she hasn't been seeing or sleeping with anyone but Calden, and truth be told she sees him a bit rarely. She comes with her hand tightening in his hair, a groan bitten behind her lips, wetness slicking his chin, her body bucking beneath his mouth, trying to ride herself out on his mouth. Truthfully, she grinds against him as though she's trying to pull him inside of her, whimpering, her breath catching too much to beg him to slide his fingers into her, give her something to clench on, but perhaps he does anyway and if he does she moans, working herself on his tongue and hand

but honestly, if he doesn't, she comes just as hard, the lack of penetration only making her claw at the bedspread beneath her with one hand, groaning behind her teeth, fucking her orgasm out on his mouth like it's something she's owed.

--

She's flushed pink afterward, her breasts and thighs and belly and cheeks and lips reddened by sex. She smells like sex now, like lust, and he smells like her, and she smells him like that and pants softly as she comes down, still gripping covers in her hand, trembling every few moments with aftershocks, reminders of what was just done to her.

Calden White

He worships her, he pleasures her, he attends to her desires; she accepts it as her due. That's how they often think about this. Couch it in their thoughts and their minds; inflame themselves with the connotations and the implications. The truth is more complex than that, though. The truth is, the exchange goes both ways. He gets as much out of this as she does. She is,

in fact,

giving him a gift every time she opens her legs and lets him bring her off like this. She drives him a little mad with her responsiveness, her sensitivity, the way her entire body seems drawn into what he's doing for her.

He does not, at the end, slide his fingers into her. He doesn't do this because his hands are reaching up her body, gliding over the arch of her torso to cup her breasts. He has her breasts in hand when she comes; he has her nipples hard against his palms, her breasts a delicious weight against his fingers, and he's holding her like that, feeling those shivers run through her like electricity, as she comes on his mouth.

That makes him moan against her. He makes more noise than she does, rough and hungry and -- god, he sounds so satisfied by her satisfaction. He makes more noise than she perhaps can, with her breath catching so hard, so fast, that some part of him worries that she won't get enough air. It doesn't stop him from taking her through that orgasm, though. It doesn't stop him from eating her out as intensely, as uncompromisingly as he ever does,

eyes on her face, mouth on her cunt. She's so wet now. She spills over his tongue, slicks down his chin; she pulses against his lips and his tongue and his nose, riding his face to rub herself off against him even as he receives her.

--

When she's through,

worn out,

flushed and tremulous and unspooling slowly atop that nest of pillows and blankets: he's still nuzzling her. He's so very gentle now, nuzzling against her, avoiding the hypersensitive nerves in her clit; licking up the last of her wetness, sweeping it from her cunt, teasing it from her folds. His hands release her breasts. Caress all the way down, down, down her body, her sides, her hips, her thighs. When his mouth leaves her his hand comes to her; parts her lips. His breath washes against her cunt, and then,

now,

his fingers are slipping into her, easing into her tightness, the index, then the middle. He kisses her over his knuckles. Kisses her clit, slow and warm, pressing his tongue against it as his fingers withdraw. Filthy beast: he licks that up too, languidly, sucking the last of her taste off his fingertips before he turns his head to kiss her thigh.

His free hand finds hers. And he coaxes her clenched fingers loose. Holds her hand as he covers her cunt now with his cupped palm, as though to protect her.

Avery Chase

Neither of them have come right out and said that they get off on these thoughts, this pretense of liege lady and vassal, mistress and servant, nymph and brute, but by god, they do. They've alluded to it thinly at times, but how could they put that into words without feeling embarrassment, without worrying that they need to assure the other that isn't how they really see things, it's just erotic, it's just a fantasy, it's just... hot.

Just as it's a little hot, even now, that her panties are in his truck, their clothes are on her terrace, they're fucking on the floor right beside her bed.

Avery takes her moments, her minutes, as she comes down. She lifts his hand from her breast and kisses his palm, kisses his fingers, licks between his digits, sucks one slow and long in her mouth. Her cunt clenches as she sucks, and all the while Calden is nuzzling, licking, kissing her softly as she comes down. Licking her clean, let's be honest. She moans against his finger caught between her lips, running her other hand down her body, just to feel herself, to be enthralled by her own softness.

That hand runs into his hair again. Calden is given back his hand, wet-fingered, and she tasted herself on him there, too. He dips his fingers into her and she clutches again, sudden, arching her back as he fingers her, and instead of whimpering or withdrawing, Avery rolls her hips, all but fucking his hand.

--

Not long then. He goes to cover her, protect her, but she's working herself on his fingers, panting as he withdraws and licks them clean, clenching air instead. Avery, glistening faintly with sweat and pink with arousal, sits up. Blankets fall around her. She has her hands on his shoulders, is pushing him over, rolling him onto his back in an entirely new arrangement of bodies and floor and pillows and coverlets. He's scarcely touched ground before she's climbing over him, lowering her mouth to his, kissing him like she might devour him from his breath.

"Take them off," she mutters, her breasts on his chest, belly to his belly, legs parted over his hips. She means his boxers. There's nothing left. "Fuck me," she breathes, but she's kissing him again, panting with it, rubbing herself against his abdomen.

Calden White

He knows what she means. He knew what she wanted, too, when she sat up, when she put his hands on his shoulders. He doesn't dream of refusing; it's what he wants too. He pushes up on his hands and she pushes him back. He rolls over and she pushes him down, climbs over him, climbs atop him and comes down to meet his mouth, rising to hers.

They kiss ferociously. The force of it pushes them back and forth a moment, and then she wins or he surrenders or something of both -- she pushes him back down. His hands circle her waist, grasp her hips. Take them off, she mutters, but he's already lifting his hips and pushing his boxers down, reaching in to take his cock in hand, hold it out of the way and he pushes, tugs, kicks the last of his clothing off his body.

It's lost somewhere in the tangle of sheets and comforters. She's rubbing against him already by then, grinding against the flex of his abdomen. He grabs her hips to make her stop, to shift her down -- she leaves wetness on his skin, and he leaves a bite on her mouth as his goes to her neck, the underside of her jaw.

Her cunt slides over his cock. His head thumps back and he swears, loud and low. She grinds on him like that for a while, telling him to fuck her, and he arches up off the ground to kiss her mouth again. Her hands are in his hair. His hands lift her up, he aligns her, he holds his cock by the base and guides her down. She goes faster than he does this time, and she can feel him holding her back, slowing her as she rides down on him -- can feel his mouth moving against hers, muttering:

careful, careful,

as though he's afraid he'll hurt her. As though he thinks she's more fragile than she is. Than he knows she is. She takes him in: the broad head, the thick shaft, inch after inch, all the way down until their hips meet. He's been holding his breath. Realizes it when it rushes out of him on a groan -- groaning because she's clenched on him, involuntarily or otherwise. Maybe she wants to sit up, to bounce on that cock, to really fuck him, but

he can't bear to have her far from him right now. His arms wrap around her, fold behind that long lovely back of hers; he holds her against his chest, close, and their lovemaking is a thing of slow slides and hard grinds, short flexes, shared breaths.

Enough distance opens between them that he can find her eyes, see her eyes, hold her eyes. He watches her as they -- what did he say earlier? -- fornicate, watches her like he might find some universal truth in her eyes, or like he might fall away from reality altogether if he looks away. Sometimes the way she moves makes stars burst and die in his eyes. Sometimes the way she moves makes his eyes flicker shut, but always, always they open again. Find hers again.

"I don't think I can last very long," he tells hers, a ragged whisper, vulnerable -- a confession mere moments after he's inside her. She rides down; he gasps. Muscles jump across his chest, his hands grab at her hips. He grinds her on him, a tight circle that flashes a furrow across his brow, makes him groan. "God, I want you so much."

Avery

Even if Calden never offered himself to her, telling her that she can do whatever she wants with him, he's hers to do with as she pleases, he's hers, even if he'd never said it at all -- and now may never say it again for the terror it lit in her eyes -- Avery would know. She would know, at least, that he isn't going to tell her to wait, that he isn't going to suggest they pause and breathe, he isn't going to tell her no, he just wanted to lick her until she came and then go on his way.

Not for the first time, certainly not for the last, she thinks of him mentioning just lifting her up on his cock and fucking her right there, standing upright on the terrace. Oh, she'd like that. To start, at least.

He gets his boxers off, touches her hip, but she's already moving downward, breasts stroking his chest, pressing herself hotly to the length of his cock. It makes her groan, and almost instantly she's stroking herself off on him, his head is thumping against the floor. Fuck me, she says, and Calden does. He guides her onto him and oh, yes, she's trying to fuck him, really fuck him, ride him, take him, until his hands run up the backs of her thighs and slow her, stop her, muttering into their kiss to be careful.

She does not for a moment think she's being warned against harming herself. Avery assumes he can't stand it and exhales against his lips, nipping him once, returning to kiss that bitten spot of his lip, suckling it softly. Her hips ease on his, her rolls gentling. Poor mortal Calden. Poor older man. She takes him more slowly after that, panting with it, and yes: she starts to sit up, looking at him, wanting him to look at her, wanting to ride him, but he reaches for her, drawing her back down with hands on her arms and then her back. Avery acquiesces, descending to him again, kissing his mouth again, breathing him in as she sinks completely onto him, as she holds him inside, tightly, without even meaning to.

Avery puts her hands beside his shoulders and arches her back, moving on top of him. She slides up his body, his cock sliding out of her, but not completely. When she works herself back down, all the slower, a rush of air leaves her mouth. She swears softly, a gasp of sound, and she realizes the way he's looking at her, the way he longs for her eyes, and

so she gives him her gaze. Meets his. Accepts his admission with a firm, warm curl of her hips against him. When he grabs her then, working her just the way he wants, groans like that, Avery shudders. She does it again, this time without his guidance. She doesn't tell him it's all right. She doesn't tell him that if he can bear it, if he can stand it just a little longer, she thinks she'll come again, too. She just kisses his jaw, breathes against him: "Let me fuck you, darling."

And what she means is this: she wants him to look at her. She doesn't want to ride him now, bounce on him, drive him out of his mind in seconds. She slows them down, but she makes him watch her as she rises, hands on his chest, moving in slow, close grinds on his cock. Her palms are warm, and run over him like sunlight, smoothing his skin. Her eyes hold his. She murmurs:

"I'm not going anywhere," and the words are almost panted, as she works herself on him. Her hand runs down his torso, moves between her legs. For a moment her lower lip is caught between her teeth as she touches herself, delicately, achingly, and for that moment she loses his eyes but when they open again she finds him, watches him. "I'm right here." There's a tightness, a raggedness in her voice. "I'm going to come with you."

Calden

Calden can hardly handle it when she sinks down on him like that. When she takes him inside and arches her back, when the entirety of her body rubs against his as she lifts off.

He loses her eyes. His fall shut, roll back; he'd hit his head on the floor if it weren't for the rumpled nest of bedding. And his hands are gripping her hips and her hands are sliding off his shoulders, and he moves her -- she shudders -- he groans -- she does it again.

He almost loses his mind.

--

Let me, she says then. Let me fuck you. His hands rush up her body like a wave, sweep up beneath her jaw, cup her head. He kisses her, the muscles in his arms bunching, the muscles in his torso flexing. It's a ferocious kiss, and a nearly mindless one, and when it's over he falls back and drops his hands to the blankets.

She rises up. He grasps handfuls of comforters, sheets. She rides him: so. fucking. slowly, and the truth is he can't keep his hands off her. He puts his hands on her, stroking over her sleek hips, spanning that trim waist; sweeping up to cup those incomparable breasts. When she rises his eyes fall shut, his brow furrows, his lips part. When she sinks down his flanks tighten, his back arches; his hips lift to meet her and his eyes open to watch her, watch her sink down, watch her take that cock,

and that

is how

he sees her hand trailing down his body. Her fingertips skim through sweat, over churning muscle and hard bone; they lift off somewhere south of his navel. He watches her touching herself so exquisitely. It drives a groan out of him, an animal sound utterly devoid of human language, and it drives a reflexive thrust into her. He makes her gasp. She makes him moan. That's when he lifts a hand over his head to grasp a handful of -- whatever -- for purchase; that's when his other hand slides down to body to tangle, slide, intersect with hers. It's his thumb seeking out her clit, then, and finding it: as though even now he wants so badly to please her, as though even now his pleasure comes as much from watching her lose it as it does from --

well. This.

So he touches her, strokes her, rubs her in slow tight circles that match the way she rides him. So he fucks her, meeting her stroke for stroke, and he watches her all the while: watches her body rise and fall, watches her cunt taking him in, watches her breasts rise and her eyes flash, watches the way her teeth catch her lip, watches the way her tongue sweeps her mouth

until he can't watch anymore. Until his head falls back, until his eyes fall shut, until he becomes a creature of sensation and impulse only: action and reaction, pleasure and response.

--

There's no rhyme or reason to it, when he comes. It's not because of something she does or something she says; it's not because she tosses back her hair and rides down on his cock, and it's not because -- this time, at least -- she bites him, or claws him, or commands him to come. It doesn't even hit him the way his climaxes so often do; it doesn't roar over him out of nowhere, and it doesn't strike him down from the blue.

This time,

this orgasm steals over him. It's drenching as a storm, inexorable as the tide. It comes over him in waves, each more overwhelming than the last, each building on the last, until by the time his hand is moving to grasp her hip -- to grind her down, to hold her right there as he flexes up into her -- he's already beyond words. He's already beyond coherence -- beyond anything but base noises, grunts behind clenched teeth, harsh sussurant gasps, open-throated groans.

That last thrust is firm, swift, deep. It's like he can't help it, doesn't know any other way to come but this: buried in her, lost in her, wracked by it, laid out and destroyed by it. When it crests he's completely overcome -- just gone. When it passes, when it finally lets him go,

he collapses back onto the floor, a languid, liquid sprawl, joints loose as water. His chest can't seem to hold all the breaths he wants to take. His eyes can't seem to hold her, but he opens them anyway, watches her anyway, dazed, bewitched, enchanted, beguiled.

His hands release what they grip. Her hip; the covers. They drift down her thighs, and up again: rub slowly, mindlessly over her body. He's a son of Stag after all: lost in the aftermath, he thinks to himself that she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Not merely the most beautiful woman or the hottest fuck, but

the most perfect, breathtaking, unforgettable sight he's ever seen. He wants to tell her so. All he manages is this, a ragged breath of a word:

" ... beautiful."

Avery

Afterward, Avery comes back to him. Didn't she say she wasn't going anywhere? Didn't she say she was right there? She folds to him, panting, breathing with her entire body, it seems, trying to catch it as it outruns her. Her heart is thudding in her chest like a rabbit; her lower body is trembling. She feels sore and delicious and exhausted and glorious. Calden is saying something that she barely hears. She imagines it isn't important. Some stricken muttering, some piece of flattery or overcome exaltation, she doesn't know what. She doesn't ask him to repeat it.

It takes time, and quite a lot of it, for Avery to end up breathing normally again. She's drowsing on his chest, tipped over some edge from aroused to worn through, and there's no desire in her to move, or rise up, or speak. He strokes her; she lets him. He holds her; she lets him do that, too.

--

After a very long time, Avery breathes steadily. The beats in match the beats out. She sighs, and lifts her head, and kisses his chest right over his heart, and then puts her palms on the ground and pushes herself up. The ends of her hair graze his chest. She slides off of him, one leg crossing his body, and at first is on her knees and then is on her feet, rising in gradual but smooth motions.

Standing, quite naked, she looks down at him and tilts her head to the side. He's a mess. He's sprawled in covers and pillows all tangled around him, a man spent. The corner of Avery's mouth quirks. She's barely spoken to him at all since she fled the terrace. A few words here or there: I like asking. fuck me. I'm going to come with you. She says very little now, and she wants to, but none of them are about what a good fuck he is or how he looks to her or --

any of that.

Her feet pad closer to his shoulder. She has her hand at her side. "Give me your hand," she murmurs, and if he raises his arm and lets his fingers brush hers, she takes them, and holds them, and smooths her thumb over the backs of his calloused fingers. Her eyes stay on his.

"I will endeavor," she murmurs, amusingly archaic words if they were not so infused with sincerity, with promise, "to worry less. And I will allow you to go through this with me, and try not to feel ashamed for it."

With a gentle squeeze, she releases his hand, and that is when it may be evident that she was giving him a pledge, and pledges take a handclasp, a favor, some sort of tangible contact to prove their meaning. Her steps move away, because she does not want to be held or pulled back or worshipped right now. She does not want to be held still. At the moment, even after or especially after that promise, she feels her heart like a fluttering dove in her chest, wings beating the air and the bars, striving to escape. So Avery releases his hand, softly, and moves away. She walks to the still-open door instead, looking out of it, and whether he sees her there or not, with the bed in the way, he can hear her.

"We should go out to dinner," she says, thoughtful.

no disclaimers, no hedging, no teasing, no silliness.

Avery Chase

Put crudely, his cock had barely softened before he was starting to get hard again. And she was just done with him, fixing her hair and makeup in the glass and then sliding off of him, leaving him really no choice but to start touching himself. Avery is so heartless. Avery is so cruel. No less now, smirking at him and tossing her hair, all but making him groan just with that gesture. She rolls her eyes in amusement at his threat to hold her to her 'offer'.

She sighs impatiently while he's putting himself back away. Her eyebrows hop up when he licks his hand, her lips uttering a quiet goodness. She is all but tapping her foot when he turns off the ignition and they step out of the car. Avery looks radiant, as ever. Calden looks... well, considering his hair was a bit matted and his clothing dusty when he rolled up, and considering the heat of the day, adding a little sweat and rumpledness goes mostly without notice.

Besides. People walking by...

...look at her, instead.

She beams at him, taking his hand lightly in her own, leading him into the lobby, which is rather plain and simple and does not have a doorman but is entered by keycard. The building itself actually is rather relaxed, and one can imagine that those living in the floors below her aren't even close to her affluence. But no matter: she takes him to the elevator, which has a key. For the penthouse. None of the other floors have keys. She leans over and kisses him inside the elevator, a peck on the cheek, no more.

"It has fifty windows, Calden," she says. "Fifty! Can you even imagine?"

Calden White

In spite of himself -- rather, in spite of the havoc she's caused in his body -- Calden laughs. "Oh, so you did get the one with fifty windows." The floor rises beneath their feet. He leans against the elevator wall, feet apart, his thumb sweeping an arc over the side of her knuckles. "No," he adds, quieter, tilting his head into that soft little peck on his cheek. "I can't really imagine that. You must own the entire floor."

Avery Chase

"So much light," she's chattering. "It really takes advantage of how sunny this city is. I was reading -- it's over three hundred days of the year. Sunny even in winter! Snowing and sunny! Raining and sunny!" She laughs, delighted.

"Oh, and the penthouse is two floors, actually," she informs him. "It sort of sits atop the rest of the building. You'll see. I have a glorious terrace."

The doors ding open, but not directly into her penthouse. They open, instead, to a small open area that turns into a hallway. The floors are polished parquet, and Avery's heels tap on them neatly. "I'm thinking of a rug for right here," she says, of the outer hallway, gesturing at the floor, "but I like the click of my heels on the floor. Click, click, click, click," she goes on, laughing as her heels match the cadence of her voice.

There is no need for a second key at this point, though she could lock the doors if she wants. Avery walks him down the hall and past a sideboard that he might remember from her other place that now sits in a neat corner for it bearing a vase of cut lilies and a table-runner in silvery and blue brocade. She brushes her fingers over the flowers before she opens the door, which is not a grand, double-doored entrance but a simple white door with a handle instead of a knob.

Turning, Avery grasps both his hands, filthy or not, and tugs him inside, beaming. And she was not kidding: the entire place is flooded with light. The wall ahead of him, which he can see past a 16-seat dining table, is covered with windows and windows and windows that extend past what he can comfortably see. And that's just the dining room. "Oh, it's wonderful here," she tells him, breezing towards those white, modern chairs and that long, dark table. There's a fireplace in that dining room, and over there a glorious kitchen with a door-sized wine cellar and over there there's a sitting area for brunch and over there there's a small intimate setting and over there there's the large living room and,

really,

the place just screams luxury. It's all white and gray and purple and splashes of color on the walls mostly in the form of some abstract art that Avery probably didn't choose. She has shown him only half of the first floor of what for most people would be a mansion, not a retreat away from her father, and then tugs him close again by the hands, turning her hands in his as though they're about to dance. She smiles up at him.

"I have," she says slowly, "the most enormous sunning terrace outside, with a lap pool. And upstairs, there's another terrace just for me. A private one."

Calden White

Calden follows a step behind Avery, though their hands are still linked, as they walk down that hall. Her high heels click. His bootheels thud. There's a quirky half-grin on his face as he watches her, listens to her -- and in truth his eyes are mostly on her.

Even when she opens the humble little door to her decidedly unhumble home. Retreat. Private den. However she thinks of this place in her mind. Even when she takes both his hands in hers and draws him in, walking backwards so he can walk forward and look around and see the expanse and the light and the luxury: even then, his eyes stay on her for the longest time. It's quite the view: the sunlight shining on her hair and through it. On her skin and through it.

At length he does look away, though. He does look around, tilting his head back to see the ceiling, the windows, the view. The terrace, with its lap pool. Calden isn't quite the country bumpkin -- or well, he is, but he's a country bumpkin that lives amidst a fair amount of luxury himself -- but this is a cut above. He's impressed without being envious; happy for her, because she seems so happy with her choice.

His eyes come back to hers. And he finds her smiling up at him, so he leans down on impulse to kiss her softly, tastingly, slowly.

"It's a lovely home," he says, meaning it. "It suits you perfectly." And he lifts her hands in his; kisses her gently on her knuckles. One hand then the other, a quick succession.

Avery Chase

Avery was never like this about the room at the Ritz, or about the condo she bought there. Never this gleeful, this excited to show him everything. It was never really her den, even a retreat-den. This place is all light and softness and it feels like a sanctuary. Her den is where she sleeps with her blood-kin, where her servant-kin are nearby. That is her den, but just as Avery is both public and private, social and isolated, this place feeds a different need in her soul. And she brings him here.

Him.

They haven't gone around to the terrace or the pool yet, but he hears about them, and yes, it's quite impressive that she has a goddamn lap pool on the penthouse atop a building, and a tree/hedge-lined terrace that will shield her from every view even when she's outside in the sun, but it's really the pleasure on her face, the joy, that is the most delightful thing here.

Calden kisses her, and her eyes drift closed for a moment as she welcomes that kiss, sighing softly. "Yes," she murmurs, as though in answer to something he hasn't said. Her eyelashes lift again. He tells her it's lovely. It suits her. She beams again, grinning. "I think so, too."

She lets him kiss her hands, and then sighs. "I want to show you everything," she murmurs. "Across that little hall -- or around, if you want to walk that way -- there's a library. It's... almost its own building. All couches with the books in a loft above. It's wonderful, Calden. I didn't have a library in the old place!"

Avery leans into him, though, sweeping his hands out and down and around her to her lower back. "And I also want to take you upstairs and out on the terrace. I want to ride you again there. In the sun."

Calden White

Maybe Calden senses a subtle significance in her bringing him here. Here, where she is sheltered and ensconced. Here, where she owns the entire floor -- the entire two floors -- where her retreat sits private and sunlit and brilliant atop the building like an eyrie atop a mountain. Her family doesn't come here. He suspects, if and when she acts in her role as leader, as judge, as tactician, she would not bring other wolves here, either.

But she brought him here. And she wants to show him everything, everything,

even as she's stepping into him, guiding his arms around her. She hardly needs to; he needs almost no encouragement to embrace her. Arousal still lingers in his blood, a low hum; not quite so mindbending as it was in the car, but: there. Present. Stirring.

"Let's make it a game," he suggests. "You can show me as many things as we have articles of clothing. When we run out of clothes to take off, you can take me upstairs and fuck me in the sun. And the rest of your grand tour will just have to wait for afterward."

His mouth tilts. He kisses her playfully: his lips brushing the tip of her nose. "Sound like a plan, Miss Chase?"

Avery Chase

Oh, but they don't mention it. She doesn't tell him that he is special to her, though he has said it to her. He does not ask her to tell him if it means something, that this is her retreat, her sanctuary, her hiding place when she cannot bear the company of even her own blood, and that she has brought him here. He doesn't demand that she confirm it, and so does not tempt her to deny it. She looks at him through lowered eyelashes, with a look in her eyes that with another woman would tell him everything she feels, and nothing she believes. She smiles, her cheeks high in color from pleasure, orgasm, arousal, for the slip she wears slides and rustles against her ass and her thighs with every step.

"That won't be fair," she says, and of course she says that, because she was born under a moon giving equal, fair shares to both light and darkness. "I've already lost some of my underthings," she says, all but exhaling the words in a sigh. Her body sways closer to his, against his, and the touch sings through her.

Avery pulls herself back from his lips when she notices he's going for the tip of her nose and not her lips. She gives him a neither reproachful nor amused, but simply asks: "Are we counting accessories? Your belt, my earrings?"

Calden White

"That's quite all right," he says of her lost-underthings. "We're on the same team, anyway."

She sways against him. He doesn't back up, not a step, not an inch. Their bodies press together and he bows his head, leans to kiss her -- she pulls back.

And asks for clarification. The corners of his mouth quirk. He raises his head a little. "I suppose that depends on just how much of your penthouse you want to show me," he reasons. "Or just how long you want to make me wait." And he goes for her again: her mouth this time, their bodies swaying together for an electric moment, hips, stomach, lips. Mmm, he says.

Whispering: "Don't make me wait too long."

Avery Chase

Avery exhales, a rushed breath of laughter. She loops those long, slender arms of hers around his neck, shaking her head as she looks at him. This time when he kisses her, he kisses her mouth, soft and warm and -- oh, she noticed -- cleanshaven. Avery nearly purrs, lifting up on her toes against him, nuzzling his jawline as that kiss evaporates and as he asks her -- tells her, maybe -- not to make him wait. She just laughs again, outright this time. "I haven't, you ridiculous man."

And she hasn't. She couldn't even wait til they got inside. She couldn't wait for either of them to get undressed. She slips away, her hand running down his chest, over the cotton -- she hopes it's cotton, as it's so terribly warm and she doesn't want him getting overheated in flannel -- down to his belt. Her fingers hook between leather and denim. Avery turns, arm twisting behind her, smiling as she begins walking around the corner. Not to show him the pool or even to lead him out to the library, which is obviously the best part of the entire place, but towards the stairs,

and towards her bedroom, with its private, sunlit terrace.

Calden White

Calden's regard drops as her hand trails down his chest. He watches her go: fingertips flattening the faint rumpling of his shirt front, slipping between the buttons now and then. It's summertime. He's stopped wearing undershirts. His shirt is not flannel, but it looks like it should be: plaid, checked, about as far from high fashion as one can get. Looks good on him, though. Looks good hung off those bullish shoulders, rolled up off those tanned forearms.His smile turns into a smirk when she hooks her fingers into his belt. That's not how the game goes, he's about to mock-protest, only shebegins to tug him after her. So he goes: the first step a beat faster than the rest, catching up. She takes him up the stairs. He looks back as he climbs, enjoying the view of her penthouse, which is charmingly at the intersection of ultramodern luxury and -- in some way he can't quite put his finger on -- small English country-cottage. X stories above the Highlands, but there you are.On the second floor he snags a bit of her skirt between his fingers. He tugs her back, turning her around and wrapping his arms around her."Well, I've seen your staircase now," he reasons. "I think you should take this off." And he gives the skirt a little waggle.

Avery Chase

Avery's hand stays in Calden's belt. She draws him up the stairs, but on the stairs it's necessary for him to walk closer, for it to seem better for her hand to just reach into his pants, but of course she doesn't. That wouldn't be very ladylike. She takes him up the stairs, and onto a little landing, and before they've even taken the little left turn towards her bedroom, Calden's hand is tugging on the skirt of her dress.

She turns, her lips parting, giving him a look of affront and perhaps even shock. "Mr. White," she tells him, which should very well be followed by unhand my gown this instant, brigand, but the words don't leave her mouth. Her lipstick is not so perfect anymore; her curls aren't, either. Her fingers are still hooked in his belt, her arm squished between their torsos.

Avery's lips come together and her brow quirks. "Darling," she murmurs, as she works her hand between them, pulling on the belt buckle, watching his eyes, "I have a better idea."

His belt is undone. She doesn't bother unwinding it from the beltloops. She doesn't even tell him what her idea is, but now curls her hand around the front of his shirt, turns again, and goes on walking him towards her bedroom.

Calden White

He looks down again. Dexterously, swiftly, she undoes his belt.

"Miss Chase," he returns, matching that shocked and affronted tone exactly. Not the expression, though. He can't help it: that crooked grin, that spreading smirk. "I hardly dare ask what your better idea is."

Avery Chase

Avery is guiding him around the hallway, ignoring the rest of the upstairs. She pauses at the door, and her hand softens in his shirt, and she turns to him, her back to her bedroom door. There's a look in her eyes, different from before, a little pensive. Her mouth opens to speak, but she doesn't say anything. She closes her mouth again after taking that breath, watching him.

Calden White

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )

Calden White

[WELL ORIGINALLY IT WAS THREE.]

Avery Chase

[Damon rolled empathy! 5-10-9-3-8-1 (3 suxx)

1: Avery has lost some of the close-to-rabid lust from when she first saw him, and she's actually not feeling all that playful/bantery.2: But that's sort of their 'thing' and they keep it 'light' and 'casual' and so she's sort of putting it on as a front because she sort of thinks if she drops it or tells him to drop it, it will be a Big Hairy Deal or come off like it means more than it does.3: This place feels much more like her own private den to her. And she's at her own doorway. And she's just: ugh, I do not want to go in there playing some game I'm not wanting to play. Because it's her den-within-her-den. And she's not sure how to approach it, because of 2.]

Calden White

That little pause, there before her door. That softening of her hand, and that look in her eyes. The way her mouth opens, draws breath. Closes. He watches these things. All of them. And the smirk fades to a smile, and the smile to a faint curve on his lips. A moment or two go by.

Then Calden takes a step forward. Another. Her elbow bends; her forearm touches the front of his shirt. Then his body through the fabric, solid and firm. He comes to her, cupping his hand behind her neck, curving to her head. When his mouth touches hers, it's a kiss slow and warm,

genuine, truth down to the core, serious without ever being severe.

Avery Chase

When Avery pulled back earlier, drawing away from the little kiss he intended for the tip of her nose, it was a familiar thing: she drew away when he went to kiss her brow, too. When she pulls away even as he lowers his head to kiss her mouth, it's different; it has to be. Her hand is on his chest, softened against the cotton, no longer pulling him after her to show him her bedroom, to take off his clothes, to ride him or fuck him or roll him over her so he can do what he came here for and get her off.

Her hand rests on his chest, palm to cloth, her eyes on his, but still: she draws back when he goes to kiss her, which he was going to do even before he looked in her eyes and the smirk died on his lips. She does not stop him from stepping closer, is not threatened by her body being held so close between door and man.

And they are so close, even when she draws back, that the quick-coming words leaving her mouth then leave impressions of breath against his cheek and his jaw, which is bare because he was coming to see her, because he wants to kiss all of her, because they have teased and played about this, too. It is as though he wants her to know, maybe wants everyone to know, that he is going to pleasure her. He is here to please her.

He does please her. But she pulls away, and the motion is still felt, still active in the air, when she says quick and quiet and with breath falling humid on his skin:

"Tell me how you feel about me," Avery whispers. "No disclaimers or hedging. No teasing or silliness. No flattery."

Then, because she has clarified it for herself as she's gone on, she corrects herself, still watching his eyes, staying so quiet: "Tell me what you want with me."

Calden White

Unexpected: that quick withdrawal, the words that follow quicker. A frown stitches Calden's brow, and his lips part to speak -- but before he does she goes on, corrects herself. From feel to want.

Safer territory, that. But not one he knows. Not one he can map for her. A hesitation. "I don't know what I want," he says. "I do know how I feel. And if you want to hear it still, I'll tell you."

There's a pause there. Not a hesitation, but something deliberate. A beat, a breath, a gap in conversation long enough for her to stop him. Long enough for her to shush him, or lay those fine fingers of hers on his mouth. Or kiss him. That would work too. Dam the words. Ward the truth away.

She doesn't. And they're so close still, her breath and his mingling. He has the courage not to lay his brow to hers, though, and not to close his eyes.

"I'm infatuated with you, Avery. I'm completely bewitched. I think about you when we're apart, and I miss you when I leave you. Sometimes I catch myself smiling for no other reason than that I've thought of you. I meant it when I said I couldn't wait to see you again.

"It'd bother me if you didn't want to see me again. It'd bother me if I knew you were with someone else. I wouldn't feel right being with someone else now, either, even if you've never asked for exclusivity."

Avery Chase

How Calden feels about Avery is no secret between them, but it is a taboo. It is that agreed-upon thing, that dangerous truth, that they have wordlessly agreed not to discuss overmuch, or perhaps at all. What could she say to him in answer to it? What could he do, if she were to meet him with silence? Fragile as spun silk. Fragile as bubbles of blow glass, skins as thin as a breath, only a membrane between a beautiful floating thing and an emptiness, with only the memory left behind of something pretty

and strangely comforting.

So: she asks him to tell her what he wants, instead, because that is what she doesn't know. As it turns out, he doesn't know, either. He is a mystery to himself, and when he admits as much, her brows twitch together and remain, sewn across the space between her eyes to remain bound together. It is not a territory she finds safe at all; indeed, it is more perilous than finding out that he feels for her

the way she knows he feels for her. But Calden doesn't know what he wants. So there's some mercy there, some room to breathe: he cannot tell her something he wants, and so she does not have to deny him, and she does not have to worry about wanting the same thing, which may in fact be worse for her. They buy time from the universe with their inability to know themselves perfectly.

He gives her the confession she knows is coming: infatuated, bewitched, he says, but the truth is simpler than that. He does not use raw words. He does not say things like long for you or -- oh, most terrible of all -- falling in love with you. He has the courage not to close his eyes when he tells her what he does; he has the good sense not to say things that may sound overblown, things that may not be true, things that now,

she decides are not true, for he does not say them.

--

The fair thing to do -- perhaps even the right thing to do -- would be for Avery to similarly expose herself for him. Dredge up her own truths and tell him how she feels about him, or even go so far as to tell him what she wants, but she knows neither. Calden has the advantage here, in terms of self-understanding. Avery only knows those limitations: what she cannot ask of him, what she does not know of herself, what she cannot promise.

She fails in fairness and honesty, here. Perhaps even courage. She closes her eyes, one arm sliding around his neck and shoulders, fingers working up his neck and into his hair, drawing him down to,

yes, finally,

seal her mouth on his, open it, taste him again. Her other hand reaches behind her hip, grasps the handle of the door, and presses it down. It opens with a click more felt in the air than heard, and sweeps slowly inward, into a room lit only by sunlight through windows, windows, windows, but all that sunlight is greater than any lamp could give them. A room all gold, cream, and silver. The door to her terrace is open, and the faintest warm breeze drifts through the room, caressing their arms as Avery steps backward, keeping Calden against her.

Calden White

She doesn't know how often those words have been at the tip of his tongue. She doesn't know how often he's swallowed them down again because he doesn't want to sound overblown, doesn't want to speak rashly or out of passing instinct; doesn't want to unconsideringly cross that uncrossable line where they'll have to start considering

what they want

and what they can give, which is not at all the same.

--

He saves himself from that. He says only what he knows to be true. And she spares him a confession in return. Her hand goes around his shoulders, skimming across cotton too thick for this weather; warm from his flesh beneath. She pulls him down and he goes so willingly, kisses her so thoroughly.

They step through that door and into a world of sunlight and gold, white and silver, but he sees none of it because his eyes are closed now, too; his hands fold around her ribcage, around her back, and hold her against him as they kiss their way into her bedroom.

Avery Chase

And he doesn't stop her, or pull back from that kiss, to ask her to please not leave him hanging there, wondering. Avery doesn't bother to close the door. She does step out of her heels, her height lowering a couple of demure inches, her back arched to lift her mouth to his. Both of her arms are around him now, holding him for a moment before she slides her palms to his shirtfront, finding the first button and working it out of its eyelet blindly, blindly. She is so very hungry for him. She does not stop moving them, though:

the door there is wide and open, and she moves into the air that comes through it, crossing another threshold, bare feet touching smooth planks. The terrace is surprisingly large, and square. There is a daybed against the wall, with canvas sails criss-crossing above it as an awning. The fabric is weather-resistant, of course, and she has People to take it inside or make sure it's covered up for her when the weather turns ill, but it hasn't rained in a while now. There are pillows and bolsters and it looks quite luxurious, but there are also low lounge chairs open to the sun. Little tables dot here and there at appropriate locations. The railing is almost entirely flanked by tall potted topiary, a green fence against the city.

Avery pushes her hands underneath Calden's shirt, skimming it off his shoulders and down his arms.

Her mouth lowers to his chest, lips brushing throat, clavicles, pectoral.

Calden White

For those few seconds when Avery steps out of her shoes, their mouths part. Calden's eyes open. His arms loosen, enough for her to slip her heels off; enough for a breath of space to open between them. Then he follows that half-step, his own feet nudging her shoes aside, his boots treading carefully around her bare feet as his mouth searches, finds hers again.

He has an impression of her bedroom in those fleeting instants. He has an impression of the terrace beyond it, that open door; the luxury of the summer breeze threading through the cool conditioned air within. A moment later she takes him outside, just as she said she would. The sun is warm on his skin. The air is warm too, but neither so warm as her hands, undoing his shirt. Skimming under the fabric. He lowers his arms: she pushes his shirt open, and down, and he sheds it thoughtlessly on the floor.

His hands are in her hair as her mouth goes to his chest. He kisses the top of her head, because that is what he can reach. His skin shivers to her touch. Her lips move over his heartbeat, and his eyes are open now, watching her. No words come, but his breath is a quietly audible thing, unsteady, matching the path she traces across his body.

Avery Chase

Avery does not lick his nipple. Her mouth skims past it, her breath curls around it, and she knows he likes it, she remembers the times he's groaned or gasped or shivered when she's flicked it into a firm bead with her tongue or closed her lips around him and suckled, but she doesn't this time. She traces a light line down his middle with the tips of her fingers until those fingers hook in the top of his jeans, his undone belt brushing her wrist.

"Unzip my dress," she murmurs to him, against his skin, as she works one hard metal button out from a firm denim eye.

Calden White

Something about that makes Calden laugh. It's a quiet sound, almost more felt in the contracture of his abdominals than heard. A moment later those muscles clench again; his skin shivers away from her trailing fingers, a moment before he steps into her to firm the contact.

She undoes his jeans. It's the second time today. His hands sift out of her hair, down her back. He finds the zipper of that pretty retro dress of hers with only a little difficulty, and he draws it down. The dress begins to slip off her shoulders. He helps: his palms running over the curve of her shoulder, her upper arm, pushing those thin straps down.

Avery Chase

He should laugh at himself, forgetting to undress her like that. Silly man. And while he is laughing, she is straightening again, stepping closer to him again, reaching her free hand behind his head to pull him back into her kiss. It's like gravity. It's like addiction. Her hand unbuttons him, unzips him, slides in to -- for the second time today -- coast over his cock through his boxers. White, crisp, plain cotton boxers. Thin enough, in fact, that she can feel every ridge, every inch of him.

Her mouth loosens on his, a near-silent pant leaving her lips as she strokes him. His hands run down her soft arms, easing those thin straps away, and her bodice falls, but that equally retro slip of hers keeps it up otherwise. Her bra is strapless, naturally, pale pink, satin. The sunlight almost glitters on her skin.

Calden White

Their mouths part when she finds him in his jeans. She pants; he gasps. It's a breath at once shared and split. Then his mouth finds hers again, comes onto her, kisses hers with a renewed hunger that tastes almost like demand.

Her slip baffles him, though. He has not conceived of a dress, a one-piece, that does not simply drop to the floor after the zipper is undone and the straps nudged aside. His hands coast down her arms, cup her elbows; turn inward to find her sides. He gets lost for a moment there, his palms wandering upward while he kisses her. His thumbs graze her breasts, callouses catching satin, and there it is again, a breath drawn out of turn, a gasp against her mouth,

a low sound, the first in a while now, heavy in his throat. He refocuses: his hands skim down to where her dress seems detained, caught!, on her slip. His lips part from hers again, quirk, he laughs against her mouth:

"How do I get this off?" - whispered.

Avery Chase

At that, he begins kissing her like the peasant she's always telling him he is. Heavy, hungry kisses, pressing his body closer to hers, pawing at her arms, her sides, cupping her breasts, feeling her up through the padded satin like he can't help himself. Avery thinks of the way he took her bodice in his mouth, like he was aching to get his mouth on her and trying to subsist on fabric instead, since she wouldn't let him.

"You pull," she tells him, her hand more insistent on his cock, squeezing him in her palm, her mouth seeking his again. And so: it's just elastic around her waist, it's just to be tugged down and the dress will follow, follow, all the way to the floor.

And when he pulls -- if he is not too distracted by her breasts -- it does fall, and the dress does follow, a surprisingly large pool of white chiffon and floral organza rustling down her bare legs, leaving her in, well. That bra, feminine pink, a tiny rosette between the cups. But by then, Avery has pulled, too. She's working his jeans from his hips as they stand there, never taking her hand off of his cock.

Calden White

You pull.

And so he laughs again, at himself and at the obvious simplicity of it all: pulling, the dress coming down, rustling gracefully to the terrace floor. She has no panties on. That shocks him somehow, even though he's the cause of it; he'd almost forgotten pulling it off of her in his car, frantic to be inside her, tossing it over his shoulder to -- wherever. He supposes he'll find it hours or days from now, wedged between his seat and the center console or lost under the dashboard, a rush of memory and heat hammering him when his hand happens upon it, when it tugs it out from wherever it's gone.

Nevermind. She's all but naked, and he is suddenly and achingly protective: sweeping his arms around her, lifting her as she knew he would. She's working his jeans down, but he effectively stops her: crosses her terrace in a few strides, his boot catching briefly on her dress. He takes her to that daybed with its pillows and bolsters, its white sun-shading sails that make him think of blue skies, blue water. He sinks down on it, her knees pressing to either side of him, and if she reaches again for his jeans he catches her hands, stops her for a moment, kissing her again, murmuring:

"Wait. My boots,"

and so they are: boots, still on his feet, kicked off now one after the other, the heavy soles and heavy leather uppers thunking as they topple. His socks follow, kicked off somewhere. Barefoot then, his hands come up her thighs and over her ass; he raises her up on her knees and lays back under her, raising his hips to push his pants down himself.

And his boxers. Those plain, soft, thin cotton things. Sunlight and sunwarm air touch him all over. It's a decadent feeling; a little shocking here, in the heart of a city. He resists the urge to look around, check for prying neighbors -- but of course there are none. She's high up. There are walls of green all around. Her penthouse almost has a yard with these sprawling terraces, their greenery, their daybeds and lounge chairs and lap pools, for god's sake.

Avery Chase

If Calden is lucky, he'll find that wisp of fabric beneath the back seat of his truck and remember Avery today, accosting him in the sunlight and kissing him, moaning into his mouth, pushing him back into the cab so she could fuck him. He'll remember pulling them off and remember how wet she was, remember how she fixed her makeup and fluffed her hair while sitting on his cock afterward. If he's lucky.

If he's not lucky, one of his dogs is going to sniff it and find it and go running through the ranch with Avery's panties in their mouth, or one of his cousins is going to find it and raise their eyebrows. If he's not lucky, someone other than him is going to find her underwear instead.

That's later. This is now:

Calden sweeps his arms around her to lift her but she laughs at him, breathy, and fights him. He wants to go to the daybed. She wants to take off his jeans, and stands her ground, refusing to be lifted or backed up anywhere. He tells her: wait. my boots like that matters and she kisses him, harder now, while he's trying to get his boots off and she's pulling the elastic of his boxers away from that glorious cock and down, and he's potentially trying to get her hands out of the way and she's stubborn, oh he might not know that about her yet, he might not have realized just how stubborn she can be, except

he saw her stand up to Christina Black, and the power that had. He may have some idea.

"No, I want to," she's whispering, satin and skin against his skin, wanting so much to push those jeans away herself, undress him, bare him to her eyes and her skin, and if they fight with their hands so be it. Avery is insistent. She wants him like this, standing in the light,

naked.

And she still has her bra on. And she grins, bright and luxurious, wrapping her hand around him and starting to stroke. "I win," she all but purrs, even though, as he said before, they're on the same team.

Calden White

So: fine. She doesn't want to go anywhere. They don't go anywhere. They fight for a little while, but not in earnest: his hand grasping at hers, hers shaking his off, going back to his jeans. He gives up. He gives in: dropping his hands to his side, tipping his head back on an unsteady inhale, lowering his head again to watch her. His chest moves. The wind moves on his skin, and that is still the same: warm, luxurious, decadent. She pushes his pants down and pulls his boxers down and

he groans again when she touches him, his jeans sagging their way down to his ankles. She wins, she says. He can't help but laugh, raggedly.

"How am I supposed to walk like this?" he wants to know. He has a point. Boots, socks, jeans, boxers: all of it conspiring in a tangle, as good as shackles around his shins. "I hope you're not expecting freestanding sex, Miss Chase. I'm good but I'm not -- "

she strokes him. Her palm passes over the exquisitely sensitive underside of his cock, and he loses his train of thought for a second, swears under his breath. Recovers, panting the last of the sentence out:

" -- not that good."

Avery Chase

"Oh, you just haven't tried," Avery murmurs, or purrs, and she was just going to touch him once or twice but now she's slowly, rhythmically jerking him off, smirking softly, lazily at him. He's bantering again. For a moment she loses herself and banters right back. Oh, they're so witty. As though he never admitted that it would bother him to lose her, bother him to share her, that he isn't fucking anyone else, that he's entranced by her. As though he never admitted that he doesn't know what he wants because he -- like she -- is afraid to figure out what he wants,

because of what they can and can't actually do.

Her eyes close, and she runs the flat of her tongue over his nipple. Her victory was a bit premature: in a way, he's still clothed. Pants and boxers and boots. A little less clothed and covered than she is, though.

Avery breathes in deep, smelling his sweat on his skin, and even though he has told her she's welcome to lead him by the cock, she doesn't. She draws back, sliding her hands to his waist, and turns him a little, guiding him back -- slowly, since walking might be difficult, particularly backwards -- to that luxurious daybed, sitting him down on it and now he's more than welcome to take off his boots and socks and kick his jeans off. She, however, is climbing over him, kissing him, shameless in the sunlight, utterly unafraid to be seen naked on her terrace, nailing a man ten years her senior. There is, perhaps, even a bit of a thrill in that for her.

Calden White

"I might have tried already," he retorts, "if you'd walked onto my ranch earlier."

Which isn't much of a retort at all. But then, he can hardly be expected to think straight right ow, can he? She's jerking him off right there on her terrace, under the wide open sky. She's smirking that smirk at him with that lovely mouth of hers, and she's leaning down to kiss his chest, lick his nipple, and the sensations that collide and fuse in his mind almost blow his circuits. His cock jumps in her hand; his pulse is a hammer in his veins. He puts his hands on her again, holding her by the waist; he's perhaps a second away from attempting vertical freestanding sex when she

puts her hands on his waist, turns him, backs him toward the bed. Slowly. Which is a mercy, because he is unsteady on his feet, and moving blindly backward, and clumsy with his pants around his ankles. It doesn't matter; the daybed is steps away. His calves bump it, and he sits, and she's climbing over him as he's struggling imperfectly out of his clothes.

His jeans end up on the floor. And his boxers, more or less. And one boot, and one sock. The other is forgotten -- boot and sock both, his underwear hanging off the toe as she pushes him down. The daybed is furnished the way everything else in her multiple homes seem to be: luxuriously, in light tones that catch the light and glow with it. She's a Silver Fang after all, dually blessed by moon and sun, silver and gold, night and day.

He's dark against the creams and the bright hues of those pillows: dark and ruddy and earthy and solid, hearty muscular cowherding peasant that he is. He sprawls as she lays him out, stretching the span of those heavy arms across the bedspread, snagging a pillow, tugging it back behind his head as though he intended to be quite comfortable while she made good on her promise and -- ahem -- saved a horse. He grins up at her, lazy and lopsided, and she comes down over him and kisses him and his eyes close and he kisses her back, greedily, wantingly, heavily. Her hand is still on his cock, or if it isn't he finds it and moves it back there. His hand is on her thighs, tugging her up until she's straddling him, right over him, positioned.

"You should go slow," he whispers, like a delicious little secret. "You should make me wait."

Avery Chase

She should wait. She should let him lift her up and work his cock into her and fuck her like that, standing when there's plenty of suitable flat surfaces nearby. But she'd love that. She even considers it, when he says something about walking onto his ranch, but she doesn't understand what he's trying to get across to her. His brain is melting. She licks his nipple, rakes her teeth softly over his flesh, strokes his cock like she has no plans to do anything, anything else. And though this doesn't feel like it right now, that's rather merciful.

Calden is doing a poor job of undressing her. He's also doing a poor job of undressing himself, leaving everything half done, trying to get her to straddle him, trying to just get inside her again. Avery stops kissing him, and no, her hand isn't on his cock anymore. She tosses her hair back over her shoulder and looks at him, exhaling.

"You are just... abyssmal at undressing us, Mr. White," she chastises him. "Look at you." Her hand gestures at her own chest. "Look at me! What on earth do you think you're doing."

Calden White

Calden makes this -- this noise, this defeated sort of groan, his hands coming up to clap over his head, rake through his hair. Then all at once he sits up, grabs her in his hands, topples her aside with a grin that borders on rakish.

"Fine," he says, mock- ... well, mock-fine-ing her. He reaches down, yanks that boot off, tosses it aside, strips his boxers off and snaps that aside, too. By then she's either sitting up again or raised on her elbows or maybe, perhaps, just sprawling there in a luxurious stretch of scintillating almost-nudity. Hardly matters: he rolls over her, thoroughly and acceptably naked now, sliding between her thighs to weigh against the girdle of her hips.

And: he kisses her breasts. Over the bra, and then through the bra, and then he reaches his hands under her and slides his palms over her back, finds the snap and the catch, releases it. He uses his teeth: grips her lingerie between her breasts, tugs it up and off and away.

"Satisfied now?" he wants to know. And -- since she's right there, and since he might as well, and certainly not because he has a fascination with her tits that borders on obsession, of course not that -- he puts his mouth to her breasts. He licks her nipples, he wraps his arms around her, he holds her in something rather like a bear-hug while he shifts over her, presses the shaft of his cock firmly against her slit, sucks on her tits like he's waited hours, all day, two fucking weeks,

to do just this.

Out on her terrace, at that. In the diaphanous sunlight sifting through those sails; in the warm summer breeze.

Avery Chase

They have run the gamut this afternoon, ever since they left the truck. It wasn't just that moment of honesty -- but not completely raw honesty -- at the door to her bedroom. It was a little odd even downstairs, though Avery would be hard pressed to explain how or why or when. She found herself not wanting the teasing, the play, the banter, the retreats into wit. She found herself not entirely amused by Calden's tugging on her skirt or his suggesting of a game to get them naked or even his admonishment not to make him wait, early on.

She isn't sure why. She isn't sure why she stopped him upstairs and told him to tell her how he feels, what he wants. She isn't sure why she couldn't answer that with anything but her mouth on his mouth, or why it exasperates her that she cannot just get him naked, why he hasn't undressed her more quickly. It just does.

Avery does not know why that groan, even that rakish grin, make her uncomfortable. Or why the Fine! doesn't amuse her. She moves to the side as he's sitting up, watching him as he takes off his boot. Her forearms are flat on the bed, her legs tucked up, heels hanging on the edge of the daybed's frame, naked but for that pretty pink bra that he can't seem to remember to remove. There's a look in her eye, he might miss it, he wouldn't be blamed, for it is as enigmatic as any given by a creature born to Falcon and privilege.

Calden wraps her in his arms and unclasps her bra. It falls open instantly, slides down her torso, caught then by his teeth. And she is not lowering her knees and opening her thighs but remaining quite as she is as he folds his upper half over her, kissing her, making her breath catch as she inhales even as she is realizing that something is off, something is just... not... matching up.

No matter how much they'd like it to.

Avery is naked, and he asks her if she's satisfied, and by now surely he's noticed that something is still in her, something not quite so panting or luxurious or laughing or light at all. Surely by now he's noticed that when he started to climb over her she didn't slide her thighs around him, that she hasn't lowered herself down or lifted her arms over her head to have her breasts adored.

So much is said in Avery's silences. She lifts a hand and touches his face, palm on his cheek, watching his eyes.

Calden White

And so he stops. Immediately: more immediately than you would expect if he were completely dull to that undercurrent between them. That choppiness in the waves; that side-slither in the undertow. She's seen him before, when they've been attuned and mad for each other, when he was fervent for her, when she's had to drag his mouth off her cunt, when she's hand to pull his hair to get him to stop

sucking

those nipples.

It's not like that, this time. All it takes is that stillness in her body. The way her arms don't lift, the way her thighs don't wrap around his hips. The way her hand comes to his face instead, palm to cheek, feeling those very first hints of bristle already pushing at his clean-scraped skin.

He pauses. He lifts his head, licking his lips to taste the last of her skin, licking his lips because he can't help it. His pupils are wide, and his breath comes fast: but he pauses. There isn't a shred of laughter in his eyes now. Not a hint of lightness or wryness or banter.

"Avery," he says, for no reason he can say. For no reason he can understand.

Avery Chase

Avery.

And she exhales, a slow sigh, watching him still, feeling him under her palm, which is so warm. They are mostly shaded here, but beams of sunlight come through the sails to rest on their skin. She lifts her head to kiss him, slow again, trying to reach that Something that she was reaching for at the door, or that Something she is sometimes reaching for and retreating from all at once.

Calden White

There's something in that kiss that wasn't there in all the lightness, all the playfulness -- forced? -- that came between that moment at her bedroom door and this. There's something there, a surge like electricity under the skin, a softening like a slow melt in the sun. He opens to her so easily, so willingly, and maybe it's frightening how he puts himself into her hands sometimes. How he seems to trust her, welcome her, embrace her, lay before her all that he is and all that he has,

if only she'll accept it. Take what she wants. Take it all; take him.

So: he kisses her, a kiss as warm as her palm, as warm as his body. Sunlight shafts through those sails, filters through the fabric. Dances over their bodies as the wind moves. His arms are still around her, under her. He is still there, covering her, they are as naked in her garden as the first children of god. A pause in the kiss; long enough for breath. Long enough for him to set his brow to hers, to rub his nose alongside hers, his cheek to hers. And then, sure as a tide returning, his mouth strays back to hers. His lips move. It's her name again, but this time the sound doesn't come; only a sort of surrender,

not to her, but to that depth, that truth, that intensity that they seem to spend most of their time shying from. He doesn't know what he wants, after all. He knows only what he feels.

Avery Chase

She shudders. It's the way he says her name, and the way he kisses her, and the surrender implicit in the sound and the surge. She shudders and it isn't with lust and it isn't with revulsion but she is deeply, deeply unsettled, sliding upward on the daybed, breathing in, opening her eyes, drawing back from him. "Calden --"

Arrested. Not because she has no reason, not because she doesn't understand, but because the words for it aren't there. She looks at him, exhales, and he hasn't felt her yet and he doesn't know how wet she's become since they stepped out into the sun, since he mentioned picking her up and just fucking her standing like that, but she does want him.

"Calden," she says, softer now, verging on apologetic. "I shouldn't be doing this to you."

Calden White

For the second time in about as many minutes, Avery brings him to a halt. This time there's a flash of -- something there; some jumbled mixture of uncertainty and confusion and thwarted desire. A moment later what she said sinks in, makes sense. His eyebrows draw together. It's an expression she's never, ever seen on his face before; it might take her a moment to recognize it as anger.

"What, exactly, do you think you're doing to me?"

Avery Chase

It does take her a moment. It takes a moment for it to coalesce in his features, too, and she frowns a little, not sure if he's angry because he's confused or angry because he's not getting his cock touched anymore but at the moment it hardly matters to her. She frowns, and his anger presses against her own, inflaming it.

She doesn't trust herself to say a word. So she doesn't.

Calden White

"What?" he presses; he's struggling for composure, and so this comes out not so tight, not so fierce as the last iteration. "What do you think you're doing to me, Avery?"

Avery Chase

It is hard to get angry. Righteously or otherwise. Nothing she feels is ever innocent anymore. Nothing she feels is ever one thing and one thing only: everything reaches down into her rage and drags it up under the sky to howl, and thrash, and roar. So it is when Calden touches her with lust, and so it is when she feels shame, and so it is when she sees anger in his eyes and hears it in his voice. Anger, perhaps, is the most dangerous of all.

This is why even kin find it hard to be with garou sometimes. What sort of an equal partnership can you have with a lover you're afraid to get angry with, because their anger might turn to mindless brutality? For many, it isn't equal. For some, it isn't possible at all.

Avery breathes in carefully, evenly, and exhales just the same. Odd that they're like this, lying together on her outdoor daybed in the sunlight, completely naked, guarded by topiary, and she is trying not to entertain the thought of verbally eviscerating him in a rush of rage and pride, or pushing him off of her, or doing anything but what she does:s

which is to stay very still, except for that breathing.

"I am trying to treat you with compassion, honor, and the care I have for you," she says, so quiet it's almost a whisper. "Don't throw it in my face."

Calden White

Calden bows his head for a moment. They are still so -- painfully intimate. They are still naked, and aligned, and so close together that the slightest movement of one transduces to the other. When he lowers his head like that, his nose grazes her upper chest; then he sets his brow to her breastbone. Inhales; and his nostrils fill with the scent of her.

"I'm not," he says, softer now. "I'm trying not to, at least."

He kisses her then. He kisses her chest, the way she has kissed his: a soft thing over her heart before he raises up on his elbows and rolls off her. The daybed is a large, luxurious thing. Plenty of room for the both of them. They hardly even have to touch,

and they hardly touch now, except for his hand reaching down to find hers. Cover hers. There's still that, at least.

"It was an honest question. I don't know what you think you're doing to me, or have done to me. The best I can guess is that you think you're... somehow responsible for how I feel about you. And you're not. At least, not consciously; not in any way you could have changed or prevented. I feel the way I feel because of who I am and who you are and the things we've done together. There's no blame to be assigned for that.

"And even if you were somehow responsible -- I don't understand why there's a 'shouldn't' involved, either. I don't see why I shouldn't feel this way for you. Unless you've suddenly become concerned about what the Nation thinks about cross-tribal relationships."

Avery Chase

The scent of her is thrilling. There's the faintest, lightest touch of perfume at her wrists and dusted across her chest, but it has long since blended with the scent of her sweat, summery and light as well as potent from exertion, from fucking him downstairs. He's smelled her like this before, a dozen times, more: the way she smells when she's in his arms, the way she smells when she's aroused by him, when he's close to her.

And it fills her with aching tenderness, as his brow drops like that, as he rests against her. She feels the longing to fuck him again, to slide down and wrap her legs around him and welcome him into her, but she takes a breath instead. It nearly breaks her breastbone when he kisses her. "No--" she breathes, hardly even a word, when he moves to roll away from her. She doesn't stop him, if he goes ahead and leaves. But that No comes out of her with a suddenness that she doesn't even intend, as though the word needed to be said as potently as she needs to breathe.

Avery licks her lips, and if he has moved away from her, hardly touching, she feels her chest cave in. A little.

She exhales, and looks away, after he speaks. "It isn't that," she says, her voice level but quiet. She's certain of this, and even the suggestion feels like a prod to her, a cut to the ribs. Her hand lifts, and covers her eyes, fingertips splayed in their bright color. "I am responsible for it if I lead you on," she says, after a long moment, her hand falling again, her head turning back to face him. "If I let you go on like this, if we keep forcing this lightness, this pretense, when we both know very well it's more than that.

"I'm not talking about inter-tribal relationships or figuring out what comes next or down the line. I mean that I don't know if I can even... meet you where you are." Her brows stitch. "Calden, every time we do this... I feel you coming closer to me. But I don't know how much closer to you I can be."

It isn't just the frown now; there's something in her eyes, not yet old enough and not yet forgotten, still close enough to the surface to pain her, and it's not an ache. It's a hollowing-out. It's her heart breaking all over again,

every time she remembers it.

"I want you terribly, Calden," she whispers to him. "I care for you. But of what you say you feel for me, I don't think I can say the same. Yet I keep allowing you to come to me, allowing myself to go to you, and I keep sleeping with you and you keep offering yourself to me, without reservation, and I keep accepting it without offering the same. And you may disagree, but that feels like a cruel, soulless thing to do to someone."

Calden White

She has the power to arrest him with a word. So it seems, and so it is, and so it has been demonstrated time and again today. No, she says, that singular word coming without forethought or reservation.

And so he doesn't pull away. He stays where he is, settling against her again; a little to the side, though, where he can prop fist to temple, elbow to bed; where the length of his side and hip can take the brunt of his weight. And he listens to her as she explains, as she parses it out for him: it's not the tribal politics, it's not the Old Ways that one would think the two of them, Fang and Fianna, would follow religiously. It's -- something else, more personal, inextricable from her history that she's only told him in painful broad strokes. It's a form of responsibility, and kindness, and mercy, and perhaps guilt.

His brow stitches again. Their lower bodies are entwined. His free arm rests over her abdomen. They've lain like this before, often in the aftermath of lovemaking, fucking, whatever it is they're calling it in their minds. It is achingly familiar to him already, and almost reflexively his arm moves, his hand shifts, his fingers spread over her skin and move to cover her breast.

His eyes rise to hers. "You've never hurt me," he says quietly. "I've never felt taken advantage of, or cheated, or misled or deceived or exploited. Everything that has happened between us has been consensual, and I've gone into this open-eyed, with realistic expectations. Has been ... something I wanted. If I've offered anything, if I've given you anything, it's because I wanted to. Not because you demanded it, or because I wanted something in return.

"I'm okay with this as it is, Avery. I know that you can't ... love me."

So there it is. That word. It hangs in the air for a second; then he goes on.

"I'm not asking for that, and I'm not trying to force you there. But if you think you're giving me a raw deal and feeling bad for it, I'm telling you now: what we have now is about a thousand times better than not having you at all. If you cut me off because you think that's somehow a fairer shake for me, that'll be the first time you ever wound me."

Avery Chase

Avery's hand lifts again, as Calden is reaching for her breast, because as protective and gentle as the gesture is, it is distracting to her. It comforts him sometimes, and it arouses him sometimes, but she can't focus on his words when he caresses her like that. She breathes in, following his hand, drawing it back down to her side. Her eyes follow his arm for a moment, then come back to his eyes.

He speaks. And when he tells her that just having her at all is a thousand times better than not,

that is when Avery

starts to cry.

--

It comes on suddenly, though what he saw in her eyes a moment ago was not just pain but tears, swimming close to the surface. Now they spill out, pouring suddenly down her cheeks. She turns her face again, covers it again, only her palm is over her mouth now. Something he said tapped something in her. And she weeps, quite unexpectedly, and in the strangest way: her knees tuck up, her body turning from his, back to him, curling against the mattress.

Her hands cover her face. She does not know how to explain this.

No: she does. She knows exactly. She just can't speak.

Calden White

"Oh, Avery."

This is murmured; it's low, gentle, as soothing as the hand he runs up her arm, over her shoulder. She feels him moving closer to her again, even as she turns away and tucks into herself. She feels him wrapping his arm around her, drawing her back against his much larger body; enfolding her in his arms and against his chest. His embrace is a slow, sure thing, and after a while his hand finds hers -- gathers one and then the other, draws them gently down from her face.

He kisses her. Her shoulder; her neck; behind her ear. Soft, sweet little things, as gentle as the way he holds her.

"Avery, darling -- shh. Why are you crying?"

Avery Chase

She calls him darling. Teasingly, lightly, but sometimes it's been soft, it's been endeared, it's been concerned. Sometimes it has been lost, looking at him with a fondness she is startled by and unsure of. And Calden has never called her anything but Avery, or Miss Avery, or Miss Chase, and she has picked and chosen from among his titles for her and informed him of which he is permitted to keep using. It's been so adorable, all her little pet names for him and her bossiness, her not-quite insults of beast and brute and filthy. They've been as light as a souffle.

And now she's sobbing into her palms, naked on her terrace in the July sunshine, because for all that she was able to compose herself and tell him that she recently suffered some hurt in the romantic department, she cannot seem to escape it now as it crests over her, crashes down. Her heart was broken.

Even Avery can only be so graceful, be so strong, for a time until

this.

--

When he wraps himself around her, Avery does not flinch away or even tense; she leans into it, because he's so very warm, but she fights his hands on her hands, almost violently. She does not want him to tear that veil away, not when she needs it. He kisses her anyway, for what else is he going to do?

The words do not come easily. The answer does.

"What... you said..."

She shudders, and her palms fill with saltwater, her eyes red but unseen, her breath ragged.

"I said it to him." She shakes her head, denying mid-confession. "I said all those things to him. And I believed them as much as you do now." Her hands on her face curl into fists, her knuckles against her brow. Her voice is falling, as she sucks in air, trying to stop sobbing like this.

"I wish he'd just let me go. Or made me leave."

Calden White

Calden's just quiet for a while after that. Perhaps because he doesn't know what to say. Or perhaps -- because he's giving her time. A moment or two without questions, without words, without needing to try to breathe and cry and explain all at once.

Her hands stay on her face. He doesn't force her to drop that veil. Of course he doesn't; he wouldn't. His arms stay around her, though. He holds her so closely, as though she were already precious to him. She knows she is.

Some time later, when the worst of that torrent has passed, when she can breathe evenly again: this. And so softly --

"Do you want me to let you go? Or make you leave?"

Avery Chase

It does take time for it all to subside. Admitting to him -- ashamed and embarrassed and simply hurt -- all of this is draining her.

She feels awful. Downstairs she met him and there was nothing she felt, nothing she thought, that was stronger than her desire for him right then. She wanted him so badly that she didn't care if they got arrested, or seen. She didn't care if she lost her underwear in his truck or smeared her lipstick so long as she got that deliciously thick cock inside of her. She could barely think. She came like wildfire erupting over dry grassland.

It started feeling strange so soon after that, though. That first brief round only seemed to make him hungry for more, and she didn't want to dissuade him, even when she just wanted to show him her lovely, wonderful penthouse. It makes her happy. Such a silly thing, she thinks, to be so thrilled over. She wanted to share it with him but he was playing, teasing, he had an idea for a game, and she didn't want to reject him, she didn't want him to feel used, she didn't want him to think it was something serious.

And at the threshold to her room she could not take him in there with all of that over her head, a grey aura against the brightness of their desire, his longing, her affection. It seemed wrong. And there were moments after that, flickers, where she felt like she was in tune with herself and in tune with him again, but they were fleeting. It has gradually fallen apart around her ears, and she thinks only, over and over, that it is simply unfair to do this to him. To let him stay. To let him offer himself up like a sacrificial bull for her to feed on the blood and meat and inhale the smoke, then cast him out again, and again, and again.

She does not think, at least not often, of him when they're apart. She seldom smiles to herself because he happened to cross her mind. He leaves, driving north, far far away, not a part of her life, separate from everything else in her life, and she

is ashamed.

Avery shakes her head. "Not you," she breathes, rasping almost. "I wish he'd made me leave. Now I think I should let you go, before..."

She shivers, and her hands uncurl, palms to face again. "Before I make you feel like this," she whispers.

Calden White

Another silence after that. This time it's for Calden, himself. He doesn't draw away from her immediately. He has the grace not to do that, at least. But something in his embrace seems stiffer and more distant, all the same; an invisible wall stealing slowly up between them.

At length, he stirs. His arms loosen; he unwinds from around her. Draws back to himself, rolls onto his back, sits up. The breeze is still warm. The sun is still bright. He feels blindsided; doesn't know quite where this came from, the root and shoot of it all. They had a conversation once where she told him she was thinking of going into politics before her life turned upside down. He told her he didn't think she was capable of anything but utmost honesty.

She gave him such a look, then. He thinks maybe he understands why, now. She's never told him a lie, but --

she's kept some things so deep, so hidden, that he never had an inkling.

--

"Is that what you want?" He turns to look at her over his arm. His knees drawn up, his elbows atop. "Are you ending this?"

Avery Chase

When Calden moves away, Avery curls tighter in on herself. She isn't sobbing anymore. She is still hiding her face, and some of that is because she is quite sure that her face is a mess, but she leaned so readily, so eagerly into his embrace that when he withdraws, she feels it like a chill.

So her hands do come down, gradually, and though they're wet, and though a bit of her mascara has smeared -- though only a bit, because she buys ironclad cosmetics -- she wraps her arms around herself, palms to her upper arms, forearms crossed over her breasts.

"I don't want you to go," she says quietly, and it would be numb except that she does mean it. She does care if he goes or stays. "I'd be... sad, if I lost this." There's a long pause, and she is looking across the patio now at the topiary, and the way the sun hits some of its leaves. She was not expecting that question. That response. Her own answers are

surprising her.

"You make me feel happy when I'm with you." Another pause. She's slowly sitting up, her head down, facing away from him as he is faced away from her. "You're a wonderful lover," she says, in a way that is neither listing off his positive attributes nor flattering him. It's just the truth: he gets her off. He listens, he pays attention, he's quite confident, he's energetic, he's patient, he fucking adores eating her out.

Her arms are still around her upper body. "I've never done anything like this before, Calden," she confesses, her voice soft. Perhaps a bit embarrassed. "Done something 'casual' or... even been with someone that I haven't been in a relationship with. I never had the desire to have a one night stand or 'friends with benefits' or the like. I think now that I should not have attempted it. Because this isn't casual, or merely friendly. But every time I feel something stronger than that, it..."

Avery closes her eyes, but he can't see that. "As paltry as it sounds, it just hurts. And I am terribly, terribly afraid of putting you through all this."

Calden White

He didn't expect that answer. He drew away, sat up, because he was so sure of what the answer would be. He was wrong, though. She doesn't want him to go. He feels that inside, a treacherous rising in his heart.

"I don't want to go either. I would've left if you told me to, but I might've fought you every step to the door."

A moment later he reclines again. The daybed dips a little under the shift of his weight. He is near her, and his arm brushes her back. The contact is slight, but it is there, and it is not an accident. It intensifies as he inhales -- then a moment later he lets that breath out again.

"I'm glad you care for me," he says quietly, "and I'm glad you don't want to hurt me the way you've been hurt. But you keep talking like you're doing something to me, and it's bad and wrong and you should stop for my own good. But you're not. You're not putting me through anything. You're not doing anything to me. We're doing something together and we're going through something together and maybe it's not heading anywhere good, but I'm in it by choice and I have no illusions about what this is or isn't to you.

"If you want to end this because you're tired of it or you've found something better or ... or because it hurts you too much to be in this, you can end this any time you want. But don't do it for my own good, all right? I can take care of myself, and I can make my own decisions. If those decisions aren't in my own best interest in the long run -- well, that's my own mistake to make."

Avery Chase

Maybe it's not the most comforting thing in the world, but there's honesty to it. Avery is still turned away, holding herself as though to keep herself together. His arm brushes her back and she frowns to herself, not because the touch bothers her, but because she wishes he would hold her again. She wishes he'd never pulled away to begin with.

Her head lowers, hair falling to either side of her cheeks. She sighs softly, almost imperceptibly but for the expansion of her ribs, the faint sound of her exhale. She says nothing, and that silence stretches on until it becomes clear she isn't going to say anything. It isn't anger or frustration or anything of the kind: she simply doesn't know what to say.

And she feels ashamed. She feels disgusted with herself, with ruining the entire afternoon, with the way this went. She feels no more certain than she did a moment ago, and not sure if telling him that his own certainty cannot and will not replace her anxiety, and hearing him say that this may go nowhere good, that this may be his own mistake to make, well: the words sink like a stone in her stomach. He means what he says. She can't help that it doesn't help her.

Avery sniffs. And swallows, and exhales, and then does what she does when shame and uncertainty rise over and above anything else she feels.

The bed shifts as she stands, walking, perhaps a bit too quickly, past their fallen clothes to go inside her bedroom. There's an odd, quick sound as she crosses through that doorway, and it is neither verbal nor discernible.