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.