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 WhiteIn 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 WhiteCalden 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 ChaseAvery 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 WhiteMaybe 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 ChaseOh, 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 ChaseAvery 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 WhiteCalden'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 ChaseAvery'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 WhiteHe 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 ChaseAvery 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 WhiteDice: 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 WhiteThat 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 ChaseWhen 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 WhiteUnexpected: 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 ChaseHow 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 WhiteShe 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 ChaseAnd 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 WhiteFor 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 ChaseAvery 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 WhiteSomething 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 ChaseHe 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 WhiteTheir 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 ChaseAt 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 WhiteYou 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 ChaseIf 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 WhiteSo: 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 ChaseShe 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 WhiteCalden 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 ChaseThey 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 WhiteAnd 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 ChaseAvery.
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 WhiteThere'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 ChaseShe 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 WhiteFor 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 ChaseIt 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 ChaseIt 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 WhiteCalden 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 ChaseThe 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 WhiteShe 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 ChaseAvery'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 ChaseShe 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 WhiteCalden'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 ChaseIt 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 WhiteAnother 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 ChaseWhen 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 WhiteHe 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 ChaseMaybe 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.
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