Avery has no wine tonight. She takes water when he brings it, drinking an entire bottle in three pulls before she even rises from the bar. So he brings her another, and she smiles at him, the color in her cheeks present not due to embarrassment or coyness but simple pleasure. She stands, holding the cool bottle close, and leans into his arm. Sometimes she wonders if Calden's father intentionally makes himself scarce in the evenings and mornings, since has only briefly crossed paths with him, but she hopes that her presence here doesn't inconvenience him from his regular routine.
She thinks this, and yawns, closing her eyes even as they walk towars the stairs.
--
Avery has brought her own toothbrush. Well: a new one, taken from her backpack, which perhaps she enters the bathroom with only to find that Calden has one for her, like he has a robe for her, like at her place there is a toothbrush and shaving kit and bathrobe and a drawer where currently 1 change of clothes lives. Clothing she essentially stole from him while he was showering one evening, gleefully, so she could buy him new things. If there is a choice, she uses the one he got for her. She yawns off and on. She uses the toilet and combs out her drying-but-damp hair again and washes up and slips smoothly out of her bathrobe, draping it over a hook
before she comes out to bed and climbs onto the mattress after him, under the covers and sheets he holds back, lying facing him because she loves the way he feels against her like that, snuggling up close while he arranges those covers over them. Avery's eyes are closed before her cheek is even resting on the pillow. She gives a quiet sigh of comfort as he's wrapping his arm around her, moving his leg to twine and cover hers. He touches her breast and her eyes flicker open, a wry smirk touching her lips.
"Stop that," she whispers back to him, and closes her eyes again as his hand wanders back down to her lower back, holding her close.
--
In her sleep, Avery turns over, aligning her spine to his chest. She sleeps deeply, for hours and hours. At some point, still before dawn, she wakes bleary-eyed and wordless and slips from bed to the bathroom, coming back a few minutes later and simply curling back up, hugging his arm and blankets around her body, only to -- some time later, after the sun outside has risen -- toss the comforter off of her without otherwise waking. She sleeps through the morning like that, covered by a sheet and by whatever limbs Calden shares with her, and sleeps for some time even after Calden has gotten out of bed.
When she does open her eyes, truly and finally, it's not close to lunchtime but is mid-morning, well after the point when Calden's days usually begin. She makes a low, comforted noise in her throat and rubs her face in the pillow, dozes another minute and a half, then stretches. Under the sheet, she rolls to her belly and up on her hands and knees, arching like a cat, lifting her ass, then lowering it as her legs stretch out, her arms over her head, her toes reaching for the footboard, her sides elongated. She curls up again, flopping the sheet around her after it's been dislodged, snuggling into his pillows and looking around for him.
Calden WhiteCalden's home may not have quite the overwhelming density of windows that Avery's penthouse does, but his windows are still large and plentiful. Waking, Avery finds the room awash in light, the midmorning sun pouring through the broad bay windows of the master bedroom. Last night's rainstorm has, at least for the moment, passed. Beads of water still cling to the glass, refracting light into tiny spots of brilliance.
Her lover is not in bed with her. Decadent royal, sleeping til the sun is high: such a lifestyle is apparently not one that Calden has the luxury of keeping even on a weekend. At least -- not when half his land is sliding into mud. Still, he's not out on his land, driving about or riding about doing whatever it is he does. Or more likely -- perhaps he's gone out already and returned. She knows this because although the bedroom door is closed the house is quiet enough that she can hear faint sounds from the adjoining study. The click of a keyboard. The rustling of papers. A clearing of a throat.
And, a few minutes after she first wakes, the hushed snick of the bedroom door opening. Quiet footsteps slipping into the chamber, her ever-considerate son of Stag clearly doing his level best not to wake her as he comes tiptoeing around to riffle around in his nightstand -- at least until he looks over and notices her open eyes.
"Well, hello there," he whispers, the corners of his eyes crinkling, the corners of his mouth turning up. He fishes his phone out of the nightstand and slips it into his pocket, his be-denimed knees denting the bedspread as he crawls onto the bed with her. "Good sleep?"
And he sinks onto his stomach, his arms folding under his chest. Rather like a large and affectionate cat this morning, he lowers his head to hers, nuzzles her a moment, then uses his teeth to draw down her sheet an inch or three to lay a kiss on her collarbone.
Avery ChaseThe nightstand is, of course, close to the bed. And Avery is smiling at him when he notices that she's actually awake, lazy and sprawled on his bed, tangled in his sheet. He gets his phone and kneels on the bed to get to her and she just smiles wider and wider, rolling over to snuggle to his side as he lays down with her. He bumps his nose into her collarbone as he's trying to get the sheets down a bit. Avery starts to unbutton his shirt.
"Mm," she says, affirmatively, in answer to his question.
Calden WhiteWell then. Calden looks down at her fingers lazily, matter-of-factedly start to undo the buttons on his shirt. He quirks an eyebrow at her, that smile taking on intonations of smirkery, that phone in his hand not going into his pocket after all. It thunks onto the nightstand instead. He unfolds his arms, lifts up on his hands to give her access.
She undoes the buttons marching down his chest. His shirt is flannel. It is red. It does not overly an undershirt today, and so her fingers brush against his skin, against the hair on his chest. It tickles a little. It sends flickers of electric awareness spreading over his torso like a net,
sends a breath sucking into his lungs, though he tries to slow it. They are both watching her fingers now. Or maybe she's watching his face, watching the way he tries to control his breathing and his anticipation. When she gets to the bottom of his shirt he sits up, kneels on the bed and sits on his heels, peels his shirt off and -- amusingly enough -- gives it a perfunctory folding before setting it down on the nightstand.
Then he comes back to her. He lays himself out beside her. His hands do a little work of their own. His fingers bunch the sheets, tug them down.
Avery ChaseAvery barely even notices as the sheet slides over her breasts and her stomach, retreating from her skin as Calden tugs it away. She is lazy and replete still, having played with him and bathed with him and fucked with him and eaten with him and slept with him. Everything else, at this point, is just extra pleasure, extra comfort. She watches her fingers with that smile on her lips, undoing them one by one until she reaches his waistline, tugging it up from under his jeans to finish the job. Her hands are going up under his newly opened shirt when he sits up on his heels to take it off, folding it a bit and setting it aside.
Undeterred, uninterrupted, she reaches for his belt, then pauses. Looks up at his face.
"I suppose you don't need these off to please me," she says, rather decisively,
and rolls onto her back.
Calden WhiteCalden's laugh is a huff. He sounds a little scandalized. "The things you say," he says,
while she rolls onto her back beneath the brace of his arms,
while his eyes skim down her body as though drawn by forces quite outside his control. He bends to her, his right hand crumpling a fistful of sheets, the tip of his nose grazing her sternum for a moment before he just: god, rubs his face against her tits, rubs against her like the texture of her skin is an intoxicant, kisses the dip of her solar plexus and the underside of her breast, licks
a slow teasing circle all around her nipple with the tip of his tongue.
Pauses, then. Pulls the sheets down, down, down past her hips and past her thighs, whips it past her knees and flicks it off the end of the bed. She's bare and golden as can be in the sunlight, and Calden is sprawling over the bed, rolling off the edge and going to his knees, pulling her right to the dropoff where he pushes her knees up and her thighs apart and
makes this sound, this low groan of famished revelation, when he sees her laid out and open and wet.
He knows
just what to do.
--
It's been a long time since he's seen her. It's been even longer, it seems, since he's had her like this. He can't remember clearly. But then, he can't remember anything clearly when he has her like this, laid out for him, her knees over his shoulders, her toes curling against his back. He can't remember anything but the way she tastes,
and the scent of her,
and the way her clit pulses and shudders to his tongue. He eats her out luxuriously, lazily; ravenously, too, and greedily, his hands laced over her lower belly as possessively as any carnivore ever held onto his favorite treat. His eyes are closed. His mouth is pressed to her, and he's quite patient today, really: no sudden moves and no fancy tonguework. Just his mouth open to her cunt, his tongue against her clit, stroking her again and again and again, these long, delicate, dexterous traceries with the tip of his tongue,
these long, slow, heavy lappings with the flat of it. She gets wet. He licks that up too, very slowly, sweeping his tongue deep along her slit and holding, pressing, tasting her, swallowing her, devouring her whole. He's starkly aware of his own arousal, the pulsing of his cock in his jeans. He should reach down, he should free himself from his confines, take his cock in hand and jerk off slowly while he eats her out, but --
not yet. His hand drift the other way, spread slow and pressing up her torso, cup her breasts. There's still a tracery of wetness on her right nipple, and he rubs his fingers in that, slickens them, rubs her nipples taut and covers them with his palms.
And all along, all this while: his mouth at her cunt, slow and patient and oh so relentless. He sighs against her wetness, a low rumbling exhale that sounds like utter, unabashed enjoyment.
Avery ChaseFor all Avery knows, Calden was on a phone call, or about to make one. For all she knows, he has ranch hands downstairs waiting for instruction or waiting for him on his land. She thinks, however, that if he were too busy to be with her, then he wouldn't have come so readily to the bed, pulling down the sheet, nuzzling against her like this was just what he has been thinking about, waiting for, since he woke up and found she was still sleeping.
It is nice, she thinks, that he let her sleep, and did not try to wake her. For breakfast. For this. For anything.
Nicer still is the way he immediately goes to her, over her, exhaling breath over her skin while he rubs his face on her breasts. A sharp breath of her own is pulled back in when he kisses the underside of her breasts, licks her. Avery lets her arms drape over her head, even as he drags her to the edge and a smile quirks and splays across her lips. She leans her head back and opens her legs over his shoulders and gives herself over to him as though she's giving him a gift.
--
It doesn't matter if he's shaved his face this morning or not. She really doesn't mind so much, not outside of being playfully demanding with him. Calden does not tease her, nor himself, before he buries himself in the smell and taste of her, licking her steadily, rhythmically, til she quivers,
til she starts telling him faster or giving him small directing moans to stay... right... there, harder, do that again, all the breathy commands she could give him. Her hands have lowered into his hair as his have gone to cover her breasts, palming and cupping them in his hands, playing with her flesh.
This, like last night, is no fast, rough thing. Avery doesn't grab his hair tightly and groan as she fucks his face. She is waking still, rubbing herself on his mouth every so often with sleepy, luxurious arousal. That arousal turns to those commands, and those whimpers, and she wouldn't really mind if he stopped caressing her tits to get his cock out and jerk himself off, it would seem well and good and all if he did so, but she certainly doesn't tell him to. Not when he's attending so well to her.
It wouldn't be fair to suggest that Calden, for all that he loves this, enjoys it more than Avery does. She takes to it as though it is at once her due, a tribute to her glory, and a reward she is giving one of her vassals. She takes to it as though there's not a thought in her head that she should not enjoy this, that she is only being set up for reciprocity, favors being earned and stored for later. And that's because there isn't a thought in her head to that effect; she doesn't imagine for a moment that this is anything but mutually enjoyed.
When she comes, he is there to witness it, to feel it, to taste how wet she is then, how her hand flexes in his hair before she reaches for the sheets to grab at them instead. Perhaps she does wonder if there are others awake in the house, because she bites her lip to whimper, fighting outcries that threaten to erupt from her without the patter of rain outside to conceal them. All that moaning, then, all those whimpers, before she -- still pulsing, still flexing her hips against his face now and again -- slowly sits up, panting as she looks down at him, braced on one arm behind her back.
"Don't stop. Keep --" his tongue strokes across her clit mid-orgasm, sets off another wave of pleasure through her that turns her words to a low groan. Her foot is on his shoulder, her other leg draped down his back, and she is lolling her head back helplessly now, giving those soft cries, panting them out when she finally begins to come down.
Calden WhiteHe does so love it when she comes likes this, pouring herself into her pleasure without reservation, without hesitation, like she has nothing to fear and knows it.
It is true. She has nothing to fear. Not from him. He would never hurt her if he could help it -- though the painful truth is that he has in the past without meaning to -- and he would never keep score. Keep count. Keep a mental ledger of all he has done for her so that he might exact some payment from her because,
in a way,
when she does this for him it is as much a gift as anything else. He loves it: loves her taste, loves the way she moves, loves the way she sounds and the way she arches and the way she comes, quivering, the muscles in her thighs shuddering against his shoulders, her breasts bouncing against his hands. He loves bringing her here and bringing her off, loves that the flick of his tongue sends a jolt all through her body, loves that she sits up and holds him by the hair and works her cunt against his adoring mouth while she tells him
something ultimately quite unnecessary. He wouldn't dream of stopping. He wouldn't dream of it, not when he could hold her in his hands like this -- wrapped around her lower back now, holding her in place for his mouth, for his tongue, against the reflexive buck of her body when he licks her right
through
that orgasm that spills through her like a flood of her own.
--
When her breathing finally starts to catch up on itself,
when she finally starts to come down: he opens his eyes. He looks up at her with his mouth still working her clit. Slowly now. Tenderly, gently, laying these gentle little sucks on that hypersensitive bit of flesh as he watches her reacting. When she finally can't take it anymore he parts his mouth from her. He lays his brow to her abdomen, his breath panting quietly across her parted thighs. He kisses her, and this too is worship: soft, slow presses of his lips just below her navel, and then just above her cunt, and then to the inside of her thigh.
Calden wraps his arms around his lover. He lays his head against her abdomen, and he closes his eyes. He could fuck right now. If she asked him to, he'd drop his jeans in an eyeblink and fuck her any which way she wanted it. But the truth is, he's also quite content to do -- just this. To rest against her just like this, her taste still on his tongue, her wetness still cooling on his mouth.
Avery ChaseAvery watches him as he kisses her, adores her, watches him and whimpers when she wants him to stop, sitting up at the edge of his bed with her unruly, slept-on-til-dry hair spilling over her shoulders. She smiles at him as she comes down, panting softly, stroking her fingers through his hair. All those kisses he lays on her make the corner of her mouth pull in fond amusement, and the way he wraps her hips up in his arms and curls up between her thighs, head against her lower belly.
She pets him. Silently, as her breathing slows, thinking of how he looks there, how he feels, how she feels about him. "Oh, my sweet one," Avery murmurs to him, scritching her fingertips softly against his scalp. "Stand up, darling."
Calden White-- which only makes him nuzzle against her torso more heavily, breathing out a laugh against her skin. "Why? I like it here."
Despite that, he does comply. He does push his palms against the mattress and -- with a mighty groan, as if this were just the biggest exertion in the world -- lever himself up to his feet. Sort of asymmetrically, cantilevering his weight like he's not quite ready to be all upright and all, yet. There's a crookedness to his smile. His hand goes to her hair, brushes through the gold; he leans down to kiss her mouth,
which turns into a deepening sort of kiss. He sighs into her mouth.
Avery ChaseAt that, she outright laughs. It's a soft, warm sound, fuzzed at the edges from recent sleep and recent orgasm and just simple tenderness for him, but she does laugh. She answers him, though. He asked a valid question. So Avery murmurs, even as he is unfolding her legs from his shoulders and planting his hands on the mattress, that,
"I want to please you."
He is already standing, groaning, kissing her on his way up, but Avery doesn't let that go on very long. She nips his lower lip with her teeth to urge him upward, to get him to unfurl his spine and stand before her, her legs to either side of his jeans. Avery is smiling as she unbuckles his belt. She is smiling as she unfastens the button at the top of his jeans and pinches the tab of his zipper between her fingers. She is smiling, and looking up at him, as she draws that zipper down, leaning forward to lay a kiss beneath his navel.
His jeans go first, and alone: Avery's hands smooth under them and give the denim a nudge, dropping it from his thighs. They aren't so tight they don't fall a bit on their own. She kisses him again, lower now, against the cotton of his underwear, kissing his erection through the thin fabric made warm by his body heat. There's a low, vibratory hum of pleasure in that kiss that translates into a soft shudder from her shoulders and all down her spine.
And his underwear then, the elastic tugged outward and pulled away and then down his body, pushed out of the way. Avery lets his cock brush against her cheek as she leans into him, getting all his lowerwear pushed past his knees. She turns her head to kiss him along his length, drawing up a hand to wrap gently around him, her thumb on the underside as that kiss opens and her tongue slides up the shaft. Her mouth follows the stroke of her hand upward, til her tongue is flattened and running over that silken head.
When she wraps her lips around him and begins to take him fully in her mouth, her free hand has gone to his hip, caressing up his side, touching his chest while she, quite plainly, sucks his cock.
Calden WhiteSomething almost like ache goes through his eyes when she says that. And he is already standing, he was already going to kiss her, but --
that kiss is firmer now, and it is deeper, adoring, his hand cupping the back of her head. It goes on a while, and when it trails off he seals it with another, softer, his eyes opening to hers.
"Everything about you and everything single thing you do," he whispers, "pleases me."
He straightens. And she is smiling as she reaches for his belt. He helps her with the fastenings, with the buckle and the button; his hands hover as though uncertain of what exactly to do when she draws the zipper down. Then they remember: they go to her head, stroke back through her hair. She tugs his boxers down, and they are plain and they are cotton and they join his jeans on the floor.
His chest expands with a slow inhale when she leans into him. He tips his head back, closes his eyes -- there's something electrifying, mindblowing, about not being able to see. Not knowing what she'll do next. When she kisses him, a tiny jolt of reaction runs down his thighs, up his spine. She can hear him taking a long slow breath that follows that rise of her tongue along his cock. And when she
takes him into her mouth like that,
he can't help it: he groans aloud, lips parting, his hands tightening in her hair for a moment before they relax again.
Avery ChaseTo call it out honestly, Avery does this with far less insistence, far less frequency, than Calden. No matter. She loves it. She pushed him back and took him in her mouth the first night they met, not because she wanted to play fair but because she couldn't go another moment without it. It isn't discussed or teased about between them, really. He doesn't, as Avery does, tell her to get on her knees. He doesn't appear to accept it like a liege receiving tribute. And he doesn't need to, for there to be a sense of equality between them. It does not need to be the same to be fair. All it has to be is shared.
Avery takes him deeper, smoothing her hand down to hold him at the base, letting her tongue slide under him. As she draws her mouth slowly off of him again, her tongue curls up against those impossibly delicate spots, that little V of flesh, licking him with just the tip. Oh, she goes slow, almost teasingly so. Her lips part, leaving him wet, leaving him resting gently atop her tongue before she goes down on him again, smoother this time, not quite as slow but certainly not quick.
It's then that she starts to suck him in earnest, moaning softly and occasionally around him. Her eyes are closed for the most part, as his are. When his breathing has turned to panting, however, they open, looking up at him as she runs her tongue over him. All over him.
Calden WhiteIt is not the same, and does not have to be to be fair. It does not have to be perfectly fair either for this relationship to be healthy. To be loving. To be, quite simply, what it is.
She does not get on her knees. He doesn't -- would never -- tell her to. This is not tribute, and he does not accept it as his due. The balance is different. This is still the same, though: she does it like she enjoys it. Like she wants to. Like doing this for him,
sucking him off like this beside his sturdy, enormous bed where she was kept warm and adored all through the night,
is every bit as enjoyable for her as it is for him. And oh, god: it is enjoyable for him. It's mindblowing for him, and she can see that written on his face clear as day if she looks. Can see the way the muscles in his face pull, can see the way his lips part and his breath hitches, the way his brow furrows. It's like there are secret wires that run between his cock and every other part of his body. Every single thing she does, every slide of her tongue and every suck of her mouth, sets off some reaction in him. Makes him shudder. Makes him gasp. Makes the muscles in his abdomen clench, makes his head fall back and his face change.
She could play him like an instrument, if she did this enough. She could learn him up and down and know him.
--
His weight shifts into his hips as she starts to suck him in earnest. His hands cradle her head, and his knees press to the side of the bed. He's watching her now, forehead wrinkling like he's overcome. He's panting. He's rocking his hips against the rhythm of her mouth, fucking back against her gently, careful not to pull her hair or hold her down or thrust too hard or anything, anything,
anything that might make her suspect, might make her realize
he's not such a gentleman after all. He's a bit of an insatiable brute in the end. He's a bit of an animal, a mammal with mammalian instincts, the urge to mate, the urge to fuck, the urge to choose one female and stand by her forever;
bend the knee to one liege-lady and stand with her forever. It blurs together sometimes. This blurs together: the way her mouth feels, the way her mouth moves, the things she's doing to him, the way she makes him feel. She can tell he's close by the way he breathes. She can tell by the way his muscles are tensing up, the veins in his arms standing out; he breathes a meaningless fuck and he closes his eyes again, tips his head back again -- slides one hand out of her hair and halfway down her back as though this might steady him somehow when
he
loses himself to her. His orgasm drops out of the sky, hammers him: there's no lead-in, no gradual rise. It just comes over him, his hand is gripping her hair, he can't help that any more than he can help the way he's shouting, not her name or god's name or curses or oaths or anything at all. Just noise, just sounds, like he has no more control over his vocal cords than he does over his body; the sharp flexion of his hips, the tightening of his flanks and his stomach, his arms and thighs; the pulsing of his cock against her tongue if she holds him there; against her hand if she takes him like that instead; against his own hand if she's just so cruel as to let him finish himself off.
He wraps his arms inexactly, imprecisely around her shoulders when his climax starts to let him go. He leans into her, pulls her against his body, bends to her and tries to catch his breath against her hair. He doesn't even try to speak. It's all he can do to try to breathe right now. It's all he can do, honestly, to try not to collapse in a nerveless pile at her feet.
Avery ChaseThey both pretend, but they pretend so well: to be a gentleman and a lady, to be civilized and so forth. Yet even when they slip -- and they so slip -- it only seems to bring them closer. He knows how ravenously she can hunt, how voraciously she can eat, and he has seen her grab men by the shoulders and slam their bodies against asphalt long after the light has gone out of their eyes, shattering the bones of the corpses because they dared to shoot at her and her allies from above. She knows how under that veneer of the gentlemanly working man he wants to eat his fill of red meat and drink red wine and lick her cunt until he's satisfied, he wants to hold her against his bed and bury his cock in her, he would shoot any of his animals in the head without flinching and he shot at their enemies without flinching.
And he knows how hard it is to be Avery Chase sometimes. How she struggles and how afraid she is of her own encroaching madness. How she looks when literally hiding under a bed from him, from life, from everything. And she knows that he doesn't get along with his father and he worries about her safety.
He knows she has her own quiet adoration for him, seen in smiles and strokes of her hand through his hair, or simply the way she throws herself into his arms whenever she sees him, utterly delighted to be near him again. She knows his patience, his generosity, his loyalty, so infallible once given freely.
They do not know many details about one another. But they are learning. And they already know each other so well.
--
In the end, she hears that gasped fuck, feels the way his gently rocking thrusts have grown haphazard and mindless, feels his hand on her back. Avery moans one last time around him and slides her mouth from him, stroking him in her hand, watching him as he comes
all over her breasts, his cock pressed against them, her back arched to lift them to his body. Oh, she lets him make a mess of her like that, and she cannot tell him yet just how profoundly it turns her on to do so, how glorious she thinks he feels, how wonderful it is to be so filthy.
Calden is panting still, aching, when Avery slides her mouth onto him again. She tastes the last of his cum, lapping at him, licking him clean until he's twitching, until he sounds like he can't take it. She leaves him gently then, while he all but collapses to her, holding her. She keeps him in her hand, though. She kisses his abdomen and holds him in return, sliding one arm around his lower back.
When he seems like he can stand straight again, perhaps she'll suggest a shower.
Maybe some breakfast.
Calden WhiteWho knows what he was doing before he came in here and discovered her awake. Who knows what he was in the middle of, and what he was intending to do. It doesn't seem to matter -- he's been deliciously sidetracked. Spent a thoroughly enjoyable half hour or hourpleasing each other.
And let's admit it. He looks thoroughly pleased indeed, panting still, reaching past Avery to brace a hand on the mattress. Jerking, almost jackknifing, when she puts her mouth back on him. His hand flies to her hair, cups her head, he groans aloud, he doesn't try to stop her. He just
does his best
to survive.
--
And despite all that, when she draws away he makes this sound like he's lost something: half groan, half gasp. He looks down at her, stroking her hair back gently, the corners of his mouth turning loosely upward. He's lazy now. He's languid, wants to sprawl out on that bed and just ... sleep for a while, but: he pushes himself upright. Takes a loosejointed step back, ducks down to pull his pants up.
Shower, she suggests. He reaches to take her hand, pull her up. Drapes his arm around her shoulders, leaning down to kiss her gently. "Shower," he agrees. "And then I'll make you breakfast. Eggs, sausage, and french toast with strawberries?"
Avery ChaseSurely it would be all right for him to forego work a bit and just come lay down with her. Let her get cleaned up, snuggle nakedly for a few more minutes. Or hours. She smiles as he looks at her, reading those thoughts in his eyes, thinking that any moment now his will is going to dissolve and he'll just come back to bed. But he steps back, pulling up his underwear, his rugged jeans. She looks down at herself with amusement, then smirks at him, a twinkle in her eye, when she says Shower? and then Breakfast?
To which he says: Shower. and Breakfast.
Avery's smile breaks open and she takes his hand, rising to her feet. She's careful; she doesn't want him to get all messy, too. He kisses her mouth and they aren't shy about this; they taste like each other, and her own flavor on his tongue makes her shiver. "Mmm," is all she says to what he intends to cook for her. Of course he'll do the cooking. Avery orders food. Avery approves menus for events or makes suggestions based on her whims, and in truth she does know how to make a few simple things, but really: french toast is beyond her comprehension of how such a thing would even be made. Do you toast it? Bake it? Why is it so soft? Witchcraft.
She wrinkles her nose happily and nods to him, kissing his chest and slipping out from under his arm, walking towards his bathroom. A moment later, the water is turning on, pattering against the ceramic and tile the way it pattered against the roof and windows last night.
Calden WhiteOh, he was tempted to just crawl back into bed. Just slither out of the rest of his clothes -- what little remained -- and flop into bed and wrap Avery up in his arms, glorious golden thing that she is, and sleep. Or maybe fuck again. Who knows: the possibilities, they are endless.
That isn't what happens, though. Some scrap of modesty or hospitality -- he's already let her go hungry under his roof once, after all -- makes him opt to pull his pants up. They wander into the ensuite. He loses his clothes again, and she loses her sheet. Or her robe. Or nothing at all, if she just sauntered naked from bed. They step into the shower and he turns on the spray. Steam roils up out of the glass enclosure. They
take
a very long shower indeed, coming out loose with heat and relaxation, dripping onto the thick bath rugs as they towel off and brush their teeth and pull combs or brushes or fingers through their hair.
--
Later, they are downstairs, and he is cooking for her. If they'd been alone he might've done the naked chef thing, wore only a half-apron for modesty. But they're not alone, his father is under this roof and sometimes his cousins stroll in. So: he's in jeans, he's in a very old t-shirt that hearkens back to his college days, and he's frying up eggs and sausage, toasting bread soaked in eggs and maple syrup.
"How long do you think you'll stay?" he wants to know.
Avery ChaseOf course she sauntered. Naked, ruffling her hand through her unruly hair and wearing nothing but -- well. Let's not be crass. Avery is pleased to see him coming to join her as she gets to the shower, beaming in fact. They step in. They close the glass door behind them. Avery, momentarily, turns her feet towards him, then climbs onto him, quite unabashedly deciding that while eggs and sausage and french toast with strawberries sounds wonderful this morning, she would very much like Calden to understand fully just how much it turns her on to have his cock in her mouth, his cum on her breasts,
which is what she is whispering in his ear as he puts her back to the tile, her legs enfolding him, her hands holding tight to his back. She tells him like it's a secret: I love sucking your cock, I love your cum on my tits. She names him as he's reaching to touch her, spreading her slick over himself: oh, you filthy man. And she moans, her head tipping backward, when he pushes himself fully into her, her voice ringing off the bathroom walls and ceiling: you brutish, fucking thing.
--
It is indeed a very long, very hot shower. Avery is wiggling and slippery and delightful in his arms even after she's washed, even after he's caressed her breasts endlessly, claiming that he missed a spot before. She's laughing and pleasant standing under the water with him, kissing him, tasting the clean water rolling down their faces. When the water turns off her cheeks are flushed and she's kissing him again as she steps into the bathrobe one more time. He gets dressed far faster than she does, as she wants to dry her hair -- she packed a little dryer in her backpack, isn't that cute? -- and put on a little makeup and take her sweet time coming downstairs.
When she does, her hair is loose and falls straight, the way it is at its most natural. She's pulled the top half of it back off her face, which is how she wore it in the old west, though Calden doesn't know that. Her makeup is light indeed, a dusting of smoothness and color. She is wearing jeans. Jeans! And not high-end designer jeans but what are -- for Avery -- quite simple, fitted to her hips and thighs, just barely cut to allow for a pair of boots she is not, in fact, wearing right now. Her socks are thick and warm and gray. She's wearing a white t-shirt beneath a thin summer flannel, the sleeves folded up to her elbows and the buttons undone enough to show the white v-neck beneath, and the shirt itself is not red-checked but a black and white plaid, the design so small that parts of it look gray as well. There are thin yellow lines here and there as well, and the soft shirt is untucked, hanging in tails around her hips.
He is cooking for her, and she is coming up behind him, slipping her warms around his waist, kissing his back through his shirt that smells like him, hugging him comfortably and closely while allowing him to move around the stove. She doesn't care if she gets a bit of egg splattered on her forearm.
"Hmm," she thinks. "Forty days and forty nights. Till the floodwaters recede and the land dries." She's smiling; he can feel her cheek against his back, hear it in her smile. "Or maybe another night before I head back, if that's all right with you." She knows it is. He would probably be happy with forty days and forty nights, too. Or forever. But both of those are still too long for Avery to contemplate, too frightening to her to do more than joke about offhand.
Her palm scritches his belly, and she kisses his back again, moving around the kitchen looking to see if there's coffee or tea or mugs or milk or something. She doesn't touch anything. She just looks, observant and thoughtful, torn between wanting to be a Polite Guest and wanting to Make Herself At Home, because one feels like what she should do and one she knows would make him happy. She puts her fingertip to her lip, eyeing a cupboard where she suspects the mugs are most likely to be, then turning to look at him.
"You know, I came out here with good news and I still haven't shared it with you."
Calden WhiteIn the shower, she tells him the filthiest secrets. They scandalize him, and they inflame him, and they make him shudder with unabashed wanting. They make him hoist her up and put her against the wall and fuck her, panting against her neck, while her hands clutch his back and pull his hair; while she wraps him in her legs and calls him all manner of terrible, delicious things.
They spend a very long time in there indeed.
--
Later on, he goes downstairs first. She dresses in jeans -- jeans! -- and flannel and cotton, and she combs her hair and she puts on a touch of makeup. He did indeed get her a toothbrush, and her own tumbler besides. He didn't get her a hairdryer, though, so it's a good thing she thought to bring one. Look at how tousled and thick and unruly his hair always is: no wonder she thought to bring one. Clearly the man owns no hairdressing tools.
In the kitchen, Calden hears her footsteps whispering over the tile. He's unstartled when she comes up behind him, her arms winding around his waist, her lips pressing to his shoulderblade. He smiles. His hand covers hers. He turns, can just see her over his shoulder, smiles. "Hey," he says, and then his eyes skim down; he laughs when he sees her attire. "Flannel and denim. Am I rubbing off on you?"
Forty days and nights, she says. Until the floods recede. His laughter simmers to something soft, something warm; his hand still covers hers, squeezes hers.
"I wouldn't mind," he says quietly, and completely seriously. "I wouldn't mind at all."
They don't talk about that much more. She scritches his belly like he's some great pet of hers. He laughs under his breath, reaching up to turn the vent fan down to low as he puts the finishing touches on breakfast. Noticing her looking around, he points his spatula at the cabinets:
"Mugs in there and coffee in there, if you want to make some. There's a grinder next to the drip machine."
Good news, she says. He glances at her half over his shoulder. "That's right," he remembers. "I thought maybe your going back in time was the good news." And he hands her a plate heaped with toast and sausage and eggs, nodding her at the breakfast bar. "Tell me over breakfast."
Avery ChaseRubbing off on you makes Avery look at him, eyebrows hopping up with instant, delighted hilarity. He doesn't even realize he said it. She laughs silently, her mouth in a wide, bright grin, shoulders squeezing up with youthful amusement. Okay: immature amusement. Rubbing off on her. Hurr.
Pressing her lips together before she steps away, but still smiling, Avery catches his eye as he notices her looking around and tells her where the coffee is. She decides to make some, taking items down as he starts loading her plate. She grinds some coffee, temporarily interrupting conversation entirely, then measures coffee and water -- this is a form of cooking she can do -- and presses a button before she comes over to sit on a stool beside him, knees turned toward him.
"I," she begins, a short pause after to underline the announcement as important, "am going to be in a pack."
Calden WhiteCalden's reaction is comically similar to Avery's HEE. a moment ago: a sudden, enormous grin, an exhale of a surprised and happy laugh.
"That," he says, "is wonderful news. I'm so happy for you. What tipped your scales?"
Avery ChaseShe puts her palms together, too delighted not to, too considerate to actually clap in his kitchen this morning. Ish. It's quite late now. "He's a Strider, and a full moon, and his name is Javed," she says, gushing, the words pouring out of her. "The first time we fought together he leapt in front of me, which was really unnecessary but so heroic, and when this daffy Theurge was failing at leading us in the shadow realm, he took charge before anything had gotten deeply dangerous for us. He's very honorable, darling, and quite reserved and ever so polite. And he wants us to be blessed as a pack by Falcon," the word almost hushed even in her happiness, reverent and overcome. There's very nearly a sheen of tears in her eyes from pleasure.
Calden WhiteFalcon.
Somehow, it's the way she says the name -- the reverence, the hush -- that stirs him so deeply. There's a hint of ache in Calden's smile. He reaches out, he wraps his arms around her, he pulls her roughly against his chest in a tight hug.
"I'm so happy," he repeats. Turns his head, kisses her temple. "I'd love to meet him. Bring him by for dinner someday. He can spend the night in the guest room."
Avery ChaseAvery squeals when hugged. She is beaming, beaming, until Calden says to bring him by and let him stay. "Oh," and her crest falls a bit, not deeply, but a little. She reaches down and touches his knee, just for the contact, then leans over and kisses his cheek before she draws back from the hug in order to see his face.
"He withholds himself from kinfolk," she says. "Not entirely, but I know he would not feel comfortable staying the night in your home. Dinner, however -- I would love for you to meet him. I do have to introduce him to my father and brother first, however. It would be rather impolite to all of them to do it the other direction."
Calden WhiteCuriosity -- "Why?" They draw apart -- at least a little -- and Calden's arms unwrap from around her. He picks up his fork, uses the edge to cut a piece of french toast off. "Why does he withhold from kinfolk, I mean?"
Avery ChaseShe tips her head to him, smiling gently, if a bit achingly. "Though he has his reasons, it is not for me to share them on his behalf." She knows he'll understand: instantly, unequivocally, and that he will not press. If she is wrong on that, she will be terribly surprised. So far she hasn't reached for food -- perhaps the three burgers last night were enough to at least tide her over a bit longer -- but she does now, turning a bit to lift her knife and fork.
"He is very honest," she muses aloud. "That is another thing I admire about him. Honest and humble without being grotesquely self-deprecating. I think he was quite pleased that I wanted to be his packmate, which was also flattering."
Calden WhiteShe is not wrong about it: Calden doesn't press. He looks curious still, but he lifts his shoulders and he nods, letting it be. It is what it is. Any further questions can wait for when he meets the man himself, or after.
At her musing, though, a wry look flickers across Calden's face. "Honesty and modesty without disgusting amounts of self-deprecation," he says. "I wonder why that sounds so familiar. But I'm not surprised that he was pleased, Avery. Like I always said: anyone would be lucky."
He nods at her plate, then: "If you don't eat your eggs soon, the syrup's going to get on them. And then it'll be disgusting."
Avery ChaseAvery looks bewildered at his wryness, his repetition. She looks at him with an innocence that can't be falsified, wondering what he means. Maybe he means himself? She smiles at Calden and squeezes his knee. He's absolutely right. It's completely familiar.
Sometimes she's not much less daffy than that Theurge she mentioned.
She cuts into the sausage she's been given, noting the amount on her plate and grateful for the portions that Calden has learned she wants. Needs. She can eat lightly and delicately, even likes to sometimes, but it feels odd to do so out here. With him. While wearing denim and flannel. "How do you know," she says, "that I don't like syrup on my eggs?" She lifts a bite, putting it in her mouth, chewing, looking at him after she swallows. "Normally I have confectioner's sugar on my french toast. The syrup is... different. Good. I like it on sausage though. The maple."
Calden White"I was talking about you," Calden explains quietly, seeing her puzzled look. "Your honesty. Your modesty." A pause -- a sideways glance, a shade of a smile. "Well. Sometimes it's more self-satisfaction than modesty. But still charming."
They discuss food. Calden glances down at his plate. "Confectioner's sugar is one-half flour, Avery. You deserve better than that. Maple syrup, on the other hand, is glorious. Even on sausage. But definitely not on eggs. I'm not even a big fan of ketchup on my eggs."
Avery ChaseAt his explanation, she just wrinkles her nose, shaking her head. Silly man.
As for the sugar, and being one-half flour, she rolls her eyes. "My cook makes it, Calden." As though this should be obvious. "The syrup is fine," she says, ever so patient with him. "It's just different. Now I'm not saying I'll pour the syrup wholeheartedly all over my eggs, but if it happens to drizzle over there, it won't be the end of the world."
Calden WhiteHe grins. Can't help it. It just spreads over his face, and he ducks his head though he doesn't really know why; it's not as though he doesn't want her to know he's smiling. That he's happy. So after a moment he raises his head again after all, grinning at her, leaning over in his stool to just... kinda... bump her with his shoulder.
"I'm just so charmed by you, Miss Chase," he says. "I absolutely adore you."
Avery ChaseThe coffee has brewed. She has a stack of powdered sugar-less french toast that, upon finishing the first mapley slice, Avery will then dust with what she can find in his cabinets just to show him how wonderful it is, especially with the strawberries. On some other visit he'll learn that she likes peanut butter on her pancakes, but maple syrup and strawberries with those, too. Oh, and the same for waffles: the peanut butter, like she's a seven year old. We know this will happen, we say we know, but
it is only hope, in the end. Not just for kin and garou, but for anyone. What you'll learn next time, what you'll say, how long you'll hold them. All hope. Not certainty.
--
Avery laughs at him, at how endeared he is to her, how easy his adoration comes. She seldom realizes just how easily it comes from most people in her direction. Her smile settles into something else altogether as she watches him, warm and soft and dear.
"You love, you love, you love?" she murmurs,
not mocking him.
Calden WhiteLaughed at, and quite goodnatured about this, Calden chews his french toast and grins -- closemouthed now, at least -- back at Avery. Her smile settles, and so does his, and in the end they are looking at each other in that unmistakable and fond way that made a waiter at a party think oh yeah, they're gonna bone; that would make anyone anywhere look at them and think, oh yeah, they've got a thing for each other.
"Yes," he says, with a sort of gentle, laughing emphasis, "I do."
Avery ChaseIt's just a moment, and a sweet one, while they both sit at his kitchen island on barstools, in jeans and soft shirts. Avery is looking at him with that light in her eyes that seems inextinguishable no matter how dark it gets around her. Avery is looking at him with that smile on her face, soft and happy in a quiet way that increases, rather than diminishes, its value.
What she asks makes her heart flutter, and what he answers makes it ache beautifully. Every other suggestion of such a thing has worried her and upset her, even made her pull away from him. She has gone so far as to cover his mouth, begging him not to tell her that he was hers to do with as she wished, not to say always, not to promise her so much, give her so much, surrender like that.
But this isn't surrender. This is love. And that is a gentle, mutual victory.
Avery reaches over to him, placing her hand over his hand, wrapping her fingers into the embrace of his palm. Her touch is as warm as her smile, warmer, and lasts for a prolonged moment that she does not fill with words. And hopefully he has practice eating with his off hand, because even as she turns back to her breakfast and lifts her fork in her right, her left stays right where it belongs. Holding his.
Calden WhiteSomething just happened there. Something sweet, and ever so understated, but something both of them understand without having to speak overmuch of it. It's in his smile. It's in her eyes. It's in her hand on his, and the way his fingers curl around hers. It's in what they say --
I love, I love, I love.I do.
-- and what they don't say.
Calden wipes his mouth quickly on a napkin. Then he lifts her hand to his lips, kissing her fingertips gently, rather chivalrously. Curls her fingers back into his palm, returns their linked hands to the countertop, and --
yes. Eats with his offhand. A little less neatly than he would have with the other, but passably enough that he doesn't dribble eggs and syrup and whatnot all over himself.
Avery ChaseAvery took his hand with consideration for how he would eat. She determined that while sometimes he really is just a filthy, mannerless brute, he could probably at least manage that much grace. And so he can! She's delighted with him, but quietly so.
Quietly because, yes: something just happened there. Or was touched on, delicately as a finger stroking a newborn animal. Said obliquely, with side glances, soft smiles. It means something, just as her hand around his means something, and neither of them drum up any other passions or fears or words around it.
She gets up only once after that, bringing back two mugs of coffee and one cup of powdered sugar to prove to him what he's missing, even if his powdered sugar is not powdered at home by the chef and is, in fact, half cornstarch. She eats strawberries and kisses him, taking his hand again as they debate syrup and sugar as a French Toast Topping, which neither of them are going to give an inch on in the end. She threatens to put ketchup -- no! hot sauce! -- on her eggs but admits she doesn't really know what hot sauce tastes like and is a bit fearful.
She asks him what they're going to do today. And can she work with him a bit? And will he show her his land, in the daylight, as he never has before?
Calden WhiteOh, neither of them give a single inch. The confectioner's sugar vs maple syrup debate rages all breakfast long; gets so intense that they have to hold each other's hands. And lean into each other now and then. And laugh over their toast and eggs and syrup, play-fight over the ketchup bottle and the hot sauce, outright giggle into their coffee like a pair of lovestruck teenagers as they reach a tenuous sort of peace.
Somewhere in the midst of that Calden's dad comes out of his room. He sees them across the great room, shoulders nearly touching where they sit, hands linked even as they squabble over what to put on their toast. He snorts -- loudly enough that Calden looks over his shoulder at him, that Avery waves or calls hello or some other disarmingly friendly, polite thing -- and then waves disgruntledly at them before shuffling back into his room. The door shuts again. Calden shakes his head in his dad's direction, quieter when he returns his attention to Avery, but
even his dad can't wholly sour his mood. Can't wholly wipe the smile from his face.
They make plans for the rest of the day. He's going to go shore up the riverbanks with some more sandbags, he says. And then he and his ranchhands are going to herd his stock away from the worst of the floods, up into higher ground in the north and west of his range. She can come along, he says. She can drive the truck that tows the trailer where they'll put the smallest and weakest calves, the ones most likely to get mired in the muck and -- god forbid -- crushed under the hooves of their elders. And when they're done, when the sun starts angling westward,
he'll take her on a drive. Just the two of them, sticking to the drier roads where the truck can still pass: all the way out to the northern edge so she can see his land. See what he has to offer her, the territory to go with this large, warm, hearty den of his; the land to go with the cattle that could feed her, sustain her, keep her and all her kin. See that, and enjoy that, and -- if they can find a patch of semi-dry land on which to lay a blanket -- have a quiet, private little picnic with him. Eat fruit and salad from that small garden he keeps; eat sandwiches made from bread from the local market; beef from his own stock.
Come back, when the sun sinks low. When the day is over, and his den seems warmer and more welcoming than ever: a home to which he is always glad to return. Maybe they'll stay up late, talking in his room in front of a small, crackling fire. Maybe they'll make love, and retire to his bed, and curl up together through the night.
I wish you could stay longer, he whispers when the lights are out and the fire has burnt to embers. When his arms are around her, and her legs are twined with his. He doesn't say it: forty days, forever. But maybe she knows.
It's all right, though. She'll come back to him. And he knows that, too.
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