There was a brief period -- a couple of days, maybe just one -- when Avery did not return any of Calden's phone calls or texts. Not terribly unusual, though normally she calls him right back, texts him right back as soon as she gets it. It was not a long enough gap that she called it out and apologized for it, but it was perhaps enough to stand out as the first time that Calden ever had to wait on a response from his girlfriend. His royal.
The next time he sees her, which is far too long since the last time he saw her, she is not coming downstairs from her penthouse to his waiting truck at the curb, throwing her beautiful self into his waiting arms, a heated kiss on her lips and those magnificent tits pressed up against him. Which would be very nice indeed. But that's not how it is.
That's not how it is because for the past several days, much of the front range has been under a deluge of rain. Not a torrent, not even wind-whipping thunderstorms for the most part. Just steady rains, hour after hour. Occasionally they cease and the sun comes out, but people are being advised not to get their hopes up. The 72 is partly just washed out, an entire lane crumbled into the roadside ditch. The Denver Metro area is doing all right, but Boulder, Fort Collins, and Loveland are particularly hard hit. Three people have already died from the flooding. The President named the area a disaster to free up funds to keep the number of fatalities from going up.
Calden lives near a river. He and his ranch hands are not having the best week. Avery has asked him to please come down, bring his father, they can stay with her, but there are complications to that: for one, getting to Denver isn't that safe from where he is. For another, that would mean leaving men who depend on him and the cattle that are his livelihood, the dogs that run around his property, the horses, all his equipment, everything. He can't leave all of it to Her mercy, which is not very merciful at times, even if he can hear the strain of worry in Avery's voice on the phone. When they hang up, it almost sounds as though she is excusing herself to another room to shed a few worried tears.
That is not what is happening, but no one would fault him for wondering.
--
The next time Calden sees Avery, she is standing outside of his house in lupus. There is a smell of ozone around her, the heavy weight of spirit, the suggestion of something older and deeper than the land clinging to her fur. Her eyes are pristine, bright blue, even though right now the clouds thickly cover the sun and the moon has not yet risen. The diffuse light that does manage to drift down to rest on her is silvery, making her seem all the more unreal.
He drives up, or rides up, and she lifts off her haunches where she sits, ears perked and tail giving a few restrained wags. She barks.
Calden WhiteCalden is mud.
He's not just merely muddy. He is mud: his boots great globs of mud, his chaps dripping mud in chunks, mud caking up to his hips, up to his elbows. Even his hat is muddy. Rain is dripping off its brim, and rain is sheeting off the shoulders of that sturdy jacket of his. He is riding that broadchested gelding of his, the chestnut one with the blaze down the nose, and the gelding is also mud today, all four legs caked in it, flanks and tail streaked with it. There is a dog struggling through the mud at his heels. The dog, due to her lower profile, is muddier than either man or horse.
Life on the ranch is variability in the midst of routine, and these days the variability has been greater than usual. This nonstop deluge from the heavens has thrown a wrench into the rhythm of the year: the last of the breeding season disrupted, the first of the calves threatened, the coming autumn cull pushed back. As the parched land grew sated, then engorged, then oversaturated, daily chores have been offset in favor of innumerable trips out to sandbag the river, to divert the streams, to herd cattle away from treacherous terrain, to haul calves out of muddy sinkholes.
There's one of them now, one of the smallest calves of the herd slung across his saddle: little more than a bundle of mud and gentle eyes that suddenly grow panicked. Of the trio, man and beast, it's the calf that senses the predator's presence first, and the calf that tolerates it least. Its hooves flail. It lows. A firm hand on its withers keeps it from tumbling from the saddle and breaking its neck, but then the chestnut is flaring its nostrils, dancing in its paces.
"Whoa, now. There, now." One hand on the calf, the other on the side of his gelding's neck, Calden brings the small party to a standstill. The cattledog in his shadow stretches out her neck to sniff in the direction of the wolf, eyes alert and wary. The cowboy comes out of the saddle in a quick swing, boots squelching into mud, and reaches back for the calf. A panicked hoof flashes out and the rancher jerks his head back out of the way, unruffled, grabbing the infant bovine, hauling it down. It's the size of a large dog, and it bolts the instant its four hooves are on the ground. The cattledog is after it in a heartbeat, barking, nipping at the animal's heels until it wheels about and runs straight for the calfing shed.
Then it's just man and horse and wolf. In the shadow of his Stetson, Calden's surprised, pleased grin is a white flash. "Why, Miss Chase," he calls to that pristine, spirit-glazed wolf, "what an unexpected treat. I wish I were in better condition to receive you."
The hat comes off. His hair is one of the few remaining clean spots on him. He beats dried mud off his arms and his chest with the hat, then sets it back on his head.
"How long have you been waiting?" -- a little more serious, now. "You should have gone inside. I hate to think of you sitting around in the rain. Did you run all this way?"
Avery ChaseMake no mistake: there is a moment when Avery's ears swivel forward, when her tail stills, when she smells that supple, youthful prey that could never in a million years hope to outrun her or fight her off, when she thinks of the choice, tender meat on its bones, when she can smell Calden and Calden's breeding and Calden's body underneath all that muck and associates it with the male who brings her meat and food as though in tribute to her glory,
and in this body it is very, very hard for her to think that he is probably not bringing that calf in during flash floods in order to feed her. That it is not a gift. She recoils a bit, watching as it panics and the dog goes rigid, all but quivering herself with restraint. It runs off, the dog with it, and again it is difficult to tell herself no, no, do not fight the shepherd dog for the livestock, no.
They run, and she gradually stops staring after them, turning slowly to Calden, who can't have missed that. He grins. Her tail gives a swish. He says he wishes he were in better condition and --
Avery flops into the mud, rolling around, rubbing her back on the ground, completely drenching and coating herself in the same muck he's coated and saturated in. She rolls again to her feet, barking happily, tail wagging, flinging bits of mud back and forth. She gives him no answer, other than apparently the one that suggests she's just fine, thank you.
Calden WhiteThat brings a laugh out of Calden, bright and thoughtless and -- yeah: carefree. Nevermind that the past few days have been nothing but cares. Nevermind that half his ranch is mud and the river is flooding and the calves are stuck and, and, and.
Nevermind all that. He drops the bridle and strides over and drops to one knee in the muck, sliding his gloved fingers into Avery's summer-sleek fur as she comes up from that silly roll of hers. He bumps his brow to hers. He kisses her between her eyes, which have lost their human shape, but retain their near-preternatural blueness.
"You can go in if you want," he says. "The door's unlocked. I have to hose some of this mud off and put the horse up. Then I'll be in."
Avery ChaseNow there shall be no concern about putting his muddy hands all over her perfect white fur. He touches her and she leans into it, eyes briefly closing, rubbing her muddy head against his gloved palm. Somehow he kisses her between spots of mud, and tells her he's going to 'hose off', and to go inside, and
she just gets to her feet and follows him. To be hosed off, of course.
Calden WhiteWell, fine then. Calden laughs again, low and -- let's admit it -- pleased. He gets up. There's some resemblance between wolves and dogs, but the truth is it's impossible to mistake one for the other. Particularly when said wolf is one of Avery's ilk: long-limbed, long-muzzled, tall and elegant and white as freshfallen snow.
The Stagsman takes his horse's bridle in hand again. The gelding rears at the nearness of the wolf; Calden pulls it down, steadies it with gentle words and gentle touch. Its ears are still back, though, and its eyes roll to keep Avery in sight. Calden positions himself between horse and predator on the short walk over to the barn, where he tethers the horse to a handy post and uncoils a length of green garden hose.
He wasn't kidding about hosing off. The faucet is cranked on. The horse gets first dibs: mud sprayed off its shanks and its flanks, its belly. Apparently used to this sort of inglorious bath, the chestnut stands still for the ordeal, blowing disgruntledly now and then. When he's done Calden unbolts the barn door and gives the gelding a hearty swat on the rear, sending it trotting back to its stall.
"I'll have one of the ranch hands unsaddle him," he says, coming back. The faucet is still on. The hose is bulging, the spray-gun leaking at the end. Calden bends, fishing it up from the ground, aiming it at the mud on his boots. "You want a quick spray too, or you going to wait for a proper shower?"
Avery ChaseShe's quite a bit taller than his ranch dog. She's quite a big wider at the shoulders. Her fur is thick and almost serves as a sort of armor in a way that a dog's coat never could. Her teeth are larger, longer. All one has to do is look at the paw prints in the mud to see the difference in what she is and what that dog is: a beast of a different species, tamed over eons, mixed with other breeds a dozen times, a hundred.
Avery hangs back from the horse, which means walking a few feet from Calden, but there really will be no calming the steed while she's around, regardless of her form. She thinks of telling Calden about Toro. She starts to bark, and the horse all but rears, and she remembers Calden doesn't speak barking. Not really, no matter how well-attuned he is to his animals.
Calden hoses the horse off, and it tolerates this mildly, showing that it's used to it. It'll need some more care after that, but the ranch hand can take care of it. Avery looks affronted at the suggestion that she be hosed down but she's just teasing; she comes over, tongue lolled, ready for the ice-cold blast.
Calden WhiteCalden was just teasing too. His bluff called, he stands there with the water blasting his boots clean, quite at a loss.
"I'm quite sure," he shouts over the noise, "that I'd be breaking a dozen rules of etiquette, chivalry and good old fashioned manners to squirt a lady with a garden hose."
Avery ChaseShe barks. She wags her tail.
Your move, cowboy.
Calden WhiteCalden shakes his head. It's quite emphatic. "Nuh-uh." And he goes about hosing down his chaps, his jeans, the sleeves of his shirt. "I want to be able to look myself in the eye tomorrow."
Avery ChaseA low, unsubtle whine. Her tail droops. Her ears droop.
Calden White"All right, fine!" -- and Calden gives her a blast with the hose. "Now I'm going straight to hell. Boorish behavior hell."
Avery ChaseA blast. She twists, yelping -- though perhaps that's just another tenor of her barking -- to give her side to the water, but then she's rather matter-of-fact about it all, turning around, shaking her head a bit if not the rest of her body, getting the mud out of her beautiful fur until she's mostly white again, if sodden. Drenched. Soaked. Dripping. She turns her head up and stares at him.
Calden WhiteHe can't help it: he laughs. At the yelp. At the matter-of-fact turning. At the shaking of the head, and the mud dripping out of her fur, and the way she turns white again: albeit soaked. And dripping.
Solemnly -- well; as solemnly as he can with the corners of his mouth twitching -- he releases the handle on his hose, turns it around, holds it out to her. "Only fair," he says.
Avery ChaseAll of this would be a few shades of grotesque if she were in her birth form. She seems to be having fun, however. Until she's soaking wet. It enters her mind to shake her fur out, splatter Calden, but then -- even before he's turning the hose towards her -- she is sliding up into that form, rising off of her forepaws, her hindpaws turning to feet-in-sneakers, her legs clad in black now instead of white. Her hair is down and straight and sodden, and she is as radiant as she can be in that state. There's a new addition to the outfit he's seen before, a backpack resting off her shoulders. It's white.
She takes the hose, smirking at him, trying not to grin, and says: "One... two..."
Actually, she releases the water at tw.
Calden WhiteOne. He braces. Two -- he starts to hold his breath, but
Avery, cunning devious and ravishing thing that she is, lets loose halfway through the two. And let's just admit it: he yells. He nearly yelps, because the water is icy cold, and it's unexpected, and he jumps a foot before settling down.
Then he turns a slow circle, arms outstretched, eyes and mouth squinched comically shut, as she helps him clean up. Most of the way, anyway. When she's done he's as soaked as she is. More so, perhaps. His shirt sticks to him and his boots squelch. He cranks the water off and throws his sodden arm around her, dragging her against his solid, sodden side, planting a loud kiss on her cheek.
"All right, you gorgeous devil. Let's go inside and you can tell me how the hell you got all the way out here. Please don't tell me you ran."
Avery ChaseAvery is laughing as he kisses her, squeezed to his side, dropping the hose unceremoniously. She speaks so little at times like these, when she is still so close to another form that she remembers how it feels on her skin. He calls her a gorgeous devil and all she does is smirk at him, eyes twinkling.
"I ran," she tells him, contrary thing. "But I was careful. The flooding is just as... enthusiastic... in the shadow realm."
Calden WhiteNow a flicker of worry shadows his eyes. It passes when she says she was careful -- or well; it at least makes some move toward passing. He laughs, a little quieter.
"Well, that settles it then. You'll just have to stay here as my guest until the flooding recedes."
Avery ChaseShe is lofty, haughty, walking with him to his house, out the shed and towards the deck, whatever their path is. Her chin is up despite the fact that her hair is wet and bedraggled all around her face. "Though I mean no disrespect to your hospitality, sir, I shall remind you that I do not have to do anything but what I please."
Calden WhiteTheir path is much the same as it was that very first night,
six months ago,
when winter still had its grip on this land. Up the gentle slope toward the house; up the outdoors stairs to the deck. That steady rain washes them all the way, and as summer fades to autumn there's a noticeable chill in the air. Calden is grateful for the warm they share, and his arm remains heavy and intimate around his lover's shoulders.
"I hope it pleases you to stick around, then," he replies. They're bantering, because of course they are, but he means this. "At least stay a night or two, Avery. I've missed you."
Avery ChaseAt the door to the house, Avery pauses, automatically waiting to be let in, to have the door opened for her, et cetera. She smiles at him, half tender and half amused.
"You have no idea how much you've missed me, darling," she murmurs, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "I've been the most wondrous places. In a manner of speaking. And I have the most wonderful news to top it off."
Another kiss, again on his cheek, trailing on his jaw. Her eyes catch his for a longer moment. "As for how long I stay, you may have noticed that this time I packed."
Calden WhiteAs they approach the glass sliding doors into the house, Calden unwinds his arm from around Avery at last. He has one hand on the handle when she turns to face him, that smile of hers making that half-familiar little skip go through his heart again.
"Do you now? I can't wait to hear it." The last few syllables are half-muffled: she has leaned up to him, kissing his cheek twice, kissing his jaw. When she lowers herself they're a few inches apart. He smiles into her eyes, leaning down to follow her. He doesn't skirt around the issue this time: he lays this kiss on her lips, soft but unhesitating; bold.
"I did notice you had a bag," he admits. "I didn't dare assume it was for your stay with me, but I'm glad to hear my non-assumption was correct."
On that note, he slides the door open. The great room is as she remembers it: high ceilings and bare timbers, stag's antlers over the great hearth.
"Welcome back," he says, following her in.
Avery ChaseThe way Avery takes that kiss suggests she knew it was coming. Suggests she was waiting for it, teasing it out of him with those kisses on his cheek, waiting for him to stop skirting, stop dancing, and kiss her mouth. She all but melts to him, relaxing against his body, letting out a soft sigh as her arms lift up and wrap around him. They are soaking wet. It is not warm. They should go inside and take a proper hot shower.
Avery stays outside a moment or two longer, lingering in that kiss, before her eyes open and their lips part, her stare direct and something hungry stirring in her gaze. Calden opens the door, and she steps in, hesitating at the entry, since she is sodden and dripping. So is he, but it's his home. She toes out of her shoes, letting her backpack slip from her shoulders and swing around a bit.
"I went back in time," she says. "Woke up one morning beside a strange woman -- well, strange in many ways, and not very well known to me, but I've seen her at moots and the like -- wearing the most awful nightgown, sleeping on a straw mattress, being yelled at by some innkeep. I had a crinoline skirt and a six-shooter!"
Avery lifts her chin, smiling. Her hand raises and smooths back her hair, tucking wet strands behind her ear. "So I suppose I did not go to wondrous places. We were still right here. Right here in Denver, but it wasn't Denver yet."
Calden WhiteIn that moment of hesitation, Calden's hand comes gently and warmly to the small of her back, urging her over the threshold. They leave little puddles on the hardwood floors, but it's not like they didn't use sealant when they put in the flooring. She toes out of her shoes. He stomps out of his, sheds his heavy jacket, hangs it over a coat peg put up near the door for this very purpose.
He turns to her as she tells him what she's been up to. Where. When. He looks a little surprised, and maybe a little incredulous. As she speaks he's putting his boots aside, setting her shoes aside, taking her hand and leading her to the stairs,
and up.
"An Otherworld quest? Is that what you mean?"
The heat is on in his house, and the higher, more enclosed spaces of the second floor are warmer. Rain washes the windows in a steady downpour, swept now and again by the wind. They pass the second-floor terrace; enter the enormous master suite. He takes her bag and sets it on the sofa, then puts his hands on her waist and draws her closer so he can start in on her clothes. There's something loving and familiar about this. About his hands undressing her; about his room dim and smelling of him around them.
"Tell me about it," he invites. Her light jacket drapes over the sofa next to her bag.
Avery ChaseSo they drip over the floors. Avery is a demure lady, and she knows that Calden doesn't live alone, so she doesn't begin disrobing beyond slipping out of her shoes as they walk into his house and begin heading up the stairs. She walks ahead of him, and let's be honest: she's wearing yoga gear. That yoga gear is soaking wet. The woman wearing it is aware of this, just as she was aware of Calden behind her when they walked up out of his cellar for the first time. She is a demure lady,
for the most part,
but also a playful creature, whose blood is high from the long run and the rushing of risen water, from the momentary tease of easy and tender prey, from simply being around Calden.
"Oh no, darling," she says, when he calls the umbra 'Otherworld', which she just finds adorable. "This was completely terrestrial." She has paused on the stairs, turning to him, reaching out to take his hand. "We were here, Charlotte and I -- I was with Charlotte, she's one of those brilliant but awkward sorts, but oh she really is a brilliant Theurge. I'd snatch her up and keep her for my own if she weren't already running around with the oddest Shadow Lord you're bound to meet, but I can't blame her, he's a good complement, all rushing headlong into battles and being noisy."
Avery has lost her train of thought. She leans over, pecks Calden on the cheek, and continues up the stairs. She remembers her way to his room. She's been in there only twice, but she remembers. She could have found it by scent alone, even having never stepped foot in it. Again she pauses at the door, though, awaiting Calden's hand on the handle before she steps with him inside.
"I know that we were not in the umbra because there was an umbra there. We were in Denver, my darling, just a very old Denver. There was even a sheriff, can you imagine? And he was a -- "
Calden is slipping her backpack off her shoulder as she talks, and she lets him have it, but she's momentarily distracted as he's putting it on the sofa. It's wet. As her clothing is wet, clinging to her when he puts his hands on her waist and pulls her near. Oh, there may be something tender and familiar and loving about it to him, but that isn't how she takes it at all. A funny little smile twitches on her lips as he's unzipping her yoga jacket, her ears hearing the invitation in his voice if not strictly adhering to the words.
"Darling," she says, quieter, lower, her words fuzzed with mingled amusement and ready-to-the-surface arousal. "You can't go throwing wet things on your sofa like that. You'll ruin the upholstery." Perhaps this, as he's peeling the jacket off of her arms, baring them to soak up the warmth he's offering her in his room.
Calden WhiteSomething in his eyes, if she looks over her shoulder preceding him up the stairs. Some bright, hot glint of mingled arousal and self-amusement: old enough to see the humor in how easily swayed he is by a woman,
this woman,
(his woman?)
in yoga pants. Walking ahead of him. Old enough to see the humor in that; not old enough to be immune to the effect.
Up in his room, he takes her jacket off. It splats a bit. She chides him, and he laughs low and fuzzed; he curls his fingers under her tank top and stretches it up, off. It goes onto the sofa too.
"It's just water," he says. "It'll dry." He can't help it, and he can't be expected to help it: his hands cover her breasts through whatever bra she wears or doesn't wear. He smiles into her eyes, warm, a touch impish.
"You're serious," about the time travel. "How did you get there?"
Avery ChaseThe tank top is a matter of some entanglement. He starts tugging it upward, looking for what's underneath, and it's the same one she wore the night he met her and the same one she's worn at least a couple of times that he's seen her -- she thinks, she's almost certain -- but still, she stops him, catching his hands at the wrists. She guides his fingers under the tight elastic beneath her breasts, the hidden shelf that does not just support but somewhat compresses them. Her skin is chilled and she shivers all the same at his fingers, which are still warming up but were gloved and protected and are still warmer than most of her body.
For now. Given a few minutes without cold, wet clothes sticking to her and she would be almost feverish to the touch, like a stone left in the summer sun.
--
It'll dry, he insists, when he has her top up and worked off of her so carefully and has tossed that aside, too.
But it bothers her. With things splatting left and right, the water seeping into the couch. Something about the sodden clothing just left here and there or tossed, droplets flying -- it bothers her -- and he can see that disturbance in her eyes, the way it flickers as her head turns. And the way she pulls back from his hands, distracted from her story, and oddly repulsed. Not by Calden, or by Calden touching her, but... well, truthfully, even she doesn't quite know why there is iron-hard tension knotting up her spine, why she is recoiling from Calden's affections.
"Please," she says, her politesse -- as ever -- doing the best job it can to conceal or at least temper her distress.
Calden WhiteAn infinitesimal hesitation. Then, something different, deliberate: a halting. His eyes changing, his hands going to her shoulders, pulling her into him, hugging her against his chest if she lets him.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I'm not angling for sex. Or trying to distract you from what you're trying to tell me. I just wanted to get you out of these soaking wet things and into a hot bath, and then some dry clothes."
Avery ChaseBut it isn't his hands on her body that bother her, though it's those she recoils from. Hard to tell that at a glance -- impossible, really -- especially when she goes so readily, if still a bit tensely, into his arms. She breathes in sharply, though, as wet fabric makes contact with her bare skin. Avery tucks her arms up, crossing them over her breasts, between their bodies, for warmth rather than protection.
"I know," she says quietly, resting her chin atop his shoulder, head tipped so her crown touches his earlobe. All but whispered, these words, and those that follow: "It isn't that."
Avery's head turns, and were she dry he would hear the rustle of her hair moving across her back, so perfectly smooth but for that ugly little scar. She presses a soft, small kiss to him, just under his jaw, where she can feel her pulse. And there may be a flash of fear in accepting that, or even simply a flash of intense awareness of those fine white teeth that were so recently large white fangs, those eyes that were so very keen on the calf he carried in from the rain and flood. The kiss is echoed by a sigh so quiet it is almost subliminal.
"Please... let's just pick up the wet things. Maybe a... basket or... something."
It is rather clear, from her hesitation, how often she picks up her own wet clothes or dirty laundry. That she guesses 'basket' is merely a testament to her quick-witted mind, her astute problem-solving brain.
Calden WhiteIt's not quite fear that quickens his heart when her teeth come to his throat. It's -- awareness, to be sure. An absolute knowledge of what she is, what she can be, what she could do if she were just to slip for a second. A tingling sensation of every nerve awakening. A sort of guilty excitement, because he's not sure why it sparks down his spine and into his marrow, because he doesn't really want to be one of those fools who get all starry-eyed about their Garou lovers, but god,
she is something, isn't she.
Her head turns, then. And she rests her head against his shoulder. And just like a deluge of tenderness washes through him. He wraps his arms around her, tighter, thinking nonsensically to himself:
I will protect you. I can.
In the end she asks for very little. And to her request, Calden nods mutely. It's another moment, another few seconds of tight, warm embrace, before he moves rather swiftly: crossing the room, whipping the heavy quilted bedspread off his bed and wrapping it around Avery. Then and only then does he bend to pick her wet things up, grasping them one in each hand, toeing a closet door open to dump them into a waiting hamper.
He comes back. He rubs her arms through that quilt, briskly, then slowing, then merely holding her with his hands a gentle pressure through the fabric.
"What was it, then?"
Avery ChaseLet's be honest: even with the heat on, they are still mostly wearing wet clothes, which only grow clammier and stickier with the warmth, nowhere near drying yet. It isn't the warmest embrace that Calden has ever given her, but Avery wants it right then, and curls into it. He nods as he draws back, crossing the room, pulling at the bl--
"No," Avery says, not with irritation or pique but strain like he's only heard in her voice at particular times. Times particular enough to stand out in his memory. Sometimes they involve Avery all but begging him not to speak, and not to touch her, and not to look at her, or Avery hiding from him, or Avery fighting white-knuckled with herself so that she won't just abandon him entirely. She looks antsy, even physically, standing there with wet hair and hardened nipples and clinging yoga pants, like she doesn't know what to do with her limbs. "No, just... don't... I'm not cold, don't mess up the bed. Please don't, please leave it."
That's not it. And his hands on her breasts and his impish grin aren't it.
She doesn't seem to know what to do with herself, either. She wants to get off the rug or the hardwood and onto tile. She wants to get out of these clothes. She wants to put them somewhere neat. She wants everything to be tidy and put away and not dripping and muddy and the parts of her that have always been a little meticulous like this have always frightened her a bit because what if
what if madness breeds madness, what if
her self-isolation isn't where it stops but only where it begins and what if
that is a rabbit hole she is going to fall backward into one day,
until
she can't
see daylight
ever again.
--
Avery sucks in a deep breath and shudders with it held, exhales jaggedly, and strips the rest of everything off. She's taut with control, not to shred the clothing or look as half-panicked as she feels, to try to breathe, to try and relax, to remember that this is crazy, this is crazy, it will go away, it will pass, she'll be fine, it'll be okay,
shhh, shhh.
Breathe.
--
They pick up wet things, his and hers. She seems to feel a mite better when she's naked, and she seems even lighter when the wet things are put away. Well: if Calden will just get out of his wet things, too. If he will put those away, too. If all those sodden heaps of fabric are tucked away in a hamper and the hamper is closed and the closet is closed again and her backpack is hanging on a doorknob or something, which is okay because it was not wet enough to drip, just damp to the touch, so that's okay, and Avery does not mind feeling a bit chilly but as soon as the wet clothes are off she's not even feeling chilly anymore.
But it isn't until the hot water is run and the bathtub is mostly full and they are reclining in it, her back against his chest, that Avery finally,
actually,
begins to relax. Begins to breathe normally again. Begins to calm.
Or lets him wrap his arms around her.
And whispers:
"I'm so sorry, darling. I don't know quite what came over me."
Calden WhiteSo the blanket stays where it is. So he watches her, faintly alarmed, as she very nearly crawls in her skin; as she strips like a butterfly from a cocoon, a snake from a skin, until she's naked. Until they've run a bath. Until she sinks beneath the hot water, against his warm body, and only there,
only gradually,
begins to relax.
She doesn't know what came over her. He's quiet a moment. Then an admission, soft: "Me neither." A small pause. "Talk to me. About what just happened. About your trip in time. Any of it."
His arms tighten a little. He kisses her very softly behind her ear.
"Just talk to me," he whispers.
Avery ChaseShe feels awful for worrying him. Awful for being so strained and so brittle. She closes her eyes and her brow knits as he wraps her up in his arms, kissing her ear. Avery holds her breath a moment before she sighs, long and soft.
Where were we.
"I don't know how it happened." She could be talking about her strange feeling, her sudden fragility, but -- "I merely... awoke there." -- she's not.
"It seems that we were awaited; a boy took us to the sheriff, a Shadow Lord kinsman named Lark. He said that he had sent word to the caern -- and it was so strange to think of the antiquity of the caern then, which in its lifespan was not so long ago at all -- for a 'lawman' and a 'medicine man', and believed Charlotte and I to have been the ones they sent."
Her voice is quiet now, steady, no longer manic and bubbly or playful but also not stretched thin and frightened.
"Outlaws were coming, a band who had ravaged town after town. Horribly, Calden, they --"
Avery stops there, closes her mouth a moment. She does not want, nor need, to tell him even close to the details she heard. A moment after she exhales again. "So we gathered men who might be able to fight, and only a small handful of them were kin. Charlotte and I were given horses, remarkable and hardy ones that could stand us. Mine was named Toro." Her voice aches to speak of him, for some reason.
"While Charlotte summoned great spirits to our aid, I... spoke to the men." There's a pause, and this is almost funny but something in Avery's voice and even her breath suggests that this is not funny to her, none of this was funny: "In a saloon.
"Many of them were afraid and despairing, and perhaps rightly so. Several were drunk. But I spoke to them and -- by god, Calden, they rallied. I watched them sit up straight and take some pride in themselves. The worst bastard in that room was at least willing to fight to give the women and children more time to run, and the better ones were willing to fight just to defend the town that might one day become a great city."
She sniffs.
"All decent men, Calden," she says quietly. "They worked for the rest of the day to barricade an unfinished stone house near the river. We hid some in another house on the other side of the street to pin the invaders between us. They waltzed across the river, rode right up to us, and --" she huffs a small breath of mirthless laughter. "I don't even recall what the scum said. Only that in answer, Charlotte opened a sinkhole under him. She killed at least one right off the bat like that. She exerted her will -- I don't think she even spoke a word -- and Gaia opened up to bury that filth."
For a few moments, perhaps thirty seconds, perhaps even a minute, Avery does not say anything at all. There are words hanging in the air, unspoken, too hard to hold onto and much too painful to purge.
But Avery is nothing if not brave.
"Everything else happened very quickly," she whispers. "I remember that there were moments when I thought that both Charlotte and I would never return to our lives here. Yet we triumphed. In some ways it was quite glorious, I suppose."
Another long pause, though not as long.
"Truthfully, I struggle to remember anything but watching what was done to those men who stood up when I spoke to them." She shakes her head. "I was with them all day. Boarding windows, bolstering walls. Talking strategy. Moving boxes of ammunition to reloading stations. So many times, I smiled at them or held their hands and gave them this look, telling them that it would be all right, that they were doing the right thing, that they were good and honorable men." As she recounts this -- these moments she remembers with these men who would be long dead by now even if she had not watched some of them die that day -- she does not sound like she regrets lying to them.
Because she was not lying: it would be all right. They were doing the right thing, and by god she believed and believes with her whole heart that they were good and honorable men. It is not as though any of them followed her believing that they would somehow escape the possibility of death. It is not like she went into that battle without the foreknowledge that they would all be dead long before her birthday.
They were good and honorable men, doing the right thing, and she watched one of their heads
bounce
down
the
stairs.
A droplet of water rolls from her cheek onto his forearm. Hard to tell from condensation or sweat or simple water right now, except that she sniffs again. "I do not want you to think that I am weeping from regret, or from shame, or survivor's guilt, or some sense of responsibility that I believe would be truly misplaced, arrogant, and ignoble," she says very quietly, her voice wavering. "I grieve them so deeply, though, my darling: the horror and sorrow of their deaths, the fear and injury that even the survivors suffered. I believe that they knew -- and knew that I knew -- that what I was asking of them could and very likely would lead to their graves. Yet they fought anyway, and fought so courageously, even at their most terrified. I don't think a single one of them tried to run. And when I think of them, I am overcome with such... gratitude. Such awe."
Her arm has bent, her hand curling towards her solar plexus, towards -- yes -- her heart, winding gently into a fist that she holds there as though to staunch some wound. And in fact, she has a scar just there, a scar that once was a lethal wound. Her tears come freely now, enough to tremble her shoulders as she breathes, but slow. Slow and, in a strange way, welcome.
Calden WhiteThat tub they sit in is far and away spacious enough for two: one of those enormous, bow-sided "garden" affairs, though that name always puzzled Calden a little. The water is warm on the edge of hot, and though he hasn't dropped bubblebath or salts into the water, the sheer all-encompassing heat soaks into their bones, chases away the chill.
It's not for lack of space or want or warmth that they stay so close, then. It's something far simpler and more elemental. Want of contact. Want of closeness. Her back rests against his chest; his back against the sloped side of the tub. His arms surround her, his legs bracket her, and as she speaks,
empties out these words, these incredible stories and harsh truths,
he scoops warm water thoughtlessly over her shoulders. Over the outsides of her arms. Keeps her warm like that, though he knows she hardly needs it. Sometimes she burns like a furnace. Sometimes she burns like the heart of fire itself.
A teardrop splashes onto his forearm. He only knows it for what it is because of how she sounds. And he listens to her then as he's listened all along, only when her hand curls to staunch that imaginary wound, his follows. Water sluices down her breastbone. He covers her hand with his, holds it tight, her palm to her skin, his palm to her knuckles.
"I don't know how you went where -- when -- you went," Calden says finally, quietly. "I don't know if you were fulfilling a destiny that was already written, or stepping into an ancestor's life, or -- like some science fiction novel -- changing the very course of time with every breath you took. I wasn't there with you, and I can't imagine what you went through. Nor what you achieved.
"But ... I think maybe this much is true. Those men you met: they're all long dead now. Nothing you did can change that. That's just the inevitability of time. But what you did made it so that some of them, at least, made a difference with their deaths. And the rest of them lived on far longer than they would have without you, and lived on to remember what they did on that day. What you did for them. What they sacrificed, and what was sacrificed for them. That's worth something. Everyone dies in the end. But if you have people who live on after you who remember you -- that's worth something."
A small pause, there. His hand releases hers, finally. His arms wrap loosely around her shoulders again, enfolding her in his breadth.
"I never for a moment thought you would regret what was done," he continues softly. "Or that you felt ashamed, or guilty, for doing what you did. But I think you should be proud of what you did for them. And I think ... I think it's a beautiful, terrible thing that you've brought this memory with you. That you remember. I think that alone is a worthy tribute to the courage of those men who rallied to your banner and stood beneath your flag." Calden's arms tighten a little around her shoulders. He kisses her temple again, right where her hair sweeps back from her face. A soft laugh stirs through his chest, self-deprecating: "Forgive the poetry."
It's by touch that his hand comes to her face, then. By touch alone that he gently, delicately sweeps the tears from her cheeks. He kisses her again, then exhales.
"I think they must have felt gratitude for and awe of you, too."
Avery ChaseIf one looks only at the fact that he dresses simply, drives a truck, and works with his hands, one could be forgiven for not realizing that Calden is, in fact, about as wealthy as Avery -- with her multitudinous serving staff, her ever-increasing property ownership, her fine clothes, her charity galas. It's just that his wealth takes shape in those ranch hands he's able to employ, his vast tracts of land, his livestock, his connections with restaurateurs and their ilk. One involves silk and smiles and handshakes. One involves denim and mud and slaughter.
Until he gets her into his home, up to his bedroom, into his spacious master bathroom, away from all their employees and even their clothing to distinguish them as being anything but the simplest versions of their identities: female and male, garou and kin, younger and older. And as he holds her as though to protect her, and cups water in his hand to wash it down her arms to keep her warm, and as she tells him her story of being out of her own lifespan, even those markers seem to fade into insignificance. They are themselves. Avery and Calden. He cares for her, and she for him.
After she speaks, his hand covers her hand, and she closes her eyes, her brow furrowed, curling into his embrace as though to pull him tighter around herself. Oh, right in that moment she feels something for him that stands on a razor between adoration and need, and she cannot name it but also does not try.
What he says, she agrees with: that it was all worth something. That they all would have died inevitably but to fight like that was the right thing to lead them to do, the right them for them to do with their lives, however long they would last. But she smiles, achingly, and shakes her head gently when he says she should be proud, or that remembrance alone could stand as a worthy enough tribute. She sniffs again, lifting a hand -- though the one beneath his hand remains undisturbed -- to wipe her face with a wet palm. It does not dry her cheek, of course, but it smooths away some of the saltwater.
His hand meets her hand there, and she gives a soft breath of laughter still touched gently with grief as she lets him, the way she might allow a packmate to lick her wound, even a shallow one, because accepting help when it is not needed falls under the banner of grace, and graciousness, and intimacy. She tips her head as he kisses her temple again, and again, and this to has an animal welcome to it in every line of muscle in her body. This is what it feels like to her; that is how she responds.
Turning her head, twisting slightly in his arms, Avery tilts her face upward to look at him. Her hand leaves her heart, unfurling, the backs of her fingers stroking his cheek. "My darling... I will spend my life striving to be worthy of those men."
Calden WhiteThat cheek of his is coarse against her fine fingers, and it's a thoughtless gesture, almost protective, when he catches her hand and brings it to his lips again. Softer, gentler, he kisses her fingertips. Wraps them in his palm, and returns their joined hands beneath the water.
The world is rain outside. Rain and flood and autumn's encroaching breath. In the master bath, though -- with only a few warm-toned lamps lit -- their surroundings are warm and close. It feels safe, Calden thinks. It feels safer, with the both of them here in the center of his home.
"I know you will," Calden says; and he does. "I know you. At least enough to know that you will. And maybe well enough to know that you have been living your life striving to be worthy of such men all along."
Avery ChaseTo this, Avery says nothing. She rests her hand gently on his face, then lets him take it away, hold her hand, kiss her skin, submerge them together. She closes her eyes, body resting on his, head turned towards him, breathing in the warmth. She does not think about safety or about autumn. Outside it rains, and the sound of it is muffled but still audible. The water laps quietly at the sides of the tub, reacting to whatever small motion they make, even their breathing.
For a while, she just rests there, reveling in the heat of it all, the closeness, the depth of her own comfort having -- finally -- purged that grief some measure.
"As for what happened in your room just now," she begins, after a little while longer. Begins. Does not go forward.
Calden WhiteHe is quite content to remain just like this. Half-submerged in warm water, his arms wrapped around his lady. His head leaned back against that built-in little hollow at the side of the tub. His muscles soaking in the warmth, releasing the tension and ache of riding, hauling, carrying, pulling.
His eyes, which had closed sometime in the meantime, flick open as she speaks. A new awareness flits through him. His thumb brushes over her knuckles. It's a sort of acknowledgment, patient and silent, as he waits for more.
Avery ChaseThey cannot see each other's faces, so they rely on this: small touches, movements of a finger or pulls of breath.
"It just comes over me that way sometimes," she says after a while, quiet and a bit at a loss. "When things feel out of control. It was making my skin crawl. I thought I was going to bolt."
Calden WhiteHe is quiet another moment. Thinking, perhaps. His chest rises and falls against her back, lifting her with him; stirring the water around them. He has not drawn away, and does not. Not an inch. Not an iota.
"Bolt and hide?" he murmurs, at last.
Avery ChaseAvery nods, once and twice and three times in succession. "Run and hide," she repeats after him, an echo.
Calden WhiteOne of those thoughtful silences again, then, as Calden thinks about this. Processes it. Digests it.
"I'm glad you didn't," he says quietly. "But if you had, I would've waited for you to come back to me."
Avery ChaseI know, she thinks, but it seems arrogant somehow to say it aloud. So she doesn't. A few moments go by, a couple of heartbeats, then: "Tell me what you're thinking."
Calden WhiteSomehow that draws a small, soft laugh from him. He shifts, loosening his arms, tightening them again, his palms cupped over the outsides of her opposite arms. At the opposite end of the tub, his toes break water. He turns the faucet on, letting a trickle of hot water in to replenish the warmth.
"I'm thinking I'm glad you're here. I'm thinking it really was a wonderful surprise to find you at my door. I'm thinking I could get used to this. You showing up, you and I soaking in a bath, you and I talking about ... anything. All of it.
"I'm thinking it's not always so easy." This, a quieter admission. "I'm thinking it's more than worth it, even when it's not easy. And I'm thinking that it might not always be easy for me, but sometimes it's downright hard for you. I'm thinking it must be so hard to be Avery Chase sometimes; to be so brave and so true, even when all you want to do is hide.
"I'm just thinking about you, love. And us. And you."
Avery ChaseIn this body, Avery is easily eclipsed by the gentleman she's chosen to at least semi-regularly and certainly exclusively get naked with. She smiles as he wraps her up so thoroughly, laughing softly while he lifts his foot to turn the water on, nimble as a chimpanzee. That laugh gentles and fades naturally, and she settles back against him.
A wonderful surprise, he calls her appearance, when the first things out of his mouth were worried questions. He could get used to this, though chances are they will still only manage to see each other two or three times a month at best, which isn't much time to get used to anything, though
soaking in a bath, talking about whatever,
does sound nice.
Soberly she listens to the rest, giving a gentle laugh when he says it must be so hard to be Avery Chase, so brave and true. She can't help but laugh, though he means it seriously; something about the phrasing sets her off. This laugh is soft but not a breath or a sigh, and it echoes off of the tiles in the room a little.
"You seem as though you think more of me than you do of yourself, darling," she murmurs back to him.
Calden WhiteThis time Calden's laugh is a touch self-deprecating. "Maybe I do," he admits. "I don't lack for confidence. I don't consider myself pond scum, unworthy of desecrating your pedestal. But I'm ... rather ordinary. I live on a ranch, Avery. I raise cows. Sometimes my audiobook is more exciting than anything that happens in my life.
"You're anything but ordinary. It's not that I think you're infallible or divine. I just think that you're remarkable. And that I'm lucky."
Avery ChaseShe scoffs. "I spend the vast majority of my time shopping, darling," she tells him. "You just happen to be around when, once in a while, something remarkable happens near me and I react. Or sometimes it happens and I tell you about it."
Avery snuggles into his chest. Perhaps that's all that needed to be said about her 2-round brawl with madness in his bedroom: that it happened, that it was what it was. Perhaps that's all she needed to say about going back in time, leading and losing those men. She seems content now, or at least all right.
Though contentment: maybe. It is easy to be content here, she finds. Or not here, so much as: with him.
"I think you're far from ordinary, Calden," she murmurs, without the amusement and lightness of her earlier words.
Calden WhiteA low laugh slips out of him. "I know, he says, wholly without arrogance. "I suppose that makes both of us lucky."
He lays a kiss behind her ear. Then his arms unwrap from around her, grip the edges of the tub instead. "Come on," he says. "Let's rinse off and I'll make us dinner. We can toss your clothes in the washer too."
Avery ChaseOf course he knows. If he ever doubted his worth and his worthiness -- and he already mentioned that he does not lack in confidence -- look at her. Look at everything she is, everything she is known to be and all the secret things he's discovered about her. And she's picked him. It would put an extra measure of swagger in anyone's step.
Avery presses herself back against him when he unwraps her arm. "Nooo," she says, just this side of whining, snuggling herself into his chest,
winding her hips between his legs.
"We should stay in here. It's warm." She has turned her head to smile at him, and has not leaned forward or made any move suggesting that she intends to get out of his way so he can get out of the tub. In fact, she puts her hands on his wrists and picks up his hands, folding his arms around her again, that smile only growing, looking ever more pleased with herself.
Of course, she also remembers -- sadly -- that Calden is not as well-served as she is, and she looks thoughtful. "But I am hungry." A beat. "I almost wanted to eat that calf you were bringing in. Some funny part of my brain thought you were bringing it just for me."
Calden WhiteWell then; he doesn't get up after all. He resettles where he is, securing his arms around Avery with a laugh.
"All right, fine," he mock-grouses. "We'll stay here and shrivel into prunes."
Another laugh, then, as she mentions the calf. "The proverbial fatter calf? I'll be honest, another foot or two and he would've slid down an embankment, and I would've had to put him down. As is, though, you'll have to wait another month. But if you visit during the autumn cull I might be able to offer you something."
A small pause.
"Do you want to ride one of the horses, though?"
Avery ChaseMock-grousing or not, Avery has won. She has won her gentleman's arms back around her, and they are large, lovely arms that she snuggles into with nothing short of extreme self-satisfaction. Even if she's hungry, even if she's starting to realize just how far she ran and how hard she ran and how many times she escaped the more dangerous elements of rain and flood in the Shadow, even if now she's wondering if that hunger has something to do with how easily she was set off by wet clothing being draped any old place,
she has won, and Calden is keeping her shoulders warm with his arms, and sooner or later he is going to make her a meal that she's certain will be mostly home-grown meat and possibly several glasses of one of those wines he's always trying to send home with her. And these are all pleasant thoughts, full of triumph but -- better still -- full of comfort. Full of contentment.
Avery's brow furrows and her mouth turns down. "Poor thing," she says, despite the fact that she nearly chased it down before it got to the shed. Despite the fact that, had it fallen in the rain and broken its legs, she would have gladly and shamelessly set upon its throat. Somehow her compassion and her savagery do not exist separate from each other; she sees no discrepancy to resolve. She shifts, sliding down deeper into the bath, closing her eyes, and now if he looks down at his chest she is using one of his pectorals as a pillow, her chin just above water, her eyes closing.
"You're very generous, darling," Avery muses, "but I think I should refrain from killing any of your stock with my own fangs. Not a habit I should take on, and one that would be rather effortless to fall into if I indulged, and then I would be disrespecting your hospitality in a most grotesque and far-reaching way. I doubt awareness of a hunting predator among the herd would improve the taste of your cattle's flesh."
Her hand moves under the water, resting on his thigh. "I shall partake only after the slaughter. That is a far gentler death for them, anyway."
And her hand moves, squeezing the muscle under his skin, luxuriating in the mere feel of him. She is about to say that on second thought, she's ravenous -- though perhaps this is why she is talking at length about hunting, killing, devouring the meat of animals raised for exactly that purpose -- when he asks her if she wants to ride one of the horses.
Avery's eyes open. She smiles, wistful and a bit aching. "Toro was a stubborn young thing, but he was born and trained in a time when garou were far more likely to ride. I doubt any of your horses would tolerate me without going a bit mad. I wouldn't want to ruin them for you. Or see them hurt themselves to be rid of me."
Calden WhiteThere are plenty who might see discrepancy between Avery's compassion and Avery's savagery. Calden is not one of them. He didn't flinch when she spoke of thinking of that calf as a tribute, as a gift, as food. He doesn't scoff now when she calls it a poor thing.
Of course he doesn't. He wouldn't. He: shepherd and slaughterer, caregiver and lifetaker.
She slides down in the bath. The truth is he'd drawn a breath out of turn earlier when she slid her hips against his groin, but by and large he is relaxed, he is content, he is happy to lounge with her in the enormous tub, the warm water. She muses on killing his stock with her fangs -- he laughs under his breath.
"Well," he hedges, "to be fair, I would've shot that calf dead where it lay if it had broken a leg falling. No need to prolong its agony. But it would've also been a waste for you not to," there's just a beat, just a flicker of humor at the word: "partake, in that case."
She squeezes his thigh. That muscle tenses for a moment, reflexive -- he lets out a laugh more ticklish than anything. And he tightens his arms around her, chiding in a whisper: "Stop that."
That humor fades a moment later. He finds himself aching too, as though her emotion set off a vibration in his. "You're probably right," he admits. "It still seems a pity. You obviously enjoy riding."
Avery ChaseAvery turns her head a bit on his chest, or rather, tilts it so she can look at him. "Obviously?" she repeats back, curiously.
Note this, though: her hand has stopped, though she's quite sure she could have continued massaging and stroking his leg despite his chiding and be forgiven all the same.
Calden WhiteForgiven is one way to put it. Embraced, glomped, lifted dripping out of the water and carried into the bedroom in a few long strides, laid on the bed and opened up and licked to shuddering orgasm: that may or may not have been another way to put it, depending on the exact nature of the massaging and stroking involved.
Regardless: she stops. And tilts her head to look back at him. From this angle the planes of his face are foreshortened; the brow deeper, the jaw craggy as a mountainside. His mouth quirks.
"It was how you spoke of Toro that sealed the deal. Admiration and fondness and wistfulness. But you always struck me as the kind of woman who'd sit a horse well." Now the quirk is taking on a faintly rakish tilt. "Good core muscles. Strong thighs."
Avery ChaseAvery's eyebrows hop, her eyes widening, her lips parting. "You cad!" she exclaims in mock affront, sitting up and twisting to look at him with a slosh of water, some of it trickling down her body, dripping off her breasts, and she's a sight but she always is, isn't she.
With that she turns sinuously in the bath, planting her hands not on the sides but on his chest and his shoulder, and by now there are soft waves going back and forth, lapping at his chest and at the finish of the tub. Avery lifts herself up, opening her legs and kneeling over him. She is not shy about this. Underwater, her pussy brushes over his cock, though the only sign she gives him of recognizing this, of feeling him, is a certain spark in the pupils of her eyes.
--
There is an element of retreat in this -- no. Not retreat. Evasion.
What good does it do her, or anyone, to remember,
to say again,
I thought I was kin once,
but I am not,
and sometimes this makes me sad.
--
Avery is watching him, smiling, not complaining about the chill or the lack of the warmth or staying in the bath forever and ever and just cuddling in those big strong arms. She's smirking at him, half of her exposed to the air.
"Now I wonder," she says slowly, sinking down against him a little more, "how you know anything about my good core muscles and strong thighs. Or how I ride."
Calden WhiteSometimes the communication between the two of them seems to run deeper than words. She doesn't have to say it for him to understand what the turn of her body, the parting of her thighs mean. She doesn't have to say it, either, for him to understand that this
is an evasion. That it means: Don't. I'm still bruised there. It hurts.
--
His hands on her body are: oh, let's just be honest. They are wanting. They are almost covetous, the way those big palms and broad fingers cover her waist, her midriff, her breast. But they are gentle, too, and gentler than they need to be. This is how he tells her without words:
he wants her.
he understands.
he will leave that bruise be.
An errant spark of humor jumps through his eyes; transduces into arousal, desire, exquisite sensitivity. He catches a breath as she sinks onto him, and his hands break the surface of the water as they follow her body down to hold her by the hips.
"It would be ungentlemanly of me to say," he deflects. "But if I may say so myself, I have become somewhat of an expert on the subject."
Avery ChaseThey are both bright souls. They are both generous, indulging in gift-giving and hospitality not just like a game or a contest but a piece of themselves, a part of who they are. And they are both so very good at what they do.
Even when what they do is as simple -- and generous, and brilliant -- as Calden lowering his mouth to her cunt and licking her to shuddering orgasm. As Avery arching her back just so when he starts putting his hands on her breasts, her belly, her waist, stroking all over her like he can't get enough. Even that arch is poetry. And it's impossible to feel in the bath but the very touch makes her wet, makes heat rush to her pussy, makes flirtation and light arousal turn into deep lust, desire that rises and will not be dissuaded, much less denied.
She slides forward to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, putting her mouth on his mouth without saying another word, coy or playful or otherwise. It's a deep, drenching kiss, a low, earnest noise humming in her mouth as she tastes his tongue with her own, hungry and satisfied at once. The way she moves urges his hands to her ass, urges him to hold her, follow her rhythm and urge it onward as she moves on him.
Avery does not need to tell him that she wants him. That she would like very much to ride him -- there and then, or:
pantingly, parting their mouths just long enough to look at him, her eyes gleaming in the warm light with an animal's staring, salivating focus,
"I don't want to get the bed all wet. So you'll have to lay some towels down. Or let me fuck you on the bath mat."
Calden WhiteThere's something so delicious about the slide of her skin over his. He never gets tired of it and all its permutations: wet, dry, outside, inside, daylight, nighttime. Now. She pours herself into his arms. Those arms wrap around her so easily, like they belong right there, like she belongs right here: his palms covering her back, his fingers wrapping around her sides. Her breasts press to his chest. He hardens to her, has been hardening since the very first time she slid against his groin, but now:
now, when she kisses him, he tips his head back to accept it, give it back. She hears the first low sound he makes, soft, almost a growl. She pulls his hands to her ass. She rubs against him. He helps: squeezing her ass in his hands, rolling her on his lap. Their mouths part. His eyes are on hers, their faces so close, so focused with desire that all other expression blanks out.
Kind of her: she offers him a choice. A quick flit of humor twitches his lips. He kisses her, a quick little skirmish. His arm locks around her, clasping her against him by the waist -- the other hand grips the side of the tub. He lifts her with him, levers to his feet, water drenches down, sloshes from the sides of the tub a little, patters on the tile as he gets out of the tub. He grabs towels off the rack as he passes, long strides, bare feet, water-footprints left behind. She can see them reflected in the mirror as they go: the golden length of her legs wrapped around his sides, hugging the trapezoidal sweep of his back; her calves against his flanks.
In the bedroom he lays the towels onto the bed. One handed, it's an imperfect job, but good enough. She might think he's about to try to lay her out again, to set her down like she's the sort of passive porcelain thing he damn well knows she's not, but:
no, he turns, he sits, he slides them both up the bed and lays back. Now she's atop him. He wraps his arms around her, keeps her close, glances down at her breasts pressed against his chest and gives her such a self-satisfied look. "I love how you feel," he tells her.
Avery ChaseWater rolls off of them in narrow rivers, following the lines of their musculature, their bone structure, following the laws of physics and sometimes simply moving in chaos, which has no laws. Avery feels it rushing down her body when Calden lifts her up, holding her against his body. She hears it in the tub and she hears it falling on the tile as she kisses him, drinking in his mouth as though she's been gasping for it, came through a desert for it, and he is offering her shade, comfort, and succor.
Her eyes are closed, her fingers spread through his hair and over his back, her legs crossed at the ankle behind him. Even if he let go of her, which he would never do, she would not fall; she holds herself to him as if by magic. But it isn't magic. It is strength, and it is desire.
The air is drier in his bedroom beside the en suite. She hears rustling and prepares to slip from him, lay back, but Calden turns instead. Her knees brush against the soft, thick towels he uses as he lays onto the towels upon his bed, Avery over him, above him, carried to the center of the bed with him. It is a massive thing, his bed, sturdy as his house and all this things are sturdy where she sometimes seems made of light itself, of silver and silk and the shadow of rain that hides in some clouds during the summer. She sinks into that sturdiness, that warmth, because the truth is that she needs it. They have always needed it, the Silver Fangs, some stabilizing and grounding to keep them sane though their totem flies ever higher, becomes ever more untouched by the earth.
Their purity is the glory and their downfall. They cannot go on like this.
Perhaps Avery knows that, and thinks of it even now, though not very long ago -- not long enough ago -- she was having her heart broken by one just as pure as she, just as lovely and light-formed and almost inhuman. One whose weakness was the inability to decide for himself what he wanted. One whose weakness was a certain sort of risk-averse fear that shattered the last emblem of what she thought her life could be, the last vestige that she had thought she could carry over after she changed. She is only now starting to see it as a weakness, as something not exactly lovable or hopeful at all, and only now starting to see that how hard she clung to it was, perhaps, a part of another grief entirely.
There is something very appealing to her about Calden's solidity. About his roughness that never really precludes gentlenes; a gentleman who is also a workman. About his simple decision, far earlier than she was comfortable with, that he wanted her, he would be faithful to her whether she was or not, and that he would wait for her to settle into what he was giving her so freely. If Avery is honest with herself -- sometimes the only person she truly struggles to be completely honest with -- she is beginning to feel very comfortable in that. In this: his land, his home, his bed, his arms. She is beginning to feel as though this is right where she belongs,
this can only make her stronger,
this can only make her happy.
Avery leans over him, as he's looking at her breasts and smiling that smug smile and telling her what he loves. She murmurs, perhaps predictably: "You love, you love, you love," whispering it so close to him that her breath is a warm flow of air over his mouth, her lips are brushing his lips. Avery kisses him again, sealing those words into his mouth, tasting him again, drinking him in. She could tell him that she is ready for him, that she wants him inside of her, but
she thinks he knows.
Calden WhiteFor his own part, it's possible that Calden -- though far from a thoughtless or unintelligent man -- has dwelled rather little on the lines between them. He is, after all, simple at heart. Rough-edged. Warm. Feet of clay and heart of gold, or any other number of metaphors. He doesn't think overmuch of why he is drawn to her,
his royal, as his friend once called her, and as he sometimes half-jokingly thinks of her to himself. He doesn't consider too much those ancient dynamics, those ancient laws and rituals and tales and myths, sky and earth, divine and worshipper, liege and vassal. The balance, the hierarchy.
He doesn't think of it. But he feels it, deep in his bones, as inevitable and unmistakable as his own pulse. She leans down to him and whispers his words to him, a gentle mockery that turns the corners of his lips up, that lifts his head from the towel-draped bed even as she's coming down to him. "I do," he insists, murmuring a laugh. That kiss meets in the middle, opens like gravity. She drinks him in and he wraps her tight and
somewhere there in the midst of it she lifts her hips; he reaches between them. Their mouths part only for a second, only for a gasp, and then he's inside her, his hand on her hip steadying her, drawing her down. His head falls back, he exhales a soft bitten-back groan, lifts to her again and finds her. Kisses her. Rolls his hips up into her, flexing beneath her, sharing a low sound with her as they fit together.
Avery ChaseThat answer to her mockery -- yes, gentle, so gentle -- stirs her, sparks some thought in her that she doesn't dare follow to its conclusion, inevitable or otherwise. She kisses him, deep like that and hungrily like that, touching his face and his chest,
gasping lightly when his hand or his wrist brushes against her clit when he reaches for his cock, the kiss breaking apart as she arches her back just so, lifts her hips just so, gives the smallest whimpering moan when he presses against her, presses into her.
Avery sinks slowly down onto him, her hands firm on his body, that moan turning into a heavy groan, her hips working against him to bring them closer together. However playful they've been -- hosing each other outside, for example, or however tense she has been, thinking of chaos and insanity and the loss of good men under her command, however coyly they spoke of this just moments ago,
there is something so sincere about this. So unquestionably, unashamedly genuine. She feels it and does not question it, only moving against him with an earnestness and want that is so intimate it almost seems like need. It isn't need, though. It's just want, and,
yes,
intimacy.
--
This is no rough, hard, fast fuck. Not this time. Avery rides him slowly at first, staying close to his chest, kissing him over and over again, each one longer and deeper. She gasps headily at the way he feels moving into her, the heat between them making water lift from their skins in the warm, dry air. Her legs part wider, her hips rolling to take him deeper, an aching moan leaving her throat as the feel of him opens up her mind, unravels her thoughts, splits her atoms apart.
She doesn't rise up to bounce on him, to really ride him like her own personal pony. She stays close to him, and when she starts to fuck him faster, it's only because she needs it, she needs it like this, needs him like this, needs to come on him, needs to -- put as simply as one can -- have an orgasm with his cock buried inside of her. She needs to come and she needs it to be from having sex with this man, and closer to it still she starts to tell him yes over and over, oh fuck, yes, which is only a way of telling him that she's close, she's so close, she's almost there, that's it, yes,
yes,
until she grinds herself on him, lowering her mouth to his chest and setting her teeth in his pectoral muscle, crying out against his flesh as she rides out her orgasm on him, those gasps and cries turning to moans, only moans,
dissolving into whimpers,
and then panting.
The winding of her hips slows, but does not stop. She works wave after wave out on his body, shudders rippling through her as her teeth part from his skin, as her head turns to rest cheek and ear against his sternum. Her eyes are closed. Her body moves slowly, slowly now, long circles of her hips stroking him against what feels like a thousand delicate points of contact, every single moment as intolerably erotic to her as a span of silk brushing across hardened nipples. But she simply can't stop herself.
She loves the way he feels.
Calden WhiteIt's so intimate this time. It's unspeakably close, unbearably erotic. He can hardly stand it when she rides him, rides him, rides him to her climax; can hardly stand the way she winds on him, grinds on him, fucks him like that. He reaches back to grab onto the bed, hold on for dear life, but
she wants his hands on her, pulls his hand down, so he puts his hands on her and wraps his arms around her. She sets her teeth into his chest. That muscle jumps against her lips, flexes, and then,
not for the first time,
something about that, something about the way she holds him in her teeth, the way she holds him in her cunt, the way she uses his body to bring her body off
sets him alight. The soles of his feet -- the blades of his shoulders -- these bear the brunt of his weight. The rest of him is tensile, locked, an arch of strain and pleasure. She is moaning, and he is gasping, he is groaning, he is all but shouting, rough and nonverbal, his hands clutching at her back.
She doesn't stop. Not even after he's collapsed back to the bed, his head tilted back, his pulse pounding in his throat. Not even after she turns her cheek to his chest, hears the hammering of his heart there. Feels the way his body jerks and flexes beneath her, every muscle jolting when she moves on him a certain way -- sets off some unpredictable sear of nerves under his skin. She can't stop herself. He can't bear to stop her. He can't bear to go on, either, and so,
finally,
his hand leaves her after all. Grasps the bed, grasps a pillow, pulls it halfway down over his face; bites it for a moment, lets go. Pushes it back up enough that he can pull air in unimpeded, his free hand holding her by the hip, slowing her now, slower, slower, rubbing over her ass as she exhausts herself, or finds some mercy in herself, or --
a last, long shudder pulls through him. He sprawls, boneless with release. Paws that pillow off his face and to the floor. Both his hands on her ass, then, massaging, rubbing. He shifts her hips on him. Sips a gasp. Pulls her down again, can't get enough of how she feels when she takes him in like that.
"Missed you, Miss Chase," he admits softly, with more clarity than rightfully exists in his mind right now. Might have said it before; he can't remember now.
And a moment later, lazily, drowsily, as though naming off some christmas wish before bed: "Going to get on my knees and lick you senseless later. Okay?"
Avery Chase"No," she gasps, pulling at his hands, moaning for them when they're on her again, arching into his palms, "touch me," and he does, everywhere at once it seems, caressing and storking, urging her onward and holding her near. She notices -- and how could she not notice? -- the way he responds when she bites him, even lightly. Avery has noticed the way he lights up, the way he's set off when she does this. He's even asked her for it before now, and she can't help but laugh, a dark chortle in her throat that devolves quickly into another groan.
--
Avery is the one to remove the pillow. She bats it away loosely, has to try twice for it just because her limbs are momentarily so lazy and languid. But she flops it away and strokes her hand over his cheek and into his hair, panting against his chest. They are moving only occasionally now, their bones refusing to work with them, and Avery doesn't mind. She smiles with the sort of deep self-satisfaction that Calden's features wore earlier, as he
tells her that he missed her. It really has been some time, she thinks. Some time indeed since they've been together, in company or in bed together. She exhales across his chest, her breath ruffling through the dusting of dark hair there.
She is going to say something very fond. He interrupts her thought when he tells her he's going to eat her pussy later. On his knees. Til she's senseless. Avery laughs again, breathily, and though she laughs he can feel another reaction, a slow pull and clench of her cunt around his cock at the thought, involuntarily aroused all over again.
"If you're good," she murmurs back, teasingly.
--
Whatever his response to that, a little while later she lifts her head up, turning to look at him, her hair still quite wet. She smiles at him, not like a cat who ate the canary, not like she's won something, not like she has a secret. Only as though the natural state of her mind is serenity, as though the natural shape of her mouth is this smile, when she looks at him.
Her finger moves in his hair, twirling a lock loosely.
"You filthy, lovely thing," she murmurs. "I adore the way you come when I've bitten you." Nothing more than that. A simple statement of her pleasure. She kisses his jawline. "Feed me," she says, her voice heavier, almost lustful again,
because she is, because he is still inside of her, because she is thinking of the way he comes and thinking of his face between her legs and because in times like this he feels so...
hers,
and it inspires a nameless, amorphous, powerful eroticism in her.
--
...all right. And lustful, too, because she ran all the way here, she is hungry, she has been teased with live prey and the offer of cooking for her and now she has fucked him and been fucked by him and that can continue, it is all well and good, but
she kisses his jaw again, scraping her teeth softly, tenderly over his skin there, as though her mind and body are both torn, both wanting to satisfy two different hungers that twine strangely and naturally in her spirit.
"Feed me, darling," she murmurs, as though she means again.
Calden WhiteIf you're good.
He laughs -- a low murmur of amusement, sleepy-sated, shivering off at the end because, god, the way she feels when she clenches on him like that.
A little later she smiles at him. And he tucks a hand under his head to look at her, since that pillow he pulled loose and she batted away has since slipped to the floor. He returns that smile, slow and crooked. Pleased. Very fond. Her fingers stroke his hair, which has grown thicker still since she last saw him. He really needs a haircut soon. He needs to shave, too, especially if he intends to make good on his promise later, but
for now, he draws her hand down from his hair. Kisses her palm.
--
A second later he laughs again. "Now, in my defense," he protests, but it's a languid, unvociferous sort of protest, "that's only happened two or three times." His chest and shoulders flex under her cheek -- he stretches, relaxes again. "And you can't possibly prove it wasn't simply coincidence."
A beat.
"But it wasn't." That's a little quieter. A lower, rougher note in his voice. "I love it when you bite me like that. When you're riding me. When you're about to come, or when you're coming on my cock. It makes me feel..."
He doesn't really have a word for it, he finds. Calden is quiet a while. His hand strokes her back, passing large and warm down the valley of her spine.
"I just love it."
She kisses him, then. He tilts his head for it, agreeably, savoringly. He smiles at that tender, soft tracery of her teeth. Feed me, she says a second time. And he
wraps his arms around her, turns over, turns her under him. His weight and heat upon her, then, pressing her into the mattress. His body shifting over hers, his mouth going inevitably to her breasts; tracing his tongue warm and wet over her nipple, pulling it into his mouth. He mmphs. Inside her, that cock of his that she -- let's admit it -- seems to enjoy so very much
is hardening again. He returns that earlier favor: scrapes his teeth ever so lightly over her skin as he lets her nipple from his mouth. And: draws himself out of her, and long slow slide that makes him shudder, leaves him wanting and pulsing against nothing at all. His hands on her waist shift her, move her, pull her to the edge of the bed as he,
eyes gleaming in the half-dark,
goes to his knees.
--
But she stops him. Or rather: she sits up as he sits back, and he pauses there at the edge of the bed. For a moment the pause and the juxtaposition is faintly comical. Avery, drawing her knees up and together, tossing her hair over her shoulders the way that always sends a spark down the center of Calden's pupils. And Calden, hesitating at the edge of the bed, sitting on his heels, one hand -- we'll just say it -- on his cock.
A beat. And then he laughs, self-deprecating. Holds out his less-messy hand to her. There's something gently chivalrous about the way he helps her out of bed, though she hardly needs the help. She steps into him, and say this for him: he's not ashamed of his arousal, or of his poor timing. He presses to her, the length of his body to hers, the length of his cock to her belly; kisses her long and deep there at the edge of the bed.
Stepping back, he pulls the towels off the bed. Wraps one around his waist; goes into the ensuite, comes out sliding into an old bathrobe, soft from so many washes. He has another one over his arm. It is a couple sizes smaller, and it has never been worn before, and she can tell at a glance that it is not one that has ever hung in the guest suite downstairs. He must've bought it. For her to use. When she visits.
There's a sort of quiet, shared knowledge in his eyes when he hands it to her. And a quiet, shared smile between them as she slides it on, ties the sash.
--
They go downstairs. They are not quite decent, but they are not indecent either. Rain lashes the windows as they pass through the great room. He turns on the lights in the kitchen, halogens that gleam off the stainless steel appliances, the gleaming stove, the granite counters.
There's beef in the fridge, because of course there is, but Calden admits that it's neither a fresh nor as fine a cut as it could be. So he runs it through a grinder instead, salts it, peppers it, shapes it into two enormous patties; fires up the flat grill. She leans against the breakfast and talks to him while he cooks: that sort of airy, pleasant, anecdotal conversation of hers that is saved from being small talk purely by the open delight she seems to take in relating it, and by the obvious pleasure he takes in listening to her.
The burgers sizzle; the buns toast. He sears up a few slabs of thick-cut bacon next to the beef; caramelizes onions on the grill. It's only a few minutes before he assembles their burgers, topping each with a handful of crumbled bleu cheese dug out from some corner of the fridge. No lettuce. No tomatoes.
"Let's go back upstairs," he says, handing her her plate. Also: grabs a bottle of red wine off the rack. "Want to grab some glasses out of the cupboard?"
Avery ChaseOnly two or three times. Avery laughs, low and warm, kissing him under his jaw again, moving slightly on him as her breasts stroke his chest. She's so hungry right now: for his warmth, his humor, for sex, for meat, and it is difficult for her to decide -- or even know -- if she wants to curl up in his arms and sleep, or pull him over her and have him again, or tell him to go downstairs and don't dare to come back without food. She very nearly relies on Calden to decide for her, and it seems he is going to.
Nevermind if she misunderstands him a bit. He turns them over and she moves her hair, still rather wet, back onto the towels he laid out for them, smiling up at him. He has shifted inside of her, making her catch her breath. Making her gasp softly when he slides down and kisses her breast like that. He is hard again, and she moans gently, edged faintly in some other kind of wanting. But he slides out of her, and she makes this little noise at the loss.
Still, when he moves off the edge of the bed she exhales and begins to sit up, simultaneously a little dizzy from lust and a little relieved that she's going to be fed. Her elbows go under her, and -- with apologies to Calden -- there is no tossing of that much still very wet hair over any shoulders, except perhaps in his imagination. She sits upward as his hands are going to her hips to tug her down, and Avery's lashes flick as she blinks at him, her lips parted.
Calden, who is not blinking but is touching his cock, pauses too. And for a moment they just look at each other, and then she laughs, not self-deprecating. Not Calden-deprecating, either. She just laughs, and instead of taking his hand she draws herself up and wraps her arms around him and kisses him, her knees on the bed and, yes, his cock pressed against her belly. Darling, she murmurs, the endearment and nothing more, because she is endeared.
--
Avery follows him to the en suite, in fact. She asks for a comb, and handed one, combs her hair out. It is tousled and only starting to dry; she runs the comb through until her hair is straight and gleaming and smoothed, smiling in the mirror at herself, naked in the fog,
the bathtub behind them still full of water. As Calden puts on his robe she turns to him, finding that he's bringing her a second one. Her eyes light up. She looks at it, then at him, smiling broadly and openly, standing on her toes to kiss his cheek and murmur a soft thank you against his skin. They let it unfurl, and she turns to let him draw it up her arms, drape it over her shoulders. She smiles at him over her shoulder again, knowing and pleased, tying it around her waist.
Of course she doesn't actually send him downstairs with an order not to return unless he's carrying meat. She even protests that she doesn't care if it's not the finest cut or quality, but Calden won't hear of it. By now her stomach is actively growling even at the scent of the raw beef, and when he finally applies it to heat she looks almost miserable where she sits on a barstool, robe tucked around her, eyes limpid, mouth in a plaintive sort of pout, like she's trying ever so hard to be patient but really, he cannot imagine how hungry she is, he has probably never been this hungry in his life, he certainly doesn't mean to torture her, and what light, anecdotal conversation they might share has to be supplied by him because Avery's will is currently being bent to stopping herself from climbing over the island, crouching on the countertop, and eating the meat as it cooks.
"That's fine," she says, almost too quickly, when he takes them off the griddle and puts one on a plate, whether it's on a bun or not, whether there's bacon on it or not, whether he's found the cheese or not. As soon as the plate is within reach she is taking it, and by the time Calden begins to say they should go upstairs, will she grab some--
Three large bites have already been taken. She really should be at least a little embarassed but hunger has been creeping up on her since she saw the calf. Excitement at seeing him overtook her. Desire for him and her own shifting emotions distracted her, but once her need for comfort and her desire for his body were sated,
there was absolutely nothing to stand between her and the fact that she ran -- what? Eighty miles? More? -- to get here tonight. She really does not want to be this unladylike, this savage, not when she's in this form, but she almost groans when the first bite is half-chewed, fully swallowed, and by the time Calden sees how voraciously, how rabidly she's eating,
he may be realizing that two burgers may not be enough. Certainly not if he intends to have one.
Calden WhiteTen years ago Calden might have been taken aback to see such a fancy lady scarfing down a burger like that. Twenty years ago he almost certainly would have been. But that was then and this is now, and Calden has not gone thirty-five years as a hospitable son of Stag without becoming well-acquainted with the ferocious metabolism of a wolf. Particularly after shifting. And running. A hundred miles.
There's a faint, wry, sympathetic quirk to his mouth. He offers up his burger as well without a word, setting the second plate alongside the first. And then -- he goes to grind more meat. Grill more patties, and sear more bacon, and toast more buns. There are still onions and cheese.
By the time she's on her second burger, the next two are done. He assembles them and plates them and comes around to the breakfast bar, which is where he eats most his meals, the formal dining room being entirely too formal and the terrace being -- well, too damn wet right now. Still in his bathrobe, his hair still damp at the nape of his neck, he levers up onto a barstool beside Avery.
"Why did you run all the way out here?" he asks; there's almost a gentle rebuke there. "You could have called me. I would have gladly come to pick you up, wherever you were, if you didn't have transportation handy."
Avery ChaseShe eats the bread and the meat and the bacon with a ravenous hunger that borders on the satisfaction of lust. And when Calden slides over his own plate she gives him a look -- her mouth is not grotesquely full but certainly has food in it -- that is simultaneously apologetic and grateful, perhaps even a bit plaintive still. But she does not deny it, and picks it up, sinking her teeth into it a little more reasonably, shuddering slightly as his back turns to get more meat from the fridge. She eats the second burger almost as quickly as the first, certainly done with it by the time he is sliding the next two patties off the grill.
Even in this, he doesn't skimp. He could have taken the slab of meat and just thrown it on the grill and handed it to her. But he grinds it, and toasts the buns, and adds the bacon, and brings the newly plated burgers over, sitting beside her. Avery hasn't paused to drink anything, water nor wine, but she has taken a napkin and tidied her mouth, looking at him and looking at the two new burgers.
She would be okay, if those were not for her. She'd be all right. But the truth is that she does want them, at least one more, large as they are and laden with as much salty, fatty treats as they are. She could probably stand to empty out several trays of his fridge, in fact, just for the calories, but perhaps three burgers may be enough. Really enough. But he is giving her some more. And she looks relieved again, reaching for that third burger, which she can at least eat at a normal pace.
A human pace.
Her brow quirks in between bites at his question, and the rebuke in it. She hesitates before taking another bite, leaning back a bit, frowning slightly. "I don't mean to inconvenience you," she says, a bit on the defensive side, "or embarrass myself," she adds, a touch quieter, lowering the burger as that frown deepens, though her eyes are no longer on Calden as it does.
"I could have driven myself as well, and far more easily than having you come down to pick me up," Avery goes on, the momentary testiness easing out of her voice by degrees. "Some of the roads between Denver and your ranch are closed, clogged, or outright destroyed. Do you think that if driving were the quickest or safest option, I would have run all that way?" Now she is looking at him again.
Calden WhiteA flicker of a frown between his eyebrows at that word, embarrass. He is sitting beside her then, and though she leans back a bit he reaches out to her almost out of instinct, his hand covering hers for a moment.
"You didn't," he says. "You couldn't. Not to me."
She explains, then, easing a little at a time. He eats his burger -- just one, because he made them large, and he is not starving, and he is human. Mostly. He does pour wine, and drink it, and he fills her glass as well if she doesn't stop him.
"It couldn't have been any quicker or safer for you to run here," he replies quietly, a touch of ache in his voice. "I hate to think of you trudging through a hundred miles of mudslides to get here. And I didn't even offer you a glass of water until now."
Avery ChaseIt stung a bit, that faintest touch of rebuke. She was already so uncertain that her behavior was acceptable -- showing up unexpectedly, her near-panic at wet things being dropped here and there, the awkwardness of not knowing whether she wanted sex or food more, her nearly insatiable hunger once they came downstairs, the way she had to fight not to whimper for food like a dog, the way she ate -- that to hear it touched a tender nerve.
I did bad? :[
His hand covers hers and she looks a touch less miserable, willing to be comforted, and leans over to him, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment. She turns her face to him and kisses him through the robe, then sits up as he begins eating, which gives her permission to eat her third -- and for now, final -- burger.
"It was," she assures him, concerning the ease, speed, and safety of her run. "It isn't just about the road closures -- it's about the frustration, the waiting, the dealing with other drivers making stupid decisions. On my feet I can go around anything."
She smiles faintly, shaking her head. "Don't think on it. We're here now, and all is well."
Calden WhiteHe is glad that she is willing to be comforted. Glad when she leans over, glad when she rests her golden head on his shoulder. His arm slides around her waist for a moment. She kisses the swell of his deltoid through that robe of his, and he kisses her temple in return.
They part. They eat. She assures him that the trip here wasn't as harrowing as he suspects it may have been. He looks at her like he's not entirely sure whether or not to believe her, but then --
then she tells him: let it go. We're here now. All is well.
A smile flickers at the corner of his mouth. He breaks off a piece of burger in his fingers, eats it as he thinks on this. "You're here now," he repeats, close but not exactly the same. "And I'm glad."
Avery Chase"And I'm fed," she answers, quite happily, about halfway through the burger.
There's a pause. "I think I may also sleep quite a lot after this, darling." She exhales. "Do you mind terribly if you have to wait til morning to please me?"
Calden White"I suppose I will," Calden says gravely, "with great difficulty, survive."
He drains his wine in a gulp; pops the last of his burger in his mouth. The flatgrill he scrapes clean. The plates he piles in the sink, running water over them to soak them. He'll clean up in the morning. As she finishes the last of her meal, he fishes water out of the fridge, coming back around the horseshoe-shaped breakfast bar.
He's quiet by then, and warm, and tender. As she stands, he wraps his arm around her shoulders. He thinks of that night at the blues bar -- the second time he saw her? the third? -- and the drink she ordered; the drink he brought her. The way she smirked at it a little before ever so graciously telling him how delicious it was. He thinks of her telling him to wrap his arm around her,
and the way, even then, she settled against his side like she belonged there.
"Come on," he murmurs, and kisses her temple again. "Let's go hibernate."
--
There are a few small details to take care of. A bathtub to drain, some teeth to brush. A trip or two to the commode, perhaps. Some bathrobes to hang up. Sheets to turn down. Curtains to close.
The rain is still falling when they retire to bed. It pings along the raingutters, patters against the glass. It rings dully off the roof and the walls, a constant ebb-and-flow of sound. It's comforting, if only because it reminds Calden that it is cold and wet outside, but warm and dry in here. He considers building a fire, but
by then they're already in bed. He's already coming close to his lover beneath the covers, wrapping his arms around her as they sink into their pillows. Perhaps she snuggles back against him. Perhaps he lays his lower leg over hers. Any which way, he can't help it in the end: his hand drifts up her abdomen, covers her breast. She can feel him smiling against her shoulder, kissing the nape of her neck.
"Excruciatingly difficult," he whispers,
and not too long after is relaxed and heavy and still, even-breathing, sleeping.
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