Avery gets the hint long before Calden does. Avery, her ears always tuned to the unspoken needs of the people around her, her heart always turned to shine warmth on those who serve, her thoughts ever weighted by the future of those she both protects and rules, notices when the masses depart. She notices when the waiter drifts more and more. She notices that Calden is tipsy and delighted and smiling without saying anything to her for a long time, and her eyes twinkle as she observes him. It is not that she ignores the people around her. It is that for a little while, tonight, she chooses to follow her own whim instead.
There is no true bickering. She takes no issue with the person who requested her company picking up the check, but she does offer to split it, or pay. Calden reacts by yanking the check that she is not reaching for out of her reach. She rolls her eyes, tapping his chest, telling him he's very silly, kissing his cheek and excusing herself to the ladies' while he scrawls his name on the slip after attempting to do math. When she returns, he gives her her coat, helps her into it, and she winds her scarf loosely around her neck, sliding her hands into steel-colored gloves made of leather that is so soft it is almost buttery. She slips her arm through his. He kisses her cheek, ridiculously and suddenly, swaying into it, and she smiles at him, her perfume and the scent of her hair filling his nostrils. She brushes her nose against his cheek, a tender and delicate nuzzling.
They leave, going upstairs and out onto the street under moonlight that is visible much earlier than it will be on warmer days, as though Luna knows she must step in when her sister Gaia freezes and when Helios disdains them all. Even if only a few neo-pagans and the wolves worship her for it, perhaps it is enough to keep her strong soul alive and vibrant a little longer, even this close to Apocalypse.
Strolling, Avery gently begins guiding him in the direction of her place, since she lives two miles away. But she walks, head tipped to rest against his, listening to the rustle of the bag at his side, and watching the passerby, and the people drumming on overturned buckets, a few people actually singing carols in the strip between each side of the road. There are pianos there, if badly out of tune, but people are enjoying it. Their breath steams in the air.
"The moot is coming," she mentions, after they've been walking quietly together for a while. "Do you ever come down for the full moon? Just to be near the caern?"
Calden WhiteCalden does need to be guided right now. He is walking with his head tipped back, watching the stars and the near-full moon; walking in gently weaving, loose-jointed steps that never quite stumble. Her arm threaded through his keeps him moving in the right direction. Their breath frosts white in the cold air, but he hardly feels the chill.
Her question brings his attention down out of the sky. He looks at her, serious now, though far from dour. His head bends; he tips his brow to hers for a moment. Draws a breath, lets it out.
"I used to," he says. "A long time ago, when I was seventeen or eighteen years old and just becoming a man. Just starting to really understand what it meant to be kin to wolves. I used to drive down around the moots and watch the borders with the rest of the kinfolk. Or that's what I said I was doing.
"I was really listening to the howls. Trying to imagine what it was like to be able to turn into something that could make those sounds. Trying to imagine what it feels like to feel your body changing like that, making itself anew every time.
"I haven't for a long time," he admits. "I guess I just got too busy, or too complacent. Why? Do you want me to?"
Avery ChaseHer boyfriend is a little drunk. Her gentleman caller. Her suitor. Her lover. She guides him, tenderly and lovingly and without fussing over him or worrying for each step, along the street. He was patrolling, and he was listening. He was wondering. And then he didn't.
"It would be one more opportunity to see you regularly," she says softly, but her lips spread into a smile. Her arm squeezes his where they intersect, laced between them. "I was thinking about how easy it would be, since I have the house right there now. How you could visit, and if you wanted to go to the caern you could, and if you didn't, you could just stay at the house. I would love to leave the revel and come back to you there."
Calden WhiteCalden laughs softly, the sound escaping him in a diffuse cloud of white. He stops walking. He turns to her, their arms still linked, and smiles down at her.
"I will, then," he promises. "I'll go to the Caern or I won't, but either way I'll meet you in that little house of yours at dawn."
His other hand rises, palm to the outside of her arm through their layers. His eyes stray for a moment, following his hand, following the line of her arm to her shoulder to her neck, back to her face. The smile has faded. He leans down and his mouth finds hers again, slow and warm, warming, hot.
"Let's go back to your place," he whispers.
Avery ChaseShe smiles. It's what she wanted. And though there is that well-ingrained politeness to her that wants to tell him he mustn't unless he really wants to, she knows him better than that. If he did not want to, he would simply say so. And if his only reason for wanting to is that it will please her? No matter. It is good that he should want to please her. He is her lover.
Avery leans over and kisses his cheek softly. "I adore you," she murmurs against his skin, and as she draws back he is following her, looking at her, leaning to her to kiss her.
She breathes in as his mouth touches hers. Her eyes close. For a moment, it is summer, molten and endless.
--
They part, and he whispers, and she smiles again, their mouths still close. Her eyes, shining as they are, find his. "We are," she whispers back, and the smile spreads into a grin.
Calden WhiteLike they had a secret language of their own, their mouths linger near. Their mouths smile, lips spreading, teeth bright in the dark. He kisses her again, softer and smaller, and then his free hand drops. His arm squeezes hers the way hers had squeezed his. "Good," he whispers, and they start walking again.
--
Two miles isn't very far, really. On a warm summer's night it would have been a nice stroll, the two of them, taking time to browse in boutiques and shops on the way back, taking time to stop off at a corner grocery store to pick out some fruit. Maybe a bottle of wine.
It's not summer, though. It's winter, and it's freezing cold, and so they go back to the parking lot where Calden turns his keys over to Avery because he's still a little tipsy. They climb into his truck, where he leans the seat back and stretches out. She navigates the streets while he navigates his thoughts, all those slow musings of love and affection half-submerged in the haze of his mind. He thinks of garden parties and clear winter nights, elk and aged steak in the pan.
"I'm glad you came to Colorado," he says quietly. "Of all the places you could have gone, I'm glad you settled on this one." His head shifts on the headrest. He looks at her, her profile lit by the dash, the streetlights. "Sometimes I can hardly believe you're real."
Avery ChaseShe drives. He's glad, of this and of her existence, her nearness, her choice to run halfway across the country to escape a hurtful reminder and an angry Adren. She looks at him, a mere glance, as she drives the short, short distance to her place. One of her places.
"I like the mountains," she answers, which is an odd answer. "And the nearness of wilderness, and a caern that is dedicated to Memory. It was a place that I knew my brother would enjoy, that my father would have some peace but still be able to be involved in society."
She breathes deep, and exhales slow, soft, calm.
He can't believe she's real, sometimes. And he sees the flicker, the furrow of her brow, the way this affects her; it is similar to what happened when he said he was hers. "I'm real," she says quietly, and reaches over, glancing at him only briefly since she's driving, to squeeze his thigh.
Calden WhiteSomehow it makes Calden a little sad that even in her choice of where to go when she could no longer live where she had lived, when she was all but run out of town by a broken heart and a vengeful elder, she had her father and her brother in mind. It makes him pang, too, when her brow furrows. When she casts those brief glances his way before reaching over to touch him,
as though to remind him of the truth.
I'm real.
His hand covers hers. Doesn't squeeze, doesn't hold. Just covers. "I know," he says quietly. "For what it may be worth, I didn't mean that you're some sort of fantasy come true. I know you're real and fallible and ... human.
"It's just that sometimes I feel so fortunate to have found you. That's all."
Avery ChaseIn the end, she does not live for herself. She lives for her widower father and her teenaged brother who was motherless so very, very young. She lives for the Nation, for the Falcons like Sophia and Charlotte who are so pure, so searingly perfect, that they are the maddest, strangest wolves some will ever meet. She lives for her pack, though now it consists only of Javed. She lives for Calden and his family. She lives for Celduin and the Desert Oracles. Sometimes, she rewards herself. She stays a little longer at the restaurant though the waiter visits regularly. She takes Calden home and has him in her bed, in her most private of dens. She goes shopping, and shopping, and shopping. Sometimes, she just lives, for no one at all. She knows a thing or two about balance.
Her hand squeezes, and Calden touches her in return. Avery drives, musingly, and they are there before he knows it, before he realizes how long he lingered in silence, examining his memories and how they align with the stars.
She smiles to herself. "Perhaps I do not express enough," she murmurs, "how glad I am of the same thing."
The truck is parked now in front of her building. She has the parking brake engaged and is looking at him as the truck goes silent. Her eyes are on him. "I want to lie naked with you and run my fingers over your body," Avery says quietly, her eyes holding his. "I want to marvel at every inch of your skin."
Calden WhiteThey are parked in the shadows between two streetlights. Her building rises, a sheer artificial cliff to one side. His truck -- it's a new one, yet another Silverado in a long and proud line of Silverados -- falls silent, engine ticking under a warmed hood. Their eyes meet; she holds contact. So does he.
And after a moment, after her words fall into the quiet between, he undoes his seatbelt. A click and a hiss and a faint clink as it hits the pulley. Then he's leaning across the center console, reaching for her: his hand on her cheek, his mouth seeking hers out.
He kisses her there in his truck, and it's a slow, lush thing that unwinds through the minutes. It goes on, and it pauses, and it goes on again, and then they're drawing apart a little. Breathing. His hand strokes her cheek, his thumb moving again and again over the arch.
"Come on," he whispers. He leans back and opens his door, and the cold rolls in, a sudden shock. He steps up on the curb and waits for her there, his arm folding around her as she comes to him. They go to her door together. And up the private elevator together, all the way up to her penthouse, and during the course of the ride he pushes her coat from her shoulders, pushes her hair back from her face, kisses her on and on in these slow, tasting strokes until their stomachs lift, and the elevator stops.
His fingers are threaded loosely through hers again as they step out into her penthouse. He hasn't been here all that many times, truth be told, but it feels somehow familiar to him all the same.
Avery ChaseIt's a new one.
Because he nearly died in the other one, which was not old. Because he sat in the driver's seat telling a younger kinfolk that no, everything was fine, they weren't both bleeding out, close to death, lightheaded from terror and adrenaline and sheer blood loss, organ damage, pain. Avery takes no pleasure in the newness of the truck, despite her proclivities for new-shiny-expensive. Not when she knows why he bought it. It wasn't for pleasure. It was for a reason.
It was because of bloodstains and broken glass and twisted, crumpled metal.
--
In this new one, which does not smell of his blood at all but only of the two of them right now, she meets his eyes and holds them. She tells him the first thought in her mind, which is to undress him and put her naked body close to his, to touch every inch of him, to stroke him until he hardens, til he groans, til he loses himself. And Calden, in answer, just kisses her. Warmly, slowly, and in the middle of it she reaches for his hand and draws it to her breast through her dress, guides him to cup, to weigh, to feel her and feel her moan softly in his mouth.
When they step out of the truck, she barely feels the cold, though she knows it's there. He meets her and embraces her, and she kisses him again, her hands moving into his hair, even though the door is so close, even though the elevator is near, her bed is not far.
They leave her coat in the eleavtor. Avery sheds him of his as they enter her little foyer; her body is pressed to his when they come to her locked door. When they fall into it, her hands are on the buttons of his shirt. She is ardent, rushed, her mouth moving to his neck.
His back hits a wall.
Calden WhiteThe truth is he nearly loses himself there in the car. There, when she reaches for his hand and draws it unresisting to her breast. His fingers shape around her softness. He touches her gently but without timidness, and certainly without fear; cups her in his palm and meets her moan with a low, wanting sound of his own.
They kiss on the sidewalk. Her hands plunge into his hair, thick as winter fur. Something about that marks this kiss as something private and passionate; not the sort of thing you'd share with a lover in view of others. There's no one on these icy streets to see them, though,
and no one in the elevators to see her coat pushed off her shoulders and forgotten. No one there to see how his hands find her breasts again, uncovetous, worshipful. He lifts them in his hands, caresses her nipples right through her dress, right through her lingerie; she pulls him to her door and gets it open,
and pushes him through,
and he's knocking that door shut as she's backing him against a wall, putting his back to that wall, his head tips back as her mouth finds his neck, her fingers work the buttons of his shirt open. He feels overwhelmed, overtaken, savaged in the best way. When he opens his eyes again she has his shirt open to the waist, to where he has to undo his belt to let her proceed further, and so he does. He undoes his belt, he strips it open and then his hands cup her face, bring her back to him. He kisses her mouth, his head and shoulders curving off the wall; returning her fervor with his own.
"Take me upstairs," he murmurs, and even as he's saying it he's reaching for the hem of her sweater dress, tugging at the material, bunching it at her waist, pulling it up.
Avery ChaseThey have made love in his truck before. Not this truck. Not in winter, either. She met him on the sidewalk, luscious and sunlight, and pulled him into the truck and rode him to her orgasm and touched up her lipstick while he was still buried inside of her.
They don't do that tonight. For one thing, it's so very cold that the windows would steam instantly.
--
They could make love in the elevator. It's private. She could lock the doors. They could tumble to the floor or press against the wall and have each other, now, right away, but they don't do that tonight, either. For one thing, the floor and walls aren't exactly comfortable. The elevator's interior is actually a bit chilly.
--
In her hallway, Avery all but eating him alive, unbuttoning his shirt while she sucks gently on his neck, he undoes his belt. She pants out a breath, pulling the button on his fly open, unzipping his jeans, moaning in protest and longing both as he kisses her yet again. Her hand slips into his pants, curving around his erection.
take me upstairs he says, pulling at the fabric over her thighs, bunching it up until he reaches the hem, pulling, pulling.
"No," she breathes, and pulls him from the wall, very nearly cock-first, guiding him with her around the corner, on the long, circuitous route towards the library.
Calden WhiteThat kiss tatters apart into a gasp when she touches him like that. When she finds him hard and hot under his pants; when she wraps her hand around him.
And that gasp flickers into a laugh, more breath than sound, when she denies him. When she leads him library-ward, her hand still on him, his hands still tugging at her dress. "You promised me the bed," he protests, mock-accusatory, and she's taking her steps backwards and he's following her because of course he is and his hands, his hands can't stop pushing her dress higher, higher, lifting it up over her head.
Her hair falls, a golden cascade, when that dress comes up and over and off. He tosses it on the ground. She had to let go of him for a moment there, and he catches her hands before she can reach for him again: catches them, kisses them, sucks on her fingers the way he must have wanted to god knows how many times at that restaurant tonight. When he lets her go his hands go to her waist, hold her there. Their feet shuffle together. He kisses her again, and by the time he opens his eyes he finds she's led him to her library after all.
"Take this off." He means her bra. He feels for the clasps. "Let me lick you."
Avery ChaseCalden's shirt hangs from his shoulders, which are broad and heavy and -- right now, to Avery -- erogenous. She wants to bite him there when she comes. She strokes her hands up his abdomen, over his chest, pushing the shirt from those glorious shoulders, while they stumble and find themselves in the library.
You promised me a bed
as she tumbles him to one of those white couches, pulling him over her, his knees indenting the leather. Calden strips her, somewhere in there, of her dress. Her necklaces catches in the cowl collar and is pulled off as well; static electricity snaps in the air between them as the heavy fabric leaves her body.
Her boots are still on, knee-high, over a pair of silk-thin stockings that end just below her kneecaps. Her lingerie is the color of peaches overlaid with black lace, and he sucks on her fingers before she can reach into his jeans and, put bluntly, start jerking him off as though she only wants him to come on her stomach, her breasts. Avery is beneath him, golden on white, satin on flesh. She lifts her hips upward, urging him to touch her, feel her, slide his hands up under her back to the clasp of her bra.
"I promised you nothing," she breathes, and arches her back. "Take it off yourself."
Calden WhiteThere's a flicker of a hitch there -- right there when that necklace catches in that collar and pulls off. He lets up. Doesn't pull so hard. Doesn't want to scrape her skin, pull out strands of her hair or, god forbid, catch the necklace on her earrings. He's careful with her, even when he hasn't the patience to be careful with anything.
It comes off, though. It's lost in her sweaterdress. Her boots stay on and he finds that maddeningly arousing right now; lifts leg up over his shoulder just so he can bite at her calf right through those boots. She lifts her hips. He grabs her by her hips, pulls her toward him, onto him, her ass atop his thighs, her thighs to either side of his waist. And like that he leans over her, comes down over her with his back curved, his broad torso shadowing hers; his mouth on her breasts through the bra, and then under the bra, and then the bra is coming off as his hands find the clasp and loosen it and --
it joins all those other pieces of their clothing on the floor. Her breasts naked, then, and utterly glorious. He puts his hands on them, warm rough palms, gentle fingers. He massages, he caresses, he lifts her breasts to his mouth and then, then he's stretching out over her, tumbling onto her, they're aligning each to each on that white couch.
He's the one that moans when he gets her in his mouth. Or maybe they both do. He folds his heavy arms around her, his forearms under her. His eyes are closed and his brow is furrowed; it's like the taste of her is addictive to him. He licks at her nipples, laps at them like an animal at water; sucks at her and lays a million tiny kisses all over her, goes until his own patience is running thin, until his hand is straying down her body and between her legs, shucking aside the scrap of fabric between her legs to
touch her, feel her,
slide his fingers over her pussy. He groans again around her breast; nips at her ever so delicately with his teeth. "So wet," he breathes, and there's a bit of shifting and struggling. He starts working his pants down with his free hand.
Avery ChaseStill sober enough to worry about harming her. Still sober enough to think about her comfort, her discomfort, her necklace and earrings, the latter of which stay on even when he removes the rest. It is not madness on his part to concern himself with the comfort of a wolf; she is in her human shape. She has all the weaknesses and needs of a human body. In this form, she is not as strong as he is, she is softer than he is, and these are the sacrifices she makes to be close to him. To love him. And in answer to this gentling, this softening,
he gentles, too.
--
They are not quite lying naked together in her bed, Avery slowly running her hands all over him, sculpting him from the darkness, breathing life into him with every kiss. They didn't make it upstairs because Avery -- who teased him at the smokehouse for his impatience -- could not wait. No, that's not true.
She wanted to fuck him in her library. She wanted to leave her boots and jewelry on and wrap her legs and arms around him. She wanted to have sex with him, just like this. Not languid at all. Not mindless and warm and slow and tender but like this: eager, anticipatory. Faster. A little harder.
Calden bites, tastes leather. She laughs breathily, keeping her leg over his shoulder as he bends to her, sucking on her tits. This is when he learns that her athleticism is paired with flexibility. This is when he hears her own voice mingling with his, a higher counterpoint to his moaning as he licks her breast.
She wants to tell him to fuck her.
She does not.
He knows.
--
So wet, he mutters against her chest, feeling her pussy, making her squirm in those satin and lace panties against his searching, pleasuring fingers. Then beneath them, pushing them down so he can feel her, flesh to flesh, nothing in the way. Avery gasps; she shifts, arching her back again, working her panties down her legs, helping him with his jeans, but they've barely reached his knees before she is reaching for him, stroking him, moaning,
"Calden --"
Calden White" -- I know."
He does know. He cares; he is attentive. He tries. Tries not to be monstrous, tries not to be boorish, tries to be a gentleman, tries to be worthy of his lover. Tries to make those two times he did hurt her the only times; painful little blemishes in their history, mistakes he wishes he never made. He's careful with her jewelry and careful with her body, even when he's atop her like this, devouring her like this. Even when his fingers are touching her, feeling her, stroking her, fucking her; even when she arches against his ungiving torso and he wraps his arm all the tighter around her.
She reaches for him, then. He pants against her breast when she finds him again. Her hands are so warm, too, and so silken-smooth when she strokes him like that. He groans against her breast, shameless, heedless. He sucks at her nipple and he rubs his face against her skin; he moves up to kiss her mouth,
catches her moan in his mouth as he shifts over her. Her hands guide him home. He takes his own weight on his arms; he moves into her swiftly and firmly, but not roughly, and not savagely. He gives a moan back to her, then, a low rough sound from the deepest recesses of his chest; slides into her until he's buried in her, stays there, kissing her, slow inexact kisses that build,
and crescendo,
and ignite. He pushes up on his hands. His body over hers, brawny and powerful, all size and vigor, a rough-hewn earthy vitality. He starts moving in heavy, felt strokes; watches her body, watches her pulse beating in her neck, watches her face as they mate.
"Touch me," he whispers, and when she does his eyes close in pleasure; his skin prickles and sparks to her touch. If her hands stray near his face, he follows her -- rubs his cheek against her wrist, nips at her fingertips with his teeth. Opens his eyes, finds her again. Dips his head and catches her mouth, yet again, always again, kisses her groaning muffled against her mouth as he moves into her.
Avery ChaseThe ceiling above them is very high, the apex of a pyramid-shaped roof over her library. There are shaped hedges outside the windows, a winter sky beyond them. A large collection of books and a noticable collection of small sculptures and even some simple knick-knacks fill the shelves in the library's upper half. The light in here, even when they did not bother to turn any on upon entering the penthouse, is lovely and silvered, airy. The couch they're on outlines the entire room, but they occupy only one arm of it, pillows shoved aside or tossed to the floor. The cushions are broad, made for lounging, soft underneath their bodies.
Avery makes this sound, light and whimpering and gasping, when Calden thrusts into her for the first time. Every time, it feels as though it's been ages, it's been too long to wait. This is no exception; she arches her back when she receives him, her head tipping back, her mouth opening, her eyes closing in nothing short of ecstasy. A hundred thoughts fill her mind all at once: that she adores him, that she has never had so much fun with a lover, that she loves his body, that she always forgets how good he makes her feel until he is making her feel it again, that she liked it when he bit her calf through her boot, that she likes it when he lavishes all that attention on her breasts, that she loves it when she sees his eyes flickering and shining with arousal every time she moans because of something he does, that their lovemaking is like a circuit completing, a spark igniting, lightning -- yes, he was right -- striking, that she does not ever want another lover.
That she wants him to stay here, in her den. That she wants him to live with her in her family's home, another male she cares for and protects and lives for. That she wants him to follow her to her pack house near the caern when the moon is full, to warm her bed and her heart, to sleep where she, at her most animal, can scent him and wrap herself around him and keep him, keep him, to allow herself the comfort and closeness he brings her so readily, so consistently, so unselfishly.
That she wants him as her mate.
--
But Avery can't speak right now. It is all she can do to breathe, and those breaths come as moans, as whimpers, as little cries that hitch every time he strokes into her. She can open her eyes though, finally, and she does, because she can't bear not to look at him. Just the sight of him like that, holding himself over her, fucking her, makes her body tighten with lust.
Touch me, he whispers, and she almost loses herself then, almost loses her mind because this is something she can do, something she can hope makes him feel as incredible as he makes her feel. She pulls him to her, only for a moment, moaning heavily into his mouth as she kisses him, groaning as he thrusts a little harder, grinds into her for a moment. Her hands run over his shoulders, feel his arms, stroke up his abdomen. She touches him smoothly, not as slowly as she'd like because she can't stand it.
She grabs his ass and groans softly, eyes falling closed again as she lightly, lightly rakes her fingernails up that sensitive flesh, urging him on faster without words, the way you would an animal.
Calden WhiteIt's true. Every time, every single time, it feels like it's been ages. Like it's been years rather than days, centuries rather than weeks. She can't hold in her mind the way he makes her feel. The same goes for him. Sometimes he forgets the tiny details. Sometimes he adores discovering her all over again. The way the light falls across her breasts; the exact shade of her eyes in this light, or that, or that. The way she sounds when she gasps,
and whimpers,
and moans,
and pulls him to her, which she hardly needs to do because oh, as soon as her hand grip and her arms pull he goes down to her, he meets her mouth so hard that that heavy moan of hers is lost against his tongue, given back to her in his own voice. He never stops moving, even as they kiss like sea coming to shore; even as her hands trace him like that, lift him from mere existence into sharp awareness.
His body moves beneath her fingers. Muscle and bone, tendon and blood hot in veins. His body moves into hers: strength and solidity, an aching gentleness beneath the force. Her hands follow the flow of his motion down his back, grab him and pull him into her. He flexes into her, she groans, he kisses her throat. She urges him on and he answers in the most visceral way he can,
with the way he fucks her, the way he loves her, the way they
(let's say it again)
mate. Here in the most private of her dens; here where only she is allowed, and by her grace and adoration, where he is invited. The thoughts in her mind are ones they have never yet spoken aloud, but she is not alone in them. She is not alone in wishing for more time, more time, never enough time; she is not alone in wishing to keep, to hold, to follow, to be near, to never have any other but this.
--
He comes back to her as they build, as all the world collapses down to this moment, these inches between. He comes back down on his elbows, on his forearms; folds those heavy arms around her. Her hands on his cheeks pull his mouth to hers. They have a rhythm between them, and it's an escalating one, it's one that drives exhales from their lungs, sounds from their throats. He kisses her blindly, eyes closed, mouth open, her legs folding around his torso as his torso fuses to hers.
His mouth slips past hers as climax seizes him by the nerves; this time he's the one to bite her, his teeth in her sleek shoulder, every muscle in his body locking into synchrony to bring him into her, to hold him inside her, to bring them as close as humanly possible,
closer,
as he loses himself in her.
--
That high ceiling, all that air above them: ringing with their voices, his rough groans, his harsh-caught breath, her open-throated moans, the slap of her palm off his skin as she grabs for purchase on his back, his shoulders, the back of his head. Even after his orgasm lets him go he's still moving into her, rocking his hips against hers and moving into her in slowing, heavy strokes. Moving into her as he kisses her neck, kisses her face, kisses her mouth. Moving into her as his hands cup her face. Moving into her as his hand smooths over her shoulder, cups her breast; as he puts his mouth to her flesh again, licks at her the way he just
can't
seem to help.
He is panting. His breathing is ragged and so is the low moan he lets out around her nipple. He is slowing, he is stopping finally. His cock is jumping inside her still, pulsing from time to time as though to remind her, remind him, remind them both that they are joined, they are together, they are one. He rubs his face against her skin. He lifts his face to hers and his eyes are closed when he kisses her, when he folds his arms around her again and sinks against her.
Heavy and lax, then. Sprawled over her, every bone liquid, every muscle loose. Eyes closed, nuzzling her face, the smallest smile curling the corners of his mouth.
Avery ChaseA shuddering gasp, when he bites her. He does not do this often; tonight he seems in a savage mood, setting his teeth in her calf, nipping her breasts and her lips, biting his shoulder when he comes. She finds it terribly erotic, though no more or less pleasurable than when he shaves his face as smooth as he can so that even his beard-bristle does not disturb her delicate flesh as he licks her to orgasm. There is, thus far, very little Calden does that does not pleasure her. Her complaint, when she has one, is in how far away he is, how seldom they see each other, but even in that, there is a part of her that appreciates having the space, the time, to herself.
Her legs wrap high around him, her hands firmer now on his body, following the curve and roll of his movements, feeling the hints of sweat on his skin. She mutters incomprehensible things, calls him delicious, calls him so fucking good in the next breath, whimpers darling! like it's his name a second later. Then it is simply oh, darling again and again, tattering apart into soft screams of oh, oh,
becoming wordless, shapeless, a tight, quivering sound of enjoyment when he makes her come, a sound mirrored by her body,
so taut, so tremulous, so warm.
Both sound and flesh melt after that timeless moment, her voice lowering, her hands that were just a moment ago grasping at him smoothing out, luxuriating in the feel of his back beneath her palms, her hips winding slowly as she works out a few more seconds of pleasure. Greedy. She is panting then, her head back, her face a mask of rapture almost holy, and even though he keeps on moving in her she doesn't whimper or beg him to stop. She moves with him, and with him, and when he licks her breast she clenches around him, shivering. He is sucking at her tit, she is drowsy with adoration of all those pulses of his cock, she is opening her eyes when he starts to slow down, to move less and not at all, to kiss her again, and her eyes are alive and awake even though her body is sleepy with relaxation.
Calden has hardly begun to sink against her, hold her, when she whispers:
"Again, darling." She lifts her head, nuzzling him, murmuring in his ear: "Will you make it hard for me again? I should so like another nice, hard fuck. Please? Please, darling, won't you?"
Her pussy, as though to add a separate plea, pulses around him in wanting. Avery squirms beneath him.
"I'll even ride you if you like," she purrs. "Just let me have it."
Calden WhiteSomething escapes him, the triangulation point between laughter and pant and groan. Shears closer to the last of the trio when her cunt tightens on him like that. She squirms; he nuzzles her heavily, blindly, because his eyes are still closed, because his mouth is open now, catching her earlobe between his teeth ever so delicately.
"You gorgeous wanton," he mutters in that lovely, well-turned ear of hers. There's a laugh in his voice, she can hear it: "You insatiable minx."
And he licks her there too, the tip of his tongue tracing the lobe of her ear, which makes him want her irrationally, make him think of spreading her legs and putting his face between her thighs, putting his tongue where she likes it best, licking her and licking her and suckling her and kissing her until she comes, comes, comes on his mouth like glass running molten.
His mouth finds hers. His hand in her hair, his kiss deep and inhaling, drinking her in, slipping, drifting down her neck. His hands on her breasts all over again. His hands cupping her to his mouth. His mouth worshipful on those magnificent tits, those glorious breasts, his mmm of satisfaction and hunger rumbling deep in his chest.
And he just ... feasts for a while. He just lavishes attention on her for a while, his hands warm beneath her shoulderblades, his mouth drifting from one breast to the other and back again. His eyes closed, and then his eyes open, watching her eyes, smiling into her eyes as the tip of his tongue flicks and traces, draws aimless designs across her skin. His hips still snug against hers; their bodies still joined,
his cock still inside her, if we're being coarse,
his cock hardening again inside her, little by little, moment by moment, from nothing more than the feel of her. The taste of her. The way she arches, the way she smiles, the way her hair shines even in the dimness as it spreads over the couch cushions. He could do this forever, he thinks. Just sprawl with her like this, tangled, entwined, lazy, sensual. He could stay here forever, and right now he can't come up with a single reason why he should live so far away.
Her nipples are pert and wet when he lets her slip from his mouth. When he slides up over her body, his chest rough against hers, his stomach hard against hers, his cock sliding ever so slowly deeper. When his mouth finds her ear again and he whispers,
"You can ride me if you want, Avery. Or you can turn on your stomach and let me take care of you."
Avery ChaseHer eyes catch fire. Not when he calls her wanton, minx, calls her luxurious pet names that match the finery and refinement she was born to. But when he tells her she can turn on her stomach. When he says let me take care of you. When this man who has, if we're honest, not loved her like that in a very long time, thrusts slowly into her and tells her what he'll do to her.
Let's be fair, as well as honest: she adores riding him. With her skirts on or nothing on at all, with him holding her standing in her bedroom, with him sleepy and warm under her, she loves looking down at him and finding him looking back up at her.
And she adores what they just did, where she can wrap her legs and arms around him, where she can watch the muscles in his chest and arms and shoulders bristle with work. And she adores it when he kisses down her body and opens her up with his tongue like a key fitting to a lock, and she always smiles when she licks him, sucks him, makes him come on those breasts he worships so ardently. She loves Calden. She loves loving Calden.
There is something animal in her, though, that called him a brute and called him filthy and was delighted to find that these words aroused him, that he liked being brutish and rough and dirty with her, shameless about it while they both walk around pretending that she is some sort of spotless princess. There is an animal in her that, the very first time, wanted him to fuck her from behind.
Avery moans at the words, and pulls him down, kissing him hard, deeply, all but biting that kiss onto his mouth as her pussy pulls at him, demands him.
Calden WhiteWhich isn't an answer, per se. But Calden doesn't care about answers. He doesn't care whether he fucks her from behind or she rides him from above or if it's his mouth on her or her mouth on him or their hands, their bodies, their souls, whatever. He doesn't care. He loves it. Any which way she wants him, he loves it. He's willing. He's told her things like this before, and sometimes the totality with which he is willing to give himself over to her frightens her, because --
there is no because right now. Their minds are not following those twisting paths. Their minds are hardly with them, because what's between them is burning, is scorching, is her hands pulling him down by the shoulders; is her hands gripping his hair; is his hand heavy on her breast and strong on a handful of couch-upholstery.
Is her mouth on his. That devouring way she kisses him. Is the way her cunt holds him, pulls at him, and the way her legs wrap around him. He makes a sound he doesn't make all that often, and it is a growl, unadulterated and animal. He feels like an animal tonight,
is an animal tonight, a primal mammal that differs from all the rest only in his use of language and coverings and tools,
none of which he's actually using right now.
That kiss falls apart. His hand on her face, then, pushing back her hair. His breath fast and hot, his heartbeat fast and hard. He kisses her again, beneath her lip, on her chin, nips her as he kisses her, grins this grin that is part joy and part savagery. Lifts himself on his hands. Holds himself over in, looking down at her, waiting to see what she does.
Avery Chase-- because she knows what she is, and what she can and may very well become. She knows that she has two options in her life, two ends. She will die. Or she will be consumed by her madness. Either end is not one she easily asks any other person to be bound to. And Calden gives himself so freely, so completely, as though he has already made his choice and has made it some time ago and it frightens her that he seems to mean it and it frightens her that she might accept it and, sadly and sweetly, it frightens her that a part of her wants to save him somehow. She knows that part of her is a wounded part. She tries to let him heal it. She tries to heal it herself.
He loves her. She knows. She loves him.
Kisses him like she loves him, legs wrapping tight around his waist all over again as he moves into her, the way his hands move down and over her body. They slide apart only reluctantly, as he pushes her hair back and looks at her, kisses her face, looks down at her.
Avery still has language. She looks up at him, panting, and tells him what she wants.
"Turn me over," she whispers. "Take care of me."
Calden WhiteThe first time they fucked like this was also the first time they fucked. It was playful and it was just a little rough and it was so fucking hot that moments after they finished with each other they were coming together again, she was crawling over him where he sprawled and he was taking her tits in his mouth and --
-- and maybe those were the images that crackling lightning-white in their minds when he said it. When she thought of it. Turn on your stomach. Take care of you. Maybe that's what they had in mind, what he had in mind:
something rough, and hot, and a little dirty; rutting on her fine white couch, in her fine high-ceilinged library; fucking like animals, grunting and snarling and crying out unhindered. Could still happen. Probably will still happen. But right now, right this moment, she looks up at him,
she tells him what she wants,
she says take care of me and something in him crumples and melts. Like wax by the fire. Like a stone thrown into a volcano. He comes down to her, swift and sure and almost with an edge of need; he lifts her to him and he kisses her, inhaling, exhaling a moan, rubs his cheek alongside hers and murmurs in her ear:
"I love you."
Because he does. Because he does, so very much, and right now it's almost too much for even that brave and stoic heart of his to hold. He kisses her again, a hard press of his lips against her cheek.
Then he's helping her turn. He's sliding out of her and she's twisting and his hands are around her waist, his hands are moving her, his hand is sliding under her stomach and lifting her a little and his hand is pulling a cushion under her hips; his hand is trapping itself between her body and that pillow and his fingers are searching, seeking, finding her still wet and slick from their last bout. Wet and slick again for their next go-around. He moans past her ear when he feels her; it's beyond him right now to tell her how wet she is and how hot that makes him. It's not beyond him to touch her, though, to stroke her clit with his fingertips, to play with her even before he enters her.
While he enters her, too. While he lines himself up; while he presses into her with that thick cock, sinking into her a little at a time as though they hadn't just fucked. As though he hadn't just stretched her out, limbered her up, whatever it is one might term it. As though it's been weeks or months all over again; as though this was their first time all over again,
slow, slow, patient, groaning, his brow against the back of her neck, his mouth pressing kisses into her spine. His free hand finds hers. His fingers lace through hers. That last inch: he bucks into her, just a little harder and faster, hitting her solid and deep, scraping teeth over her skin. He is gripping her hand, then. He is buried inside her, she is unimaginably tight and hot and good around him, he is touching her with his hand and stroking her with his fingers and for a while it's just that, he's just fucking her with his hand, he's just rubbing her off to feel her clench, and shudder, and pulse, and every time her pussy quivers he lets out this sound like he can't take it; he's going to die of it.
Avery ChaseIt's filthy, what he meant, and it's filthy when she says it. A little filthy, a little wrong, to say take care of me when what they both mean is for Calden to fuck her, and fuck her firmly and sweetly and just a tiny bit roughly. But when she says it back to him, looking up at him like that, it destroys him. She can almost see his heart cracking down the middle, shining anew, re-sealing itself stronger, larger, brighter, hotter. She almost tells him never mind, almost holds him close and makes love to him again just like that, but
god, that's not what she wants right now.
And he kisses her, so hard, his hands under her back lifting her up, lifting her to him. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, sliding her slender-fingered and manicured hands into that thick, curly hair of his.
He's so different from her. He's so different from anyone she's known. She thinks of all the things that had to align for her to meet him, and meet him the way she did, and shudders to think of one step making it all happen another way. She kisses him the way she does, adoring, because she adores him for all he is, because she adores the world for happening the way it has, adores life and Gaia and Luna for permitting it.
Creating it.
--
Avery turns easily. They haven't paused to take her boots off, or shove his jeans off his ankles unless he's kicked his shoes and pants off. They don't really bother now; she bites her lip as he puts that couch cushion beneath her, lifting her up. She whimpers when he touches her, enters her, pleasures her as he just holds himself inside her, pulsing like a heartbeat. Avery moans aloud when he starts bucking into her, meeting his thrusts, fucking back against him in her eagerness.
"Don't stop," she tells him, when he does, he's just playing with her, feeling her. She almost snarls it the second time: "Calden, don't stop."
Calden WhiteCalden laughs: that low velvety sound; the many and myriad markings of Stag. "Okay," he whispers, and this word blurs when he kisses her again over her shoulder. Kisses her shoulder, too. Kisses her back, the line of her spine and the wing of her shoulderblade, as he raises himself on his hands.
An open space between them. Room for cool air to wind between their bodies. Room for him to look down at the lovely lines of her spine; the dimples in her back; her ass lifted for him; the place where they are joined. An open space between them but diminishing, closing again as he lowers his head to hers, rubs his cheek alongside hers as his hands grip the cushions, as he moves into her.
Slow and steady. Slow, at least at first. Firm, though, heavy right from the start, these controlled impacts of his body to hers. His breath washing past her shoulder. His hand gripping hers, that one point of contact anchoring him to her. His other hand wandering, stroking heavily up her back and over her shoulder, down again, until what they're doing to each other starts to take him over.
He groans. A little harder, then. A little harder and his hand scooping under her, lifting her a little. Finding her, touching her, stroking her as he strokes into her. He grips her arm if she reaches back for him. He turns his head and he kisses her bicep, he nips at her shoulder, he presses his mouth to her neck and breathes, pants heavy and harsh against her beating pulse as their bodies beat their own pulse out.
"I want you to come," he whispers. It's hardly even coherent, these thoughts spilling from his mouth between kisses, between groans, between one exhale and the next. "I want to make you feel good. I love it when you come."
Avery ChaseWhen Calden lifts himself up, Avery is laid out in front of him. She arches her back, lifting her hips to him, rolling them on him. She closes her eyes, enraptured, moving on him even if he isn't yet thrusting; he can take only spare moments to look at her, to appreciate her, to lower himself down again and nuzzle her, because Avery will not stand for it for more than those few, spare moments. Avery, quite simply, expects him to take care of her. She is not arched in front of him to be admired.
When he begins thrusting, slowly, after he has fucked her once and licked her breasts to tender peaks and stroked her pussy until she was almost whining, Avery
reaches back
and slaps her hand against his flank.
He can barely hear the gasp, the almost snarl when she says fuck me, because of the way her palm smacks off of his skin. She doesn't hit him to hurt him. She doesn't hit him to sting, to sear. She does slap him though, urging him, urging on that animal part of him, as though to remind him of what she is, of what it means to her when she opens her legs for him, arches her back, when he sinks his teeth into her. She cannot put it in words.
She snarls instead. She would bite him if she could reach him. She bites the cushions under her instead, pressing back against him.
Calden WhiteOh, he's being so gentle. He's being so considerate, he's being so tender, he's being so sweet even if everything about this, this position, this atmosphere, this fuck between them, suggests the rawest, basest form of love. He's being gentle.
She.
is.
not.
No; Avery: she snarls. God that sound. Drilling down through his spine, hitting him low in the gut where his most primitive emotions lie. Hitting him in that reptile brain, those primordial neurons wired for fight and flight, lust and fear. Ultimately, physiologically, there's no difference between running for your life and fucking to make it through the winter, and if not you, then at least your immortal genes. It's all survival in the end. It's the same chemicals in the end,
the same adrenaline, the same endorphins, the same musk thick in the air.
She reminds him of that. Reminds him who and what she is, reminds him of that glorious white beast that stirred dread and awe; reminds him of the way she looked in his cellar stalking him around the shelves with their dusty bottles. Reminds him of the tingle in his fingers, the pounding of his heart, the way he did not want to give way,
did not want to move away,
wanted to kiss her right there in that small space smelling of oak. Wanted to offer himself to her, tribute to her strength and her beauty and her savagery.
Wants to kiss her right here in this lovely space smelling of books. Wants to fuck her, wants to chase her down in a savage lover's game, wants to find her in some green thickery smelling of wet earth, bear her down, bite her down, bite down and mount her and fuck, fuck, fuck until every scrap of strength was gone from his limbs.
She slaps him. He reacts like a stallion to the whip. She bites the cushions, he grabs her hip, she pushes back on him and he pushes her back, shoves her down, this is almost brutal, this is certainly rough, this rides the line of what's all right and what's not between them, but:
he comes down to her. He nuzzles the back of her neck and he wraps his arms around her and he holds her still but he doesn't really want her to be still. He wants her to move, he wants her to fuck him right back, his chest against her back, his calves bracketing hers; he growls in her ear the way she snarled over her shoulder and the next time she pushes back on him he meets her halfway. Hard. It makes him gasp. It makes him grunt like a beast. His hand on her breast. His hand splayed over her abdomen, under her body. He grasps at her, his hands covet the touch of her, can't get enough of it. His hips driving against hers, pounding hers against that pillow; he weighs her to that couch and fucks her like a --
no; there's no like here. is. he is an animal; they both are.
Avery ChaseCertainly she appreciates his gentleness. But again: no more, no less, than she appreciates this. This, which makes her push up on her own arms, crying out as he moves into her, something stirred in him by that snarl, that slap. They haven't made love like this -- rough, animal, a bit mindless -- in a long time.
It's different. It's not strange.
--
They don't speak of it often, or at all, beyond the flirtatious things Avery might say in the bedroom. Look: tonight, he teased about similar thoughts over dinner, and she was distressed. But naked, or nearly so, and biting the pillows underneath her, she calls him things like brute. She calls him filthy. She slaps him to urge him to fuck her, and he reacts like an animal, and this was intentional: this was something true but a bit unspeakable.
That she would want him like this. No: that's fine. He knows. They both do.
That he is a beast, that he's there to please her, pleasure her, fuck her like one. Perhaps that's a bit closer, and nothing that either of them might say flippantly, because it isn't always true. Or rather: it isn't the whole truth.
The truth is: Avery loves that he's a gentleman, and loves that he's a brute. Yet she pushes back, up on her arms, when he shoves her down, whips her head and her hair lashes his jaw. Her eyes are on him, meeting his for a moment, flashing a warning about that line he pushes against, a warning she does not fully realize is in her eyes. But she is not to be shoved down. There is a bit of bristling there, a how dare he, a ripple of something that tells him unequivocally that wanting him behind her, and wanting him to fuck her harder, faster like this, does not mean she finds pleasure in hints or games of domination and brutality.
Or being chased, caught, borne down to the ground, mounted. That is not what she is. That is not her fantasy.
"Don't do that," she pants, having to search for the breath to say it, having to search for the words.
Calden WhiteDon't do that.
He stops. He pauses over her, a quiver of strain running through the muscle and bone of him. Pauses, and meets her eyes -- meets the blue, the wild, the warning there in her irises.
One might imagine alternate universes in which someone else might see that look in her eyes and shy away. Cringe. Run. One might imagine universes in which someone else might see that look in her eyes are grow defensive, grow angry, make a big fucking deal out of it all. It would have to be another universe, and it would have to be someone else entirely, because
that is not Calden.
Calden: he pauses. He meets her eyes. He is breathing hard, his chest moving against her back, his hand still laced through hers. There it is, the moment awareness flickers across pleasure-glazed eyes. Brings him back to himself. There it is, the moment ache follows awareness. He lowers his head, rubs his temple against her brow, closes his eyes.
"Sorry," he whispers. His hand rubbing her shoulder, down her arm; aimless, thoughtless caresses, an apology in deed. "Sorry, love."
Avery ChaseIt is as simple as that. As pushing back, without lashing out. As saying no, which does not have to mean the dozen other things it is often interpreted to be: such as never, such as recrimination, shame, loathing. No doesn't need to mean those things. Not between the two of them. And it doesn't.
Still panting, still holding him inside, her eyes dazed, her brain contorting to even find the words to speak to him at all, Avery just tells him not to do that one thing, and Calden hesitates and then comes close again, closer, nuzzling and feeling her lips graze his cheek and his jaw, feels her breath curl and coil against his skin.
"Fuck me," she whispers in answer, rolling her hips against him. He caresses her arm; she shivers at the feel of that, of his face, of his body, his voice. Does she need to tell him he is forgiven, that there is really nothing to forgive, that she does not expect him to know every boundary until he nudges it, every pleasure unless he seeks it? Does she need to tell him these things?
Right now?
She doesn't.
She pants his name softly, lowering her head, moving back against him again, the way a female in heat, some animal, would not while being 'mounted' or pinned. Because Avery, in the end, can only pretend imperfectly to be an animal, just as she can only pretend imperfectly to be a human. She is something else entirely.
Calden Whitefuck me.
If those words were raindrops falling from her lips he would've caught them. That's how swiftly he kisses her, how quickly he seals her mouth with his. They kiss like that over her shoulder, his hand stroking her skin, her hand reaching behind his neck. When it breaks she lowers her head. She gives his name back to him and he:
he lavishes kisses upon her back, kisses her with lip and tooth and tongue, rubs his brow against her skin, looses groans across her spine. He grips her hands. He moves into her countermotion. The strength in him and the brilliance in her: they lose themselves in each other for a while.
--
The first time they fucked like this, he covered her mouth when she came. Kept her from waking his father with her cries. Set off her orgasm all the harder.
He doesn't cover her mouth this time. He doesn't muffle himself either. He roars against her shoulder when it hits. He wraps his arm around her and he holds her so tight; he buries himself deep and he can't seem to get enough, can't seem to stop, can't seem to pull away even an iota. Can't seem to help grinding into her, over and over, shuddering each and every time.
Until he can't anymore. Until his strength and his voice both desert him him. Until he's panting against her skin, collapsing against her body. Bearing them both down and sprawling there on her couch, a haphazard tangle. As lax and lazy as he would've been that first time,
if only she hadn't roused him all over again.
Avery ChaseWell he had to cover her mouth, that time. Even someone playing the wanton as well as she did that night would have turned pink and embarrassed if his father had stomped down the stairs to discover them, half-drunk and sweaty and naked, kneeling over the back of the couch. Avery has never seen the way that man can behave, the way he frustrates his son, the way their relationship strains at the seams without unraveling; she trusts the look in Calden's eyes, though, and does not argue with him that he should just be nicer to his father, or more patient. It is not her place, for one thing, and she knows she doesn't have the whole story. She is polite to him when she sees him, but focuses on Calden when she's with him, even when they are just being silly at the breakfast table. Especially when they are fucking, no matter how quiet they try to be.
He doesn't cover her mouth now, and there is no need to. This is Avery's place, hers alone, though she occasionally invites a handful of people: Calden himself. Her packmate. A chosen friend or two who warrant the intimacy of the setting for some reason or another, and Avery's reasons are sometimes pure gut instinct. She can yell here if she wants to, but she doesn't. She cries out, but it's rather soft; gasping, panting, whimpering in time with his thrusting, his kisses, his hands roaming over her body.
Her orgasm flickers, shudders through her, makes her quiver as it takes hold. Makes her buck back against him, biting her lip, turning to look past her shoulder at what she can see of his body, his hips pressed to her ass, her cheeks flushed and her hair askew. Oh, she lusts. She grinds with that lust; she growls softly in her throat. She can't look any longer and closes her eyes, dropping her head, her breathes taking on a whining edge as she tries to survive her own pleasure.
Calden collapses; Avery locks her arms and holds him up, no more wanting to be smooshed beneath kinsman and couch cushion just as to be shoved down earlier. If he slips off of her, she smirks at him, her breath coming quicker, a little faster, but still quiet. She will, however, allow him to tip and slide to one side, to roll, and she will slide gently off of him and turn to him. Yes: that will do nicely, thank you. None of this being borne down, not with the moon the way it is, not with her mood the way it is.
One way or another she ends up looking at him with that subtly smirking smile, those bright but surprisingly soft eyes. She says nothing. She needs say nothing.
Calden WhiteFine then. Calden collapses. Avery does not. Calden tips off, slides off, rumples off to the side and there's quite a bit of dipping of couch cushions and slumping of bodies and maybe he nearly squeezes Avery off the couch but of course she won't let herself fall so disgracefully,
and of course he wouldn't let her either. He tries to put his arms around her if she starts to slide, and even if she doesn't. Tries to pull her against him, down, close, near. Doesn't insist if she'd rather sit up. Doesn't insist if she'd rather sit there with her tousled golden hair and her subtle smirk and those lovely, brilliant, fond eyes.
So maybe that's how they end up. He's on his back -- more or less -- and she's seated, more or less. He faces her and she faces him; they are antiparallel, her legs folded up at the knees, her feet tucked between his arm and his side. He runs his hand thoughtlessly, familiarly up her shin. There is sweat on his chest. There isn't enough breath in his lungs, and he drags breath after deep breath from the air; looking at her with that lazily lopsided smile on his face, with those darkened love-dazed eyes.
He's rather a mess, truth be told. He rather likes it, truth be told.
Avery ChaseThis is how they end up: with her sliding off of him while he just dissolves, winding her body away from his, looking over her shoulder at him as he collapses, moving to her knees, as statuesque as the sort of sculpture she might have somewhere in her home's decor, but warmer, more primal. With Calden's chest moving, expanding, sinking again as he breathes in, breathes out, faster than would be normal. She watches him, hands on top of her thighs, still feeling him inside of her even though he is not there, still feeling the pleasant ache of her muscles, the wetness of his mouth on her nipples now exposed to air that is a little too cold. She is breathing faster, too. She feels the expansion and contraction of his chest against the side of her booted leg, the side of her bare thigh.
She is smirking at him, tenderly, and he is smiling up at her, lazily. Neither of them is speaking. But they are touching, not just where their bodies meet but where he runs his hand over her body, and where she reaches out to stroke the backs of her fingers along his jaw.
After only a short time, Avery decides to lie down. She lies on her side, her boots still on, tucking herself into his arms, hugging herself to his body, breasts to his chest, nuzzling his shoulder. She does not share with him all those errant thoughts of having him and no other, for as long as she lives. She does not ask him to leave his ranch and his family's land and come to stay with her, in part because even if this den became their den, she would need another. She would still need some place, smaller perhaps, all to herself. She does not even tell him, again, that she loves him. She just looks at him,
and touches his face,
and lies down beside him, her eyes closing.
And after a while, she only murmurs:
"Wake me when you're ready to go upstairs and have me again, darling, will you?"
Calden WhiteThere does not seem to be any need for either of them to speak for some time. They gather themselves up -- or they let themselves dissolve -- and they stay close. They touch each other idly, familiarly, his fingertips grazing over the surface of her boots, tugging haphazardly at the zipper now and then. The backs of her fingers stroking his jaw.
He turns into that caress. There's a hint of bristle there already, a certain coarseness to his skin as his lips brush her fingers. He kisses her hand with his eyes falling closed,
coming open again a moment later to smile at her as she decides to come back to him after all. She stretches out on her side, supporting herself on her hands, her forearms, her shoulder. He wraps an arm comfortably and easily around her. They face each other. They are touching everywhere, a million points of contact. Their thoughts are their own, though their shadows are in their eyes: love and comfort and familiarity and warmth. He huffs a soft laugh as she touches him again, with her hand, with her body, with her nuzzling.
"Let's go upstairs now," he whispers. "We can wait to make love again, but I want to be in your bed."
Avery ChaseShe breathes in deep, opening her eyes again as he tells her he wants to be in her bed.
Her lashes fall slowly again, lift as though with great effort.
"But you're all filthy," she mutters tenderly, closing them yet again.
Calden WhiteAnd he laughs again, deep and slow. Leans forward. Kisses her just the same: deep. Slow.
"I thought you liked me filthy," he murmurs.
Avery ChaseAvery smiles, eyes closed, kissing him back even though she won't look at him and is determined to take a nap here: on her library couch, sweaty, post-coital, wearing boots on the furniture. "But Calden. My nice, clean bed," she protests, lips moving against his mouth.
Calden White"Shower first," Calden bargains, "then bed. Deal?"
Avery Chase"I make no promises," Avery murmurs to him, nuzzling herself under his jaw again. She does not seem inclined to move, even to please him, even to take him up into her bed where he would like to be. He is in her den, on her couch, and he shall just have to be satisfied with that for the time being. Avery, being in that time, curls closer to his chest, arms tucked between their bodies, breathing in his scent and settling in for a nap.
After all, this is her den. This is her male. She is fed and she is loved and she is warm. The couch is comfortable and all she can smell is his scent, all she can feel is his warmth, all she can hear is his breathing. What else would he expect her to do?
--
So Avery slips into sleep. She takes comfort in his closeness, and the subtle thud of his heart within his chest. His arm over her body. His breath moving his chest out and in over, and over, and over. She naps for a good fifteen minutes or so before she wakes, stretching a bit, then curling even closer, as though chilled. As though she were not the warmest, brightest point in this microcosm of the universe they live in.
Breathing in deeply, she opens her eyes, hanging on to that breath a moment before she lets it out again. She unwinds her arms from between their chests and touches his face, drawing him towards her to kiss him gently on the lips. She does this even if he's asleep. She does this very softly, tenderly, without rousing him again. Without intending to, at least.
When she draws back, Avery turns on her back, then sits up, shifting her legs off the couch. She unzips and removes her boots, peeling off the stocking-thin socks worn under them, leaving the leather and the silk in a pile before the couch. Maybe he rubs his hand over her back, and watches her arch into it, stretching, then relaxing at the touch with a slow, quiet exhale of pleasure and comfort. Maybe he kisses her shoulder, and feels her tip her head, trusting, neck exposed to him, welcoming him.
He'll have to remove his jeans, or tuck them back up, before he gets up from the couch with her.
--
They go to the kitchen first, and pluck tall, rectangular bottles of water from the fridge to take upstairs. They put the leftovers in the fridge and Avery grabs some shredded, roasted chicken and a little tub of potato salad and two apples and at that point Calden has to help her carry the snacks, including the bag of chocolate-covered almonds she also sneaks out of the pantry and wants to take up with her. Loaded down with food, they go upstairs to her bedroom, the shades on the windows all still open to let in the light of the waxing moon and the deep color of the night sky.
They arrange their snacks on the nightstands and take each other to the bathroom to take a hot, muscle-relaxing shower. Avery steps in after him, her hand resting on his hand as he helps her, gentlemanly as ever. And she instantly wraps her arms around his waist, nuzzling his chest, while the water soaks her hair and his from the dual showerheads.
Calden WhiteCalden, gentleman, is not the type to insist on opposing what his lady so clearly desires. And so they don't move after all -- not immediately, not for the shower or the bed. They stay where they are. She tucks herself close and he wraps her closer still, and she -- the both of them -- drift into a gentle, brief sleep.
A quarter-hour later Avery stirs again. Calden is still asleep then, his eyes closed, his face relaxed, his arm a thoughtless weight over her. He wakes as she draws him to her, opens his eyes for just a moment before they close again. She kisses him. He smiles into it, sleepily, and then his lips move and he kisses her back.
His eyes open again as she sits up. She takes her boots off. He touches her back, stroking the backs of his fingers over her skin, turning his wrist, rubbings the pads of those fingers down her spine. She arches into it, and so encouraged, he touches her more deliberately, squeezing and kneading, rubbing as he sits up behind her.
He does kiss her shoulder. She does tip her head. He kisses her neck, and then he kisses her, and then he stands up and sheds the last of his clothes and slips his hand into hers as they pad out of the library.
--
She gathers food from the kitchen. He holds whatever she hands him, smiling faintly, quirkily as he watches her. It's like they're stocking up for winter, he thinks. It's like they're gathering food and drink for a long slumber through the season.
He follows her up the stairs. His bare feet are quiet on the carpet, but the weight behind each step sends a certain resonance through the floor. They unload in her bedroom, setting down water and chicken, salad and apples and almonds. Calden grazes on the snacks a bit, and then Avery is drifting bathroom-ward, and he follows her. Catches up at the sinks, their hands linking again, and remaining linked as he steps into the shower and turns it on and waits for it to warm before drawing her after him.
Her arms go around him. She nuzzles into him, his brawny musculature and his heavy bone-frame, his solid arms folding around her. The water comes down and the steam rises up. They soak awhile under those dual streams, any trace of coolness and stiffness from their brief nap on the couch lifting away.
It's some time before either of them even begin to wash themselves. It's some time before they unwind from each other and pass each other the soap, the shampoo, the conditioner. They both have such thick hair, and in truth it takes some time for them to shower. He helps her with her back, washing her gently with a cloth she hands him over her shoulder. Later on, he stands with his back to her, head lowered, murmuring praise and gratitude as she returns the favor.
When they're clean he shuts the water off. Her towels are thick; they may well be monogrammed. He scuffs his hair into a haphazardous chaos, then pats himself dry and tucks the towel around his waist. She combs her hair out and rubs moisturizer into her skin, and he finds a razor and shaving cream and a toothbrush set aside for him somewhere,
along with some set of clothes or other that she spirited away from him on a prior visit, clean and laundered.
I knew it, he says, mock-accusatory, and grins as she leans up to kiss his cheek.
--
That cheek is smooth, later, when they retire to bed. When he's freshly shaven and they're both freshly washed; when their bodies are dry but their hair is still damp. Her bed looks impossibly inviting. Calden sits on the edge and flops backward, sighing, and as Avery climbs onto the bed as well his arms encircle her familiarly, welcomingly, as they roll under the covers together.
They come to a stop with her half atop him. His chest is a firm, warm pillow to her cheek; her ear is pressed to his heartbeat. He smiles at the ceiling, his arm wrapping around her shoulders; his other hand reaching to turn out a light.
"I'm really quite in love with you, Miss Chase," he murmurs; sounds almost thoughtful. "I do hope you know that."
Avery ChaseThe differences between them are sometimes more subtle than overt, and amuse her: that he looks for washcloths in her shower. Avery uses a pouf, and has a long-handled, soft-bristled brush for her back, and has a special tiny brush for her face wash, and no razors to be seen since she never uses them. But they reach out, dripping, to find him a washcloth, and they wash each other, sharing toiletries, because he has not yet complained about using her scents when he's here. They linger, needfully or not, and take their time before they twist the water off and step out.
There are bathrobes for both of them, should Calden want to use one. His is larger; hers fits her smaller frame. She combs her hair but leaves it wet, wrapped in the fluffiest of robes as they pad back to her bed. Then there is flopping, and Avery sitting atop the covers, cross-legged, reaching for the chicken and the apple and the potato salad even as Calden, stripped and getting under the covers, is reaching for her.
She has a bite of chicken in her mouth when he realizes he's going to be used as a picnic blanket if he pulls her atop him, and is smiling with her lips firmly sealed as he tells her that he's in love with her. Really quite. And he hopes she knows that.
Still chewing, Avery bends over to him, foreheads touching, rolling her brow on his affectionately. She says nothing, but that is because her mouth is full. She loves him, too. She is in love with him, too. She hopes he knows.
Neither of them know, though, what the other one was thinking while they made love.
--
Her metabolism is heightened; that is the gift and price of her nature. Even after eating her fill at Boney's, enough that would keep most people going well into morning, she finds herself ravenous again. Perhaps it was the walk, and the nearness of a kinfolk making her burn all the hotter to prove that she could keep him warm, to prepare for potential danger, to simply react to his blood and his scent and his intimacy. Perhaps it was also then the way they kissed, and the sex they had on her couch. She is very hungry now, but eats with her fingers and the little spoon she brought up for the potato salad. Her teeth crunch into the apple.
Yes, she eats in her nice, clean bed. Neatly, tidily, she eats while she leans against the headboard and talks to Calden: about the smokehouse. About the upcoming moot and spending the night together at the packhouse. About books she is reading and he is listening to. She tucks her feet close to his side and feeds him morsels of food at his leisure, smiling at him. They should really brush their teeth before they go to bed. But they don't.
They are filthy, instead, when Avery finally sets aside some empty dishes and drains her water a bit more and shrugs out of her robe, tossing it off the side of the bed. Her hair has dried, at least enough that she's happy to sleep with it. Then she gets under the covers with him. Then she snuggles up to him, breathing in his scent, now tinged with her own.
Which
she apparently
finds arousing.
She is kissing his chest first, her hand smoothing over his abdomen. If he accepts her, if he lets her, she is moving atop him, kissing his neck, winding her body over his, luxuriating in the feeling of her skin stroking his. His arm wraps around her lower back beneath the sheets; his hand comes to cup her breast in his palm, making her moan into his mouth when they kiss again. They go slowly this time, and Avery stays atop him til her orgasm takes her, til she has worked that pleasure out on him, hands splayed over his chest. She stays on top of him, straddling his lap and grinding onto him, until she looks down at him, panting,
until Calden rears up to kiss her, until he rolls her onto her back, disrupting the covers all around them, tangling their legs, holding her under him while he thrusts into her, her nails in his back, his cum in her pussy, her teeth in his arm to stifle the way she is groaning.
They collapse like that. Sprawling, heated, a bit filthy.
They sleep.
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