two, three times a year.

Avery

Take him home. She smiles, her lips reddened from the kissing, her eyes limpid. She simply nods, a faint smirk at the corner of her mouth.

--

So they go. Back to the member's lot and back to the truck. Avery idly fans herself with her hat, holding his hand across the center divide, watching the window as he takes them back to her place. She looks up at the moon, and she drowses against the window, thinking of what she plans to do with him. She doesn't say a word to him. Doesn't spoil the surprise.

This time he parks for the evening, as he has many times since the stock show began. She has her hat off, her hair in those long braids, walking hand in hand as they stroll up to the door and through the lobby, into the elevator that only lets them off at her floor because she has a key. She takes him home with her, feeling as though it is somehow new still, special still, and feeling deeply at home with him coming there at night with her.

She kisses him softly, tenderly, not wantonly, when they come inside. They shed their boots and he may reach for her, only to find her kissing him more deeply, drenchingly, walking with him to the stairs. He can undress on the way, if he likes; she does not take off a thing, even holding her hat at her side. And so it is until they are upstairs, pressed to her bedroom door, and her fingers are deep in his hair, her voice leaving a soft moan beneath his tongue.

Avery breathes in deeply, panting it out, twisting the handle behind her and taking him into her bedroom, shutting the door and turning him around, urging him to the bed, crawling up on him with her knees to either side, her skirt spreading and hitching upward, but still

keeping his hands from undressing her.

Calden

Truth be told, Calden is feeling more tender than lustful on that short, quiet drive back to her penthouse. He holds her hand, and sometimes he steals glances at her as she drowses against the window -- hair in those adorable braids, eyelashes dark against her cheek. In the elevator she stands in front of him, leans back against him. His arms are a heavy, warm shawl across her shoulders; not unlike wearing a bearskin from some primitive, barbaric age.

It isn't until she kisses him that first time, soft and tender, that his want begins to kindle again. It isn't until she kisses him more deeply, so drenchingly, suffusing him to the deepest layers of his being

that he starts to reach for her. Starts to unbutton her shirt, only to be rebuffed. Starts to pull at her swishy skirt, only to be gently discouraged. So, fine: he takes his hat off instead, leaves it over the post at the end of the banister. He takes his coat off and lays it over the railing at the top. He undoes his shirt as she's taking him into her bedroom, and they are still kissing, and they are both panting, and now, and now, she pushes him gently down on the bed and he peels his shirt off and she urges him to lay back and he wrestles his undershirt off in a smooth roll of thick muscles.

He flops down, then. There's something smoky-lazy about his smile; not unlike the way intoxication from a good scotch feels. He is not trying to undress her any more, but he is touching her: tracing fingertips up her thighs under her skirt; rubbing his palms down her arms. "Well, Miss Chase," he murmurs, "it seems you have me quite at your mercy."

Avery

Avery scoffs. She still has her hat in one hand, grinning at him where she has him pinned. He's shirtless now, and she leans over him, smoothing her hands up his abdomen, his chest, breathing in as she does so, the smile faltering, fading into something else. She likes the hair on his chest. It isn't the masculinity of it or even the appearance: it's the way it makes him smell. It's the way the hairs catch his scent as he sweats, as his body warms him from the heart outward, and this is often why when she falls asleep with him, she falls asleep with his arm around her, her arm and leg draped over him, her face pillowed on his chest, her dreams enriched by that scent.

She does like the way he looks. The unwavering, unambiguous maleness of his face and form arouses her. But oh: the way he smells. The warmth and familiarity of it, the tantalizing hint of purity, the intimation of strength and provision and endurance.

Leaning over him, Avery lowers her mouth to his chest, taking his nipple in her mouth and stroking it with her tongue, lapping slowly and softly at him, closing her red lips and suckling at him. She's hungry about it, running her hands over his body, his arms, his sides. She might --

but she doesn't.

She sits up again, languidly, licking her lips as she looks down at him. With a roll of her hips she grinds down against his lap, watching sparks fly in his eyes. "Take off your pants," she tells him, a moment before she withdraws from his body, standing up, her skirt falling around her legs again as she steps back. Her eyes do not leave his. "Lay yourself out for me."

Avery turns, walking towards her en suite. "I'll be right out, darling."

Calden

His arms relax and open as she comes down over him. His elbows to the bedspread, the tips of his fingers just barely grazing her shoulders. He closes his eyes and he lays his head down and he justenjoys it

as she puts her mouth on him. Tastes him, strokes him, sets his heart racing. Mmm, he mutters, low and vibratory in his chest. Her hands trace over him, his brawny arms and his hot sides and, yes, the unfashionably-masculine hair on his chest.

They are practically posterchildren of the Garou Nation. They are beautiful and strong and athletic and surefooted. He is patience and stability and provision, the steadiness of the earth, the warmth of a roaring hearth. She is brilliance and nobility and ferocity and wildness, an intangible undeniable wildness even in the trappings of utmost civilization. She is sunlight and fire; blessed by so many gods of the sky and the earth, and each blessing a double-edged sword.

He looks at her with heat and admiration and adoration when she sits up over him. Her languidness makes him languid, too. He tucks a hand behind his head, as he likes to, and he rubs the palm of the other loosely, lazily over her thigh. She gives him instructions. He sits up, propping himself up on an elbow as he holds her there for just a second longer,

kissing her between her breasts, or as near as he can get with her clothing still untouched.

"Don't keep me waiting," he replies, smiling -- half a joke at most.

--

She leaves him. He lays back and he undoes the button, the zipper; lifts his hips and then kicks his legs to get those jeans off. It must be said that he hesitates a moment with the boxers. He is bold and unapologetic on the matters of sex and sexual attraction; he is a sensual, sensuous creature, deeply attuned with his own animal nature and its near-insatiable hunger for --

well, her,

but he's not so cavalier or so jaded as to truly lay himself out, rampantly erect, on a lady's bed. It seems -- somehow boastful to him, and somehow a touch rude.

So in the end, a compromise. He takes his boxers off. He leaves them over his groin, though, like the proverbial fig leaf. And he waits for her, wondering what she's up to, eventually sinking from his elbows to his back, hands folded behind his head again.

He has one more day here, he thinks. He realizes he wouldn't mind more.

Avery

It does take her some time in there. Time enough for him to undress, and consider his modesty or perhaps simply the temperance to his confidence. He is not feeling cocky tonight; he does not want to lounge on her bed, stroking himself at the thought of her, waiting for her to come out and see him like that. Time enough for him to choose to drape his boxers over his groin as he reclines into her soft, soft pillows that he has slept against most of the last two weeks. Time enough for his mind to wander, but not his blood to cool.

Never time enough for that.

Avery does come back out. And she has her hat back on, atop hair that she has unbound into downy-soft golden waves past her shoulders, unrefined and undone. She still has her jasper earrings, her leather-and-turquoise bracelet, her cascading necklace of turquoise. She is wearing an entirely different pair of cowboy boots than the ones she left downstairs: these ones are also, however, dark leather tooled with blue swirls and vines.

She is wearing lingerie. Sheer, baby-blue stockings hide beneath her boots and hug her thighs. Ribbons tie them to her garter belt, which has a tiny lace skirt to overlay it. Her panties are blue. Her brassiere is blue. And there are three perky bows down her front: between her breasts, below her navel, at the crest of her panties.

Avery comes back over to him, where he lounges on her bed, smirking all the while. Is that a saunter? Perhaps a bit. She comes to kneel on top of the foot of the bed, knees apart, looking him over. She nods at the boxers covering him, flicking her eyebrow.

"I thought I told you," she chastises, teasingly, coyly, "to lay yourself out for me.

Calden

Hearing her footsteps, Calden turns his head. Raises it as she comes into sight, his mouth curving into a smile that becomes a grin as she comes --

-- saunters closer. There's a spark in his eyes that catches fire as she slides onto the bed. He looks her over, inch by inch, contour by curvature; every chip of turquoise, every stitch of lace, every bit of skin so soft that he can barely restrain himself from grabbing her, rolling her under, burying his face somewhere convenient. Probably between her breasts. That seems like a good idea.

But no. He raises himself on an elbow again. She's straddle his shins there at the foot of the bed, or perhaps just to the side. She wants to know, in not so many words,

why he's still covered.

He drags his eyes back up to hers. And returns her smirk. And answers her by pulling the boxers up, bunching it against his chest, tossing it off the side of the bed.

Avery

They smirk at each other. Avery begins crawling up the bed over him, knees spread to either side of his legs, only after he tosses that offending piece of fabric off of his body and off of her bed. Her smirk spreads slowly, lazily, into a smile as she plants her hands to either side of his hips.

If we are vulgar, and it should be noted that there is currently a woman wearing lingerie and a cowboy hat and boots to bed, we will describe Calden's cock at the moment. That he is hard, that he is heated, that the angle of her body and the strength of his erection have them close enough that it would be really no effort at all for Avery to stroke the curves of her breasts above those lines of pretty pale blue lace against the head of his cock. Which she does, moaning softly at the silk-soft skin meeting, well... silk-soft skin. She looks down, watching that cock of his, stroking it tenderly between her breasts, between the satin and lace, pressing her lips together against another, louder sound of appreciation, arousal, pleasure.

"That's much better," she murmurs, bending her arms, resting her forearms on the bedspread, though her ass stays high in the air. This is how she takes him in her mouth, and remember: he never really knows how she's going to do it to him this time. Sometimes she teases him. Licks him, kisses him, tickles the head of his dick with the tip of her tongue until his heart is pounding almost to break through his breastbone. Sometimes she does not. Tonight, she does not. She mutters what she does, lowers herself to him, and engulfs him in her mouth, as much of him as she can, and this time she does not withhold the sound of moaning -- hungry, relieved, enthusiastic moaning.

There's that first deep slide of her mouth over him.

There's the way she groans around him, wets him with her tongue.

There's her hand wrapping around the base of his cock as her mouth withdraws, still slow but just. a little. too fast.

There's that tight, warm suck she gives him, just on the head, making a noise that is almost a squeal of eagerness, of delight.

There's the way she begins bobbing her mouth on him.

The way she fucks him like this in earnest.

Sucks his cock, steady and wet,

in her cowboy boots

and lingerie.

Calden

There's a summer storm in the way their eyes catch each other and hold. There's a slow heat in their smirks, which do not have the edge of competition or mockery in them. It's a sense of conspiracy, rather; of collusion toward naughtiness of the best sort.

She crawls up over him. He sinks a little lower on his elbows, watching her. She bends to him and -- yes, he's hard. Hardened for her as she kissed him in the foyer, and downstairs, and walking up the stairs, and in front of her room. Hardened as she pushed him gently down on her bed and told him to lay himself out for her pleasure. Hardened even as he undressed for her, thinking of her, listening to the distant snap and whisper of expensive lingerie.

And he was laid out for her when she came back. Occupying an ungodly amount of space on that luxurious bed of hers, which when she sleeps alone feels as limitless as a cloud. The truth is these last two weeks, there have been nights when she woke to find half the covers on the ground, replaced by her lover wrapped around her. There have been nights when she woke to find him crowding her nearly to the edge of the bed, likely because he was so warm and she was so warm and their warmth together made her retreat in her sleep,

and then he followed,

and then she had nowhere left to go and he cornered her against the side of the bed and glomped her.

--

That's beside the point, though. The point is: he is laid out for her when she comes back. He is sprawled over the bed, large and warm and naked and -- how does one put it delicately? -- ready for her. A great hairy brute of a man, her son of Stag: all large bones and broad shoulders and wide chest, thick biceps, hard thighs, big feet. Big rough hands that, several times this week in fact, have been known to catch her up and raise her up and hug her so tight and hold her so he can kiss her, bury his face in her bosom, spin her around so her skirt twirls up.

As though to make some argument for intelligent design, the hair on his chest and stomach and upper thighs are patterned in such a way as to converge on -- how does one put this delicately? -- his cock. And we will note this: he does, in addition to shaving his face so as to better eat her pussy, engage in occasional trimming down under. Not shaving, god no, but -- manscaping, so as to make experiences such as the one she's about to embark on

a little more pleasurable for both of them.

--

He's holding his breath now. No great inhale followed by silence; just a simple, quiet arrest. He's watching her, his fingertips pulling at the bedspread without his notice, his cock moving almost imperceptibly with every beat of his heart,

and much more noticeably in irregular, involuntary twitches.

She touches him. She rubs her tits on him, to put it bluntly. His thighs tense; a nerve impulse skittering all the way down to his flaring toes. He laughs under his breath, breathlessly, as she praises his -- what? obedience? willingness to bare his body to her? He's always been willing; surely she knows that. He's always, always been willing to bare himself to her, offer himself to her, give every inch of that large and well-made body up to her fancy, for her use, in the name of her pleasure.

And his. We can't quite pretend it's all altruistic.

Especially when she puts her mouth on him. His head falls back and he groans, deep and quiet. She wraps her hand around him and he sinks down on his back, his hands moving to lace behind his head. She starts fucking him in earnest. He raises his head again, cradled in his hands, watching her down the length of his body, across the span of his chest. There are stars imploding in his eyes every time she slides her lips over him. There are galaxies flying apart in his mind every time she slithers her tongue past those incalculably sensitive few millimeters just beneath the crest.

--

"Hey," he murmurs,

after a while, when there's a light sweat across his chest, when his breathing is audible and unsteady and sometimes his groans seemed pulled from the very center of his gravity,

"hey. Aren't you supposed to have a lasso, Miss Chase? When are you finally going to rope me to your bed?"

Avery

Calden is not always a considerate bedmate. And Avery is hardly the sort to just bite her tongue. She prefers to sleep with her head on his chest, or she may curl behind him, but sometimes he tries to roll her over, 'glomp' her, crowd her to the edge of her own bed, and she wakes him. Their shared warmth is not something she retreats from; she keeps her upper floor cool at night, to make them both crave and value that warmth. But if she rolls over in her sleep, if he keeps following her, grabbing at her, it wakes her. It makes her wake him.

He cannot help what he does in his sleep. She cannot help the way it makes her anxiety spike, the way it makes her skin crawl when she stirs in sleep to find Calden's unconscious hands pulling at her, his body pressing her to the edge. She cannot help the way it makes her rage kindle, brighten, threaten to boil her blood. She cannot even help the frission of irritation in her voice, raspy with sleep, as she tells him he's about to push her off the bed, give me some space.

In the morning it is easier to be gentle about the way she keeps her distance from him, even though tension is wound like a cord around her spine. But still, it's easier after -- waking -- to be delicate about the way she tells him, direct but soft, that she would prefer to be alone the following night. When she goes to her freshly-laundered sheets over her expansive and empty bed that night and feels a rush of relief and appreciation for her solitude, nothing quite makes the flicker of guilt easier.

Perhaps they talk about it. But that was several nights ago, and this is now.

--

Now, she is hearing him say Hey, and her eyes look upward, meeting his. She slowly, slowly slides her mouth up his cock, sucking on him, looking at him, licking him one more time before she withdraws. Her warm hand wrapped around him keeps stroking him as he asks her about a lasso. Roping him to her bed.

Her eyes do not flare with sudden lust. They blink, and she takes a breath, but between the rhythm of her hand and the way she is caught off guard by the question, at first all she can do is give a little shake of her head.

"I don't want to tie you down," she murmurs, very tender but very serious, as though some tiny part of her is recoiling like an animal from a snake. She breathes in deeply, exhaling, her hand -- briefly stopping on him -- beginning to move again.

"I like knowing you're here because you wish to be," Avery tells him quietly, sitting up, her knees to either side of his thighs, her hat still on, her hand still working him.

Calden

Tenderness rushes through Calden. She sits up, and so does he, and suddenly,

suddenly they are so close, and whatever unspoken game they played where she had her way with him and he didn't touch her at all breaks. He wraps his arms around her and he pulls her closer, closer, until their torsos press together. The brim of her hat bumps his hairline. Then it tilts aside, and he kisses her, and it is,

like that kiss on her steps,

long and thorough, drenching and deep.

"Even if you tied me down," he whispers, a frank little confession, "it'd be because I wanted to be tied down by you. And here with you." And another kiss here, like a punctuation: soft and light. "But not tonight. Not if you don't want to.

"And Avery," drawing her just a touch closer, "I always want to be with you. Whether I'm here or not."

Avery

Her hat tilts back as he rushes up to her, wraps her in his arms, kisses her. She breathes in sharply, closing her eyes, her hands resting on his shoulders as their mouths seal together. They are still so close, even when he pauses it to whisper to her that it wouldn't matter, that he wants to be here, with her, and the truth is: she didn't think it was that serious. She wasn't sure if she was being too serious, if he was just joking.

But Calden seems overwhelmed with tenderness and reassurance, and Avery smiles. "Lay down," she whispers to him, her fingertips stroking his biceps. "I'm hardly worried that you don't want to be here, darling."

Avery kisses him again, softly. "I don't want to. We can talk about it another time. Lay down," this soft urging, quiet repetition.

Calden

The truth is he's a little reluctant to lay down. He's a little reluctant to put that space back between them. It is poetic, but no exaggeration, to say that his very skin and flesh sometimes thirsts for her touch. Her closeness.

"Don't make me wait too long," he whispers -- again -- into the remnants of that last kiss. And he sinks away from her, to his elbows, to his shoulderblades, to his back -- his hands trailing down her body, his fingertips skimming over lace.

Avery

"Wait for what?" Avery whispers back, her hands following his body as it leans away from her own, running her fingers over his chest, down his abdomen to her own body.

She touches herself through those panties, softly, with three fingers. She watches him as she does so, looks at him, as her other hand runs up her thigh, and her stomach, brushing idly over her breasts through the lace, circling her unseen but hardening nipple. She teases herself like this, panting softly, until she can't stand it. Until she spreads her hand over her breast and lifts it, squeezing gently, letting out a soft sound of wanting.

Avery slides down the bed again when she finally manages to stop playing with herself. She bends over him again, adjusting her hat, taking him in her mouth again like she just can't help herself. Which, truth be told, she rather can't. She moans around him, stroking him firmly, eagerly into her mouth, once again bobbing her head on his lap, playing with herself as she does so.

Until, far too abruptly, she stops. Until she pants over his cock, needfully, licks him, and rises up over his body.

She leaves him.

--

Avery gets off the bed. She just slides right off the edge, but it's only for a moment. She hooks her fingers in her panties and whisks them down her legs, over her boots, and a moment later she's on top of him again, not going for his cock this time but crawling right over his body, panting, taking hold of him,

taking him inside of her.

She doesn't stay close, all snuggly. That's not what the hat and the boots are for, the jewelry left on, the lingerie. She rises up as she sinks down on him, her legs spread wide to either side of his body, biting her lower lip as she takes him, inch by inch, into her pussy.

She is going to ride him.

Calden

"Wait for you," he answers.

Of course that's what he means. She knows it. She knew it, before she even asked. She has to know, because otherwise she wouldn't tease herself --

tease him

-- like that. She wouldn't watch him as he watches her, his eyes growing smoky-dark, his hands pushing up her body finally to join hers over her breasts, lifting with her, squeezing with her, swallowing that soft sound she makes when he arches up off the bed to kiss her.

He's a breath away from rolling her under him. She has to push him back down, and when she does he hits the bed with a groan, his fingers knock her hat askew when he tries to run them through her hair, which is why she has to adjust it

as she starts sucking him off again.

His head thumps the mattress. His back arches; his hips rise off the bed, he thrusts into her mouth. He's not so good at restraining himself this time, and his hands wander -- he flicks the side of his thumb over his own nipple, rubs his palm aimlessly over his stomach, grasps at the bedsheets. He bucks against her mouth. He grunts and groans and curses and

when she stops,

when she leaves him so abruptly that his cock doesn't so much twitch as move, jumping to the fanning of her breath, jerking to the touch of her tongue.

And when she gets up off the bed --

he outright swears at her, thoroughly ungentlemanly, gasp-snarling a fuck, Avery, where the fuck are you going after her as he pushes up on his hands.

She doesn't go far, though. And her actions are self-explanatory. She sheds her panties. His eyes follow them all the way down. They glitter in the half-dark as she comes back to him. He takes her by the waist and tries to haul her closer and maybe she lets him or maybe she doesn't; maybe she plants a hand in the center of his chest and pushes him back down. She wants to ride him, after all, and though he surges back up to her a few times -- the muscles of his chest and abdomen rolling under her palm, his mouth search for her tits through her bra or her neck or her lips --

he stops when she takes hold of him again. He stops, and he groans, eyes closed, head falling back, as though this is all he ever wanted. As though the touch of her hand, or her mouth, or her body, or any which part of her that he could devote himself to, was the pinnacle of his existence. He looks transported, his hands loose on her thighs, his expression transcendant.

She rises up and his eyes open, he watches her with that lust burning so potent it's almost dark, it's almost too intense. His eyes are fixed on her mouth, the way her teeth catch her lip. She fits him to her cunt and those eyes skate down, his brow furrows, his mouth opens but he doesn't make a sound. She takes him, inch by inch by inch, and his hands tighten, the muscles in his abdomen snake and coil, that cock she has so surely in her lovely hand pulsing still, moving still, so hard and hot that it's a goddamn wonder he hasn't simply passed out from sheer arousal.

Avery

Oh yes: she pushes him back down.

She lets him run his hands over her, to feel her tits. But she shoves him down when he tries to get up. She plants her hands firmly on his shoulders or his chest and looks at him, eyes darkened with lust, gleaming with it, every time.

It's more energetic this time when she sucks him off, both of them a bit boisterious now, unrestrained. She has had this building inside of her all night. The smell of beasts, the near-violence, the energy of it all has her in such a mood that she can't quite stand it. When she gets off the bed that quickly it is in part because she is seconds away from grabbing the meat of his thigh in her teeth and sinking them in, groaning, biting him not so much for his pleasure but because she can't handle the heat coursing through her.

Avery fucks him when she comes back to the bed, her hands on his chest all but pinning him down, grinding down on him once he's firmly inside of her, deep inside of her. She gasps, head tilting back, spine elongating, and simply starts riding him there and then, just like that, working herself on his cock. She doesn't need to tie him down to want to use him like that, fuck him like that. After a while she's not even holding her hands on his chest to keep him from sitting up and embracing her. She's looking at him, looking at her hands spread over his body, looking at his face, keeping his eyes with hers as her eyes flare and as her brow twitches and furrows with pleasure.

Calden

The intensity of it. Primal and electric. Almost too much to handle if they'd jumped right into it, if they'd started like this. She all but pins him, and she takes him in, and she grinds down on him and he shouts a wordless shout as he throws his head back. Beneath her hands his heart is hammering, hammering, there's just a thread,

just a frisson of the ecstatic cadence of the wildest hunt there, and even he wouldn't be able to say if in that moment he felt more the hart or the hunter.

She rides him then. She fucks him. It is not unloving, but it can't be called lovemaking. It is too primitive, it is too animal, it is too primordial. It is the drums around the fire, the moon off the spearhead. It is her hands spreading over his skin, claiming him and harnessing him not with rope, not with law, not with word but with touch,

with her eyes on his and his on hers,

with her cunt so hot and slick, riding down on him, rising up and clenching and coming down again. Her brow furrows but his has cleared. This is not a night when he mounts her, rolls her under, hikes her thighs around his ribs and wraps his arms around her ribs and pounds her enthusiastically into the mattress. This is not a night when she lays back and he takes care of her, spreading her thighs, licking her until she ran so wet and slippery that he rubs his face in it, grinds his tongue in it, all but rolls in it like an animal enamored of her scent.

(Which he is.

But we digress.)

This is not a night like those. This is a night where, quite simply, she rides him like an animal. Like he is the animal here, and she is the --

-- no term for it, except: like she is who she is. A queen or a wolf or a priestess or a goddess or a demon; herself. Like he is for her pleasure, a beast to be hunted, stalked, corraled, pinned, mastered, gentled,

but none of it because he must,

and all of it because he wishes.

There can be no mistaking his part in his. There can be no mistaking his willingness and his want: it is there in his hands grasping at her thighs, not so much directing her as holding on to her, channeling some part of his tension back into her. It is there in his eyes that hold hers, and the look in his eyes which is something like surrender but not quite; something deep and fiery and -- dare we say it? -- sacred, like a vow, like a trust unbroken.

It is there in his body too. It is there in the veins standing out on his biceps, the backs of his hands. It is there in the sweat on his chest and the turmoil of his body beneath her; the flex of his thighs, the clench and shudder in the muscles sheathing his viscerae. It's in the fullthroated, unguarded sounds he makes, the groans, the grunts, the way his head snaps back when she moves a certain way,

and, when he can't take it anymore,

the way he takes her hand, grasps it tight in his and pulls it from his chest to his mouth, sinks his teeth into the swell at the base of her thumb; muffles his snarls against her palm like that until it becomes hard to tell if he roars for pleasure, or bloodthirst, or the simple ecstasy of survival.

Avery

She's a cowgirl.

Maybe a queen. Certainly a wolf. Perhaps in some ways a priestess. Certainly not a demon, though sometimes a monster. But tonight, oh tonight Calden: Avery is a cowgirl. She has the boots and the hat and everything, and he's her animal. He's her beast, rather furry and very warm, and she is going to ride him like a beast.

After a while she begins to wish there was some sort of rein, somewhere to hold onto him while she really rides him, really starts bouncing on his cock. The thought of him tied down flashes into her mind, maybe not rope but leather, maybe loose, but

god, she loves his hands on her. When he strokes her thighs, holds her hips, feels her moving on him like that. She gasps as he's touching her,

"Wait, wait... waitwaitwait," and she's panting, shaking, slowing down on him, rocking on his body but not bouncing anymore, forcing them both to relent a bit. She reaches back behind her body, angling her arms, and unclasps her bra. She slides it down her arms, off her tits, tossing it where she left her panties. Now it's just that turquoise necklace descending toward her breasts. Now just her nipples, a softer red than the jasper in her earrings, and they are perked and hot and she is wearing only one of the three blue bows she started out with.

Avery starts to move on him again a little faster, exhaling heavily. "That's it," she mutters, reaching down to play with herself, to touch him, rubbing the slickness of her pussy over his cock as she rises and falls on him. "You like how I look like this, don't you?" she wants to know, leaning over him, hands sliding up to his chest, breasts not quite touching him but tantalizingly close. She works her hips on him, harder than before, winding in a circle. "You fucking love it."

He does love it. He groans, taking her hand, biting at the base of her thumb, fucking himself up into her as he does.

She shudders. She lets him, caressing his face, closing her eyes, tipping her head back as she starts riding him a new, just as fast, just as needful. Her cries start hitting the ceiling and god, fuck, her breasts are bouncing as she moves, as she works herself up, and the turquoise is bouncing against them in turn. Her skin sheens with sweat now, her cunt is all the more slippery for it. The things she's saying aren't even English anymore, they aren't words, they're just outcries of pleasure, of need.

That's how she comes, when she comes. Her hair downy but clinging to her skin along her hairline with sweat. Her mouth open, her hat tipped back slightly, her body bare but for jewelry, garter belt, stockings, boots. She comes, open-mouthed but soundless, tightening up on him, clinging to his shoulders, trembling slightly, quivering as wave after wave of enjoyment pulses through that sweet, wet pussy of hers. She whimpers a little as she starts to come down, her shoulders rounding, her eyes opening, her head swaying as it lowers, eyes finding his. She moves slower, rocking on him, her skin pink, her pulse thundering,

her hands stroking lovingly, adoringly over him, as though he just gave something to her, as though she's so grateful, as though she wants him to feel like this, too. Which

she does.

"Come in me, darling," she murmurs, stroking him with her body slowly, too slowly, torturously. Reaching up, she takes off her hat with one hand, runs her fingers through her hair with the other. "You can even roll me over and give it to me the way you like, if you want."

Avery smooths her body down over his then, finally letting him feel her against him: their bellies touching, her breasts to his chest, her entire form a slinking warmth up his. "Come in my pussy, Calden." A little whimper enters her voice, a little ache to her eyes, half-teasing, altogether sensual. "I need it."

Calden

Oh she's a sight. Oh, she's a glorious, divine sight when she loses that bra, looses those breasts. The cascade of turqoise draping her still -- like regalia, some symbol of her sovereignty and sensuality both -- shivering when she moves, rolling and draping and bouncing off her skin.

He can't understand how she's still speaking in sentences. He doesn't have the words to answer her; but then he doesn't need to. She's so certain of the answer, and she's right to be: she's right. He does love it. His eyes close as she begins anew,

as she rides him again, slow now, and even though when she told him to wait, wait, waitwaitwait, even though when she slowed to a shaking, rocking stop he'd thrown back his head and bellowed in sheer anticipation and impatience,

even though he didn't think he'd survive waiting he

fucking

loves it. He loves how she looks. He loves how she moves. He loves the way her breasts bounce as she works it up again, and he doesn't have the words for that either but oh, he has eyes, he's watching her, he has hands, he reaches up and cups her breasts and his touch is heavy and imprecise, beastly, pawing at her really, god.

That's what he holds on to when she starts to come. That's what he holds on to, cradling her breasts, holding them in his palms, as she loses her language and then her mind: as she pulls tight as a violin string, as her fingers clutch at his shoulder, as his teeth hold on to her palm, firmly but without brutality.

He murmurs against her hand. He groans against her palm as she whimpers, as her cunt speaks to him in waves and pulses,

as her hands slip from his mouth and his shoulder to caress him, trace him, pet him as though he'd given her something. As though he'd done his part quite, quite well.

Which is how he feels, really. He is still rampantly hard inside her; he is still all but shuddering with restraint and lust. Even so there's something, a strain of satisfaction in his eyes. Perhaps just a touch of -- what is that, something almost like pride? That she came on him. That she rode him and fucked him and liked it, liked him, came on that cock of his, so hard for her. It's an absurd way to think. He recognizes that; doesn't really care.

He shivers as she comes down to him. Oh that body of hers. He murmurs his pleasure as her stomach presses to his; her breasts to his chest. She's so smooth, so warm, so luxurious. He kisses her mouth as she takes off her hat. Her hair falls loose over her shoulders and onto his skin while she tells him

just what he can do.

He wraps his arm around her. He turns her, as she must have known he would. Such a sudden surge, like some invisible tether snapped; some gate ruptured. He bears her under in a great wave of motion, and then --

then he slows. Then he takes a moment, his palm under her shoulderblades lifting her, his back curving upward, his mouth going finally, gratefully to her breasts. He takes her nipple in his mouth with a groan much like relief.

Just a moment, though. Then he's aligning himself over her. He's slipping out, groaning at the loss, sliding back in almost before his next breath. Their faces close together, their mouths nearly touching, he pulls her legs around him.

She's still wearing her boots. The coolness of the leather, the scrape of the heels -- he's inflamed all over again, spurred on rather literally. Pushing up on his hands, his shoulders bunched, his body braced, there's little in the way of technique or finesse to this. He

frankly

gives it to her, hard and steady and driving and determined, his head bowing sometimes to watch himself pound into her, to watch her breasts move with her breathing; his eyes always coming back to hers, finding hers, holding hers so she can see it,

she can see the exact moment his orgasm becomes an inevitability, which is an instant before he sweeps her up with one grab of his arm, his hand; holds her ferociously close as he lets go of himself.

--

Eventually, of course, his bracing arm gives way. He lowers them both down to the mattress and then he rather collapses over her, the raw shouts diminishing to groans, then to pants, then to something approaching calm.

Then something low and warm; a slow laugh, not of humor but of uncomplicated enjoyment. He rubs his face against her neck, her shoulder, her cheek. He thrusts once more, lazily, haphazardly at best, and then --

well, doesn't so much roll aside from her as simply rolls them both on their sides. Her leg is still around his waist. His hand follows her thigh to her knee; her knee to the top of her boots. His mouth quirks against hers.

"For the record," he whispers, "I do fucking love it."

Avery

She's panting next to him, drowsy now, her breasts rising and falling on each breath. She's rolled onto her back, regardless of how Calden has positioned them, because she needs the air on her chest. Her hat sits on a pillow. Her spine is twisted, her leg over his hip.

"Good god," she breathes, sweaty and replete, draping her arms over her head where she lies. He strokes her leg, tells her that he does fucking love it. She grins lazily, rolling her head to look at him, pillowed on feather down and her own soft hair.

"It was the hat, wasn't it?" she teases him, rolling back to him, sliding her arm around his middle and pressing their bodies together once more. "Don't think I haven't noticed the way you look at me when we're out riding at your ranch."

Avery leans in, kissing him with a tiny nip of her teeth on his lips. "Or is it the jewelry?" Her lips spread into a grin as she reaches for his hand, drawing it to her breast, a firm caress even before she lets him own his hand and the way he touches her there. "Or just my tits."

Calden

He is happy to have his hand appropriated and redirected to her breast. He is happy to shape his fingers and palm around that gloriously shaped part of her. Even after she lets go, his hand stays there, caressing her of his own accord, lifting and rubbing and squeezing ever so gently, ever so fondly.

"It may have been your tits," he admits with slow mock-gravity. "It may have also been the jewelry, and the hat. But we really shouldn't discount the boots, Miss Chase. I'm quite positive they had something to do with it all."

He rolls onto his back, then, disentangling from the delicious embrace of those long, athletic legs of hers at last. Though -- a moment later he reaches over to pick her legs up, one at a time, methodically and lazily pulling those aforementioned boots off before dropping them overboard. They thump to the floor beside the bed, the heavy heels thudding.

"Oh, and let's not forget the garter belt. Or the lingerie. Mmph," and he rolls toward her again, rising up on an elbow to -- oh, it's almost inevitable -- put his mouth on her tit. Put his hand on her inner thigh, stealing upward. "I really can't get enough of you."

Avery

Truthfully, they did not spend nearly enough time on her breasts tonight. They were so hinted at, so well-adorned by the shape of her clothes and choice of her jewelry. They were so prettily encased in that blue lace, just thin enough for him to spot the way her nipples hardened with arousal and contact. But they did not give her breasts nearly the attention they deserve.

Calden tries to make it up to her now. She makes it up to herself, drawing him to where she wants to be touched, and touched by him. She smirks as he takes over, admiring them with fondness and flickers of renewing lust. He mentions the boots moments before he decides to take them off of her, tossing them aside, leaving her in garter belt and stockings and all that stony jewelry. She lays on her back, knees bent, elbows bent, forearms flat, propping herself up.

She watches him as he comes back to her, arousing himself just by talking about all the things that aroused her, and putting his mouth on her.

Avery breathes in. She thinks of just letting him languish on her breasts, lick her as long as he likes, but then his hand moves. His hand strokes up her thigh. And she shudders a little, tipping her head back. "Oh," she sighs. "Oh, my."

Calden

This is dangerous. This is a slippery slope. They're just coming down from such an intense bout of lovemaking, and he

is rather decidedly

heading that way again.

She doesn't stop him, though. And he certainly is less than inclined to stop himself. She shudders; he's encouraged. Her head tips back and he shifts a little, crossing his lower leg over hers now, leaning over her body. Sometimes it's almost better like this. He can be more attentive when the first rush of his lust has swept out. He can be devilishly patient, and even playful,

opening his mouth to play with her nipple ever so delicately, with intermittent, careful flicks of his tongue. Pauses, now and then, to lick his lips. Watch her face, and the rise and fall of her breasts, before he returns to her.

--

At some point his mouth closes over her nipple again. At some point -- possibly simultaneous, or close enough not to matter -- his fingertips discover her cunt. The truth is they're both something of a mess, but Calden has never cared about that. His fingertips glide, slide, slip between her lips. His thumb seeks and finds her clit, and then his mouth,

his mouth starts a long meandering journey down her body, moving from one nipple to the other, to the underside of her breast, to her seventh rib and then her eleventh, to her navel,

until he's made his way down her body, his own nearly at right angles to her. His teeth catch a garter belt. He pulls it away from her thigh and lets it snap lightly back. His thumb strokes her clit, rubs it thoughtfully.

"Would you object terribly," he wants to know, "if I tried to make you come again with my mouth?"

Avery

One round of fucking flowing into another is hardly dangerous. All one has to do is look at the night they met. The very. First. Night. He could barely let her go. She had to take his hand out of her shirt because if she let him touch her breasts skin to skin while they kissed in his truck they would have gone again -- round five. Or was it six? Or was it seven. Avery can't even remember. She remembers him all but groaning as he caressed her, not sure how he could stand two weeks without these tits, and how he genuinely sounded a bit agonized at the thought. She certainly remembers him asking her, as he lowered himself between her legs, if it would gross her out

if he ate her out

after coming inside of her not too long before.

Well, perhaps he remembers that she wasn't grossed out. She wasn't even hesitant. She all but pulled his mouth down to her pussy. They had sex until she literally could not stand it anymore. On the couch. In the bed. In the shower. Against the wall. They hardly even slowed down.

So truth be told, having sex not very long since the last time, even a time as intense as that riding, does not deter Avery in the slightest. She has the energy for it. She has the desire for it. And she slinks back into her pillows as he all but crawls over her, licks her, teases her nipple with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. She squirms a little as he touches her, strokes her, makes her whimper. She gasps when his mouth touches the ever so sensitive underside of her breast. She opens her legs a little wider for him, even before she realizes he's making his way down her body to fuck her with his mouth.

Oh, by the time his mouth gets to her lowermost ribs she knows. He's going to kiss her pussy, and the very thought, the words flaring in her mind, make her moan aloud.

She doesn't answer other than that. She just arches a little, her legs open for his hand and perhaps now his tongue, her fingers reaching for his hair. Of course she doesn't object. She's moments from pushing his face against her cunt.

Calden

He doesn't mind, really, when she grabs him by the hair and pulls his mouth where she wants it. He doesn't mind either when she digs her nails into his back, or smacks her palm off his shoulder while she's coming, coming, coming under him

or over him, or on him, or all around him.

He's never minded any of that. He does not find it degrading, or threatening, or suspected for a moment that she would try to demean him somehow. They have an unspoken understanding there, and it is a precious one.

So: her fingers reach for his hair. He intercepts her hand, if only briefly: kissing her fingertips, sucking her thumb, kissing the palm of her hand as though in blessing before he rubs his cheek into her hand. It is a heavy, animalistic gesture of affection, and one that leads ever so naturally to her hand tracing back to his temple, into the thick waves of his hair.

By then her legs are open for him. And his mouth is hungry for her. He isn't shy about this, and never was.

--

It begins with a kiss. A press of his closed lips to her clit, ever so gently. Oh, he is patient this time. He takes his time, and it is slow, and it is lazy, and it is gentle. He kisses her cunt like he kisses her lips sometimes, affectionate and soft in the mornings with the sunlight pouring over them. He kisses her and he rubs his lips on her; rubs the tip of his nose on her. It seems minutes on end before he ever parts his lips,

parts his teeth,

traces her slit ever so exquisitely with his tongue. He is watching her as he tongues her, looking at her across the golden expanse of her skin; across the blue lace and the blue stones, looking for her blue eyes. Looking for the sweet furrow of her brow as the tip of his tongue winds and wanders. Looking for that inhale,

that shiver to her thighs, the lift of her breasts,

when he first closes his lips around her clit and sucks.

--

He takes his time. He doesn't touch himself, though inevitably he grows hard; inevitably he grows so aroused by her taste, her scent, her voice and body that it's hard not to rub himself against the bed. He holds back, though; a sort of tease and a game for himself, to see if he has the will for it, to pare away everything but the awareness of her, and her reactions, and his own pounding pulse.

His face is buried between her legs by the end. Her fingers are tight in his hair, or she's holding her breasts, or she's grasping at the covers. She can do whatever she likes, only he doesn't let her touch herself -- catches her hands and eases them away every time. Murmurs to her, every time:

let me. darling, let me.

Doesn't fuck her with his fingers either. Only his mouth this time, even if it takes longer. Because it takes longer. Because it's so much more intimate, and filthy, and thorough. Only his tongue, and his lips, and realistically: his face, his nose and his jaw, all of it, drenching and drenched and shameless, moaning with her, growling against her, his voice itself -- its vibration, its cadence -- an instrument for her pleasure.

Avery

It would please her so much if he stroked himself while he licked her like this. If he reached down and jerked off. If he rubbed himself against her cloud-soft sheets to get some relief. She loves seeing him pleasured, pleased, especially when it's because of her body. Those breasts he adores, that pussy he worships. The way he looks at her when she gets on top of him, clad in lingerie, hats, boots, precious and colorful stones.

Her hands reach into his hair, so thick and dark and rich. She rubs her fingertips on his scalp, rubs her cunt on his mouth, whimpers when he teases her. But they have both been pleasured already; they take their time now. And yet, all the same, when she gets closer she's begging him: his fingers. Please. His cock, even better. She reaches down to him and he thinks she wants to touch herself but she doesn't usually do that when he's between her legs. He moves her hand away; she pants out a breath and grabs his hand right back, drawing it up her thigh.

let me, he says, and she groans softly back, pleading: give me what I want.

Which is when he knows she isn't playing. That she wants, badly, painfully, for him to come nearer. To give her more. To be closer. Sometimes,

like this time,

that closeness itself is what tips her over the edge.

--

Afterward she tries to draw him up. She kisses his wet mouth, licks his wet fingers, whispers with her hands on his jaw that she wants him inside of her. Kisses his face, the corners of his eyes, murmuring as she reaches down for him:

Please, darling. Be inside me.

Be close to her.

Be with her.

--

Later still, she wraps around him. She has her arms and her legs wrapped around him, her head turned on his chest, her breath panting past his bicep. Her lingerie clings to her with sweat; her hat has since fallen to the floor with everything else. And she murmurs, tenderly, a bit sleepily:

"Will you take my jewelry off for me?"

Calden

Calden would never, ever deny her anything she truly wanted. He would never hurt her if he could help it. He would never turn their lovemaking into some sick power struggle. Though it is true that sometimes his actions don't live up to his intentions, those intentions are always pure.

So: he does not deny her. When he knows she isn't playing. When he knows she wants, and wants very much, for him to give her more,

he gives her more. He gives her himself, his fingers, his closeness, his adoration, his focus. He gives her everything she asks for,

and more.

--

Later,

and later still,

when they are calmed, when they have wound down to quietness. She is wrapped around him, her head on his chest the way she likes to lie in his arms. He is drifting, comforted and comfortable in the last lingering simmer of their loving.

His eyes open at her tender request. He smiles at the ceiling; she hears it as a faint huff of an exhale.

And then his fingers blunt but careful, seeking out the clasp of her necklace. The weight of those stones pools the entirety of it onto his chest as he releases it. He lifts it away, hanging it for a moment in the dimness. Then she hears the stones cascading onto the nightstand, like a rainstorm in miniature.

Her earrings, then. He's done this for her before, but only once, and this time he does it by touch. He is infinitely more careful, and it takes a long time, but eventually he removes one jasper,

and then the other,

and she can hear those stones clicking against one another in his palm as he ferries them over to the nightstand as well.

Then her garter belt; undoing the tiny ribbons that strap her stockings to the belt. Undoing the clasps that fastening to belt to her hips. He tosses it to the floor, and then she peels out of her stockings, and when those drift to the carpet as well she comes back to him, naked at last.

He draws and releases a deep breath. He is happy that she is bare and unadorned, except by her own blessings and beauty. He nuzzles her temple, his arm wrapping her closer.

"I've been thinking," he whispers into the darkness. "It's been... so nice coming home to you these past two weeks. I've said that I can't imagine moving south and leaving the ranch in the hands of a foreman, and that's still true. But I thought ... maybe twice a year. Maybe in the late winter when the calves are older and the cold is starting to break, and in the late summer when the breeding's done and hay-baling hasn't begun yet.

"Maybe I could do this again. Buy or rent a little studio here in Denver. Live down here, near you, for two or three weeks."

A small pause, uncertain. He thinks of the morning she asked him to please leave her. He thinks of the sofa she moved into her room, just in case she couldn't bear to be crowded anymore.

"Only if you want me to," he adds. "Only if you can stand it."

Avery

All she has ever had to do is ask. And oh, how he made and sometimes still makes her wary with his willingness to give, give, give. Whatever she desires. Whatever she might want from him. It makes her nervous more rarely now than it once did, though. They have been seeing each other for something like nine months now. She has grown accustomed to his generosity. At least moreso. And he has understood, for some time now, why that generosity frightens her.

She wants so badly not to abuse it. But that's Avery; she worries far more about her goodness than anyone else does.

--

That couch she bought, right after they discussed it, is on the other side of the room, facing the bed. It's quite soft, the upholstery moderately breathable, custom-fitted linens held in the drawers of an endtable. Whoever might sleep on that couch could fall asleep being able to see whoever is on the bed, but unable to touch them. They have not made use of it since it was bought. But it's there, blending into the decor, reminding both of them that even when she cannot bear to be very close to him, Avery can still permit his nearness. That he is unique in this way. That he is special. That he is all the more dear to her.

The truth is, there may be a time when even that much distance is not enough. When she will end up in a guest bedroom, the door locked, the room dark, her heart rate slowing and calming... despite how awful as she feels about it. But those times are rare. Thankfully, blessedly rare.

--

He holds her afterward -- after taking off her jewelry as requested, after helping her out of the last of her lingerie, after she sighs and curls up beside him, tucking herself under his arm and resting her head on his chest, her hand over his heart. She drowses; he strokes her, nuzzles her, and quietly tells her that he's been thinking.

Avery doesn't tense up in his arms or flinch away. She strokes his chest idly, thoughtlessly. Once or twice a year. Maybe late winter, late summer, perhaps this time of year when the stock show is in town. Just a few weeks at a time, and he would even have his own place to go to instead of a hotel,

to live near her.

She closes her eyes. Her hand slows, and then smooths around him, her arm following, wrapping around his chest, squeezing him tightly to her. She doesn't relent. She buries her face in his skin, exhaling heavily.

"I think I would like that," Avery whispers. "Very much."

Calden

When he came home

-- and strange, isn't it, how he's started to think of it as such. Coming home to her. Coming here to her penthouse, which is neither his house up on the ranch nor her house that she shares with her family but a home that is distinctly, unmistakably hers. Theirs? --

that day and found the couch in her bedroom, he ached. Not because it was a reminder of how sometimes she could not bear his touch, but because it was a reminder that he was unique in the nearness he is permitted. He is permitted to be in her presence, even when she couldn't bear touch. He is permitted a key to her most private residence, where even her brother and her father don't live.

He is permitted. He is allowed. He is privileged, and it is an extraordinary act of courage that allows her to privilege him so.

--

He aches now, too, as she wraps her arm tightly around him. As she rubs her face against his chest the way she does sometimes, as though she wanted, and perhaps even needed, the very closeness that she sometimes cannot stand. His nearness, his warmth and his scent: his body sharing her bed, his presence close to hers.

His arm tightens around her too. He reaches out with his other hand, finds the edge of the comforter or the bedspread or -- something, something soft and meant to cover and protect. He flicks it over the two of them, that lazy cocooning they sometimes indulge in when neither wants to move enough to shower, to brush their teeth, to get under the covers properly.

They might still do all those things. But right now, and for now, he covers them like this. He holds her tightly as she holds him.

"Me too," he whispers.

rodeo.

Calden White

They've seen each other quite a bit the last two weeks. The National Western Stock Show has brought Calden down from the far northern reaches of the state. He has a hotel room near the show grounds, but he's spent more than one night at Avery's penthouse. Arriving sometime after dark, more often than not unshaven and smelling of stock; taking his boots off at the door and knocking the heels together to shake dirt off the toes.

Wrapping his arm around her waist. Kissing her, smiling, sometimes shuffling with her step by step until her back was to a wall, or he was near a surface. At least once stripping down right there in the entryway, laughing, lifting her up, that laughter shedding into gasps and moans.

More often though: those kisses tapering off, her hands pushing him playfully away. Go shower. And so he did, running up the stairs two or three at a time, washing dust and dirt and animal-stink out of his hair, off his skin. Shaving with that kit she stashes away for him, changing into clean clothes. Coming back downstairs,

sharing dinner and wine,

talking animatedly about steers and lineages and hybrids until he notices her attention wandering; until he laughs, apologizing, and rises from the table to take her upstairs,

and to bed.

--

The last two days of the Stock Show, now. Saturday. The business of the show all concluded, sales finalized, cattle shown and ranked and prized. Rodeos, now. Magic shows. Families, tourists, curious neighbors. Calden mentioned it to Avery the night before: we should go to the rodeo.

And so:

and so, 7:35pm, he's waiting in the parking lot with her. Stetson and boots and vest and sherpa-lined coat; collar up against the wind, standing under a streetlight where she can see him. He breaks into a smile when he spots her. She's hard to miss.

Avery Chase

And before these past two weeks, they have not seen enough of each other. They already had a semi-long-distance relationship, and sometimes between their respective responsibilities, they might go two weeks at a time or more with anything more than phone calls and Skype. So when Calden told Avery that he would be in town, essentially nonstop, for a whole fortnight, she was so excited that she trembled slightly, sounding rather overcome with pleasure that all but brought tears to her eyes.

She does adore him. And he is so very, very dear to her.

--

A part of Avery wants to tell Calden not to reserve the hotel room near the grounds. Tell him no, he'll stay with her, don't be silly. Another part of her, just as loving, is grateful to him for keeping it. Most of the hotels anywhere near the grounds are sold out, and have been for some time for this event. And she knows there may be nights when she can't bear it: the closeness, the company. There may be nights when he has beers with colleagues and new friends and needs to stay somewhere within a safe distance, too.

But all the same, most nights he makes his way back to her. He smells like the grounds, the stockyards, the events, the beasts he is selling, showing, buying. She has come to the stock show a couple of times, once to wander around with her father and brother, taking in the sights as though it were a fair, which in some ways it is, watching shows and buying souvenirs. She went to dinner one of those evenings with Calden and some of those colleagues, people in the industry, before retiring to his hotel with him to,

well,

strip each other of denim and flannel and make love in the shower, kissing under the streaming water. Her arms looped around his neck, resting on those broad shoulders. Her legs wrapped around his waist, thighs against his lean hips. Her breasts against his chest. His hands beneath her ass. Their mouths tasting each other, slowly.

--

But he is busy at the stock show; he's not there as a tourist. And she is busy, too, with patrols and the killing of creatures large and small. They see each other more in the evenings, Calden coming over to her penthouse and wrapping her up his arms. He smells ridiculous, she tells him once, when he has her almost bent over backwards against the table in the breakfast nook, shedding his shirt while she unbuckles his belt and lifts her hips so he can work her panties off her legs. They laugh. He gasps when she touches him; she moans softly when he presses into her, slowly, needfully.

Yes, sometimes he has to shower first. But not really because Avery bats at him, shoves him away. She seems to miss him so badly, even though they're seeing each other so much right now. She didn't mind the way he smelled the night they met, when he'd just finished butchering an elk. She didn't mind him at all. Sometimes he can't stand his own stink, or it's freezing outside and he wants to warm up, and sometimes she teases him and sometimes she's not there yet but she's on her way,

and oh yes. We forgot to mention:

the first night he was down in Denver for the show, Avery gave him a key to her penthouse. Quietly, with somewhat aching tenderness and perhaps even a touch of insecurity, fear of rejection, fear of it being Too Big Of A Deal somehow, she said she thought it might make things easier while he's in town. Hoping that without coming right out and saying it, he would understand if one or two of these nights, she needs him to not use that key.

They haven't had a night like that.

She has discovered that she feels thrilled, excited to the point of her heart pounding in her chest, to come back to the penthouse and see his boots by the door, hear him showering upstairs. She has greeted him by laying herself out on her bed in her undergarments, waiting for him to come out with a towel around his waist.

--

They go out to a late movie one night rather than staying in. They read in her library, Avery curled up with her feet on the cushions and her shoulderblades against his side and his arm around her, until they're too sleepy to do anything but go upstairs and crawl into bed together. They make dinner together. A couple of nights, she cannot meet him. She has to stay at Cold Crescent, or has an event to go to with her father or on her father's behalf.

All the same, though, it is a wonderful, wonderful two weeks. She can't quite think of a time she has felt more blissful than when she does things like doze off against his shoulder while sitting on the couch, listening to him blather about steers. Or when she has felt more ecstasy, than when he is making himself late for a morning auction because it was dawn, and she was beautiful and golden and tangled up with him in the sheets and they just... couldn't resist.

Let's be honest: that happened more than once.

--

Tonight they are going on A Date, though. He's coming to her penthouse not to end his day there with her, but to pick her up and take her back to the stock show grounds. She is dressed for a date, in fact. But a rodeo date.

Her skirt is just above ankle-length and drapes straight, but clearly would spin out into wide twirl. It is cream-colored and delicately detailed, finer than you would guess if you didn't know her. Her top has a deep v-neck and capped sleeves, though he can't see them right now; the chocolate-colored fabric wraps around her torso; where it meets her skirt is hidden by a wide belt of leather and turquoise. Her necklace is turquoise as well, a strand of them that begin to layer down her breastbone, plunging toward her décolletage. Her earrings are droplets of smooth red jasper; the thick cuff bracelet she wears holds both turquoise and jasper. Her boots are deep brown, the detailing a pale, ghostly blue, seen just enough beneath her skirt's hem. She wears a denim shirt over her top, loose and open, tied at her waist. Her hat and her bag are both distressed brown leather, her lipstick is an unapologetic red, and her hair is in two braids, tied with lace ribbons that look like they might have very well been cut from her dress.

For the effect, she has left her own sherpa coat over her arm. Coming out to him, she pauses to give a twirl, her skirt spinning out, showing her boots in full, the bare skin of her legs. She's beaming at him, letting the skirt waft and fall back into place as she closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his neck, tipping her head back so the brim of her hat doesn't poke him in the face. She is grinning. Oh, that smile.

"Do I look all right, darling? Tell me I look wonderful."

Calden White

It meant something when she gave him that key. Just as it meant something when he gave her a key, even though he gave it to her almost casually, as though it was no big deal. That's just how he is, though. That's how he's offered her everything -- meat off the bone, a fire in the hearth, the hospitality of his home, the warmth of his body and his heart -- without fanfare or reservation or, really, fear of abuse or rejection.

It is a little different, the way she gives him her key. There is a touch of insecurity there. There is fear of rejection, and there is fear that it is too big a deal. Too big a step. That it might mean too much, or more: that he might not be ready for what it means. There is fear, but oh, she is Avery, and she is brave, and so:

the key is given, and the key is accepted gladly and wholeheartedly, and neither of them speak of it overmuch but that night, that very first night of that fortnight, he shared her bed and held her so close; held her as though her heart were a fragile thing, once-broken and only recently mended, precious and worthy of protection.

--

And it's true. Her heart is precious to him, and worthy of protection. The two weeks he spends with her are blissful, and ecstatic, and wonderful. He loves coming out of her shower to find her waiting for him. He loves unlocking her door as though he has some right to her home to find her already there. He loves, almost as much, getting there first -- having the freedom and the quiet to explore her library or toss a simple dinner together while his phone chimes with her texts,

be there in 30almost there!i'm downstairs and coming up

and then the sound of her key in that lock.

Two weeks. Longer than they've ever spent together, insofar as they've spent the two weeks together. The truth is she probably couldn't have borne it if he truly was with her day and night, hour after hour, minute after minute. The truth is she needs those excursions on Sept business, and she needs him to work. But god, it's been a sweet thing, to go to bed every night knowing he'll see her again the next day. It's been a sweet thing, her golden head on his shoulder as he blathers about cattle; her golden body tangled in the sheets with him as he wakes.

--

It's the second-to-last day now. He'll stay the night tonight, and perhaps tomorrow -- but then it's back to the north, back to the ranch. He realizes, waiting at the sidewalk for his lady to reveal herself, that he's going to miss her. He's going to miss this. He realizes -- blind thing that he is, only in retrospect -- how precious these two weeks have been.

So: she appears. He sees her through the glass doors, and they are already smiling at each other. They are already beaming, and her smile is so infectious; it shines, it lights up the night. He almost expects showers of sunbeams to cascade around her as she bursts through those doors, twirls on the snow-wet sidewalk. It's been an unseasonably warm weekend, though rainy: it gives her excuse to bare her legs, to wear a skirt light enough to spin out like that.

Then she's there, and he's there, and she's looping her arms around his neck. He's wrapping his much larger arms around her waist, and they are both wearing cowboy hats and leather belts and denim and boots, and since she's been so kind to tilt her head back, he is so chivalrous as to remove his hat

so as to lean down and kiss her softly, tenderly, slowly on the mouth.

That serves as her answer for some time. Only when he draws away does he smile at her. "You look like sunshine and summertime," he says, and oh, he is a son of Stag, isn't he? "You look absolutely radiant, and I am cataclysmically in love with you."

Avery Chase

Avery pointedly, deeply does not want to think about Calden going back up north, not seeing him for another two weeks or longer if she can't spare the time to go up to visit him, if he can't spare the time, if the weather isn't amenable to the long travel. She is, in fact, refusing to think about it at all, cowardly though that may be.

She kisses him, rather gleefully, her lipstick fine enough that it doesn't dare leave so much as a smudge on Calden's mouth. Even though they kiss long and sweet, standing there on her sidewalk in their Western wear. She melts into that kiss. Oh, he's lovely, she thinks, sighing softly as their mouths part, the way one might after a long cool drink on a long hot day.

Her eyes open, revealing their bright, summer-sky clarity that is all the more rich up close.

His answer makes her smile again, a slow spreading grin that pinks her cheeks. She gives her nose the tiniest wrinkle of delight to hear him call her radiant, to hear him describe his love as cataclysmic.

"Cataclysmically," she repeats to him, laughingly, kissing him once more, quickly, before she begins to slide away, to put her coat on over her pretty rodeo outfit, because even though she knows the luxury of his truck, she loves this coat. It's the same one she keeps up at his ranch, the one he bought for her or the one she bought for herself, she doesn't really recall, the one she wears out when she 'goes to work' with him. It is warm and smells of familiar things, beloved things, and she wants to walk into the stock show coliseum beside him wearing it.

She comes back to him, curling up against his chest briefly, her hat tipping askew a bit because of the way she snuggles up to him. "Oh my darling, my love," she murmurs, with utter sincerity of affection, smiling to herself. "Let's go eat every deep-fried thing we can find."

Calden White

It doesn't seem to matter that they've seen each other almost every day for a fortnight. Calden's heart is still beating fast to kiss Avery like this. To hold her like this, her hat askew, her arms wrapped tight around his chest. My darling, my love, she calls him, and he wonders if she can feel his pulse skipping its proverbial beat. His arms wrap just as tight around her shoulders. He kisses her golden hair,

or tries, but mostly kisses the top of her hat instead,

and then he's laughing anyway, open and unrestrained, throwing back his head. "Careful, Miss Chase," he admonishes, gently untangling and leading her to his truck where, of course, he hands her up into the passenger's seat, "they've deep-fried everything there. Pickles, Snickers bars, pizza, Oreos -- and some of them are not for the uninitiated."

He shuts the door for her, then. Times himself to duck into his side of the cab during a lull in the traffic, swinging himself up with a tug on what is most colloquially termed the oh-shit bar. As he thumps his door shut, he reaches across the center divide again, as though even those few seconds apart have made him miss her. He smiles at her a moment, mute, saying nothing and needing to say nothing.

Then he turns the key in the ignition. And they are off to the fairgrounds.

Avery Chase

Avery's eyes actually widen a bit. "Why would you --"

deep-frying a pickle she can actually understand. Candy bars, pizza, and Oreos she cannot. But she will discover that they can deep fry cakes, even cheesecakes. You can deep-fry Kool-Aid. And once she gets over that shock, she may indeed try all of it. Buy every paper cone and basket and plate she can, putting away more food than anyone in the vicinity will believe she can manage.

These people have no idea how much simple caloric energy it takes to shift from one form to another. How the only reason her body and spirit can manage it at all is her furious, ever-burning rage. So yes: she will try deep-fried everything, because the stock show comes but once a year, and though it is coming to a close, she is riding the high of having her darling, her love, her lover in her company, in her arms, in her bed for a whole two weeks. She will say that deep-frying any food that has already been deep-fried in its original cooking is the pinnacle achievement of the culinary genre, and she will do so with a beaming smile, holding some sort of food on some sort of stick and posing for a photograph that Calden wants to take of her, braids and hat and all.

That will be then. Right now, she is settling herself in the passenger seat of his truck, slipping into her seatbelt because it's the law more than because it is a necessity, and grinning at him when he reaches over to her. Her hand, paler and softer and more manicured than his, slides over the backs of his knuckles. It squeezes. She draws his hand up to her mouth, kissing his fingertips, and releases him so he can drive.

Calden White

It's a short drive to the stock show -- ten minutes on local streets, the last half of that drive along the Platte River, on whose banks the showgrounds are located. Traffic does get thicker as they go along, though, until the sidewalks are crowded with families in western gear, some more Halloweenish than others.

They don't park in the huge free lots, most of them crammed with cars except at the farthest fringes. They park in the members' lot, a stone's throw from the coliseum, Calden holding a badge up to his window as they pass the tollbooth. Because of course he's a member. Then he's pulling into a space and shutting the engine off, and she's opening her door, and he's getting out. He takes her hand as her feet touch the ground, fitting his hat to his head with the free hand. He smiles at her. Because of course he does.

They stroll riverward along 47th Avenue. Any other time of year and this complex would be drab and unexciting: a collection of industrial warehouse-like buildings by a freeway. Right now, though, banners line the streets; a steady flow of foot traffic streams toward the Stock Show. When the wind blows out of the northwest, the rich, earthy stink of several hundred head of cattle is unmistakable on the air.

His hand still holding hers, Calden points some of the buildings out. There on their left, housed in a long green-and-white corrugated-steel and concrete building is the main events center. The glass doors toward the west end of the building are plastered with a series of lifesized photos of some rodeo star or other. A paddock and a horse barn are attached. There was a draft horse expo earlier, he tells her, and if she's interested maybe they can go by the stables later to see if any of the show horses are still around. Behind the horse barn are the stockyards where Calden spent much of the past two weeks showing, trading, selling, buying.

"I picked up a new bull," he mentions, adding, "No one killed the last one, but he died of old age before the winter and my herd was down one for a while."

They come to a gate. CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC, blares a sign. Another: EXHIBITORS ONLY. It's with no small amount of pride, and perhaps just a touch of shyness, that Calden again badges them in.

Past that gate, they take a left on Humboldt. Another enormous, drab building there, this one in an unexciting shade of tan -- but rather interestingly and hilariously decorated with various, somewhat mismatched bronze reliefs of sheepherds and shepherds, as well as black silhouettes of the same. That's the expo hall, Calden explains.

And beyond it: a large white tent, from which all manner of foodlike scents drift. They make a stop there; they load up on deep-fried everythings and corndogs and cotton candy; end up having to ask for a large plastic bag to contain the thoroughly unhealthy cornucopia they've accrued.

It's just a short trip through an underpass, then, before they reach the grandly named Denver Coliseum. It, like all the rest of the National Western Complex, is an unassuming building. Perhaps once upon a time it was some sort of hangar. It has the characteristic inverted half-pipe shape. Tonight, though, the crowds, the posters, the megawatt-amplified southern rock very nearly thumping the roof off the structure have transformed it into something altogether different: a coliseum, an events arena, a rodeo show.

Calden hands their admission to a boy in a fancily embroidered shirt and fringed chaps. Their ticket stubs are handed back and they're waved in, Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynyrd becoming downright deafening as they emerge into the enclosed spaces and the hot floodlights. Hawkers up and down the aisles selling overpriced sodas and junk food; people shouting conversation at each other. A trio of grinning blond kids dashes by, prompting a last-minute sidestep by Calden, only to be caught by an irate mother. Do that again and we're turning around and going home! she threatens, and clearly she's a woman of her word because the tykes chorus their sorries and settle down.

His hand firm on hers -- as though he really thought she might get lost in the crowd otherwise, or as though he just loves holding her hand -- Calden grins over his shoulder at Avery. "We're this way," he calls, and they have to weave single-file through the thick of it, past families and young couples and solitary, grizzled old cowboys standing together muttering about when rodeos weren't such a damn rodeo,

all the way to their ringside seats, front and center.

"It's too bad Ian got eliminated yesterday," Calden leans over to all but yell in Avery's ear, "or he would've been wrestling steers tonight."

Avery Chase

Avery has been here a few times since the stock show began, but Calden so enjoys pointing things out to her that she smiles, holding his hand as they walk from the member lot to the complex of buildings.

There is noise enough to disguise a slight growl from her at the smell of all that meat, all that prey, all gathered together. It's a heady scent for her, inspirational and alluring and repulsive and frightening in many ways. There is a thrilling, thrilled part of her that wants to let loose. Rip through the clothing, the lace, the denim, the leather, dive into the herds, slaughter with fang and claw, feast, sup herself drunk on hot, fresh blood.

Avery licks her lips. And her mouth waters. She sighs, and smiles, and calls on a gift that will tell all these pretty domesticated creatures that she is not to be feared. Horse, goat, bovine, dog -- they can believe she is safe. She is not going to eat them.

--

"Your poor herd," Avery says mildly, "all those poor girls not getting their needs met in a timely fashion."

She grins at him to the side, her fingers interlaced with his as they walk through all these checkpoints JUST FOR EXHIBITORS. MEMBERS ONLY. Her fingers stroke his fingers. She never tries to unlodge their hands, but not because she thinks she'll get lost. Simply because, well: she adores him. She adores his rough, warm hands and walking at his side.

--

Later still, they walk into a noisy, crowded, boisterous 'coliseum'. Avery is gleeful, trotting after him. This is what western women were doing when they shortened the hemlines of their skirts: nothing to hoist up as she walks, nothing to lift out of the muck. She is eating a fried cheesecake on a stick that is also a bit messy with fudge topping. The onslaught of sugar and fat that Avery is feeding herself tonight has certainly taken the edge off of the lust for meat, though there is plenty of meat-on-a-stick that she's been chewing on, as well.

They find their seats, and she plops into one, kicking up her booted feet a bit. "Ian's your... cousin, yes?" she confirms. "Oh, I'm sure he did his best. Next year he'll surely get to the finals."

Calden White

Calden smiles, wry and a little lopsided, at her booted feet propping up on the railing in front of them. They are quite literally right by the action: outside that railing and a mere yard or so down was the soft, impact-cushioning dirt that lines the floor of the coliseum. He reaches over, quite unable to keep his hands off her, rubs his hand down her shin and gives her leather-clad ankle a playful squeeze.

"He is," he confirms. "The one that favors white hats. And he did do his best. He did really well, actually. Whether or not he makes it to the finals next year, I think he's done his part-time dream justice. And," Calden adds with a sidelong smirk, "he's also got accrued enough snapshots of himself as a rodeo cowboy to brag about for years. So I think he's pretty happy with the way it turned out."

He leans down, then. The plastic bag rustles: he digs out a can of coke and a deep-fried something-insane, crunching into it as the lights overhead flare and dim -- flare and dim -- flare a third time, and go dark.

The anticipation in the stadium reaches fever pitch. Air horns blast. Kids are screaming in delight. The music overhead cuts out and the announcer booms: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Next to Avery, Calden leans back in his seat, kicking his heels up himself, reaching over to take her hand in his. Again.

Also: he offers her a deep-fried apple.

Avery Chase

"Eeee!"

She actually says it. When the lights are signalling the imminent insanity. She pops her feet down from the railing and stamps them on the floor along with everyone else. She claps. She hollers. She has a grand time, all told, excitedly watching each new rider, each new wrestler, laughing and shrieking and applauding and yelling, stomping sometimes. She does not want a deep-fried apple, though, that was one of the things she tried that did not do it for her.

More cakes, cookies, and so forth dipped in batter and deep-fried do make it into her mouth. She licks strawberry pop-tart filling off her lip. At one point she vanishes, comes back with a funnel cake dusted in powdered sugar, drizzled with butterscotch, sprinkled with bits of bacon and adorned by a ring of chocolate-covered strawberries.

Avery basically eats the entire night, one thing or another, until it's near the end and she is full and she is drowsing against Calden's side, saying a moderate

"Whooo," her voice like an evening wind, her smile lazy. She smells like pastries.

Calden White

The rodeo is a peculiar sport: relatively long lulls during which each new contestant is introduced in great detail followed by bursts of intermittent, barely-controlled chaos. There's a good amount of violence in it -- or perhaps the better term is simply kinetic energy. Hooves flying, clods of dirt churned up, dust billowing, horses whinnying, cattle lowing, riders shouting. Thunderous applause and roaring cheers, stomping feet, an ovation that nearly shakes the roof apart when a favorite turns in a good performance; a groan that echoes around the entire stadium when a beloved star falls early.

If this is Avery's first rodeo, the events must seem downright ridiculous at times. There are the staples that everyone expects to see, of course: the bucking broncos, the bullriders, the steer wrestling, the roping. Then there are the more bewildering, and ofttimes hilarious events: barrel racing, which appears to the bastard offspring of dirt biking and the Kentucky Derby. Mutton bustin', which seems to be the junior version of bullriding, only with sheep. And something billed as freestyle bullfighting,

which turns out not to involve blood or death or even much fighting at all, but plenty of acrobatics and leaps and dodges and --

barrels. Big, brightly painted, absurd barrels.

Calden explains, of course, as they go through the events. He lays out the rules -- the hand that must be in the air, the number of seconds a rider has to stay atop, the number of barrels that must be rounded, points on or points off for subtleties of form. He explains the 'bullfighting', too, and its origins in rodeo clowning rather than Roman gladiatorial events. He points out how in some way, shape or form, every one of the rodeo events -- no matter how flashy, absurd or dangerous -- derives from some practical aspect of ranch work, past or present.

--

An hour and a half into the show, the competition's over for the night. The finals are tomorrow, but most the crowd gathered are actually here for entertainment. And so the glaring white lights of the arena dim. Colorful spotlights come on. Music -- an original soundtrack of fiddles and steel guitars and harmonicas and banjos and drums -- blares through the arena as the announcer introduces THE WESTERNAIRES!

Kids bored by the stop-and-go action of competitive rodeoing wake up. The lines at the bathrooms drop off. Applause follows the performers through precision mounted drills and equestrian acrobatics; Old West reenactments and dressage exhibitions; horseback derring-do and general flashiness.

There's a quiet moment near the end. A breathtakingly graceful routine with a single acrobat on two white horses, chased by a spotlight across an otherwise darkened arena.

This is when Avery leans against Calden's side. This is when his arm weighs heaviest and warmest around her, his lips brushing the top of her head as their eyes follow the show.

--

The show culminates, naturally, in an ultra-patriotic ride around the roaring stadium -- the riders outfitted in starred shirts and striped pants, flags all-flutter, a rock arrangement of America the Beautiful blasting from the loudspeakers. By the time the showriders thunder out of the coliseum, the stands are all-aflutter too with tiny flags and pennants.

Calden applauds. He stomps his feet, he cheers, he whistles with his sugardusted fingers in his mouth.

Avery Chase

Sometimes, she shushes him. When his explanations interfere with the spectacle, perhaps, but for the most part, she listens while she watches, her ears attuned to him while her eyes stay fixed on the arena. It makes her blood rush at points; sometimes she laughs to dispel that tension. She picks up on the energy, the violence and near-violence and pageantry of it, and it is to her,

vulgarly,

a bit like a peep show is. It arouses that side of her that thirsts for blood and carnage, that is made to destroy, the part of her that would most easily drag her to the Wyrm if not for the blessings of Gaia, Luna, and Falcon. I teases her. So she laughs, the way people might laugh when they are trying not to acknowledge sexual tension. Sometimes her laughter is inappropriate. Sometimes her shushing of Calden is a bit sharp as her eyes narrow on a longhorn, watch a sharpened hoof dive hard into the dirt. She is relieved when there are no broken necks, no gored riders, nothing so extreme. She is relieved and she is also, in a thin sliver of her self, disappointed and frustrated.

Later on she leans back against him, holds his hand, and tucks herself under his arm. The cadence of his voice settles her somewhat. Brings her to the here and now, to this body, to this name, these relationships that are not masquerades but are only facets. She smiles when the Westernaires come out. They are just lovely, really. Acrobats who are not pretending at hard ranch work or hinting at bloody combat. The woman flipping between the backs of two horses who run apace of each other, as though as one, and she is one with them. They do not falter. There is something there, which she recalls from the history-lost version of this city, of the symbosis of horses and humankind.

Still she gasps, just like the children do.

--

Avery cheers right along with him, beaming, until some of the dust has settled and the lights have come on and an announcer is telling them when the finals will be and who is in them and don't-forget-tos and so forth.

She loops her arms around his waist and hugs him, tucking her head to his chest.

"What," she says firmly, "a spectacle."

Calden White

They sat so close to the action that sometimes a rider thundering by was level with them, eye-to-eye with them: close enough that they could see the sweat, the dirt, the fierce concentration and the grimaces of effort otherwise all-but-lost beneath the glitter and the showbiz smiles. Now, as the lights come on, as the crowd begins to make their slow way toward the exits, they at least have the decency to rest their feet on the ground so that their neighbors can shuffle out. Neither of them budge yet, though.

She hugs him around the waist. He puts his arm around her shoulders and hugs her back, reminded loosely of the night he took her to a blues club, ordered her the wrong drink. Put your arm around my shoulders, she'd said, so direct and bold and affectionate. He always did love that about her.

"I haven't been to a rodeo in a long time," he confesses. "Most years I just come to the stock show for business."

Avery Chase

"Yes," she says, affecting a childish version of an old man's voice, her brow deeply furrowed and her hands thumping gently on her chest. "All business. Buy that bull, sell a cow or twenty." She pretends gruffness, roughness, very poorly.

Then grins, her own voice returning. "Not even a funnel cake for the big rancher."

Calden White

Calden snorts; it sounds suspiciously like laughter. "Well. Maybe one funnel cake. I can't say I love those things as much as you do."

The seats around them are empty now. The exits are still clogged, though starting to move along. Calden stretches his arms out to either side, and then overhead. "Want to go?"

Avery Chase

Her eyes brighten. "Everything is so terrible for you!" she says. "It's astounding -- there's not one thing to be found here that could be called healthy fare. In Colorado, no less. But every last morsel is the most crude approximation of what one imagines decadence to be if one has never tasted decadence. Simply remarkable," she glees, this woman who said she was going to eat deep-fried everything and, as usual, was true to her word.

"Yes," Avery tells him, certain, but smiling. "Let's go."

Calden White

If one has never tasted decadence, she says, and he

leans over and kisses her.

By now she must be growing at least somewhat accustomed to his habit of doing this. Of interrupting sentences, conversations, strolls, shopping trips, restaurant meals, movies, theater performances, phone conversations with her friends back east, even -- simply to touch her elbow with his hand, or her face. Simply to kiss that laughing wide mouth of hers for second after second; for minutes on end sometimes.

When he draws away, he's smiling. "I have most certainly tasted decadence," he says, and it's such a line. One he delivers with a second, softer kiss.

Then they agree to go. And he stands, and he holds his hand out to her.

Avery Chase

It's such a line that she laughs to the point of snorting, a tiny sound in the back of her nose. "I am not decadent," she chastises him, swishing her skirt as she rises, tossing her braids back behind her shoulders. "I'm luxurious."

Avery has ignored his offered hand, playfully, sashaying toward the end of the aisle. "There is a difference, Mr. White."

Calden White

Well then: he simply catches up before the end of the aisle and wraps his arms around her waist instead, kissing her gruffly and mmph-grr-growlingly on the neck.

"And what, pray tell, O Lady Chase," he has yet to let her go, mind, "is the difference?"

Avery Chase

She bats at him, swatting his hands around her, swaying away from his rough smooching. She sways right back into him, into those encircling arms, hands covering his to keep them where they are. "If you don't know," she tells him archly, "then I don't suppose you would understand the distinction. I forgive you," she adds, the very soul of compassion, stroking his knuckles, "for you are a rough thing who cannot help his ignorance."

Avery takes his hand from her waist, does a very small turn that twirls her skirt only a little, and smiles at him when she faces him again. "Come on," she tells him. "Come home with me. I want to show you how much I've learned about ranching."

Calden White

"What an icon of generosity you are," he murmurs,

and she turns, and his hands glide over her turning waist, and then he reels her in closer again. Steps into her until his hands hold her against his body; until he's smiling down his nose at her because at this range, bending his head will knock their hats together.

"What a paragon of charity."

He can be -- he must be forgiven for bending to her again, then. Thumbing the brim of his hat up a little to allow the kiss, which by necessity is a slanting, warm thing. His mouth is aslant afterward too, smiling warm and just a touch sly.

"Oh dear," he says, mock-concerned. "I can't imagine what skills you might be driven to demonstrate."

Avery Chase

The way Calden says it, icon of generosity and paragon of charity may as well be eroticisms, vulgar words whispered in her ear to make her wet between the legs. And Avery looks up at him from under the brim of her hat, taking a breath as he holds her close to him again, smiling that smile, calling her pretty names, kissing her,

teasing her a bit, when he's done.

Avery just smirks at him. "Then you should try harder."

Calden White

This time it's just an mmph. There isn't even a growl underneath it, and he's not nomfing-biting-kissing her. He's not thumbing his hat back. He's not doing anything at all but taking his hat off, and pushing hers off, and kissing her

quite passionately

there by the ringside, surrounded by empty seats, with the brilliant stadium lighting cascading down on them.

--

Truth be told he sort of forgets himself for a moment. It takes a vaguely embarrassed 'scuse us from another rodeo-goer trapped behind them to get Calden to stop kissing Avery, and look up, and look around, and step aside. There's a faint flush to his cheeks; equal parts embarrassment and heat. Pardon me, he says, his hand taking Avery's. They stand aside as a father, a mother, a preteen boy and his just-past-toddlerhood sister go shuffling past. The little girl stares up at them openly, chocolate smudged on her cheeks, a piece of Hershey's clutched in a grubby little hand.

And Calden slips his arm around Avery's waist. He puts his hat back on. He waits for the family to pass, and then he kisses her behind the ear.

"Take me home, Miss Chase." And he laughs, low and warm, "Before I make a spectacle of us here."