They've seen each other quite a bit recently, Calden and Avery: while she came up to see the puppies, while he house-hunted, while she showed him the home she had surreptitiously prepared for him, while he stayed in town a few extra days to work with his investment brokers and the real estate people to shift funds, set dates.
They have lunch together often. Dinner. Sleep together in her bed, in her terraced penthouse, most every night. And despite all that -- he rents a hotel room. Keeps it there, available, as a backup. A release valve for her tension. A safety net, almost, for her sanity.
The week ends; the weekend comes. Saturday he's away from her almost the entire day. Ian drives this week's cattle down, and the men go to the slaughterhouse together. It's a strange and routine and solemn endpoint to all the thought and care and worry that goes into Calden's cattle. A quick, humane end, but an abrupt and early end nonetheless.
Then, Sunday.
Then, his birthday.
He meets her at her house. Perhaps the one she shares with her family; perhaps the one she keeps for herself. He drives there, but he parks and goes to her door. He's the one turning thirty-six, but she's the one that gets flowers: a bouquet of mixed roses and wildflowers, colorful, happy.
The doorbell rings. Calden steps back and awaits his lady.
Avery ChaseThey have lunch together often. Dinner. There are nights she is not home, there are mornings he leaves and she is still asleep. She could get used to this. She is getting used to this. Sometimes she thinks that and she feels elated, euphoric, kissing his face over and over when he comes back from his hotel or a meeting or when she walks in after a patrol. Sometimes she is anxious, namelessly and terrifyingly anxious, and she does not know if she wants to be held or wants him to go away. She does not want him to sleep in his hotel room; she does not want him to sleep on the couch in her bedroom. But on one morning when he wakes up, she's out on the terrace, sleeping on the cabana bed in lupus under the night air, thumping her tail occasionally in her sleep.
She tells him: I just wanted to be outside. I didn't want to wake you. Which are both the truth, as is the unspoken third thing: I don't want to try and talk about it.
The week ends; the weekend comes. Saturday she is at the sept most of the day. He does his work, heartrending and pragmatic and terrible and necessary and mundane, all at once. She has never once thought of going with him on one of these days, even out of curiosity. It isn't fear; it's the knowledge of what could very well happen if she passes the butchers and smells all that blood, all that still-warm meat. Maybe, she thinks, if she was only in the room where the short, sharp blow to a specific spot takes the life from the cattle. Maybe, but she doubts it. A factory of death and food means too much to her, instinctively. She is at once repelled and excited; she feels her rage stir at the thought for multiple reasons, and she is reasonably sure she would lose all reason in a place like that.
Monday is his birthday. Monday he comes to her family's house, where he is on the list at the front gate and where he is greeted outside by Colin, standing outside the front door awaiting him to open the door and escort him inside. Somewhere in the house there is a throng of young men: you can almost smell them (Avery can) but you can certainly hear them, no matter how fine or how sound-proof the home. They are somewhere in there, playing pool and video games, hollering and eating and yelling at each other and, in most cases, trying to find excuses to catch a glimpse of their friend's elder sister.
They do glimpse her, twisting heads around from inside some lounge or another, as she walks down the hall to greet her date. Her skirt is peacock blue, swishing and flirting around her thighs as she walks. Her heels are cement colored, gleaming patent above moderate platforms in contrasting black. Her top has little cap-sleeves that look like tulip petals over her shoulders, a prim and sharply-pointed collar, and little black polka-dots on the bright white field. It is thin enough that when she comes to him, hair pulled back and ponytail curled and lips a deep red, he can feel her body heat through the silk. She has a little red purse on a long chain slung over her shoulder, hanging by her hip. She kisses him, kicking up one heel, not allowing him to even hand her the flowers yet.
This is hello.
Calden WhiteAvery's house is full of teenaged boys. Friends of her brother, no doubt, and even if that brother of hers is well brought up and privileged and rich, boys are boys and so they are loud and videogaming and mouths-full and horsing about.
Also: trying to find excuses to catch glimpses of their friend's elder sister. Who is -- likely much to Oakley's chagrin -- so totally hot. And so totally going on a date, which means she's wearing that lovely brilliant dress and that cute little top and those startling heels and that deep, rich lipstick. Her purse matches her mouth; her ponytail is bouncy and fun. She looks sunkissed and gorgeous and rich and fun.
The boys are craning their necks for a look. Avery walks down that long hall to the front door where her date awaits, let in by her manservant. She puts her arms around her tall cowboy and she kicks up one heel, just like in a movie. Her cowboy is wearing a red-checked shirt (of course) and blue jeans (of course) and boots under those jeans (of course), just like in a movie, and his arms go around her waist as hers go around his neck.
Calden is, of course, too mature and too grownup and too restrained and too gentlemanly to feel a jolt of primitive masculine pride
except he totally does
because here he is, and here she is, and she has her arms around him and she is kissing him hello and the part of him that shares ancestry with tooth-baring wolves, with antler-locking stags, is just. about. bursting with pride.
He controls it. He kisses her back with his eyes closed, his lips smiling. It is a long, firm kiss, but nothing indecent; not in the view of her brother and his friends. He is tall enough that she rises to her tiptoes to kiss him, leans her weight against his chest. When she draws back he presents her with the flowers, and then his arm.
"Hello," he says. "Ready to go?"
Avery ChaseHe controls it, but he's still smiling. Grinning, almost, or she is, when he starts to set her down. Did her feet leave the ground? One did. The other, a little, her toe barely touching the hardwood. She is all but purring when she puts her feet back to the floor, her arms sliding looser again, touching his shoulders. She squeezes her shoulders together a bit, in mute happiness.
Calden hands her flowers. Avery acts as though she didn't even notice them before. "Oh, they're lovely!" she says, inhaling the wildflowers, touching a few of them, looking at each one as though it is precious and unique because it is. "Let me give these to someone to put in some water," she tells him, when he asks if she's ready. "I'll have them in my room when we come back."
Assuming they come back here.
She slips her hand into his, and like magic, someone in dark clothes appears and takes the bouquet from her, silently, before she walks toward the exit with her paramour. Her consort. "I am. I thought about telling you to come before dawn and take you to all my favorite places, but we'll have to save some for later years," Avery is telling him, as they have the doors opened before them, as Chauncey greets them on the front stairs with the keys to Avery's Tesla, as she takes them from his hand with a quiet thank-you to one of her favorite servants.
Calden WhiteCalden finds it so endearing, the way she squeezes her shoulders together like that; a little shiver of pleasure. Has found it endearing since the very first time he saw it -- that very first night, down in his cellar, when she spoke of some delightful memory of the past, smiled like that, shoulder-squeezed like that.
Prowled around the casks and the bottles toward him a moment later, a wild and royal thing. He gave way, but only because to stand there and be devoured would have been far too forward at the time.
Her hand slips into his, then. He wraps his calloused fingers around hers; kisses her knuckles softly, only half-playing at chivalry. Mostly not playing at all. He is chivalrous. He carries weapons, rides horses. Must be some sort of modern-day descendant of those longago chevaliers, really.
"Later years," he repeats, quiet and smiling. "I like the way you think, Miss Chase."
Avery ChaseWhat was 'too forward' dissolved very quickly after he followed her up the stairs. After he watched the sway of her ass in those yoga pants. After she shrugged out of her jacket. After she shook out her hair, and they drank whiskey, and started kissing, and he tore both their clothes off.
'Too forward' didn't last very long that night, at all.
It is likely that gentlemanly, chivalrous Calden opens the driver's side door for her after that quiet pleasure he exudes for the longevity she grants their association. She just smiles back at him, sinking into the midnight-colored car and turning it on, buckling up, while he rounds the front and gets in beside her, into those sleek dark seats.
"First, a field trip," she tells him, as he buckles himself in. "There's a spot downtown I want to show you."
So downtown they head, pulling out of her estate, past the gates, out the long tree-covered drive, heading north.
Calden WhiteWith Calden in the passenger's seat, there seems to be little to no excess space in the Tesla. The cabin is intimate and close, dimly lit by the sophisticated instrument panel. Calden buckles himself in, then stretches his legs out for the ride.
They pass through the gates. They roll down the tree-lined drive. Calden looks out the window, both to the side and through the windshield; he looks over, too, to admire Avery's profile. "Do I get any hints?" he asks, smiling.
Avery Chase"Do you want any?" she asks him back, smiling. "I could just tell you where we're going. I think I've already surprised you quite enough lately. Here, I'll just tell you: first, we're going to --"
and maybe he interrupts her here. Maybe he lets her finish. Either way she is happy; she laughs.
--
They drive downtown, and to the financial district, but not to 1999 Broadway, where Cold Crescent is housed. They drive to Republic Plaza, the tallest building in Denver, a black monolith of straight sides and a million stairs. They do runs up those stairs to raise money for lung cancer research.
It is a Sunday night; they are able to park curbside, and they are greeted at the door by a security guard who lets them inside, nodding to Avery after she pauses to talk to him, introducing herself and her companion Mr. White. The building is dark; the building is silent, and their footsteps are surprisingly loud in the interior. There are public art installations near the windows, mostly modern stuff. Avery heads for the elevator bay.
Inside, she presses the button to go to the roof.
Which he knew she would, if he let her finish.
Calden WhiteCalden most certainly does not allow her to finish. She starts to -- nay, she threatens to -- and he hushes her instantly, reaching across the center divide to put his fingertips over her mouth.
"Don't you dare," he mock-warns, and she is happy. She laughs. Stars may as well rain from the sky, so bright is the sound.
--
They go downtown. For a while he thinks maybe she's taking him to 1999 Broadway; but no. It is another building, another monolith, higher still than 1999. For the tallest building in the city, it's remarkably understated: bland, almost, with its mid-'80s granite-and-glass construction, its blocky silhouette. But then, it's not the design of the building Avery wants to show Calden.
They park. They go inside. Avery's heels, Calden's boots -- they echo off the polished floors. Calden stops to look at some art, then quickens his stride to catch up. He puts his arm around her as he comes alongside her, easy, familiar. He smells like leather and spicy aftershave and himself.
At this hour, the elevator is waiting at ground floor. The doors slide open; they step inside. Avery goes straight for the top. He didn't let her finish -- but he could've still guessed that.
"Are you taking me skydiving?" he quips.
Avery Chase"Stop it, I'm driving," she chastises him, as he takes his fingers from her lips. Her makeup doesn't leave a smear on his fingers; it is too fine. She is too fine. She does not tell him where they are going,
but they are going,
to Republic Plaza, and they are going to the roof.
"Oh, no," she says quietly, smiling to one side as she watches the numbers tick up. "I'm taking you to a very special place. I come here at least a few times a week." In the elevator, they are close: his arm is still around her, his scent in her nostrils. Masculine. Rich. Familiar. Arousing, most of the time. Comforting, often. Beloved.
They rise. "Usually," she says, dropping a hint, "I am in the penumbra when I do so."
Calden WhiteIn the penumbra. That was a hint, and he picks up on it. Chews on it as they soar upward -- chews almost literally, his teeth catching his lip.
"A shrine to Falcon?" he guesses.
Avery ChaseAvery smiles, and the numbers tick and glow above them until they reach the top. She turns to look at him, and takes him out into a hallway, and to a stairwell, and up they go.
Up here it is warm but windy. It whips at her skirt but she doesn't anxiously pull it down: it is night now, and they are alone on the rooftop of the tallest building the metro area. She slides her arm around his waist, turning to him, into him, smiling up at him. "This is where Javed and I came after he agreed to be my packmate. We made a shrine to Falcon. We both keep it, as we can and as we must. Falcon is a totem who must be fed and whose home must be kept clean. He is to be served; and we serve.
"This way," she says, stepping away, guiding him towards the eastern side of the building, looking down from that dizzying height. She thinks, idly, that she could probably survive even such a fall as that. She might die and come back. But she does not have any inclination to try it. She holds onto his hand, very tight, afraid he will blow away in the wind perhaps.
They stand near an empty space, which sadly cannot show him the shrine that lives in the spirit realm. "It's here," she says, and gestures with her hand. "There is something like a nest created -- I bring him strips of meat pulled from the ribs of creatures whose spirits I harry and hunt for him. I keep this place safe so that he may perch here. Other than our honor, Falcon requires little. He is self-sufficient. He does not need us to feed him; he only accepts it as tribute."
She swallows. "Oh, one day Charlotte will be a mighty Theurge," she murmurs, "and I will ask her to bring you over so I can really show you."
Calden WhiteHer answer is a smile, which may as well be a confirmation. Calden laughs softly, delighted that he is right; delighted -- and touched, and a little overwhelmed -- that she is bringing him here at all.
The elevator stops. They are on the topmost floor; a machinery floor, where the general public doesn't stray. She leads him down a hallway, up one last flight of stairs. The door they open is heavy, and heavier still for the wind. It slams rather vehemently shut behind them, and then they are commended to the sky.
A warm wind pulls at them. Rakes through his thick hair, flags through her skirt. They go to the edge and look down, holding each other's hands tightly. When she peers over, she feels his hand tightening on hers,
as though she might blow away in the wind,
or fly away, too high for earthbound Calden to follow.
She comes back. He wraps his arms around her wordlessly for a moment. Then he lets go, and she leads him to that empty space that, in the otherworld, holds a shrine.
Calden crouches before it. He puts his hand out, places his palm on the cool concrete. He feels nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing; he is only human, after all. What he has is an imagination, as all humans do, and he uses it: closing his eyes, listening to Avery. Imagining the little strips of meat offered to the wind and the sky. Imagining the totem-spirit, an impression of speckled wings and sharp, dark eyes; deadly beak, deadly talons.
"Tell me about Falcon," Calden says; on one knee still, looking up over his shoulder. "I know what everyone knows. He flies high; he sees the truth behind every lie. He loves honor and honors purity, maybe to a fault. But tell me about Falcon as you know him."
Avery ChaseShe would never leave him.
All falcons return to nest, to branch, to arm. Cheetahs cannot run forever; no bird can fly indefinitely. She would come back. As high as she might go, as far, she would come back, and eat red flesh offered to her from his fingers.
She would come back.
Her hand slips from his, trusting the wind not to steal him from her, as he crouches, touching the concrete. But what he feels is not, strictly, nothing. Not just imagination, though he may count it as such. He is more than human, if only by a degree, and his spirit has been in and out of the Homelands. When he closes his eyes it comes to him. The warmth there, the vibrations subtle in the air, the anchor point this place is for something mightier and more primordial than either of them.
Even humans sense the antiquity of woods, feel hauntings, know when they walk on sacred ground. What Calden feels, what he sees in his mind's eye: that is not just imagination. The cry he hears on the wind: that is not something created solely in his mind.
Tell me, he says, and Avery smiles, standing behind him. "You know your father?" And of course he does. "You know that he loves you, but he is hard on you, and sometimes it seems that he's hard on everyone but hardest on you? Even to the point that sometimes it's hard to feel that you're loved, hard to remember that you're accepted?"
She shrugs a single shoulder. "Sometimes it's like that. I don't think any spirit quite feels the sting and shame of the madness of Silver Fangs more than Falcon does. And to stand in his presence or kneel at his shrine and know that all fall short, all are imperfect, and that you come closest to the purity he desires -- and yet you still disappoint him, cannot help but disappoint him. It is very sad, sometimes, to strive so hard to deserve any of the blessings visited upon you, when they are so great and so numerous, when others have so much less.
"It is painful," Avery says softly, as much as she can with the wind pulling at her words, "to be in the presence of a perfect icon. To stand at the peak of the highest mountain and still be unable to touch the lowest star. But it is euphoric to be there at all, so close that for a moment you believe that if you just push a little harder --"
the words falter. She leaves them in the air, unspoken. She gives him a small shrug.
Calden WhiteWho knows what Calden expected Avery to say. Perhaps something grand and poetic; something to extol the virtues and strengths of Falcon. Something about his wisdom and his purity, his beauty, his grace, his fierceness in war and truth and kingship.
That is not what she says. It is not at all what she says, and as soon as she begins to speak,
as soon as he begins to understand what she speaks of,
Calden realizes -- with something almost like shame -- that he has underrated and diminished Avery in his mind. Which isn't to say he thought poorly of her, but: no, he did not, in this moment, understand her as deeply and purely as he sometimes can, and does.
She speaks not of the virtues of Falcon. She certainly speaks not of her own lineage from Falcon; all those ways in which she does her mighty totem proud. She speaks, instead, of failure.
Of striving for -- trying so hard for -- perfection.
Of falling short.
It is painful. It is painful to listen to her like this; to understand that no matter what others see -- Avery the good, Avery the true, Avery the brave, Avery the glorious, Avery the beautiful, Avery the bold, Avery the great -- what she sees is flaw, and shortfall, and that unbreachable distance between herself and perfection.
Calden turns. He rises to his feet, brow furrowing; he says nothing. His words falter too. He takes her face between his big hands; he rests his brow to hers, and then his hands touch her hair, touch her shoulders; his arms wrap around her. Tight, tight, tight. He holds her very tightly, as though he might be able to seal a wound, heal a breach, repair a flaw, make a stepstool of his body, a ladder of his sinew and bone, and bring her just a little closer to the stars.
Avery ChaseAvery knows that perfection, as a goal, is madness itself. There are Silver Fangs for whom that is their madness: they think it is achievable. Truth be told, it is one of the psychotic breaks that she understands and empathizes with the most. They all live under that shadow, that expectation, and it is never enough. It is tragic, and it is borderline horrific, to be asked to be perfect no matter who you are.
Falcon expects them to be better than they can possibly be.
The Nation expects them to be better than all of them put together, and rakes them over the coals for that failure.
That is what Avery has grown up with, as both a kinswoman and a werewolf: she knows that perfection is an insane ideal, an impossible goal. She feels, at the same time, the pressure to reach for it anyway. To get as close as you can.
Calden worries. Calden does: a whiff of sadness in her guts him. She will never worry, with Calden, about a lack of sympathy. More often it is about mitigating an overabundance of it, clarifying for him that actually, she's not a ball of pain wrapped in barbed wire of sorrow. Falcon is glorious. Falcon is honorable. She is just more realistic than that. She values what it means to strive, what it means to persevere, even when there seems to be no hope.
Because it's not about the reward of perfection, the honor of never once failing or faltering. It is about the striving. The persevering. That is what is honorable. That is what is glorious.
And that is what she was trying to convey, really, though perhaps he is surprised or perhaps he is just worried for her or...something. She wonders, as he gets up and goes to her and furrows his brow and wraps her up, if he heard agony in the wistfulness, or grief more than longing.
She does long to be good. To do good. But she does not long for perfection. She does not see flaw, shortfall, though she does see an unbreachable distance. But she does not see that as a failure.
When Calden walks to her, she does furrow her brow a little, looking at him with some bewilderment. She lets him touch her, rest their brows; she smiles at the closeness. He touches her arms; he wraps her up and her smile grows. He keeps tightening his hold on her and she waits a moment, then lifts her head, drawing back a bit, looking up at him.
"What's wrong?"
Calden WhiteIt helps, when he turns and rises and takes her in his arms, that she goes easily and warmly and happily. That -- despite her words, or what he read in her words -- she neither aches nor breaks. She looks a little puzzled. She asks him what's wrong.
And Calden, holding her tight for another moment, exhales a sighing laugh. He turns his head to kiss her, temple or cheekbone or earlobe, whatever it is he might find. They draw apart.
"It's just what you said," he explains. "When I look at you, just about all I can see is goodness and light. What you said, though; it sounded like despite all that, all you see is shortcoming and imperfection.
"Maybe I misunderstood, love. But sometimes I wish you could see yourself the way I do."
Avery ChaseShe is warm and happy and the only thing that ever makes sinking into his arms difficult is genuine insanity; truthfully, it is one of her favorite places to be. So she goes, smiling up at him that way, as though she were chilled by the wind up here even though she is not. She does not break; she puzzles, and she asks. That is Avery's response to not knowing something. She asks.
And her lover sighs, and laughs, and her lover holds her a little bit tighter, and her lover kisses her soft cheek and looks at her, but does not withdraw his embrace. For that, she is namelessly but sharply pleased.
"Oh, my darling," she says quietly, or as quietly as one can atop a roof: "That is not all I see." She reaches up, touching his face. "When we look at spirits, and learn their ways, we are seeing an unfettered ideal. Living things, even living representations of the spirit, can never be the same as that undiluted purity. It is bittersweet, to be in their presence. Sweet, because they exist, and because we can know them. Bitter, because we are separated from them all the same."
Her thumb strokes his cheekbone gently. "The sweetness, and the bitterness, are all the sharper when I kneel to a spirit who embodies, and longs for, a purity and perfection that no living thing can ever show. And Falcon can never quite understand, because if Falcon understood, he would be diluted. He would be less pure. Less perfect. We are adoring and we are alienated, as we are from all spirits. All gods."
She slides her hand behind his head, drawing him down a touch, standing on her toes so she can kiss his mouth, softly, sweetly, uninhibitedly. "It isn't much different from the way that I wish your heart could never ache, but still: I would never change how tender it is."
Calden WhiteCalden laughs quietly into the kiss. Which is a soft, sweet, uninhibited thing. Which is a slow, dawning, withdrawing thing, ebbing away like a tide.
"Tenderhearted, am I," he murmurs, smiling. It's a meaningless, fond sort of echo-back. He kisses her again, soft and sealing, his arms still laid loose and warm around her lower back. This, too, is nearly meaningless; sweet nothings of a different sort: "Well, it's all right if I ache once in a while. Keeps my heart tender."
And he is smiling again, the curve of his lips widening. He kisses her over her upper lip. He kisses her between her eyebrows. Then he just wraps his arms around her and holds her a while, there in the imagined shadow of her shrine to Falcon. He can't see it, but for a moment there -- his hand to empty concrete -- he thought he'd felt it.
Avery Chase"Yes," she murmurs, smiling, kissing him again before he argues. He is tender-hearted. Look at him, worrying for her, holding her, aching for her. She is smiling; she is teasing him and she is not teasing him at all. She is kissing him, being kissed by him. He is agreeing with her and this is making her smile, too.
Avery laughs softly as he kisses her face, here and there, and she loops her arms around him, resting her head on his chest and swaying with him a bit on the rooftop. "I love it here," she tells him after a while, "but we do have reservations."
Calden White"Mm," Calden murmurs, because at the moment he is swaying gently and aimlessly with his lover; he is closing his eyes and holding her in his arms and just
adoring her in his quiet way.
Then he draws a breath, rouses himself. "Okay," he whispers. They disentangle. He takes her hand as they head back inside. "Where at?"
Avery Chase"Rioja," she tells him, smiling, but not disentangling. Not yet. Oh: please not yet. She stays draped against him, something celestial in her eyes when she looks up at him, something sleepy in her smile. "The chef is making us something special."
She sways a little with him. "I don't believe you and I have been there. It's where my father and I often have Sunday brunch, when I can join him. Sometimes we invite friends or associates. Oakley usually sleeps in."
Calden WhiteCelestial.
Now there's a good word for her. Along with golden and sun-blessed and adored. He could fall into those eyes of hers, so incandescently blue. He could fall into that smile of hers, so sleepy and warm and --
god, she makes him hot sometimes. It comes on without warning or reason. He kisses her suddenly while she's talking about Sunday brunch and her brother sleeping in. It is a different kiss than the last one and the last one and the one before that: hot and drenching and his mouth on hers, his hand on her back opening wide and covering a stretch of her torso.
"When was the last time I told you I'm in love with you?" he mutters.
Avery ChaseWords are in her mouth when he kisses her there. It's sudden and hot and she is an animal, a mammal, feeling that heat and feeling her own stoked by it. She gasps a little, but she's pressing to him, putting her hands in his hair instead of soft on his face or trailing over the back of his neck.
"It's been a minute," she tells him, and she's leveraging herself up off the ground, lifting herself against his chest. She keeps her legs together for now; she makes his chest take her weight. She kisses him again.
Calden White"Liar -- and right in front of Falcon too," Calden laughs, teasing. "It's been at least ten minutes."
And he takes her weight. He takes her weight and then some, lifting her, scooping her up off the ground with his forearm under her -- how do we put this politely? Her tush. Her rear. Her derriere. Her very fine, very ladylike, very fancy ass.
And his back goes to the wall. He's careful not to tread where the shrine is, at least; but that's not to say he's not close to it. He is close to it. He hopes Falcon doesn't mind. He hopes Falcon understands, and surely Falcon does; he made her, after all, this golden daughter of his. What fault could Calden possibly bear for being
so
infatuated.
Avery Chase"Falcon's not here right now," she tells him, grinning, while Calden walks her to a wall, a wall somewhere, the wall where the stairs are, the wall of the shelter around the door where they came up onto the roof. She laughs, is laughing when he presses her there, which is at least far enough from the very edge where the shrine lives that he doesn't risk treading on its spiritual reality.
Avery is laughing. She kisses him again, softly, slowly. "We have reservations," she reminds him, just in case he's thinking of dropping trou and fucking her on a roof.
Calden WhiteNow what might possibly make Avery think Calden might be considering such a thing?
Surely not the way he's carrying her around the way he sometimes does, hunting for a soft dark warm place to lay her down and mate. Surely not the way he's kissing her again and again, slow as she kisses him but -- perhaps not quite so softly. Surely not his hands on her body, his body pressed firm to hers.
Surely he's not thinking of such a thing. Of course not.
His mouth breaks from hers at her reminder. He pants a laugh out. He rubs his cheek against hers -- smooth-shaven, but already with the first hints of roughness to his skin. And he draws a breath and lets it out again, and with it, lets her down. Her feet to the roof.
"Reservations," he repeats, rueful and amused at once. "All right. Okay. Let's go."
Avery ChaseIt is not entirely dark yet. The sun is only just beginning to descend towards the mountain peaks to the west. There is a sharp golden glow to everything, Avery especially. She is panting softly, but this place is not dark. There is nothing soft here but the two of them, no surface horizontal or vertical that is adequately gentle for his lady's flesh. Up here it is warm, but the wind comes sometimes, wrapping around them like a cool blanket. Some instinct tells him, back of his mind, this is not the place to lay her down and mate with her.
Some other instinct, lower than his mind, knows that this does not matter. To either of them.
--
She is smiling so brightly as he begins to let her down. She is still holding him, unsure of where that rush of passion came from, but -- she doesn't mind. She understands it, in a way. So often, she is there herself. It washes over her, takes her down, makes her mindless with want for him. Sometimes even when he is not there, she can barely breathe for all her lust.
They part, and cool air comes between them and cools her. She breathes. She takes his hand and they go down to the elevator, back out to the car. She thanks the guard outside again, passing him an envelope from her purse. He tries to turn it down, presumably already paid, but she is laughing, telling him it's a gift, a thank-you, and so it is, and this, too, is part of Avery's favorite things: the giving, the generosity, the ability to share.
--
Back in the Tesla, she turns one of the vents toward her chest, her neck, her face, cooling herself off. She drives, and they leave the Tesla with the valet at Rioja.
And let's be honest: dinner is dinner. They are served in a private room. There is no string quartet, just the two of them talking over the tasting menu the chef is preparing for them tonight. The food is exquisite. The wine pairings are balanced to each course. Their conversation is idle, and meandering, and covers their time apart and time spent at school, time spent abroad. They discuss going on a backpacking trip sometime, perhaps. They skirt the idea, without entirely delving into it, of taking a vacation overseas together. Even that, for some reason, makes Avery's heart flutter as she looks at him.
But just looking at him, sometimes, makes her heart do that.
The chef visits with them at the end of their meal. He genuinely inquires as to their taste of the meal, their thoughts; he is especially interested, for some reason, in Calden's estimation of the preparation of the beef. He agrees, vociferously, on minimal preparation: it is in the heat, in the pairing, in the complements! He is swept away in it for a few moments: he promises to pass their thoughts on dessert back to the pastry chef, and begs their pardon when he excuses himself back to the kitchen.
Avery's eyes are limpid with wine and meat and risotto and cheese and scallops and everything else they had, every dollop of flavor set on their tongues. She is leaning back, looking at him, holding a glass of... something. She's forgotten. It explodes on her tongue when she sips it, like shooting stars, like rainfall.
"It's yours, you know. It was all yours."
Calden WhiteWhat a charming meal that was; delicious bites tastefully arranged -- pun entirely intended. Not at all the sort of hearty, down-home meal Calden is forever serving Avery, and yet: something of the same spirit, at the core. A love for the simple, the raw, the pure. A clarity of taste, and just enough around the edges to bring out each note to its finest timbre.
Calden eats. He does not graze, though a succession of tiny courses like this encourages grazing. He eats: enthusiastically, never boorishly or messily. He eats the salad with its fresh-cut fruit and greens; he eats the main courses garnished with this reduction, that sauce, this fish, that shellfish. He eats the beef, rare almost to the point of bloody; medium with that perfect pink in the middle. There are pastries to come at the end, but by then he is full and satisfied and the ruddy undertone of his skin has been brought out by the wine, the wine, all the wine.
They are in a private room, and he has allowed himself to slouch just a little in his chair. He is a rough cowherd but there's are old-fashioned manners in him. He tries to be a gentleman. Right now, though: right now his leg touches hers under the table, his calf crossing hers. He smiles at her across the table, a little bit drunk, happy, lazy.
"Mm?" For a moment he hasn't the faintest idea what she means. He thinks: she means herself. Yours, all yours. He feels lust again, but this time it doesn't strike him like a thunderbolt. It unfurls slow as poison in his veins, hot as wine. His gaze takes a nice long vacation on her mouth, her smile. He is biting his lower lip, licking it without thinking of it. "What, darling?"
Sometimes he calls her that, too. It always sounds just a little bit like darlin'.
Avery ChaseThe wine has hit her. She wants to straddle his lap and grind herself on his thigh until she comes. She wants to lean him back and suck his cock. She wants him to bend her over a table and pleasure her with his tongue, his smooth-shaven face. She wants, and she wants, and she wants, and her skin is golden and rosy. They would name a rose after her, if they could see her now, and if a rose was bred that was worthy of it.
She lets their legs rest together, smiles at the way he looks at her. So lazy. So replete.
"The beef, darling," she tells him. It always sounds like darling.
Calden White"Oh." A touch chastened; wherever were his thoughts wandering. "Ah." He looks at the plate, the latest in a long line; eaten clean, with only a few artful drizzles of sauce left. "Well," and now he is allowing himself to smile, he is allowing that smile to carry some smugness, "I do breed some of the finest beef in the state, don't I?
"Though," he adds, lifting his eyes back to hers with a smile, "I'm almost sure I don't supply Rioja. How did you manage?"
Avery ChaseAvery smirks gently at him, amused, but lazy; a little drunk. "You do," she says, with agreement. "It's all we serve in my house, when we eat beef. And as of tonight, it is also all that Rioja serves. Tonight," she drowses aloud, swirling her drink in her glass, "was the chef's audition for you."
She sips, then sets her glass down, and looks at him. "You may have noticed that four of the courses we ate tonight included beef of some kind, didn't you? He wanted you to see a variety of his techniques. While still presenting a unified meal, of course."
With that, she finishes her glass, pushing it aside. "I may or may not have engaged in some elements of subterfuge for this part of our evening, but I wouldn't call it outright lying, since a few of your cousins helped."
Avery Chase[REPLACE ALL THE 'HE' STUFF REGARDING THE CHEF WITH 'SHE'. HER NAME IS JENNIFER.]
Calden WhiteCalden laughs aloud; then casts a wry eye toward his emptied plate. "Well," he says, "I'd say she aced her audition. I'll draft up the contracts when I get home -- if my cousins haven't already done it.
"I ought to give you a cut of the profits," he adds. "I had no idea you were out there expanding my market share."
Avery ChaseThat makes her blush. It must be the wine, the pleasure, all of it -- but she turns pink, exhaling a rush of air, laughing at her plate. "I only make requests," she says, which she thinks is the truth, nevermine her influence, her charm, her family's wealth and holdings. "Sometimes a recommendation. That's all."
Smiling at him, Avery reaches across the table, offering her fingers to his fingers, to press their palms together and lace their hands as one. "I have one more favorite place to take you. At least for tonight," she murmurs, her eyes shining. "Whenever you're ready."
Calden WhiteNaturally,
by which we mean as though drawn by nature, by instinct, by the very code of his genes,
Calden takes Avery's hand as it is offered. They are both warm: warm of blood and warm of heart and warm of laughter and warm of smile. His hand is warm as it closes around hers, holding her hand in a gentle, courtly manner. Her fingers slipped into his palm. His thumb tracing gently over her knuckles, rubbing over the base of her ring finger twice before moving on. Their hands rearrange: fingers lacing, palms pressing together.
"Let's go," he says. It's a moment, still, before he rises.
It's warm enough out that neither of them have outerwear. They stay hand-in-hand, strolling together out of their private room. Calden says goodbye to the waitstaff on the way out; pauses to thank the chef. And to wish her goodnight. And to tell her he'll call her on Monday.
Then they are outside, back in the open night air. He walks her to the driver's side of her car, rather enraptured with the simple affection of hand-holding; loathe to let it end.
Avery ChaseThey do not part their hands. They rise, and linked so, they walk out. She pauses to thank the sommelier; Calden, too, bidding the waitstaff and the host fairwell, waving and thanking the chef one more time, but she has flames rising in front of her and there is not much chit-chat, but she grins when he says he'll call on Monday. She waves as they leave, sprinkling saffron in a sauce.
They leave. The wind lifts her ponytail and swings it a little, and she tucks herself to his arm, one hand on his bicep, smiling at him. She is a little drunk, and she rests her head on his shoulder. They are both rather tipsy. They head to her car anyway, and he walks her to the driver's side anyway, and she is laughing as they part, as she gets into the seat.
She is holding his hand across the center console as soon as he has shut the door. Looking at him, her head on the rest. The windows are tinted. There is a pop-out shade over the windshield to guard against those last westering lights of a day that is now well gone.
As she watches him, Avery's pale blue eyes grow larger. Luminous, silvery at the edges. They angle sharply. Her brows thicken, grow together, flare upward and outward. Her ears grow and sharpen to a point, fur-tipped; her lips thin and flatten, curl slightly, reveal the edges of white teeth, vicious incisors. She still looks like Avery. She still looks like his lover but a monstrous form of her, and the hand he is holding grows as large as his own for a few moments, with golden hair over her arms, her hands, with fingernails thick and sharpened at the tips. The cabin of the car has the coppery, tangy scent of rage burning between them for a few still, frightening seconds.
Then she changes again. Her skin smooths again. Her nails retract, and her teeth. Her eyebrows are delicate once more, her eyes their usual shape, their pretty roundness. She lacks the makeup she was wearing. The band holding her hair in a ponytail snapped during the change, and the natural straightness of her hair came back as she reverted to her birth form; she must have forgotten to dedicate the hairband, even if she remembered the clothes, the shoes, the jewelry.
Avery licks her lips, even though now she is sober. Her hand, which never became any less soft than it is now, squeezes his. And she reaches for the windshield shade to twist it closed and put it in the seat pocket behind Calden.
Calden WhiteThey are, indeed, both rather tipsy. They are not sloppy-drunk, nor sloppy drunks, but they do perhaps smile a little too easily on the way out; their cheeks may be just a little more flushed. Or maybe that's just the fact that they're happy, and well-fed, and in love. She rests her head on his shoulder. He wants to put his arm around her, but then he likes it when she hugs his bicep like that too, so
in the end he leaves it be. They get to her car. He hands her in and then he circles around, and then he gets in and she reaches for his hand again.
He is relaxing in his seat. Leaning back, and leaning the seat back a few more notches. His hand wraps easily around hers. They look at each other, unflinching and smiling and,
yes,
trusting, because something like this requires utmost trust on both sides -- while she shifts, while she exercises her divine rights and privileges, while she uses her get out of being drunk free card. He laughs a little. His eyes don't leave her; not when she grows feral and inhuman and furry and large; not when she shrinks back to the form he knows better. Knows best.
"That's not fair," he faux-complains, his smile slow and lazy. "Now I'll have to get you drunk all over again."
Avery ChaseIt matters that there is not revulsion in his eyes. It matters more that there is not fear. And truth be told, the half-man form is arguably the ugliest form that the Garou take. There is no glorious white fur. It is just human enough to be grotesque. It is not powerful enough to be awe-inspiring. It is starkly, unforgivably inhuman.
Calden just holds her hand, though. Calden doesn't flinch from looking at her. Calden just complains that now he has to get her drunk all over again.
She smiles. "I'll do some shots as soon as we get where we're going. I'll catch up again." She lifts his hand to her mouth and kisses it, then buckles in. "I'm afraid this one won't be much of a surprise," she admits. "You're going to recognize the route in a second flat."
It has to be true. He knows when she doesn't go back to her house, or back to her penthouse, or back to his new apartment or hotel or any of the above. He knows when she gets on the highway, and starts heading north.
Calden WhiteWhile his one hand is being kissed, he is fumbling the seatbelt over his shoulder with the other hand. He grins at his lover. "It's all right," he says, faux-forgiving now, "I like you sober, too."
They're on the road again. She gets on the highway. She heads north. He observes the landscape, the road, the direction; he smiles.
"Are you taking me home?"
Avery Chase"I should hope so," she retorts, with the amusement of a sober person to a drunk. She doesn't move the car til he's buckled in; she resists the urge to tug on it and make sure he got it, because she heard the click. And because he's a grown-ass man. And because if the car flipped over a semi and caught fire, she would wrap him in her body. She would heal him. She would find a way.
"Yes," she tells him when he asks his obvious question, smiling. "You can nap, if you like."
Calden White"The wisdom of my ancestors dictates," Calden intones, ever so gravely, "one must never nap in the presence of a charming woman. She might be a fairy. She might carry one off to who-knows-where."
And then he breaks into a grin. He reaches over. He finds her hand again and holds it quietly, happily.
"I just made that up," he informs her. "But I don't need to nap. I want to stay awake with you."
Avery Chase"That's bullshit," she says, to the wisdom of his ancestors. She laughs. But it might be true; the ancient Fianna may have believed that. Many still might. "If I were a fairy, I would have carried you off long ago. If I were a fairy, and I'd fed you in one of my palaces, you never would have been able to leave."
She knows a story or two.
She glances at him, then back to the road. The hold hands as she drives. She puts cruise control on. She keeps the car aligned with one hand. "Put on some music," she tells him, softly, as they head into the dark, dark north.
--
The Tesla has never been to his house. Its wheels are quiet on the drive up to the White residence, where she pulls to a stop and turns the car off, smiling at him. "We're not quite there yet," she tells him. "But we're close."
Calden WhiteA long drive, that. Long enough for him to wind down from his happy tipsiness. Long enough for them to listen to an album and then start on another. Long enough for them to talk a little, discuss that pied-a-terre he's going to buy, discuss the dates of his early-summer stay in the city.
It is a little cooler up on the ranch: windswept, strewn with foliage. The sky is clear and the stars are innumerable. When the Tesla's lights go off, it is so dark; and then it is so brilliant. The stars, the galaxies, the moon. Calden is looking up from his open door, turning back when Avery speaks.
"Oh?" He can't stop smiling at her. She makes him smile. Who could blame him?
Avery ChaseShe teases him, on the way: he loves talking about that new place, about the dates he'll be here. It's almost, she jokes with him, like he's looking forward to it. Like he's looking forward to his little vacation. Like he's looking forward to lounging on some leather couch he brings to his new place, a fire in the hearth, the place all to himself and Patches perhaps and, often, his lover.
She says he'll make the place smell like leather and scotch and dirt even if he's not working.
On the way, after they left the highway, she opened the panoramic sunroof. The wind pulled at their hair, cooled their skins. She closes it now, and the stars are gently blotted out, then revealed again as they get out. "Oh," she tells him, and leaves the car, closing it behind her, coming to his side to greet him as he rises.
"If you're sober," she says, smiling, "we should both get drunk again. Just a little, though. I still have to show you my last favorite place."
Calden WhiteAnd rise he does, climbing out of that low-slung sportster, stepping into her, wrapping his arm around her waist. He kisses her: unapologetically and unshyly, his mouth firm and warm and adoring on hers.
"All right," he agrees, his smile lopsided; at once humoring and intrigued. "If we're going to drink to get drunk," he adds, "let's go do it in proper Fianna style and quaff straight from the cask. Come on."
The lights are off in the house. The house is quiet. Patches is not there to greet them, because of course she's not, because her pups are still so very small and it is dark and late and she is tending to her young. The elder Mr. White is not there to greet them either. Avery's hand is still in Calden's. He leads her down that broad staircase, down to the lower level with its guest room and its billiards table and its gyms and its cellar.
It smells like oak in here, infused with the faintest hint of spirits and wines and brews. It smells cool and dark and dry, and when Calden flicks the overhead lamp on the shadows are long and deep; the bottles glow faintly, many with a thin layer of dust.
Avery ChaseCalden kisses her as though they never left the rooftop. She breathes it in, her hands on his chest, tipping backward, holding herself against his body. She kisses him more slowly, more thoughtfully,
dreamily, almost.
They part, only slowly, and go inside, his arm around her and her body tucked to his side. She has clothes here; a couple of drawers, some space in the closet, a drawer in the bathroom, a bathrobe that fits her. She didn't need to bring anything but herself, her little purse, her boyfriend. Her gentleman. Her lover.
They go inside, quietly, and the house is still and the night is late. Avery laughs softly as she slips out of her heels, turning to him in the darkness and taking his face in her hands, kissing his mouth. "Leave the lights off," she whispers onto his mouth, so
in the dark they go to the cellar, and she keeps trying to kiss him as they descend, nearly toppling them downward. And he insists on lights there, at least one, and she keeps on kissing him, kissing him, smiling. She doesn't care what they drink.
Calden WhiteThey almost kill themselves going down those stairs. Well, no. That's just an expression. She couldn't possibly die from a little tumble, and he -- well. He's tough. And she'd protect him.
He knows that. Trusts it. Doesn't rely on it -- doesn't rely on anything but his own strength, being who he is, growing up old-fashioned the way he did. But he knows it and he trusts it and this, this is why he was able to hold her hand while she shifted into her most grotesque form.
That, and the fact that he loves her. He fucking adores her.
--
They leave the lights off. They keep kissing. Those kisses get hotter and hotter, and there in the cellar with that single bulb overhead he is pressing her firm and gentle against those racks of bottles and bottles and bottles; he is kissing her with his arms around her and his hands on her and then he is kissing her with his hands on her breasts. One can't blame him for that either; they are such magnificent breasts. She doesn't care what they drink. He barely cares that they drink at all,
except he does remember there's one more place, and he's only allowed to go there if he's drunk. It's like some sort of divine decree; some fairy law. Geas. Maybe she is otherworldly after all.
So their mouths part. And he pants a laugh. Kisses her again, just one more for the road, so to speak. Breaks from her and steps back, his hand lingering at her side.
"Cask," he says, reminding her or himself. And he finds her hand and leads her around that middle shelf, and there in the deepest part of the cellar are the casks -- little ones, not full-sized ones, but still absurdly large amounts of alcohol because really. Really, who needs so much booze, except the Fianna.
The casks are labeled. There are names stamped into the oak, but they're so old and dusty and untouched, and it's so dark in here. Calden kneels by the first one he gets to, he pulls it off the rack and he sets it on its end and then he realizes this one has no spigot, so back it goes. He pulls another one out, and this one does have a spigot, and he picks it up and heaves it up on the top rack, up where they can get their mouths under the tap.
"It's cask strength," he warns, because of course it is.
Avery ChaseAt one point, there is glass and oak at her back. He is kissing her, drinking her strong, purified, undiluted, and his hand is on her breast and she is panting against his mouth. It's dark and they have never done this before and this -- this excites her terribly. She remembers the first time they were down here, when she only realized halfway across the room that she was stalking towards him, realized only within inches of him that she wanted him to fuck her, walked ahead of him on the stairs thinking of it, thinking of her knees on the wood, her yoga pants stripped down, his cock inside of her.
She must have felt that way before she realized it, because it was so strong when she did wake to it. She remembers it now, while he lifts her tit in his hand and mauls her mouth with his own. She moans, softly.
He barely cares that they drink at all, except that somewhere amidst all the talk of fairies and birthday surprises and favorite places, he placed a geas on himself. He must be drunk to go with her there. He must get her drunk, this ethereal queen he's been taken by, in order to find... wherever it is. The mystery. He pulls his mouth away, his hand, and she tries to follow him, leaning into that attention. She moans again, again, when he kisses her onemorefortheroad, like she's forgotten everything else she had in mind.
But she is not drunk.
Cask, he says, and pulls her with him. He looks for spigots. He dusts labels with fingertips. He pulls, heaves, hefts, and she watches him all the while until he finds one, opening it for him, for her, for them. Avery puts her mouth under the spigot, her hand on the lever,
fills her mouth with burning amber, swallows fiery topaz, sways. "God," she murmurs. Moves to him again, hands on his neck, in his hair, pulling him to her. "Kiss me again," which she doesn't need to say,
because she is kissing him, and he is tasting flames on her tongue.
Calden WhiteShe's like flame. Golden, swaying, hot. So hot to the touch, her palms burning, her mouth scorching. She pulls him down and he opens his mouth to hers; tastes that ferocious liquor, tastes her beneath it. There was fire in her eyes, watching him move, his fingers nimble and sure, his body strong. There's fire in her kiss, in those blurry half-sensical things she says.There's fire in the way he kisses her. There's fire in his hands sweeping boldly up her sides; cupping her breasts. There's a fire in the pit of his stomach, scorching up his spine, and he raises her with it: picks her up and puts her back against the side of a shelf,
wine bottles rattling,
cantilevers her there with his weight, her legs wrapped around him, reaches for the fasteners of her shirt with voracious hands.
Avery ChaseCalden can still taste the alcohol on her tongue, droplets of it in her mouth to greet him. Sometimes: she makes him so hot. Sometimes: she wants him so much she can scarcely breathe and cannot think at all. Now is one of those times, and the alcohol is hitting her quickly, up her spine and through her limbs, into her mind. She feels a radiant crown, burning around her, blurring everything.
She wants more.
He kisses her again. He touches her again, and didn't need to be told that she wanted that. She is panting, quietly, a rushing exhale as he picks her up, presses her back wood, makes glass and liquid tremble. Makes her tremble. She does wrap her legs around him, she does let him pull and tug roughly at those delicate buttons, she does grasp his shirt in her fingers between his shoulderblades, hanging onto him as she kisses him again, again.
"We're not there yet," she insists. She is kissing him harder then, opening his mouth with her own again, pressing herself into his hands, pulling him closer with her folded legs. Here, a hint: "Take me upstairs. Take me to bed."
Calden WhiteIf that's a hint it flies over Calden's head. Most things fly over his head right now: he's too drunk on her, and he hasn't drank a drop from that cask yet.
He has three or four buttons of that flirtatious-prim little polka-dot top undone, and that's only because after three or four he has enough room to spread the halves open, to reach in, to unclip her bra and tug it down out of the way and then to put his warm, rough palms on her breasts. He lifts those breasts out of the slipping cups of her bra; lifts them and rubs them and all the while he's drinking kisses from her tongue, he's pressing himself closer to her even as she pulls him closer.
He's
shuddering like an animal when he feels her nails through his shirt; shuddering like one of his breeding bulls, or maybe like a bullheaded stallion; something powerful and strong and proud but -- not quite a toothed and clawed thing, no. His nails are blunt, his teeth are flat, when he nips at her lips it doesn't hurt. He wouldn't hurt her.
He pants a breath as she tells him to take her upstairs. Their mouths part. He turns, he wraps a hand around the spigot and he takes a gulp from the cask himself -- burning, molten -- his breath alight with it as he comes back to her. Kisses her again, kisses her from her mouth to her neck to her breast, his arm wrapping tight behind her to hoist her up so he can reach her, so he can take that pert pink nipple of hers into his mouth,
groans around it like he's sating some bone-deep hunger,
lets her down a moment later, her wet nipple rubbing dry on his shirt. Her feet touch the floor -- barely. Graze the floor. Then he lifts her up again, bride-like, carries her ever so gallantly out of the cellar, sweeps up the stairs, charges up the second flight of stairs, almost grim in his determination.
They pass that little closet where Patches peers out at them, two bright-reflective eyes in the dimness. A sprawl of little squirming pup-bundles around her. They don't pay Patches any mind, and Patches doesn't mind them either. The bedroom door opens, it closes,
he sets her down at last. He's breathing hard; some of that is exertion. Some of it is pure, wanton lust.
Avery ChaseAvery is lost in the movement of his rough hands into her blouse, behind her back, unsnapping, pulling, how quick he is, how forceful, how tender. She could not undress him now if she tried, not without tearing, not without ripping, not without being utterly careless. It stuns her how gentle he can be despite his singular, intense focus. It arouses her. It makes her arch her back against the shelves, lifting her breasts as he pulls the cups from her skin, re-covers them with his palms. She would tell him to lick her breasts if they could take their mouths off of each other.
As it is, she pulls at him, and her nails do press to him, and the heels of her hands on his back, and her thighs on either side of his body. She is ferocious and she is dizzy. He puts his teeth on her lower lip and she goes briefly limp, her eyes fluttering, her body shuddering in answer. She holds him tighter, climbs up his body higher, moans into his mouth even as the words are leaving her mouth, the requests, the orders, the hints he can't comprehend about her last, favorite place.
Calden drinks. This makes her laugh, sudden and bright, like he's drinking for courage, for strength, for what she's asking of him. The laughter unfurls in his mouth when he kisses him, follows him in the air as he lowers his mouth and licks her breast, her nipple, cutting that laughter off at the pass. She trembles; her skin quivers lightly on his tongue. He is groaning. She is whimpering, softly, closing her eyes and pushing her fingers into his hair.
With a swoop and little swing, she is in his arms anew, draped over them, and this makes her laugh again, but more breathy, more like a gasp. Avery takes it upon herself to kiss his neck, his ear. She smells the mother dog, the baby pups, but she smells Calden, too, and his is more rich, more close, more warm, more human, more otherworldly. Calden's body, and then Calden's room, with the hearth against the wall, with his linens soft on the bed, her body soft on the linens when she walks backward pulling him with her to the bed, his body rough and soft and hard and hot coming down over her because she is pulling him there, too. Pulling him by the halves of his shirt, more sturdy than her own, as she is pulling buttons from their eyes to get her hands on his body,
abdomen, sides, chest, beautiful, moaning.
Calden WhiteThere's no fire in the hearth. If he had more time -- more presence of mind -- he would rectify that. He'd light a fire for her, make the room warm for her, bring food and drink for her, make his home as hospitable as he can for her. This has ever been the truth, from the first time he met her onward. He is a good host to her because he is Fianna, but that is not the long and short of it. He is good to her, and he wants to be good to her -- good and generous and loving and true -- because: well.
He loves her. Isn't that obvious?
They tumble into his bed: her hands pulling him by his shirt, his hands going to brace himself against the mattress. The bedsprings creak, but only a little. The sounds they make are louder: moaning, laughing, laugh-moaning, and the soft sounds of their mouths together. He thrashes out of his shirt when he's had enough of it, and it goes draping down by the wayside. He opens her top up the rest of the way, pulls it out of that peacock-green skirt of hers. His hand beneath her back lifts her enough that she can shrug out of those sleeves, and then there's another garment on the floor,
and another, and another, there goes her skirt, there go his pants, there goes her lingerie, there go his socks and his boxers. He still has his watch on. Somehow he's beneath her. She's the one that notices it, that watch: he holds still, his thoroughly-kissed mouth quirking into a lazy half-grin as she unbuckles the buckle and slides it off. He transfers it over to the nightstand, and then his big hands spread over her back and he rolls her under again.
Puts his mouth to her, as she must have known he would. Worships those breasts of hers, as she must know he loves to. They have no patience anymore, they can't wait, and yet they have the patience to wait for this: or at least he does. He takes his time, suckling at her, licking her, tonguing her and mouthing her and rubbing his face all over her like he can't get enough; he just can't get enough of her.
Avery ChaseIt's almost summer. They don't need a fire. Look at the two of them, drinking fire and sweating for each other: they don't need a fire. The hearth is there just as there is a hearth in so many rooms of his house and in two rooms of the little apartment he now has in the city, but they don't need a fire. Neither of them think, at right this moment, of building a fire.
The door shut a little too hard. Maybe that was Avery, closing it as soon as she got him inside. Maybe that was Calden, kicking it shut with his heel so he wouldn't have to take his hands off of her. Either way the door is shut, they cross the floor and hit his bed, climbing upon it and sinking down into it, his body suddenly and completely covering her own. He has to stop touching her to get his shirt off. She starts working on his pants while he's reared up over her, her eyes fixed on his navel, on the dark, thin line of hair leading underneath his clothes. She thinks she's going to lose her mind long before his hands ride up her back, lifting her up so she can slip out of her shirt, toss her bra aside.
So she kisses him then, while their hands push at jeans, open the zipper of her skirt, push everything away, down, off. His thumbs hook in her panties to drag them down her thighs and she moans then, a gasping, fragile sound in the air. That is when she climbs atop him, rolls him beneath her and straddles him, kissing him, touching his chest, while his hands lift and caress her breasts, while he touches her ass.
The watchband rubs against her thigh and she pauses, looks back, like a startled animal. Blinks at it, and he grins like that and takes it off but she's at his throat because of that smirk, moaning into his skin, moving herself against him,
so he topples her again. Licks her again, while her thigh rides up his side, while her leg crooks around his body. He's devouring and she is dizzy from it, mindless, touching his shoulders and his face and his hair and urging him -- in the most impolite way, really, because she can't think clearly enough to use her words -- downward.
Calden WhiteHe doesn't mind that she's being so pushy. He doesn't mind that she's impatient, she can't wait, she can't even seem to form the words to tell him
right here.now.hurry.
He doesn't mind at all. He laughs, low and deep in his chest, and laughing -- gives her breast one last insistent suck before relinquishing that prize. He moves down, following the direction her hands urge him, the muscles in his shoulders rolling under her palms. His hands cup her tits a little longer; then they too descend, sliding over her sides, her stomach, parting at the level of her navel to press her thighs apart.
She smells like intoxication and heat to him. Like sovereignty and savagery both. He pauses just a moment, his breath coming in short humid pants; he's just looking at her. Looking up the glorious length of her body to her neck, her face, her eyes closed or open, blue, blazing.
Then his puts his mouth on her. He pushes his face against her cunt, shameless and starved; he opens his mouth and uses his tongue and -- it's so intense, what he does; it's focused, it's ferocious, it's unrelenting, he licks and flicks and sucks and kisses; he zeroes his attention on her clit, he holds her with a hand on her hip, he centers her with his fingers slipping inside her, filling her, feeling her, giving her something to hold onto.
Avery ChaseIf we're counting, they've both been patient all night. They've wanted each other since the rooftop -- no. Since he arrived at her house, picked her up, since her leg kicked behind her and her body pressed against his. She's been wanting him since she saw him, wanted to drown him in kisses, wanted to take him up to her palatial bedroom and make love to him before anything else. It's a wonder they got through dinner. It's a wonder they managed to drive all the way up here without pulling over to some little motel, like they did that once.
Avery moans when he puts his mouth on her. Moans loudly, echoing, loud enough to be heard in the house, because finally he is right there, his body between her legs, his hand on her breast, his mouth on her clit. She arches, tightening her grip on his hair as much as she dares, wetness flavoring his tongue as he licks her. She squirms when he enters her with his fingers, starts well and truly fucking her, her eyes closed and her brow furrowed, her lips parted in bliss.
She thrashes, grinding against his face, turning her head to the side, biting at his pillow.
Calden WhiteHer moans ring off the rafters. Fill the space around them. Wintertime and the crackling of the fire would underscore what sounds they make. Right now, it's just them: her panting, his muffled growl, her moan, the slide of the bedding as her fingers and her teeth pull it loose.
She bites his pillow. He reaches up with his free hand, finds hers. Their fingers lace. Clench tight. He holds on to her like that, tightly, as he devours his fill of her. She tastes like wildness and glory; he can't get enough.
He can't get enough: lapping at her, stroking her, nuzzling her, rubbing his face against her cunt, her thighs. For a little while he's kissing the inside of her leg, feeling the deep pulse of that artery running through. For a little while he's fondling her, his fingers inside her, his thumb working her clit -- giving her some small respite, some momentary ebb to the stimulation,
before he comes back to her. Is drawn back to her, iron to magnet, kissing his way down her leg to her lips, her clit, her cunt. He licks her: from where his fingers enter her all the way up, slitheringly, the tip of his tongue sweeping and flicking and circling. He groans, low and vibratory, as he finds her clit again. Comes to it, focuses upon it, closes his mouth over that nerve-nexus and,
let's just say it,
licks her, sucks her, services her, pleasures her, fucks her -- and never mind if she thrashes or writhes or flails or kicks or comes or flies right off the bed. He stays with her, relentless, worshipful.
Avery ChaseThere's a closeness and a tenderness in the way he finds her hand, the way they grip together for a moment even while she is moaning, aching. That's why it's almost funny, when -- panting -- she takes his hand and moves it back to her breast, moans as his own reach takes over from her desire, as she fills his palm. She melts a little; she exhales with relief when he kisses her thigh, but a second later she's guiding him back, her lips making a m sound that could just be groaning, could be more, more.
She likes being on that edge where she can't stand it, but does anyway. Where she can't survive it, but lives anyway. That lick he gives her, circling his fingers and stroking upward, makes her think she's going to die. She may be weeping. She's telling him things.
She's calling his name.
She's taking the name of god, over and over.
She's begging him to fuck her, now, she's telling him that if she doesn't come she's going to die, she can't, she can't, she
is coming, panting so desperately that her vision is going black, fireworks going off in her skull. Her upper body is lifting from the bed, her torso tight, her orgasm played out against his mouth and around his fingers.
Calden WhiteHere is the unvarnished truth:
Calden loves it when Avery comes. He fucking loves it, and he never tries to hide it. Why would he? He is an honest man; they are honest people. He is not afraid she will hurt him or abuse him or exploit him or any of the many, many, many, many things the kin to wolves might fear of their cousins. Some might think he trusts too easily; but then she has never, ever for a moment given him a reason not to trust her. And love her. And cleave to her, always.
But we digress.
He loves it when she comes. When she arches like that, when she just about levitates like that -- strung up, pulled taut on the invisible current of her own pleasure; when her voice twists itself off and all that's left is her panting, her panting, her desperate breathing and the lift of her breast against his fingers,
when her thighs tighten like that, when her calves clasp his back, when her cunt squeezes down on him like that: god, he loves it. He can't help but love it; can't help but love her, can't help but suck at her for that single
taut
moment when she is highest, she is tightest, she is at the very apex of her climax.
Then: she shatters. Then: he opens his mouth to her, presses his tongue to her, licks up that sweet wetness slipping over his fingers, eats her, drinks her, takes her in; kissing and nuzzling and lapping at her clit over and over and over as she turns molten all around him.
Gentling, slowing, eventually subsiding to a long langourous rhythm that matches the stroke of his fingers. There's wetness on his knuckles; his palm. There's wetness on his chin and his cheeks, the tip of his nose. He is a fucking mess, and he doesn't care. He is hard as rock, quite literally pulsing with want; and he doesn't care.
He is lazy now. He is still touching her, slow sliding strokes of his fingers; slow endless strokes of his tongue. He keeps licking her, insatiable even in his satisfaction, until she makes him stop.
Avery ChaseIt is possible to feel satiated without coming. To drink in the orgasm your lover is having and feel fulfilled yourself. You don't need to be in love to feel that way. Calden, however, is very much in love with Avery. He has to know, though she speaks of it less and considers herself less demonstrative of her adoration, that she loves him too. Is in love with him. Is captivated by him. Adores him, down to each little dark hair on his chest, down to his toes, down to even the sound he makes in his sleep when he sighs, rolling over. She loves him, she loves him.
The time between the crest of her orgasm, that last moment when she is sure she is going to die,
and the tide going out again, the melting, the relaxation,
she can barely recall.
Avery knows that she trembles and she can feel her body convulsing, tightening, rippling. She feels Calden lapping at her like an animal, drinking her in, tasting every drop, hears the sounds he's making as he goes on fucking her as though he'd like her to come again like that, more, more. She wants to purr at him that he's selfish, but she knows it wouldn't make any sense at all, he just pleasured her. So she laughs softly at her own thoughts, shuddering, her laughter tattering apart as new waves of pleasure go through her. Oh, he is lovely, and she calls him this instead of selfish. She thinks of opening her legs a little wider, telling him he can have more, he can keep going, he can have all he wants of her pussy.
He has heard her speak such filthy things to him before. He's watched her slide her finger into herself, moaning that she couldn't possibly take his big, hard cock one more time. He knows what goes on in that mind of hers, knows that when she chuckles darkly to herself like that it's probably dirty.
Her calves stroke his back. She lets him keep licking. She can't bear it but she does anyway. She feels generous right now; she wants him to have everything he wants, especially her pussy. But all the same, after a while, she rolls over. She passes one leg over his head, turning onto her belly, hugging one of his pillows, smiling, making the happiest noises, even though she's dislodging his mouth and his hand as she turns, as she resettles herself,
as she gently, lightly lifts her ass in invitation.
Calden WhiteIt is, paradoxical as it may seem, an act of generosity when she lets him keep licking like that. When she doesn't push him away and close her legs and tell him to stop, wait, stop, she can't take it anymore. She can't quite bear it but she does anyway, her thighs relaxed, occasionally trembling; her pussy wet and quivering and so fucking sweet. That's what he's thinking: that she's so sweet, she tastes so sweet, she's so good, she's so lovely and wonderful and glorious, glorious, he could take the name of the lord in vain himself.
After a while, she rolls over. And he is dislodged: he raises himself a little higher on his elbows, his feet hanging off the end of the bed. He watches her turn, a twinkle in his eye: he is endeared by her smile, her pillow-hugging, those happy little noises she makes.
He is inflamed by the way she lays herself out. And lifts her ass. That is an age-old signal, older than humanity, older than wolves; as old as the oldest mammals to have walked the earth. Looking at her, Calden burns anew. He wipes his mouth on his palm, which is not because he is disgusted -- at all -- but because he doesn't want to go to her a complete mess. Only mostly a mess.
And he does go to her. He pushes up and he crawls over her, fourlegged for the moment. His knees nudge hers apart. He covers her and lays himself out over her, his arms sliding around her waist, her ribs; his hands crossing over to cover her breasts like that is what they are made for.
His chest to her back. His groin to her ass; his cock hard and hot. He nuzzles her behind her ear, and at the line of her jaw. He is smiling. So is she. He is kissing her with his still-somewhat-messy mouth: the corner of her mouth and then her lips if she lets him. He does not,
though god only knows why, or how he can resist,
enter her just yet. He relaxes: rests with her like that for a while, heavy and very warm. Makes a low contented sound, a rumbling mmm. "I love you," he whispers. Just thought she should know.
Avery ChaseThe very first time he was inside of her it was -- sort of -- like this. He was behind her, pressed to her, touching her. She could see their reflections dim and ghostly in the windows of the room downstairs. She could feel his chest against her back and she felt, strangely, so safe. So comforted. Held together, really, with his arms braced around her and his cock pushing inside of her. She hadn't expected to feel twinges of safety or security like that. She had thought she would play, and explore, and do strange and mad little things like this. She would take her broken heart and make it forget. She would fool around with this handsome, complicit kinsman, and that would be that.
He feels so good against her, like this. She does love sleeping against his side, curled up to him, arm over his chest. She likes that. But she likes this, too, and not because it's carnal and primitive and a bit wild -- well. That's not the only reason she likes it like this. She likes the way he makes her feel at home. She likes the way he makes her feel... safe. Close. Protected.
Which is silly. Nothing comes for her in the night that she is not far better equipped to face.
Except maybe the things inside her that are empty-eyed and frightened. Avery cannot always face that on her own.
--
She arches as he comes closer, climbs over her. She smiles, snuggling against him, rubbing her ass on his cock with a sweet familiarity. He smells like her cum when he starts kissing her, and this makes her laugh, but she kisses him anyway, turns her head and nuzzles him. She opens her legs a little wider, whispering to him: "I love you, too, Calden." She kisses the corner of his mouth. "Fuck me, though, darling. Really fuck me, now."
Calden WhiteCalden's smile quirks into a grin. He laughs, accepting that little kiss, returning it. Catching her mouth like that, kisses her over her shoulder, leans over her to adore that lovely, laughing mouth of hers.
As with all things Avery, Calden is delighted to be of service. He is more than happy to oblige, especially when obliging so very agreeable to all involved. And so: kissing her, he slides his hand down. And so: kissing her, he touches her where he'd kissed her and licked her and pleasured her so recently. And so:
kissing her, covering her, keeping her warm and safe and protected as he can, never mind that she is much more a match for all the things that go bump in the night than he is, never mind that she is a wolf and a queen and a daughter of kings,
Calden does as he's told.
--
For all their heat and hunger, this is a slow, tender thing. This is his brow bowed to the nape of her neck; his lips pressed to her spine. This is his hands covering her breast, his fingertips stroking her clit. This is her hand covering his over her heartbeat; her hand reaching back to plunge into his hair. And this is his body moving against hers, stroking slow and smooth into hers. The room dark, their sounds quiet.
Calden pushing up on his elbows to go a little harder. Avery sinking her teeth into the pillows to muffle her moans, or perhaps just to have something to hold on to. His hand rubbing up her back, open-palmed; then down her arm to find her hand. They hold hands over and over again tonight. They hold hands again as he comes down over her, sweeps her into the circle of his arm, holds her tight-clasped against his body, under his body, as he drives into her, their lovemaking heavy now, hard, like chasing down prey in the night. He grunts as he fucks her. She grips his hair, or his hand. He pants her name, and then some prayerful obscenity, and she angles her hips to take him, and he follows into her, and
hits some brink, some precipice,
goes plunging off. Groans, weighing against her, holding her tight in both arms; fucking into her, pounding her in short, solid slams, giving himself over to the moment, and to her.
--
This time he doesn't keep going, and going, and going. He's a little less relentless when he himself is overcome. He slows, he stops; he sprawls over her. His ribs strain and his heart pounds and he is a great, lazy thing; a goliath laid out. Oh look: his hand is still between her legs. He fondles her sleepily, ruminatingly. Nuzzles her behind her ear. Kisses her neck.
"Still love you," he murmurs, words indistinct from his smile, his exertion, his throat raw from the noises he made. Like he's picking up the thread of conversation they let fall.
Avery ChaseAvery doesn't expect him to go slow. She doesn't expect him to be tender. She's surprised he can stand it: the way they were on the roof, the way they were in his cellar, the way he pleasured her just now. She can't believe he can bear to go slowly, even to start. But she loves it. She winds against him as he fucks her, lifts her body as he touches her, rubs their sweating skins together. And at first, they go slowly. He touches his third eye to the back of her neck; he kisses the architecture of her body, and he holds her, and in a very different way, she holds him. She welcomes him, contains him, keeps him safe.
But they cannot go on like that forever. Eventually she is whimpering, moaning to him that she needs him to fuck her, she really needs it, please. Or maybe, eventually, he is just lifting himself up, and she is shuddering with anticipation of what she knows he is about to do, which is really fuck her. She holds onto his pillows. She groans into them, biting down. Their hands are holding each other. Now it is firm, a little rough, and yet just as seemingly endless.
They go faster, and a little harder, until she is crying out again, his name, his name, he's panting hers in answer, he is losing his mind, she is leaving her body, they are coming together.
--
She laughs after. God, for no reason. She laughs when she can breathe again, holding his hands together between her breasts, holding him around her even though it's almost too hot to breathe now. She snuggles. She laughs breathlessly, wants to wrap her entire body around his entire body and kiss him forever. She is so happy. She wiggles under his big, warm body. She hugs his hand with her thighs, cradles him to her cunt.
"I know," she murmurs back, raspy as well. Sleepy. She reaches back, touching his face lightly with the back of her fingers. "Almost there," she murmurs, closing her eyes. She is turning, turning him, curling up to his chest, wrapping her arms around his waist. Lying in his bed at night, their bodies sweaty and smelly from sex, her face resting on his chest, his body wrapped in her arms, her leg covering his leg. Avery finds that spot, that place, and inhales deeply, exhales slowly.
"And we're here."
Calden WhiteAnd they're here. Her favorite place. One of them, anyway -- last and perhaps best. Right here, in his bed, in his room, in his house, in his arms.
Calden had almost forgotten. One can hardly blame him: he was preoccupied with other activities. But oh, now, reminded -- he laughs low and lazy and slow. He wraps her up as she wraps him up: his arm around her shoulders, covering her encircling arm with his hand.
"Mine too," he murmurs. And they are filthy and sweaty and uncovered and if they really do sleep like this they'll only wake up a little later cooled-off and in want of a bath, but he doesn't care. He stretches minimalistically, tensing his body and his limbs, quivering in place for a moment, relaxing with a sigh. His arm gathers her just a little bit closer.
He repeats it, because the best things are worth repeating: "Mine, too."
No comments:
Post a Comment