a bad idea.

wolfman

No idea what that's supposed to mean. Wolf looks at her open hand, her offered palm. Eyebrows are pulling toward one another again. Hesitation so long it's simply a pause. Then he takes her hand. Waits to see if she's going to shake it or -- what.

broken doll

That's not how you shake hands. Even with a misbehaving dog. She waits, eyes on his, til he takes her hand.

Her hand closes around his, softly. And she turns away again, walking down the hall.

To his door.

wolfman

Hand's big and rough. Eclipses hers, even if hers is the one that closes. His doesn't. Not for a while. He's undecided. Not stupid, not ignorant; he knows where she's going, and where this is going. Meanwhile his feet are following, he's going with her to where they're going, and then

his hand closes. He slows. He stops. "Wait. Devon, wait." Wolf pulls girl to a stop too. "It's a bad idea."

broken doll

He knew where this was going, where she was going, when she offered him her hand. He knew where it was going when he took it, let her close her fingers around his. He knew when she turned toward his room and even if his mind was undecided his feet were following her. Like instinct.

But he stops himself, and then he stops her, saying her name, telling a lie. She looks back at him, with those eyes of hers that are unlike anyone's because they have seen things no one else sees. She gives a small shake of her head.

Her lips move, but if there is sound to her voice it's nearly imperceptible:

no, it's not.

wolfman

Wolf doesn't move. Wolf's frowning at girl. Does that so much you'd think he didn't even like her. And maybe he doesn't. Doesn't mean he doesn't want to follow her down the hall and through that door, though.

Still:

"Why are you doing this?"

broken doll

That's a dumb question.

She thinks so, at least. Her eyebrows quirk slightly. She gives a small shrug, so barely-seen under that jacket of his, so hidden. And her hand is still in his hand, around his hand. She uses that to step closer to him, since he isn't following anymore, isn't letting her go on ahead. And she steps close enough to place the toes of her shoes between the toes of his shoes. Close enough that she has to look up at him.

"Want to. Think you want to, too."

Shakes her head again, just as slight as before. Her voice: just as soft. Softer.

"No one took my dress off, Rafael. And I was alone at that party."

wolfman

Other hand's as big and coarse as the first. He puts it on her cheek. Fingers cup all the way around to the back of her head. Now's when a romantic ought to kiss the girl. Now's when a gallant ought to step away.

Wolf does neither. Wolf lets go her hand and puts both hands around her waist. Lifts her right up, easy as you please. That doll-like dress and that creepy cracked makeup makes the illusion too real for a second, so he stops looking at her and closes his eyes and presses his face sudden and insistent against her skin.

The base of her neck. The dip between her breasts. Can hear him inhaling, breathing in so harsh and swift his teeth bare and his nose wrinkles. Even then she has no scent, no smell, nothing that marks her as anything more than a ghost. A sylph. An imagination.

When his lungs can't hold any more he exhales. Breath hot as a dragon's. Arm wrapping around her pinning her to him, held aloft, stolen from gravity itself. Other hand grasps a palmful of breast, fabric; starts to pull the second from the first, starts to pull that doll-like dress up or down or simply away.

broken doll

What it was, she doesn't know and won't know: the easy way she could answer that question, the awareness and acceptance of his own answer hidden beneath his resistance. Or the thing that bothered him so much at the costume ball that she caught outside, heard and remembered.

She knows what happens next, though. He touches her face and she tilts her head into it, eyes closing for a second before they open again, looking at him. Maybe she expects to be kissed now. Maybe she expects him to walk away, again, and again, because that is what they always do. Perversely, for a moment, she considers walking away from him instead this time, contrary for the sake of being contrary, but

she doesn't want to do that.

He lifts her up anyway. She lets go of a rush of breath, almost a laugh, but not at his expense. He presses his skin into the fabric of her dress over her chest, inhales, but cannot find her. Her hand, having lost his, touches the top of his head. Strokes four fingertips deep through his hair, touching his scalp. She feels much, much more real than she smells. Without either of them meaning for it to happen, his jacket falls off her shoulders, thumping quietly to the ground around his feet.

Devon doesn't wrap herself around him. He holds her up; she forces him to do so. He starts pulling at her clothes, feeling her through the layers of her dress and the layers of her lingerie, where he can only make out a curve and not the feel, the weight, the shape of her. Still it makes her breath catch. She never did her dress back up; when he starts to touch her, she gives a forward shrug, pulling her arms from the sleeves, letting the bodice of the dress crumple between her waist and his chest.

They are not kissing. They are not talking. She's looking at him, watching him. Holding him, that way, even if her arms and her legs and her lips do not.

wolfman

Wolf's face is still pressed to girl's chest when the dress starts to come down. Feels it in some subtle change in the fabric. Less tension, less resistance. A fold of cloth catches over his nose, his open mouth. Wolf lifts his head and cloth collapses softly, gracefully between their bodies.

Girl's eyes are watching him. No horrific black contacts now. Just her eyes, blue as blue ever was. And his, flashes and flickers of green catching light. Her hands touch his hair, form to his head. They are not kissing, not mouths anyway -- he turns his head and bites a kiss to the inside of her forearm. Her dark mouth and her dramatic eyes.

Her twisting smiles and her madwoman's hair. Something about her is so real, so vivid, so present; and something about her is so transient, so intangible, so fleeting. His hand on her body again, touching her through her layers of intimates. The very term is a paradox. He buries his face against her breasts again, inhaling, always inhaling, and sometimes it's like he can almost catch a wisp, a hint, a flicker of her. Slips away from him like fish from a net, water from cupped hands. Leaves his fingers wet but empty.

He lets her slip down his body. Such a sudden drop could make a woman gasp, but he catches her before her feet hit the ground. Lets her down that last inch slow, and now there's room for them to step an inch apart, room for him to tug her dress down let it fall. Room for him to turn her around, grip rough, hand pushing spread-fingered up her back to feel for fastenings, hook-and-eyes, zippers, some logic to the lingerie. Starts pulling apart whatever he finds. His impatience and anticipation is in his silence, seething and turbulent. They're still in the goddamn hall, his room one way and hers the other, the spiral stairs, the open railing overlooking the living room.

witch

Her dress still carries the chill from being outside. So, too, do her arms and legs, the ends of her hair. His jacket, heated from his body and sitting inside, drinking on the stairs to -- ostensibly -- wait for her, is in a woolen heap on the ground at his feet, losing its warmth. But the dress is cool when it falls over his mouth and nose. And lifting his head, letting it fall, he sees her looking at him. Her lips quirk in an almost smile there, eyes drowsy with one thing and bright with another. When he looks away, a tearing motion, he kisses her arm instead of those lips. She tips her head forward, brow to his brow for a moment, thick and tousled and teased hair falling around him for a moment, smelling like night air more than anything else.

Only one arm is needed, firm around her waist, to hold her aloft and against him. He touches her again through corset, through bra, still so many layers of silk and satin and cotton and lace that he can scarcely feel her. He presses his face -- let's be truthful, his nose -- to her breasts again though. These clothes are warmer, closer to her, softer in his hand and against his face. She can hear him breathing her in, and knows he's trying to find her. It's like that faint trace of scent her brew had, for a moment, before it was gone again. There is something there, as real as the rest of her, but imperceptible to natural senses.

His arm loosens and she drops. And it could make a woman gasp and it does make this woman gasp, her breath hitching in her chest, only to be arrested again. When he looks at her again, sees her again in that last slow inch, she is looking directly at him still, her breath visible in the movement of her body even if it's no longer a white cloud against a dark sky.

That dress gives up. It slithers down her hips, which are narrow anyway, and around her legs, a white and floral puddle across her ridiculous lace-trimmed socks and childish footwear. Still those cracks in her skin, across her brow and throat and arms and legs. Still those too-dark lips. He steps an inch back; she leans an inch forward without intention. When he turns her, it's a surprise, and she nearly tangles her feet in the dress she was wearing, but a moment later she grasps why: off, his hands are saying, searching over the garment. off, off.

A row of hook-and-eyes up the front of the corset, the black metal fastenings hidden against the black satin fabric. She grasps both sides and, in a practiced motion, undoes the top half, then the bottom. The straps of the corset, for this style has them, slip down and off her shoulders, and the corset itself falls between her back and his front against the growing pile of clothing. Vaguely, it still keeps the shape of her back, her hips, her stomach, her chest, but cut open, discarded, unneeded.

There are no scars on her back. None between the wings of her shoulderblades. She has such a long waist, and a lean one. What's left on her is black, lace-trimmed, boyshort-and-balconette. She is toeing out of her shoes, stepping out of the puddle like a selkie from her skin. Turns her head and looks at him, over her shoulder, as though questioning.

wolfman

Glance over the shoulder doesn't even catch him. Wolf's dropping to his knees, following her falling garments. Fine-brushed wool on the ribs of the corset, on silk and satin or at least the believable approximation thereof. Inside of his thighs on the outsides of her ankles and his hands, his arms wrapping around her, palms and fingers searching out her stomach, her lower abdomen, her chest.

Now he's rubbing his face against her back. Now he's rooting out her scent in the dip of her spine. Even there there's nothing to find, or near enough to nothing that it doesn't matter. He bites her in a fury, and it's barely restrained. His teeth through her boyshorts, catching the muscle under the skin.

His hands on her sides pulling her down, he pulls her down, he pushes her under him and flips her over. Sweeps her hair aside. Descends over her, she should be afraid of his teeth, she should be afraid of his hunger, his mouth is everywhere. Indiscriminate. A breast, a nipple, a collarbone, a heartbeat. A rib, a fluttering pulse-point, a taut stretch of sensitive skin. Wolf's burningly silent, but there's a growl in his throat just waiting to get loose. No sound but the rustle of their clothes, the hush of rough palms, unscarred skin.

witch

So: lace against the insides of his knees, still hugging her ankles. And lace against his palms and against his chin, where he's touching her and where he's seeking her. His face rubbing against her like that feels so strange. Her back arches slightly away from or around the contact, and she is twisted, twisting in his arms, looking down at him when he cannot contain whatever it is that drives him so and digs his teeth into her. She gasps, the muscle tensing, the word

"Ow," whispered out in a tone of revelation.

She goes down. Her ankles twist and her her knees buckle and she's atop of the clothing they've discarded, and he is atop of her, and her knees aren't rising up, legs aren't wrapping around him, but her head tips back. She has her hands in his hair again when he's bent and curled over her, nipping the top curve of her breast held up so perkily by that lingerie, kissing her -- are those kisses? -- here and there, or where her skin stretches from lowermost rib towards her stomach.

For her part, she hasn't made a move towards his clothes. Or for his bedroom again. She arches her back, pressing into his hands and his chest and his mouth, and tells him:

"Don't bite me again until you're coming."

wolfman

Wolf raises his head. His ravenous mouth parted, but she tells him not to bite. He shows his teeth. She arches her back. Her body presses to his and he puts his head down, rubs his face on her, eats at her with his lips, scrapes with his teeth. No more biting. For now.

Thud in the floor: his palm hitting the ground. Impact cushioned by thick carpeting. Fingers pulling into a fist. He levers up over her and now it's her bra's turn. He pulls at it hard enough to raise her torso off the ground. She's so thin and light anyway, fragile and ferocious at once. She reaches around and unsnaps it. Or maybe he just pulls until the hooks give.

The bra comes off. Wolf flings it aside. Wolf's mouth on girl's skin at last. Hot as his breath. Hot as his hands. Hot as his rage, scorching up the inside of his ribcage. Wolf tears her panties off. Growing sea of clothes around them, loose as skins. A corset sliding over the lining of a suit jacket. A scrap of lace fluttering by a ridiculous doll dress. Wolf's hand between her legs, wolf growling against her neck at the feel of her. First sound he's made since he said why and she told him. Wolf's body on hers heavy and hard, clothes nearly undisturbed

except for his hand tearing open his belt. His hand pulling button from hole. His hand whipping a zipper down. His hand pushing underwear down. Wants to bite her as he pushes into her because that's what you do, that's what you do, but she said don't and she said ow and he is afraid of the way that ow made him feel. He has a hand on her shoulder holding her down and that's what he bites: the back of his own wrist, viciously, sinking his teeth in as he slams into her. It's not gentle, but then he never was.

witch

For a moment he lifts his head, looks at her, shows his teeth but doesn't use them on her. Uses his mouth, lips uncannily and disturbingly soft, kisses viciously hard. She shivers at that. It is the good kind of shiver, the good kind of arch, the right kind of tension riding underneath her skin. It makes it easy, liquid easy, to feel herself lifted up and simply know what it's for, why this and what now. She reaches back, leaning into the support he gives her weight, giving it a quick flick to unsnap it so the hooks don't claw across her back, break, snap.

James and Franklin or James or Franklin have made themselves scarce downstairs. God knows if they've seen this before: with this wolf, with another. God knows if they've seen anything like it. Unlikely they've even met anyone like her.

When she's that much more bare, she comes to life. Her bra is flung aside and she lifts herself, wraps her arms around him, putting her mouth on his neck. It's a kiss, and her lipstick isn't fine enough that it won't stain him. She kisses him there, face buried between his jaw and shoulder, panting against his skin. His hands are on her panties, yanking them down her hips, down those long lean legs, and she's kicking them off, sliding her thighs together to work them the rest of the way. She's naked now, naked but for a ribbon tied around her wrist that used to be in her hair, white socks.

Her mouth pulls from his skin, lipstick smeared, when he touches her. It's sudden and it's ungentle and he can feel the faintest pulling-away of her hips even though she's gasping, she's moving against his fingers, coming back, riding the touch even as he's pressing her down again, growling. Even now, the very smell of her arousal is flickering, evasive, dashing away like some spirit only half-seen in a forest. It eludes him.

She makes a sound like an entreaty, wordless, and he must understand it because he reaches for his belt and unbuckles it but does not remove it. Unfastens his slacks and pushes them and underwear down in one motion but not all the way, as though there is no time. And there isn't, there must not be, because she is opening her legs to either side of him, finally. Finally, now.

He holds her down though he doesn't need to. Bites his own wrist because he does need to. Pushes into her, hard, everything all at once, and a sharp breath goes in through her teeth, which she can't help. That pulling-away of her hips, though there is nowhere to go but into a pile of clothes, the motion comingling with her spine melting, her head tipping back again, her body flooding with something rich and molten and spreading, opening through her.

Her eyes open before she lowers them, finding him with that unsettling blue gaze. Her skin is flushed. Her mouth is red. She wants something. She says nothing. So she looks away again, wrapping her legs around him.

The roll of her hips, the way that she moves them, can only be an encouragement. Or a spur.

wolfman

Shocking blue meets him. Recognizes him. Turns away but then he turns them back, puts his hand on her face. One then the other. Mark of his teeth on the back of his forearm, deep and blanched. Rough palms turn her back.

Animal green meets her. Pupils black as anything. She's naked but for socks and a ribbon. He's not naked at all but he covers her. No one coming up the stairs would see anything but her bare legs wrapped around his waist. His white shirt untucking itself from his pants. No one coming up the stairs would have any doubt as to what was going on. No one comes up the stairs at all.

Wouldn't. He's a fucking wolf, he's a fucking monster and this is his den.

His hand wrapped under her head now, their brows pressed together. Too close for details. Just the impression of blue eyes, green eyes, black lashes, black pupils, breaths tangling like bodies. Girl rolls her hips. Wolf lets out a harsh breath. Wolf's showing his teeth again but he remembers, he doesn't use them.

Uses his body instead. Uses all that strength, all that size. Has his hands on her body and his arms under her, has her gathered close, close. Enveloped, filled, surrounded, held. Not a fast, frantic fuck, but it's hard, it's heavy, it's a thorough pounding like maybe now, maybe if he's inside her, maybe if he surrounds her and consumes her and devours her whole he'll finally

smell her, know her, taste her, recognize her.

witch

What goes through her eyes when he pulls her back and makes her look at him again, he recognizes. Can't help it -- it's fear. But it's not the fear that's gone through her, angry and ready to bolt or fight, the other times. It's something more vulnerable. She doesn't want to look at him right now but he's there, hands on her face, watching her.

She makes a sound: some thrust of his, heavy and deep, and this other thing, this way he's holding her, looking at her. She closes her eyes. She moves under him and against him, pulling savagely at the sides of his shirt. She's not strong, he knows that, but she's determined, and perhaps a button or two are loosened if not torn free. One way or another, with his help or more likely without it, she bares his chest and lifts her body against that previously hidden body heat, skin, and for some reason that is the first time she moans. Like a relief.

Her hands on his sides then, under the ends of his shirt, feeling the coil and flex and roll of the muscles in his back, guiding his hips toward her, into her, again and again. Her palms smooth endlessly over him, following his flesh, soaking in his heat. Eventually she wraps her arms all around him, her forearms laying along his spine, her hands on his mid-back, curled only slightly to clutch at him. Hold him.

The sounds she's making, more fragile than he knows she is, feels she is, start to come in harmony with every firm, long thrust he gives her.

wolfman

She's not strong. He knows this. Couldn't put a dent on him when she had him right there. She's determined. He knows this too. Couldn't doesn't mean didn't try, and by god she tried. She's frightened of him. He knows this better than anything and sometimes it infuriates him, sometimes it pains him, sometimes

terrifyingly

it gives him a vicious black satisfaction in some dark sordid corner of his soul. That's not him, though. That's not the man in him or the wolf in him. That's the monster in him and it's what he bites his own flesh to contain.

Right now the fear is different. Right now he doesn't think it's fear of him. Right now he can barely read her but that's still better than the usual. Right now she's afraid of something between them, and he thinks maybe he understands. Intuits it. Afraid and craving at once; like an addiction you know will kill you. Right now he knows she wants his shirt off, or at least open. Right now he levers his body off hers an inch or two and her hands pull and tug and buttons slip loose or buttons fling free. Girl's arms wind under his shirt, over his skin. Thinks of snakes, thinks of vines, thinks of her body entangling inescapably with his. Girl's skin is cool compared to his but girl's pussy is the warmest thing in the imaginable universe.

Girl moans to press her body to his. Wolf closes his eyes, wolf hides his face as last. Hides against the side of her neck, the flash of her pulse. Hunts her scent there, too, finds it as elusive as ever before.

Their arms are wrapped all around each other, like they can't get close enough. Wolf's hands are gripping too hard but he can't help it. Sounds she's making, more fragile than he could have thought, are triggering primitive reflex arcs he didn't know he had and his hands are grasping, gripping, clutching at her skin. Can feel the thinness of the muscles, the frailty of the body. Incites in him a ferocious protectiveness. Incites in him, too, a terrible hunger that he is afraid of. Can't tell if it grows from lust or violence, or if there's even a difference for the likes of him.

His arms tighten; cradling, crushing, there isn't a line between the two. He's fucking her so hard now, the impact of his body to hers turning into the impact of her body back against his arms, against the floor. His mouth is pressed to the pulse point in her throat. It's dangerous. Breath is harsh in his lungs, scraping through his throat. Doesn't make a sound but if that's some attempt to hide what she's doing to him it's a poor one. Girl's not a fool. Girl can feel the way his heart beats. Girl can feel the way he breathes, ribs expanding against her arms. Girl can feel the way he fucks her, with the burn of ecstasy, with the edge of desperation, with his fingers twisting into her hair to pull her head back and

she gave him permission to bite her, but that's not what he does. That's not what he does when his body goes thrummingly rigid. When all the commotion tearing through him locks down, fuses, incandesces.

He doesn't bite her when he comes: he kisses her. Silently and furiously and savagely. Tearing breath from her lungs with the way he eats at her mouth; driving it out of her with every brutal thrust. A circle closed.

witch

Somehow that makes her laugh. Soft, breathy, gaspingly, she laughs when he lifts himself up so she can get his shirt open, tear his shirt open. When he helps her that tiny bit before coming back down to her, fucking her again, letting her gaze go. She keeps making those sounds, unfettered, unafraid; maybe later she'll be sore, she doesn't know and isn't thinking of it. Right now she can't feel pain, can't recognize roughness, can't fathom anything but wanting, wanting.

Not afraid of him. Wanted this, could tell he wanted this, but it wasn't much of a mystery, was it? The first time he saw her he offered a thousand, ten thousand, murder. Whatever she was demanding he'd give. The first time he saw her she thought he was going to crawl out of his skin from the wanting.

The fact that he told her it was a bad idea, that he never knows what to expect, that he asked her why, tells her plainly enough that if he had any idea she wanted him, his doubt outweighed his belief.

Wants it even though it's so rough, and he's so close to her throat, and her fingernails dig into his back a little but not enough to hurt him, not really. She whimpers, winding her hips, working herself up. Something escapes her when he twists his fingers in her hair and pulls her head back; her eyes fly open, finding his. Her mouth opens, breath caught, body trembling. That's when it begins, somehow. She startes to shiver, and her thighs quiver against his hips, and the sounds she's making are heavier, louder than before. Wherever they are, his servants are hearing her coming, hearing the crest of her orgasm. She lifts one arm from him, reaching up, clutching at the clothes under them, the carpet, dragging her nails roughly through the fibers. She holds on for dear life, willing him to bite her where he's exposed her throat, willing him to dig his teeth into her shoulder and slam himself one last, rough time into her, come inside of her, burn with her, because she's burning up.

He kisses her opened, gasping mouth. She almost screams into that kiss, but her hands come to his head, hold him there by his jaw and his hair. She kisses him back. She kisses him back like she's setting off a fuse, like she's catching fire, like she's consuming him -- and this, and them, and what he gives her -- whole.

wolfman

A thousand dollars. Ten thousand. 'Protection'; that's what he called it. Violence and murder if need be, he meant. Those are the things he offered within a minute of meeting her. Within a minute of seeing her from the luxury of his chauffeured ride. Standing at the mouth of an alley. Wearing cheap shoes and a cheap dress short enough to make the wolf confuse her for something else. Lighting a cheap cigarette with a cheap bic. Everything on her was cheap and still:

a thousand.

Ten.

Murder.

--

And now here they are. World's burned down around their ears. Kissed each other so hard stars are pinwheeling behind their eyes. Girl's nails left scores on his back. Wolf's hands left red marks on her skin. Still grabbing each other even now, holding each other by the face, the hair, that vicious kiss. Still pressed together and wrapped together and joined in the crudest, basest, most intimate way possible.

Act's done. One pretense abandoned. What's changed? Everything maybe. Nothing maybe. Sweat on his back drying on her skin. Breath in his lungs slowing, slowing, calming. Their mouths part. Space between humid and dark. Full of secrets. Full of vulnerabilities neither of them address aloud. No, that's not true. She's named them before. I was scared. The sentiment echoes through him.

They're too close to see clearly, but he doesn't need to see to kiss her again. That's what he does: kisses her again. This time the kiss is softer and slower. Something deep inside him shifts, fractures, aches. Ground beneath his feet feels so treacherous suddenly, so he stops. Withdraws from that kiss suddenly. Withdraws from her body suddenly, and that makes him shudder but he can't help it. It's autonomic.

Wolf rolls off her. Sprawls on his back, disheveled, rumpled, untucked. Fumbles his underwear inexactly into place. Flotsam of their spent ardor all around: clothes, lingerie. A button popped off his shirt. Wolf stares at the ceiling for a while. Should sit up. Should get up. Should go to his room and shut the door, lock it.

Wolf closes his eyes. Wolf doesn't pull away if girl comes closer again.

witch

She thought the pretense that there was nothing happening, blending, between them was a flimsy one. She thought it protected nothing of significance. She teased him in the kitchen that once, just to see how far he would carry that pretense. She had underestimated just how tightly he held it: by the time he walked away from her at the costume ball she had dismissed it. Whatever chemistry there was or might have been wasn't enough to bother with, bother about. And after all,

maybe she had been mistaken. Or his feeling had changed.

What she knows now is that of the two of them, he may actually have been the one more aware of what it was. What it might do. And that would explain why he would -- how he could -- make that pretense such a firm, inviolable thing. Because this was the alternative. And she has no words for what else it is.

No words she plants, or nurtures, or acknowledges.

--

That kiss is a firestorm. And it follows the rhythm and chaos of their bodies. It comes down along with it. She is kissing him still as they are calming, sipping air in between tastes of his mouth, slowing. By the time their lips part she is kissing him languidly, sensually, as though she knows how to make him feel good. As though she cares to.

Her fingertips are still in his hair, softer now, stroking along his scalp.

But they do part. And he draws back, and the lights are off but for a few here and there to see by in the dim house -- whatever he or his servants turned on while she was catching a cab. Enough to see her. Enough for her to see him and be very afraid at the way she was kissing him, a moment ago, when it wasn't a conflagration but a slow, drenching thing. Not a panic but a choosing. A wanting.

Very afraid at the way he is looking at her.

He kisses her again. It is the same. And she gets vertigo. Things spin; the ground falls and she falls, and pieces of earth soar upward because she is so much heavier than they are, especially with him tangled against her. This time -- again, this time? -- the kiss ends abruptly. There are traces of her lipstick on his mouth. There are traces of her lipstick on her cheek. There is a sudden, all-over chill when he withdraws, rolls away, puts his clothes back together if not his self.

She presses her thighs together. She exhales, and deeply. She rolls onto her side. Her back to him. She curls into a ball for a moment, willing the room to stop spinning, the ground to coalesce again beneath her. And gradually it does, and she realizes what her back toward him may mean, or at least seem to mean. She unfolds a bit, twisting naked atop their clothes -- mostly hers. Looks over and down at him, wearing her smeared makeup and her ribbon and her tousled hair and her lace socks with something of an earthy, messy grace. She is unselfconscious -- at least about how she looks right now.

Leans over him, one hand reaching up to hold a length of her hair back. Kisses the side of his brow, above the corner of his eye. Kisses down, softly, pressing her lips to his cheek, right at the curve of his jaw toward his throat. Pauses:

"Okay," comes the whisper, meaning -- if nothing else -- that this is okay. She is okay. Or simply saying it like the end of a prayer: Okay. Amen.

And breathing in, quiet but audible, she pushes to her hands and knees, then to her feet. There are red marks on her and there is so much makeup smeared on her from her 'cracked' porcelain but she's not unsteady on her feet. She's not shaking. She just gets up, slowly as though a touch dizzy, and steps over his chest to go to the other end of the hallway, the room that looks over the street.

wolfman

Thought of getting up and walking away went through his head. Turns out she's the one to do it. Opens his eyes when he senses her moving. Feels it in the currents in the air, maybe. Doesn't sit up, doesn't stir. Watches, though, green eyes glimmering in the dark. Nobody bothered to turn a light on up here. Only glow comes from below, indirect, a hall light or a kitchen light or something left on.

Her shadow falls over him when she leans over. Slender hand holding her hair back but some falls over him anyway. Sweeps cool over his chest. Finds himself inhaling, chest rising, trying to catch even a wisp of scent. There isn't, though. There's the smell of sex and the smell of himself and the smell of Stag; nothing of her.

Wolf closes his eyes to be kissed once. Wolf turns into the second, mouth searching for hers, but her lips touch too far back. Okay, says the girl, like prayer, like acceptance, like absolution.

Wolf opens his eyes to watch her rise. She steps over him and his hand moves of its own accord. Palm touches her calf, fingers wrap around her shin. It's a transient, fleeting contact. He doesn't grab hold.

witch

She does pause. When he touches her calf, not to grasp but just... touch. She pauses, looking down at him. The posture of her body is human but somehow doe-like; the curve of her calf, the stillness, the delicacy of her ankle. She looks down at him, and tries not to ask why her heart is thudding, because she really

has no answer.

wolfman

So she pauses.

So his hand doesn't slip off.

So there they are. Freeze-frame. Girl's half-turned, doe-like, graceful woodland thing poised on the edge of flight. Wolf's laid out on the floor, rumpled, undone, dazed, eyes still gleaming for all that. She doesn't pull away. He doesn't pull her down.

Contact. No more and no less. After a while he lifts his hand away. Watches to see what she'll do now.

witch

There's no answers for anything: not what's happening in her chest and not what she sees in his eyes. She catches her breath, slowly, exhaling steadily. She wants, in a panicked sort of way, to run to the end of the hall. She wants to climb back over him and pull away his clothes until he's as naked as she is.

They've barely said anything. Other than wordless, excited cries and growls and moans and gasps, there's been nothing, really, since she told him not to bite her again until he was coming inside of her. She wraps her arms around her upper body now, not to hide her breasts but because the chill has come back; her hands wrap around her biceps, holding there, warming herself. Oddly, strangely, she moves the top of her foot against his side.

"Going to wash up," she murmurs, her head moving idly in the direction of the second bedroom, guest bedroom, her bedroom. Tries to think of what else, what next, comes up with only:

"I'll probably just go to bed after."

wolfman

Wolf's eyebrows pull together. Wolf's forehead furrows. Like he doesn't understand what she's saying. Like he doesn't understand English anymore, or any human tongue.

Girl hugs herself for warm. Wolf's hand comes back to her calf, wraps around her leg more surely this time.

"Could come with me." Been so long since he's made a sound that his voice is scratchy and soft. "If you want."

witch

She knows he's trying to warm her.

She knows it like a punch to the gut or a sudden injection to the bloodstream. His hand closes around her leg not to hold her or keep her or stop her but because he wants to warm her. Like how douchebaggy and shitty he got at the costume ball was because he saw her in lingerie and thought someone -- someone's hands -- someone else --

and it drove him a little crazy.

She could go with him. "To your bed?" And inappropriately, bizarrely, she huffs a little laugh. But it's not one of mockery. It's one of simple amusement. She is kneeling slowly beside him, the outside of her folded leg against his side, leaning over him. "Look, I tried, but you had other ideas."

wolfman

[HUGS HERSELF FOR WARMTH good god i kan rite gud.]

wolfman

Laughter's inappropriate right now. Nothing funny about any of this. Still it seems to shred the tension a little. Eases the expression on his face. Faint little smile flickers across his mouth.

"Yeah." To his bed. She tried. He had other ideas. He agrees to all of it. Her leg touches his side. Then his side rubs past her leg. Wolf sits up, slowly, turning his head to look at the damage. Clothes everywhere. Mostly hers. Haphazardly picks up something -- scrap of lace -- it's her boyshorts. Lets it fall again.

Knows he should clean up, keep his business his own. Then again what the hell is the point. They fucked on the second-floor hallway overlooking the living room. Most public, broadcasting place in the whole house. Anyone who cares to know already does. So fuck it: wolf leaves everything where it is, getting to his feet, holding his hand out to pull the girl up to hers.

"Doesn't have to mean anything." Not sure who he's trying to reassure here, protect here. Him or her.

witch

Maybe a little funny, she would argue. Because of course she would. And of course she's a touch wary that he might not take kindly to the laughter, the smile, even though it's not a distancing. It's a warming. She smiles a little more when he doesn't react by storming off but eases a little. Just says

Yeah.

She kneels, and he sits up, looking around. She leans closer, because of body heat and little else that she would admit. She watches him lift up her panties and watches as he -- just as easily -- lets them fall again into the mass of jacket, dress, lingerie. She's fiddling with the ribbon on her wrist, untying it, unwinding it.

Earlier, when he stopped in the hall and chose to fuck her but not take her to the bed she was leading him to, she thought it meant something. Still wonders if it does. But he invites her. She could come with him, if she wants. And she at least sort of does want to. He rises. She leverages her hand on his forearm to get up with him.

He says what he does.

She looks him in the eye.

Shrugs.

"It is what it is," she says quietly. Her hand grips his arm. Then begins to slide away. "Gonna wash up," and she means alone, when she repeats it. Looks up at him, meets his eyes for a hooded moment. "I'll... come see you after?"

wolfman

Wolf's face closes up when girl says she's going to wash up after all. Figures that's an ending, then. Figures wrong, because next minute she says something else.

Wrinkle in his brow again, but he nods. Room to say something but he doesn't. His hand opens; hers slides away. Wolf watches her go.

--

Ends up gathering up the mess after all. Separates his jacket from the rest. Impulse drives him to press a fistful of her things to his nose, but of course, of course there's nothing. Just softness and coolness and the smell of fibers synthetic and natural. Stupid to think it'd be any different.

Jacket gets tossed over the banister. Wolf takes a minute to sort the rest of the things, the dress and the corset and the bra and the boyshorts. Stacks them one on the other. Leaves her clothes before her door, neatly folded. Retreats down the hall, closes the door, runs the shower. Stands under the spray with his head down, eyes shut, water beating over his skull washing down his back running down his legs and away. Memories don't wash off so easy. He holds on to those.

--

Door to his bedroom's ajar when girl gets out of her bath. Lights are off. Been so stingy about letting her in so far that she might expect he's got something to hide in there. A den of iniquities. A flayed Dancer on the wall. A goddamn magic rose under a glass shield, who knows. Nothing of the sort, though.

Just a room. Big one, overlooking a small yard. Big bed that he sleeps in alone. No pictures anywhere, no art on the walls. No nightstands. No dresser. No wardrobe. Walk-in closet and en-suite bathroom; separate shower and bath. Shower still has beads of water on the glass walls. Bath looks like it's never, ever used. Walk-in closet looks full of expensive clothing. Also a shelf of random shitty clothes: jeans and hoodies and the sort.

Wolf's still awake when she comes down the hall. Raises his head when he hears her footsteps. Sits up when she comes in the door. Bed's so fine and luxurious it doesn't creak. Just the sound of sheets shifting; the sense of anticipation and uncertainty in the air.