not, never gonna, wouldn't want to get over you.

wolfman

Been so long since she's touched him in any way. So long since he felt her skin against his. Seen her this near. Seen her at all. Wolf almost forgot how blue her eyes are.

Leans into her. It's almost abrupt. It's certainly impulsive, instinctive. His brow presses to hers and his eyes close, but only for a moment. Then he's looking at her, the slope of her cheek and her body beneath. Stays like that for a while, saying nothing.

Then they draw apart. "I didn't drive," he says, by way of assent.

witch

When he leans into her, down to her, she doesn't jerk away, ask him -- or look at him - like she wants to know what the fuck he thinks he's doing. She breathes in, her eyes closing for a second as well. They're closed when he looks at her. She just stands there, soaking in the warmth at seems to emanate from him. Then she moves herself a little closer.

And they say nothing. Her heart beats faster.

--

Rafael draws back, and Devon's eyes open again. She shrugs. "It's not that far."

--

They get on the 15, heading west. Into downtown. Get out in some semi-gentrified building that is walking distance to everything, and he'll realize he's been her before. That loft, with its big windows and exposed brick and industrial feel. Ridiculously expensive, but for one thing: there are more people than just Devon and Naomi who live there, most of the time. And for another thing: Naomi's dad is loaded. When they get off the bus that's where they're headed, where they end up, all the way into the elevator.

"I know we should talk," she says quietly, as they rise.

She's still holding his hand. Her brow furrows.

"I think we should talk," she amends.

Floors light up and fade, light up and fade.

Devon turns her head to look up at him. "But can we have sex first?"

Or instead.

wolfman

Wolf's got gloves tucked in his pocket, but he doesn't put them on. Just holds girl's hand while they stand at the bus stop. While they get on the bus. Holds her hand while they sit on the bus, too, up front in those sideways benches, across from a bum and a couple tired-looking commuters. Nobody looks at anybody on busses. Everyone stares out the window, avoids eye contact.

Girl reaches up to pull the cable when her stop comes up. Wolf gets up as the bus slows to a stop. Follows her out the back doors. They reach for one another's hands again on the way into the building. Lace fingers this time.

--

Floors light up and fade. Light up and fade.

Wolf looks over at her, silent. If he's surprised he manages to conceal it. Takes a breath. Leans over, leans down. Kisses her as she looks up at him.

witch

Devon doesn't think he's surprised. She lifts her free hand as he leans toward her, touching his jaw, opening her mouth to his. She sighs softly as they kiss,

and kiss.

Just before they reach her -- and Naomi's -- floor, Devon's hand moves from his cheek to his wrist. Takes the hand that is not holding hers and puts it on her breast. Her breath catches at the contact, and she holds him there, heat rising up her cheeks.

The elevator doors open.

wolfman

Who knows if that elevator opens into a hall, or right into the loft. Wolf's seen it both ways. Thinks it might be the latter. Thinks it's probably a good idea to stop kissing her, stop touching her, stop.

Doesn't. By the time her hand takes his wrist he hardly needs to be pulled anyway. His hand molds over her breast like that's where it belongs. Lovely tits under that ruched top. Amazing rack for such a skinny thing. Not thinking about that though. Just thinking about the softness of her, the weight of that breast, the give to her flesh.

The lightness of her body when he wraps his arms around her. Picks her up and the elevator doors are open so he carries her in. Or out. Or somewhere.

witch

Hallway.

But he's lifting her up and her legs and arms go around him, but he knew they would. He had to have known she'd wrap herself around him like this when he picked her up. When they get to the door she's still kissing him, but reaching back to the strap of her backpack, unhooking a carabiner that jangles with her various keys and fobs. Devon finds the key by touch, the rubber thing on the end of the key, and hands them to him.

Stops kissing him for a moment to do that. Has her brow touching his. Is smiling at him, as he unlocks the door. Leans in, and kisses him again, gently.

"I love you," she whispers again, close like that, nuzzling her nose so, so softly along his cheek, his jaw. The apartment is dark inside; it was darker the only other time he was here, and he didn't explore, and it was crowded and smelled of young people and Jungle Juice. Devon smells a little bit like coffee and pastries and her lip gloss and something she daubed behind her ears but that's all. And she doesn't reach for a light.

Just holds him, legs wrapped around his waist and arms wrapped around his shoulders, her voice hushed with the tenderness of what it's offering:

"I love you, I love you."

wolfman

Wolf doesn't say anything back to that. Makes him worry, his own silence. Worries that she'll mistake it for reluctance. Lack of love. It's not that. Just still feels so empty and hollow, saying the words aloud. Much better to do than to speak.

And so he does: wraps his hand behind her head. That half-bun, half-ponytail thing she wears, which she combed before coming back out to see him. Refreshed her makeup. Maybe that meant something. Surely it did,

just like the way her legs fold around him mean something.

Just like the way she says what she does means something.

He kisses her, after they're in the door. In the darkness. She doesn't turn a light on and he doesn't know where to find one. Hell. He doesn't even know where her room is. Only that she's rooming with this Naomi person now, and in some tender quiet little part of his heart he is amused, he is endeared. Girl went and got herself a job. Girl's still crashing with her friends.

--

He wants her to come home. Thinks maybe they'll talk about that later.

--

Right now: kissing her in the dim living room. Growing drunk off the taste of her. She smells like coffee and pastries, and wolf thinks now she's gone and done it, now every time he walks by a starbucks he's going to pop a boner. Girl doesn't smell of herself at all, but he's always known that. Holds her face in his hand while he kisses her, slowly, feeling her jaw move.

Draws back a little when she whispers it to him again. And again. Touches her lip with his thumb. Kisses her where he touched. "Yeah," he whispers, which is the best he can manage right now; the truest way he can say it aloud. His brow rolls against hers; he rubs his face against hers like an animal. Also this: "Where's your bed?"

witch

Rafael's hands move into her hair. They're kissing again, and the words don't feel empty or hollow to her, or coming frm her. Tells him softly, over and over, that she loves him. She senses his reluctance, though, his traces of anxiety. And truth is, deep down that still hurts a little. Not the silence. Not the lack of reciprocity, because she wasn't looking for that anyway.

Just wants to tell him. Wants to say it. And wants it to mean something to him, hearing her say it to him. Because it means so much to her. So it aches, a little, sensing that frission of discomfort through him. The weight to his silence, more than the silence itself. But she doesn't want to hurt right now. She just wants to be with him.

They should talk. They will talk. Later.

Devon kisses him again, sliding her arms closer, drawing herself nearer to him. Kisses him long and deep and slow, and he touches her, and it's some time between her words and him drawing away. Her eyes are glazed. She looks aroused. She's flushed. Her breathing is heavier. When he touches her lip she tries to set her teeth in his thumb. When he kisses her there, her thighs tighten around him.

Yeah, he says, and laughter nearly bubbles up inside of her. Something about that just amuses her terribly, where a second ago she just felt a little sad. She kisses him again, a little harder than before, but he has to stop her to ask her where her bed is.

"Down the hall. First door on the right," she whispers. "It's just a futon. Don't trip over it."

wolfman

She has her own room here. Not her own bed. Just a futon. Wolf almost asks her to come home, there and now. Doesn't, though. Is

afraid

that she'll say no. Be angry. And then it'll all be over, they'll be fighting again. Their accord is still fragile. They both feel it. Are both so careful and so desperate for it. Just want to be with each other. Just want not to be angry anymore, or sad.

Wolf carries her down the hall. Doesn't trip. Walks slowly, step by step. Opens that first door on the right and steps in and there it is, her futon. He shuts the door behind himself.

Lays her down on her futon with a sigh. Joins her, sinking down upon her, and his jacket is still on so that's the first thing that comes off. Unzipping, shed, dropped aside. Without it he is more agile, muscular and mobile, like a stone panther cut loose from the block and come to life. His hands rush up her body like a wave, and down again. He strokes his palms over her, take the hem of her top, pull it up and off.

Palms to the cushion, then. Rubs his face against her chest. Never did learn to shave clean. Sucks her nipples through her bra, which isn't the most efficient way about it, but he can't even wait to get her underthings off. She's the one to have to reach behind and unsnap the hooks. He pulls it off, then, impatiently, tossing it aside with a faint clatter of straps and hooks.

Works on her leggings next. Works on her boots, yanking them off, dropping them aside with a thud-thud. Socks too. Panties. Gets her naked, naked, bare as can be. Touches her all over, running his hands over her, caressing leg and thigh and belly and breast, covering as much of her as he can as though to re-learn her contours and curves.

witch

She likes that he doesn't rush. Some headlong, frantic thing, banging into walls. Unsurprisingly, banging into walls isn't that comfortable. It's not a turn on for her. And the fact that he doesn't seem to think he needs to hurry -- that arouses her somehow. Those slow, deliberate steps to the first room on the right. Small room. There's a few small rooms; she's lucky to have something all to herself. And she's been here only a matter of weeks but it's a mess. Clothes everywhere, bottles, her hot plate, everything. She recreates this chaos everywhere she goes, it seems.

He nearly does trip over something on the floor, some bit of hosiery tangled up with a skirt. Manages not to fall, or drop her. Closes the door and they're lit by moonlight coming in, or more likely: city lights. Rafael lowers himself to his knees, lowers Devon to the cushion, the sheets over it, everything rumpled. She starts pushing his jacket off his shoulders. He touches her body over her shirt, under that flannel. Devon lifts herself up, shrugging out of the jacket-like shirt, and reaches for his hem while he's reaching for hers.

While they're kissing. Taking each other's shirts off, arms crossing, til they are skin and skin and that scrap of lingerie covering her. Devon lays back down, kicking her boots off the edge of the futon. They thump to the wood floors, while Rafael tries to suck at her through her clothes.

Devon gives a soft laugh, and wriggles her shoulders a little, letting the straps down, hooking her fingers under the cups of her bra at least. Bares her breasts to him as though to give him something to focus on while she tries to unhook her bra while lying down. Which is difficult.

"Help me," she murmurs, til he reaches behind her, under her, and helps. Gets it off. Tosses it aside. Devon leans toward him, kissing his neck, as she reaches between them to unfasten her jeans. Tight jeans, but not the tightest he's seen her wear. They get these off together, and he goes for her panties. Her socks. Devon tugs away from him, doesn't let him. Instead she touches his waist. Strokes his stomach, for just a second, before she slips her hand underneath his own jeans. Touches him over his boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs, whatever it is he has on today. Feels him hard through the thin cotton and pants an exhale into his mouth.

Her other hand is on his chest. Flat-palmed, as though to hold him back, but truthfully just to caress him there. Kisses him while she strokes his cock, her wrist caught under his waistband. He hasn't even taken off his shoes. She moans softly into his mouth, wrapping her hand around him and slowly, slowly touching his cock.

Hard to think if she's ever really done this before. He moves so fast, sometimes. Just wants to be inside of her. And he will be. Her lips part from his for a moment. Her eyes don't open. "You... can take off my panties when you're naked," she whispers to him, her thumb following the ridge around the head of his cock gently, gently through his underwear. She smiles, crookedly. "Wanna keep my socks on. I come harder."

wolfman

Wolf's strangely touched when she asks him to help her get her bra off. Seems so intimate, to be asked to help a woman disrobe. A girl. A skinny thing like her, no fur, no fat, nothing to keep her warm through the winter but him.

He wants her to come home. How else will he keep her warm?

Senseless thoughts though. He puts them from his mind. He takes off her flannel and her tank top and her bra. He takes off her jeans, peels them down, and her boots. He tries to take off the rest of it but she stops him, pulls away. He pauses, kneeling on the futon, sitting on his heels. Looking at her in the darkness, feral and alert, watching to see what comes next.

She comes next. Comes up to him, and he leans down to meet her. She reaches into his pants. He starts undoing his belt but she's already got a hand in his underwear, stroking him. Wolf's eyes close. Wolf's mouth open. Wolf's brow furrows and he gives this silent gasp, bites his lower lip. Opens his eyes again and watches her while she touches him, her hand on his chest, her hand on his cock. He holds a sound in behind his teeth. Kisses her back while she touches him softly, slowly, patiently.

Tells him her conditions. She'll surrender her panties when he surrenders his clothes. Muscles in his flank, his shoulders: all of them contract at once, tense when she runs her finger all around like that. She smiles and he kisses it like he wants to eat it off her face, devour it slow, keep it all to himself.

And laughs a second after. Low and quiet and short, but it's a laugh all the same.

"Toes get cold," he says, remembering. And bargaining, "Could tuck you under a blanket."

Gets his belt undone, then. Gets his fly open, pushes his pants down. Now there's more room for her hand. More room for his cock, so hard he felt like he might burst his goddamn zipper. Wolf holds his weight on one hand while he claws his shirt off with the other. Two layers, a thin pullover and an undershirt, armor against the cold. Both come off and now her hand doesn't have to reach under to touch his chest, feel his heartbeat. He pushes his shorts down next, and last. Reaches for her panties.

witch

Devon has no idea that every other thought in his head isn't of how sweet her breasts taste or how beautiful her eyes are or how much he wants to get inside that hot pussy but come home. come home. come home. thumping gently and achingly in his mind like a second heartbeat. Doesn't know how he worries for her warmth and her safety when she's not with him. Can't see in his eyes how he has to put those thoughts away, helping her push her jeans off, touching her thighs, her waist, those tits. His hands feel incredible on her. The way he makes her feel is incredible.

No wonder, when he pushes himself up, when she's stripped his shirt off and she's stripped down to nearly nothing, he's not separated from her for long. She couldn't stand it. Reaches for him, wraps her legs around him and works her hand under his jeans.

She watches him in the dark, city lights illuminating him in faded colors and rich shadow. She watches his brow pull and his teeth press into his lip. She decides to slip her fingers past the elastic waistband and slides her warm hand underneath, touches his skin. She wants to feel him throb in her palm. She wants to feel one of those eager, involuntary thrusts. She wants his lust. She wants to hear him panting. She just wants him, mind gone and body hot, with her again. Strokes him while she kisses him, and while he kisses her, holding him between her inner thighs.

He makes her very, very wet.

And pierces her with tenderness, when he repeats the reason why she likes her socks on. Her toes get cold. Says it like a little mantra, a reminder to himself: her toes get cold.

Rafael bargains. Eventually she'll ask him what his deal is, why it's so important for her to be completely naked, why he's so busy getting her clothes off that he often forgets to undress or even let her undress him. She'll ask him what his hurry is, or whether he realizes that she longs to see and feel his skin just as much as he does, or if it means something to him, or... what it is. But for now she just wiggles her toes inside of her socks, which are just simple crew socks and pink and she changes them on her break because her job keeps her on her feet and it make her feet feel better and these ones have little blue and yellow stars around the cuffs but that doesn't matter. Not the way her legs folding around his body matters.

Devon lifts her chin and nuzzles along his jawline. She keeps smiling. Lifts her hips as though to rub against him but their hands and arms are in the way and, simply put, she's enjoying touching his cock too much to stop. Even when he's getting rid of his shoes, kicking them off, undoing his belt, his fly. Her breath huffs out as she feels him. Her kiss gets harder, her hand on his chest tightening slightly, sliding up to grip his shoulder. All that's in her mind right now are a series of oaths and vulgarity, all of them nonsensical, all of them lustful.

He gets himself naked in seconds. She'd laugh if she weren't too aroused to breathe properly. When he reaches for her panties she's taking her hand off his shoulder to help him, gasping a little. Meant to tell him that she doesn't want to fuck under the covers right now. She doesn't take off her socks. She pants for him, though, lifting her hips so he can get her underwear off. In about half a second she's going to guide him into her, she wants him so badly, but she stops short, a trifle suddenly. Her hand is still on his cock but not stroking, rubbing him off, urging him closer. She looks up at him, her breathing ragged.

"You haven't fucked anyone else, have you?" she asks him. Her eyes are rounded with that sudden realization, that sudden vulnerability.

wolfman

Borders disappear as his clothes come off. What is up and what is down, what is top and what is bottom, what is front and what is back. His body coheres into one: shoulders that rise out of chest, arms that flow from shoulders. Back that tapers down to buttocks, that butt she's so damn fond of. Whole of his being, consciousness, existence centered on his cock right now, it seems, and what she's doing with it. Strokes that make him shudder. Caresses that make him see stars.

Wolf pushes her back with his kiss. She gets around it, nuzzles his jaw. He bites her neck. Her hand grabs at his chest, then grips his shoulder. They're grinding together like animals, or at least he's grinding on her, rubbing against her thigh as she strokes him, pulling her underwear off like in another second he might just pull it apart.

In another half a second she's going to guide him into her. He knows. He can tell. Can tell because of how she's breathing. Her body moving under his. Her thighs open, her cunt a sweet wet invitation. Wolf wants so badly to go slow for her, remembers the last time, which was almost the very last time, remembers how she pleaded with him:

please be gentle with me,

meaning her cunt, meaning her body, meaning her sore and uncertain heart. Please.

Wolf's hand opens on her side, anchoring. Wolf kisses her when she looks up at her, not understanding that sudden pause, that abrupt vulnerability. He's still kissing her when she asks --

-- and he pulls back half an inch, brow furrowing. "What?" Doesn't even understand it at first. What leads A to C, where B went. He's panting with want, mind reeling to pull the pieces together. Scowls: "No. What?"

witch

There's a part of Devon that wants to tell him that he's gorgeous. That he's so fucking hot or some other sincere but pedestrian way of telling him that she can't get enough of him. But: she can't get enough of him. She's wrapping him up in her limbs and lifting her slight soft body to nestle closer to his. He's biting her neck and it makes her eyes close from pleasure. She can feel his breath on her skin through his teeth, hot and wet and fervent. He's seeking her with his body, rubbing himself into her hand and against her inner thigh, and it makes her melt. Every thought she has slips away from her, turning into another sensation, another place he's touching her where he has not touched her for weeks.

So she doesn't say anything. She kisses him, and moves under him, and for a skinny thing she is unbelievably soft. He isn't pushing her legs open and ramming into her, is grinding against her and letting his mind explode into stars instead. Something between them was different last time -- almost the last time -- when she broke down, begged him, please. It wasn't that he was being particularly rough with her. It's that really for the first time, she just expected him to be. Expected him to slam into her, nail her down, unless told otherwise. Part of why she wept: she needed him so badly to be able to just trust him to be tender with her. Body and heart both.

It means she does notice this evening how he's being. How he holds back. How he doesn't snarl at her, how he lets himself bite her but even when he can feel how wet she is, how hot, he doesn't go at her. It means something to her. And then another thought, considered much earlier but quickly forgotten, trots back into her mind and demands attention.

It's abrupt, but she doesn't jerk away from him or stop touching him or... go anywhere. She stops stroking him off because she knows he won't be able to hear words or form them on his own. And she looks up at him like that and he kisses her. She thinks he's trying to tell her it's okay, whatever it is, or just: he wants to kiss her.

Devon kisses him back. But she also asks that question. Which makes him pull back a little, confused and then scowling, and she's a little afraid that he's angry at her, or suspicious of her suddenly. She exhales, relaxing again, sighing. "Good," she murmurs. Wraps herself all around him again, leaning up to kiss him, drawing him closer to her body again with her legs around him and her hand on him and her mouth opening to his. "Me neither," she also says, very quietly, kissing him again.

Her eyes are closed as she's guiding him to her, stroking him against her, covering him with her own soft, wet heat, easing him just so slightly to her opening. "Because you're mine," she whispers, "and I'm yours."

wolfman

Wolf doesn't relent, though.

Wants to. God, he wants to. When she goes relaxed like that. When she sighs like that. When she wraps those long legs around him and draws him in, takes him in hand and guides him to where he wants to be. To where all the heat of the universe seems to coalesce, right now, and tells him

mine.
yours.

Wolf wants to sink into that. Forget. Kiss her and lose himself in that kiss, fuck her and lose himself in that fuck. Make love. Love her. He does love her, told her so, wouldn't lie to her.

Wouldn't lie to her, and so: he stays where he is, arms braced, refusing to be drawn down. Is still frowning at her when he says, "Wait."

Is still poised over her, tensed and almost-shuddering, hard, ready. Closes his eyes and drops his brow briefly to hers, jaw flexing, trying to get ahold of himself. "Wait," he whispers.

"That wasn't fair." Doesn't even know how he's stringing words together right now but he does. "You left me. Told me I wasn't what you wanted. You were done with me and I never thought you'd come back. Not fair to ask me if I fucked anyone else like you were gonna be mad if I did."

witch

She doesn't try to force him. When he resists her she worries, but she softens. She aches: mine. yours. She means it. And it means everything.

And it's going sideways again. Makes her want to cry.

--

But when he says Wait, Devon hesitates. She doesn't pull at his body and she stops stroking his cock. She takes her hand off of him. She shrinks a little, but he lowers his head down and rests their brows together and for a moment she thinks it's something else, he just needs a moment.

Her arm is looped around him still, her fingertips softly curled against the back of his neck. Her eyes close. She breathes with him, waiting for it to be something other

than what it is.

--

Devon opens her eyes. And with each progressive sentence out of his mouth her brows furrow more tightly together. Especially when he says she left him, she told him this, she was done with him, and she looks at him like he's just slapped her across the face. Hard.

"You told me we were done," she whispers. "Because I wanted you to love me. And say so. Told me it wouldn't matter to me if you did. You told me you weren't what I want. Told me I wanted stupid things for stupid reasons. Or just to control you. Test you." Her head shakes slightly, but her voice doesn't raise above that pained little murmur. "Like you didn't understand me at all. Or like me.

"It's what you're doing now," she says. "Made up the reason I asked. Made up how I'd feel about it."

Her frown remains. She looks at him, aching. "Left because you wanted me around, but didn't want to give me what I needed. Left because you were cruel about me needing it." Devon sniffs, though her eyes aren't yet damp. "Rafa, I just wanted to know. Because you were going to be inside me."

wolfman

Wolf's jaw is still hardened, stone-carved. Touch of his hand betrays him though. That's softening. Thumb strokes her cheek. Palm cups her jaw.

Brow lays to hers again after a while. He closes his eyes. Exhales a harsh sigh.

"Well. Do love you," he mutters. "And didn't fuck anyone else. Wasn't over you."

witch

There's a lot in what she says that will, at some point, require an answer. An explanation. Or even some sort of caress, some kind of understanding of the hurt it caused, the confusion. But Devon doesn't want to talk right now. Thinks they should. Knows they need to. Wants to, because she cannot tell from scent how he is feeling -- and because she knows he can't tell from that, either. She can't read his body language the way he might like her to; she knows he can't understand her or he wouldn't mistake the things she wants from him. They have to use words to compensate, and neither of them are very good at words.

But she really, really, really does not want to talk right now. She missed him so much, and she wants him so badly, and maybe this is foolish of her or naive but she remembers what he said on the sidewalk: that he didn't understand but it's what she needed, and that's enough. Somehow this makes her think that even though he does not answer what she says now, right now, they can talk about it later.

Or they won't. Or he'll refuse. Or it will all go sideways again and she'll be asking herself again if they have it in them, between them, to get over any hurdles at all. Dig each other out of these holes they trip into.

Devon hopes they can talk about it later. Hopes that if he can understand what he said on the sidewalk, maybe he can understand why she fell apart when they got back to Denver after that long, winding roadtrip. Maybe if he can understand that, he can understand why she can be so ferociously vulnerable, why certain things are so important to her. And even if he doesn't understand, maybe he'll be there for her anyway. Help her anyway. Love her anyway.

She looks up at him, hurting like that, hurting from not feeling known, or seen, or understood -- or remembering these things. Truth be told she still wonders a little. Which may be why she doesn't reach for him again, or kiss him again, and guide him to her again.

Her eyes briefly close when he touches her face. Stay closed when he comes near.

"I know," she whispers. "Neither was I."

She thinks to herself: never gonna be over you.

But she doesn't say it.

wolfman

Wolf's eyes stay closed a little longer. Wolf's hands cup her face. Stroke her hair.

Wolf lifts his head. Looks at her, her eyes like cut gems in the dark. His thumb traces her cheek, her mouth. He kisses her mouth like he's tasting it for the first time.

"Wouldn't want to get over you."