sacred.

Rafael

"Yeah?" Wolf looks a little surprised. Then pleased. "Good. Glad for you."

His arms are pulled around his girlfriend. He allows it. Likes it. They all there a while, watching the third and newest fire. Dinner is heavy in their bellies. Darkness surrounds them, warded off by the light they have kindled.

Feels good. Feels right. Feels sleepy and warm and safe, now, and it surprises him not at all that the children begin to yawn. That Brian and Sheila depart, and then Stevie and Hope and Eleanor and Thomas, and then Will. There are goodbyes, spoken in words and physical gestures. There's an undercurrent of trust and affection. Love, perhaps.

--

The door closes and it's just the two of them standing before their fire. All day he's wanted to fuck her. A moment ago he wanted to fuck her, but now, right now, he just holds her a little longer. Nuzzles into her hair. Inhales the scent of her toiletries, her dinner; that nothingness that is her.

Devon

Devon strokes his hands where they lay across her middle. She watches the flames with him, head tucked against his bicep, resting there comfortably. Downstairs they hear voices, running water. Hear the crackling fire just a foot or two away from their bodies.

"They all like you," she says eventually, softly. "You did good."

Rafael

"Like them too," he replies. They both speak softly. His voice reaches into the lower registers; is felt as much as heard. "You got a nice family. I wanted to..."

Trails off for a moment there, self-conscious. Nuzzles her gently.

"Wanted them to like me," he finishes.

Devon

[perception + empathy: is that really what you wanted?

spec: hidden desires]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 ) Re-rolls: 2

Rafael

[He wanted them to like him! Because he wants to be a part of her family. Because he wants to be her maet zomg.]

Devon

She smiles. "I know."

She knows when he likes them. Offering food to the kids. Trying to leave meat for others. Spending time with Will. Wanting to do right by their family rituals.

I wanted to...

He pauses. Devon is quiet. She's learning to be more patient with him. Give him room. She never knew, never realized, how much he had in common with some of her other cousins. Like Will. She starts trying to apply older habits, family habits, to someone she loves but -- comparatively -- barely knows.

Like waiting. And staying quiet.

She tips her head to the side as he nuzzles her under her ear, her eyes closing. He wanted them to like him. But that's not what he was going to say, before he thought about what he would say and decided against saying it aloud. Devon, drowzing happily and gently close to him, hears the hesitation for what it is. Maybe he doesn't even know what he wanted. Doesn't know the words for it. But she senses it, the same way she feels things sometimes when people are sitting before her and she's telling them about their lives using bits of ink and paper. Her eyes open, watching the fire.

His heart beating behind her tells her things. His arms around her make murmurs that translate through her skin, her bones, before they ever reach her mind. And Devon doesn't tense up, or pull away. She doesn't feel uncomfortable. She sighs softly, and closes her eyes again, and smiles to herself for no reason she can name, or would name, even if she knew how.

"It's hot," she mutters, after a bit. "I'm gonna take my sweater off. But no jumping my bones, all right?"

Rafael

A huff of a laugh. He unwinds his arms, steps back. Back of his thighs bump the bed and so he sits down, crooked smile on his face, reaching up to pull that thin soft sweater off.

"What the hell would give you the idea I wanted to jump your bones? Only tried like four times today."

Devon

Avery is still concerned about their meat intake and lack of experience. She twists her champagne glass in her hands. "I know someone who has property, and a lot of it. Safe for us. Sometimes there are elk roaming across. It would be a bit of a drive, but I think a bit better for the herds to leave the white-tails closer to the city alone. I'll speak to him about it."

As long as they don't kill any of his cattle, it should be fine.

"Now... I have to mingle a bit. Shelby, stick around. Relax, have some apps. We're having a presentation in a bit that you may like. I have some hostessing duties I'm ungraciously ignoring."

She reaches over, rests her hand on Rafael's arm. "You, too. We're going to drive out to Roxborough after the presentation and the auction and all that. You should come with us. We'll make a night of it. Get midnight milkshakes."

And with a few more pretty goodbyes, she excuses herself, heading over to talk to Governor Hickenlooper and his wife Helen. "John, you came!" she says, delightedly, as she leaves the other Garou for a while.

Devon

[whoops dlp]

Rafael

[Rafa, on the other hand, is concerned about his tribal elder's sudden appearance in his girlfriend's bedroom.]

Devon

[SHHHHH]

Devon

"Only two," she says, coyly, stepping away from him. She pulls her own sweater off, black and holey and oversized, facing the fire, not really aware that he's sitting down yet, not really aware that he's pulling off his clothes. Not that she doesn't know, understand: he really, really wants to fuck her.

But she does turn, since he doesn't wrap his arms around her again as soon as she's just in her tank top. Her eyebrows lift a little, seeing him there shirtless. She doesn't come closer, standing in front of the fire with her hip cocked a little, hands on her hips.

"Didn't try in my graveyard bower," she reminds him. "Didn't follow me into the bathroom in the middle of dinner to try and fuck me then, either. I was very proud."

Rafael

They smile at each other across a gap of a couple feet. Maybe a yard. Her holey sweater comes off; she sees his eyes drift downward, meander her body. He pulls them back up.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Was pretty proud of myself too."

Couple beats. Then he holds his hand out to her. If she takes it, he pulls her closer. Wraps his arm around her waist. Tugs her down on his lap, sliding up on the edge of the bed.

"You guys always do that fire thing? Every year?"

Devon

Devon reaches behind herself, to the small of her back. She draws down the zipper of her skirt. He's looking at her. His eyes, dragged back upward to her face, may drop again: her hips, her upper thighs. Dark charcoal fabric drops, skims down her legs, drops around her ankles.

And does she pick up her discarded clothing? Of course she doesn't. She stands there in starry panties, tank top, bra, those tall socks to keep her poor cold feet warm. The fire crackles behind her crackles and pops. He's holding out his hand. He wants her close.

Always wants her close.

Devon doesn't take his hand. She steps nearer but doesn't reach for him. Comes to stand in front of his shins. He's asking her about that fire thing. Every year? She reaches down, takes off that dark red -- merlot, malbec -- tank top, peeling it up and off, dropping it aside. The fire snaps and flares now.

She doesn't fall into his arms, or onto the bed. Stands before him, as she is, all that dark thick hair and that pale sometimes freckled skin.

"More or less," she answers, honestly. Leans forward and places a soft, gentle kiss against his left temple. Her hair brushes his mouth, his nose. Smells like nothing but the graveyard, the evergreen, the woodsmoke, the things she accumulates throughout the day that tells him where she's been but not what she is.

"You should come next year, too," she whispers, staying close to him like that, her lips to his skin. She sounds hopeful. Like there is even a thin,

slight,

faint chance,

that he might not want to. Doesn't crave to be there next year, gathering wood for the fires, feeding the small ones, lighting the fires for the darkest part of the year.

Rafael

It's like he can't even help himself. She strips down, comes near. His hands reach for her. He touches her thoughtlessly, adoringly, his hands stroking up her thighs, her sides, folding around her to pull her near.

She pulls her tank top off. He leans into her even as she leans down to him. She kisses his temple; he kisses her breastbone.

"Of course I'll come next year," he murmurs. "I'll come long as you'll have me."

Devon

He was, a moment ago, taking off his own clothes. But he gets so distracted. Got so distracted the first time he had her naked before he thought to undress himself.

The corner of Devon's mouth curls as he reaches for her, stroking her thighs. She permits it; doesn't dance out of the way as she sometimes decides to do, just to be contrary. Her thighs are soft. Pale. It's winter and he isn't sun-bronzed but even so, he's darker than she is. She likes that slight difference and doesn't know why; she has never studied more than the most basic biology demanded of her in high school, and she's forgotten most of that, and she got a C minus anyway. Doesn't connect these dots that this variation in color is, in part, a signature of sex, and that she likes that he is male, and that it turns her on that his body is so very different from her body. Devon just smiles at his hand on her thigh, the shades contrasted, and think's it's beautiful, and thinks that it makes her like him more.

She lifts her eyes and looks at him again, letting him pull her nearer. He hides his face against her chest, kisses her above her breasts, breathes against her. She strokes his hair on the back of his neck, her eyes drifting closed, drowsily. Dreamily.

Then she opens her eyes. Steps back, gently, her hands trailing over his shoulders and his arms. She takes his hand in her own and pulls him forward with her, murmuring: "Stand up. Want to take your clothes off."

Rafael

They fold together. She touches him softly, lovingly, and hears him sigh against her skin. When she steps back he follows her for an inch, two; then straightens as she does. His hand is big and heavy in hers, a paw almost. She tugs him and he has inertia, gravity. Follows her with a heaviness of muscle and bone, a suppleness too.

She can feel the moment his own strength engages and that motion suddenly becomes effortless. He rises up, bigger, taller, wider, larger in every scale than her. Reaches reflexively for his jeans but then he stops. She wants to do it. He lets his hands fall to his side, his mouth quirking a little as he watches her. Her hands tracing his proportions. Her eyes following him the way his follow her.

Devon

Eager. Distracted, too. He reaches for his jeans; her hands are on his abdomen, fingertips light there. Eyes are heavier. She flicks her eyes up at him, as he's relaxing again, letting her do it. Devon watches him -- not his chest, not his arms, not his lovely big body, but his face. His eyes. The movement of his lips as he breathes. She watches him as she unfolds button from hole, grips the tab of his zipper between her thumb and the side of her forefinger. She breathes in as she draws it down, slowly, feeling how each thump of her heart is heavy and aching in her chest.

"Touch my tits," she whispers, and it seems more like granting permission, taking off a leash, than a simple request. She knows he wants to. Wants him to know she wants it, too. "Kiss me," she adds, exhaling the breath she just took, eagerly. She wants his clothes off but she's reaching inside of his jeans instead, touching his cock through his boxers, rubbing her palm against him.

Rafael

She watches his face.

He watches her hands. That is the sole focus of existence right now: her hands, working button from hole. Sliding zipper down. He breathes measuredly: out and in, hardly able to contain himself. He wants to shiver. He wants to pick her up and haul her off to bed, off to a goddamn cave, off to that hollow under the tree-boughs where he could put her under him and fuck her.

His eyes flash up to hers when she says what she does. Gives permission. His arm comes immediately around her, and she can feel the flexion, how he would pick her up in another instant.

Devon

Devon starts to pick up on it, watching him. How he won't take his eyes off her hands. How his eyes are sort of glazed, fixated, focused as a predator being ravaged inside by hunger. She tells him to touch her, like it might alleviate some of the tension, let him know she wants him, too. She always wants him. She's wanted him all day, just as he has.

But wanted something else a little more than that, something harder to define and almost impossible for the likes of the two of them to put into words: to see him with her family. To share Rafael with them. To share them with Rafael, too; he has none of his own. Not really. Nothing like this. She wanted him to feel the magic here, the raising of fires, the way they stave off the dark and the cold. Devon could not tell him precisely what she wanted more than fucking him if she tried. Only that it has mattered. It is important.

Her hand is warm and soft through the thin cotton of his boxers. Her fingers are deft and not expert, but not clumsy. She touches him, slowly, watching his eyes, finding her breath in time with his. Tells him to touch her. Kiss her. She is not expecting a snap or a lunge, but lunge he does -- a bit. Arm around her, to lift her, maybe even skip anything else and just plant her on his cock, but Devon's breath hitches. She flickers with hesitation, with that unnameable something that sometimes feels like resistance or rejection but isn't meant to be either. Her balance rocks slightly backward, though she doesn't stop touching him.

She has her hand on his side, his chest. It moves to his hand. It draws his hand to her breast, molds his palm over the cup of her bra. Shows him: how she wants him to squeeze, just so. How she likes him to lift, slightly. Touch her.

"Kiss me," she says again, an even softer whisper.

Rafael

He goes at her so fast, so sudden. She -- doesn't quite step back, but a hint of withdrawal is there. A shift in balance, which halts him. Makes him look at her uncertainly, head cocked, hands paused.

She touches him. Touches his chest, touches his hand. Draws his hand to her breast and shows him: like this. Like this. He watches this, too, his eyes on his hand, his hand on her breast. He squeezes gently. He lifts; feels her softness, that heft. A breath drawn. A shiver down his back, suppressed.

He kisses her almost before she asks. It is a quick motion that brings his mouth close to hers, but just before contact he pauses. Slows. As softly as he touches her, he kisses her: a slow-opening thing as his free arm winds around her, pulls her closer.

Devon

He arrests, and her breath catches, and so when he kisses her, Devon's lips are open. Devon's lips are wet. He's pulling her so close it's hard to keep touching him, stroking him as she is; Devon does so. Her hand slips softly from his body, and her arms wrap around him, her palms pressed to his lower back. Rising up, smoothing over him, touching his skin, reveling in the muscle underneath.

Rafael suppressed his shiver; Devon doesn't bother. She trembles a little, kissing him, holding him, their bodies together and their mouths sighing, tasting together. For a while. Only a little while, before she folds her arms behind her, unclasping her bra. It loosens under his palm instantly, but she doesn't draw it off.

Rafael

Her mouth is open. His tongue slips in, touches hers. She touches him softly, exploringly. Her bra loosens and it's a subtle magic of its own. His hand moves, tugs, draws it down. Returns to her skin, her softness; toys with her nipple.

"You're so beautiful," he mutters, which is how their day began; it's possible he doesn't even mean the way she looks. He might mean the way she feels. The way she tastes. Everything about her, because...

Well. Because he is who he is, and she is who she is, and all that he is adores all that she is. It is a simple equation.

Devon

A little tug, and the cup slips; the straps slide down her shoulders and land at her elbows. Devon unbends her arms a little more, lets it fall completely. He's still touching her, and when his fingertips find her nipple, tease it like he does, Rafael can feel her breath catch and shudder in the middle of their kiss. She exhales a rush of a sigh, pressing into that touch, encouraging.

beautiful, he mutters, but they don't stop kissing. He doesn't stop touching her. She reaches for his jeans and pushes them down his hips with a shove. Pulls her head back to take a breath, looking at him again for the first time since he lowered his mouth to hers. She's got this lazy look in her eyes, this lopsided little grin.

"Remember how loud the bed is?" she whispers, and there's a part of her that's asking,

remember fucking me last night?

She does. She's thinking about it now. Remembering. Tasting it.

Rafael

He makes this little sound, this small grunt, when she pushes his pants down: past his hipbones, past his ass. Now it's just the friction and the stiffness of the denim holding the jeans up, and it's an incomplete job at best. Little by little, slow as molasses, his pants are falling down. He lets them go. He's a little preoccupied, see: busy kissing her. Busy touching her, her breasts filling his palms.

She pulls back and he looks at her with those wild-animal eyes, watchful and perceptive but - lacking a certain experiential understanding, perhaps, of how these things work. How relationships work, how sex works when you're not just tearing things off and pulling things down and rolling things over and shoving things in. She grins lazily. He touches his brow to hers, kisses her in this heavy, languid way.

Remember how, she says, and his mouth quirks too. He wraps his arms around her, slides his hands down, squeezes her ass and presses her belly against his erection. "Thought I did a pretty good job keeping the headboard quiet," he comments. "Could always fuck on the floor."

Devon

Devon bites her lower lip against a grin as he slides his hands off her breasts, down her sides, around her hips, palms her ass. She allows him to pull her closer; his cock rubs against her through the soft cotton of his boxers. She turns her head, kissing him again, softly, her spine elongating, arching slightly.

"Bed creaks," she murmurs, reminding him of the other noises their fucking made. "Floor's cold."

She lowers her head to his chest, kissing the skin there. Opening her mouth, taking his nipple inside, tasting it with her tongue in soft little strokes. Her hands start to tug, lightly, on the edges of his boxers, the waistband, gently working it downwards as well.

"You're so hard," she whispers, touching him with her hand to make sure the elastic doesn't snag on his poor cock. Touching him even after his boxers start to fall, stroking him against her belly. She's looking down at him, how dark it is against her paleness, licking her lips, still only barely murmuring the words. "So fucking hard."

Rafael

Touch of her tongue sends him inhaling; clenches down the musculature of his abdomen. She can feel the tension there as her fingertips pass down his body; find his boxers. Tug. She's careful with him, but he frankly wouldn't care if she yanked his underwear down, bounced his dick against his stomach.

Doesn't mind, though, that she touches him so gently. Doesn't mind at all when she starts stroking him. Now he's the one grinning, foolish and proud, as she praises that particular part of his anatomy. So fucking hard.

He kisses her again. Kisses her cheek, kisses his way to her mouth. Kisses her mouth until she raises her head, and then kisses her still more, in earnest, burying a sound there as his hands pull her close again. He likes the feel of her body against his, the contrast, the softness.

"Should climb on," he suggests. "No creaking. Plenty warm."

Devon

A few other times, Devon has noticed the way that Rafael reacts to her touch -- her fingertips, her lips, her tongue -- on his nipples. But this time she does something with that awareness. He breathes in, tenses, and so while she strokes him off and pushes down his boxers, she also tips her head and kisses his other nipple. Licks that one, too. Harder, the second time she licks it. Seals her lips and sucks on him, gently and yet firmly, enough to draw more blood to that sensitive area, make him feel it. Stops almost abruptly, flicks her tongue over it. Looks up at him again, because now he's all but rubbing his dick on her skin, and she doesn't mind. Doesn't mind at all.

She tells him he's so hard like she likes it. She looks at him like she likes it. She touches him like she really. Fucking. Likes it.

And Rafael's there, kissing her, pulling her closer, pressing all that softness to him. Tells her to just climb onto him. Devon's breath catches; it's a near-silent gasp. "You sure?" she wants to know, and not without reason: think of how much, how totally she has to trust him with her body. Her safety. Her pleasure, too. All of her. She finds his hands with her own, pushes his hands to the waistband of those star-spangled panties. Doesn't tell him what to do, this time.

Rafael

Second time she tongues his nipple makes him bite his lip. Makes him furrow his brow. His hand dives into her hair, rough but not brutal. He kisses her atop her head as she kisses his chest, sucks, makes him gasp when she flicks her tongue.

She looks up at him. He takes it as invitation. Kisses her. And they're pulling together and her breath is catching and she doesn't know if he's sure -- she's not sure if she's sure, perhaps -- and he nips at her mouth, licks at her lips.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Don't worry. Take good care of you."

And he pushes her panties down. They never match her bra. He loves that, absurdly. It's always a little surprise what he finds.

Devon

Somehow that makes her shudder. The words he uses. take care of you. She gives a little quiver and helps him with her panties: a small wriggle of her hips, tugging them past her tall socks, stepping out of them as they fall. Her mouth is lifted to his again, and unless he gets there on his own rather quickly, her hands raise to his face, pulling him down to kiss her again. Deeply. This time she groans a little. She hasn't decided yet. Or she hasn't decided to tell him yes yet.

Devon takes his hand, freed again now that she's unclothed, draws his fingers between her legs. To her upper thigh. He can get where she needs him from there.

Rafael

The little sounds they make are masked, mostly, by the fire in their hearth: its subtle roar, its pops and crackles. His hand is drawn between her legs. His palm is so warm; warms her thigh where he touches her, grips her. He's gentler when he tracks upward. Touches her cunt the way she taught him, softly, teasingly, the sides first. Slips his fingertips over and between the lips, strokes her in this slow steady rhythm while he kisses her, presses against her, stays so close to her.

Wraps his arm around her, too, when he starts touching her. Holds her firm against his body, kissing her.

Devon

Occasionally the flames find a bit of resin, a streak of it through the fatwood and the kindling that Thomas so dutifully laid out in each hearth. Then the fire pops and snaps and flares and the resin sizzles and the heat ignites more of the evergreen and orange and clove and mugwort and all manner of things that Devon herself cast into it. It is a good, strong fire, brought about by wisdom and time, earth and water, the art of the hand and the magic of spirit.

Not that either one of them is aware of the fire, except for the way its light flickers across their bodies, or the heat it brings to the room that keeps Devon's nakedness from making her shiver. Otherwise it, and all its gifts -- including the muffling of sound -- is ignored, and it doesn't mind. Fire, though endlessly fascinating and terrifying and necessary for sentient creatures, does not do what it does for adulation. It only satisfies its hunger and its simple joy in being. It does not care that the witch and wolf in the room pay it no mind. It burns on, crackles on, ravenous and happy.

Devon, however, lets out this sigh when he touches her pussy, not quite a groan or a moan or a cry but something lighter, and yet wrenching in its ache. She collapses slightly in her posture, leaning into him, holding onto his arms, his sides, whatever. Her eyes fall closed. She likes the way he squeezes her thigh but strokes her cunt so tenderly, so slowly. She rests her cheek against his chest, opening herself to him. He finds her wet, not growing wet or starting to be so but quite wet indeed, and this should hopefully be no surprise: she was wet when he pushed her panties down. It made her wet when he touched her breasts. It made her wet when he muttered take good care of you the way he did. Made her wet when he reminded her of the way he held the headboard against the wall last night as he fucked her, never slowing or flagging, just panting and sweating as he thrust into her. Devon was wet when she first touched his cock, looked at it, saw him without his shirt on, started taking her own clothes off. She was turned on when the rest of the family left the room and left her alone, finally, with her boyfriend. Was turned on when he had her up on the sink, body between her legs, mouth on hers. Turned on when she climbed over him this very morning, his hands pushing up her skirt.

Now they are naked and his hard cock is rubbing against her soft skin and he's starting to finger her pussy, and she thinks she's going to start moaning aloud.

Rafael kisses her, though. Doesn't do it to shush her, but it does allow her to moan into his mouth. She lifts one of her legs, planting her foot on the edge of her bed, opening more for his hand, begging him to take more. Touch her more. Please her more.

Rafael

He moves closer to her when she rests a foot on the beds like that. The inside of her thigh slides over the outside of his. His hand wraps under; supports. It is a subtle thing, and a gradual thing, and a meaningful thing: a shifting of her weight from the bed to him. He knows she doesn't like it when he just picks her up without warning. He knows she wasn't ready when he suggested it moments ago.

So he asks, now, though not with words. It is a question: if she'll let him. If she'll trust him. If this is okay. It is, also, a persuasion. That's why he keeps touching her. That's why he keeps kissing her, slow and molten, his mouth grazing and straying over hers, his lips nipping at her mouth, her cheek, her chin.

Devon

They're already so close. His cock, to put it bluntly, sticks up straight between them, pressed between their bodies. Devon luxuriates in it, rubbing herself against him -- and against his hand working her pussy. She wriggles a little, feeling his hand on her ass, gasping softly.

But Devon doesn't really answer him, not in words, just as he doesn't ask with them. She touches him, stroking her hands over him, adoring him. Her touch has grown more than a little mindless now, craving skin under her palms and not thinking much beyond that. She's far enough gone to not notice she is being persuaded. She is not so far gone that she doesn't feel, and enjoy feeling, seduced.

She breathes in, trembling, and lets her hands find his shoulders. Puts her weight there, and on the edge of the bed, knowing that hand on her ass is going to lift her up, knowing that hand stroking her pussy is going to join the other, holding her against him. Devon climbs up his body like this, wrapping her legs around him, but little more than that: she is not quite sure how this is going to work. Only sure that she wants him.

Rafael

Might expect him to pick her up instantly. Wouldn't be unreasonable; it's his track record. He doesn't, though. There's a pause, a moment between consent and action. A moment where his hand leaves her thigh, her ass. Slides up her back and over her shoulder, touches her hand where it rests on him. An acknowledgement, that. A small, gentle display of understanding and gratitude.

Then he does pick her up. Lifts her onehanded, nearly, all his strength coming to bear. She may as well be weightless. She might well float off into the sky, but he holds her against him. His heat and solidity grounds her, gives her mass again. They are eye to eye. He kisses her softly, lazily, stroking her cunt with the pads of his fingers.

"Gonna fuck you like this," he tells her, or promises her, or maybe it too is a question, "okay?"

Devon

So she is expecting him to hold her up with both hands. And at first, he uses one. She's not weightless; she's not ninety pounds soaking wet, either. She's thin but she's not fragile, at least not when you're comparing her to anyone but Rafael. She's light, though, at least to him. It wouldn't be difficult at all for a regular mortal bodybuilder to bench press her. All the same: the way he lifts her, still touching her, is a little shocking to Devon. She looks at him for a moment with that shock, her eyes sparking with interest, her body leaning against his.

Rafael is less shocked. But he would be; he knows what he can do. The only time she's seen it, she had a fucking open gash across her head and thought she was going to die. She wasn't paying attention to him, or thinking about how the strength he has in other forms might translate just as readily to this one, the one she knows best. She wasn't, by any means, thinking about him holding her on his body like this, fucking her freestanding. Jesus: he hasn't even ever fucked her against a wall.

gonna fuck you like this

-- has roughly the the same effect on Devon that take good care of you had on her. He's so close to her, his fingers and his mouth and his body, he can feel the way she reacts. Feel her arousal spike again, pulse through her. She can't even answer; she pants, giving him a little nod, her thighs trembling.

"God, you're strong," she breathes, because those are the only words she can find right now. "You're really fucking strong." Like perhaps he told her this once, and she didn't believe him, and now it's proven.

Rafael

He likes that. Gets a rush of that same stupid pride, glinting in his eye, gleaming in his teeth. He wants to toss her up, catch her. Let her dangle from a flexed bicep. Whirl her over his head, show off, prove his strength.

Knows better. Doesn't do stupid shit. Just... hefts her up a little higher, high enough that she's looking down at him, that he can nuzzle her under her jaw while he solidifies his grip on her rump. Has his forearms under her thighs, supporting her.

"Put your hands on me," he mutters. And then, in case he wasn't being specific enough: "My cock. Take it in your hands and put it in. Don't worry. Gonna be gentle with you."

Devon

The corner of her mouth pulls. This may be the first time he's ever told her what to do, what he wants, how... she can't help but smile like she does, lopsided and quirked and endearing, endeared. He nuzzles; she leans down over him to nuzzle him back. She's still a little startled by how easy this seems to him; he senses her still shifting her weight to him, no longer tense, no longer trying to hold herself up as well. Relaxes into him. Onto him.

Her hands are on him, though, so she doesn't know what he means at first. He means his cock. She huffs a breath, almost a laugh, and starts to reach for him even before he tells her: don't worry. He's going to be gentle.

God, she adores him.

Devon's palm slides over his cock. Strokes him. Distractedly, for a moment, as she leans over him to kiss his mouth, lose herself in that a bit. She shifts, trusting him but still noticably a little hesitant up here, unable to support her own weight, this girl who hates being lifted and moved without her say-so, this girl who doesn't like at all to be picked up and carried unless she can jump down easily, this girl who doesn't trust most people to hold her because she can't trust them not to drop her. She goes slowly, when she brings herself closer, when she lowers herself against him, when she fits his cock to her.

Gasps, right away, and trembles all over, and it isn't just arousal this time, he can feel it, he can feel that she's well and truly nervous that he's going to drop her, he's going to go too fast, she's going to get hurt. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't say I can't, because she wants so badly to trust him. Because up until she got up here, it didn't occur to her not to trust him.

"Hold me," is what she says, shaken, vulnerable, as vulnerable as she is physically, taking him a little at a time until she can let go of his cock, hold onto his body, his shoulders.

Rafael

Can't blame her for being skittish. He's got a checkered history. Been rough with her before. Been too eager, too uncareful.

Gentle with her now, though. Senses her vulnerability and uncertainty. Senses, too, what a special place he's in. Her bedroom. Her haven as a young, growing thing. The fires lit now. The room warmed, proofed against winter.

She shivers and he nuzzles her. Has her securely in his arms; rubs his face against hers, kisses her. She tells him to hold her and so he does, winding his arms around her, diminishing the space between them to nothing.

Never, not for a second, does he try to pull her down. Plant her on his dick. That part he leaves to her. Wraps her in his arms, warm and close and affectionate. Lets her take him in, little by little, moment by moment.

Devon

Hard for her to do it on her own. Devon bites her lip, holding onto him. He feels her anxiety, feels her searching for him, and kisses her. It makes her look at him again, where before she was starting to look away. She looks at him and holds his eyes then, taking him a little more, but she shakes her head. Whispers: "I want you," she says, because she doesn't know how else, what else, to say to him. She can't find the words I need you. She wouldn't know how to make them come out of her mouth.

Rafael

[twree meezlee empafee dice!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 9) ( success x 1 )

Devon

[She's uncertain, but she does trust him. She just needs him to take the lead here.]

Rafael

Wolf's eyes search hers. At this distance she can see the color clearly: the threads and flecks of green, the murkier colors -- hazel, amber, gold -- woven between. He watches her so intently. Tries to read from her body what her words don't quite tell him.

Finds some truth there. Must, because then he leans into her. Kisses her the way he does, or the way he's doing tonight: soft and deep and long.

"Okay," he whispers. "All right."

And she feels the shift in his body before he ever moves. Feels the genesis of that motion in his torso, his spine: his arms and his hands shifting, her own body rising. He lifts her a little, a matter of inches. They are joined so intimately that the motion is immediately transduced. She slides up on his cock. He kisses her neck. He lets her back down, lets her sink onto him. Takes her down until he feels the first flicker of uncertainty, resistance, enough.

And he lifts her again. And again, and again. It's so slow. His strength makes every motion smooth, seamless. He's fucking her, but she's the one that moves. She moves, but he's the one that moves her.

Devon

They are being very quiet, especially considering how they went at each other last night. The fire still crackles, unperturbed and unassisted. She whispers to him that she wants him and it sounds like she's asking him for something, which she is: for help. For assurance. To take care of her.

Not just get her off or make it good for her. To really take care of her. Protect her. And one thing she'd never say aloud: guide her.

--

It helps. To surrender a little. She does trust him. She loves him. He's being so gentle with her tonight, so careful, so slow. He's so... with her. And she can't pretend she isn't nervous, or vulnerable, and it's starting to coalesce between them that she always has been. No wonder she's been so resistant at times, or pushed him away, or been angry at him for not being careful enough. Now that he is, and she believes he will continue to be, the secret comes out: Devon's so... tender.

And somehow it helps to let go of this idea that she has to protect herself, defend herself, at all costs. It helps to be able to relax into his arms, to let him move her like he does. "Oh," she says, and it's really less said than moaned. She kisses him, and takes him rather far that second slide, moaning again. Then he does it again. And again. And feels her own strength engage, her own rhythm answering his. She tenses, but this time nowt from anxiety or worry or uncertainty but desire, response, renewal.

"More," she mutters against his lips, panting the word.

Rafael

It's true.

She's tender.

It's also true:

he never really knew it before now. Marvels at himself, his own blindness, what an idiot he can be. But somehow he didn't know, somehow he thought she was something she's not, thought she was wild and wily and sharp and sensual, and truth is she is all those things, but all those things do not add together to mean she is calloused and tough and immune to whatever it is he can throw at her in his hunger. She's not like that at all.

She's not fragile, but she is vulnerable. She's not frail, but there is something delicate about her. She's not fearful, but she is as new to this as he is, and sometimes -- terrifyingly -- it must feel like he has all the power. Has the power to hurt her and frighten her, make her life hell. Has the power to break her heart.

Of course she's wary.

Of course she's vulnerable.

What's amazing is not that she is these things, but that she can trust him at all. That she allows him to lift her like this, hold her like this, make love to her like this. That she holds on to him and trusts him with her body and her pleasure, her tenderness. He remembers her cupping his big hand over her pussy. Tender, yeah? it was the first time he'd ever thought of her -- maybe of any girl -- that way.

Tender. Yeah.

--

And now: more. She murmurs the word. He kisses it off her lips. His hands link under her bum. His stance widens, and he leans back to counterbalance her. He quickens: his arms a makeshift swing, her body a precious weight. He can feel her riding him, bringing her own strength into the equation, but the truth is she could do nothing at all and he'd still take care of her. He would never in a million years drop her, never.

And now he's fucking her quicker, a little harder. And they share the same breath, the same humid darkness between their faces and bodies. He kisses her now and then, grazing little intimacies. Wants to know, mid-stroke: "You okay?"

Devon

He's such a big dumb idiot, and she adores him so much. Not for the idiocy or the blindness. Just... him. For being big. For not knowing everything. For sometimes being wrong. For being willing to learn. For being so delighted when she praises his body or enjoys his cock. For being so happily, innocent proud when he pleases her. For making jokes with her, when he doesn't really joke around with almost anyone. She just adores him, as he is, for all the ways his guard goes down and makes his strength and his rage and his hunger less of an obstacle for her to be close to him. To know him.

Devon kisses him. She slides her hands from his shoulders around his neck and this makes her sink down on his cock, which makes her gasp. She gasps happily though, breath trembling from pleasure this time. Kisses him again, grinding a little into that closeness, and soon after,

he leans back. He feels how wet she is. How open. How she's kissing him, how she relents. Relaxes. How her pussy holds onto him. So he leans back and he thrusts. And he fucks himself into her just how she likes it, but in a way she's never had a chance to like it before. She whimpers, and thinks out of nowhere that this is not the first time sex with Rafael has been something new to her, entirely. She likes it, and would never come right out and say it because it sounds weird to her. Something silly or warped or meaningless or off-kilter like falling in love with the first person you had sex with. So she likes it, and keeps it to herself.

Moans though, leaning against him, starting to fuck him back a little. She pants for air in between those kisses, and he wants to know, as her eyes are closing, her head tipped back, if she's okay.

Devon just nods, gasping. "Yeah. Yeah." Licks her lips, swallows, adds: "Fuck me. Just keep fucking me."

Rafael

This is new to him too. All of it. Talked so confidently about picking her up and fucking her but truth is number of people who might've let him do this could probably be counted on one hand. Less. Maybe none.

And beyond that: having a girlfriend. Going home with that girlfriend. Meeting her extended family. Taking a walk, having a fight, finding her under a tree in the graveyard. Gorging on turkey. Lighting the fires. The entire cycle of love and conflict and life and death; all of it, all of it. New to him, and precious.

She leans into him. He goes a little faster. She's starting to ride him, and he's starting to bounce her, and it could spin so easily out of control but it doesn't. He doesn't. He's aware and alert and careful, careful, watching her between those kisses that are growing progressively looser and more careless, those breaths that are coming faster and harder, edged in moans.

"Love the way you feel," he mutters, and he says it for her. They are trying; they are learning each other's languages. Sometimes he says things he wouldn't have otherwise. Voices them because she wants and needs to hear it. Sometimes she shows him wordlessly. Keeps silent what she might have wanted to express aloud, because sometimes he wants and needs for their love to live in the silence. He stumbles a little: "Love that sweet... that sweet little pussy."

Devon

"Yeah," she says, the tone of it sharper, more needful. She seems to have forgotten her worries from before; he's just fucking her now, and may have always been fucking her like this, and she can fuck him back. All she remembers is that they need to try and keep quiet. Every gasp, every moan. Every word. Even the ones like the ones he says, which thrill her so deeply and send tingles racing up and down her body. Even the words like her little answer, which sounds more an an encouragement. Call and answer. Worship.

"Know you do," she mutters, kissing his neck. "Love fucking me with that hard cock."

Bites him. Lightly, scraping her teeth over his shoulder. Hides a moan there as he grinds his cock into her. Bounces her. She can't talk anymore, even if she had the words for it, which she is rapidly running out off. All she can do is -- to put it blunt -- get fucked. Chase her orgasm by letting him fuck her. It's not fair that he has to be so careful when she is so clearly giving in to abandon.

She squirms. "Fuck me, Rafa," she groans, trying to muffle it on his skin, his neck, his jaw. She's also trying to kiss him. "Fuck me."

And then, perhaps for no reason or no sense or just because this feels familiar and intimate and close and on the verge of orgasm she wants nothing, nothing more than to be close to him:

"Put me on the bed and fuck me. Make me come. Fuck me."

Rafael

Makes this sound when she says that. This low growl. Of course it's a growl; he's a wolf. And it's a savage sound, but it is equal parts needfulness and relief. Loved fucking her, she's right: loved fucking her standing up, carrying every ounce of her weight. Loved fucking her and feeling her relax into it, lean into it, fuck him back. Leverage his strength and hers. Grind down on him, and rock on him, and bounce on him. Loved all that, but

god, he wants to fuck her now. He wants to put her on the bed, under him, fuck her the way he does. Always seems to want it that way, and when she asks for it he doesn't pause. Not for a second. He crosses that small distance in one step, and then the world turns on its ear, and her back thumps down, and the mattress squeaks, and he pushes her up the bed and slides out of her and chases her down and pulls her under him, climbs over her, pushes back into her like he can't wait. Which is accurate. He can't wait.

Now his arms are around her. Thick biceps against her sides, big hands spread over her back. Now he's fucking her good and proper, hammering her to the bed, thudding the bed to the wall. So much for being quiet, but at least they're going to be quick about this. He's not kissing her now. He's biting her, and that too is a familiar, intimate thing. A strange and savage expression of closeness; adoration.

Devon

Okay, so he can tease her later. Ask her who's the boring one now. He can do what he likes. Because right now, she's so far gone that even when he essentially pulls her off his cock, turns her around, drops her on the bed, and pulls her up under him as he climbs over her -- Devon doesn't really mind. She's reaching for him, the bed creaking as they abuse it, sitting up to touch him and then laying back again as she pulls him to her again. Kisses him, hard, as he's taking hold of his cock, fitting it back into her by touch, by memory, by instinct. Devon has to kiss him.

Because she loves him.

Because she's starting to moan really loudly and needs him to shut her up.

Her legs open for him, the soles of her socked feet on his ass, her hands on his back, all but clawing at him. She doesn't tell him again to fuck her, fuck her, but it's there in the way she grabs at him, urges him on, doesn't give a god damn about the headboard or the squeaky mattress right now if he just keeps fucking her with that hard, glorious cock. God, it makes her wet. So fucking wet it's almost slippery, trying to give it to her like this. Feels good. Feels incredible. Her nails dig into the heavy flesh at his mid-back. She squirms under him, grinding, her pussy tightening on his cock. Tightening. And rippling.

And he's biting her, and it feels like the longing for ownership --

no.

He's biting her, and it feels like the longing for mateship she felt earlier, without a name for it. Comes to her now. Makes her eyes fall closed as if in reverence, makes her mouth open soundlessly, breathlessly, caught there on the precipice. Her arm wraps around him, forearm resting against the back of his neck, hand buried in his hair over the back of his head. Her other hand moves to press on his chest, feeling every surge of motion as he grunts, snarls, thrusts over her. Devon doesn't warn him that she's coming, and she doesn't need to. She just touches him, mind and heart, as it flows into her, and through her, and returns to him in a wet, hot, earth-bound and yet transcendant cycle.

Rafael

No more words now. Not much in the way of restraint either. Wolf loves the way she grabs at his body, fingertips, nails. Loves how she wraps her legs around him and how she grips his back; how she grips his cock, if we're blunt about it, and how she rides down on it. He bites her. It is a sort of response to some unspoken call. It is more than that, and this time she intuits it and recognizes it. It is a longing for mateship, which is not ownership at all but something more along the path of belonging. Belonging-to. Union-with.

Her arms wind around him too. She clasps him to her every bit as close as he clasps her. Her hand touches his head, touches his chest. Feels that wild beating beneath the breastbone. Feels the rampant power in his bones, his muscles, the surge of his torso, the strength that weaves together out of every fiber of his body.

No one warns anyone. No one says anything. It's not necessary. He knows, and she knows, and she lets it flood through her, and he buries it in her: not just the orgasm but something deeper than that, the love, the fragile hope, the vulnerability of being in love and knowing one's heart existed now outside one's body. All told he is rather quiet about it, doesn't wake the house with his bellowing. Grunts low in his throat, deep in his chest, when he comes inside her. Wraps his arms around her, tight, tight, and tries, by virtue of holding her close enough, to belong to her.

Devon

All told, the amount of time that bed is creaking and that headboard is thumping is negligible. Minutes; maybe less. They were both so close while still standing; it didn't take long to get back there. Devon is still far, far gone; she is working the rest of her orgasm out on him, under him, while his teeth dig into her skin and his arms hold her close. She's obsessed with his cock inside of her, how every time her cunt ripples with a new wave of pleasure, a new muscle spasm, she can feel him more intensely for a hot, molten second. It's maddening, and it's killing her, and she can't stop.

Until her body stops for her. Relents. Her pussy gives up trying to wring every last bit of enjoyment it can out of Rafael's body. Her heart gives up its race against itself, starting to ease back, overtired. She yawns out of nowhere, big and taut and gasping a little on the end. She exhales an mmm when it lets her go. Her head lolls to the side, all her dark hair thick and wavy and yet curly and sweat-damp along her temples, her hairline, her neck. Her spine relaxes. Her chest still thumps and her lungs still move too quickly, but it's starting to slow down. Everything is starting to slow down.

Devon yawns again, her feet sliding off his ass, her legs lazy to either side of his body. She wants to get up and pee as soon as she thinks she can do so without falling over. That will be relatively soon: Devon, though so tender, so fragile, is made of shockingly sturdy stuff when you get right down to it. She's resilient. That's what it is. Fragile, tender, vulnerable, and able to bounce back faster than even she realizes, most times. She doesn't know her own strength, but only because to her, it's one of her most invisible strengths.

The room is quiet again, except for the pop and crackle of the fire, and Devon's repeated yawns.

Rafael

Little by little they both come down. Relax. Release. Her feet sliding off his -- butt, she would call it -- is the first external stimulus that draws him back to himself. Those deep, maddening pulsations of her cunt don't count. They hardly felt external. Felt like something intrinsic to himself, as though the boundary between them had blurred.

That coolness left in the wake of her socked feet, though. That draws his awareness back into his body. And he loosens his embrace a little. Rolls his lips and his nose and his face, really, over her shoulder. Sets his head down with a sigh, content, while girl's yawning. That little gasp gets him, socks him right in the base of the spine. He flexes into her a little, nevermind that he's softening, nevermind that he just came, and so did she, and neither of them can really take it right now.

Does it anyway. It makes him shudder. Gasp a little too.

They relax. They relent. She yawns again and he rolls very slowly, very lazily off her. He's looking down when he draws out of her. Likes the sight of it, his wet cock sliding out of her wet cunt. Likes it in this base and primitive and filthy way. Same part of his lizard brain that likes rolling in dirt and marking on trees, he supposes.

Likes the sight of her body too, pale, those freckles, those eyes. He lays his heavy arm over her and pulls her close, keeps her warm. That's what he thinks, anyway. That he's keeping her warm. Not the fire but him: her Rafa, her wolf.

Devon

She almost tell shim nuzzle me when he starts to move. It leaps to her lips to tell him to do it, this thing she's never named and never asked him for, because she thinks he might be pulling away and she really doesn't want him to. And there he is, before the words make it past those coy lips of hers, rubbing his face on her shoulder. Lays his head down on her, close to her tits, and out of nowhere -- in her eyes -- he thrusts into her.

Devon almost laughs. She grins, and her breath moves in her chest, not quite a laugh but something like it. She has no idea why, other than that he likes her pussy, loves fucking her. Sweet little pussy. Climb on. Take good care of you. Fuck you like this.

So she makes another noise, thinking of his hot, filthy mouth and the tender, erotic things he says to her, said to her. It's low and sleepy and satisfied. Probably makes him want to fuck her again. But she's so drowsy, so lazy now, so glad his cock is still inside her, softening or otherwise. She just holds him, and holds him, and after a while he does, finally, push up a bit. Onto his elbows, more or less. Rolls off of her, which makes the yawning ease up, which makes her breath come easier. He looks down; watches himself drawing out of her. She's never seen him do that before, if he ever has. But catches him this time, her sleepy eyes looking down at him, where he's looking down at the two of them. Sees his eyes flickering, his lips parted, like it turns him on. Or pleases him, simple as that.

Makes the corner of her mouth pull out. Not really a smirk. Just a smile, but a very, very lazy one. She closes her eyes again, turning her head to the side again to rest, stroking the back of his neck with her fingertips until that, too, is simply too much work for her. Rafael covers her with his arm, which isn't much, but it does actually keep her warmer than she would be without it. She turns a little onto her hip, snuggling against his chest. If this convinces him further that it is not the fire but his nearness that keeps her warm, so be it. It's both. One is at once the most mundane and the most magical thing she has to trust, to offer. The other is... also, the most mundane and the most magical, but he is not something she can give, or something she lives with. He is something given to her.

She'll get up in a bit. Throw on a robe. Want to piss, want to wash up. For all she knows he'll try to follow her to the bathroom, shadow her. Feels like something he might do, right now. She wouldn't even mind; she'd understand it, after all that. She doesn't even know what to call 'all that', though. Doesn't call it anything. Doesn't worry about it. Doesn't worry about whether he'll follow her around naked or which one of them is going to stir the fire a bit so that it burns down gently on its own on the way towards sunrise. She just lays there, held, thinking of all the time they've spent here with her family, all the days between now and Christmas, when her mother comes. Thinking of all she's sensed in him and all she has realized tonight, and how wordless it all is, and how indefinable she wants it to remain, not because she is indifferent to it,

but because it is all sacred.