Long chapter guys. Also, thank you to anyone who has ever taken the time to vote for any of my chapters. I'm not even fussed about how many followers I get, it means nothing when you look at the votes, does it? But thank you to those that do and have voted, it means a lot, it's much appreciated and actually shows that you like what I write. You're the ones I update for so cheers! Much love your way :)
*March 2020 disclaimer*: I'm currently in the middle of fixing this chapter up cos it's long. I've cut it in parts so you can take a break when you get to Part 2 (which should really be its own chapter but I don't want to disturb anyone with notifications if I made it one, so for now it will stay this way. I will list it as its own chapter beneath this one).
As you probably know from a previous disclaimer or two this story is *currently under construction*.
Chapter 18 – Turn Away
All of an hour had passed before we arrived, and though Dante had said we were going to his place, he never thought to tell me that we were actually going to his home.
He defined his place and his home as two different things. His Wharf Gardens apartment, he said, was his base. His easy commute to work. I mean, that's pretty pricey for a crash pad. But the breath-taking two storey timber framed house we were drawing up to was where the course of his life ran smooth. Home. He'd given me his space just to take me away from the dangers in my own. And for a moment I just about forgot. Easy to do looking at this place.
"This," he said unbuckling from his car seat, "will be your safe haven. Nobody can harm you here."
I gave him a smile I couldn't help doubting. It was brief and evasive with the hope he couldn't see the truth beyond it. I knew that wasn't entirely true. Not that Nate would harm me, but find me? He always had a way. Still, taking hold of the door handle I gawped at his home as I got out.
You know the kind of tree house a kid would dream of where they could bunker up and hide? This was the most elaborate version of one but on the ground. What a dream home this was. Humble, rustic and with character in its bones. A far cry from his shell of an apartment in W2 where all the roads were paved in sterling like its own little Billionaires Row. Still, it wasn't a huge statement of wealth or a major flaunting of it, strangely. Maybe he didn't feel the need to buy a huge house with a thousand bedrooms where the only thing to fill the space inside were echoes.
I couldn't help but stare at him, which he clocked me doing after he locked his door.
"What is it?" He slid the keys away in his pocket.
I looked back at the house. "Just surprised, that's all."
"I'm full of those."
You're telling me.
"You know what surprises me?" He came round the bonnet. "That it took a break-in for me to get you here. I guess you're staying."
He almost took my hand if not for remembering Malcolm.
"Shit." He pivoted. Him first.
Short of telling him how beautiful his home was, I didn't think I could say any more than my dropped jaw did only moments earlier.
As I looked back over my shoulder on Dante's swift recovery of his chauffeur, I watched as he literally flung a limp and no-doubt heavy Malcolm over his shoulder, passed me, and carried him up the short entranceway steps to the front door.
It wasn't possible for anyone Malcolm's build to weigh next to nothing but Dante made it seem like his driver was a bag of sugar. I've lifted myself out of bed with more strain and I only had myself to carry, and this guy had Malcolm over his shoulder like the biggest eff-you to my struggle. Don't know how he did it. Not that I wondered too long without letting his display of silent physical strength become a wrongly-timed turn on. Gosh, he was so inconvenient.
He took his keys out of his pocket, reminded me to take my phone, which I had, and keyed in the door, twisting his body with Malcolm on his shoulder to allow me space to enter before him. From the inside his home glowed golden warm, rigidly angled yet welcoming, It was modest, intimate even, snug but spacious. Cosy. Not a word I would immediately associate with him, but it surprised me. Most definitely not what I was expecting.
As we walked past the stairs and down through the hallway, he used his free hand to twist open a door and enter. I walked in with him. A living room. The same high ceiling I'd already seen coming in, wide and spacious. Mahogany and pine colours filtered the room, large windows gave way to ash skies, and I noticed there were a couple of vibrant plants scattered about.
Dante dropped Malcolm carefully onto the sofa and left him sprawled there limp as a bag of spuds saying he'll be fine. When I asked how he knew for sure, he told me no one can just kill a demon and that it was never intended to kill him.
"Do you want me to call anybody for you?" he asked, his back to me.
I shook my head while still taking this place in. "No," My eyes frittered about the place. "I'm alright."
"See, that's another thing," he twisted around. "Your family. Where are they?"
I eyed him and blinked. "What?"
"Is this something you don't want to tell me?" he drew closer. "What about your friends? Like girlfriends?"
Oh. "I had a couple," I admitted.
"What happened to them?" He looked so curious.
"Life happened."
I felt like a really ugly abstract painting that people stare at trying to figure out what it all meant while coming to vastly different conclusions. Short of studying me it took him moments to break from the intensity it brought.
"You're too incredible a woman to be lonely."
"Who said I was lonely?"
"Well, as long as I'm around you're not, Magpie."
When he turned to observe Malcolm for a sec I felt comfortable enough to leak my brain for a moment. "You're kind of like the only person I hang out with."
He looked over and straightened. "Really?"
Uh. "Well, that I've had an opportunity to hang out with. Not that we're hanging out or anything," I was quick to add. "Because this is so not the opportunity I'd ever have been looking for. I mean, there's Jacey an' that...and Seb, and...but no one that I..." Oh gosh, what was I saying?
Just as I rushed to re-phrase myself we cross-spoke.
"Not that I'd have a problem or—"
"I feel quite honoured, actually—"
Our words trampled each other in a race they didn't know they were competing in, obscuring the other till clarification was necessary.
"Sorry?" I think I caught what he said. I think.
"I'm honoured," he repeated. "A bit of a privilege if you ask me."
Why was I so stunned? Thinking about it I really shouldn't be. But still.
"Yeah?" was about all I managed. Was he supposed to make me feel all warm and bunny-soft inside with that statement? Because he did.
"Ariel—"
He didn't get a chance to close the gap between us that he began to step into because Malcolm jerked hard enough to make noise. We both looked over and Dante stood alert to any secondary movement before making a move.
Nothing further. Not much more than Malcolm's body adapting to itself or something according to Dante. Now that whatever was moving through his body was fazing out of it, Malcolm's body violently adjusted to fighting against it. Still, the quick reminder as to why we were here had Dante looking guilty for forgetting. Not that he knew what guilt was.
I didn't know what to do with myself when he paced, quietly annoyed, talking low to himself. Things like "the fucking audacity" came out of his mouth. I caught the words "in broad daylight." too. He was trying to figure out how it was done. I interrupted him.
"Dante?"
He glared at me in a way that had me thinking twice. I was going to tread carefully with this one.
He looked frighteningly pissed, shaking his head. "Just running some things through my head."
I was hoping he wouldn't connect too many things just yet. "Look, you don't wanna sit down or something? Take a moment? Don't worry about it now, just wait for Malcolm to come round. He may know something."
"Suspicions don't rest, Ariel. And I need to be sure of mine before I do anything about it."
I tried to disguise a gulp.
"You're at risk too, you know," he said, and picked up a cushion from under Malcolm's legs placing it under his head instead.
In one continuous chain of movement he opened a couple of windows one after the other never once stopping. At the last window his hand stilled, clutched on the lever as if he needed to get a grip of more than just himself. He looked so exhausted from whatever was weighing him down.
"I'm not trying to see if anything else happens to you," he said quietly. His head sank. A deep breath later and he got it together, turning to walk past me. I stopped him. He paused, taking in the position of my fingers over his forearm.
"It won't," I said dropping my hand. "I promise."
"It astounds me how sure you are."
"Because I told you."
"Yeah, that he wouldn't. I know, you said, while not telling me who he is."
Frustrated, he turned me to look over at the sofa. "You see him right there?" He pointed to Malcolm. "That's what staying silent does." He turned me back to him. "It creates situations I can't control if I don't know what I'm up against. Malcolm, your apartment, all of it. You really wanna invite any more of this?"
I fended off the concern but knew I couldn't pull that off for long.
"I'm not going to wait, Ariel," he warned me. "If you don't want to tell me, it's fine. I have the means, I'll find out myself."
Malcolm stirred, more gentle than before and short lived. He was still out. The glimmer of quickened hope dampened so fast but it distracted us enough that having this conversation here seemed inappropriate. It was obvious Dante didn't want to see Malcolm like that too. In the seconds that followed he removed himself from the room. It took an instant before I took after him into the hallway but he stopped halfway down, breaking my pace from stumbling into him.
"How much further does this go before you tell me, Ariel? Who's next before you have no choice?"
I stared like I didn't realise there'd be collateral damage besides us. Why would there be?
Malcolm's condition really got him and I was ashamed it didn't occur to me that there'd be anyone else outside my immediate circle who mattered.
He wasn't asking for much and yet it was a lot to me. In the living room came a thud hard against the floor. Not sure how Malcolm was moving so much but his leg had slipped heavy off the sofa leaving Dante to put him back on it properly.
I observed Dante, all the while debating in my head as his quiet conflict became mine. I beat it back. Fair enough I didn't want to see him like that, burning with a helplessness he didn't know how to manage, but I was sure he'd figure out how to cope with all that. He didn't need me for it.
When I turned to leave however, I stopped. My shoulders sank when I couldn't convince myself that was true. All I wanted for as long as I'd been given time was to fix this and so far I'd been unable to.
I spun back around, pissed at myself for thinking I could do this and already backtracking so quickly. Before he could leave though, I couldn't bear seeing him like that a moment longer.
"Nate Sydes." I closed my eyes when I said his name like I couldn't believe I was doing it. Hell knows what I was letting myself in for.
"Sydes?" Dante froze.
"Please don't ask me to say it again." Heaven knows it took a lot out of me. "I just need some promises."
He shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that."
"You don't know what I'm about to ask."
"I do actually."
"Then I can't stay here if you're gonna be like that." Not that I moved. Shifted, more like.
"You can and you will," he said. "Sydes isn't a name I hear often so I'm gonna need you to stick around to tell me how you know it."
A hasty retort was ready to come through my lips before what he said caught up with me. Wait. "How I know it?" It dawned on me. "How'd you know it?"
"Oh come on," he mocked. "You didn't think I lasted this long without knowing my enemies, did you Magpie? I'd be grossly negligent and ridiculously naive if I didn't. But tell me," his voice soaked in menace. "How'd that name come out of your mouth?"
Uh oh.
"It's not what you think," I said. "I promise."
"What do I think?"
I swallowed. "That I've been deceiv—"
He thumped a hand past my shoulder and into the wall missing me deliberately. "Fuck!"
When he yelled like I'd just confirmed his worst fears as if wondering how he could be so stupid I let out a shriek, jerking away with hunched shoulders and crunching my eyes closed. I held my breath.
"For how long?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I swear—"
"Before you met me?"
For a moment I could see how that looked when his face changed. It switched from the anger to the thought of being betrayed. I didn't think he could bare it if it were true. And it looked like it hurt.
"I swear to God, Ariel," The instant the thought hit him he stepped to me, resisting any urge to wring my neck while I tensed up, spine locked. I hadn't noticed the hole he'd caved into the wood behind me till then. There was no immediate blood till seconds later when his hand started spotting it through his skin.
"If you were anybody else I'd have got you by the throat by now and said you hunt too and that you work together," Dante began, "and more fool me because I should've seen it coming. So thank you're lucky stars you're not anybody else 'cause that's why you're still safe. Anyone else wouldn't be. Feelings be damned."
The word clung like a kiss. "Feelings."
I let it hang like dust, never really going away even when you brush it away. Not once did I take my eyes off him even when he was close enough to seal whatever those feelings were with a kiss if those small seconds were inches instead.
"You know," he said. I watched the way his mouthed moved, the way the words came out soft and quiet in a hush. "And so do I," he added. "Sometimes I just want to know how you fucking feel about me. I just want to know. That I can be real with you. That I don't have to hide. That when you see any kind of passion in my eyes you're not afraid of it. Whatever you feel, I need to know. Forget everything else for a second."
Forget everything else? "How do I do that?"
That was the thing, I wasn't sure I could. Not yet anyway. "I don't know what you're capable of, Dante. Because right now what I need to feel is that you won't hurt anyone. I don't know how far that little fire in your hand goes. How big it can get. How much you can destroy with it. Or who."
"Not you, never you." He was so quick with it, he even shook his head like it could never be a possibility.
"I wasn't talking about me."
He bit back on the other conclusion and stood there and paused. I don't know how long he stared me out but his jaw tensed while doing it. I think he knew. "Oh come on, Ariel. I don't owe anybody anything least of all their safety. Especially if they don't deserve it. They won't be getting any guarantees from me on that front."
"But—"
"He won't, Ariel."
No names necessary, yet it was spelled out as clear as bottled water that we were talking about the same person. He really didn't know what I was about to say. Yeah, I had reasons to keep Nate a teensy bit safe for now, but I also had reasons to wring his effing neck and ask him what the hell he was thinking. Neither of which I could do if Dante got there first. You think I'd let Nate off? No. I needed answers first. I'd have to get to him before Dante did.
Upon turning away, he nodded back behind him towards me. "Wanna see where you're living or what?"
I glared at him while I made no attempt to move. Stepping ahead, he stopped when he realised my footsteps hadn't followed.
He swivelled and saw that I remained where I stood. "You coming?"
Did he really say that like he really thought I'd follow him?
Leaning against the wall, he looked me up and down. "How long do you plan on being this stubborn, Magpie? I'll do this tour without you." He walked on. "I don't care how crazy I look when it appears I'm just talking to myself. Not always a sign of being crazy you know." His voice faded with his distance.
My eyes followed him ahead where he knew I hadn't caught up. Not until I knew I had no choice. I took a deep breath and got a move on. I wasn't trying to get lost around here.
Grabbing the banister I took the steps two at a time to make up for the head start I gave him where he led me upstairs. We stopped at a room with one large window and a made bed. It was a guest bedroom and was privy to the scenic glory that was his back garden. This would be my room.
The moment Dante turned to leave I halted him.
"Wait, what about my flat?"
He shrugged. "What about it? You're not going back. Not yet anyway." He turned back to where he was going but I stopped him again.
"When then?"
"You know," he sighed, "let me consult my mystic powers on that one. Hold on a sec." He put on a deep thought face. "Yeah, no idea. Mystic Dante isn't open for business ever."
"I can't lose my flat, Dante."
Serious now, "And you won't," he said. "It's still yours, it's still there. I'll take care of it. It was there before me, I'll make sure you have it after. No matter what happens."
Any momentary worry became calm. Softened by the added reassurance in his tone that surprised me. It was so sweet. Imagine telling him he said something in a sweet way. Would he even know how to recognise himself? Would he try to divorce himself from such a thing?
"Why the middle of nowhere?" I blurted out as he turned.
It took him a second. "The house?" Taking his surroundings in he said with a slight shrug, "Everyone wants to get away from it all once in a while."
I glanced around. "Why wood? Isn't that a fire hazard considering?"
That made him laugh. "Anything else just doesn't feel right in the middle of nowhere."
"If I'm gonna stay here am I getting my own drawer or what?" Yeah, it was like that.
"Just a drawer? I'm a very giving man, Ariel. You should really take advantage of me."
Was I wrong in seeing the double meaning in that? Especially when he snaked a smile like the double meaning was the only meaning. "I wasn't thinking I'd be here that long."
"Think again. However long it takes."
Then it occurred to me. "Have you ever lived with anyone?"
"No. You?"
I shook my head. "No. Since this is something neither of us are used to it's gonna take a bit of an adjustment."
"Like demanding drawers of course." His obviously tone stank with sarcasm.
I took the opportunity to tease instead. "And me actually having my dietary requirements met because, wait," I pointed, "you have none." Badumtush! "So, how's your fridge looking?"
He looked puzzled. "What fridge?"
You what? I blinked. "You're joking me."
"Yeah." He chuckled then grinned.
I could've...ugh...just look at him! With that face and all it's annoying...smug...ness.
"You know what, just—"
Let me just talk about something—anything else. "The drawer?" I refocused. "A space. A wardrobe. Something." Anything other than his smug-smug grin.
"Am I gonna have to see your toiletries and stuff all over the house?"
"Lucky for you, it's not that time of the month for me yet."
"No biggie on that." Completely unfazed. "Just I'd rather my place wasn't a giant feminine hygiene counter. Although I do appreciate the forward thinking need for a drawer even if it was just one."
"Oh, I'm definitely asking for more now." I gave him the widest so there smile. He took it and grinned.
"Should we strike a deal?" I continued. "I get however much space I need and you won't have to see my bits and pieces all over the house."
Not that I would've done that. He seen my flat? Clean as. But hell, I'll exaggerate the potential for mess just for effect.
"Oh," I added. "And if you maintain the whole toilet seat thing then it's all good."
He laughed with humorous disbelief. "You really telling me what to do in my own house? How to position my own toilet? Okay bossy, didn't realise you were paying rent."
I dashed a quick directed thumb over my shoulder. "I can SatNav it back to mine if you want? I mean, you dragged me here remember?"
"What, kicking and screaming?" He chuckled.
"Kind of."
"Oh I'll have you screaming all right." He grinned with those smile brackets of his.
I hadn't thought about how mischievous his smile was before. Not until then when that was all I could see. I watched the grooves etch themselves to either side of his lips, tugging with the knowledge that screaming wasn't always terror, but abandon.
For a few short seconds I couldn't think straight.
"You're gonna need something to change into while you're here," he said.
I blinked and saw him leave the room. A huge draw of breath and I stared like he left breathlessness in his wake. My veins pumped warm under my skin leaving it flush as spring blossoms. My imagination got it there.
When he came back with a pair of drawstring trousers and a T Shirt I was barely paying attention. As I zoned in to him telling me he was sure I'd need more space around here, I didn't tell him that I only asked for one drawer because I didn't own much as it was. When it came to possessions I couldn't compete with him on my best day. Not even when you pile up all the cheap tat. But the real possessions? The meaningful things. The invaluable, irreplaceable things...I'd only ever need one drawer.
"They didn't shrink in the wash or anything this time but it's got this stringy waistband thing," he angled it around as if it were a puzzle. "You can at least get them to fit around that small waist of yours. And the T Shirt...well...that's going to swamp you but it's all I have for now."
I took them from him. "Thank you."
He nodded.
"This is all very...normal." I didn't think twice about swapping my clothes for the new ones right there and then. Normal wasn't something he'd know much about or appreciate on any great scale. But there were virtues to normal. It makes you realise how much you long for normal when your whole world flips on its head and normal doesn't seem so boring any more.
It took me pulling my top up to my head before I heard his response through it.
"Yeah, it is." He cleared his throat.
Wait a minute. I froze and quickly yanked my top back down again. Not that I was self conscious or anything, just... "Perhaps I should take a shower first before I get changed—"
"—I'd say so too." He nodded in haste.
We both scrambled in our opposite directions with me almost bumping into a wall. Okay, reminder; like Dorothy in Kansas, we're not in my flat any more.
Dante went to get me a towel and placed it on the bed. I prepared to get undressed again and glanced over at him.
"I can see you, you know," I said, getting on with it this time and taking my top off and grabbing the towel.
"I should hope so, I'm not a ghost."
"I mean staring."
"And what a sight. Think I'll just sit here and—"
Take my baggy top to his face perhaps? Because that's what happened. I'd playfully aimed it smack-bang over his head with pin sharp precision but a fabric soft landing. "I can torture you in so many ways." I said like a tease. "May not be a shirt next time."
He grabbed it off his head. "Don't tease me with a good time. Besides, I know staring is rude but it's an easy thing to do when you look like that."
"It's nothing you haven't seen before," I said, wrapping my towel tighter and readying to pass by him.
"And everything I want to see again. I could get so lost inside you I swear..." He reached his arm out to stop me moving passed him and pulled me in ninja swift.
Our bodies hit each other hard, deliciously abrupt. My eyes flicked up to his, dropping to his mouth. There was a space between his need and his response to it when, on quick reflection, he let go of me.
I blinked abruptly, realising he didn't mean to do that. I don't think he knew what came over him while I was left to wonder how the tension peaked in nought seconds flat without neither of us knowing it was happening till it happened. Damn.
"Wait!"
I clocked how needy my voice became when I saw him leaving. His steps slowed and for a moment he remained still, then slowly turned to face me.
I swallowed. Maybe it was the way he waited that had me waiting too. Maybe it was the instinct I fought that had me asking myself what I was doing.
"Please."
What was I begging for? He wasn't ready to hear that. It took his breath away for a moment. He stared, conflicted. His heart beating through his eyes.
I responded by moving in closer, his breath hiked just before I kissed him on my tip toes. A long single kiss. Just like that. The instinct was quick. I parted from him for a quick glance and couldn't help wanting to kiss him again. So I gave him another one. And another. Another still. And one more, pressing long, hard and still to feel him back, but stopping to look into his eyes once more when he gave me nothing. They were closed.
"Look at me."
"You don't want that," he shook his head and came away from me.
I remained where I stood when he walked away, staring into the space he left behind and slowly staggering a breath. How could something so brief be so intense?
Until the distant rush of water showered down from the end of the hall like stones being thrashed under a wild water spring, I was left disarmed by the thoughts I bore into the empty doorway. I had new ones now I knew he was in the shower. Of the water glossing over his skin, slipping on the dips in his back muscles like rocks under a rushing river, glistening like sun on a lake, running and not going anywhere. What must he feel like beneath my fingers when his body dripped wet like that?
I needed to stop thinking about him like this. To stop imagining him in ways I couldn't satisfy alone. I desperately needed my body's demand for him out from under my skin. I settled on this being lust.
The shower was loudest down at the bottom of the hallway where I landed at a master bedroom. His room. It had to be. A four post bed of that size was meant for no one but the owner of this house. Besides, his trousers hung slack off the bed post, careless and angry. His shirt a pool of crumpled defeat on the floor.
From an en-suite bathroom at the side the water fell like crackling, crisp and speckled, the frameless glass partition steaming to near fog, and under its turbulent roar there he stood. His arms were leaned high above him against the marbled wall, flooded under the rainfall showerhead. He looked as beaten as the force against his plastered hair, like all those drops hurt.
I kept still, like he'd notice me if I moved.
But he didn't have to feel that way. We didn't have to feel anything but each other.
Before realising what I was doing I'd peeled my towel off and dropped it, my knickers too, sliding out of them and throwing them aside. I opened the door.
Dante immediately turned around, his hands dropping to his sides as he watched me enter, the shower weeping over his body. His eyes dipped up and down me. If he thought he'd seen me naked before, he hadn't. Not like this. This was a new naked. More than he knew and more naked than I'd ever known myself to be in front of anyone. I wanted him. I wanted him so fucking bad.
I slipped the door back behind me.
For a second there I wondered if he was even breathing because he didn't move. But I came in close anyway, and got the impression he was about to stop me when he moved out from under the shower-head and blinked out the water in his eyes, stark against his inked hair.
But no. No thinking twice this time. No doubting this was the right thing to do. Not when he didn't have to. Not when I took his hand and slipped it between my thighs, releasing a soft sound and letting the feeling bury itself behind my closed eyes momentarily. His eyes could stop asking now, this was what I wanted no matter how his looked at me. Let us not speak. My body was the communication I wanted his hands to have with me and we didn't have to stop talking this way. He didn't have to stop.
Please. "Don't stop."
My lips parted against his shoulder, I traipsed my breath across his wet collarbone, and the feeling of his fingers that I writhed against...oh my lord the feeling...it sank my eyes shut and I strangled another word out between the airlessness, "Please."
Please.
I dipped in and out of drowsily closing my eyes every other second from how fucking good this felt. The rhythm was so hard to breathe through I wilted through the space between my emotions and my sensations. I didn't know if they were the same thing.
Harder my breaths came from him rubbing me that I could hear myself all the way to it becoming a moan that Dante muted with a firm kiss that softened in his mouth.
And then I felt him press against me. He was so hard.
With the slick of my hand circling around how hard he was, there was nothing but his sharp intakes of breath when I got down low enough to take him in my mouth. He almost buckled if not for his hand slap against the dripped wall. Drenched now, the running water had my lips sliding slick over him, but it was several of those before I could take him to my throat. I wanted all of it, he wanted me to have all of it. I let his hand take my hair from my face, pin it tight-fisted behind me in a strained clutch, and watch me like I was performing magic. I don't know how long he let me put that spell on him before he realised what was about to happen. He pulled me up.
"Come here," he said.
Within seconds he'd flipped me against the wall instead, my breasts crushed against drizzled marble.
"Inside," he choked, his face in my shoulder. "I'm cumming inside you."
He parted my thighs from behind, slid up from under. A sharp breath in and I moaned with only the tip of him in, then full on cried out his name when after several strokes opening me up, I was brimming with him inside me.
"Fucking hell," I croaked as I clapped my hand hard against the wall and scraped its wet marble to a squeak, gasping with every second I felt him sinking up through me as if his dick was an emotion I'd allow even deeper inside me if I could handle it. I couldn't. This was the kind of thing you couldn't explain, you just felt it.
He grabbed my throat, slipping his palm up under my jaw and tipped my head back to where my mouth met his as the water draped between our lips, on our tongues, soaked our breaths. I swallowed the drips inside our kisses as though I were swallowing him. He was savouring me till he'd taken the taste of hunger off my lips. Bringing me closer than the water was.
I couldn't make heads or tails of myself while being kissed with a ferocity that made my breath breathless. I spun around, gliding my hands up to his neck. Closer. Nothing was close enough for me. Not even when I grabbed his waist to my stomach needing him this way now.
"Fuck me," gagged out of me, desperately clinging on to his slick frame as my hands clung tighter.
He groaned with animalistic fervour into my mouth, slamming me firm against the slippery wall as my legs wrapped around him when he lifted me higher against him, readying me. The tip of his hardness sat rousingly against me. He immediately put himself inside me again, helping me buck up and down repeatedly over the length of him as if he'd wreck me like I were riding a bull. I groaned every time he plunged harder and harder till I grabbed his neck, his head, then met his eyes. I couldn't take mine off his but he turned into my shoulder before I could see anything as he drove himself into me.
"It's okay," I said, my voice airless.
"It's not," he stifled.
"I said it's okay."
"Don't."
"I mean it—"
"—Stop." He grabbed my hand from his face, panting, his stroking slowed. "Stop."
Then, before we could lock eyes, before I could catch even a glimpse, he captured a kiss, pressing my face to his through a passionately hard, distracting linger. His hand up in my hair holding my head to his in a hard grab.
"This is what you're sure of," he said, eyes closed, as my nose brushed his when our angles caressed, I couldn't bear it. "This much of me is the only thing that's okay."
His strokes started to increase again to let me know what we were. I was on the verge now.
"What is it about you?" My voice strained through the thrusts and craved kisses I dragged across his lips, drugged on the need to be so close. I brushed back his wet hair palming his head to mine with drenched fingers.
"Me?" he said as my hands slid down his face, never stopping his moves within me. He shook his head. "No. Not me."
For now, sex would be the best of us. He kissed me so hard there was no his breath and my breath, just ours. And it was then that we let this own us. He closed his eyes and turned away.
END OF CHAPTER.
POSTED 02/03/2020--UK DATE day/month/year --- PLEASE NOTE: If you read beyond this point you are moving into the first draft. As a result there will be inconsistencies. If you're fine being confused you can read on. I'm revising every chapter as I go along so once they've been revised one by one those edits end up on here anyway. I'll make a note at the top of every chapter so you know when they've been revised and are safe to read in conjunction with any previous chapters you've read. An easy way to tell is if the chapter number I write has an underline i.e Chapter 17 . An underline means I've gone over it for plot points, characterisation and all the rest involved in revisions. If the number has no underline then it is still the first draft and you read at your own risk of confusion on chapters I haven't dealt with yet. Just check back because my re-edits are regular as I aim to complete the book.
Yes, beneath this is a chapter but it's not fixed/revised yet.
Chapter - Three Little Words
Malcolm had come round some hours ago and was furious. Proper raging. His medium brown eyes, lighter than mine, were an absolute statement of fury. His tone a threatening menace against the "total pisshead" who did this to him. Yet despite the anger, his voice was gentle and offset his brawn and every word had him pegged as well-read. I hated how surprised I was. Still, he was pissed.
Dante had told him to keep his wits about him, to be more vigilant and to know that it would be dealt with. Malcolm said he wanted to be the person who dealt with it, he didn't need Dante, and that it was him after all who was targeted. Dante corrected him, that actually, it was he who had been targeted, that it wasn't really about Malcolm.
"You know that for sure, do you?"
"Since it happened through Ariel's apartment, I'd say yeah."
Malcolm's nose flared before he relented. I watched as he remained insistent that he could more than beat the crap out of whoever did this to him. Dante's nod said he didn't doubt that, but he had another idea, and told Malcolm to lie low, not to contact his wife, and just keep a lid on it.
I was surprised. Malcolm had a wife. That was as normal as normal could get for what he was. He was like Dante after all. I would have to ask him about that some time. Malcolm, that is. He seemed approachable enough.
"What was used on him?" I'd asked Dante later. "Do you know?"
"Roseling," he said.
"Roseling?" How beautiful. What a contrast to what it could actually do to a demon.
"Yes," he'd answered, then said nothing more and got up.
He did indeed get my stuff from my place. Once he'd established that it was safe to go over there, he sent for his no-name assistant to pick up a few bits and pieces, and eventually instructed her to buy me some clothes and underwear because she'd said my place was so trashed she couldn't find much of anything, so Dante thought it best to tell her to buy some items for me. He even estimated my size (wrong, typical) and eventually asked me what my various sizes for bra's, knickers, clothes and shoes were before relaying it back to No-Name.
I don't think it's unreasonable to be in someone's home and wonder what makes them tick. Not when their four walls were infinitely more extensive than yours.
"What are you doing?"
I spun around like a basketball on a finger.
"What, here?" I turned back and tried to think of what I was doing in the corridor leading to his...somewhere. " I was just..." My hands spanned out trying to explain the expanse in front of me as if it was going to give me an excuse.
"Being nosy."
"N-no."
Yeah.
He laughed. I was too transparent. " I think you might be the funniest person I've ever met," he said with a humoured smile.
We'd spent two whole days together since we arrived at his home. For the first time in a long while I was essentially someone's housemate, rooming in the kind of premises that, on a normal day, you'd only have access to if you broke in and squatted while the owners were on holiday. Living with someone was an adjustment. It meant pretending I didn't do normal human things like break wind for starters. I was lucky enough to have my own room so never had to rely on the bathroom as the only place to retreat to. I'm not going to go over all the small things that made up both days because I can summarise it. Dante is a surprise. Queue the montage.
He liked to read. A lot. All sorts of stuff. He had a chair he'd kick back on in his study, and the books that lined the wall were books I'd never seen before, authors I'd never heard of, names so biblical sounding, languages I didn't recognise. They were beautifully maintained and gave the feeling that in order to touch them you'd have to wear gloves. Some of this stuff was so rustically beautiful like the covers were carved. I wouldn't be surprised if they were pieces of literature from his world and it had me wondering what that looked like.
He had a kitchen he didn't eat much in or do much with but he still lent me a hand in it. I was more than a pain showing him how much of a novice I was because I barely cook anything in my own kitchen, and not knowing where he kept things had me constantly asking him where I could find stuff. Unsurprisingly, he had eff all around here and had to accommodate me and get a grocery round delivered. Once the groceries were here he was patient watching me put stuff together and even found it amusing. He laughed a few times at me, and I watched his face light up through the laughter. It was a genuine laugh. Hearty. Human.
I'd stuffed my sorry attempt at lunch forcefully into his mouth and he'd snapped at my fingers crocodile fast, which had me playfully gasping at his flirtatious attack. In fact, he'd been incredibly flirtatious. A cheeky hand here, a brush past me there. And I can't say I didn't give as good as I got here and there.
Something was different though. Dante never let the heat between us spike past a spark. Nothing that allowed him to get so hot that we'd end up in bed together. Even the slightest peak and I could never be privy to anything his eyes gave away. He wouldn't let me. Not anymore.
I would catch him watching me and even smiling to himself. One time I caught him leaning against the door, arms folded across his chest, looking at me seemingly transfixed. Well, I was cooking my poorly executed breakfast. A breakfast he looked at with slight alarm before he smiled at me anyway and dove in. I watched him nod at each biteful that I struggled to imagine him actually tasting, but I could tell it was torture, his determination to finish it regardless made me smile. He did almost choke though, spluttering behind his hand, and it made me think.
"You said he couldn't hurt you?"
He swallowed his bite first. "Huh?"
"Back at mine. You said no one had what it takes to hurt you. But you're not invulnerable, are you?"
He looked me in the eye. "No."
"What can do it? Other than my food of course."
He laughed. "You remember when you questioned what I was? Came up with all these alias superhero guesses? I'm not unfamiliar with that kind of lore. I saw one of those films once, back in the day. You know what it taught me? Try not to tell people what your greatest weakness is, and definitely not when they interview you for a national newspaper."
I got the reference and smiled. "Well...he was new to the world, kind of. And..."
"Naive," he added. "To believe that no one could possibly want the worst for him. To believe that everyone was good."
"Am I not good?"
"Oh, you are so good." He smirked.
"And in danger of making you think you could be too it seems."
He paused. "Only to you."
I couldn't take my eyes off him. He reached up, his nose moved up over mine before his lips pressed mine. His hand cupped my cheek and my hand cupped over his. We stopped, I blinked, he leaned back, his eyes dipped to my mouth while he stroked it. "Why do I like you so much?"
I couldn't take my eyes off him. "What?"
"Still surprised?" He smiled. "Imagine mine."
The smile held before it slowly faded. He looked at me like my face was made up of stars he couldn't see before because his sky was never clear. Not till now. Not till the clarity kept him silent. He looked like he fell through me.
"What are you seeing in me?" I whispered.
"What you let me."
I could've sworn he could see the kind of thing I could never see in myself. "Show me." I grabbed his face. "What is it?" I wondered if he could hear my voice break a little so.
His hand took my nape and slid down over my chest. A heat began – quiet and loitering, it lay under my skin and warmed up like whispers getting louder. In fact it burned. Radiating from his palm and it blazed within me. I inhaled and a hot breath came out. Literally hot.
"Dante?"
He realised what he was doing and quickly removed his hand and paused.
I looked down at myself and startled with a gasp as I saw an almost ethereal sunset glow coming from my chest. I immediately panicked and before I could scream Dante grabbed me and held me as I breathed fast against him, my heart in my throat. I could hear his voice softly whisper in my ear, he was saying something but I had no idea what. It wasn't anything I could understand. It was some...language. A tongue I didn't recognise, it didn't even sound like it was of this world or of this current time. But whatever he was saying was slowly cooling my chest down like a soothing balm. He eased me right down. There was no longer a heat, no more glow, nothing in a part of me I once thought was void of anything let alone a piece of light pouring out the cracks in me . Literally nothing, just a spirited anxiety turning to a heady rush. It was back to normal again.
"What the hell was that?" I trembled slightly.
He looked at me and hadn't a thing to say. Not for a long time. He wore his confusion in the blinks that stumped him, the eyes that saw his mind unfold, and the sense he couldn't seem to make of it. His eyes narrowed a little as though what happened had a whole bunch of explanations.
"What did you see?"
He only just shook his head but couldn't look away from me. I think I was mistaken in thinking it likely didn't make sense. What seemed to get him was that they actually did. that when he blinked like his thoughts made no sense, they actually did.
"You know exactly what it means, don't you?"
His eyes couldn't even lie good. I don't think he was trying to.
"And it's a problem?"
His answer was a deep breath that shook.
"Why?"
"Because there's only one way to see something like that in someone else, and it's not something we're supposed to be capable of."
I watched him for a moment. "But Malcolm—"
"Is half." He turned away a second. "I'm the whole thing." He said that as if it didn't make sense. It was obvious he meant to start with but...
"What did you see? What was it?"
"It's," he shook his head, magic in his eyes, "beautiful." He swallowed. "And it's whole and...full, and...complete and so simple and unafraid and everything you didn't think you were. And there's so much of it and it really is blinding. Listen to me," he took me by the shoulders. "You think you're alone. You're not. Never were, never will be. You just don't know it. Whatever you've lost it's always there. You're this thing that grows, brighter and more complete everyday. It's a beacon. It's a part of you and I can see it. I can see it..." He was so taken.
How did he do that? Manage to feel the light in me before I could feel it for myself? How did he see that I could be amazing when I couldn't say I was anything special? His eyes met mine with a wonderment of belief. Of seeing a colour other than the one he was meant to exist in. Maybe it was just as new to him as to me. Whatever he had just learned, so had I.
"You know," he began. "Malcolm...he said to me once, about his wife, he says 'she's lovely, isn't she?'."
He chuckled and I felt my face smile in response.
"And I nod," he continued, living the memory as the smile faded. "Yeah, I can see that. But he says no no, not just that. Danny, he says, they become more when they mean more. For all the books he's read he can't quite articulate it. He's all weirdly enamoured and everything and I just look at him like, this guy. I think I even laugh. Tell him to get it together. Tell him he doesn't have enough demon in him to be acting all stupid like that. That he's reading too many human books. Mock the shit out of him pretty much. But he says he sees things in her that he's never seen in anyone else. He's supposed to see souls but...not like that. That's new. How it surfaces, what it looks like, how raw and unguarded it became, it's...something else. It looks different. Feels different. And his feelings were new. So he tells me that must be it. That it's because he's never felt like that about anyone. That's why, he says. He was so certain but so unsure at the same time. Suddenly, she's everything and it's blinding. That's what he says to me, it's blinding. Like a comet hit him bang in the face."
The silence held between our eyes.
"There isn't a damn thing she is that he doesn't want to be a part of," he said square in my eye. "Not a single thing."
I watched him silently, unable to process where my mind had gone or why my heart beat with the pace of a hundred longings. Why I was wistful. Why my breath quickened so quiet while being the loudest sound in the room. Why I still wondered where someone like him sprung up from when I already knew. But he was so unexpected. This. This was unexpected. And holy shit. Holy shit. The world swam in wanting to know what it felt like to make love when you fall into it. What must it be like? Was he as curious as me? Did he not want to know? We could do this together. Whatever light Malcolm felt, it must have been magical.
"Be a part of me." I whispered from my heart's mind. I'd never wanted him inside me so bad in my life and it was different than before.
His shirt tucked at the waist, I pulled it and he came to me. Our bodies touched.
"Every single thing." I breathed hard, mouths closer. "Now."
He didn't hesitate. "Always."
* *
"He calls you Danny?"
We lay together. Me over his chest, my cheek under his collar bone, suddenly registering the nickname Dante told me Malcolm used for him. His arm came protectively over me hugging me into him.
"He thinks it proves I'm getting soft if I let him." He stroked down my arm while I rested my head under his chin chilling in the crook of his neck.
"Do you let him?"
"Only then."
"Why?"
He stared up at the ceiling, one arm up, hand under his head. "Because I'd never seen the bastard so happy. It was weird."
I grinned with a light chuckle. "Why do you sound like something as simple as happiness is the most incomprehensible thing imaginable?"
He was quiet. "Because it was." So quiet I looked up at him. He didn't look back. "It doesn't last though, does it?"
"Happiness?"
"You know better than I do. Tell me. Does it? How long do you get to keep it?"
"You mean they don't teach you this in demon school?" I teased.
He chortled. "I've literally lived out my entire Groundworld existence in the last five years. That's it. This isn't my home."
"It could be."
He looked down at me.
"So that's why there's nothing on you beyond five years. Your company... you...nothing." It all fell into place. "And you managed to amass everything in five years?"
"We're pretty good at evading scrutiny. We know how to get at all the right people. You wouldn't be surprised how corrupt humans in high places are willing to be at the right price."
Not at all.
"Huh. So you're a baby adult?"
He laughed. Like really laughed. "Oh come on!"
"But you're five."
Still laughing. "Ariel, I swear, I am not five! I'm very much a thirty-one year old in human years. I've just lived five of them here and my full years under this world. And even then it's not been that long. I'm not hundreds of years old or anything. I'm about seventy-odd. We don't do birth certificates so it's a ballpark."
"But you told me how your demons were born? Centuries ago."
"Yes. But it's akin to having a great, great, great, great, great..." He went on. "Me, I'm seventy-odd of demon years in this existence. This is the only lifetime I've personally known. I can't vouch for the existences before it became me. I come from a line like humans do but we're not born like you, we don't procreate. New existences is how we...continue. This has been me my whole life so I own this lifetime as mine. I don't know any different."
It was hard to believe that he could be so believably innocent then. Sometimes I thought I knew him and then I had to re-imagine my ideas of him from my own inherited fears of days gone by.
He adjusted his arm under my neck and I couldn't believe how safe I wanted to feel and how much I actually did. "The thing is...whether it's five or twenty years...there's still a lot to learn about life no matter how long you've been in it. Whether it's with someone or without someone, there's beauty in it and yet it can be so ugly at times. And there are no guarantees for how long you'll have it. No one even really knows the meaning of it. It's a many pondered thing. Even at twenty-six...I don't know everything myself. I don't know what to tell you. If only I did. I'm still learning." I thought for a second. "The one thing I do know is the idea that nothing worth having in this life comes easy. I heard that once."
"More than just heard though, right? You've lived it." He grabbed both sides of my face to look at him. "Haven't you?"
I realised how much I'd said. That I didn't mean to and that I didn't hate doing it.
When you're strangely content in the arms of a man like this it just seems like everything washes away, however briefly. The walls you didn't know had slipped don't just fall, they un-do themselves as you talk like they were never there in the first place. I lay with someone who made opening up feel okay to the point I didn't even know that's what I was doing it. And suddenly every thought didn't suffocate me. Wow. That was new. And then I just said it.
"Yes."
He made his observation feel mutual. But being here was such a curious thing that inspired questions. His or mine. So I took my chances because he was so unguarded right now.
"What other things can you do?" I asked him.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You're a demon, you must have some other powers besides small flames."
He lifted his head forward to look down at me and dropped back down on the pillow again.
"Now?" he moaned. "I was having a moment in bed with you that I'd say was progress—for once—and you wanna ask me about what I can do? Haven't I said enough?" he slightly chuckled on a grin. "Your timing is so off."
I let him speak into my eyes when he said "Enough about me."
"Well," I said. He groaned when he realised I was still going to carry on. "You heated the hell out of my chest before, and spoke in a language I couldn't place."
"No." He shook his head. "You wouldn't know of it. Look, I'll show you one day," he said. "I'm not going to list them all off for you right now."
"Oh, so there's a lot?"
"There's a few." He conceded.
Before I could say anything else, he grabbed my face by the jaw and lifted it up to his, bending his head down to meet mine and kissing me. I smiled against kissed he wouldn't stop planting till I laughed in them and he grinned against my mouth as his lips pressed my smile. "That better keep you quiet," he said, and kissed me again.
"That distraction technique is so not going to work. I'm onto you." I said back as I playfully scratched at his dark stubble.
"Drats. My evil scheme has been foiled." He touched his jaw. "I do need a shave, don't I?"
"Nooo. You look great like this, leave it." I protested. He looked positively rugged. So damn hot.
He rolled me over in the bed and nibbled at me as I felt tickled by him. I threw my head back and giggled uncontrollably as my stomach clenched and I almost kneed him in the groin because my legs came up in reflex.
"Thank fuck you missed me there." he almost laughed, and then it looked as though the image of my knees connecting with his groin had just planted itself in his head. His face was a picture.
Thank fuck indeed.
"You're ticklish, huh?" He grinned.
"Don't!" I warned back.
He rolled me back down and propped himself up on his elbow next to me, gazing down into my face, one leg propped over both of mine, drawing my body into his. He lightly stroked across my stomach, it was like a feather passing over me prickling at ever receptor my skin had to offer and that feather-light touch passed down my arm until his hand was on mine and we interlocked as I gently flexed my fingers with his.
"So what have I learned about you today?" he recounted. "You're ticklish, you can't cook--"
"Hey! You can barely eat as it is, what with your lack of human dietary requirements so maybe that's on you. And actually, you should try my pancakes one day, they're not bad. Maybe get some flour next time, huh?" I teased. I'd checked his cupboards and he didn't have any. "I mean, sure, I'm no culinary genius but I'll get there one day. Maybe."
"Look at you adding the 'maybe'." He laughed. "Yeah, you're well on your way to a Michelin star." He couldn't help his amusement.
"Well you ate it, didn't you?"
"Every last crumb."
"If it was so bad why did you eat it then?"
His eyes were warm. "Because you made it." he simply said.
I just gazed at him and smiled thoughtfully. "That simple huh?"
"That simple," he said. "It was your effort, Ariel. How could I not appreciate it?"
I looked into his steady eyes and touched his face, he kissed the palm of my hand.
"But you didn't like it?"
A sheepish smile came upon his face. Yeah, alright, so I was a disaster in the kitchen. His smile turned gentle but had traces of amusement. He couldn't help himself it seemed. I calmly observed him and that smile of his that wonderfully shaped his lips and crinkled his eyes.
"Tell me, Ariel," he said to me, his voice husky. "Are you mine? I want to hear you say it."
I looked at him.
"It's just, I say you are, I say it because it's true for me. But I want to know if you'll say the same without me saying it for you."
"What, just you and me?" I swallowed.
"Why? Is there someone else?"
His intense stare had me shifting self-consciously at his gaze. I was never so...self aware. Not like this.
My body.
My pulse.
"No. I mean, there's no one else."
"Good."
"But it's not like I belong to you or anything."
"It's a lot like you do, actually." He emphasized. "There's no man on this earth who should have you but me. Not Sydes. Not Clement. Not anybody."
On the lips of any other man...that declaration would have scared me. Possessiveness petrified me because it verged on control. But on him? It thrilled me. And I hated that it did because it made me realise one fateful thing; I didn't want to be anyone else's.
That's when he held me into him and spooned me. Our shapes fit a perfect form against each other, like a disassembled puzzle finally slotting its last two matching pieces together. All complete for however long it took for the bigger picture to potentially change. His face snuggled into the back of my head, a tenderness seeped from him. I slowly closed my eyes, lulled into a new sense of security, despite the quartz clock movement on the wall opposite that ticked its feeling of burden.
I can't remember how long it took me to fall asleep, but I did, comfortably and completely safe in him. And as I did, I could have sworn I heard him say something tucked quietly into the muffles of my hair that couldn't quite tangle the gift he gave before it reached my ears. Three little words. But then again, it's amazing what you imagine when you've fallen...
To sleep.