Dane's mouth tilts; he thinks he might have gotten that one. Because he's gotten to know her a little through this silly little game. Because he knows she's from California, and he knows she has two brothers, and he knows all that now -- but he also knows,
has learned, intimately,
that she wouldn't trick him. That she is soft of heart and gentle of spirit, but not weak. And not malicious. She wouldn't try to trick him.
She comes nearer. The way he looks at her is half anticipation, half trepidation, especially as she sinks to her knees before him. Dane holds his breath. She leans on his knees, though, and she looks up at him, and she tells him what seems like a universal truth, incontrovertible, when she says it like that. He laughs a little unsteadily as she gets up, saying nothing,
watching as she goes to get the rice.
When she comes out he has the fish off the fire. They are piping hot, the skins crisped, the flesh beneath tender, flaky, steaming. They have almost no seasonings; need none. They have salt. They have pepper. They have a lemon that Dane slices apart lengthwise, dividing the slices between himself and his friend.
Because that's what she is. Before and apart from anything else they may or may not become: Eileen is a friend. And that makes him quite happy.
eileenMuch of Eileen's history is still hidden from Dane, but to be fair, so is much of his. They tell each other things in bits and pieces, attaching them like mementos to a web. Everything connected, nothing touching. Their stories aren't told in linear form. That makes sense for Eileen, at least. But she knows now about his brother James, who is younger, and he knows about her biggest brother Noah who is in New York and her big brother Colin, who lives with their parents because, really, he has to. He knows that for a time -- and it sounds like a significant amount of time, in fact -- she was a consor to Wheel-turners. She helped kill people. She was going to put her life's path on a track to assist them in cleaning what was both filthy and extraneous from the world.
A lot changed.
And he knows this, which is important: he can trust her. She is tender. And she really, really likes him. Cares for him. Wants, in her own soft way, to protect him from hurt. It isn't hurt that makes him wary when she comes near him, or when she touches him, or mentions how she feels or what she wants. Eileen doesn't quite know what it is, or understand it completely, but she tries to be patient with it, too.
The truth is, she's already a little bit tipsy. She is calmed, mellowed, warmed by even one bottle of beer, and it makes it that much easier to just come close to him, lean on his knees, and kiss his knee, and tell him what she does before she gets up.
Eileen brings the rice out -- it's just instant, nothing fancy -- out in the same pot it was cooked in. The lid is still on, and steam escapes when she takes it off. She has two more beers dangling from her hand, too, and as Dane is slicing up the fish and lemon, she inhales deeply. "That smells so good," she says, her stomach growling. "Let's just... screw the plates and eat everything out of the pot," she says, digging her fork into the fish right where it is. "I'm starving."
DaneThis, too, makes Dane laugh. So he doesn't protest; he uses the oven mitts to get the fish off the fire. He squeezes two slivers of lemon over the fish, then dusts it with salt and pepper - lightly, leaving the final seasoning up to whoever's doing the eating. She hands him a fork. He stirs the rice a little to fluff it, then empties that out onto the pan too, where it crisps and mingles with the juices from the fish.
"Dig in," he says,
and so they do, the sun still high and bright across their shoulders and across the lake, their fire crackling noisily through its wood.
"It was a good idea," he says a little later, eating, "your game. It was nice to learn about you like that."
eileenThe first bite of fish Eileen has is salted, peppered, barely touched with lemon, and she only barely stays out of his way as he mixes rice and fish together, darting in and grabbing forkfuls of food. She's quite quick, a little hummingbird, and
she eats about as heartily as one. Or perhaps someone who hasn't eaten since ten or so this morning and went on a drug-laced walkabout for most of the afternoon with little more than water and sunlight to accompany her. She drinks beer and, frankly, does not talk for awhile, putting a hundred neat mouthfuls of food away and occasionally giving helpless moans or mutters of appreciation.
By the time Dane speaks, she's slowed down a bit. She's halfway through her second beer and it doesn't look like sharing four fish between the two of them is going to be a challenge. She licks her lips, tasting butter and lemon, and goes in for another bite.
And smiles, her eyes flashing at him sidelong. "It's fun, isn't it? Rather than like... 'tell me your life story' or drilling each other." She pauses a beat, then laughs.
Dane"You make it sound like dentistry," Dane replies, smiling. "If you wanted to know my life story, I'd tell you. It's not terribly interesting, I warn you."
He doesn't eat quite as ... starvedly as she does. He hardly picks at his food either, though. He eats, simply enough: more fish than rice, and with more lemon than she put on hers. It's a simple meal. It's also quite fantastic, the sparseness of the seasonings offsetting the fresh, fresh fish.
"How was your afternoon, anyway? I could see you from the canoe for a while, but then you were lost in the treeline."
eileenThe laughter doesn't quite go away. She's clearly had some joke with herself, and she only calms down with a drink of beer and a moment or two to herself. She grins at him, though, shaking her head at him. "Interesting is subjective," she explains.
He asks her about the afternoon, though, and she gives a small shrug. "I took some E and wandered around for awhile. Laid in the sun. Looked at the world from another angle. Sometimes I watched you. I went and visited some of your neighbors. Well, I visited one of the other cabins, and no one was there so I climbed onto their roof and waved at you but you didn't see me."
DaneDane's eyebrows go up when she says she visited neighbors. Then they come back down when she explains what she meant. "I've never met my neighbors," he says - which likely shocks no one. "I think the fellow over there," he nods in the vague direction of the northern cabin across the lake, "is an accountant from Minneapolis. I'm not sure about the other.
"Most people don't come out here to meet others. I'm sorry I didn't see you waving, though.
"I just fished," he goes on, as though this were an unspoken trade. Her afternoon for his. "I lay in the canoe for a while. I thought a lot. About us, and about myself, and about thinking, and finally I decided to stop thinking. Then I came back here.
"And then we played a game. And now we're eating fish." He smiles. "Can you stay another day tomorrow? Or do you need to go back to Chicago?"
eileen"I bet they're nice. I saw through the windows a bit and it looks nice." A beat. "I cleaned some stuff out of his gutters as a thank-you for letting me sit on the roof,"
as though the accountant was there, who had any say in the matter of Eileen somehow climbing up on his roof to watch her friend fishing on the lake. As though it matters that she exchanged something, even a small something. As though she was thinking that clearly when she started digging around in the muck.
"There's nothing wrong with thinking," Eileen says, which is the first she's really said about Dane's tendency to... overthink. "I think just as much as you do, I just... think differently. And I don't want you to stop doing what feels natural to you because you think there's something bad about it or something like that." She nudges at some fish with her fork, thoughtful. Looks over at him. "But I don't want thinking to stop you from doing what feels natural. It's a weird cycle, isn't it? I can get lost in my own head a lot. Maybe that's what you mean. Cuz usually I just... decide to stop. And breathe. And go with the flow. And it sounds like that's what you did."
He asks if she can stay. She looks up at the sky, still so bright, and smiles. "What day is it?" she asks him back, turning her head on the back of her lawn chair.
Dane"Saturday," he replies, "but if we stay the day tomorrow we won't be back until very late. And if we stay the night, too, we won't be back until the end of the day on Monday." His smile is wry, "And some of us apparently have honest, paying jobs."
eileenEileen grins. "A lot of my job is schmoozing. But I am very, very honest about it. I love everyone." She finishes off her second beer, and this is... true, somehow. Certain people more than others, or different ways than others, but in a way, yes: Eileen loves everyone. Eileen just loves.
"And if it's Saturday, then we should totally stay tonight, and most of tomorrow, but then head back. It's okay if we don't get back til late. I can nap in the car a bit if we end up cutting it close, and it's not like I haven't gone to work after some very long nights. Or not sleeping at all. Or going straight from a rite to work, which is one of the more surreal experiences I've ever had."
She wiggles in her chair a little, smiling. "We still have ice cream."
DaneIt makes him sad, suddenly and inexplicably, to think of driving back. Leaving this quiet little retreat with its kerosene lamps and its clear blue lake. Driving all the way back to Chicago. Dropping her off at her tiny little gypsy caravan of an apartment. Going back to his own apartment,
alone again.
Right on the tail of it come another inexplicable urge. He wants to tell her not to go back to that tiny little apartment after all. Come up, when they get back to Chicago. Come to his place. See his apartment, see his balcony, see the lake, see his bed. Sleep there with him, nestled back against his body, his arm over her side, warm, primordial, right.
It passes. Or no; it doesn't, but he bites it back. He smiles; there's ice cream. "Don't we have s'mores, too? I'd rather have s'mores. But you should have ice cream if you want it."
eileenOut here it is very easy to forget the rest of it. This whole life of hers, family and coworkers and Tradition-mates, that he doesn't know and... isn't really a part of. Yet, one could say, but still: not a part of it. His whole life, things she doesn't even know about, a life that lets him go off for weeks visiting all these other places he's been where he knows people she can't imagine.
It's easy to forget the twin nodes, ever in conflict, a danger to each other, circling each other like binary stars. And the War itself, rushing like a tide or flailing like a child who cannot always remember why it's upset. The Council of Nine, the global one as well as the ones at each chantry that's big enough to matter. The man Dane went off in search of information about, who locked him in a bubble and stopped Eileen in time with little more than a thought, a bat of his eyelash, a word.
So, so easy to forget all of that. A small lake. Fish biting, then steaming and flaking later on the fire. Woodsmoke. Sunlight. Sleeping together again, just sleeping, in the same small, warm bed, still smelling the woodsmoke, the sunlight, in her hair, with his arm so heavy and warm around her.
"S'MORES!" Eileen yells, and it's not nearly like the way she yelled earlier, but a few nearby birds do take flight at the sound of it, flapping their wings indignantly. She laughs at her own noisiness, nearly toppling her chair. "I forgot we got s'mores stuff." She's beaming a little, shoulders up, arms in front of her in a deep V, hands laced and hugged between her knees. She looks happy. S'mores.
She has no clue what's going on in his brain. Hers, at the moment, has marshmallows in it.
Dane"We should finish the fish first," Dane says, ever methodical. "And perhaps we should wait for full dark. S'more are a nighttime thing. Like counting stars and telling ghost stories. Here; eat some more."
So that's what they do. They eat more, and eventually they finish one side of the fish so they tease the bones out delicately and set them aside; eat the other half as well. It's a good meal. It fills them, even though they've barely had any grain besides the beer; barely any vegetables either, for that matter. Just fish. A man couldn't subsist on a diet like this forever, but for a day, a weekend, it's a delightful change. Afterward, full, Dane lounges in his chair, watching the breeze ripple the lake.
And the sun slides lower. And their shadows get longer. And they talk a little; they sip their beers. At some point Dane reaches over and takes her hand, loosely, just the tips of their fingers tangling, swinging.
"Thanks for coming up here with me," he says quietly, some time later. "I'm really enjoying myself."
eileenEver methodical, Dane,
except when he's the opposite. Except when he snaps and burns. She wonders if he's just dual, like that, or if it's repression. She wonders if it's control of what's really under the surface. She wonders, and she wonders if he even knows. She's lazy and a bit addled, but in a good way. It's good to be lazy right now. She's eaten more rice than he has. Neither of them have expressed concern for the lack of fruits and vegetables; they can live like this for a weekend. It's all right. It's good. It's wonderful.
'Counting stars' reminds her of last night, and she smiles at him when he mentions it. "Or making them," she says, her voice like an echo or a ghost.
They eat more. She's slowed down but she still eats heartily, letting Dane do the delicate work of de-boning the fish because she's a bit drunk now. She stays at that second beer and does not go get another, but nurses and nurses until the dark bottle is empty and nestled in the grass amongst the others of its kind. Her eyes close for awhile because the sunset is so very bright in the west, so searing, and she wants to feel its warmth for a little while longer before it's gone entirely.
Yet Dane's hand moving to hers doesn't startle her. Rather, her fingers part to allows his passage. Hers slide softly between his digits, tracing his fingers in midair. Her eyes haven't opened.
"Mmm," is all she says, agreement and understanding both. And also: I know. Me too.
Her eyes do open after all, a heartbeat after that, looking at him. Not saying anything. Just looking.
DaneSo they look at each other. And they don't say anything now, but there are thoughts flickering in Dane's dark eyes. Things won't be the same after this weekend, he thinks. Something's changed, or is changing. Things haven't been the same since he walked out of her apartment and she called him back; since he looked at that mole on her shoulder and thought about how her skin would taste. Since she laid herself beside Charlie, poor broken Charlie, and brought him back. Since he saw that. Since he witnessed her.
He gives her hand a gentle squeeze. And then, just as gently, he extricates his fingers. The fire is still crackling as he walks away. The cabin door is open, and it stays open as he goes inside. Comes out. He has graham crackers. Chocolate. Marshmallows. He sits on the ground this time, right there in the sandy soil that runs down to the lake.
"Come sit by me," he offers, tearing open the packs of crackers, the bars of chocolate.
eileenCome s-- is how far Dane gets before he realizes she's already moving, sliding off her chair and to the ground, to her knees, then crawling over and tucking her legs up, sitting -- well. Very close, in fact. She nestles against his side while he tears open bags with manual dexterity that surprises, impresses, and alarms her. Mildly. She's lucid, she's just... a little more loosely lucid than she usually is. And Eileen is, generally, pretty loose to begin with.
"Can you play with the fire?" she asks him quietly, watching it, leaning on his arm.
DaneThe question surprises Dane a little. It takes him a little off guard. He thinks a moment; then he nods, a little carefully.
"I could," he says. "Do you want me to?"
eileenShe smiles, sort of dreamily, and nods. "I like your magic," she whispers.
DaneSo Dane takes that sort of breath he takes before he Works - alert, focused, drawing in and spreading out at the same time. He focuses his eyes on the fire. He moves his fingers, as though physically manipulating; he may or may not even be aware he does this. This last lingering vestige of a focus that he has, in reality, long since transcended.
The heart of the fire bends; it glows brighter. Something is on the verge of happening; some force in the universe gathering, gathering, gathering on itself. But then - when it's scarcely even begun - it ends. Dane lets his fingers relax, and he exhales.
"It's ... strange for me to cast on request like that," he admits. "It's not that I resent it. But it's better if it flows naturally from the moment. Do you mind terribly?"
eileenAnd Eileen straightens a bit beside him, holding her breath a moment, taking her touch away from his arm as though she might distract him. Her eyes glance down quickly at his fingers and her mouth quirks in a brief, shadowed smile. She looks at the fire, and then she sees it begin to glow, pulse, expand even as it seems to draw all light toward it, creating its own gravity -- and then it dissipates.
The magic, that agonizing sensation that fills the air when Dane works, drops. Eileen plummets a moment and blinks a few times, then looks at him. She tips her head, looking... confused, really, but not upset.
"I don't," she tells him first, shaking her head. "It's just... it's like what I asked last night. I didn't realize." She reaches down and holds his hand.
Dane"You haven't trespassed," he assures her. This, too, comes first: making sure she knows, making sure she's aware, that he isn't angry. He isn't upset. "And I know you meant nothing more than you did last night. It's just that last night, it was something I felt like doing. And so it happened. This time, I'd be ... consciously trying to do something to impress you. So it would mean less."
His hand moves under hers. He takes her fingers and, on instinct and on impulse both, he brings them to his lips, kisses her knuckles. How old fashioned. How chivalrous, and how oddly, poignantly adoring.
"Don't worry," he says. "You'll see plenty of magic from me, yet."
eileenShe likes his magic, and the way he talks, too. When he uses such formal language because he's uncomfortable, it's sort of endearing, but even when he's not uncomfortable, sometimes he's just a bit stiffer, a bit anachronistic, so careful with the words he chooses. And she likes, perhaps more than anything else, that it has to feel right for him. The mood -- the vibe, she'd call it, like many Cultists would -- needs to fit. You can't always create it and you can never force it, and that she understands intuitively.
Of course, it still makes her heart skip a bit when he talks about trying to impress her, and she smiles almost shyly, looking down. And that's before he lifts her hand, drawing her fingers to his mouth and kissing them. This time it isn't a skip, or a hop, or a jump. It's a somersault. Maybe a cartwheel, just spinning, spinning. She shivers, and at his words, huffs a quiet laugh.
"I'm not worried," she says, and it sounds sort of silly to say it aloud, but she can't think clearly right now. She wants to tease him about how flirtatious those words sounded, because he'd just get so uncomfortable, but she doesn't, because the truth is,
he totally talked about trying to impress her and he kissed her hand and she's got a crush on him and she can't handle it, agggh. So she doesn't. She just smiles, and she gets over the faint blush under her skin, and she lets it pass.
They have to let go of each other's hands to really get into marshmallow-roasting, though. They have to put multiple marshmallows on skewers, and Eileen makes him hold hers over the fire while she sets up some crackers and chocolate. She puts chocolate on both sides of the crackers, for what it's worth, and she uses quite a lot of chocolate as well. She tells him about camping with her family, because they would go camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains some summers. She mentions that they're sort-of Jewish, but only in the sense that her mother's parents are and her mother stopped practicing in any way a long long time ago and then married a Gentile and had three kids who only have Hebrew names because their grandfather insisted.
"My Hebrew name is 'Eliana'," she tells him, turning her skewer slowly after she takes it from him, "probably because it sounds like my English name. But it means 'my God has answered'." She is quiet a moment. "My parents aren't religious but they're very respectful of religion. But I think my mother still prays, or at least did. Maybe only after Colin was born, but ...yeah."
She doesn't really expound on those thoughts. Names. Naming things, giving them secret names, special names -- she seems to know Dane should understand this, Dane should at least know what this is about. These things have meaning, though she never goes by Eliana.
And she never had a bat mitzvah, but her family does Passover and Hannukah, but also Easter and Christmas. She doesn't ask him too much about his family -- she likes it better when he just tells her, when it comes from him without pulling, questioning, wondering, having to think. And they end up not talking as much then because they are melting chocolate with hot marshmallows, squeezing them between graham crackers, eating until they have chocolate on their faces and fingers, marshmallow on their chins, laughter.
DaneEliana is a pretty name, he tells her. Any number of boys and men would say this after being told her Hebrew name, her secret name, but only a few might say it like this: not because it was expected of them, not because it's the Right Thing To Say, but because it is truth. Eliana is a pretty name. He thinks it's pretty. He likes that he knows: another little piece about her he didn't have before.
"My parents named me Matthew," he adds. And he doesn't really expound on that, but: there it is. They each have secret names. Of course they do. They are magi; something between gods and angels and witches and warlocks.
And they eat s'mores. He likes his with dark chocolate, and not so much marshmallow that it overwhelms the bittersweet richness of the chocolate. He makes his with chocolate graham crackers, too, even though they're a little weaker and more prone to falling to bits. They make a mess. He washes his hands in the lake, and then he makes another mess having another s'more. Eventually they're stuffed, they're glutted on sugar, they can't possibly have another one, and
that's when conversation tapers down to a companionable silence. It is quite dark by then, the last of the light gone from the sky. Even the mosquitoes - which by and large did not bother them for fear of their fire - have gone home. They sit close enough for her to lean against him if she wants, and if she does, he doesn't move away. They watch the fire bank itself, grow smaller, grow dimmer, turn over. Like a living thing, Dane thinks, tucking itself away for the night.
He tells her, idly and quietly, that when he was small and his family went camping, he and his brother would put sticks in the fire until the very ends began to smoulder. And then they'd whirl those sticks around, faster and faster until that burning ember became a glowing streak in the night. Like writing with fire, he says. Like magic.
The fire has burned down to embers. The night is growing chillier, deeper. He nudges her, bumping his brow against the side of her head. It's a surprisingly animalistic gesture, for him.
"Let's go inside," he whispers. "It's late."
eileenShe did notice the way he went back to the cookie and candy aisle at that little general store to get special grahams, special chocolate. Eileen is classic, all the way. She does ask to try his, though, because she never has. She says she's tried making s'more with peanut butter cups but it's not the same. Not bad, but not the same.
And she was stopped in time when Wentworth used Dane's name back at the mansion -- Dane's given name. The one that goes with 'James', his brother. She didn't hear it. She smiles. She doesn't bother washing her hands in between s'mores. After her second, she's done. She can't do any more though oh, she makes a third and tries. But she was hungry so long, then ate so much, and she's stuffed. She forces herself up and goes to wash her hands sanitarily, she says pointedly, at the pump. When she comes back out she just... flops to the ground. She lies out by the fire. Maybe he sits beside her while she rests. Maybe he lies down next to her. Either way she watches him, her braid a dark but amicable snake in the grass, and the fire is going down and the stars are coming out and he looks different, like this. Not the same as last night, though.
Every time is its own.
He tells her about the sticks in the fire, drawing with that light in the dark. She smiles softly. "We did, too." And though it was years apart, miles apart, there is now this joining in their pasts, an intersection of experience, which matters more than Time. Maybe it didn't happen at the same When. But now in their memories, they were linked together as they did that: wrote with fire in the air. Did magic.
"No it's not," she whispers, smiling at him in the dark when he nudges her, telling her they should go in. "It's just dark."
DaneSo he pauses, looking at her curiously, a touch amusedly. "Do you want to stay out here instead? I suppose we could bring a few blankets out and camp on the grass."
eileenShe just smiles at him. "No, I'm just being contrary. I want to sleep in the bed again. I like camping but I am an absolute city girl." This is half-true. The other half has to do with that bed, and him, and admissions made earlier as part of a 'game'.
DaneDane huffs, more than a touch amused now. "Well, city girl," he says, "let's adjourn to bed."
He's a little stiff from sitting on the ground so long. It takes a little while to pack things up: the pan, the fishbones, the rack he'd set up over the fire so they could cook, set aside while they were making s'mores. S'mores ingredients, too. And last but not least: the fire itself, carefully buried. Like a living thing. Like a life.
They go in. It's quite dark inside, and they blunder around a little until Dane sets his things down and lights a lamp. Then there's light, though not a lot of it, and by that light they put things away. They have no hot water, Dane realizes. He looks at the stove, cold and dark, and then at Eileen.
"Did you want to take a bath?" he asks.
eileenEileen, ever the lady, lets Dane help her up. And this means she sticks her arms up in the air and waggles her fingers til he takes her wrists in his hands and helps lever her to her feet. They don't have much light at all now but she helps him clean up, looking around to make sure they don't leave behind so much as a bottlecap. She folds up the chairs and drags them to the side of the house, at least. She uses an empty beer bottle, rinsed in the lake, to carry water from that lake to the firepit and cool the ashes, which Dane stirs with a stick. They do this a few times, til its safe to bury the fire completely.
This feels like a ritual. It is the last thing they do before they go inside. Their only light then is starry, and so far away, and for a moment they are alone on this swiftly tilting orb of rock and water and fire and air. She takes his hand as they go towards the cabin then, swallowed by the pitch darkness inside. They're putting things away and she goes to the outhouse for a moment, comes back and helps him finish. She's surprisingly tired, but then, they were pretty active and outdoors all day. She took Ecstasy and she's come down very far from that, and the two beers are making her as sleepy as the food in her belly.
She is unbraiding her hair, sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, when he asks her if she wants to take a bath. She smiles at him and there's no insisting that no, no, she couldn't possibly. It's Eileen. And so she just nods, that smile so gentle on her lips.
DaneWhich makes Dane laugh a little under his breath. "I hope you're patient," he says, but he knows she is, and so
he begins the long and antiquated process of drawing a bath. First there's the stove, kindled, lit and banked. Then there's the kettle set atop, along with the large pot, both filled to the brim with water. Eileen begins to understand why the kettle is so large. Even at its enormous size - surely one of the largest kettles she's ever seen - it takes several kettles, several pots, to fill the tub. Dane adds very little cold water. The water cools by itself as they wait, and in the end it takes nearly an hour for everything to be ready. Small wonder humans bathed a lot less before the advent of modern indoor plumbing.
Dane finds a bath-sized towel in those miraculous little drawers under the bed. He sets it on one of those high chairs, which he moves beside the tub. And even as Eileen is preparing to get in, Dane is heating water all over again. For himself, perhaps; or to refill the tub as the water cools.
eileenEileen truly is patient. And some of that comes from keeping busy: she actually washes a bit while the water is heating. She cleans off the worst of the dirt, so that when she gets in the water she can just... soak. She doesn't do this naked, at least, because it's already getting cooler outside now that the sun has gone down and they've put the fire out. In that hour she actually goes and uses some of her phone's precious little remaining battery life to turn on some music -- it's actually, of all things, Mozart. Just string quartets. Not all of it is mild, soothing music for nighttime. Some of it is quite dark. Some if it is quite energetic.
That's Mozart. Eileen claims he was a Cultist, or would have been. It's actually pretty hard to argue with her, at least in terms of 'vibe'.
Her hair unbound, she does finally begin to strip down to nothing as the water gets ready. She drops her clothes in the pile she's made of her others clothes, which is out of the way and ready to be shoved back into her backpack once she has no clean things left. But she moves so freely when she's naked, and now her skin is so tan around the places where her bikini rested, and she flickers in his periphery occasionally, all that dark hair and all that skin, some of it gold and some of it cream and that small, dark spot on her clavicle that so fixed his attention the first time he saw it.
He gets out a towel and she perks, washed up now as though the point here is to soak and not get the water dirty. "Oh, thank you," she says, heavily, breathily, and rests her hands on the edge, bringing one leg up high and then over and dipping her toes in to test the heat. She sighs at the feel of it, and then simply... drapes herself over and sinks in. The water sloshes against the sides but does not splash, and heat suffuses her and her eyes close, rolling back a bit, a long exhale leaving her. He goes to refill water, leaving the towel on the chair by the tub, and she smiles.
She rests her arms on the side of the tub much as she rested them, folded, on top of his knees. Half of her hair is wet, trailing in the water now. She smiles, watching him. Tips her head and rests it on her forearm. It's been an hour since he had to heave her off the grass. She's sleepy, and the warm bath will only make that sleepiness deeper.
"You can look now," she says quietly, not quite teasingly. "Now in in the water and it's kinda dark. You won't see anything if you're still shy."
DaneAs usual, while Eileen strips naked Dane is quite careful not to look. She moves and flickers in the penumbra of his vision nonetheless, rather like a flame. He heats water. He fills the tub. And after she gets in, he washes up, himself: scrubbing his hands and his face under cold water, brushing his teeth, using his towel to wash behind his neck and then -- after a brief hesitation -- taking his shirt off, washing his back and his chest and under his arms as well.
Eventually there is another kettle of hot water. He asks if she needs a refill. He adds a little hot water to the tub, careful to pour away from her so she's not scalded. He tells her where to find the plunger to let a little water out, and she feels around with her toes until she finds it. It's old fashioned: just a large rubber stopper with a chain that she can tug up.
And then he's turning down the bed, shaking out the covers again. He's moving the one kerosene lamp over by the bed, to that other chair he's set out as a nightstand of sorts. The shadows dance and move and change on the walls. When everything's done, and everything's prepared,
and when he's all out of excuses to not look at her or pay any attention to the naked woman in the room,
he comes back to the tub. He hesitates; then he puts his hand on the rim, his fingertips just touching the water. Quietly, and almost a little gruffly, he asks: "Can I join you?"
eileenShe wishes there were bubbles. Hard to make bubbles with non-running water, but it'd be nice. She can, in fact, remember the last time she had a bubble bath, but that doesn't mean she likes them any less. She does dunk herself finally, submerging completely, curled up under water until she comes up wet-faced, hair saturated, gasping softly with... not shock, though there is something like that. Sensation. Always.
Eileen, perhaps strangely, doesn't stare at Dane when he takes his shirt off. She isn't washing or anything in the tub, just lazing around, moving her arms in the water, enjoying the heat suffusing and surrounding her, but she does pay attention to him, what he's doing. He goes through the routine she went through while she was waiting for the water, brushing his teeth, washing behind his ears, all that. And
takes off his shirt and starts
washing himself off
and
she does, in fact, stare at him for a few seconds, her eyes a little dazed, then snaps out of it and averts her gaze. To be polite. To be respectful. To remind herself that just because she doesn't mind if he wants to stare at her naked all day long, it doesn't mean he's comfortable with that. In fact, from what experience has taught her so far, Dane probably isn't. So she politely, gently looks away after those first few intoxicated moments, looking at her reflection in the shadowed water. Smiling at herself. Disturbing the surface with her hand, rippling it and then waiting for it to go still again.
"Just a little," she tells him, smiling, when he asks if she wants more hot water. She laughs when she finds the plunger, but leaves it where it is. Steam rises off the water. Her skin gleams, wet, where it emerges from the surface.
A little poignantly, perhaps sadly, she watches him get the bed ready for sleep. She wonders if he's just going to crawl into bed and crash out. It would be okay, but... oddly, she'd miss him. Still, it'd be nice to crawl into that bed beside him after he's already asleep, so that makes her smile. She is leaning against the side of the tub now, the water deep enough that it very nearly covers her shoulders when she sits back like this, when Dane... doesn't go to bed.
But comes over to her, as close as he was when he poured extra water in but with less obvious purpose, and she looks up at him, curious. Maybe he's going to say goodnight and he feels awkward about it because she's naked. Or something. She looks from his eyes down to his fingers, which are the only part of him sharing the water with her, and then up to his eyes again, right as he asks her if --
Eileen's heart gives such a heady thump that she nearly faints. She breathes in, and is holding it when she begins to nod, exhaling when she says -- no, whispers: "Please."
DaneEven her acquiescence, her method of, what she says, makes him awkward and self-conscious. He wishes for the coolness and confidence he had when he first met her. Before he really knew her at all. When he was Dane the Adept and she was Eileen the Apprentice, and the lines between them were so clearly drawn. He wishes he could be that man again --
no he doesn't.
He stares at her for a moment. His eyes are dark, dark, but they reflect the distant lamplight. Then he clears his throat lightly, and his eyes fall from hers. He's about to climb into the same tub with her, as naked as she is, but he still has to look away to undress. He even half turns away before he realizes how silly that is, really, and stops. His hands are a little unsteady from sheer nerves. He doesn't quite fumble with the fastenings of his shorts, those same shorts he wore on the lake today - doesn't quite, but it's close. It's very close.
Truth be told, Dane is not terribly athletic. His frame is medium. So is his build. There's no spare, no paunch, but his musculature is hardly layered thick either. When he took off his shirt earlier, his arms stretching overhead, she could see the shadow of his ribs under his skin, and his stomach was a concave arch. When he takes his shorts off now, and the undershorts under it, his hip-bones are faintly visible too. His knees are bony, the flat of his shin defined. He has hair on his chest. He has hair trailing down from his navel, too, running down to his --
self-conscious, he covers himself with his hand. Doesn't exactly cringe and bend double and clamp a hand over his nuts, no, but - the attempt at modesty is there, his fingers loose, lightly bent. He's a little splashier getting into the tub, putting one hand on the edge and sort of rolling in, setting the water sloshing. His foot bump hers underwater. Then he finds the plug and lets a bit of water drain, until the waterline is at their shoulders again. The tub is large, but two is still a bit of a close fit. He looks at her across the water, awkward.
eileenShe could try to hold back more. Not let him see that she wants him, or how much. She could act nonchalant or breezy when she isn't. The truth is that when she tries, Eileen can be a convincing liar. The truth is that Eileen gave that way of treating people up a long time ago, when so many other things turned around. It makes him awkward and self-conscious, but it doesn't make her regret telling him please, or saying it like that, because for her,
that was restraint.
And she scoots back a little while he drops his shorts, quietly and half-secretly moistening her lips. She watches him now, but mostly his face. Almost entirely his face, keeping his eyes with hers as he tries to cover himself when he gets in the bath. She doesn't make fun of his modesty, at least. She doesn't laugh at it -- at him. She notices his nerves but doesn't mention them, and she thinks his body is divine, he has sort of a runner's build, and she waits patiently for him to get in, to sink down, to let the water out so it isn't up to their throats, and then he's sitting back, and their legs are bumping a bit, and she
just smiles across the water at him.
One great difference between them is that Eileen tends to do rather than ask. This time it's no different: she exhales, her breath moving across the surface of the water, and then moves over to him. She knows he might flinch as soon as he realizes she's coming closer, but she doesn't draw herself up and straddle his lap, lower herself to his thighs, their slippery skins stroking together. She just turns, and sits... beside him. Much as they were outside, by the fire. Only now where their sides or hips or thighs touch, it's flesh against flesh.
She lays her head to his arm. Closes her eyes. Nuzzles his arm, rubbing her face against it for a moment before coming to rest, her breath coiling as it moves across his skin.
DaneEileen is not wrong to think Dane might flinch at the first sign of her approach. To be sure, he does start. He does tense visibly, watching her with wariness, with caution.
There's more though. There's also a sense of... interest, call it. Anticipation. He doesn't know what she'll do. Or how he'll respond. But he watches her, he watches her - he wonders.
She doesn't, in the end, make any sort of overture. And so he doesn't bolt from the wooden tub as though suddenly scalded. He doesn't lurch into frantic,passionate response, either - if he would have done either in the first place. Dane merely sits tense, rigid for a moment.
And then: relaxing. Bit by bit. Little by little. His muscles unwinding. His joints loosening. She feels him take a breath. It might be the first in some time. He lets it out.
Dane feels like perhaps he should say something. Explain. Something - something to elucidate his actions and his motives, except he hardly knows himself, and if he says it, tries to put it to words, he'll only make it strange and stilted, and he doesn't want that. He doesn't speak in the end. Not a bit, not at all. He lets his ankle cross hers under the water, though. And, after quite some time of staring forward, he lets himself glance at her. Sidelong first. Then directly.
Then: smiling, just faintly; almost shy now.
eileenWhat Eileen feels -- what she wants, what she experiences -- surrounds her constantly like an aura. Dane doesn't believe in auras. If she tried to explain her own Sight to him, in the colors and emotions and smells that come to her when she opens her mind and works her will, it would not make sense to him. They don't speak the same language, at least not magically.
But he's human. And that makes him an animal. There are troves of science devoted to examining the differences between humans and other mammals, but also between the different sexes within their species. He knows, without Eileen ever having to say it aloud -- though she would, and has -- that she is very, very receptive to his advances.
Except he doesn't advance. He retreats. And there's probably a lot of biology and psychology and much else wrapped up in that, too, but even in retreat he can't be around Eileen at all without sensing it. Without feeling, on his skin and in the back of his mind where things are much more muddled and do not follow any rules of physics or magic or sanity, that she wants to fuck him. And maybe more than that. Maybe she wants something too frightening, too deep, to contemplate.
Yet she doesn't work her body against his and ignite his flesh, doesn't warm him up more than the water does, any of that. She has no illusions about overcoming Dane's will -- she's met too many Adepts and Masters, and one has not seen the exertion of a truly strong will until one has worked with Euthanatoi, run up against Hermetics, spent some time with an Akashic. Eileen doesn't think that she'll bat her eyelashes or massage his thigh and Dane will lose the ability to think just because his brain loses a lot of blood to his cock in a weird internal-organ game of poker.
(Speaking of which: the cock always bluffs, and the brain always falls for it. The brain tries to bluff but, sadly, is less convincing.)
She wants to do a lot of things with Dane, especially because he's naked and taking a hot bath with her in the middle of nowhere. But right now, mostly, what she wants to do is be with him. And that's at the top of the pyramid; everything else under that is just supporting structure for that one apex, that one goal.
She's with him right now. And he is slowly relaxing, calming, letting his body mellow in the hot water. He keeps staring ahead, but he breathes, and Eileen is patient. She opens her eyes and looks at him as he lets their shins cross, and shortly thereafter he looks at her, smiles at her. She smiles back. Under the water, her hand moves a little and he feels it against the outside of his thigh, but she's not trying to caress him. She follows his arm and then slips her hand into his, lacing their fingers.
"Thomas?" she says quietly, and she's looking at him still, moving her leg gently under his. "I just want you to know... we don't have to do anything. I'm glad to just be here like this with you, right now. And I'm glad you brought me here. I like it, and... maybe we could come back more this summer."
Her hand squeezes his, and she closes her eyes again, nestling her head to rest still on his bicep. "I just wanted you to know I'm happy right now."
DaneThe truth - aching as it is - is that he did need to hear that. As well as he knows her now, as much as he knows she wouldn't ever push or demand or expect or back him into a corner like that -- some part of him was still tense, waiting on tenterhooks. It would be a lie to say he watched her with trepidation alone when she moved toward him. It wasn't just trepidation. It was anticipation, too, and a nervous, flickering want. But: the trepidation was there, and that's what she seems to respond to,
which is what he needs.
He nearly jumps as her hand touches his thigh. But it's harmless; she's only looking for his hand. She finds it. His fingers feel a little different underwater; smoother, the last friction gone. The hairs on the backs of his hands are floating upright, exquisitely sensitive. For a moment he imagines he can feel her before she even touches him - sense her through currents and ripples, like a fish.
His fingers meet hers. They intertwine. She says
what he needed to hear, and he exhales a little - embarrassed, relieved, embarrassed to be relieved. She leans again his arm. He smiles the way he does, like he's smiling in spite of himself or in spite of his history or ...
no need for so many explanations; so many thoughts. He smiles, and that's enough. "Thank you," he says. "I'd like it if we came back here together. I'm ... happy like this too."
eileenThere's nothing more that needs to be said after that. They are in agreement, even down to the way their bodies fit beside one another. They are intimate but chaste, holding hands and keeping her right left loosely crossed with his left. And that, for a very long time, is as far as it goes. The water has stopped steaming by the time Eileen lets go of his hand and moves his arm and drapes it over her shoulders, nudging him into place and scooting just a little bit closer, resting her head close to his chest now. His arm is awkward, like a shawl over her shoulders and down her arm but not curling around, because then his hand might end up on her waist, or cupped over her breast, or, or,
well, none of that. She stays warmer and he stays very stiff and tense for the first few seconds until he realizes this, too, is not Eileen about to pounce - as though she would. As though she's a lioness and not a hummingbird. As though he's a water buffalo and not a star.
But the water does cool. Slowly, but it isn't long before it's growing tepid enough that their skins are warmer than the water. Eileen gets cold before Dane does, and even under his arm she gives a shiver. They're loathe to go, though. The reasons are obvious enough, but they are equally loathe to get out of the tub and try to refill it with any more kettle-heated water.
So: Eileen gets out. She leans up and kisses his cheek, then unwinds from his arm and he lets her go and looks aside as her body lifts up from the water, as water rolls down her skin to the surface he's still in, as she twists her hair in a rope to wring it out, as she leans over to pick up the towel he set out for her earlier. It is a process that takes about thirty seconds and feels like an hour of staring rigidly elsewhere and blanking his mind.
She doesn't. She absolutely thinks about his eye level. Where they line up. Totally.
It's cold outside the bath. The wood stove still has a little bit of heat, but not enough to warm the cabin. The sun has gone down and this area of the country gets cold quickly once astronomy stops helping out. She scuffs the towel through her hair and wraps it around herself, but there's another one for Dane. She's polite; she keeps her back turned while he gets out, listening to the tub drain noisily away.
It only takes a moment for her to find a pair of clean panties to wear, a fresh t-shirt to put on over that. Eileen still has wet hair when she hops into the bed and wiggles under the covers, so she has her towel with her, squeezing as much water out of her hair as she can while Dane prepares for bed. When he is, when he's done, when he has cotton and so forth covering his naughty bits, she looks over at him, shaking her damp towel out over the back of a nearby chair.
"Thomas?"
just like before, so soft, because it's quiet here and there is no need to speak loudly,
"You can hold me, if you still want to." And a pause, because she's not sure he understands: "I'd like it if you did. The whole night, this time."
DaneThey don't need to speak loudly here. At night it is quiet, so quiet; nothing but wind and water and crickets and the occasional pop of the smouldering wood-fire in the stove. No constant, muffled roar of the city. No incessant, barely-heard hum of electricity and appliances and elevators and neighbors and cars and subways and planes in the sky. None of that.
Just their foots steps, their breathing, the soft sounds of their getting dressed again as they - or Dane, at least - very carefully do not look at each other. It's a bit foolish, really, and he recognizes it. He feels like some Puritan boy. He can't seem to help it, though. He doesn't dare look at her for any number of reasons.
So they dry themselves, and they dress, and the bed creaks softly as Eileen gets in. Dane is up a little longer, his shorts quite white now against his freshly tanned legs. His torso is still quite pale, though his shoulders and arms and collar are not. He moves about, dispersing the fire in the stove to embers and ash; turning down the sole kerosene lamp in the room, bringing it beside the bed and setting it somewhere where it will neither disturb them nor catch fire in the night.
He is getting into bed when Eileen speaks to him. They don't need to speak loudly here. Not simply because it's quiet, but because she could speak anywhere, she could speak in the middle of a raging hurricane, and he would attend. He looks at her, a strange little glance that goes from an instinctive look to an almost-instinctive shying away back to a more deliberated regard. A moment passes. Then he slides under the covers, laying down.
"I'd like that," he whispers. And, as she finishes shaking out her towel, as she starts to slide down herself: "Come here."
eileenShe admitted it outside, coming close enough to make him wary: her heart was pounding when he came to bed last night. And she confessed, too, how he makes her feel. It's more than just wiggling in the driver's seat and telling him she's horny out of nowhere. It's more than the fact that he keeps holding back, saying no or I can't, only making her more excited. There's something there, at least for Eileen, and she thinks it's there for him too, but
she knows she's not a mind-reader.
The cabin smells clean. They smell the embers dying and, when he comes to bed, each other. Clean. She hasn't had shampoo in her hair for awhile, so there's just... her. Covered, at least mostly, tucking those long legs under the covers, working her fingers through her wet hair to make sure it doesn't tangle horribly. Too horribly, at least.
Her heart pounds when he comes over to bed. He doesn't put on a t-shirt for bed this time and it makes her heart hammer even more, enough that he can see her breathing when he climbs in beside her. Eileen watches him, turning toward him, as he tells her that he'd like that. A nervous smile flutters over her mouth. It fades when he tells her to come here, though not from displeasure.
She takes a breath and exhales, then slides down into, onto the bed. Her shirt tugs up a bit from her hips; she doesn't adjust it. The covers come over them both. She lies on her back beside him, quite close, and rests her hands atop her belly.
DaneIt's not what he expected. He expected she would lie the way she did last night: her back to him, on her side, breathing softly. That was easier somehow. It could almost be an accident, the way he moved close to her, slid his arm around her. This: this seems so deliberate, so considered and direct.
He's still a moment. She's nervous too, though. He can tell: something about the way her hands are folded, almost prim. Something about that smile, a little uncertain. This probably isn't what she expected, either. That he'd admit, over s'mores and a game, that he wanted to hold her last night. That he'd come to bed shirtless, bare to the waist, warm and close and ... animal, in a way. Primitive.
Dane moves closer. He closes that last little space between them, and his arm slides over her waist. There's a little gap between her shirt and her panties; his arm bridges it, skin to skin. There's a moment. Then he shifts, leans over her,
kisses that mole on her clavicle, his breath warm against her neck.
"Goodnight, Eileen," he whispers. And settles again.
eileenInitially, that's what Eileen wanted, thought about, too. She was warm and felt cuddled, felt cocooned, when she stirred in the middle of the night to find Dane's arm draped heavily, unconsciously over her. She tucked herself into it even then. And after fighting with him on the lake today, she didn't think he'd hold her again, or ever, or admit that he did, even. She thought about curling against his chest again tonight, on-purpose and therefore closer, his breath against the back of her neck, the two of them curled like the lovers they aren't and ardently want to be.
Then she laid on her back instead. She's open like this, more accessible like this. Just, y'know, because... he might decide he wants to kiss her before they go to sleep, and it'd be easier this way. And if he wanted to touch her, or run his hand along her side or anything, that would be a lot more logistically smooth as well. Y'know. Just. In case.
At the same time, it's just one more way to be nearer to him, if she isn't completely turned away from him. So of course she's nervous. She's nervous because she doesn't know what he'll interpret this as, or if he'll be dumb and not interpret it at all, or what he'll do, or worse, what he might totally ignore and not do and she'll just be lying there wanting, not having. She's nervous because what if she's so distracted that she can't sleep? It would be so sad, because she so liked sleeping next to him, with him, waking up in the bed she'd shared with him even if he only held her accidentally-on-purpose.
Except he came to bed wearing boxers. And when he wraps his arm around her, skin falling on skin, a faint shudder goes through Eileen's body. She's still managing her breathing, steady and slow and quiet, but this takes focus, because it feels like every hair on her body is on end, like her nerve endings are all quivering together... like his arm is between her panties and her shirt. Like his chest is against her side.
She exhales softly, calming a bit again, licking her lips and letting her eyes close. In that moment, Dane is quiet and still. And then he moves, and leans over her, and kisses her clavicle where her shirt is loose, draped, baring it. A sound leaves Eileen suddenly, half breath and half voice, mostly whimper but that's not to disregard the moan. Another shiver goes through her, her thighs shifting once together as though of their own accord. At least she stops herself, can stop herself, before she says his name, trailing off into infinity, into begging. She takes a breath instead, shakily, and holds it.
Swallows. Doesn't open her eyes. Focuses her senses, as much of them as she can corral, into serenity instead. As best she can, at least.
DaneThe moment that sound escapes her, half-breath, half-moan, is the moment Dane freezes in place. It amazes him how deeply she seems to feel. How acute, how open her senses are. How attuned and how ready she always seems to experience, to feel, to perceive. It always amazed him, from that moment she slipped the wheel of his car, from that moment she stretched her senses out and sighed
just like that.
So he doesn't wish her a good night. He pauses, his lips to her skin -- her eyes closed, his open, watching her face, arrested. She tries to breathe steadily, smoothly. He tries not to move; not to incite, not to escalate, not to... wound, maybe. As though if he were to pull away too suddenly now would injure her somehow.
An endless moment like that, unmoving. A sense of quivering potential. He should draw back. He should. He's not sure of why, though, and after that moment finally passes,
he shifts. His arm slides back a little, but not because he's drawing away. His hand comes to her stomach; his fingers spread, the tip of his little finger slipping beneath the waist of her panties. He kisses her again, as soft as the last, the dip of her neck now where clavicles meet.
eileenIf she were shyer, or if her fear that she might scare Dane off were more overpowering, Eileen would try harder to stay quiet, to keep still, to act as though this closeness and these touches are just comfortable and little more. Not out of insecurity, mind, but because she does not want him to pull away. She doesn't want her sounds, her lust, her everything, to be something he runs from. She does want him to hold her and sleep with her tonight, very much.
And then he kissed her. There, like that. And it was okay if she made him stop by doing it, but she had to let him see, and hear, and feel it go through her the way it did. She thinks maybe he needs a little more of this sort of sensation in his life, even if he has to observe it in someone else first.
But no, really, let's be honest about the true cause, the true motivation, the true agenda here:
he touched her and she shuddered. He kissed her and she moaned. It's as simple as that. Cause and effect. As inevitable and natural as gravity, as rain flowing down, as steam rising.
That moment where Dane stops is enough for Eileen to start breathing a little more normally. He's right to be careful; she seems so vulnerable right now because she is. She's utterly open. He could hurt her, thrill her, terrify her, just as easily as he can reach out and touch her.
Eileen doesn't know what he thinks in that moment. She can't think at all. She focuses her will inward. Her guard is down but she rebuilds herself from within, to find some kind of tranquility before they both go still and just go to sleep.
Which is when he slides his hand to her stomach, and not off of it, leaving it there. She trembles under his palm, and when his fingertip nudges against the elastic of her panties, she moans. Her thighs clench together, hips moving slightly against the bed as though she wants, badly, to arch her back. When he leans to kiss her again, he can almost feel her heart pounding, hammering, racing, through every inch of her skin.
This qualifies as a special brand of torture, and so,
it also qualifies as ecstasy.
DaneThis time her response is unmistakable. This time his pause is negligible. He's leaning over her, kissing her throat, his bare chest pressed to the outside of her arm. His arm is warm and heavy across her midriff, and his hand -
his hand is inching down her panties, straying beyond that risky, risky border. His mouth is at her jawline now. Some part of him is remembering how to do this - this kissing thing, this making out thing, this sex thing, and
that thought scarcely crosses his mind before it's frightening him, startling him, making his eyes flash open, his hand pausing where it is - an inch or two beneath the elastic of her underwear. He's breathing harder too. He drops his brow against her upper chest for a moment, gathering himself, gathering his will.
eileenShe isn't thinking oh, finally and she isn't thinking that she has to be quiet and still or else Dane will startle off like a deer. She isn't thinking that it's insane how badly she wants him, or wondering if he thinks she's always like this. No, Eileen isn't thinking of what he'll do next, or how long she should wait before she touches him, too.
She isn't thinking at all.
What she's doing is gasping, softly, as he kisses her neck, his lips even more dangerously soft because they're being so careful. She's breathing, almost panting now, as he pushes his fingertips under her panties, and she's shuddering as they barely, just barely, graze against the beginning the curls beneath them. He is making her wet and electric, just starting to explore her as though she's a virgin, as though he is, and her hand comes to rest on his upper arm, the same arm that's over her. Her palm caresses, sliding upward, smoothing over his shoulder. It's slow, very slow, but she's starting to turn toward him, at least her upper half is, when he stops.
Again.
Even though he's breathing harder, too. Even though his body is remembering, faster than his mind, what to do with this situation. And even though his hand is straying into her underwear, mind-bendingly close to the source of her heat, the slick that would tell him how ready she is, even if he isn't. Eileen would be stunned right now, ready to scream from want, if she were able to think at all.
But she's not thinking. And he's trying to gather up his will, his forehead still resting on her chest, and she hasn't quite realized that he's stopped, he's stopping. Eileen is moving onto her side toward him, seeking out his mouth with her own, pressing her body against the front of his, her hand running down his side to his hip.
DaneDane responds as though electrified: sudden, stark, a mingled fear and excitement as she turns to him. Their mouths meet, snapping and crackling together, the kiss far fiercer than the ones that have come before. There's a taste of wild, reckless want there; something so long restrained it's gone half-mad from captivity.
Her hand on his body finds him pressing into her, quivering with tension, bearing her back down on the bed. Her shoulderblades hit the mattress. His hand slips down her panties; brushes the soft hair there and then shies, shies aside, rounds over her hip instead. He grasps her there, desperately, that lean body of his pressing against hers even as he pulls her against him. Gasping now, kissing her: an escalation so fast it leaves him dizzy. He's atop her. He's moving between her thighs, if she lets him there. He's grinding against her, hard against her, but then
his own boldness shocks him. It's a nonstop tug of war between his raw want and his uncertainty. His mouth tears from her and he gasps; he's unwilling to relinquish her, but he's afraid to go on, and
this is when she feels him pulling back again, raising himself on his elbow to look down at her, his brow furrowed. "Stop," he pants, "wait, I -- wait."
eileenLooking for his mouth, her face touching his first to lift his chin, lift him to her, urge him to her,
Eileen finds it. And it's the first time it hasn't been a soft kiss, a chaste kiss, or one pressed quickly and in a playful, gentle, or friendly way to the cheek or the shoulder or the hand. Instead of apologizing to her and telling her that he's not ready to go so far, Dane kisses her like a firestorm. And she's there, right there, fueling it, stoking it, her hand finally stroking down to his waist and under the elastic of his boxers, pushing at them til they nudge down his hips
but just a little, because he's pressing himself against her now. Pushing her down to the bed again and she's arching this time, not restraining it but lifting her hips to meet him, opening her thighs when she senses his body about to come between them. Her attention to the physical is stunning, almost precognitive; she moans even as his hand is shying away from sliding fingers to her cunt.
They do move together. There's barely any thought to the kissing, any coherence; they drown each other. Devour each other. Dimly, he might be aware of her hands on his lower back, roaming his sides and then pushing under his boxers again, holding his hips while he grinds onto her, into her. Vaguely, he might hear her whimpering, already so rhythmic, muffled by his own mouth on hers. She's shifting underneath him, moving with him as though they're already out of these last scraps of clothes, as though he's already --
This time he doesn't pause for confusing seconds before speaking. He pulls away and says stop and she is panting, her cheeks flushed, her shirt rucked up to her ribcage, and his hand is on her hip with a strip of dark blue crossing it, reminding him that his hand is, well, still technically in her panties. And his hips are still pressed hard against her, and she can still feel his cock through those two bits of cotton between them, and his boxers are still halfway down his ass, and her hands are still under them, holding his hips, holding him where he is.
But she does stop moving, at least on purpose. She's quivering from the restraint, though.
"Thomas," she whispers, when he can't find words to explain stop or go past wait. It's so soft, so gentle, even though it's laced with that raw, almost savage desire that had him pressing her into the mattress just seconds ago. They've already managed to tangle themselves under the sheet that doesn't quite cover them.
Her hand is on his face now. How'd that get there? Her thumb moves on his cheek, her brows tugging together. "It's okay."
She doesn't say what she means. That it's okay to lose his mind like that, respond to her like that, fall into her, or into this, like he was. Or that it's okay if he can't, if he isn't ready, if he needs to sleep on the floor rather than feel her in his arms. Or maybe it's okay to start and stop, to go wild and then recoil, to be confused, to be afraid.
"It's all okay," she repeats, whispering it, watching him in the dark.
DaneEileen isn't the only one quivering. Dane is quivering, and then he's shaking - from restraint or desire or some inexplicable brand of fear. It's like it's his first time. No, it's worse than that: it's his first time after his last relationship, and one that ran so deep, one that was supposed to be forever, fractured and shattered so devastatingly that he still carries shrapnel in his soul.
Her hand is on his face, though. How did that get there? She's so soft beneath him, she's so quiet and gentle and patient and he can't imagine how, he can't imagine why, he can't believe she's still here. So many times already Dane's expected Eileen to simply leave him. It's hard for him to believe anyone would want to stay
with him.
But she does. And she tells him: it's okay. And he looks at her, wanting to weep, shuddering once before he puts his hand on her face, cups his hand behind her head, brings her up to kiss him again. Slower this time. Slowly, he thinks; he can handle it if it's not too fast, if it's not too sudden, if they don't simply slide headlong into something he can't understand, can barely conceive of.
eileenUnder that sore tree in the chantry's garden, the one that once could bear fruit -- but no longer, not yet -- he touched her face and cradled her head just like this, but not to kiss her. He was telling her that he couldn't just fuck and run, and he couldn't really be with someone, but if there was anyone, it would be her. She knew, though, that it wasn't really a clear decision for him. In the same breath he'd said that he didn't know what she would think, how she'd feel, how he would react, what he would find himself doing. It wasn't a careful, considered choice. It was fear.
Up here, showing her the lake and its little cabin, he told her about his wife and daughter. There are still many parts of that story left clouded and incomplete, and those parts must be truly dreadful because what he did tell her was already pretty awful. And it wasn't love for his absent wife or guilt at some kind of betrayal holding him back; it was grief. Pure as the driven snow and twice as cold, colorless, and lonely. Grief.
Of course he's shaking. He's as wounded as any of them.
This time he cups her head in his hand and he does kiss her. It feels more real than the gasping, groaning kisses of a moment or two ago. It feels like the way he kissed her the other two times -- in his car on the way to Wentworth's, under the stars out by the lake. It feels like him, and it's better, it's so much better, than the other way, where he was dragged along by his lust instead of keeping pace with it.
Her hand on his face smooths easily to the back of his head, fingertips massaging his scalp gently. They can barely see each other by the light from the kerosene lamp, warm and yellow and flickering, except that Eileen doesn't see anything. Her eyes are closing as she kisses him, slower now. He can feel technique in how she kisses him, a soft, fluid expertise now that there's time and coherence enough to notice details. Her tongue is delicate and inviting every time it touches his own.
And that's all. That's all there is, for awhile. Just lying together, him half on top of her... making out. It's a long while, in fact, before Dane feels Eileen's fingertips on his wrist, her palm over the back of his hand, guiding it slowly down to her breast. Her t-shirt is thin; if he'd let himself look, he could have imagined the outline and shape and curve of her breasts through it whenever he liked. Feeling her, even through cotton, is different.
DaneAnd that - that moment when she draws his hand unresisting to her body, that moment when she guides him to her breast and he himself curves his fingers so carefully and so delicately around her flesh - that is when she first hears him moan. It is quiet. It is hidden in her mouth, almost lost in their kiss, but it's there and it's tangible in the vibration in his throat, his chest. He touches her religiously, cradling, worshipful; he kisses her much the same way.
That mad hunger, when he was a slave to his sudden storm of lust, seems to be held at bay for now. He is still atop her and over her, but he's not grinding into her mindlessly, and he's not weighing her to the bed with his body. The shaking has abated too. He shudders now and then. He kisses her in the darkness, and he caresses her in the darkness, and after what seems like a very long time,
eons,
a turning of an age,
he shifts. His mouth opens to hers, and he conceals another moan in her mouth as he reaches under her shirt to find her breast again, skin to skin now, her nipple at the center of his palm. She's beautiful, he thinks; the way she feels is beautiful, and the way she sounds is beautiful. He always knew she would be.
eileenAll he had to do was walk towards her to get her heart hammering. Her breathing ramped up when he came down to the bed beside her. And to gasp, to moan, to whimper -- all he had to do was put his arm around her. Kiss that little mole he's been fantasizing about kissing since he first saw it. But Dane is hard -- kissing her, his body between her legs, his hand on her breast -- before Eileen hears him moan.
It makes her shudder.
She's been thinking about this since... god, she doesn't even remember when she first started thinking about this. A little bed in a little cabin in Minnesota at the edge of a little lake was the last place she expected to finally find Dane kissing her in earnest, letting his walls down a little, letting himself enjoy her. Letting her enjoy him. It doesn't matter, though. She doesn't have any idea what might happen after this, or what effects it might have, but that doesn't matter, either. This feels right to her. It's always felt right to her.
And then it feels wonderful. She whimpers a little, again, when he takes his hand off of her breast and slips it under her shirt instead. Beautiful, he thinks, and she can't think clearly at all. His palm finds her nipple hardened from his caresses through her shirt, finds her breast warm and filling his hand, light and supple. In between kisses, gasping softly, she tells him:
that feels so good,
as her chest lifts into his hand on every breath.
There's no more guidance after drawing his hand to her breast, though. She hopes he knows it's okay. Just like she said. Just like she keeps trying to tell him, like he keeps trying to tell himself and believe it: it's okay. It's all okay. And they can think about, talk about, deal with the rest later, but this is good. This feels good. Feels right.
And what feels right to Eileen is touching him. She has no destination in mind when she lets her hands roam over his back, no purpose when she circles around to his chest and covers his heartbeat with her small hand for a little while. She feather-strokes his sides as he gives her breast a soft squeeze, even tracing whorls and circles on his hips with the tips of her fingernails, and she doesn't push. Doesn't push his boxers down. Doesn't ask him to please, please put his hand down her panties again, play with her, make her come, though
she sorely wants him to touch her, is aching already for orgasm.
They kiss. They touch. She closes her lips around his earlobe and sucks when he moves his mouth down to her neck again. Eileen gives the gentlest roll of her hips against him, sighing heavily at the answering sensation that ripples through her body.
DaneTruthfully, this is the last thing Dane expected, bringing Eileen here. He didn't think he was ready. He wasn't sure he'd ever be ready again. He didn't even know quite what he wanted. Or how. Or why.
But then he stopped trying to figure all that out. He made himself just stop, stop, stop thinking so much and reasoning so much and just -- be. Just live as intuitively and instinctively as he casts. Strange, that his magic is so primal, so bone-deep and heartfelt, when his life is so regimented. Dane's nature is not truly so static, so strict. That's an order he imposes on himself, but sometimes --
sometimes he just needs to break through it. And it can be a painful, almost violent process, like that fight on the lake. It can be a sudden, ferocious thing, like that one rampant kiss. But on the other side, there's this. Which is not quite peace, not quite tranquility, but ... well, yes. Enjoyment. Enjoying each other. That's what he's doing right now, even if he's hardly aware of it himself; even if he's quivering on the edge between terror and ecstasy.
And Eileen: Eileen is meeting him right where he is. She's not pushing him. She's not taking this faster or farther than he can handle. She touches him, and it's feather-light; it sends shivers up his back. She sighs. She nips at his earlobe. His shiver is sharper this time, tight and defined. He finds her mouth and he kisses her, and his hand is a little bolder on her breast, a little firmer. When he draws back, the light of the lamp is just enough to flicker and reflect in his dark eyes. It's just enough for him to see her by when he raises himself on his elbows, pushes her shirt up inch by inch by inch until he can see her body. His brow furrows and works. He looks overcome. He looks at her face, in her eyes, he kisses her and their torsos are bare together now; he wraps his arms around her and holds her to him, her breasts to his chest, her stomach to his.
His mouth finds her ear. He whispers to her, hiding the words from the night the way he hid those quiet, muffled moans: "Is it all right if we don't make love yet? Can I just ... touch you tonight?"
eileenShe remembers sitting outside by the fire, leaning against his side, asking him to play with it. Make it leap and dance. But it felt wrong to him, came from somewhere too formed, too ordered. She's beginning to understand the core of him now. Beneath all the structure of the Hermetics or the world itself is something primal and fluid. She can understand why he worked so hard, so long, to learn to control it, leash it, tamp it down. She, of all people, understands the need to break through that.
After she nips on his earlobe, holds it between her teeth and suckles on it, after his hand holds her breast with more lust than exploration, she thinks he might undress her, let her undress him. She feels it mounting in him, and herself, in the way they breathe together and the warmth, the weight of him between her legs. Eileen kisses him luxuriously, her head lifting from the pillows, her hands closing on his lower back, holding him, pressing him to her.
She eases back down, sighing, when he draws back. The way she's looking at him... there's no words for it. Transcendant. Intoxicated. Adoring. Words, then, but none of them perfect. Not perfect the way he is perfect, the way she is perfect, right now.
The cotton curling and tugging up her body makes Eileen shiver. She looks down at her own breasts with a flick of her eyes, then back at him, and she lifts her torso up a little then to take it off the rest of the way. It ends up behind a pillow. She's risen to him a moment, as bared as he is now, and when she begins to lie back down, her arms are folding around him and she's drawing him with her. He's coming down over her, skin to skin, mouths together. Her legs slowly, slowly wrap around his lower body, crossing at the ankles behind him.
She's still holding him thus, hands warm and firm on his back, her own spine arching gently as he moves his lips from hers, when he comes to whisper in her ear. There's no pause, no stiffness, not even a hitch: Eileen just nods tenderly against his cheek, turning her head to kiss him there, nuzzling him there. No extraction of promise for him to let her do anything in return, no coy teasing, no moment where she tries to hide disappointment. Just that nod, that kiss, that nuzzle.
Eileen kisses his mouth again, as decadent as they have been, moist and sweet and incomparably warm. Her legs scissor softly around him, stroking him with her calves, her inner thighs.
DaneThey can barely see each other like this. What little light there is flickers, warm and subtle. It touches their faces. Their bodies. When they draw apart he can see her breasts; the slope of her stomach. When he comes down over her there's nothing but shadow and the slow, luxurious slide of her legs along the outside of his.
He shivers. She draws him closer. He asks a question and she gives him an answer, and it's the answer he knew she would give, but he asked anyway because that's who he is. That's who they are.
And he kisses her again, even as she kisses him: slow, soft, lingering, wet. He breathes into it, sighs against her mouth. And he's shifting over her, and his hand on her breast is firmer this time, more confident - heavy over her chest, sliding past her ribs. His thumb follows the dip of her navel for a moment. Then down, his mouth trailing down her neck, finding her breast. Every breath she takes lifts her body into his reach. He wraps his mouth around her nipple on an inhale - there's a sense that he's taking a leap here, taking a chance, surprising himself with his boldness
even as he's pushing her panties down, finally, sliding the elastic down past the curve of her hips, the curve of her rear, pushing it down to her thighs. His palm is warm on her ass for a moment, and he's sucking at her breast, licking at her nipple, loving her with his mouth as his fingers linger, uncertain, at the crest of her hip.
eileenThe shadows the lamp throws are long and deep, rich as velvet. The sheets on the bed are cool to the touch, particularly where they've been graced by Eileen's long hair, still damp. Outside the night is silent but for night-calling birds, the lapping of the lake, and it is so quiet that they can hear even that. Minnesota nights are cool even in summer, but it's early summer still and even colder out there.
Somehow, between them, it seems bright as a late afternoon. It feels warmer than midday. They both look golden-hued like this, and every imperfection on their faces and bodies suddenly seems crafted by the stroke of a master's brush. His skin is softer than she thought he would be, but not as feverishly hot to the touch as she was expecting. She can feel that line of hair going down from his navel to his groin against her belly and it amuses her and arouses her, makes her shift her hips and move closer to him just to feel the way his skin moves against her skin. That's why her legs stroke his sides. That's why her hands roam. That's why her mouth opens, tasting his lips, drawing in his tongue. Just to feel him. Just to feel all of him.
Maybe not 'all'. Not yet, or not right now, or simply not without his permission, Eileen has made no further overtures to woo Dane's boxers off of his body. To be fair, he's distracting her.
One would think that someone as expressive and open as Eileen might be noisy right now, but she's surprisingly quiet. That doesn't mean she isn't responsive. It's just in whimpers and half-stifled moans, but mostly just her panting, gasping breathing in the dark. His thumb strokes her novel and she shudders, letting out a breath into the air. Dane starts to slide his body down hers, still held between her thighs, and she unhooks her ankles to let him move more freely. Her eyes are open now, her head on the pillow and she's watching him, eyes looking almost disoriented as he kisses her neck, her chest, the curve of her breast.
A shudder goes through her even before he takes that breast into his mouth, but when he does, when her nipple is engulged in warmth and wetness, she squirms under him. Her whimper sounds helpless, almost pained, surely pleading, as she tries not to buck her hips and start grinding against his stomach just for the contact. She's got her arms behind her now, not yet clutching at anything but just lazing, stretched out, exposed.
The moan she releases when he starts -- finally -- working her panties down her body is a little firmer, a little lower, more like a groan. Her hips lift as though of their own accord when he moves his palm over her ass, holding it there for a moment, holding her. Neither of them bother getting them down much farther: her legs are still spread to either side of his torso, her panties stretched between them, but she can feel air on her pussy, can feel the sheets and his touch on her ass.
Eileen's back curves into an arch, her breast pressed into his mouth, her shoulders lifting slightly. She's all but moving against the bed, rocking, pleading softly: "Thomas, please..."
DaneThere is intensity and focus in the way he puts his mouth to her body, as though he were not merely learning her for the first time but learning this, all of this, anew. It almost startles him when she breathes his name like that. Somehow, despite all he knows of her, he hadn't expected her to respond so keenly. He hadn't been certain he could please her.
But he can. And he has, and he is. He can all but smell her arousal in the air. When she moans like that, when she moves like that, it thrills and excites him in a way he's all but forgotten. Rekindles flames he's all but lost.
And there's uncertainty, to be sure, in how he responds. There's uncertainty in his pause, in his eyes flicking to her face. But then he moves, raising his head, sliding back up her body to find her mouth. This kiss is so absolute, so confident - a solid connection. On the tail of it, before he has time to think or doubt, he moves his hand. He follows the curve of her hip bone around
and down
and when his hand slides between her thighs, when his fingertips graze her pussy and discover her wetness, her heat, he shudders hard against her body. Groans into her mouth: oh, god.
eileenSomehow she never doubted that he could or would please her. And the excuse at the beginning is simply not knowing almost anything about him, having spent barely a couple of hours in his company, but even after getting more and more clues as to how alone he's been and for how long, it never occurred to her that Dane might simply... well... not be good. Not know what he's doing. Not remember how to elicit a whimper or a moan of pleasure from a woman's body.
Some of that is youth and some of that is infatuation and a lot of that is Eileen's simple optimism. To be fair, it usually does work out for her. Things seldom go so badly that she can't bounce back from them in record time. But for the most part, it's how open she is to different experiences of enjoyment, how eager she is for new sensation. It's hard to displease her because simply being here -- on this night, in this bed, with this man -- is enough to thrill her. She never expected him to kiss her the way he has, touch her the way he --
is.
They're kissing again, and her hands are holding onto the pillow behind her head, her chin lifted to accept his kiss, her mouth sealing like a sacrament to his. He asked if they could...not make love yet...and she knows what he meant but this is, still, making love. For her it is. She thinks for him it is, too. And it's making her happy. It's making her glow inside, like the core fire of a hearth, the embers that never quite go out, that can burst again into flame once stirred. She is bursting into flame.
Eileen shudders as his touch slides down around her hip, down, stroking over hair, finding how very warm she is, seeking her with his fingertips, discovering her. She swallows the breath of his groan, flicks the tip of her tongue over his lips as he utters that muffled oath. And she is so very wet already, slippery with it, and he can feel her clench as his fingers pass over her, stroke her. She doesn't moan, this time. She shudders, and she has to part their kiss to gasp, moving her hips to meet his hand, rolling beneath him like a wave, heated by the sun.
DaneIt's been so long. He's been like a monk: severe, celibate, self-flagellating at every turn. He hasn't wanted to, hasn't been able to bring himself to, hasn't felt as though he's deserved to have -- well; anything like this, he supposes. But it's here now. It's within reach. It's alive, warm, embodied in this miraculous flame of a girl, and Dane realizes it's not an it at all but simply:
sweet. Perfect. Lovemaking. Eileen. All these things seem to be synonyms now. She's perfect; she grasps at that pillow and he turns his head, he bites softly at the underside of her arm, overcome. His hands are doing things he hardly remembers himself. He has his arm around her, steadying her, and his hand is between her legs and he's sliding the pads of his fingers between her lips, over her pussy, exploring her and fondling her until he finds her clit, and when he touches her there something in his mind clicks into place, lights up. That's right. That's it. They're words in his mind, and then they're words on his tongue. He murmurs to her caressingly, coaxingly, even as he's half rolling off her to give his hand a little more freedom. A little more range of motion.
Now he's laid out alongside her much the way he was at the beginning of all this. His left arm is tight around her, though, holding her fast: her side to his chest, warmth to warmth. His right arm is heavy across her lower stomach, and his right hand is doing things that would make him blush to think of in daylight. He's kissing her over and over, though, kissing her until all he can think of is kissing her and touching her, touching her just like this with his fingers slipping and sliding with her slick, straying inside her, dexterous and nimble -- if unpracticed -- over all those hidden parts of her. He thinks of flowers. He thinks of new leaves in spring. He thinks of Eileen, standing in the hallway of her tiny apartment, nine hours' driving away in Chicago, asking him:
do you want to stay?
and he answers her in his mind the way he couldn't, didn't dare to: yes. yes. yes.
eileenEven when they came to bed tonight, Eileen didn't expect this -- neither of them did. She won't regret it. She doesn't know if he will or not. It doesn't matter right now. He's with her, right now, and it's okay. It's all okay.
Better than okay: the light is flickering off her skin as she moves, gasping, in response to the way he's touching her, and it brings a warm glow to her body. She's still clutching at that pillow as he holds her, kissing her, murmuring reassurances to her as though she's in pain, as though she's afraid.
She isn't in pain. She isn't afraid. But that isn't really why he's holding her, why he's murmuring to her. He's an anchor right now, and she's flying, and it's a sensation Eileen is all too familiar with. She lets go, and he keeps her from floating away. And Dane was right, thinking about her last night, thinking about her in his car, thinking about how far she could go, how deep it would be for her. Looking at her now, kissing her now, he can see it on her face:
Eileen is already so far gone, so lost, giving soft, hapless little moans into his mouth as he slips his fingers into her, giving her pussy something to clutch hold of. They go slow. They share their body heat, and she works her legs and arches her back and her panties slide down a little more, end up around her knees while Dane ...pleasures her. There's no other word for it, and no other word needed.
She shivers, with a soft breath of laughter, when he bites her arm, and as his head comes up again she kisses him, smiling, dissolving into another moan. She's still here with him, as far away as she is, turning her face to him and kissing him, loving him with that rose of a mouth, making love to him with kisses while he circles her clit, makes her groan, makes her clench and slide her thighs along his arm, makes her gasp.
Neither of them try talking, as though it will break some spell. Neither of them ask if this is okay, or what it will mean tomorrow or a week from now or next time they're on a Mission or what the rest of the chantry will say or what happens if his wife comes back into his life or, or, or.
Right now it's just his hand, wet with her slick, his arms around her, his fingers in her, their tongues touching, her hands coming to stroke his arms, to touch her own breasts, to hold him in return. And her eyes opening as their mouths part, as she's gasping, her eyes shining in the dark to find his, just
looking at him for a moment, and
letting him see her, and how she breaks open and apart when he moves his hand
a little faster.
This time she moans, aloud and broken, burying her face against his neck, holding onto him for dear life.
DaneDane might be mortified in the light of day. He might be scarcely able to look at Eileen in the morning. He might be stiff and distant and very, very awkward the next time the Chantry sends them out together. He might be all of these things --
(or he might not)
-- but none of that seems to matter in the moment. This moment hardly seems a moment at all, hardly seems a progression of instants, one into the next, at all. Every second could be an eternity, unspooling out and out. Minutes on end could be mere seconds, flashes of sensation: her thighs sliding against his wrist, his forearm. The skin of her stomach, so soft. Her heat, her wetness, the way her body grasps and clutches at his fingers when he slips them inside her. And those moans; those sounds she makes. The way she looks at him. The way he looks at her, rapt, hardly daring to believe what he's wrought with his hands.
She holds him, then, like she's drowning and he's the wave and the lifeline both. He tightens his arm around her. Her face is hidden. He presses his mouth to her temple, to her hair, and she has such hair, so dark and endless and tumbling and thick; a man could get lost in that hair, those eyes. The way she looked at him: it stays with him. Eileen, he thinks. Eileen, Eliana, exquisite.
There's a rhythm he's falling into. A primordial, mindless state of being where he doesn't have to think; where he remembers with instinct and bone-memory. Their legs are tangling. His calf slides between hers. His hand fondles her, pleasures her; he's breathing against her, panting softly as though her pleasure reflects onto him somehow. He takes her higher, faster, deeper; he holds her closer. That's it, he's whispering; raw, half-formed. That's it, give it to me. Let go. Let me see you.
eileenThey have tangled themselves completely on the bed. The sheets are tangled around their feet, their arms tangled around each other. And then there's her underwear, and her hair, and his boxers half-off and his cock pressing against her thigh through them, unattended and ignored as though he isn't aching for pleasure himself. Every time she feels it, she wants him inside of her more. She wants him to live in her, to run her hands over his back and feel the sweat dripping off of him. She wants to wrap her legs around his waist and hear him groan as he buries himself in her, dying, forgetting life even as he is descending into the source of it.
But that also isn't what she wants. Not if he isn't ready. Not if he's not sure. Not if he keeps touching her like this, stroking her to ecstasy, making her lift from the bed as she tries to let go of even gravity. So she can't stop kissing him. She touches him, wraps herself in him as though they are, in fact, lying one inside the other, as though he is receiving as much as he gives, as though she adores him because right now, and perhaps a great deal of the time that is not-now, she does adore him.
And remembers his name, even now, though she doesn't cry it out. She knows who he is. And she wants to turn over onto her belly, trap his hand under her, fuck his hand on her knees and elbows, buck for it like an animal, but she's afraid he might think she's turning away from him, and she doesn't want to turn away from him, she doesn't want to leave him.
Exquisite, he thinks, and it is, when she comes. It isn't some storm that overtakes her, destroys her, crashes her against the rocks. It isn't a war, it isn't a surrender. It's an art form, the climax of a symphony, the plucked string vibrating golden and wavering in the air for just long enough to break your heart. She's holding onto him but she's arching her back, curved like an archer's bow, and the moan she lets go is only voiced for a second before it hitches, caught, because she's breathless. He can feel her coming, see her coming, but she isn't screaming or whining or biting at him. It's just that...
time stops.
It's rare someone can give themselves over so completely, so fearlessly. She does let go, and for those timeless moments she really is gone, lost, ascended from the world.
It makes it all the more shocking when she starts to breathe again, move again, riding his hand and his arm with a shocking carnality, gasping into his shoulder, her hands clutching at his back, working the last shocks and waves out of that orgasm until she simply can't move, simply can't bear it anymore. That's when she starts to tremble, collapsing like a dream, panting raggedly as she falls to the pillow, and thank god his arms are there, still holding her, still cradling her, keeping her close. She shudders over and over again, breathing against his chest, her limbs going limp, her pussy still quivering against his fingers.
DaneMaybe the truth isn't that Dane isn't ready to be inside Eileen. Or at least: maybe that's not the whole truth. Maybe some part of him wants to see her just like this. Maybe some part of him has always wanted to see her just like this: given over. Fearless. Utterly undone, and yet... not lessened by it. Here's another truth, more tragic: Dane isn't entirely familiar with that. He cannot imagine giving himself over so completely and not losing some part of himself in the process. He has evidence, hard and bitter evidence, to the contrary.
But none of that is on his mind right now. And it is utterly transcendental, watching Eileen come. He is rapt; he is silent, barely breathing, but he is so close to her and he doesn't let her go, doesn't let her fall, doesn't let up for a second. She comes and that sound is caught and she leaves the world and he just
lets her have it. Lets her have that searing, coruscant moment, that brief eternity where she's lost in her own space; lets her have it without letting her go. When she's back -- free-falling from that impossible height and suddenly liquid, suddenly in motion, suddenly flesh and blood and a hammering heart -- he catches her up in the same instant; rolls her under him, keeps her caught and grounded between his body and the bed while she rides out the cascading waves of her orgasm on his hand. He keeps her close. He keeps her close, even when that orgasm is finally leaving her - even when she goes limp, laid out, shaking. His hand is still now. He cups his fingers over her cunt, and it's achingly gentle. It's protective. He kisses her face as he finds it: her brow, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, her mouth. Her mouth, a second time, slower.
Dane says nothing. He shifts after a long time. Rolls off of her and onto his back. Draws his hand gently, carefully from between her legs. Cradles her against his side. Waits for her to come back to him.
eileenAny doubts Dane might have still had about his ability to do this 'sex thing' should, at least as far as Eileen's pleasure, be dissolved now. She really has no idea that he felt even a moment of uncertainty, at least about that. She's pink in her cheeks, sweat on her skin, her panting going from ragged to gentle as she lies there, recovering.
Somewhere at the periphery of her mind she's aware of the way he covered her, held her under him, cupped his hand over her not to see just how much he could torture her but to guard her where she's so terribly vulnerable. She knows, hazily, of how warm he is, trying to protect her somehow with his body as though her own pleasure might destroy her. It makes her smile, gently and weakly, as she starts to remember herself, her humanity, her name.
Dane's lips kiss her, softly, again and again. She closes her eyes and sighs softly, letting him. She doesn't have it in her to kiss his mouth back when his lips land there, but she accepts, dreams it, forgets it upon waking.
Her eyes don't open again. She shivers a little as he rolls away, and she follows him instantly, wiggling her legs and kicking her panties off her ankles, finally, to be lost somewhere. Naked, she tugs sheets and blankets up despite how warm she is, as though she knows soon enough she'll lose all that heat. She curls against him, snuggles to his side, sighing in comfort when she pillows her head against his chest and on his arm.
Eileen could just fall asleep right here, like this. She's sleepy from the day and languid from the fuck, but she holds him under the sheets, her arm draped over his middle the way his crossed hers for so long. A long while passes before she says anything, still simply and completely cuddled against him. She is stroking his side with her fingers, lazy and yet proof that she hasn't just passed out, occasionally sighing as she discovers, again and again, the utter relaxation of her body. She was a cascade. Now she's the river.
And when she does speak, it isn't to offer reciprocation, it isn't to ask him if he'd like to stay all week and do that to her again and again and again, it isn't to ask him if he minds if she falls for him, it's just,
"Thank you, Thomas," whispered.
DaneFor once, Dane doesn't startle; doesn't fear. His eyes are closed already when she speaks, but they open again at her words. He smiles. It's as much for himself as it is for her.
In the end, he doesn't say anything back. His arm around her moves a little - tightening, loosening, a gentle hug. His free hand, the one he brought her off with, moves. He raises it, little more than a shadow and a silhouette in the dimness
until something in the air shifts. A lingering echo of anger and grief - only now, right now, it feels more like ache. Memory. That feeling lingers, and then it transforms: takes physical form. Diaphanous flame, cool and blue, sheets from the tips of Dane's fingers - rising from the glimmering remnants of her slick still on his hand. It burns without heat, and only with this dim, ghostly light; burns filmy and clear like an alcohol flame. Burns until all the last traceries of wetness is gone from his fingertips, and with that,
burns out. It is dark, then. Dane is quiet. He turns his head to kiss Eileen again, softly on her temple.
"Thank you too," he whispers, and with that, closes his eyes once more.
eileenShe watches, as enraptured as she was just last night when he created those soft blue stars above them. No -- moreso, already on the other side of whatever boundary stands between the way most people live and think and the way ecstatics are constantly trying to live and think and be. She touches him still, unworried about rejection or uncertainty, unafraid of anything, utterly enjoying his body simply for being his body, simply for being.
And she watches him work. This time it's fire, the conjuring that seems so natural to him. Blue flame, which usually means hotter than hot, and yet he can repel it easily. Even lying back, Eileen can see how bright it is, but Dane never burns. She can smell her sex in the fire as he quite literally burns her cum from his fingers, which is a remarkable way to clean one's hands, she thinks. She kisses him idly, softly, on the chest as she watches those flames dance around his hand.
It's beautiful, and she thinks she says it aloud, but she doesn't. Perhaps she believes right now he can hear her: You're so beautiful, but he can't, and that's okay, too.
When it extinguishes, she gives a soft exhale, not quite a gasp but a release all the same. They are in the dark, all the more thick for the light that was just in it. They are two breathing shapes in that darkness, warm and cradled together.
He thanks her, too. And she doesn't laugh or startle or even smile; she tucks herself against his side, holding her arm around him, and
they sleep.
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