"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
03-03-2017, 04:57 PM (This post was last modified: 03-03-2017, 08:36 PM by luster.)
He chooses not to answer her question, chooses the quiet instead and something inside her wilts in uncertainty, something pewter and fragile. She doesn’t think of them willingly, but the words of the black and bone-armored stallion find her anyway, a warning from lips smeared iridescent red with her blood. She shivers, flinches, and then is steadied when he does finally speak. Good. He says, and his certainty is enough to steal the breath from her lungs, enough to make her inhale sharply, uncertainly when she lifts that beautiful face to him. His mouth is gentle against her nose, affectionate in a way that fills her chest, and she wants to say something, say anything, but all she can manage is that unsteady silence. When his eyes find hers she flushes warm and uncertain, slipping out of his gaze as easily as a leaf plucked through the wind. But she remembers that good again, the sturdiness of it on his lips and tangled in her ears, and it is enough to pull her back to him. “Good.” She repeats, she echoes, a promise of her own though it is so much less steady, so much less certain.
He steps closer anyway, brushes a kiss against her cheek and she leans into it with luminous eyes that fall shut and hide away behind the tangles of a dark silk forelock. His mouth drops lower, pressed tight to the pulse at her throat – a pulse he coaxes into eager chaos with the pressure of his tongue and she is undone. Her breathing skitters, uneven and suddenly hard to hold onto, like catching air between impossible fingers even as he pulls her under. She shifts beneath him, settling closer, pushing deeper, and he is rewarded with the flexing of sinuous muscle beneath his tongue, live and lithe and tremulous.
At first she does not notice the change in his eyes, does not notice that subtle darkness, or the way his focus sharpens against her. But the intensity prickles her skin, hums and buzzes at the back of her mind until she has the sense to lift her eyes and find him, see him, for the first time. It is the way of prey to know when they are being watched. She inhales sharply, startled, and for a moment she is still beneath him as she traces those beautiful eyes against this strange new face. He watches her as the falcon watches the field mouse, as the coyote watches the rabbit – with eyes that see more than they should, eyes that are eager and hungry and buried in the pulse of the neck that flutters beneath his parted lips. “Stillwater.” She whispers without meaning to, a quiet invitation on pale lips, the vocalization of her trust for the dark that watches her from deep inside those bottomless eyes. There is some instinctive part of her that urges her away from his kisses, away from his mouth against her throat, away to the cold air or the cold water until her mind is clear.
But he is molten against her skin and she burns eagerly beneath him, lost in the sensation of his mouth against her neck. She must whimper, how could she not, but she cannot hear it past the roar of her pulse thrumming in her ears, past the hum of her yearning when she closes her eyes and submits.
She is pure light and pale fire, electric and thrumming like a wire beneath the wandering of that dark, ruinous mouth. “Stillwater,” she says again, yearning and wild, filling that single word with the same soft ache that glows in the back of those dark, luminous eyes, “Stillwater.” She says it hundred times, names every star in their sky after him, a series of low, uncertain sounds and quiet keening. “Stillwater.” She says once more, singular, and it is a request when she pushes against him, when she pools against his chest so that he can feel the way her heart races when he touches her like this. Her mouth is against his shoulder and the nearest ribs, a tangle of tongue and teeth and stolen kisses that she does not deserve but will borrow anyways. She quiets as she always does, softens when she is pressed so deeply against him, but the ache is still there, still unraveling her and it climbs to the surface of her skin in a spiderwebbing of shivers that ripple like water across the uneven blue of her smooth, roan flesh. There is a confession in her chest, brutal and vulnerable, in her throat and then in her mouth, and it tastes like glass when she finally spits it out and against his neck where she buries that delicate blue and white face, “I’m yours.”
03-04-2017, 08:02 PM (This post was last modified: 03-04-2017, 08:03 PM by Stillwater.)
Stillwater
Her fragile gaze slid away from him, always so sweetly uncertain. So innocent. But his confident Good brought her carefully back to him, and she repeated it in her soft, twinkling voice of sleepy starlight. Good. Yes, good. He almost smiled as he studied those pale, pink lips, a secret tightening in the corner of his mouth and a flicker of softening in his eyes. It was good to think he might care. Good to believe that he did.
He stepped purposefully closer, the warmth of his body comfortably stealing her personal space as he tucked his chin and drew a kiss across her cheek. When he drifted lower, kissed her perfect throat so intimately, her pulse beat against his lips. Then it kicked and thundered under his expert attention, and her breathing stuttered. He held his breath, but didn't stop kissing her, quieting his own so he could listen so closely to the shaky magic in hers.
She pushed herself closer into him, and the muscle beneath his tongue danced with her shift. His dark eyes immediately clouded with his hunger and he paused, parted lips stilled against her artery. An artery full of sweet oxygen that made saliva pool in his mouth in eager anticipation. All he had to do was bite down. That buttery-smooth drink could be his. God, and Luster's would be the best. So damn innocent and pure and caring, so damn hot. His heartbeat was slow, but so strong as each beat pounded in his chest. A methodical drum urging him on. He should just take it, she wanted him to. She didn't know it, but she wanted it.
Stillwater, she whispered, a soft sound that was so much more certain than she usually was. The monster's sharp eyes lifted to hers, realizing too late that she was seeing them so focused and trained on her, so different than they should be, but suddenly unable to care. And hungry, so damn hungry with claws raking his belly from the inside and a cavernous echo in his gut. But that voice was not laced with fear. Instead, soaked in the wonderful taste of trust, complete trust. It was misplaced; he knew this, she didn't. But it spurred him further, returning to his kissing and tasting with a blazing fire in his mouth, on his tongue, coaxing his touch into a new, steady urgency.
She can trust him, she can trust him. He didn't say it though, couldn't make that promise and tie himself to it. Could never bind himself to such a grave and powerful vow. Nayl had once attempted to ask him for it, and he danced his way out. No, he wouldn't vow his allegiance to her, never that, but yes she could trust that he didn't want her stupid crown and didn't care to have anyone else wear it either. So careful with his words, so relieved they didn't know he had to be. So fortunate, safe, for just a little longer. You can trust me, he would never say.
He could not be trusted.
She whimpered beneath his fiery attention and pulled a rattling groan from deep in this throat, unnatural and dangerous. She would taste so damn good. So close now. He only wished he had his jaws, the needle-sharp teeth to pierce her skin without any suffering. To latch onto her like an eager lover, pin her to him in an iron grip, pull on the stream of his craving and make her neck tingle in the pleasure of it, the newness and the so very subtle trickle of pain. Just enough to spark her adrenaline. Just enough to spike her pulse again for him and send her into a sweet oblivion of sensation. But these stupid, flat and useless teeth would hurt if he tried now.
And he didn't want to hurt her.
Stillwater, she said again, thick and husky and wildly needing. It pulled him in closer and he pressed further against her, his kisses exploring anywhere he could reach, hungry and eager and almost biting. Rough and heavy and just as needing as the sound of his name on her sweet tongue. Stillwater, she said again. And again, and again. Oh, god and he was aching and rigid and that goddamned headache was stealing into him. His breath snagged, and he kept his lids shut over eyes that had pooled dark and blue and deep again.
His heart stuttered, jolted and raced, and his hot kisses lightly tugged at her as they pressed so firmly into her skin, so gradually shifting backwards as she naturally drifted in to fill the space. His tongue, his lips, the faint pinch of his teeth, coaxed her into him as he kept them so gradually moving. So very slowly retreating into the water as they both focused so intently on the growing passion between them. Stillwater, she said one last time, and he stopped at the quiet request in it, the lake licking at their shins as she settled against his chest.
Their racing pulses thundered against each other, trying to catch their breath. When her mouth found his shoulder, his head ducked down to her spine with a keening moan against the soft blue and pale lace of her skin, drinking in the feel of her kisses, her tongue, her teeth on the fine, flattened coat of horse still blanketing him. Oh my god, Luster, he breathed, and slowly she reined in and quieted, the beat of their wild hearts thumping between them. They stayed that way for what felt like too long, his mind racing to make sense of this that felt so normal and right and yet so new and strange and confusing.
The heavy silence between them was finally broken by her whisper, her beautiful blue and white face buried into his dark neck. I'm yours. A promise so sincere from her perfect heart, so honest and sure in a fragile way, delicate and meaningful. A promise he could never repeat, never return in words that would reassure her and steady her whether he wished to or not. He instead had to try to show her with his actions, and stepped further into her again, his hard chest and heart firmly against hers. He brushed his lips along the base of her soft hair with a quiet sigh, content even with his pulse still soaring.
But it wasn't enough, and he tested that trust he heard in her voice before.
The impossible black of his skin smoothed to the rich satin akin to an orca, and before she could notice, he attached her to him and suddenly threw them backwards into deeper water. He released her as he immediately sank below the surface, but didn't give her time to recover more than a gasp of air as he tugged her down to him beneath the water's cool embrace. She didn't get time to recover from this either before his mouth met hers in a deep kiss, slow and sweet and needing. Loving. Rich, dark hair, both his and hers, billowed around them, weightless and perfect and waving with the slightest movements between them. This was as much as the real him as he could show her, here in this haven beneath the water.
And more than ever, he wished he could fully change and take her lower and lower into this dark and dangerous place he belonged.
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
She has no idea of the turmoil she spurs in him, no idea of the dizzying lust her pulse presses into his tongue when she turns molten beneath him. It is a tangle of instinct she follows, a yearning from deep in her belly, an ache from deep in her heart and it tethers her to him so close that they are one in the sand at the edge of his water, a pooling of black and blue like the beginning of a beautiful bruise. He groans and the sound lights new heat in her belly, new fire beneath that oceanic blue of her trembling skin and she pushes closer still, filling in those empty places with the soft curves of her body. She isn’t sure she understands what it is she wants (beyond him at least, that much is clear, that much has always been clear), what it is she coaxes from him with such gentle teeth, but she knows it is better with her chest pressed to his, better with the heat of his mouth volcanic and ashy against her face, her neck, her throat.
It is better with him than it is without.
It is survivable.
His name on her tongue, on her lips, traced in kisses across that dark, beautiful flesh changes him and she is rewarded by a hunger that deepens, by teeth that pull and pluck and bury fire beneath her trembling skin. She does whimper now, she is sure of it, does surrender to the instincts that push her so firmly against him, that urge her lips further and deeper to uncover new hollows. They trace the bones in his shoulder and each individual rib – lift again to follow the long ridge of his spine and the smooth hollow beneath it. They drop to his elbow and the soft skin behind it, using teeth that are careful and urgent as they trace along the curve of his belly to the arch of his flank. She would have lost herself in him, but he is looking for her again, breathing hard, and she turns back to his chest, back to where that dark mouth can reach her face, her neck, the smooth of powdered blue and white.
“Stillwater.” She breathes again, a promise, a name, now branded into the curve of her pretty tongue. When he eases back she does not notice; it is too reflexive to flow against him, to fill the empty places with soft and blue and aching skin. But he does not give her time to notice either, not with his tongue, his lips, the pressure of teeth that make her arch against him. She does not notice until she has said his name one last time, until he pauses and she finally feels that water lapping at her legs, lets her eyes drop for a moment to watch it, confused and hazy, lethargic with the pleasure he has sewn into her veins. But then she is against him again, softer, deep fire, with her mouth against his shoulder and his on a spine that she rounds out for him in a wordless invitation. He moans his pleasure, a low crooning sound against her skin, and she rewards him with a similar sound, a quiet squeal muffled against his neck. Oh my god, Luster. he says, and the need in his voice is enough to quiet her against him, enough to steal her breath and her fire (if only for a moment) so that it feels different with their chests pressed together and their necks easily entwined.
She thinks she is surprised by how long they stay this way, how long they are locked in an embrace with no kisses, no wandering lips to keep them tethered; but she is still hazy with longing, with pleasure, and so she blames it on this instead. When those words spill from her lips, treacherous and uninvited and wholly true, she flushes warm and uncertain, shifts to bury her face against his neck so that he will never see the way her eyes go wide and dark, wounded by her own knife. She had not meant to tell him, had meant to spare him the burden of being loved. But if he had not realized it already then surely this moment, these kisses, this tangle of aching bodies, would have been indication enough. She is not surprised when he says nothing back, would not have asked for a similar promise, not a vow or pledge. These words were not meant to corner him. They are the echo of her lips against his cheek, his chest, his beating heart. It is enough to be pressed to him, to feel the rhythm of his pulse where it beats against her, to feel time slow and swallow them until there is nothing else left.
He shifts back to brush his lips along the base of her mane and she lifts her face to him, softening, though that longing still waits for him like an ache in the brown of those luminous eyes. Unchanged and unfading, patient despite the way she burns with it. “Stillwater.” She murmurs softly, startled by the affection that is buried in the gesture, shivering at the lightness of his touch. It is reflexive when she arches her neck beneath him, when she coaxes him further with the soft sounds she makes in the back of her throat, with lips that return urgent and aching to the curve of his dark, wonderful chest.
But something changes, a shift she cannot sense, and suddenly he is pushing against her and pulling away.
Except –
No space appears between them because suddenly he is changed, different, and skin that is both impossible and beautiful attaches her to him and they are flying backward into deeper water. He leaves her no time to react, no time to hesitate, but she is certain she wouldn’t have, certain of the trust she has placed in him. Still, her eyes go wide and dark again, startled, but there is so little to protest to about being held so tight, so deliberately, so desperately against him, and she surrenders easily. He releases her when they sink beneath the surface, disappearing in the murky dark from those luminous eyes that are not used to peering through water. She kicks out once, twice, instinctively trying to resurface, to catch her breath, to take the breath she had not thought to grab before they sank together. He must know, must wait, must watch, because as soon as her lungs are full and her chest is wide, he pulls her back under again.
It is disorienting beneath the water, confusing until there are lips pressed so deeply against hers, lips that pull her further into the dark with soft and sweet and a needing that matches the ache in her breast. She moans, a sound that is low and telling, a sound that is changed by the water, escaping in bubbles that tickle her face and disappear beneath the flowing of her mane, the silk of her forelock. She is the first to pull away, but it takes years, it takes millennia, and even then she doesn’t drift far from him, cannot drift far from him. Her heart is so tethered. She reaches across the water to touch his face, to taste the smoothness of flesh made impossible, made softer than water. He is still the same beneath it; she had memorized these ridges and hollows that first night they curled together, tracing him in kisses while she should have slept. But somehow he is different, too.
When she pulls back again, far enough to see him in entirety, to pick out those hazy smooth edges with inexperienced eyes that blur and narrow, her gaze is soft, affectionate, filled with a fire that burns away the shadows pressing in on them. In this moment, in this world of wet and dark and deep water, he feels like hers and she drowns in the fantasy. Always and forever his. “You’re beautiful.” She says in a voice distorted by water, words trapped in bubbles that escape around them, feel like fingers drawn so lovingly across her face. His face, too. Then she reaches out to him as he had to her, fitting her mouth against his and coaxing his lips apart to steal from him the breath meant to sustain him in this watery below. It is not nearly enough to last her, and even though she knows her lungs will burn soon with the deprivation, she sinks further still, drops a few feet beneath him until her hooves meet the shift of sand and mud and loose stone.
They are not so close to center of the lake that she cannot see the surface for the depths, and she is almost certain that when her lungs do burn and burst and fill her chest with aching, there will be enough time to push off and resurface, fill herself and begin again. But she is in no hurry to leave him or this weightlessness, and instead reaches out with gentle teeth to pull at his fetlock, to draw him close again. In the dark of deep-water, where light is hazy and pale, she is vibrant. What she thought was the reflection of sunlight from the surface above is instead the manifestation of her ability, those silver-white stars buried in and beneath her skin so that she glows and gleams, silver-blue and impossible. She does not mean to do it, is surprised when that glowing steel mane waves like a tangle of shadow and light in her periphery, but she finds, too, that she cannot stop it, that it must be the echo of her pleasure, of her longing, of the way he makes her burn for him.
She reaches for him again, presses new kisses to his face and his neck, explores the soft of this new skin with lips that wander further than they should, further than he should allow, but she is emboldened by his beauty. She explores him wholly, gentle and urging, with lips that are soft and molten, teeth that coax his blood into a roar again. There is nothing she leaves uncovered, nothing unexplored, and even though she is not nearly as graceful as him, she is still languid and sinuous where she presses against him, when she claims every part of him with silvered kisses. It is only when shadow begins to cloud the edges of her vision, when the lack of air feels sharp and painful in the curve of that dying chest that she turns from him reluctantly and pushes off the lake floor, kicking hard until her nose breaches the surface. For several long moments she heaves and gasps, eyes dark with something indescribable as she kicks her legs to stay afloat. But she makes no effort to return to the shore, choosing instead to wait and see where that dark face will breach, waiting instead to see if she will be pulled back into the dark with him.
God, she was so eager, so responsive to his touch. Every kiss ignited her and he could practically taste the warmth of that perfect drug rushing through her. His mouth watered. And her kisses, so hungry in her own way, claiming and seeking every part of him. She explored his shoulder, his back, his ribs, and his head tilted back with a low hum to weave through those perfect little breathy whimpers she pressed into his skin. She was intoxicating, even before really tasting her.
And when they stood there so still and quiet, when he was perhaps man and only man, she bled her love into him with another sweet murmur of his name. She knew he liked to hear it spoken so softly; she must have for how often she did it. It settled into him like one of her quiet stars, tucked beneath his coat in a soft glow as though she could chase away the merciless being hidden there. But it wasn't afraid of the dark where it could prey in stealth, wasn't afraid of the light that could illuminate its ferocious appearance and strike fear into her heart. It did fear, but not those things.
Then he altered his skin, pressed the secretions through his pores where they touched and stitched her to him, and jerked them both into deeper water where he sank below the surface. Her eyes went wide and he released her, watched her kick back up for a gasp of air. That was all she was able to steal before he dragged her back down, before his mouth settled and locked with hers in a kiss that lacked the fevered and urgent need as they'd had moments before. This time, deep and meaningful. This time sweet.
She moaned into it, a train of bubbles escaping to caress her face, and only made him sink into it more, coaxed him deeper into that secret kiss beneath his water. He wasn't sure how much time had passed as they fed from each other, content to do it til they couldn't breathe, when she finally pulled away. His eyes were dark with desire as they slowly opened, as he watched her try to focus through the fog of water and study his smooth changes.
You're beautiful, she said, and lured a sad sort of smile to his lips, and an emptiness in his eyes. His chest pulsed with an inward choke of a laugh, silent and bitter. Beautiful. Perhaps he was that, here in this perfectly sculpted body meant to appeal to both sexes in equal and exponential measure, but she would not think such things if she knew. He was a monster, malevolent and vicious, coy and stealthy. His eyes swam briefly into the clouded gray, as if the mention had called it forth, but it swirled and settled again to the dark blue just as she claimed her own kiss.
He welcomed it, was glad to sink back into this warm affection between a man and woman and pretend he was something so irritatingly simple. His lips spread readily for her, aware and knowing she could not hold her breath as he could, giving her the air from his lungs as she stole it with purpose in a deep kiss. When she broke away again, she sank lower to touch her feet to the bottom.
For a moment, she only stood there and took it all in, and he stared from where he was, watched her softly glowing like he may never see it again. Then she reached for him as if she could take his hand and pull him to her, and he allowed it, went willingly with a weightless glide through the depths and back into her embrace. It was only then that she realized she was a beautiful beacon buried in his loch, a star trapped in this night of a different world. But it didn't hold her attention long, and she was soon lighting new kisses to his face.
His eyes were half-closed as he savored it, as her lips wandered over the contours of his face and down his neck and further still. Each touch against the silk of his skin was like a sweet breath to a flame, gradually coaxing it higher and hotter and slowly sending his pulse into a raging current again. She was so good at this, too good at making him forget what he was, that he was not just a man enjoying the pleasures of a woman but a creature with an insatiable hunger. A guttural exhale pushed from his throat, sending bubbles of air from between parted lips like waving banners of surrender.
Her air supply finally failed her, and her soft and urgent kisses left him aching for more as she kicked to the surface. He still needed breath too, could only hold it much longer than her untrained lungs could, and so he surfaced more slowly, dark eyes locked on her in a marginally safer sort of hunger. She gasped for air as he shifted closer, as he lined his shoulder and hip with hers and clutched her tight again with his impossible glue. He didn't have to, she would go on her own, he knew, but he wanted to hold her, and he walked them to the shore as he kept her distracted with more kisses of lips and tongue at her beautiful face and neck, over her eyes and brow and along her cheek.
He lay her down, half in and half out of the water as he settled gently on top of her, pinned her with his weight as he nuzzled into the graceful arch of her throat. Luster.. A sad sort of murmur filled with regret and, perhaps, apologies. The deep desire for her was still there thick in his voice, in his heavy heartbeat, still evident in the gleam in his eyes when he pulled back to look at her. He knew he needed to stop this, couldn't follow through where this was going, and on her first night back, no less. She didn't deserve to feel used as he knew she would have come morning, didn't deserve to feel as though he had waited for her return only to bed her as quick as he could.
Couldn't risk other things, too.
I need to stop, or I will do things we might regret later. Like stealing her perfect purity in hungry delight as he steals her life along with it. Both at once. The very best way. A desperately needing rumble echoed in his throat at the thought of it and he closed his eyes to it, shielded her once again from the ready gray that so badly wanted to enthrall her into letting him sink into her -in different ways, both at once. God, stop thinking about it. He frowned and gave himself a tight shake of his head before opening his eyes to her, once again dark and ...mostly safe. But it didn't stop his heart from racing.
Let's go home, he murmured with a kiss.
Their home.
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
You’re beautiful. She tells him, and even in these dark depths she can see the sadness in the smile that shapes across his mouth, the emptiness that blossoms in the backs of those wild eyes. The frown that touches her mouth is instantaneous, stubborn, and she floats forward to kiss him again, to run lips across his brow and his temples, along the ridge of his cheek bone and the curve of his jaw, down to that impossibly soft mouth that fits over hers so reflexively that she cannot help the pleasure in the smile that clamors to her lips.
He is, too. Is beautiful to the delicate blue girl with light buried beneath her skin. He has only ever shown her his beauty, only ever protected her from the night, held her close and safe beneath the jagged rock ceiling of his cave. Has only kissed her gently, urgently, used teeth to coax her blood to an eager roar but never to inflict pain. She even left him after all of that, after that perfect night, stayed away for so much longer than she had promised. But he holds her again anyway, presses kisses to her face and her neck and her shoulders, uses his teeth in that way that makes her so eager beneath him, supple and soft and sinuous with her lips exploring all parts of him.
If she thinks he is beautiful, and she does, it is only because this is the man he allows her to see.
She does not know the beast below.
She sinks with his breath, his air, trapped against her tongue, sinks deeper and pulls him to her again because she cannot be without his heat, his kisses, his teeth pulling low, eager whimpers from new places in her chest. He is still while her lips wander over every inch of his dark body, unmoving when her kisses claim him with new and unabashed boldness, learn the tremble of a pulse that flutters like wings against her tongue. She thinks she is surprised at his composure, surprised at how still he is while she explores him, knows that should his lips find these same places against her skin, she would be wild and writhing and aching beneath him. But maybe, certainly, he is not so new to this as she is.
It is only when his chest vibrates and bubbles escape like white fire from his tense, dark mouth that she is satisfied, pleased that he is not the only one who can stir such an ache in the other. She pushes off the bottom of the lake and swims for the surface, breathing heavily when she crests the water – but it is as much a reaction to him as it is to the lack of air filling her lungs. When he appears beside her, fitting against her and sealing her to him again, she pushes her nose beneath his jaw, kissing his throat with a quiet, guttural hum. His lips find her face again, his tongue warm and tasting the lake water as it mixed with her skin, her sweat, the longing in her pores, and moans again, a soft sound, a hum of pleasure that makes something in her belly knot and unknot impatiently.
The lake shallows as they reach the edge and she can feel the sand waiting to catch her, so she struggles to pull away from him, to turn so she find out what he tastes like above the water’s surface. But he holds her tight, keeps her pinned to his side as he walks them to the shore, and then shifts to pin her beneath him, laying her half in and half out of his quiet waters. Beneath him she is wild, sinuous, shifting out of reflex as instinct takes over to make her body more accessible to him, to align her hips beneath his as she twists in the sand and soft muscles turn hard and smooth. His mouth finds her throat, nuzzling deep and she stretches her head back to give him more room, show him more skin until he says, Luster.. She is still at once, dissecting the sad and the regret and the murmured apology, all too aware of how it feels with his stomach pressed to her back.
“Don’t you dare.” She says quickly, sensing his reluctance. Breathing heavy, she turns to lift her face to him, ears pinned furiously beneath the dark tangles of a mane that falls around her face. “Come here.” She says again, reaching around to nip at his mouth, his jaw, his face – any part she could still reach pinned beneath him like this. The sounds she makes are low and guttural, a hum compared to his deeper baritone, but the meaning is all the same, the urgency unchanged. She shifts beneath him again, bucks her hips against his weight, forces him to feel what he is trying to resist. She knows he must be close, so close, could hear the desire in his voice despite his words, could see it swelling in those eyes, too. With a whimper that is as much pleasure as it is frustration, she arches beneath him, filling the curve behind his stomach with the curve of her slender blue hips. “Stillwater.” She says, she breathes, and it should be begging but somehow it is as sharp as she is, as firm as the weight against her back. Her voice is still soft though, still silver and starlit, even despite the way her ears remained pinned beneath her mane.
I need to stop, or I will do things we might regret later. He tries but she ignores him, silences his reluctance with her mouth against his, her teeth pulling impatiently at his lip. There is a rumble in his throat, low and urgent, aching, and she uses it against him, shifts beneath him again so that he will feel her warmth and crave it as she craves this weight across her back. His eyes close and she frowns again, uses gentle teeth against his jaw to draw him back to her. She thinks they are different when he opens them again, changed, but she is not afraid like she should be, has never seen the true beast in action. So she pushes, even as he reaches for the safety of distance, she pushes back, wondering at this strange new dark he has sewn into her belly, wondering at this deeper pull from somewhere she cannot name. “We’ll go home later.” She says, presses further, draws back to watch him with eyes so dark and aching and without doubt, desperate in their need to be fulfilled by him, to find relief from the weight of him stretched across her hips. Then, quieter, “This, now.”
He tried to ignore her. He did. Tried to ignore that kiss at his throat, the warmth of her tongue against his cool skin, as he walked them to shore, her throaty hum against his vulnerable flesh that wanted to mirror back at her from within him. He was the one to be at their throats, and it did something to him to be on the receiving end instead. Something that squeezed his lungs so he couldn't hold as much air, stirred the gray in his eyes to hungry life. It didn't help that he could nearly taste her blood, how hot and smooth it was in her current mood.
As soon as he lay her down, she was writhing and shifting, angling herself in such a wild and completely instinctive way. That nearly undid him, feeling her find her place without fully understanding what she was doing, what she was wanting. She had no idea, no experience, and studying her as she surrendered completely to her body, to him, was a potent dose of predatory thrill that sang to the man in him too.
He could feel the spirit in him pushing forward, trying to control it all as he nuzzled deep kisses into her throat, exactly where his jaws needed to be, ached to break into her skin and take from her. He struggled to push it back, and back, to make it heed to the man. In the end, he knew it would be a useless battle. Because he was not the man. The man was his guise, just a shell he was trapped inside of. So he tried to stop them, needed to stop them, and spoke her name in apology and regret.
She stilled. They were safe, she would be safe. But she tilted her head to him and growled, "Don't you dare," and he stared back in mild shock. He definitely wasn't expecting a fight. She'd always been so submissive thus far, so acquiescent to his requests, so sweetly compliant. For a moment, a brief moment, he darkened out of the beast again as she folded her ears to her pretty skull and demanded him, "Come here." He stared at her, suddenly feeling a little uncertain as sharp and dangerous alarms were going off all inside him. This was bad, so bad. She was going to push him too far, he just knew it. He needed to leave. Redirect them.
But those damn lips came at him, kissing and pinching at his mouth, his jaw, his face with such deliciously hungry little noises that reminded him how bad he wanted this. He could handle those. He could, even with his heartbeat soaring and his breathing gone so shallow. Up until she arched her hips against his, throwing a surprised groan from his throat. She had to have felt his need for her; this had gone so far, too far. She whimpered, both desperate and frustrated with his lack of action, and the predator began to force its way back to the front, called back to her readiness. The taste of her blood so close, just within reach. The perfect consistency.
She lifted again, pressed those sweet hips where her body told her they needed to be. "Stillwater," she said, and it sounded like a command, a weighted order to educate her on why she was suddenly feeling so empty and aching, on how to be whole again. And he could. He knew all the answers she was missing, would gladly show her if it wouldn't be the death of her. But it would, he would kill her. One last try, he had to stop them. He told her as much, that they had to stop, they'd regret it.
Her lips met his to quiet him, fine teeth tugging at his lip. God, and he could sense her blood, knew she was perfect. And he wanted it, and he wanted her. Now was the time to have it, now. Now. He closed his eyes over the vicious soul, his pulse beginning to slow as a guttural growl scraped from deep in his chest in anticipated pleasure. Her teeth still pinched at him, still nipped eagerly at his jaw and coaxed the murky gray eyes to open and hold her in place, the color of swirling shadows beneath dark water. She didn't hesitate, didn't know to fear those eyes that didn't belong to the man she thought he was.
She wiggled beneath him more, pushing back against him and unintentionally forcing him to retreat or else get more than she might expect. "We'll go home later. This, now." His chest rattled again, a dry and croaking scrape of claws against damp stone. This body was too small, too tight. He needed to split from it, break its bones and splinter free with the roll of armored muscle, take her to the deep and hear her scream; first pleasure, so much pleasure, then terror. But there, in the middle, the surprised and uncertain mix of both...
He needed to save her.
She wasn't going to survive this.
He was too powerful. Too weak.
He had the key to keeping her safe, to warding her in protection against him. The tinkling whispers in his mind knew it too. Say it. Just say it. Say the words. Say the words that would bind him so completely. So helplessly. The creature snarled in his chest, forcing them into silence and consumed this pathetic, black body with it's encompassing presence. It didn't like to talk, found speech so pointless. A waste.
Lusssterrr, it forced out anyway in a crooning hiss, far deeper than the voice she knew. But she loved him, didn't she? She would stay, his good girl. Stay and meet his eyes again. It wanted to see her, needed to see the fear take over her. She must feel the weight of his sharp stare, the directness of a predator on the hunt that made them freeze in place, enthrall them.
Even still, his lips pressed sweetly to her back, her shoulder, as he settled his body precisely where she craved it with a cruel taunt, a dark promise. His mouth hovered over her where he would sink his teeth in and steal her pure blood, savor that perfect drug in the sweet moments it changed and altered into something different as he stole from her and claimed her virginity too, roll it slowly over his tongue as it thickened with the taint of him.
He lurched backwards a few inches with a sharp grunt as though kicked, his face flashing into panic that didn't belong to him for only a split second. Run, he mouthed soundlessly with wide eyes, not strong enough to force a voice out with the impossible pressure shoving down on him. But he couldn't think clearly to say the right words, it wasn't the right words. And with only a flicker of change before he was returned again, she was on her own.
His head tilted languidly right then left as though working out tension in his neck. Then he smiled slowly, a perfect curve on an angle's face as he leaned forward again.
Now, where were we.
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
He is shocked at her sudden boldness, she can see it darken in his face, see it take shape in those deepwater eyes when he watches her like this. It amuses her, softens her, and with a smile that is more silver even than starlight, she whispers, “You must know.”How I feel, how I ache, what it is you are doing to me, but she does not clarify because he will know, will guess, will see it etched in longing across the hollows of that dark, beautiful face. Her mouth returns to him, explores skin that tastes like her kisses until his breathing goes shallow and her hips buck reflexively beneath him, reminding him, encouraging him, coaxing him deeper.
He groans and she revels in the sound, shifts again beneath him, tries to stand but he is unyielding. So she fills him instead, fits perfectly under him and within the curve of his hips, pushes back and against him at the same moment her head turns to peer up at him with eyes that are dark and lurid and different. “Stillwater.” She says, and it is a command, is the ache in her bones and her belly, the fire in her veins that burns without relief, without pause. It is all the moments strung together. The first moment knee-deep in the lake, startled by a stranger with a darkly beautiful face and quiet way, later moments spent curled against his belly with his neck draped across her slim withers. It is every single kiss pressed against the oceanic blue of ready skin, every single touch and instant spent curled against his chest. A million moments that somehow feel enough to fill an entire lifetime.
She is unafraid when his eyes open and the beast stares back murky grey, unafraid when she settles deeper against him, shifts again to fill him, to be filled by him. Lusssterrr. It croons, he croons, a voice deeper than she recognizes, changed by her, she thinks. But she does not pull away from those eyes, watches him appraisingly instead with a gaze that darkens in challenge, perhaps, or with curiosity that is not yet tainted by fear. She recognizes the predator easily enough, this prowess is unmistakable, the instinct to submit races in tremors beneath her skin. He presses his lips to her back, her shoulder – finally, finally, shifts as though to take her, and she stands, readies herself, keeps her head turned and watches him unflinchingly with those dark, burning eyes. His mouth pauses against a spot out of sight, but she can feel him press his lips and his tongue, tasting without affection.
At first she thinks she would not mind to let this man, this grey-eyed beast take her, fill her, satisfy her. Would even carve a blade out of shadow to split her own skin and satisfy his hunger the way he would satisfy hers. Maybe it is the way of the beast, to find a beast in others, to call it from the darkness in a heart and to the surface where both can be sated, relieved, destroyed again.
But then she watches him lurch backwards, grunting, sliding loose enough for her to wiggle free, and there is a beast inside her too. It is different, carved from instinct and pleasure, and she makes no effort to move, watches him another moment with appraising eyes before choosing the man instead.Run she thinks he mouths, the him she knows so well, the him she is in love with. The one who tried to warn her.
She doesn’t though, instead pushes her light between them in the seconds he had given her, in the seconds she had claimed when he reared back a few inches. The light wavers, suddenly tangible, a soft and bright membrane held firmly between them so that he cannot attach to her as she slips out from under him with frown. When she turns in the sand to face him, searches a face for deepwater eyes only to find grey, only to find a predator, that frown deepens. This creature is languid and beautiful, commanding, and she knows she would fall to him willingly, throw herself into the flame for the promise of pleasure. It is the way of the beast, how it survives, how it thrives. It would sate her as she wants, as Stillwater refuses, but it makes the mistake of wearing the face she loves, of forcing back the one she has pledged herself to.
Her eyes fix on him, changed, and there is less longing, less aching, less of the things she thinks this beast must love. She could bind him as someone else had, tether him in place with shadow made steel. But the thought makes her cringe, makes her sick, and she tosses it immediately. Instead, still frowning, almost apologetic, she reaches out with shadow and lets it fall across his eyes, lets it settle within them until there is no grey, no deepwater, only black. She guesses that this will blind, will throw him abruptly into a world of shadow, but she cannot be entirely sure as she has never tried before. “Trust me.” Is all she says, soft, softening, missing him.
Then, quietly, she returns to him, wearing light and shadow like armor, a membrane made tangible so that he cannot glue to her. She greets him with teeth first, from his chin to his jaw, along the curve of his throat and down to his chest, scolding him with a smile that is meant for the beast. “Not you,” she says, nips him again, teeth pinched at the smooth black of his shoulder, “not yet.” She travels around him in a circle, touching teeth and lips and tongue to all the places she had memorized beneath the water, teasing him as he had teased her with his weight against her back, pausing again when she reached his opposite shoulder. Only then does she soften, trade the lust for the man trapped somewhere inside, for the half of the beast that pressed kisses to her skin out of affection instead of hunger.
She slips against his chest, folded easily against the beating of his heart, traces affectionate kisses along his jaw and his face and his throat with a hum. “Stillwater,” she says, she breathes, traces smooth muscle with gentle lips, “come back.” She lifts the shadow from his eyes, hates to feel like she had trapped him somehow, hates too that she had pushed when he had asked her not to. “I’m sorry.” She says at last, silver and falling, a star in its death, pressing a kiss to the mouth of a man and ignoring the beast.
She wasn't afraid when his eyes opened to reveal the eager predator staring hungrily back at her. Wasn't afraid as the weaker one inside him tried to push against him and warn her. Fools. But it was enough of a distraction for her to bathe herself in her magic, a fold and cloak of protective, bending light. His jaw clenched in frustration, watching to see what else this little starlight creature would do. Annoyed that her heat was dwindling already. Mmm, but he could fix that. Only needed her to come closer, and he could fix that.
She slipped away and turned to face him with a delicate frown. Her glittering eyes searched him, his eyes, his face. Ah, trying to find the other, the weaker. Murky gray flashed with amusement, a perfectly sweet smile sweeping up his lips. She wouldn't find him here, only He was left now.
Something in her face changed, altered. Almost a grimace, apologetic. The sexy grin on his face fell away as his eyesight darkened, blanketed by her darkness. He stiffened, tensed, waited with taut muscles. "Trust me," he heard, so soft and quiet with the barest of hints of longing still lacing her twinkling voice. Good. Miss him, want him. Let him remind her why she does, teach her what she really wanted.
He could smell her as she neared, his water lingering on her beautiful skin he knew was so soft and blue and white. Her teeth clipped at his chin and he jerked, then froze. Waited so still as she continued up to his jaw. His dark lips parted with a gravelly, hollow rolling sound as she reached his throat, slid down to his chest that silenced it with a quiet inhale. The darkness, the blindness, was getting frustrating. He wanted to see her, ached to watch her heat back up for him, see the lust flare brightly in her eyes again just before he took her.
"Not you," she said softly, scolding with a firm bite at his shoulder the creature that would devour her. His head twisted around blindly with a low growl, seeking, reaching for her in growing impatience. Yes, him. Of course him. Come and let him show her, already. She would like it. Like it til she wouldn't feel anything anymore. Like it til her breathing slowed to a stop with a quiet, last exhale he would kiss from her lips. He growled again, wanting it so badly.
"Not yet," she added, and he grudgingly quieted. What game was this? He didn't want to play, he wanted to savor. And as she made her way around him, he groaned again. A different one this time, more like the man she struggled to coax back into him as her incessant teasing sparked little bolts of electricity across his skin, pushed them into his nerves with the press of soft lips. No, no games just let him have her.
She paused at his opposite shoulder, and he turned to her again, softer this time, curious. Could they stop playing now? Could he show her what she really wanted now? Let the man stay away, he was boring. He was weak. Just them, now. Just them. That was best. He'd show her that was best.
She slipped in against his chest and he instantly crushed her to him, held her in his steely grasp with that damned fabric of light between them. Fine, it didn't matter. He didn't need his skin to keep her there, only clutched her so deliciously tight against him. Felt the soft curves of her pressing to his solid chest. "Stillwater," she breathed, placing sweet kisses to his jaw, his throat. "Come back."
He shook his head against her with another groan, still refusing to let go like a child clinging to his favorite toy he didn't want to share. No, don't call the man, let him stay. He wanted her more, anyway. He kept his eyes closed as she lifted the darkness and let him see again. "I'm sorry," she apologized, settling a kiss to his mouth. And something new and strange happened, then.
The beast kissed her back.
Fervently.
He released his hold on her, his focus fully on the feel of their lips crushed together. He forced her backwards with the push of his kiss, hungry and demanding, stealing what he wanted. When he finally opened his eyes, they were still a clouded gray. He stepped forward and pressed his chest against hers, tugged at her hair near her shoulders. Come on, little one, he wanted to say. But he hated speaking, so pointless. Want me back. The man is boring. So weak.
His lips dragged slowly down the line of her shoulder, then so slowly back up again. Paused in that soft hollow at the base of her neck where he pushed his mouth further into her, grazed his teeth along the taste of her skin with a low hum of pleasure. He lifted, did it again more firmly, scraping harder against her. How much can you take? How much til you scream. Then he did it again, this time pinching her flesh between his teeth with a slow bite, pressing the heat of his tongue against her as he clamped even harder, so close to breaking skin but still holding himself back from it. For now.
Don't you want it too?
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
He is so still while she circles him, so still with her lips against his skin, her tongue tasting the hollows between bone and smooth muscle, that for a moment she almost forgets who it is she has hidden behind the shadows. That those eyes are steel grey and wicked, the eyes of a predator watching easy prey. She remembers when he growls and turns into the dark looking for her, reaching, though she remains too far away to touch. But she forgets again when he groans, when the sound is more man than beast, when her pale, wandering lips touch him in all of the places they shouldn’t. She forgets, too, that she shouldn’t tease him this way, not the beast. He may seem complacent now beneath her blindfold, quiet beneath her kisses and soft nips, but she is in no way the one in control here.
She pauses at his shoulder and he turns to her, softer, and she stills, suddenly compliant. It is the softness that lures her, the unexpectedness of it, and she eases closer, pushes the velvet of that pale and bright nose beneath his jaw, using the momentum to lift his head enough to slip under his neck and against his chest, against a place that makes nowhere else feel as much like home. “Stillwater.” She tries in a voice like silver, like starlight, like too many unanswered wishes. But the way he crushes her against him is the only real answer she requires to know that it isn’t him. Had he stopped fighting for her? The question is like a parasite gnawing through her thoughts, slipping in where it shouldn’t and festering until all the rest had been tainted by it, too.
“Come back.” She tried, kissing his neck and his jaw and his throat, lighting accidental fires with the ache of desperation growing in her chest, the ache of missing him. “Please, Stillwater.”
He groans again, and she cannot tell if it is beast or man, but he shakes his dark head at her and holds her tighter, crushing her between the muscle of his neck and chest. She exhales a moan, a quiet sound, a defeated sound, knowing she could flex her magic and force him back but somehow she cannot find the will to do so. He is so practiced in his manipulations, so effortless, and it is easy to fall into the illusion of being wanted, of being enough – easy enough that when she kisses the man and beast kisses her back with a fire she cannot match, she bends to him.
She is not made of stone, not carved from marble, so when he claims her with his mouth with a kiss that could set the stars afire, she submits. It is reflex, it is instinct, it is the desire to be wanted; it is molten sunlight in her veins. But unlike before, there is no fire in her chest for him, no knot of urgency pushing her on from deep in her belly. It is the heat he hungers for, a lust paler than his own, but it is shallow and empty and all she can give to him, to the beast.
He releases her and she lets the light and shadow fall away from her flesh, lets the armor disappear like dust so that he can reach her skin, so that she can feel his heat and his lips and his teeth when they sink into her blue oceans. He keeps her locked in the kiss, using his weight and his size to force her back, and for a moment the freedom makes her wonder if it is Stillwater, if he still fights for her. But he pulls away and opens his eyes and they are as grey as they were before, as wrong and beautiful as they had been when she filled them with shadow. Her brow furrows with regret, with disappoint, and her eyes darken to a brown the color of damp earth.
In the moment before the beast returns to her, she reaches out that delicate nose, pushes aside the strands of a dark forelock where they fall across such strange eyes. It is a soft gesture, the kind reserved for the man he holds at bay, the one that, even now, her heart reaches for. But this softness is for the beast, for the one who slips forward to push his chest against hers, to pull at the tangles of her mane in a way that tells her what it is he wants from her. “It isn’t the same.” She breathes against his neck, working the dark skin over with careful teeth, even as he rakes his painfully down her withers. “You can’t force me to want you.”
He can though, in that hollow way she feels like an ache beneath her skin. It is still Stillwater’s face, still his skin and his scent and his lips that he buries her in, that she is drowning in. Still his body that would take her, that she would be sated by even in this empty way. She knows she would be pliant beneath him, arched with pleasure between his knees and beneath those jaws closed over the crest of her neck to hold her still. But the fire would never bloom for him, not like it had for Stillwater. She doesn’t realize that this doesn’t matter to him though, that his pleasure in her body comes from more than just the pleasure of man and woman, that it would come at the cost of her short, unimportant life.
Maybe this is why those grey eyes don’t frighten her as they should, why she dropped her shield to him when she should have strengthened it, used it like a blade to force him back.
She is foolish.
His teeth scrape hard against her neck, again, and he closes his mouth against her, pinches the skin hard enough that she startles and pulls back abruptly, pinning her ears back against that dark, silk mane. She wonders silently at the pain, wonders if he had managed to split the soft skin, wonders why they do this to her, fill her blue oceans with red. Would she have a second scar to match the first, the smooth pit in her neck that the bone and black stallion had carved from her? She shrugs back from him darkly, warning him away with a bite at the side of his mouth that he would probably laugh at if not for the way her magic swelled suddenly around her feet.
Shadow swirled in a hurricane of grey and black, low and slow and weaving darkly around and through the white of those long, slender legs. Here and there were bits of light and bright, streaks of white-gold that gleamed thin and sharp like stars stretched to a thread. With eyes that are dark as bruises and ears still pinned furiously back, she says, “That is not how you convince me.”
And yet-
There is still a softness to her, a curiosity, a willingness she keeps barely hidden from him. She knows she should leave, is reminded by the way her neck throbs with each beat of her pounding heart. But the pain does its job, deepens the molten heat in her veins with a wildness that is tethered to her fury, her impatience, creates a slow burn to replace the emptiness in her chest. Even as her mind tells her to go, something else bids her stay. "Try harder." She says quietly, low, those dark eyes fixed on his with a startling kind of intensity.
She was visibly disappointed when his eyes slid opened to reveal the ghosted gray of them. Even still, she reached out and lightly brushed the damp hair from his brow. She would do this, she would let him. She was softening.
He pressed against her, feeling her heartbeat against his chest, tugged lightly at her hair. Urged her to want him. Just want him again. "It isn't the same. You can't force me to want you." Anger, frustration simmering in his cold blood. No, he wouldn't force her. She would change her mind, she would see. He scraped his teeth along her, tasted her skin. Ended with a pinch that was more a tease to him than it was anything to her.
She jerked back and away, landing a sharp bite of rebuke at the side of his mouth. Her pretty ears pinned flat to her skull and his eyes fell to her feet, to the darkness coming to life at her will. He backed up, his ears flattend too. Back and back, until he felt the water, until his feet sunk into it with a soft plunk. Flashes of light sparked within her black storm. "That is not how you convince me."
He backed away more, another step. What was this? He didn't like it. But there was still a look in her eyes, still a shadow of heat. He could coax it brighter, he knew he could. "Try harder," she challenged him, and he would. He wanted to. But his clouded gray eyes fell to her feet again, to her legs where the shadow swirled like a living thing and made the water reach further up his legs as he took another step back, sank deeper into the safety of his home.
God, but he ached for her. His teeth throbbed and his throat burned as his gaze slid to her neck. Just a taste, let him have just a taste. It would hurt, but only for a while, only because he didn't have his teeth. It's okay. He could make the pain go away, could fill her mind with other things if she'd rather. He swallowed the saliva pooling eagerly on his tongue, heard a needing growl rumble from his throat.
But that swirling magic, alive and grasping. He backed again, the water up to his chest. And settled himself to watch her and wait. Should he recede and release the weak again? No, not until he fed. Me first.
So he watched in silence, the hunger still bright in his gray eyes.
come down to the black sea swimming with me go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
