Do you know what you are? II

[ ... fade in ... ]

[Emily Littleton] Unless of course...

As Jarod drew nearer, perhaps to whisper some other such secrets into her ear, Emily's gaze shifted downward. Her eyes closed, rows of dark lashes barely grazing one another as his warm (hot), humid breath caressed her ear, and his mouth sought secret (sacred), delicate places. She drew a shaky breath, unable or unwilling to meter and control this most basic (delight) response. Emily's head tipped away from him, granting him greater access, welcoming him further.

One hand came to rest lightly on his chest. Trailed slowly down toward his side. Timidly. Her eyes remained closed, and her breathing shallowed and uneven. Emily could not fathom pushing him away, not now. She couldn't begin to string the thoughts together that, in a rational place, with rational rules, would tell her this was a very (good) dangerous (intriguing) dance.

[Jarod Nightingale] Dangerous. Good things could be dangerous. The best things often were. Emily had come here tonight because she wanted to understand something that she'd been on the precipice of realizing about herself. It said something about her that she was here. That she hadn't turned and bolted at any number of possible opportunities, to escape this strange man who could heal wounds and feel the thrum of her heartbeat without needing to touch her.

I love how alive you are, he breathed against her neck, kissing again along her jaw, and then... his lips were so close to hers that it was almost maddening not to complete the distance. Emily's hand was on his chest. His skin felt warm and soft, and her fingers found the firm lines of abdominal muscles. They tightened almost imperceptibly beneath the tentative contact.

Two bodies stood very close, and the breath from slightly parted lips intermingled. Jasmine. I love how alive you are. I love how alive you make me feel. Maddening, that tiny distance. Her lips were so close. The warmth and softness of them. The shape that he could picture so clearly in his mind's eye, inviting him in. Seconds ticked by, and he held there... teasing them both, perhaps. (The thing about cats is that they're patient.)

And then the spell of tension broke, and the fraction of space between them disappeared as he let his lips graze along her own, and finally kissed her fully. The act was both gentle and intense, pulling her lower lip into his mouth and letting the edge of his tongue just barely play along it. One of his hands came up and settled at the side of Emily's neck, thumb tracing slowly up and down the curve of her throat.

[Emily Littleton] Emily had always believed there was something more. That they were something more. That the world she interacted with was bounded more by her ability to perceive and conceive it than by any other factors. She'd broken down those experiences through a scientific lens because it gave her structure, gave her purpose, but not because it was the only way to achieve those goals. Emily had always believed, but believing required a measure of faith in things unknowable.

Jarod simply was. He didn't believe in the infinite possibilities, the intricacies of Fate. He knew them, the way Emily knew that it was his mouth seeking hers, his skin beneath her fingernails and she gently dragged them down his side, his voice that curled into her ear in such pleasing sussurations. Tonight, curled against him in the immaculate sanctuary of his making, Emily was alive in ways she'd never known before and it thrummed in her pattern like wind rushing toward a wildfire.

Quiet but I'm sure there is something here...

In the seconds that passed, Emily could think of nothing but the nearness of his mouth, of the heat that passed between them heavy with tension and her timidity. She yielded as much to his gentleness as his intensity, which called to something deeper (caged) within her. Awakened had stirred more than Emily's latent abilities. Her fingers reached up, seeking the edges of his features, the feathery soft hairs that led into his perfect tresses, the curve of his ear, the lower edge of his jaw. Each touch was whisper-light. Seeking. (Imploring.)

Tell me everything 'cause I want to hear...

A shudder rippled through her as his fingers settled near her throat. He was too close to judge whether it was pleasure or some primordial fear (prey). Only then did her eyes flicker open and her gaze come to rest on him again, heady and clouded with their shared desires. In all of this, Emily offered up no small sounds other than the sound of her breath.

[Jarod Nightingale] For a predator, he had a surprisingly delicate touch. He handled Emily the same way he'd handled her locket, earlier. As if she were impossibly fragile, and he was afraid she might shatter. She wasn't fragile, of course, but the situation lent itself to that. He'd given her a hell of a lot to process in the last couple of minutes. Anyone would be feeling a little shaken.

If he were less selfish, he probably would have stopped here. Or, even better... not kissed Emily at all. He'd have simply sent her home with her mind full of new possibilities and let himself remain nothing more than the guy who told her she wasn't alone. (Because it was good to believe that, even if it was, ultimately, no more true for the Awakened than it was for ordinary people.) But Jarod was selfish. He was selfish because he was alone, and because he'd learned a very long time ago that the only person who would ever take care of him was himself. And right now... he wanted to do exactly what he was doing.

But for all that he could be capable of coldness (he was a wintery creature, and always had been), he was not... numb. Not even close. The pulse of creation flowed through him, and every single nerve ending was impossibly, deliciously sensitive. He sucked in a breath when Emily's nails dragged down his side, pulling the air out of her lungs and into his own. Then he made just the faintest sound in the back of his throat and bit down on her lower lip gently. She touched his hair, his face... she explored, and for a moment he let her do so, but then he broke the kiss and pulled back, and he smiled just a little.

He didn't say anything. Instead he began to walk slowly backwards down the hallway with one arm stretched out toward Emily, finger curling back in an unmistakable gesture of: follow me. This way. Come here.

[Emily Littleton] Perhaps it was selfish of Jarod to draw her in like this. Perhaps a gentler soul would have left her quietly to sort things out for herself. Or perhaps the gentler, kinder route was to envelope her in his own seeking, his quest for solace, satiety, someone to hold on to (if only for tonight). Maybe the crueler thing was really to leave her to her own devices, to the struggle of reconciling who she had been with who she was becoming.

When Jarod stepped away, her senses reeled. She felt the space between them draw out, enlongate, stretch like taffy until it was almost unbearable. And when she could no longer feel the millions of tiny attractions between two (too) close bodies (beings), then the apartment was chill, bereft of the nearness of him, and she felt the flush of her cheeks and lips burn in his absence.

Emily reached up and gathered her hair in her hands, twisting it deftly into a loose spiral and tucking that spiral in on itself so that it stayed, mostly, out of her face. She breathed in, drawing the lingering scent of Jasmine and him deep into center, and wordlessly followed him. One foot after another. Just as readily as she had followed him away from the soup kitchen, up into this tower of glass and chrome, up to the edge of disbelief, and then over into this place of wonder and earthbound gods.

Do you think it means I was fated to sweep you off your feet and welcome you into a world of mystery and intrigue?

His earlier words rang in her ears (One foot before the other.) and Emily could no more break away from following than she could turn her eyes away from that deftly crooked finger, that (inevitably) slightly upturned mouth. A few steps more and she could reach out, tangle her fingers with his, find (home) grounding in the warmth of his (wintery) touch. If only for a moment.

Follow me. (Anywhere.)
This way.
Come here.

If only for a moment, all of this might just seem to make sense.

[Jarod Nightingale] The bedroom door had been cracked open, and he had only to push against it to open the way. Inside the spacious room, a mixture of moonlight and the glow of the city shone in from three large windows. It was plenty of light to see by, so he left the main switch off and continued on to where the bed lay, stopping to stand next to it as Emily re-entered his space.

And then she was there again. She'd followed, as he'd known she would. As they always did, because this was a dance he'd practiced over and over and over again, and he knew all the steps by heart. But somehow each time it was different and new. And for a few hours, everything in the world fell away. (And he was alive. And he wasn't alone.)

His mouth parted slightly, and he bit down on his lower lip, rolling it back a little. The expression looked almost too perfect on him. Like a carefully crafted work of art designed to inspire libidinous sentiments in the viewer. One of his hands caught up with her own, fingers knotting together, and his other found its way to her waist, settling there for a moment before sliding down to the curve of her hip, and then back up and underneath the edge of the borrowed sweater, to find the warm skin that he knew lay beneath. He kissed her again (a distraction, or maybe just because he wanted to) before the thrum of her pulse tempted him back to her neck, and his lips dragged their way down to the place at the hollow of her throat where the flesh beat faintly.

And he kissed there, and his tongue touched and tasted the skin (newly clean and just a little salty). And beneath her sweater his fingers caressed her side, and then her stomach.

[Emily Littleton] He was a vision, perfect in practically every way. He was practiced, and patient, and passionate without pressuring her (too much) too hard (too fast). He was artful in the way that he tempted her, touched her, led her.... and in his shadow she was artless, clumsy, naive. (Numb.)

Her pulse pounded in her temples, echoing in her head, eclipsing the small sounds that their mouths, hands, and bodies made as he explored so the soft skin of her torso. Emily swallowed down small reactive sounds her body longed to make, selfishly pulling them away before they could slide across her vocal chords, slip past her teeth, tease his ears. These she kept from him, had kept from every one before him as well. She withheld them, jealously, and without apology or explanation.

She slid her palm up the plane of his chest, let her thumb graze the edge of his nipple in passing. Her body answered to his deft touch, and with his senses intertwined in her pattern he could feel the stifled sounds, the way his touch left ripples of awareness and arousal across her skin. He could feel also the hesitation in the way she touched him, as if her inability to reciprocate as eloquently might offend, might upset.

[Jarod Nightingale] Emily was nervous. But of course, why wouldn't she be? Jarod knew enough about himself to understand that he was... intense. He was an ocean, and people drowned in oceans. His hands and lips seemed to know Emily's body much better than a stranger had any right to. It spoke of experience, and of skill. But for all that Emily thought herself artless and clumsy, her own hesitant touches did cause him to react... and not at all unpleasantly. She might not have been able to feel the blood pulsing through his veins in the way he could her own, but her hand on his chest could feel the heart beating underneath. Not the frantic, thundering pace of her own, but it was strong and... a little faster than was normal.

When her thumb grazed over his nipple, it hardened, and he breathed out against the place he'd been kissing at the base of her throat, moving up and to the side so he could graze her skin with his teeth and bite down, gently. It was a subconscious habit, using his teeth when he was turned on. Instinct.

Emily made barely a sound but for her breathing. This was a little unusual for him, the relative silence. The lack of aural cues. He didn't need them, of course, but nonetheless it prompted him to murmur a gentle encouragement. "Don't be nervous... you've already done everything right."

And now both of his hands were at the hem of her sweater (his sweater, technically), and he pulled it up and over her head before letting it fall to the floor. The curls of her hair spilled back down over her shoulders, and he couldn't resist the temptation to thread one of his hands within it, feeling the soft strands pull through his fingers. He bent to kiss her shoulder, and both hands slid toward the clasp that held her bra in place, unhooking it easily and tracing his fingertips up to slide the straps slowly off her shoulders.

Here... he hesitated. Just slightly. Not of his own accord (he seemed quite comfortable), but because he wanted to be sure he wasn't pushing. That she was okay. The expression on his eyes seemed to say as much as he pulled back a little and looked at her, watching even though her own body already told him everything that was happening inside of it. One could only tell so much, after all. A quickened heart beat did not necessarily mean that her conscious mind was thinking along the same lines that her body was.

"Tell me... if you want me to stop."

[Emily Littleton] Emily's conscious mind was far, far away, caught up in the struggle of assimilating the past few hours (minutes [weeks] days). It had been squirreled away, sequestered with all of those carefully guarded sounds, the pieces of herself that she had not laid bare for him (even unwittingly). It was tangled up with all of the stories (legacies), whispers (echoes) that explained the small marred sections of her pattern that he had known so intimately and yet without any context.

Quiet but I'm sure there is something here...

When his teeth found her skin, took hold, bit down gently, Emily's breath hissed in quickly between her teeth and her muscles became taut beneath his fingertips for a moment. He could all but feel the low moan curl in the base of her throat though she denied him this sound as well. Instead she pulled him closer for a moment, so close that he could feel the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin, the brush of fabric between them for a languid moment until he eased the sweater over her head and laid aside one more layer (pretense) of separation.

Emily's skin was pale, and the moonlight lent it an ethereal luster. Her hair hung in loose curls, a dark shadows against the cityscape beyond his window. There was light enough to see by here, in his inner sanctum, but there was shadow enough to smooth and obscure the finer details. Here her eyes were merely dark once more and the nuance of their color, shading (their occasional, unabashed honesty) was lost.

Tell me... He implored her, and so it was that those dark eyes fixed him with a look of longing deeper than desire, yet less immediate than his own. Tell me... Her lips, full and reddened by arousal, parted slightly... then closed as she thought the better of whatever it was she might have shared. Emily let the bra straps slide further down her arms, and carefully set it aside. Each movement seemed deliberate and yet tentative (timid). Instead of speaking, she shook her head a little. (No... [don't stop] No... [don't leave me] No... [not here, not now]).

Then Emily closed the space between them. Her fingers found the places on his hips where they could trace the band of his jeans just so. Carefully, she lifted her heels off the floor, raising up just enough that she could lean in and .... ever so gently, ever so achingly softly, kiss his mouth, the corner of his lips, the edge of his jawline, without waiting for Jarod to initiate.

[Jarod Nightingale] There was a moment in there somewhere... when some very small piece of him twisted uncomfortably. Sensing, perhaps, that Emily wasn't quite as safe as some of his other companions. But it was only a very small, slightly discordant note. A warning that he ignored in favor of the much stronger and more immediate desire to be with her. To touch her. Taste her.

And when she closed the distance between them, and her bare chest pressed against his own, any thought beyond these things was almost instantly silenced (and forgotten.) For the first time, she initiated a kiss, and he bent to return it, but soon enough her lips traveled away again, and he made a sound in his throat that resonated quietly. For one achingly perfect moment, he moved against her, the muscles in his torso flexing as he felt her breasts drag across his skin. Then, a little impulsively, he put his hands on her hips and turned, stepping forward so that she'd have to move back, and if she didn't put up any particular signs of resistance, he'd keep going... until she had nowhere to go but back onto the bed.

And he went right along with her, climbing onto the (impossibly comfortable) mattress and pulling back the covers to push them aside and out of the way. (The sheets were white Egyptian Cotton, and from the impossibly soft feel to them, a high thread count.) One of Jarod's knees pushed in between Emily's own, and the other rested outside of her leg. At first, he bent down as if to kiss her again, but instead he ducked a little lower and let his tongue trace a route all the way down her throat and between the swell of her breasts. His breath came warm against her chest as he exhaled, and he moved one of his hands in a slow exploration up her stomach and to the side of her ribcage, tracing fingertips along the outward curve of a breast as he found it.

And then his lips moved in the same direction as his hand, and his tongue found a nipple and slid slowly across it.

[Emily Littleton] Withholding any part of herself from him had become almost painful. Rather than small moans, or purrs of delight, Jarod was rewarded with the subtle (shh... listen) shifts in her breathing. After he had attuned to these lesser tells, they were just as intimate, just as informative. Especially when paired with how freely her body responded to his touch, the flock of goosebumps that rose along her shoulder when his tongue flicked just so.... the way her lips parted, or her eyes closed, or her head tipped back as her back arched just so.

Jarod would not need the resonant sounds to map the many places along her skin that seemed so perfectly placed for his mouth, or his hands to seek out. He wouldn't need them, because whenever his eyes caught hers he could see his own magnificence reflected in the softness, the genuine regard there (affection [compassion] passion). Perhaps, in time -- and he would take his time, Emily had no doubt -- he wouldn't miss the aural cues as much as he might have thought.

Emily thought, for a moment, of how disparate their homes were. No, she couldn't even rightfully think of the place that she lived (slept) as home. For a moment, she was still beneath him... pensive. (Beneath him [in so many ways]). No, Emily was not entirely safe... here. But the small moment passed, and she slid her arms around him, to pull him down to her, to bury herself in his skin, his scent, his warmth.

She couldn't see the lights of the city from here, saved for where they were reflected around his room. Emily could scarcely perceive the world beyond his bedroom at all. Beyond the small space that they cooccupied, drawing ever closer. As her world narrowed down to nothing more than Jarod and the feelings he evoked in her, all this talk of Magic, of Awakening and expectations fell away. She unfurled in his arms. And while he wasn't safe, he was safe enough for now.

Later, when they had drawn so closely together than Emily could no longer tell where his warmth ended and her own began, when they drew in the same breaths and shared but one heartbeat... right before her capacity for conscious thought was eroded entirely and she shuddered for him, tangled up entirely in him... then the sound of her voice brushed against him, as she cried out against his skin.