Ivan Press

[Hilary] Midway through her second vanilla bean, the smell enriching the very air with hungry sweetness, Hilary pauses. His long fingers are passing across the back of her neck, soft even for a man whose entire life has been spent in thoughtless luxury. The paring knife in her right hand goes still, held not unlike a scalpel. Her eyes close as he holds her the way he does, the dominance in his grip making a firm grasp unnecessary.

He can't be immune to seeing the trigger points. A certain way he touches her, a certain voice. Truth be told if he'd come to her like this in December he may have easily changed her mind, unlocked her, convinced her that what he was saying was real, and worth listening to: that he wanted her. No matter, now. It wouldn't be true today if he said it, and she still would have felt ugly and warped even back then, even if he told her no, it's fine, it doesn't matter.

When Ivan steadily, firmly tells her in that low voice to turn around and kiss him, her breathing changes. And after a moment she exhales, opening her eyes. The knife is set down and she turns, his hand remaining where it is or lifting away or moving elsewhere, but her eyes go to his.

An Athro Ahroun took her first, when she was still in her early twenties. It drove him out of his mind, sometimes with rage, sometimes with other things, when she would meet his eyes as though she simply did not sense the danger in doing so. She's mated to an Adren Galliard now, an Adren Galliard who was a Fostern Philodox before he renounced, and though he wears her out with his obsessions, he does not frighten her. And there's Ivan, a Cliath Ragabash, who in temperament and rage does not come close to either man who has called her [i]mine[/i] in a more public, more official version of truth.

Hilary hesitates a moment, then lifts herself on her toes and kisses his mouth. The way she did in the courtyard of the once-convent, slow and deep and saturated with desire that goes far beyond the simple and carnal longing for sex. Desire, ultimately, for him.

[Ivan] There's a sort of waiting patience in Ivan as Hilary hesitates. As she turns, and faces him, and considers whatever it is her consciousness might consider before lifting herself to her toes.

Kissing his mouth.

And it's such a soft kiss at its beginning: just his mouth pressing softly to hers, his hand stroking slow and hypnotic at the back of her neck. Smooth hands. Soft mouth. A jawline still without the faintest hint of fuzz hours after shaving. Everything about him is smooth and sleek, born and bred for luxury, kept unalterably so by an inexhaustible, supernatural youth. A creature like him shouldn't be capable of such darkness; but then again, the same could be said for her.

A moment passes before his lips part around hers. And even then: slow and soft, deepening by gradual, inexorable degrees. He sucks gently at her lower lip. His free hand touches her at last, and he does touch her abdomen first -- perhaps simply because that's the most prominent thing about her willowy body right now, a center of warmth close to him. She can feel the hesitation and ... shock, perhaps, in him, and it nearly throws him off -- nearly throws them off -- before he deliberately deepens that kiss.

His mouth is opening to hers, his tongue meeting hers, feather-light, for the first time when his hand moves upward off her abdomen and cups, instead, her breast. Behind her neck, his fingers thread up into her hair. He holds her still for him, a sort of gentle undeniable dominance in his grasp as he kisses her, kisses her.

It's a little past noon, a sunday, a city waking up slowly now that the morning mass is letting out. In the countryside people wake earlier, work earlier, pray earlier; here, near its old stone heart, the city is finally coming fully awake. Through their open doors drifts a breeze, the sound of running water -- more distantly, the sound of life and movement. Laughter and conversation outside the hotel's courtyards and atria.

It's enough sound to drown out what small sounds their kissing might make. Even when Ivan's breath begins to ramp up; grow rougher. Even when the kiss goes the same way: hungry now, both his hands on her face as though to grasp her, keep her right there, make her stay

[i]with him[/i]

to receive his kiss; give it back.

[Hilary] In that moment of hesitation, perhaps just before the shock, there's a reminder of what it is that makes this strange, makes them hesitate. It's a subtle movement inside of her, an internal shift

and then a hard kick against his palm, as sudden as an attack. It's startling, and it's sharp enough that Hilary's lips part from Ivan's for a second with an intake of breath. Yes: it nearly throws them off. If it feels strange to Ivan all he has to do is wonder -- though, let's be honest, he's young and he's selfish and he just had the shit kicked out of his hand by an unseen, preborn child that may or may not be his -- is how it must feel to Hilary, constantly reminded that there is an entity inside of her that is connected to her but is not [i]her[/i].

It has its own sleep schedule. It likes to wiggle around when she's trying to sleep. It lulls to rest when she takes walks. It determines on what side she sleeps. It makes her want the sort of spicy foods that bring sweat to her temples, ten times more than she ever wanted them before. It [i]kicks her[/i] because her heart rate goes up or because it senses nearby Rage or god only knows.

Ivan deepens that kiss, closing his lips over hers again, and Hilary takes another small breath, this time of a different tenor than the last. When he slides his hand up towards her breast he can feel the new heft of it, rounder and softer and simply [i]larger[/i] than he's ever felt her. He could see it before but that could have been the cut of her shirt, the deep neckline, the illusion of fabric. Feeling her, though, is different. Is truer. Hilary makes a half-buried sound into his mouth, her hands going to his chest as though she were about to shove him away

but it's nothing like that.

She does not know what to make of this, but she doesn't want to push him away. She's slower to rouse, slower to trust it, and slow because she does not want to expect, assume, believe, have faith. She makes that sound though, giving a slight shudder. Her fingertips leave flecks of vanilla bean on his lapels; the scent of it flows up between their bodies. He does not have to fight her to keep her near, keep her there, keep her kissing him the way she does.

Like she hasn't seen him in months. Not really seen him. Not really been with him.

[Ivan] The weather's so warm here that Ivan hadn't bothered with his jacket after taking it off the first time. There it hangs still, light and pale over one of the dining chairs -- just beyond the reach of the square of sunlight that has, indeed, managed to reach into this suite.

This hotel is nothing like the luxury hotels of Chicago, or New York, or Lausanne. There's a warmth and a closeness here, the ceilings low but the furnishings brightly hued, creating a space that light can resonate through. There's light between them when Ivan pauses for a breath, eyes barely opening before closing again.

He's warm, too. His warmth comes right through his shirt, right into her palms. Right into her arms where his cross hers; right into her face, her jaw, where his hands cup her. He doesn't have to fight to keep her near, but he holds her like that anyway, and that sound she makes, that shudder, seems to slice right through him.

He's kissing her hungrily, then, with a need that he did not anticipate, does not understand, does not know quite what to do with. He kisses her until her lips are reddening, until his mouth is moving all over her face, her neck; until his hands are sliding down that long elegant neck to trace his thumbs over her collarbones; fill his palms with her breasts. He doesn't know what to make of this new body of hers, either. She tastes like herself. Her face, her mouth; that's the same. The body could be a stranger's, and if he'd wanted a stranger he would have stayed in Chicago.

For a moment, he wonders what her mate makes of this new body of hers, too. He wonders if Dion still touches her. Still fucks her. Ivan wonders if it would be easier for him to accept her as she is now if he knew for certain the child was his, his and not Dion's, but dismisses it nearly the moment it comes. It's not the parentage that bothers him. It's --

well. The same thing that bothers her. That her body is strange and ungainly and, above all, no longer hers, no longer shared exclusively with him in the moments they're together. There's a third now, more insidious than the blankness that ever threatens to drag her down, more dangerous than the mate that claims her.

Abruptly, Ivan breaks the kiss. His hands on her shoulders, he casts a wild glance about. Then he's pulling her with him, pushing her ahead of him from the kitchen to the living room, where he presses her against the back of the nearest armchair. Pushes her down over it, roughly, almost too roughly -- starts to pull her coat off.

"Bend over," he mutters. He gets the coat off, whips it to the ground, and then he's tugging at her jeans, pulling at them like if she doesn't get the zipper and button open fast enough he'll just strip them down wholesale like this. "Get this off."

[Hilary] All things considered, Hilary's body is in... well. Remarkable shape. There were arguments about weight gain, about not enough weight gain, but there was one thing the doula was useful for: she didn't fight Hilary about food. She talked to her. And she heard [i]I was a dancer[/i] and she looked at a woman who was obviously not prone to starving herself even coming from a rigorous and high-pressure art that so wants girls to look like birds, and she heard [i]I was a dancer[/i] and thought about what it must be like to lose that grace, lose that control, saw anxiety and [i]anger[/i] in Hilary's eyes at the changes being wrought on her body

and just told her that if she was craving spicy foods but getting heartburn, then take a Prilosec and eat the goddamn jalapeno.

She doesn't have any doctors currently harassing her about the fact that she doesn't meet some standard, no nurses giving her anecdotes about their own or their friends' pregnancies. She eats what she likes, when she likes, sometimes cooking it herself and other times letting the cook at the estate take care of it. She takes her walks. So Hilary has very little weight gain to her face, her upper body, her legs and ankles. Yet she worries about it. She keeps her little jacket on and has kept it on all this time, worried about her arms.

Which are, Ivan sees and feels as he strokes that jacket of fher shoulders, as slender and flexible as ever. She shivers, and there's nerves in it, traces of worry, of self-revulsion, of withdrawal, but she doesn't stop kissing him because it's been a very long time since they kissed like this. Since she felt him so close to her, since she heard his breathing like that.

Hilary had no idea she missed it this badly. And no idea what to do with this particular shade of vulnerability, no idea how to cope with this constant stream of fear that every caress he gives her is an effort, that any moment now he's going to come back down to earth and realize he doesn't want her. That he's doing this because, as he said, he feels [i]guilt[/i].

She does not know how to be afraid. Her whole life is a frantic running from any silence that would let her feel such a thing, a frantic running towards a rising full moon of shining, gleaming, night-cutting wrath that could protect her from this.

When he breaks his mouth away from hers, her eyes are open, but he doesn't have a chance in his wild glancing about to see fear in her eyes til he looks back at her. She goes with him, and when he puts her to the armchair and he's pulling at her clothes she's turning, hands on his chest again, this time firm,

still not pushing,

and she's shaking. "Ivan... Ivan I don't --"

[i]know

want

think[/i]

but the sentence never finishes. She takes a shaking breath, and her hands curl in his clothes, tighten up into fists, pull him to her again, mouth lifting again to devour hers. She tastes like a sweet yellow pepper, powerful enough to shred the taste of citrus before it. There's no zipper and button on her jeans for him to yank apart anyway. She stops kissing him after that biting, hungry push, and looks at him.

"Can we please get in bed?" she whispers, ragged. "Can we please just... please, I can't... have you undress me and [i]look[/i] at me and ... please, Ivan. Please let me get in bed alone first."

[Ivan] Ivan, normally so astute, so sharp, would've never in a million years guessed that Hilary was insecure about her arms. Insecure about her face, her thighs, all the rest of it. He can't see the change, it's so slight. He can't see the change, because it's all overshadowed by what's happened to, what's happening to, her torso.

Those breasts, growing heavier and fuller by the day. That abdomen, swelling outward with child. She's one of the luckier ones. There are women who, by this point in time, are gravid.

Still. He strips the jacket off and she shivers, though it's not cold. She can't seem to decide whether to push him away or not, and she's saying his name with an uncertainty he's never heard before, which makes him pause if only because last time he came at her like this she all but clawed his face off with the force of her [i]no[/i],

but it's not a no after all. Her hands twist into his shirt and yank him closer. Her abdomen touches him and he makes a short grunt, perhaps the revulsion she feared, but then the brings his hands to her face, to her shoulders, to [i]that which has not changed[/i], kisses her so hard he bends her back over the couch.

But she's stopped again. And she's begging him, please, please, Ivan, please, only it's not the way she's always begged before. [i]Please fuck me. Please, please, put that cock inside me, please.[/i] Not that at all. Please don't [i]look[/i] at me, she says, please don't undress me and see the ruination,

and he hasn't the heart to tell her that he wasn't going to. He was going to bend her over the back of the couch and fuck her like that, looking and touching only her thighs, her back, her shoulders, her face, her mouth, the parts of her that have not mutated into someone else's body. He doesn't have the heart to twist that knife.

"Okay," he whispers instead, catching her face, kissing her again. "Go and wait for me in bed. I'll be along in a few minutes."

[Hilary] At first it was just sheer attraction. They wanted to fuck. She wanted to dally around on the side with some new young thing, or whatever it was she wanted from him. She wanted to watch him undress, and she wanted to get him angry, and she wanted to watch him fall apart with rage and desire and everything else she could do to him with a glance, a word, a twist of body language, her body.

And then she found in him something that had been missing for a long time. That dominance. That ferocious desire afterward to protect, to care for, to heal. That way he could treat her with unspeakable brutality and then settle down in the aftermath and rub her back in the shower, heal her wrists, touch her hair, speak to her like she was precious to him. She found in Ivan something she craved, and -- as she later admitted -- something she needed.

Now it's something else. It's Ivan stopping himself before he begs her not to go. It's her terrified that if he sees her like this he won't want her anymore. It's Ivan chasing her down across a continent because he [i]misses her[/i]. It's feeling the way she did when she saw him in the courtyard, like her skin was suddenly waking up in a wave, a rush up her body. It's the way she knows he was going to bend her over and not look at her, just fuck her like that, whether he says so or not, and how for reasons beyond simple physical discomfort or embarrassment or sadness, she doesn't want that.

She wants to be in bed with him. Not his bed, not her bed, not a bed they may ever see again, but she wants to be able to focus on the way he feels behind her, and not the way she has to hold herself up. She wants to feel him, and be able to forget, and she wants to be close to him.

Hilary gasps -- no. Breathes. But somewhat pantingly, and she's trying to catch her breath even as he kisses her again. She moans softly into it, growing more mindless.

Her hand is on his face, fingertips to his cheek. Black flecks of vanilla bean there, too, now.


The suite isn't overlarge. It's not like going to a room at Trump Tower for a couple of hours before going out to dinner, fucking like beasts before he takes her around Chicago, makes people wonder if she's his, if they're together. It has a little kitchen and a terrace and this sitting area but the bed is right over there. Ivan goes where he will. Hilary goes to the bathroom, the door cracked. He can hear when something clinks against the countertop around the sink. He can hear when she goes to the bed, the covers rustling as they move.

He can see her dark hair spread out over the pillows when he comes to her, the cut of the sheets across her chest where she lies on her side, the absence of her earrings, the emptiness of her wrists, the way she looks at him. The way she breathes.

[Ivan] One might imagine Ivan would get into bed behind Hilary. It's the most logical place for him to be. The simplest approach. He doesn't, though. He gives her three, four, perhaps even five minutes. Long after she's gotten into bed, long after that room is silent, he's still in the kitchen. She can hear him pouring a glass of water.

When he comes to the bedroom -- when he comes to bed -- he holding that glass. The curtains are open, though the inner, sheer drapes are drawn. There's still enough light to arc through the liquid in the clear glass when he sets it down on the nightside,

on her side of the bed, facing her,

and then straightens. Like the first time, as though he remembers she likes to look at him, likes to watch him undress -- or perhaps only because in some way he wants her to know that he's vulnerable too, there are vulnerabilities in him too, and she can see them if she but looks --

his lean hands go to the buttons of his shirt. He starts to undo them.

No undershirt. The weather's too warm for that, the latitude too southern. No tie either. Just his skin, not so ivory-pale as hers, but not the golden hue she remembers from summer, from autumn. He undoes every last button, and then his cuffs. Then he peels out of his shirt, and the light behind him catches the fine hairs on his body, lets her see how they stand on end.

His nipples are erect too. His breathing is elevated, steady but audible. His fingers, carelessly dexterous, flick open to clasp on his slacks. Lower the zipper. He lets his slacks fall, pushes his boxer-briefs down after it, and then his cock is hard in his hands, the drop of precum at the tip caught on the side of his finger and smoothed down over the shaft as he comes to the edge of the bed, sets his knee against it, and leans down to kiss her.

Eyes closed. [i]Drenchingly,[/i] the way she'd kissed him in the courtyard of the art school, making everyone around them think, [i]oh, he must be the father.

A little young, isn't he?[/i]

Their mouths part. He looks at her a moment; kisses her again, eyes open this time. Then he murmurs, "Turn around. Move over a little."

[Hilary] It seems impossible sometimes that Ivan will grow old with anyone. It seems impossible that Ivan will grow old. Right now it seems impossible for Hilary, too. Even the child that might suggest age, that might indicate a sort of reaching towards the eternity of death bound up in the very act of nurturing new life, will hardly be a reality for her. Whether it remains with her or goes to Russia, Hilary will have little to do with it outside of family portraits. Or will never see it again. Might be a phantom or a photograph in the child's life, nothing more.

At some point Ivan will die, or Hilary will. Dion might die and she'll be alloted an appropriate time for mourning due to her breeding and Dion's status, but it won't be very long before she's taken under the wing of one of the Silver Fang geneaologists that also plays matchmaker. As long as she's capable of bearing children she knows what her destiny is, and if she wants any sort of consideration after she loses that, she had better have children to raise for the tribe.

Right now they seem immortal. He in his golden youth, she in a sort of classic timelessness, outside of the world everyone else occupies. And beautiful. They are both so goddamn beautiful.

She watches him come towards her, and she starts to stir, but then comes to understand as he reaches for his buttons. Undresses for her, shows himself to her, that body of his that is still aroused even after four, five minutes of not touching her, not even looking at her. Hilary reaches for him as his torso is exposed, tracing her fingers lightly over those sun-limned hairs that create the faintest line down his abdomen. He can see her exhale.

Ivan's shirt rustles to the floor, and Hilary's hand brushes down the front of his slacks, her palm and her fingers barely caressing him through the fine, fine fabric. Her touch is gone before he reaches for the fasteners, closing around a fold of the sheets that cover her. But as he pushes down his boxers and his pants alike, Hilary is moving, propping herself up to a half-seated position. And as he strokes himself she is gasping quietly at the sight of him, her brow furrowed with an expression like some distant pain.

He kisses her and she makes some sound into his mouth, reaching behind his head to hold him there, her breasts moving as she breathes, the sheet drifting off them, new and round.

[i]Turn around,[/i] he tells her, murmuring, and Hilary does not seem to hear him. She's lowering her head to him, not even touching him with her hands, taking him fully in her mouth. She makes a sound like the sudden relief of the ache he saw in her expression before he kissed her. And she licks him, shaking at the taste.

[Ivan] Ivan's mouth opens with a gasp as Hilary's takes him inside. She has to push herself up a little to do that, to reach him, to suck him like that: not even luxuriously or seductively but [i]needfully,[/i] as though the taste of him, the feel of him in her mouth, is something that fulfills her more than it does even him.

And the sheets slide down when she raises herself up. Her breasts are bared -- and then Ivan's long fingers are snagging the edge of the sheets, catching and twisting into them before it can slide down entirely. Bare her body to him.

It's impossible to say who that's for. For her, because she begged him over and over, [i]please don't, please don't make me[/i]; or for himself, because he hasn't seen her naked since the days after Lausanne, wouldn't know what to do now if he saw her, saw the changes.

In the end it doesn't matter for whom or for what he catches the sheet, only that he catches it. And holds it fast, shielding her body below the diaphragm from his view. His free hand threads into her hair, combs back from her brow and across her crown, back, back through the cool strands, heavy and smooth as silk. She can hear him breathing, and it's a little ragged, it shudders and shivers through his teeth as she sucks on him, licks at him, tastes him like she's been starved for the taste of him; was starving for the lack of him.

After a while, she can feel his fingers tightening in her hair. After a while, he grips her by the hair the way he did, the way he does: holds her there while he starts rocking his hips, forward and back, slow, then with increasing force and deliberation,

until he's fucking her mouth, gasping, stifling groans, his fingers tight in the sheets and tight in her hair, his head falling back as his body tenses.

[i]That's it,[/i] he's whispering, shreds of words in the warm air. [i]That's it, you know how I like it.

Oh, my god. Yes.[/i]

[Hilary] She [i]has[/i] missed him. So much. So very. Fucking. Much.

And yes, it's the taste of him. It's the sight of him hard for her, and the feel of his cock jumping in her mouth. It's the way he [i]talks[/i] to her when he's using her, the way his voice falls and the way he gasps, the tension in his thighs. Yes, it's Ivan ratcheting up towards orgasm, sweating from lust, beautiful, beautiful, strong. It's the way he makes her feel when he fucks her like he's just playing with her, the way he makes her come so very hard, so very many times, the way he can take so much from her, and only end up pushing her into heights of pleasure so intense she loses herself in it.

But god, she missed him. Wanted him to hold her as she slept and wanted him to go away so she wouldn't [i]lose[/i] him, but... wanted him to stay. Wanted him there. Wanted something from him he may not be capable of giving and she may not be capable of receiving. She wants him to stay here, too. Stay for the week. Let her come visit him day after day, smiling and warm and taking long drives through the countryside, cooking. She wants to be with him. And in a very real way, she needs to be with him.

Hilary puts her hand on his stomach, curves around his side. She doesn't seem to notice when he covers her, doesn't seem to remember suddenly her own panic at being bared, at being exposed, her fear that if he sees her naked he won't want her anymore, he couldn't possibly still want her. She's gone now that she has him in her mouth, and yes

she knows how he likes it. He knows how she moans when he starts to fuck her mouth, how [i]wet[/i] she must be. Hilary knows what he wants from her, where to flick her tongue to make his eyes roll back, where and when to suckle him to make his head snap back, to make him gasp, to make him snarl. Her other hand comes to his side, holding herself steady as much as holding onto him, and she starts to suck him faster, take him deeper.

[Ivan] Let's be honest: she's always loved his stamina. Loved that he could fuck her on and on and on, loved that he could go for hours, go all night, stop only to catch his breath and get it up again before he's putting it back inside her, pounding her to her next orgasm.

He wrings orgasm after orgasm out of her, strips her down, breaks her apart, shatters her to dust and tears before he's done with her. You wouldn't expect that sort of tenacity from someone so sleek, so fair -- but then, you wouldn't expect a lot of things from him.

But it's different this time. It's been [i]so long[/i], and she's not the only one that's missed the other. Missed [i]this[/i]. She's not the only one that's been without this for so fucking long that the very thought of it was enough to keep him aroused without the sight of her, without the feel and smell of her.

She moans around his cock and the vibration of it slams right through him. The sound drives him insane. She moves a certain way, sucks a certain way, wraps her hand around his cock a certain way, splays her fingers over his side a certain way to keep him [i]right there[/i] while she blows his mind, amongst other things, and --

-- and it's too much for him. It's when she's just starting to go faster, just starting to let him slide deeper, that Ivan's head abruptly snaps back. He cries out. There's no other word for it, that sudden, raw noise that bursts out of him -- and his hands are both on her head now, his fingers twisting into her hair; he holds her there, keeps her right there while his hips flex mercilessly, mindlessly forward.

Beneath her hand, his loins, his side, his ass are rigid with strain, quivering with it. She can hear him taking one, two heaving gasps out of the air, and then he's groaning, almost snarling; his cock is jerking in her mouth, his cum is spilling across her tongue, he's coming while he's grasping at her hair and thrusting furiously into her mouth, groaning for her, bending over her, bending almost double to wrap his arms around her head, her shoulders, shuddering now. Shaking with the sudden, unstoppable force of his release.

One hand comes down to plant against the mattress. His other arm ... is all but cradling her now, tender in the aftermath of careless, thoughtless brutality. His cheek presses to the top of her head. He's panting so hard she can feel the warmth of his breath stealing through her hair.

"I'm sorry," he's panting. "I'm sorry, I -- I couldn't ... it was ... "

The second hand sliding free, too -- both hands planting on the mattress, his weight heavy against it, knees wanting to unhinge.

"Just give me a second," he whispers.

[Hilary] There are reasons why Hilary goes for the pretty young men she does, pretty young men with toned muscles and soft lips, pretty young men whose tempers ride so very, very close to a hot surface. Stamina is one of those reasons. Strength. Sheer physical tenacity.

But she sucks Ivan's cock like she hasn't had it in [i]months[/i] -- which is the truth. He groans as though -- if the mere thought of her was enough to make him this aroused, keep him this aroused -- the feeling of her is almost unbearable. Which is also, it seems, the truth. Hilary knows that in the time they've not been fucking each other he's been fucking whatever young piece he wanted to. Mothers and daughters, dancers, whores, models. She doesn't know if he's kept that up since she last saw him. She doesn't care. She doesn't care any more than she cared when he was fucking anything that moved while she was still in Chicago and as far as she knows, Ivan could not care less if her mate comes and fucks her in Mexico or if she has men around the city to visit on 'shopping trips' like this.

But she doubts that he's held himself abstinent since the last time he came to San Miguel de Allende. She doubts that the way he cries out like this is from having waited so long, having been untouched for so long, but right now, truth be told

Hilary isn't thinking about that. She's not [i]thinking[/i]. She's overcome, not by the suddenness or force of his orgasm but as though she's the one coming. Her nails dig into his flesh where she holds his sides, his hip. She groans just before accepting him, and yes

she gags, she almost chokes, but she also fucking takes it. Always takes it from him, whatever he has to give her, seems so goddamn apologetic if she ever asks him to stop or hold back or wait or even take her in the bed and not over the back of the armchair. Hilary holds onto him as he all but crushes her to him, coming in her mouth with moans and gasps, snarls ripping through the air.

When Ivan moves there's really no choice but to let him go, and she's coughing after swallowing, gasping, panting because she can [i]breathe[/i] again. If he were looking at her she'd look faintly dizzy but he isn't looking at her and she's being cradled, her head against his cheek, his body falling apart onto hers, next to hers, around hers. Hilary's eyes are somwhat dazed, but she hasn't stopped touching him: her hands rest on his sides, smoothing up his back.

She doesn't say anything, just now. She puts one hand on the side of his head, on his cheek. She slides it slowly, gently into his hair.

Finally just whispers: "You make me..." a breath, "[i]so[/i] fucking horny."

[Ivan] He's not looking at her. It's not disgust, but that he's overcome: he's not looking at anything at all. His eyes are closed and his breathing is labored; his head hangs, shoulders moving with every panting inhale, exhale.

To be sure, he's been rough with her before. He's hit her, chained her up, gagged her, fucked her raw. It's part of what they do. Their own brand of deviance, sometimes more and sometimes less. This wasn't quite the same, though. It wasn't deliberate. It wasn't even an act of dominance.

Something closer to surrender, really.

It's some time before he gathers the strength to lift his head again. Her hands are in his hair by then: his short hair, so dark with winter it's almost impossible to tell it's actually blond. Could be blond. Was so very, very blond when he was a boy, an infant, a newborn.

He kisses her temple blindly. He kisses her eyelids, the gentle slope where her cheek meets her lip. Then he kisses her mouth, hard and deep and hungry for her all over again; kisses her while he's climbing onto the bed, climbing under the covers and climbing over her, and when his lean hard abdomen brushes against her swollen one she can feel him startle again, flinch almost, but then he pushes past that and puts his hand on her breast instead, puts his hand on her shoulder, presses her into the mattress as he eats his fill of her mouth.

When he draws back, he finds her hand. Guides it to his cock. He's hard again, still wet from her mouth, wet again from his precum. He wraps her fingers around him and she can see the flicker of sensation in his eyes; he can see the same in hers, and it drives him to kissing her again, biting a hard kiss into her that ends when he mutters,

"I want to be inside you."

[Hilary] A different pair of lovers and she'd be assuring him that it's okay, don't apologize, baby, no. A different pair of lovers and she'd already be out of bed, furious, going to wash the taste of him out of her mouth and he'd be considering which pillows would make the couch more comfortable. A different pair of lovers and --

well. They aren't. They're them. And she's telling him that he makes her feel the way she does, when he can't help himself but fuck her mouth. Come in her mouth. Snarl, grab her hair, use her body somehow. She's telling him she wants him, which is all she's ever told him, all she's ever wanted him to know.

Which is what he's telling her now. It's really not what she expected. It's really not what she wanted, in a way -- what she didn't want as much as she did want it. Even now when he brushes against her, startles, Hilary full-on recoils, probably more repulsed by the reminder of her body than Ivan is, or could be.

She kisses him instead. Shudders into it, trying to dissolve those moments of self-awareness that are, for her, so very dangerous. And he can't help her the way he usually would. He can't take her that far.

Hilary wraps her hand around his cock, hair spilling over the pillows as he comes over her. There's a thin sheet between them, nothing else, but her breasts are bared and he's caressing her there, kissing her, and Hilary's starting to jerk him off while he holds himself above her body, slow and careless and wanton.

"So get behind me," she mutters against his mouth, kissing him in between words, biting at his lips, "and let me feel you inside me."

[Ivan] That actually makes him laugh a little -- a quick huff of air before he's twisting off of her, to the side, behind her. He's always been the more agile of the two. Now there's no comparison. Of course he's the one to move; of course he's the one to swing behind her, to move in close to her, to press against her --

and when he does, a shudder runs all the way down his spine. She's still the same, like this. The narrowness of her back. The slenderness of her shoulderblades. He doesn't quite know how to hold her now. If this were summer, he'd wrap his arms around her, hold her breast, hold her across the waist. He ends up wrapping his arm around her shoulders instead, high up; secures her with his hand on her hip.

And he kisses her. Raising himself on his elbow, leaning half over her: he kisses her over her shoulder -- kisses her mouth, kisses her neck. His hand moves down her thigh, not a light caress but a heavy, deliberate one, and when his palm wraps under her thigh he pushes her leg up, cants her open so he can press his cock against her.

It makes him groan against her mouth. Then he's taking himself in hand, slapping it against her cunt, rubbing it, stroking it, pressing into her only to withdraw again. It's hard to say who he's teasing, himself or her. It doesn't matter: it's not long before he takes his mouth from hers, bites her neck instead, seizes her in his teeth like an animal as he pushes into her,

all in one stroke, smooth and hard, holding her by the hip to leverage her against his thrust.

Ivan groans against Hilary's skin. He kisses her where he bit her, and then he turns his head, bites her shoulder instead, harder. When he starts fucking her, it's hard, too. Hard and firm and deliberate, thrusting into her with a sort of mindless force that essentially proves, once and for all, that he doesn't give a single fuck about the child she carries inside her. But then, she already knew that.

[Hilary] A swing of his body and a flick of the sheet and then he's against her, shuddering at the feel of her fully against him. The truth is, she's not... exactly the same. So little about her can be, could be. Even just looking at her face there are minute differences, changes. Feeling her it's not as evident but even then, the truth is that her back is not as narrow, her shoulderblades are not as slender, she is [i]different[/i].

And the same, too. So vividly, tangibly affected by the thing inside of her they are both trying to ignore, but separate from it. She can feel him unsure of how to hold her as much as she can feel him wanting her. Much of this is jarring. Startling. Every time they cannot help but sense the fact that [i]she's fucking pregnant[/i], a coil of disgust runs through her that threatens to derail anything else she's feeling.

This is why she pushed him away in mid-autumn. This is why she pushed him away at the beginning of true winter. This is why, after today, she does not know if she will try to keep him or just push him away all the more.

No matter, right now. Only the vaguest passing thoughts are given to all that, interrupted searingly by the feel of Ivan's body close to her, his cock on her cunt, his tongue in her mouth. She's gasping, arching for him, opening to him,

and whimpering when he bites her. "Ivan --"

As is the way sometimes, there's no reason for her to say his name. No need for it, no forthcoming plea or stall or the like. She has nothing to say to him but his name, aching on her tongue, as potent as the taste of him. Hilary doesn't suddenly develop a panic over [i]the baby[/i] when Ivan starts to fuck her the way he does. Parasitic or not, she isn't ill or diseased, is not suddenly fragile. She doesn't [i]feel[/i] fragile. She feels soft, and warm, and grasps the sheets beside her body as Ivan holds her hard in his teeth and his hands and fucks her.

[Ivan] It was a long time before she first said his name. The first time they fucked, he can't remember if she said it all. He knows she didn't until he started fucking her the way she wanted it, and perhaps needed it: not like an uncertain boy, a corruptible youth, but like someone,

something,

already deeply scarred by issues all his own. Then she broke open for him. Then she screamed, and sobbed, and when it was all over, thanked him.

[i]That was lovely,[/i] she'd said. Calm then, cool as still water. [i]Thank you.[/i]

He said something similar to a girl not so long ago. One or two nights before he came all the way to Mexico to all but assault this woman, for that matter. Maybe it was because he heard Hilary in his own words. Maybe because he saw her, something of her carelessness, her thoughtless destruction of others that was somehow even colder than his own, in his behavior. In what he was becoming.

What is wrong with you, she asked him then.

What is [i]wrong with me,[/i] he asked her right back.


There are no such questions now. He doesn't even ask why she lets him fuck her this time -- wants it, needs it -- when last time she would barely let him hold her. He knows the way he came at her made a difference, but that wasn't all.

He doesn't wonder, though. He's not thinking about it. He's holding her in his teeth and in his hands, his grasp ferocious, animal, almost cruel. He's not slapping her or chaining her up or holding her down or -- any of that, but he is pulling her against him, pulling her back against every thrust, all but growling against her shoulder as he pounds her.

Like he's waited a long time for this. Like he hasn't had this, anything like this, for so very long. Like he needs to hold on to it -- the parts that are still the same, that remind him of what it was like -- with everything he has,

because who knows what happens from here on out. If she'll seek it now. If he'll want it again. If she'll push him away. If he'll run all the way back to Chicago, stay there, until all this pregnancy bullshit was over.


But she says his name. And his mouth comes off her shoulder, presses to her neck. He kisses her wherever he can reach her -- then turns her face to kiss her again, hard, on her mouth.

"I'm here," he breathes. And as though to prove it: he throws his hips forward, slams himself home, slams himself deep and grinds her back against him. "I'm right here."

[Hilary] Hilary never thinks to herself that here is some beautiful boy she can destroy. She never goes out of her way to destroy someone. It just... happens. That doesn't mean she doesn't take pleasure in it. A sick, twisted sort of enjoyment of how easy the Normal, the Sane, the Happy are to bring down from their comfortable, sweet little lives. There is something reassuring in seeing that everyone's life, everyone's joy, everyone's 'soul' is equally fragile.

Equally dark.

Ivan didn't quite need corrupting. Just opening. He broke her apart but she flicked a clasp somewhere inside of him, let the demons out, drank them in, let them touch her. Enjoyed it. Felt...

not quite so alone.

Hilary groans, digging her nails into the mattress, the pillow beneath her head, turning her face into the covers to bury the noises she's making. The window is open; there are people in the courtyard below them, water lapping in a stone fountain. They always seemed to fuck in daylight. Well, not always. But so often they had sex with the sunlight slanting in through hotel room, penthouse windows. She loves the way he looks in the light, all gold-lined and bright.

She arches again, pushes back against him, using the bed she's clinging to for leverage, gasping as he drives harder into her, a gasp that dissolves into a hard moan. "Don't stop," she breathes. "Don't stop biting me."

[Ivan] Ivan's answer to that is wordless, and obvious: he bites her with a low, rough growl. His hand comes off her hip, plants on the other side of her body. He pushes up on his hands, raises himself over her with elbows bent, muscles tensed across his chest and shoulders.

He's all but rolled her under him -- is fucking her in solid, long strokes against the bed now, heat building under those blankets, that down comforter that's too warm for this weather, this country. He keeps his brow to her cheek, though, his teeth scraping at the skin, biting at her shoulder, her neck.

The first time his hand cracks across her ass, it's hard enough to leave an imprint. Not that either of them are looking. They're focused on the sensation, feel of it; she doesn't think about her body because it'll jar her out of it and he doesn't look at her body because it'll remind him all over again

that they're not alone right now. She doesn't belong to this moment, and to him, the way she used to.

"I love your fucking cunt," he's muttering to her, his teeth seizing her shoulder, his words spilled muffled across her skin. He smacks her again. "I love fucking your filthy, hot little cunt. God, I've missed you..."

[Hilary] Ivan is all over her. Biting. Touching. Leaning over her, using his arms to give himself leverage to fuck her harder, but Hilary has not moved. She remains on her side, their bodies tangled, Ivan seeing her now in profile. There are a few curls of dark hair stuck to her pale cheek from sweat. There are her lips, red from sucking him off, parted to gasp for air. There's her dark lashes cutting downward. Only a sheet covers her, and then only half of it -- there's quilts and throws folded and piled at the foot of the bed, but even that sheet seems like too much.

In other ways: not enough.

The first time he slaps her, Hilary lets out a ragged, overcome noise that ends up getting sucked back into her mouth, panted with, swallowed, choked on, groaned around. She bucks, and she quivers around him suddenly, whimpering at the sensation. When he does it again, mere seconds later, she moans, and she's so [i]wet[/i] on his cock, wet with that filthy, hot little cunt he's muttering and snarling about loving, about missing

though that's not quite what he said there, is it? Loves her cunt. Missed her.

Hilary shudders again, and squirms against him. Truth be told, she hasn't stopped. Not since he hit her the first time, locked his teeth in her. She hasn't stopped moaning almost since he first let her put his cock in her mouth and started fucking her face, grabbing her hair. She's fucking him back now, at least as much as she can in this position, and she's taking it harder, moaning in sweet little whimpers for more

and she doesn't have to tell him, but he can feel her getting close.

[Ivan] He can feel her getting close. He remembers what that feels like. He remembers so much of this, even though it's been [i]so fucking long,[/i] and everything's the-same-but-not. It throws him off a little. It leaves him uncertain, wanting, grasping, not quite...

catching. Holding.

Even the words he says to her don't quite feel right in his mouth. After a while he doesn't say anything at all; he just fucks her, lowers his mouth back to her skin, holds on to her with his teeth like maybe that will help him just [i]hold on[/i] to her. The last time he fucked her -- before all this became so incontrovertible -- he would have reached under her now, reached for her clit, stroked her with his long fine fingers while he fucked her with his cock. This time he'd have to reach past her abdomen, he'd feel her belly, he'd remember where and when and what and --

so he doesn't. He wraps his arms around her instead. He crosses his forearms under her, clasping her against his chest, his hands covering her breasts, stroking her nipples, squeezing her in his palms. She can't lie on her stomach the way she used to; she's mostly on her side, and he's angled against her, but at least, at least, if nothing else, this lets him kiss her.

Which he does, when he feels her starting to tip over that edge. Which he does, furiously, fiercely, all but biting her gasps and moans out of her mouth.

[Hilary] Hilary can scarcely breathe. She gasps every time his arms tighten around her, concurrent with his thrusts, and her breasts used to be these little mounds of flesh in his hands but now they fill his palms, a new and simultaneously jarring and delectable weight. She's as sensitive as ever. She's sweating and writhing and those little bucks of her hips are all but unconscious, uncontrollable. She lets out a long cry suddenly,

and he closes his mouth over hers, sucking the breath and the moan and the life right out of her, and Hilary reaches up and grabs hold of his forearm. She comes, kissing him hard, holding him there, and a thought flashes through her mind that terrifies her and

makes her feel more normal than she has in a very, very long time. She moans at the feel of it, and the feel of him, her orgasm going through in long, drawn-out waves. Even that is different, somehow, though more for her than him. It goes on for twenty, thirty, forty seconds, Hilary riding it out on him, kissing him, not letting go of him.

[Ivan] Ivan doesn't know what thought it is that flashes through Hilary's mind, like lightning over a hot desert. He doesn't even know there's a thought at all, because when she reaches up like that, grabs him like that, kisses him like that, every thought sears out of his mind.

There's just the feel of her then. The tight, hard squirm of her body under his. The way her cunt takes him in, clenches down, sheathes him whole and shudders on him -- the way her body winds beneath his, her sinuous spine moving, her breasts so unexpectedly heavy in his hands.

For half a minute, a minute, an eternity, they steal each other's air. They grasp each other and hold on as though to let go were to die. She rides her orgasm out on him, uses his body to pleasure herself, moves on him as though there were no other thought in her mind, either, except

[i]how this feels[/i]

and all the while he's just pressing deep, holding still, holding himself right there for her until -- when she's finally starting to come down, when that orgasm has finally had its way with her and decided to let her go --

he groans suddenly into her mouth; his hand moves suddenly to grasp at her side, grasp at her neck, grasp and hold over her shoulder -- his arm still crossing under her body -- while he pounds into her, hammers into her six or seven times, so very hard.

The intensity of his stillness, then, is unmistakable. He holds himself flexed into her as far as he can. She can feel the shivering in his core, the deepest muscles of his axis quivering with strain; she can feel the way his cock moves in her, and then he's fucking her all over again, wildly, snarling and grunting with every mindless thrust, fucking his cum into her cunt the way he fucked it into her mouth.


Afterward, he holds on to her. He's gripping her shoulder, her side, so very hard. His teeth have left marks in her opposite shoulder. To say they fucked like animals is not an exaggeration but simple fact: they fucked each other as animals do, the male on top, entering from behind, gripping the female in his jaws. He's panting against her neck now, his chest rising and falling against her back.

From time to time, he flexes his hips against hers as though to remind himself -- remind her -- of their joining.

From time to time, he shudders.

[Hilary] Chances are it will be another set of months before this happens again. Chances are, it will never be like this again, and they'll both be glad of it. No awkward fumbling to ignore the fact that she's pregnant, and pregnant with what they both generally assume is someone else's son. Ivan, Ragabash and skin-saver that he is, has a plan in place now for what happens if it is not someone else's son --

that is so much easier, that phrasing, than thinking [i]my son. my child. my bastard. mine.[/i]

-- and other than that, it's best just not to think about it anymore. Talk about it anymore. Hilary seems quite happy not to broach the subject overmuch.

She's sweating. The room is warm, the breeze from the window not enough to cut through the day's heat as the sun arches higher in the sky, fills the courtyard and covers this part of the earth in drenching light. She's sweating and her shoulder and neck are both marked brightly by his teeth, her cunt and her mouth marked with his cum, her body essentially his but for that third, unalterable presence.

If he hurt her, if she's worried about the baby, if there's going to be a problem, there's no indication of it right now. Only her breathing, gasping for it, panting as she comes down from her orgasm, as she recovers from the force of his. His arms clasp her still, and she grasps his arm still, and they are as collapsed as a fallen house of cards on the bed.

No tears in her eyes. The marks on her body somehow aren't the same. And she keeps her eyes closed, just trying to remember how to breathe. When he moves his hips and moves himself inside of her, Hilary shudders, her exhales heavier.

"...Why?" she whispers, eventually.

[Ivan] There's a stillness when she asks -- a hesitation not in motion per se but in breath; in presence.

Then Ivan moves again. Stirs over her, rubs his face against her shoulder, kisses her cheek. Kisses her mouth, blindly, deeply.

"Because I wanted to," he says eventually; almost sighing it. His eyes open. He moves off of her, rolling off to the side, behind her again. For the first time his arm wraps where it usually does: around her waist, over her swollen body. This time, he doesn't flinch. He just pauses a moment, thoughtful almost, before his hand opens over her abdomen.

So different. So, so different.

"Because of the way you kissed me," he adds. "In the kitchen, and in the courtyard.

"And because I missed you."

[Hilary] The way he fucked her just now was animalistic. The way he rubs his face on her afterward is, too, more primal than he often is. She doesn't quite know what to make of it: of him, of this, of any of it. So she closes her eyes and tries not to think, retreating into a comfortable blankeness that isn't quite acceptance of the unknown, but something unique to Hilary. It's a sort of madness.

But Ivan lays behind her now, holding her close despite the warmth and their sweat and her size. When he kissed her she kissed him back but she's so limp now, so drowsy from sex and what counts for 'winter' in this part of the country. His arm wraps around her and her eyes startle open briefly, then drift warily, slowly closed once more.

The thing inside of her isn't kicking now, isn't wildly jarring Ivan where he touches her. Seems lulled. Like her, almost. Because whatever other parentage the infant has, it carries now and will carry half of Hilary, for good or ill. Maybe it will have her brand of madness, or its own special twist of their breeding's curse. Or both.

She wonders what that [i]was[/i], neither brutal nor gentle, neither asked for nor fought for. She decides that right now, the last thing she wants to do is question it further, pick it apart, figure it out. She wants to lie there for awhile.

And after awhile, her answer to him nothing more than steady breathing as her heart rate comes back down, Hilary says: "Let's just... lay here, for now." After a beat, she twists slightly, turning her head so she can see him over her bitten, bruised shoulder. Her eyes are the same, always the same, deep and wet pools of darkness. "All right?" And there's gentleness in that, vulnerability, weariness from a woman who in the past could fuck him three, four times before she was even close to worn out.

Her hand lifts, and the backs of her knuckles touch his cheek, stroking softly once or twice. "Just... stay."

[Ivan] When she turns to look at him, his eyes have closed. They open when he feels her stir; open when her fingers touch his cheek.

He looks at her a moment, his eyes reflecting her weariness back at her: a sort of replete silence, a form of calm. He has no true explanation for why, or what that was, or --

any of that.

"Okay," he murmurs quietly. He turns his head under her hand. His teeth nip at the backs of her fingers; then he kisses them. Softly. Reverently, almost, his eyes drifting shut again.

"Okay," and this time it's a whisper. He settles behind her, quiet now.