Ivan Press

Ivan

It's a strange limbo they find themselves in. There are things they can't discuss, things they can't bring to light; things she won't discuss, things he can't stop thinking of. They exist in a sort of unstable equilibrium, held by forces beyond their control. The one they call love, which only manifests when they can overcome their own inherent selfishness long enough to reach one another. The one they call need, which always burns, which always cuts like a knife.

All the bonds that bind them. All the things they won't talk about.

So: all right. Last night was hard, but they won't bring it to light again. They'll leave it where it is, and they'll go sailing, and the lake is so bright and the Cielo so graceful, skimming the surface on her twin hulls, sails unfurled brilliant against the sky. They'll go sailing and she'll wear her old-Hollywood hats, he'll wear boat shoes and linen slacks, he'll wear his shirt unbuttoned, the wind streaming beneath to caress his skin. And they'll go far, far, the lake so deep and blue beneath them. They'll drop anchor; maybe go for a little swim. Have lunch on the flybridge, or in the saloon. Sun themselves on the foredeck, stretched out on the sundeck. Live like the spoiled, idle creatures they are.

And sometimes he'll look at her and wonder how she can be okay with this, how she can just bury whatever she can't cope with, or doesn't want to cope with; sometimes he'll look at her and wonder how he can be okay with this, how he can cope with her coldness, the mercilessness of her apathy. Sometimes she makes him feel so pathetic. So like a child, wailing for what he doesn't even understand.

And sometimes he'll wonder if he can bear this at all. Sometimes he'll wonder how much longer he can bear it. But then he'll wonder how he could possibly exist without her, without this, when she's woven herself subtly and insidiously into the very fabric of his life. She's everywhere now. He built her a goddamn den, he sired a cub with her, her scent is in his blood, like a poison. He knows he'll forgive her again as soon as she turns to him. As soon as she reaches for him. As soon as she shows him that yes, yes, she's happy with him, she's here with her, she's like this with him and no one else, it's him, it's Ivan who is different, and special, and unique, and singular to her. And he knows he'll be right back here again as soon as she pushes him away, as soon as she cuts him down, shows him just how pitiful, how silly he is, really, to behave the way he does. Want the things he wants.

Last night was hard. Today doesn't have to be, but it still is.

Hilary

What Ivan said was true: it's nice, having your own staff, your own people, loyal to no one but you. Carlisle, her driver, who quickly hires a crew at Hilary's whim to sail the massive yacht, who suggests to her household manager -- the woman who remains to be seen -- that perhaps they should get hire a larger staff than just three, because that is what it will take to deal with this woman and her lifestyle. Miranda, whose last name is older than several countries, including this one, says that yes, that is something they'll have to consider. In the meantime, Darya goes out onto Cielo as well, as does Carlisle, and they make themselves like silent, unseen mice, like all the rest. Like good servants.

Hilary wears one of those strapless, one-piece bathing suits that twists across her bosom. She wears large sunglasses and gold bangles. She wears a gauzy caftan that billows slightly in the breeze. She wears, yes, one of those large, classic hats, and she stays in the umbrella-given shade on the flybridge, lounging on a long and low chair as they cut across the water. She and her paramour, who lets the sun caress his skin, lays himself out in the light where she can see him, are hardly speaking to each other.

She watches him when he swims -- she certainly doesn't join him, bathing suit notwithstanding. She sips her drink and watches him flicker in the deep blue water, golden and lovely, here because he can't stand to leave her. Because she told him that no.

She didn't really want him to go, either.

But not here because he's enjoying himself. Not here because he's happy when he's with her, better when he's with her. Because, simply enough, of those burning binary stars that wheel about each other between them. Love and need, whichever one is ruling the sky at the moment. And Hilary, being what she is, doesn't know which one is which. She stays in the shade, away from the light of stars. They burn. They are far, far too bright for her.

Cold as she is, detached as she is, Hilary is no fool. She knows what she's done to him. What he's done to her. Changed her in this intricate physical way that can't ever be properly erased. Made her feel something like comfort, something like what people call home. She knows quite well how much he hates her sometimes, because she cannot give him what he wants from her. She knows what it is. She tries. It simply isn't there. Not always, at least. Not enough.

But there he is, dragging himself back up out of the water and onto the deck once more, shaking droplets from his hair. They catch the afternoon sun like diamonds, glinting as they fall. He sweeps his broad palms over his scalp, skimming water off of himself, and she catches his eyes finding her again, coming back to her again.

If she took his hand and drew him near when he returned to where she sits. If she kissed him in that way -- that way that is not seeking and curious and tender and explorative, as it was last night on the couch when her lips brushed over his brow and his cheeks -- that is an invitation, an opening of the gate, a blessing to unleash what she knows is in him...

If she pulled him close and let him dissolve all of his want and his need and his love in her, then yes. He would forgive her in an instant, it would all be forgotten, like it never happened.

And as soon as she couldn't. As soon as she grew tired or if she pulled away, if she changed her mind or if he crossed a line or asked dozens of his questions or if she grew irritated at something he did, he would be right back here. Telling her how cold she is. Asking her -- out of nowhere, it seems -- if she even still wants him. Lashing out in anger because he feels so pathetic, he feels so cut down, he feels silly, he feels like a child, and the one thing he loves in the world doesn't love him back.

Leaving her staring at him, bewildered. Not to mock him, but because she simply doesn't understand how quickly he moves from faith to fury. Because laughably, Hilary does not understand fragility. So accustomed to being broken, she does not grasp how someone -- how anyone -- would try to keep all the pieces together, hold everything in place, when everything

inevitably

shatters.

The sky is pink and they are still out on the water. Hilary has changed, back in those white slacks and a loose, short-sleeved top. She's wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, though it isn't cold. Her hat is gone, and a few strands of her hair get plucked by the breeze here and there, pulled into the air or across her cheek. She remembers, as Darya brings a tray of finger-foods and canapes up to the table between their lounge chairs,

fireworks last fall. And how she was already pregnant, not quite but almost visibly so. Ivan making sure his cook made foods that were gentle on the stomach and wouldn't ignite her heartburn. Ivan letting her sit at his feet and rest her head on his leg. She remembers fireworks like witch's hats and pumpkins lighting up the sky in a far more friendly way than the burning, burning sun.

The madness of it strikes her for a moment as she eats a small hors d'voeuvre. She is scared of the dark. She hates too much light. She is frightened of being swallowed, consumed, devoured. She dreams of peacefully sinking down into cold, dark depths that will take her very last breath away. She hates Ivan, sees him as a clinging child, constantly pawing at her, wailing for her, begging her for what she doesn't have. And: she does not want him to go. She wants very badly for him to love her like that: to let her sit at his feet, resting her head against him, while he strokes her hair and lets her know

she is good. she is good and she is loved and it is okay. it is all right that she is mad and inhuman and broken to pieces. she does not have to be whole. she is loved. she is precious.

In the middle of their silence, and the middle of the hush that falls across the hemisphere when the sun begins to set, Hilary sets down the half-eaten morsel she picked up and says -- though her eyes never leave the horizon, the skyline of the city beyond which the sun is sinking --

"I want you not to be angry with me."

As though it's last night, past midnight, and he's snapping what the fuck do you want from me. But she doesn't throw anything at him. She doesn't start screaming at him.

"You're almost always angry with me for something," she says. "So often I don't understand where it comes from. Like you're speaking in a code I haven't learned. You snap at me as though I should know better, and I don't know what I've done wrong. When you tell me it, it always seems to be things I didn't do wrong, but for not... feeling a certain way."

Hilary's brow furrows as she looks at him. "It isn't that I don't know what you want me to feel at different times. It's that I don't. And I can't. I can't... always be what you want or need me to be, even if I know.

"It doesn't mean I don't care," she says, her voice so quiet even the lapping of the water against Cielo's hull could overtake it. "It's simply that I can't. Which you know. You know that... I'm not right."

She says this with a measure of frustration. A measure of anxiety that he can hear tightening her voice. She isn't right in the head. She is just a little bit more soulless than the average person. She knows very well that she's mad. She uses the euphemisms anyway. Her eyes go away again, back towards the sky, turning from pink to purple so slowly the change is almost unnoticable until it's done. "I'm not asking you to always be patient or understanding or simpering around me sweeping up the glass," she says, her voice restablized by a few notches, but still quiet. "I just wish you wouldn't get so angry. I wish you wouldn't behave as though every time I can't give you what you need, it means you don't matter and I don't want you to stay.

"It isn't... pleasant... to think I may be happy or cold or lascivious or exhausted and still be able to be near you, precious to you... and then have you shout recriminations at me as though I've knowingly, intentionally wounded you."

There's a long pause. She exhales a quiet sigh. "I am not good, Ivan, but I am not cruel.

"Not to you. Never you."

Ivan

There are clouds on the eastern horizon now. Gathering like night made physical; lit by the westering sun. They are beautiful, and Ivan looks at them. Is looking at them when Hilary speaks. It's the first time they've spoken to each other in longer than he can easily remember, and the sound of her voice makes his head turn almost before he recognizes it as hers.

In the few days before birth, a million synapses form in a fetus's brain every second. A million memories forged every second, all of them implicit, indelibly etching the mother into the child. Every detail, every nuance, every subconscious cue of recognition fused well before that first fateful breath. There is no way Anton can ever forget his mother, even if he cannot quite remember her. Sometimes Ivan feels the same way. Like somehow, without his knowing it, the connections have formed, the ties have knotted, and he couldn't forget Hilary now if he tried. He remembers her even without realizing it.

So he looks at her when she speaks, before he even knows she's speaking. And she tells him what she tells him, and a few times his smooth brow wrinkles; once or twice he closes his eyes for a moment, pained. She's not right, she says, and he draws a breath like he might protest. Or comfort. Or -- something, something that another man might be able to do without thought. Something that would come naturally to someone else, someone whole and unselfish and right.

Oh, but that's not who they are. So time goes by, and he looks at her again, and it's only when she finishes that his eyes drop away for a moment.

When they come back to her, he rises. He gets up off his lounge chair and he crosses the small space between; he sits on the edge of hers. His skin is dry now, and his hair. He doesn't touch her. He sits with his elbows on his knees, his elegant hands loosely folded together. He thinks for a moment, and then it's a lie after all because he does touch her. Turns at the waist and covers her hand with his - tentative at first, then with firmness. Warmth. He draws her hand to his lap and folds his fingers over hers; draws her hand around his waist, if she lets him, and pulls her gently against his back.

"I know," he says softly. "I do know that, Hilary. And I know it's unfair of me ... selfish, to ask you to change what you can't. I even thought I'd come to terms with it. Come to peace with you. Last night I was just ... there was too much, and I couldn't ... "

Her hand is pressed to his body, just beneath his breastbone. She can feel his pulse there. If she can just feel his heartbeat, he thinks, maybe she'll understand. Maybe she'll understand what he's trying to tell her when words fail, the way Anton understood this is mother, the way Ivan understood

i love you

when he was inside her, and she as deep inside him as blood, as memory.

"I didn't want you to stop last night." This is all he can come up with in the end. It's not an invitation; it's not a proposition. It is what it is: a truth from a very good liar, which is hard for him to speak. His chest moves against her palm, proof of life, and then she can feel his voice before she can hear it. "I've never seen you like that before, and I wanted ... I wish I'd had the patience."

Everything he's saying to her: scraps and pieces, disjointed fragments of a truth he doesn't quite know how to tell her. And to think, she's the shattered one.

"I do try," he whispers. "And I try to remember you're trying, too. I wish I didn't fail as often as I did."

Hilary

There are, in fact, not a lot of people in this city who have watched the sun set onto the Atlantic. Hilary and Ivan have, and have done so together. It is one of the ways to make silence between two people easier to bear -- in fact, to make it almost mandatory. Ritualistic. She has stood on the deck of a boat next to him and watched the sun sink downward to the sea, and their hands at their sides have quietly, gently intertwined, only to separate moments after darkness with no other acknowledgement.

He has, also, held her tight and close and watched how her hand wrapped both protectively and pleadingly around the tiny, bootie-covered foot of their newborn son without ever admitting that she was doing it, without Ivan ever being able to bear asking her why. Why she did that. There was his child, so small and exhausted from simply breathing that Hilary couldn't bear to speak, to inflict what she was going through on his poor senses. Don't let me hurt him were the last words Anton ever heard in his mother's voice, and he was sleeping at the time. They came to him in a dream. He forgot to the point that he never really knew.

Ivan couldn't forget that if he tried. And perhaps he has.

When he gets up and crosses to her lounger, Hilary looks up furtively. She follows him with her eyes as he sits, and her legs are laid out behind his back, her hip against him. They are closer than they've been all day. Touching, as they have not touched since he woke and found her laid alongside him, draped over him, holding him the way she never does. Even if she never does because he so often ties her to the bed, and because she loves that so much, because it makes her feel so safe and so loved, and because it makes him feel like he can sleep. She won't vanish while he isn't watching. She's his. For a few hours, and because she's bound, but his.

Ivan is silent. Then not, turning and touching her, covering her hand. She turns hers at the wrist and links their fingers. It is one of the only gestures of welcome she's given him in a little less than twenty-four hours, one of the only times so far that his touch hasn't made her recoil somehow. Hilary sits up as he draws her nearer, a faint frown wrinkling her brow in confusion, but then she leans against his back, her chin on his shoulder, her arm around his stomach, her hand held in his.

And so they're close again. Suturing a gash. Closing a rift.

His words don't make much sense. He didn't want her to stop, but she knows that -- she can't imagine a man who would have wanted her to stop, to get off of him, to walk away from him as she did. He'd never seen her like that before, and she knows that -- she knows, better than anyone, how rarely she is happy. How rarely she is soft. He wanted -- but he can't say. He wishes he'd had the patience. And that, at last, she didn't know before. That he didn't ignore how she was, that he wasn't unaware, that he did care about it. He just didn't have the patience.

That, Hilary can understand. Not like. But understand, because it is what she keeps telling him, in a way.

"Silver Fangs never fail," she says after a moment, her voice smooth, almost wry. "Or at least we never apologize for it."

Cruel of her to try to insert levity into a time like this, he might think, before he remembers: she's not trying to be cruel. She's not trying to ignore how he feels, or the sunset, or how she feels herself. She's not trying to cheer him up, or smooth over the roughness by simply refusing to acknowledge them.

It's just what she is.

Her hand flexes on his chest. She turns her head on his shoulder and rests it against the roundedness there, the firm muscle that is toned against her cheek even when relaxed. It means she is looking down the line of his back, her hair falling over his arm and part of his chest. It feels good. Cool. Very soft, almost silken.

"Don't leave me," she whispers a moment later, and she's never asked him this before. She says it the way she sometimes tells him what she wants when he's already got her tied down somehow, the way she once whispered: You do it. Like she wants to pretend she isn't really saying it. Like she wants them both to pretend it is simply who he is, what he wants, whether she asks for it or not.

Ivan

Hilary has never asked this of Ivan before. To some degree, he supposes he's never thought she cared. He supposes he's always thought if he did walk away from her, and this, if he did leave her, she would simply move on to the next beautiful young thing who bends to her dark desires. Her needs. For a creature so assured and confident of his own privilege, his own wealth, Ivan is sometimes shockingly unaware of his own rareness. Shockingly unaware of how rare it is, really, to be so young, so lovely, so savage, so dark.

He knows how rare she is, though. How very precious.

It breaks his heart a little to hear her ask what she does. It breaks his heart a little to hear how she asks it, these things she wants of him -- as though she never asked at all. As though everything he gives her, he gives of his own free will. As though she needs this pretense because the alternative is too much to bear.

And in the end, what she wants of him is so little. Patience. Love, unconditional of how she behaves or how broken she is. Generosity. Understanding. Strange; but when it's put like that they seem almost normal. It's what any couple, any lover would want.

Ivan reaches back with his free hand. The muscles of his back shift against her torso, her cheek; he reaches over his shoulder, cups his hand over her head. I'm trying, he wants to say, but he's not cruel. Not to her. I'll stay, he wants to say, but he doesn't know if that's true; if it will remain true. He asks himself if he can keep this promise to her, because words have power; words weave vows. He will not lie to her now. He can't remember if he's ever lied to her.

He doesn't lie to her now:

"I won't." His hand squeezes hers for a second. Secures her arm a little tighter around his body. "I want to stay."

Hilary

There is this, too: how she feels for him. Nothing much to do with his rarity, or even her own needs.

Of course at first that's all it is, that's all it ever is with anyone, normal or mad or otherwise. He was so young and lovely and strong and cocky, so she ignored him. He sniffed after her, laid down the single card of pure lust, and so she took him. But oh, those flickers of anger licking at the air between them even at the start. When she told him to undress for her, and when he started trying to take control of her, dominate her, she could sense something else in him. So she stoked that fire, provoked it, and he unleashed all that dark, savage hunger for her. She learned there was a limit to what he could stand very quickly; he was so very shaken by what she'd awoken.

And that made him all the more appealing to her, for more than one or two trysts. That it was new to him. He was so golden and gleaming and untarnished, only just finding inside of him the side that she was most interested in. So they went on with it.

Then time and again it became clear that one or both should leave, wanted to leave even, and didn't. That was when things changed forever. That was when they started using words like 'need' as though that were really all it was. As though that was what it was, at all.

Hilary doesn't answer him. To answer him would mean admitting she said it in the first place. She lays against his shoulder, hugging her shawl around her shoulders, as he covers her head like that. It's something like stasis, for them. Back to the nearest approximation of peace they know with each other. "Let's stay on Cielo tonight," she finally whispers, when she lifts her head, meeting his eyes. Her hair is mussed, slightly.

Ivan

He turns his head as she lifts hers. Even that brief period, that brief contact, was enough to warm his already warm skin where her head lay. When she draws away, his skin feels cool -- like a physical reminder of what he already knows to be true.

He feels it when she's here. He misses her when she's gone.

So his eyes meet hers over his shoulder. Her hair is loose, and it swept over his skin; strands stray across her face, and flyaways net back from her temples. She suggests something quite rare, at least when they're in Chicago, and a little dangerous: more time with one another, when sometimes what little they have is fraught with peril and misunderstanding. He's a little afraid, this golden creature that seems to fear nothing. Another night like the last would be crushing. Unbearable.

A beat later, Ivan rests his brow to Hilary's. His eyes are still open a little ways, downcast. He rubs his face to hers very gently, very slowly, breathes like a sigh.

"All right." This too is a whisper.

Hilary

The sun sets, and tonight is nothing like the night before.

They stay where they are, twisted and twined together, her hand on his breastbone and their heads close together, while the sky gets dark and the lake gets colder. Dinner is served in the salon, sheltered but still open to the night, and they walk down to the blue, cream, and gold space to sit, and dine, and listen to the water lapping at the yacht. The twilit sky roils with dark clouds and the wind picks up, whistling across the opening to the salon. When the rain comes, it comes quickly and heavily, a blinding torrent.

Of course, throughout the yacht there are crewmen that Carlisle hired wondering when they're going to get to end this. Carlisle, on board to supervise everything, thinks again that they need their own staff. He thinks about expansions, about getting a dedicated driver and serving simply as Hilary's bodyguard himself. He thinks about talking to Miranda about all this, and how Miranda will only tell him what she told him before: we'll see. They don't know each other well yet.

Darya is on board too. She is the only one they chance to see, because she is the one who cleans up, who serves, who hovers out of sight but not earshot. Hilary is training her to leave her the fuck alone unless there's something to do. It's Darya and Carlisle and the crewmen who have to prepare the boat for the rainstorm, what little preparation there is to be done.

For their part, Hilary and Ivan recline in the salon, watching the rain hit the lake, texturizing it wildly. The world turns around them, and other people make it go. Hilary wonders if that's why they're all so mad, so detached -- they are so wealthy, so fine, so well-bred, that they hardly even interact with the world anymore. She wonders whether Ivan really is Garou. She wonders when he last had blood on his fangs. She tries to remember a time when she saw Dion after a battle. She can't think of a single instance.

And she tells herself that still: she cooks sometimes. She knows things about where the food comes from. She has never worked for a living, even when her inheritance was dwindling and her servants were dying of simple old age and Silver Fang madness. She has always been saved. She wonders what, what now, will happen when the money runs out. She wonders if there are ways to stop the money from ever running out again, and decides to ask Miranda about that. She will probably never be mated again.

In this, the Garou and the human world agree: at 34, she may as well be a shriveled crone. She is not some powersuit-wearing woman of vicious acumen or highly specialized skill, and being a trophy wife only works if you do it right -- that is, stay beautiful and fuck often, give children if he wants them or if it keeps you busy. And that is all she's been trained to become. She cannot be a dancer. She has no interest in cooking as a profession. She isn't very good at anything else. She can't think of a life other than the one she has where she could do what she likes and not have to be around people very much.

People tend to notice how damaged she is, and think she wants their intervention. Think, whether she wants it or not, that intervention is their right.

Ivan stays close after that moment on the flybridge, achingly so. And Hilary never pulls away. When he stands near her and doesn't even touch her, she barely seems to notice him. He puts his arm around her when they've eaten to feel her against his side, and she turns toward him like that as they watch the rain. He is hesitant to do more, he thinks about last night still, weighing on every thought and twisting every desire. To be close to her, to touch her and not be rejected -- he wants this to be enough for him tonight, lest they break something. Lest they snap each other in half.

And cold as she might be, Hilary knows. She doesn't like it. Doesn't like that she's reduced him to this hesitance, justified and understandable as it might be. At once she is glad that he relents for once, that he doesn't demand, doesn't push -- and regrets it, because it is unnatural to him. It is not always what he wants, but he sometimes does it for her sake, and then she wonders. She creates her own doubt.

The night gets colder and colder, til even the salon is chilly. Last night, the way she came to him on her couch and sank down onto him, kissed those soft kisses over his face, is gone. How she felt then is gone, and it might not come back again for months. For years. She doesn't know, and it can't be what they hope for, what they look for. She knows that too well -- she hopes Ivan understands.

That moment is gone. This one is now:

Hilary turns to Ivan where they lounge on the cushions of the salon's seating and her shawl slips from her arm as she puts her lips on his throat, tender and searching. His fingers take the delicate fabric and draw it back over her arm and shoulder, but his hand pauses as that kiss deepens. Hilary begins tasting his skin, drawing a fold gently between her teeth. She learned this a long time ago, this way of using her teeth and her hands that rides the edge between tender and violent.

What comes naturally to her is the violence. It is hard work, concentration, to stop short of inflicting sharp and vivid pain when she feels flesh between her teeth. She should have been born Garou. Still would not have been able to save her brother, she was so very young, but then she would have outlet for her rage, and she might have had a few more years of something like sanity. She might know how to live in this world.

But right now, this is her life: the way Ivan's breathing quickens rapidly, his hand on her arm closing as though to hold her there, but still not rough, only unconsciously tight. The way he feels when she starts unbuttoning his shirt again, stroking her hands over his chest. How he hardens to her, so fucking quickly, so readily, when he turns his head and seeks her lips, finds her accepting him, welcoming it when he groans into her mouth, when his hand moves up her side to her breast, cupping it through satin and lace, caressing it in his palm until the urge to turn her under him and fuck her is rising like it never abated, not in all this time.

She thought of drawing back, taking him down to the cabin, but in the moment, Hilary doesn't draw away. She doesn't take his hand and wordlessly lead him anywhere. She presses into him when he touches her breast, and she puts her hands on his back under his shirt. Hilary rolls onto her back for him, pulling him over her. The place where they lie is narrow and open to the lake, but the lights inside the yacht are off and

soon, so are their clothes. First her shawl slipping to the ground, and Ivan's shirt half-torn from his shoulders, tossed out of the way. Everything else, crushed under their bodies and dropped on the ground and kicked away, til all there is is Ivan's long, lean body flexing slowly, firmly, between Hilary's legs.

They make love. Strange as that may sound. He can't take his hands from her, stroking her hair back, skimming over her body. He holds her hip and pulls her up to him as he quickens his pace, panting at the feel of her. And she kisses him, kisses him over and over, drowning him in her mouth, making soft sounds that grow louder as his thrusts grow harder, as he starts keeping her in place and pounding her, the two of them sweating despite the chill in the air, clinging to each other until Hilary's eyes spark and flicker with pleasure, until Ivan's eyes close from a sheer overwhelming of his senses.

It's different. Not without comparison, even between the two of them, but it's different. She's shaken afterward, drained, as perhaps he knew she might be. She withdraws a little, as he perhaps knew she might, thought that doesn't take the sting out of it, that doesn't make him howl inside any less. She seems so tired, and though the boat is rocking with the wind and the rain is still coming down, Ivan lifts her onto his body, carries her down to the cabin where he's not sure if Dion has ever had her.

The bed is large, even given the luxury of the yacht, and the room is luxurious. The linens are clean, the covers turned down and waiting for them. They don't bother to shower.

They fuck again, which is unexpected and confusing and then: different again, too. Because this time it's unclear who instigates what, only that soon the covers are torn back and Ivan is pinning her down, fucking her hard this time, snarling in her ear as her cunt clenches down on him, telling her she's a fucking whore, god, what a wet little slut, what a horny little bitch, taking it like that, taking his cock like she's dying for it. And this time the sounds she makes aren't soft or whimpering, by the middle of it Hilary's moans are ringing through the cabin, and he likes her moans

so he fucks her that much harder, bites into her, slaps her when her back arches upward and her hips lift, when he wants her to ride up on his cock, makes her beg him for it, makes her scream.

In the shower afterward, tiny box of warm water that it is, he wraps his arms around her from behind and holds her, his face buried against her wet hair, his arms covering her, keeping her, holding her together.

They wake to find Cielo docking, late in the morning the next day. They are spared the tawdry sight of Carlisle's overpaying the crew he hired, and Carlisle's annoyance that now finding capable people will be that much more difficult because stories might go around about this yacht and its owner. It's one thing to hire on a permanent basis and have some measure of loyalty, some understanding of what they're getting themselves into, but he doesn't want to do this again. He'll put his foot down if Miranda says 'we'll see' at him again.

Darya's eyes are wide as the manservant grumbles over his coffee in the tiny space where the servants have their cabin, because he swears in some language she doesn't even recognize about the fact that they're lucky to have gotten through the night, and she doesn't know anything about shipcraft. She sips her tea and waits to hear Hilary call for her.

Hilary lies in bed tangled with Ivan, his hand locked onto her wrist even in sleep, no matter how they turn away from each other throughout the night. Hilary is waking up to find that his eyes are opening, too, and the boat is coming to shore. It's bright out, and there's no more rain. He doesn't even ask: calls Dmitri while they're getting dressed and has him send over one of his cars. He leaves Cielo before Hilary does, and she watches him from the deck walking along the pier, walking away, back to the life he leads when she's not there.

She considers what her life is when he's not there. Turns away after he's out of sight, and tells Carlisle idly that they should hire their own crew for the yacht.

Of course, madam, he says. I'll speak with Ms. Sala as soon as we return to your residence.

And I want to move, she says, then pauses, looking at the lake. No, I want to keep the apartment. I want a house, though. It's too cramped in the city.

Yes of course, madam, he says.

Hilary sends Darya away when she gets back to her apartment. Her footsteps ring out across the concrete flooring. The echo reminds her of Ivan's presence, and Anton's memory, impressions left long after the initial physical impact is gone. Like a bruise, she thinks. Very much like a bruise.