Ivan Press

Hilary

She obeys. That sound -- that crack of her hand across his face -- would be heard outside the confines of a cheaper elevator. This one does not descend unless it is told to; his guests are right on the other side of the silent steel doors. And his cheek instantly turns pink, then red, the force knocking something loose enough that his nose reacts, blood filling the nearest orifice and trickling out. Hilary is looking at him not in horror, not in angst, but as though to see if that's good. If that's what he wanted. If she did it right. If he's pleased with her.

And he is. In his own twisted, awful way, Ivan is not just pleased but aroused, grabbing her again and kissing her, holding her by the hair. She moans, and she can smell his blood right under her own nostrils, and she sinks slightly as her knees buckle.

Then he leaves her. She has one hand on the wall of the elevator, looking shaken, and that is what a few people in the gallery see when the doors open and Ivan stalks out. Ripples of gasps follow him, and then are silenced by the doors closing. She descends. Carlisle is waiting for the car, holding her coat. Darya is already in the passenger seat. She looks up and out as Hilary nears, as Carlisle folds her into her coat. She is trying to be unobtrustive as Hilary settles into the seat behind her, as the doors close, as Carlisle gets back in. The engine is running; the car is warm.

"We're going to the cabin," Hilary informs them, and Darya is secretly quite happy. She likes the big lake house, and the servants' quarters there. It's so quiet, and big, and old-fashioned, and with Ivan and Hilary sequestered away from everyone, it's like a little holiday every time they go. She hides a smile.

Hilary rubs her stinging palm. Not to soothe it. To make the ache burn.

They drive, and they get there before Ivan does. The car idles in the drive, past the house and out by the cabin. Hilary looks out the window, uncertain. Ivan told her to go to the cabin. He didn't give her any instructions on what to do when they got there. Someone else might think about the servants, too -- is the lake house staffed? Is anyone there to let them in? Hilary does not. She looks at the lake house, dark inside right now, and doesn't want to go by herself. She sinks into her coat a little more, reluctant, irrational terror creeping up cold inside and gripping various internal organs. What if Ivan doesn't come? What if he doesn't come for a very long time? What if she can't find the lightswitch?

Hilary doesn't move. Carlisle doesn't speak; nor does Darya. Eventually, Carlisle turns off the car, and it's warm enough that it stays warm for some time. When Ivan arrives in one of his ridiculous sportscars, Hilary's car is sitting there, dark inside, and she is a shadow.

All things considered, Ivan is there fairly rapidly. Certainly he had to wait for everyone to leave first. Well; no, he didn't have to, but he suspects the gossip mill has more than enough to churn on. No need to add speculation as to where he was going this late at night. So: he waited, and after they were all gone, he hopped in one of his ridiculous cars and drove here. Quite fast. Quite a bit over the speed limit. At this hour on a Saturday night - on Christmas Eve at that - Lake Shore Drive is almost deserted. Sheridan is too. His lakehouse is very quiet, very dark. By morning the other servants will have come, following their master like so many shadows, but for now, stillness. Silence.

Enough that Hilary can hear Ivan's roadster pulling into the drive long before the headlights sweep her vehicle. He parks not in the garage at the main house but right behind her, a lean dark shadow himself when he swings out of the driver's seat. The doors open upward; it's the Lamborghini. Hilary likely considers it the most vulgar of his toys.

Then he's coming to her car, coming directly to her door and pulling it open. He bends to look at her, curious. Her coat is in its box, under his arm. "Why are you sitting out here?" he wants to know, and holds his hand out for hers. "Come inside, dorogoi."

And only after she's risen out of her car, only after he's already turned to go, does he remember her servants. He turns back, reflexively and carelessly polite, tossing his keys to Carlisle: "Let yourselves in. Make yourselves comfortable. I'm sure Dmitri and the others will be along soon."

A fool could see he barely cares what the servants do next. A fool could see he only really cares about this woman whose hand is in his. He's turning back to her without waiting for a response. As they go down the path to the wood-plank bridge, and across that bridge to their cabin on stilts, he bends a little to her, he looks at her - attentive, very nearly devoted.

"Are you all right?" These words never reach the servants they leave behind. The wind catches them, and as it pulls across the narrow walkway out to the cabin, Ivan puts his arm around Hilary, pulls her against his side as though to shield her from the cold. A fool could see how much he cares.

There is a bright blossom of a bruise on Ivan's face when he stalks toward the car. Carlisle notices him, unlocks the doors with a flick of a switch, and so when Ivan grasps the handle it swings easily outward. Hilary doesn't startle; rather, she looks gratefully and quickly toward him, taking in the sight of his coat, the box under his arm, the discoloration of his face. She looks elated.

"It's dark," she explains, half-petulant, and likely both her servants all but twitch with the desire to cast a sidelong look at each other, a wtf, seriously?.

Her hand slips into Ivan's. He draws her out, but before he closes the door, he remembers the other two. Carlisle catches the keys and gives him a nod: "Thank you, sir," he says, faintly accented. And the servants do what they do, take care of themselves, though as soon as Ivan and Hilary have vanished into the cabin there is the business of laying Hilary's overnight bags at the end of the bridge. They do not cross it. It is as though there are trolls beneath.

Hilary just holds his hand, though, as he walks her across the bridge, toward the cabin and the lapping dark water, watching her with adoration and devotion and care, deep care. She tucks herself closer to him against the wind, even as he's pulling her closer. "Da," she says. She is done with telling him no tonight, it seems. Her hair brushes his bruise. She nuzzles him under his jaw there, not to heal or even thinking of the slap at all, but simply because he's there.

That bruise of his still feels warm. It would be easy enough for Ivan to shift and get rid of it, but - in some odd way it amuses him, and so he lets it stay. He can't remember the last time he was bruised, but doubtlessly it was some monster, some fiend. He didn't even think it was possible to be slapped hard enough to bruise; but then, Ivan rarely gets slapped. Not that his doves and pigeons and swans haven't tried.

He wonders how her hand is. He tries to look, but it's too dark out here. He thinks of her saying it's dark gives her shoulders a squeeze, keeps her firmly against his side even as he's reaching into his pocket for his keys. It's only a few steps from the car to the cabin, and he hasn't bothered to button his coat. Underneath, he's still wearing what he was wearing the last time he saw her.

It takes a bit of dexterity to open the door without dropping the coat-box. He manages. The first thing Ivan does is flick on the lights. The second thing he does is lower the shades. Light lives in the space between the white walls and the pale wood floors; the high ceiling and the pristine furniture. Ivan lets Hilary go as he's turning to close the door. The box ends up on the bed. Ivan helps Hilary out of her coat, then goes to hang both their outerwear up in the closet.

"You should put it on," he says of the furs. "Though I'm afraid I've made it rather hard for you to wear that in public, at least in Chicago."

The closet door closes with a soft tap. He goes to the kitchen, retrieves a bottle of wine from the small cooler under the counter. They've both been drinking, but it's Christmas Eve; what's another glass. A buzz and a whirr, and the automatic decorker has the bottle open. He fetches glasses, pours with negligent ease: the small of his back to the counters, both glasses caught in the fingers of one hand. When he's finished, he holds one glass toward her. Makes her come across the cabin to him.

The overt dominance in that is belied by his question, though: "Should I not have done that?"

She's tried to slap him before and failed; he's caught her wrist, her hand, bared his teeth at her in warning. And she's been simultaneously incensed and aroused, furious and yet ardent. This time she only did it because he told her to; didn't ask. Told. Instructed her to harm him, and that's the only way she ever would have, could have, in the state he left her in up in his bedroom.
It's not the same as wrecking her completely, not the same as completely forcing her body and mind to finally melt together, leaving her in an extraordinarily vulnerable state. He couldn't have left her alone if he'd done that to her, couldn't have gone back down to the party, couldn't have expected her to put herself back together and pretend to be human for all those people. He didn't take her that far this time, though.

Not yet.

They walk across the bridge and into the cabin, and he makes the dark go away. She exhales a soft sigh as the door closes behind them. The interior of the cabin is cool but not cold, never completely cold, and it is clean. Very soon it is brigh, the shades down to hide the fact that it is nighttime out there.

She has nowhere to be tomorrow for Christmas. One stepchild in Paris. One stepchild with his friends in Ibiza and a barely-present chaperone. One soon-to-be-ex-husband somewhere in the Amazon, unaware of what time of year it is, his proxies handling the details of the divorce as well as the dissolution of mateship. One child in Novgorod, who has no idea the kind of extravagance and brightness and noise and excitement that awaits him when his caregivers get him up out of bed in the morning.

Hilary's coat is gone, and the sable goes on the bed. She floats when she does walk, staying right where she is when he first steps away from her, looking around like she's caught in a dream. Eventually she does walk further in, stepping out of her shoes, unbuttoning the strap of her gown's halter, drawing down the zipper, letting the satin whoosh down her body as she walks. She steps out of the puddle of green, takes pins and barrettes and the like from her hair, drops them everywhere, scatters herself everywhere,

while he prepares something to drink and tells her to put it on. Says now she can't wear it in public.

"I wouldn't have," she murmurs, and the bustier leaves her, parts of her skin still pink from wearing it even for a couple of hours. She's in nothing but garter and stockings now, her hair a tangling mess of curls down her back, across her bared shoulder. Jewelry on her wrists, her fingers, her bangles on her wrist. She unbuttons her garters, strips out of them, flops on the bed as she peels her stockings off. For a moment they drape along the edge of the bed, then slip and slide off, down, another puddle on the floor -- this one silk, this one black.

In moments, mere moments, she's down to jewelry and flesh. She is peering at the box, curling up on the bed with it, looking over at Ivan. He's holding a glass out to her. She looks at him, tips her head, as though uncomprehending. She has her hands on the box, is kneeling, prepared to lift the lid and obey,

put it on,

but he asks her if he shouldn't have done that. Her eyes close once, open slowly. "I don't know," she says, her words so frightfully, disturbingly innocent.

While he hangs up their coats, she lets down her hair. While he pours wine, she slips out of her dress. In some ways they are like any other couple coming home from a Christmas party. In others, they are the very mockery of such a thing.

He pours by instinct, mostly. Muscle-memory. His eyes are on her as she lets her bustier fall. Peels out of those stockings with their archaic little button-holes. Then she's naked, her body pale and perfect apart from a red mark here and there where her lingerie - those garments so cleverly engineered to contain, shape, and present her to best effect - cut into her. She's naked, and he's growing aroused, because

- well. The link there is obvious.

She does not seem to quite understand what he means with the glass and the wine. She is so fragile and innocent now, which is disturbing because she is also kneeling naked on his bed, turning him on with her very presence. He comes toward her instead, setting both glasses down on one of those slender-legged little tables that flank the bed.

"Well," he says, "it's done. So I suppose there's little use analyzing it now." And he sits on the edge of the bed, indenting it a little with his weight, turning his head to watch her. "Go on."

She wears her sexuality so openly now. She doesn't have to. At his party, cool and aloof, she fascinated. She drew looks. Men sniffed around her, circled her, thought themselves entitled to her simply because they wanted her. And she ignored them, and upstairs all she did was tell Ivan no, and yet it was still there, a corona around her. She does not have to play at sensuality to get attention, and she doesn't have to act sexually to have people wanting to fuck her.

But she doesn't feel it. That aura burns around her, not from within her. She seems untouchable not because she plays hard to get, but because she doesn't even feel that part of herself most of the time. She's disconnected. She's separate.

Now, though, she feels it. She looks at him and knows he wants her, and she knows she wants him, and she can barely wait for him, but she is just human enough now to fear rejection if she asks him for it. So, naked because that was the image she first had of herself in fur, naked because he gifted her with such a primeval present, naked because they are finally in their strange little home and because she wants him to pin her wrists down and take her,

Hilary knows that her body was made to fuck. To move. To be touched, and beautiful, and adored, and taken care of. To hurt. To bruise and bleed. To heal.

He comes to her and her heart quickens, so does her breath. Just a little. Ivan sets the wine down and sits, not quite reclining or lounging yet. He isn't even fully facing her. Hilary is watching him, though, and she obeys: rises up on her knees, begins to draw the heavy, thick fur out of the box. Yard after yard of it, all those glistening pelts, til she finds the inner lining of the coat and wraps it around herself, winds it around her body, over her calves, behind her ass. Hilary twists to look over her shoulder as she finds the sleeves and slips her arms into them, drawing the fur upward with a long shrug.

Her jeweled hands wrap the fur around herself, closing off the view of her for a moment. She revels; her eyes close, her lips part. She rubs the coat against herself: her breasts, her belly, even between her legs, luxuriating in it against her naked flesh. A soft gasp leaves her and she topples, flops backward on the bed, her head at the foot. The box and tissue paper tumble to the ground, the sides of the coat opening over her chest. She writhes slightly, arching a little, then, with a sigh, relaxes her entire body. Lays limp like that, wearing the fur he spent half a million on and ruined his reputation in high society to give to her,

to see her just like this.

The truth is Ivan's expenditures of late have been a little beyond the pale, even by his family's grossly distorted standards. The idle ten thousand here, hundred thousand there; the random trip to Monaco, the regular hedonistic parties - well, these expenses are understandable. Even expected. The enormous funds now set aside for the upbringing and education of his firstborn son, bastard though he may be: more than justified.

But then there were the millions spent on commissioning a cabin over the lake. The millions more spent on putting a dance studio, of all things, atop it. The jewelry. That ring he's yet to even present to her. That coat. Ridiculous expenses, and obviously not for himself. Obviously for a woman. A lover. His mistress. There's curiosity. There are raised eyebrows. There's idle speculation in his family now that Ivan's taken up with a dancer; how free-spirited of him. Maybe it's that ballerina at Joffrey, but no, reportedly he hasn't been seen with her since godknowswhen, and

well. After tonight, rumors will spread like ripples on a pond. And those in his family that care about such things, those who track expenditures and genealogies, who very much think of certain gifts and allowances and bestowances as rewards for certain tasks well done - if they don't add two and two, if they don't begin to even suspect that this former dancer, this silver fang kin, this wife and mate of another wolf, this woman to whom Ivan tried to present half a million dollars of prized prey from his homeland, is the mysterious mistress who mothered his child.

It will have to be kept under wraps, of course. But oh, there are those who would be delighted: that she is purely bred; that she is lovely and surprisingly genteel, considering the typical type of girl Ivan tends to gather; that she is, quite simply, old blood in an old tribe. There will be more scrutiny than ever on his son's nature. More pressure than ever to let a Theurge look at him, just a peek into his future, just a quick assessment to determine

just how much this Ivan Press is really worth, investment-wise.

All things considered, perhaps he should have been a little more discreet tonight. Perhaps he should have presented her with some unremarkable little trinket, just like all those other senators' wives and tycoons' mistresses and generals' daughters he entertained tonight.

Ivan frankly does not care about this any more than he cared about what the servants did with themselves after he left their company. He doesn't care about the petty little rumors circulating even now. He doesn't care that Polite Company will now consider him not even roguish, daringly inappropriate but simply heedless. Pathetic. He doesn't care that if he ever shows his face at the yacht club again, or the polo club, or the country club, he'll be politely snubbed; or worse, pitied. It might even filter down to the trendier company he keeps. Those actors and models, those dancers and singers, producers, record execs, up-and-coming young sharks that filled the penthouse on Halloween. Jesus, they'll say, kill me if I ever get so hung up.

He doesn't care what they'll say, though. He doesn't care because his lover lifts that coat out of that box. The silver sheen to the fur marks its quality, but it's the pitch-black undertones that give it such luxury. It is absolutely decadent; the collar and lapels layered with so many pelts that even when she slides it on she can feel fur against her back, against her breasts, against her stomach

almost as though he anticipated that she would do just this. Wear it naked. Slide it on and revel in it. Rub it all over her body.

And watching, Ivan's lips part; his eyes narrow. He wants to sniff the air, catch her scent. He feels fulfilled in a bloody, primal way that he hardly even recognizes. He spends so little time as a wolf. He did not hunt those cunning, swift sables through the snow. But he could have. He would have hunted them for her, hunted every last one of them if that was what it took; killed them and brought them back to be skinned, for their skins to be stitched together so his lover can wear the fur and not be cold even in the dead of winter. So she accepts his offering because it is fitting, it is proper, he has proven his worth and that means she's his. It is a ritual as old as mating.

The bed hardly jostles when she tumbles back onto the mattress. She can feel it dent when his hands come down on either side of her, though. He crawls over her like an animal, on all fours. Lowers his head to her like he's thirsty and she's water; like he's starving and she's meat. He puts his mouth on her: his lips against her skin just beneath her breast, just to the left of her breastbone where her heart beats so achingly close to the surface. He kisses her there, silent in his intensity, rubs his nose and his brow, his face against her.

And then he lifts his head. Earlier she wouldn't let him do this through her dress. You'll leave spots, she said, and he stopped because he wanted to fuck her with his hand instead. She is made for fucking. Made for adoration. No one would ever say she is made for loving; but obsession, certainly.

Ivan closes his mouth over her breast. His tongue circles her nipple, traces it around and around, and then he opens his mouth and takes more of her in, as much as he can, as though he wants to devour her whole. And that first sound escapes him, raw and low and pained, almost, as though lust were agony, as though satiation kills.

At his penthouse, in his room, Ivan told her that he was giving her presents -- plural. Several gifts, and that most of them were here. She sees none. No tree, no twinkling lights, no signal in this cabin of what time of year it is. Some part of her would appreciate this, or will later, when she can think. When she can recognize anything but Ivan and sensations related to Ivan. She likely could not explain why she appreciates it if she tried, or even express that appreciation sanely.

Some furtive, selfish, childlike part of her remembers that he told her he got her lots of presents. This part of her doesn't see them, and wants them, and will ask for them, demand them, always wanting, wanting. That part of her is quiet though, soothed by touch. By, frankly, this gift.

But somewhere around here, there are more. Extravagant, mind-blowing gifts that no one in their right mind would give to an Old Friend of the Family. No one believes that shit anymore, though, not in their circles. At least Dion is divorcing her -- maybe he won't care, if he hears. Maybe his attendants won't care, either, when word trickles back to them that the slightly lavender Ragabash 'protecting' his mate tried to give her a full sable coat. And Hilary doesn't have to tell anyone where she gets the rest. Admirers, she can say. An old friend. She can lie and say it's an inheritance, but she has nothing from her parents, nothing at all left behind that wasn't sold to keep her and her caretakers going. She can pretend. She can look at every single one and think not of Ivan rewarding her for the child, not of Ivan laying claim on her,

but Ivan fighting, raving, obsessing, going mad for her. Showering her with presents because she's been good. Because he wants to have her. Because every animal and every conscious instinct in him is to lay these things at her feet if she will only let him kiss her knee. She can look at them and think of the way he is now, climbing over her so suddenly, ravenous for her, opening his mouth on her breasts like he was denied earlier, suckling at her with a hunger and a pain in him that can only be sated for moments at a time... if that.

Forgotten are the little kinswomen that have peppered his past and present: the school chum, the sailing friend, the drinking buddy, the dancing partner, all of these decadent women with their long legs and pert breasts and whatever else they had that he was drawn to. Forgotten, for now, at least. Hilary doesn't think about them, or about the child, or the rumors, or the people at the party, or his family, or the chance of some relative or acquaintance going to Novgorod and seeing that old photograph in a lovely frame in Anton's nursery and recognizing the woman in it --

old blood in an old tribe. They will keep their mouths shut, avert their eyes, swallow the lie, particularly if Anton Ivanovich is true to that old, old blood.

Ivan lowers his mouth on her, moans for her, licks at her like she's cool milk, and Hilary does not think of and could care less about any of this, any of them. Fur rubs all over her body, caresses her back as she moves against the covers. It slips and tumbles off her leg as she lifts it, slides it against Ivan's side. A soft, helpless sound leaves her mouth. Her hands hold onto his arms, clutch at the sleeves of his shirt. She arches, but he's too far, he isn't grinding between her thighs yet. She lowers her hips again and closes her eyes, head tipped back, hair tumbling down the white, white coverlet of the bed. Their bed.

Her hands on his throat then. Yanking at his tie, tugging at the knot, pulling at the silk. Off, off.

She's tugging at his tie, but he's not ready to take his mouth from her, so she has to work the knot open but it seems to be beyond them right now; those deft fine fingers of hers that undid his fly with such staggering ease that sunny July afternoon seem incapable of the task now. The knot pulls out of shape. The tie catches on itself, half-loosened, and she could tug it over his head but when she tries he lifts his eyes to hers and snarls at her, snarls like a beast in the midst of an interrupted meal

before putting his mouth back on her. Her other breast this time. His brow furrows. He sucks hard enough to make her head fall back, make that helpless little sound of hers tear into a full-throated cry, and then his hands are grabbing hers by the wrists; he wrenches her hands down against the mattress and holds her there, fur soft around the cuffs of the coat, fur soft against his forearms. And he kisses and sucks and nips at her breasts until he lifts his head, kisses her mouth this time, kisses her hard enough to push her head down. His body collides suddenly against hers. Is simply there, lean and hard, viperlike in his quickness. He pins her against the bed; it's as much the bonewrought strength in his body as it is his weight. He devours the taste of her off her tongue. He drinks her breath from her bodies, and

only when he's had his fill - at least for now - does he let her hands go. Lets her pull that tie from around his neck. It ends up somewhere, and while she's getting rid of it he's peeling out of his vest; she's working his pants open and he's literally tearing out of his shirt. Buttons go pinging everywhere again. The cuffs catch on his wrists as he flings the shirt off, rears back over her to rip it down his arms. A moment where he's trying to get the sleeves off, on the very edge of frustration - then a cufflink flies loose, another one simply snaps in half. He whips his shirt over the edge of the bed and

grasping her hands, pushes them back against the bed. Holds her down as he comes down over her, his pants sliding down to his thighs and then his knees. Behind the soft, faintly elastic fabric of his boxer-briefs he's so hard it's a wonder he can control himself at all.

Hilary's fingers duck into the fold of Ivan's knot and do tug -- more deftly than he might expect. He's so mad right now, so lost, just like he was when she pushed him, and provoked him, and said no up in his bedroom -- which is not as dark, or sinful, as most would expect. All that matters to him seems to be her flesh in his mouth, her body open beneath his. Hilary is far more aware of his clothing, of the layers between them, of the way each button fits into its hole, how one length of fabric slides under another, how the mechanics of buckle and zipper function and lock her out.

She tugs, yanks on that tie a bit fumblingly at first, whimpers as his mouth's suckling hardens on her nipple, and then... wriggles it. Unwinds it. Squirms beneath him as she unties that blasted tie, slides it off from beneath his collar -- halfway, at least. Then it just dangles, trailing across her ribs and her stomach. She doesn't interrupt him, no; despite her lust she's shockingly, bizarrely methodical. That feralness, that wildness is his right now, leaving her with a sort of raw clarity that borders on innocence. Disturbing, frightening innocence.

So of course Hilary doesn't begin tearing at his buttons, yanking apart his lapels. She whimpers again when he changes to her other breast, sucks at her so hard that it makes her whine, but she doesn't cry out -- not yet. Her whining, though, that keening sound of want that leaves her throat, is answered by his hands on her wrists, her wrists to the bed, his mouth turning her tits pink and red with his kisses, his teeth. Hilary lets loose a moan, which is almost his name but is entirely a plea, and he shuts her up with his mouth on hers, as fast and as wicked as a serpent, though perhaps not as wise.

Then, then, his body is against hers. Pushing hers down, holding her there, making her gentle a bit, making her calm, soothing her with the press of his body between her legs, which is all she wanted, all she was whining for, really. Hilary softens to him, kisses him back so much sweeter than, perhaps, he's capable of processing right now. It's so thankful. It's so adoring. Her legs begin to wrap around his lower body, caressing him while he locks her hands down. Yes, that embrace says, which is something she still hasn't said to him tonight, not in words, not really. Oh, yes. Thank you, yes.

When he stops kissing her, Hilary's dark eyes are drowsy, dreamlike, unsure of what to do. She's so fucking languid, so placid, so... compliant, like this. There's even a strange little smile on her face, as she reaches up and plays with the end of his dangling tie, not unlike a kitten. And he's

not unlike a tiger.

She draws that tie out, winding it towards herself while he goes mad, yanking his vest off, tearing at his shirt, breaking cufflinks, desperation making him heedless -- though that would be suggesting he's not normally rather heedless. He likes, after all, to see and hear how things break. Sometimes.

Then he's on her again and she's letting out a soft cry that's half surprise and half welcome, arching her body towards him until he pins her down, pushes her back down, only to find that she's still lifting her hips a tiny bit, rubbing herself against him through his underwear,

whimpering,

whining for it.

That odd playfulness in her - those notes of innocence and sweetness - are so incongruous as to be intoxicating. He pauses when she plays with his tie; looks at her with the uncomprehending, cunning eyes of a beast. Then he's tearing at his clothes, she's unwinding that tie and getting rid of it, he's coming down over her and she's making that little sound like he's given her another gift.

She presses against him. Rubs against him, begs with everything but words. He kisses her again, hungry, ravaging, but searching for that sweetness she showed him a moment ago. Searching, this time, for that yes, that welcome he did not quite find the first time with her.

It's there in the motion of her body. The lift and roll of her hips. The wrap of her legs. He frees her hands because he puts his hand on her face instead, cups her face as he's kissing her, kissing her as he's reaching down their bodies. She's already naked. He pushes that last troublesome article of his own clothing aside. He's going to fuck her now; she knows it, she can tell in the way he's breathing, and the way he touches her, the way he nudges the head of his cock against her to slick himself up.

There are miles of fur beneath them. Yards of silky satin lining. It is as decadent a bed as they've ever found each other on. He's kissing her as he enters her, the kissing spilling apart into a snarl; he's cupping the back of her head and holding her close, close as he drives into her. Hard: pounding her to the bed on that thrust. He wants that sweetness, wants it because it's so vanishingly rare, but he can't seem to find anything to give her in turn except for savagery.

As submissive as she is, as compliant and fragile and obedient as she can be, Hilary gives Ivan nothing that he does not earn. He fights for every scrap of affection, every tender word, and he creates entire trips to far-flung locales around seeing so much as a glimmer of gentleness in her eyes when she looks at him. He does things he never thought himself capable of just to get Hilary to kiss him with something more than hunger. He bears constant punishment from her and risks his wealth, reputation, and his damn neck for the sake of her putting her hand on his cheek and calling him ma petite faucon with something other than mockery in her voice. They both know, deep down, who is really in control here.

But it isn't about control. It isn't about power. It's about something far more sinister than dominance, something far more dangerous than the wickedest games they 'play'. They want, so badly, to love each other, be loved by each other. Neither of them can, for more than a few hours at a time, stand such things. For Hilary to allow Ivan to love her, he has to hurt her. For Ivan to allow Hilary to love him, she has to run from him. For either of them to love the other, they have to overcome the worst madness in them,

and that's so very hard to do.

So he's built her this cabin, this studio above it, filled them both with light, hidden them away from the swallowing night and the jabbering world, painted everything with decadence, poured money over her in the form of god knows how many dead sables, all for this:

so she'll moan just like that when he mounts her, so she'll gasp and whimper and clutch at him when he's on her, his lust clawing up out of him with snarls and violence. So she'll put her hands on his face and his chest when he starts nailing her to the bed, giving him back adoration for every terrible, needful throw of his hips. So she'll be his. So she'll clench down on his cock -- oh, unbelievable -- with that sweet, wet pussy of hers, hold him with her soft hands and her long legs and her tight body.

So that she'll love him.

Ivan would never, ever say it quite like that. That all of this - the cabin, the studio, the coat, the gifts hidden in the closet, the christmas party, the trips, all of it - he does because he wants her to love him. He wants her to be able to love him. He wants to be able to love her.

No; he would never admit to any of that. It sounds worse than romantic. It sounds needy, greedy, pathetic. It makes that part of him that cannot stand to be attached, cannot stand to be leashed, cannot stand to be anything but wild

(when so often he is anything but wild, anything but feral)

claw at itself in horror and misery. He can't bear to think of himself in love with her; had to whisper it when he said it, had to put i think and might be in front of it. And then push comes to shove and he flies her to Monaco, he flies her to Lausanne, he flies her somewhere where they can be anonymous, they can be unknown, they can unmask and be themselves and love each other and, later, leave it all behind.

Even this cabin is something of an escape. Who they are here, how they fuck here, is now who and how they are anywhere else.

Oh, but it's good. And oh, but it's worth it - all the madness, all the grief, all the uncertainty, all the fallout he might've just rained down on his own head. Worth it for the way she adores him right now. Worth it for the way she holds him in her hands, in her legs, in the tight hot grip of her body.

It might be said that they make love. It is forceful, and it is savage, and there is precious little tenderness in the way he moves in her body again and again. But they stay so close. And their mouths meet again and again as though the only air in the room is the air shared between their lungs. Her hand covers his jaw, covers his heartbeat. He fucks her with his eyes closed, his brow to hers, and there are no filthy utterances this time, no edgy curses, no slaps of his palm on her skin, no marks left behind.

None except the way he kisses her mouth swollen. None except the way he bites at her shoulders sometimes when it's just too much to bear; when he has to take her by the hip and shift her, angle her to receive him, tilt her and lay his face against hers and gasp,

groan at the way she feels. "Fuck me," he mutters against her mouth. And then, what he really means: "Love me."

Earlier tonight he said he never did anything to deserve her. That the gifts he gave her were just ...for her. Really hers. And that was true: the gifts, the cabin, the studio, the party, the trips, all of it aren't quite to make her love him or earn her love, but perhaps as a way to express what they otherwise can't. She was repulsed by him saying it, though, irritated by it. Less so by the way he pushed his fingers into her cunt and made her squirm, but that was what she chose to call repellant. There's no trace of that rejection in her now. It's like a nightmare he woke from only to find this beautiful, naked, loving woman in his bed. This is reality. The rest of it is just a bad dream.

And she's here, and she's warm, and she must love him, he can feel it in her bones and the way she moves and hear it in her voice, and he must love her too because the way she tastes...

...the way she tastes...

There's no use trying to think anymore.

His words alone make her moan. Hilary arches, hard and firm, pressing up against him, her legs drawing him harder, deeper inside of her. They're working themselves into a fervor, rocking the bed together -- even if it's only barely, something this fine and this well-made and this sturdy because he knew, he knew what he was going to use it for when he picked it out -- and she's starting to cry out, finally, god, she's starting to make louder and louder noises, clutching at his back now, her nails digging into his skin, holding him so tightly as he fucks her.

Makes love to her. They still don't call it that -- won't call it that later, won't use those words even in the privacy of their own thoughts -- but that may in fact be what it is. Groaning, gasping, sweating into each other and into those furs, marking them with the scent of the two of them together, fucking atop it like they really are in a cave somewhere, a den, keeping warm in the middle of winter, making cubs to be born in late summer,

or something like that.

"I love you," she moans, as he lowers his mouth to her throat again, groans at the taste of her sweat atop the feel of her pulse on his tongue, fights the urge to bite her there and bites her shoulder instead, fucks her that much harder. "Oh, Ivan," pronounced the way the old world pronounces his name, his real name, his ancient name, "I love you --" And then, in French, it starts pouring out of her, certain words punctuated though he hasn't the faintest idea what they mean, and every time he thrusts -- harder -- her breath hitches, she gasps, she holds him tighter and trembles, tightens up with the urge to come.

The first time she said it, he didn't really believe her. He wasn't sure she was capable. He questioned it, and she was - in her way - stung.

The second time was like this. He was inside her, she was stripped down to naked truth; he had no choice but to believe her. He would believe anything she said right now, because he knows she is only capable of truth right now. And: because she is capable of it, right now.

Every time she says it may as well be the first. It pierces through him like an arrow; leaves a mortal wound. He can only staunch it by kissing her, eating her words as though they were the antidote. Every time she says it may well be the last. They both know the madness of their tribe worsens with age. Sometimes he's afraid that one day what little humanity is left in her, what little emotion and attachment, will simply fizzle out. So often he feels like he's on borrowed time, and every moment is precious. Every word, every time she says it,

is priceless.

I love you, she says. "Say it again," he says, but when she does he can't take it, he can't bear it, he bites her hard and she shifts into a language he doesn't even understand; they're just sounds, they're just sounds spilling liquid from her as he pushes himself up on his elbows, bows his head to her body,

fucks her atop those furs, groaning, biting, coming inside her with such obliterating intensity that for a singular, pulsatile instant all the world may as well have collapsed down to this room. This bed. The smell of her body. The darkness of her eyes.

Afterward - he feels emptied. Utterly destroyed and remade, but not quite completed. Half-formed, half-conscious, collapsing atop her in a suddenly boneless sprawl. He can't seem to pull enough air into his lungs. His eyes closed, he rubs his face blindly alongside hers - sweat-slippery, his skin hot. The furs feel overwarm, but it's still moments on end before he rolls

so slowly, lazily, to the side. Opens his eyes. She's inches away. He touches her face; says nothing.

It's rare that she's ever sweet to him, kind to him, affectionate at all. Even when he breaks her, cracks her open to see what spills out, Hilary does not seem to know what to do with whatever she feels. She stares at him, more often than not, feeling it, and not quite grasping that perhaps she should tell him that she loves him. Or: that she likes his face, and his body. That she thinks he's good to her. That she is happy to be right where she is, safe with him for as long as they may have. She never thinks to say any of it out loud. Sometimes she doesn't even think to look at him, or touch him, in a way that might be soft.

As rare, perhaps even moreso, are the times when they come together like this, crashing on the shore at once, shattering together. She clutches at him, moaning, marking his back with red trails, seeing bright flashes of color and light behind her own eyelids. He is rough, savage, thrusting madly, and she is... incandescent. Hilary leaves her body for a moment. She floats; she feels rigid in his arms and tremulous then, shaking apart, unaware even of the cries that are leaving her. All she can feel, all that brings her back, is Ivan's body in her own, against her own, holding her amidst all those luxurious furs.

He's sweaty, and hot, and ever so real. She's not sure she can bear to let go. She's not sure what will happen to her.

Hilary opens her mouth on his shoulder as she's coming down from her orgasm, as he's coming down from his, and she doesn't lick him or bite him. Just holds him between her lips, closing her eyes, every breath scented and flavored with him.

The next time she opens her eyes, Ivan is moving away. It feels like it's been no time at all -- not a moment, not a minute, nothing but a blink -- and he's sliding, rolling off of her, onto his side. She stirs, her body protesting, and rolls with him, dragging the fur with her, tossing it across both of their bodies. Too hot by far, even in a room that's slightly chilled. Her breasts perked, nipples hardening, the moment he moved from her, but she warms them quickly, tucking her body against his under the sable. One sleeve is off, tossed across his ribcage. She closes her eyes again, contented. His hand touches her face,

and she does something she never does. Her hand comes up, so delicate and so pale, to cover his on her cheek. Her eyes open, bottomless and -- for once -- warm, finding his. Her hand just stays there.

It was never his intention to break contact, or even to draw away. Even at the very beginning, Ivan never simply left Hilary after they wrecked each other. The very first time he had her, he followed her into the shower afterward and - totally untrained, totally by instinct - gave her the aftercare that she craves almost as much as she craves the intensity, the pain.

They both need it. They used to fight about that: he tried to pretend he didn't need this, all of this, because it frightened him to be needed. Or something like that. But liar though he is, Ivan does try not to lie to himself. He needs this. He needs her very much, and so

he stays close to her, even after he rolls to the side. Their lower bodies are still entangled. She moves with him, her eyes opening. They are side by side, and he is not crushing her, and this is important because in these moments more than any other Ivan is aware that he is, in fact, not only her lover but her guardian. It is his place to protect her. And in moments like these, Hilary - who so often seems almost reckless in her nonchalant daring - needs to be protected.

He touches her face. Her eyes close. She is the picture of contentment. Peace. The inside of his arm covers and warms the outside of hers, and then

she reaches up from within the circle of his embrace and lays her hand over his.

Their eyes meet. Even now, she may not be able to read the expression in his eyes. It is adoration; but a complex, aching adoration. His hand shifts ever so slightly, stroking thumb over cheek. He takes a breath, so quick as to seem involuntary.

"I love you," he tells her, because this may be the only time she understands it. And he moves a little closer, resting his forehead against hers. "I do."

With all his starved swans and wounded pigeons and tittering canaries, Ivan would leave. That virgin he threw in her face down in Mexico, the one he fucked to ruin her for her inevitable mate -- he got up as soon as he was done with her and left, buttoning up his shirt and telling her, though not in so many words, to have a nice life. He'd leave them after he used them, and rarely think of them again. But Hilary: oh no. He followed her, needing to care for her after what he'd done with her as much as she may have needed it even then.

He's so fragile right now, in the aftermath. And yet he guards her, because she is even more broken than he is.

This is unusual, this hand laying atop his hand. Even at her most unguarded, her most near-human, it's a strange gesture from someone like her. She watches him, not really thinking about anything, just existing, her lips open very, very slightly as he's touching her cheek. He loves her; her eyes close in a slow blink. He does. They close completely as he leans over and rests with her like that.

She doesn't speak. She doesn't sigh. She just is: sleepy under the fur, satiated by the sex, warm, close, his, trusting, submitted to him -- she is all these things. She cannot describe them in words. It is enough -- and it is rare enough -- to simply feel them at all.