Ivan Press

Ivan Press

Ivan doesn't move until she begins to. It's not that she has to get up all by herself. Nothing like that. But he waits until she gives him a signal, however slight, however minute -- something so miniscule as a shift in her center of gravity, perhaps -- before he starts to sit up. Starts to sit her up, turning, welcoming her arms around him, wrapping her against his chest.

Hilary thanks her vladelets. Ivan scoops her off the floor almost before she's finished standing up, lifts her into his arms with an ease that has more to do with her lightness than his strength.

He told her once: you never have to ask me for this.

He tells her now: "You never have to thank me."

Ivan leaves the lights on. He never turns them out while Hilary is on the premises, and sometimes not even after she's left. Sometimes Dmitri has to come and turn it out days and days after both Ivan and Hilary have departed, because they were Garou and kin, for godssake, they were supposed to save Gaia -- not kill her deader.

Ivan does take the music away, though. As he passes the stereo system with its expensive speakers and its built-in disc changers, aux ports, USB readers, iPhone dock -- he taps a small, recessed touch-button and makes silence fall.

The elevator doors close. They descend one floor and one only, and then he carries her out into their sleek little cabin. Into the bathroom, where he sets her on the edge of the tub, facing out so that when he leans in to turn the water on none of it will splash on her skin.

Right now, she doesn't argue. She nuzzles into his chest, as though he did not leave her and she did not leave life for the last few weeks. As though she wasn't, only an hour or so ago, cleaning herself up from sex with someone else. As though she trusts him. As though she loves him and trusts that he loves her. As though they are not quite so broken.

And there's some purity in that. Something innocent and heartbreaking and heartbroken: that right now, despite herself and despite everything, she does love. She does trust. Sweetly, easily -- as sweetly and easily as she goes into his arms when he picks her up, her legs folding elegantly over the crook of his arm, her head rolling to rest on his shoulder as he takes her downstairs.

--

The little house on the lake goes quiet, but not dark. The elevator descends into their den: sleek kitchen, altar of a bed, sunken fireplace, little bathroom, which is where he takes her.

Dressed in dance clothes, which means dressed only in leotard and skirt and slippers right now, Hilary sits on the edge of the tub as he places her there. She clings to him for a moment, a spasm of anxiety, but then relents as he smooths his hand over her back, holds her steady as the tub begins to fill.

This is her second bath tonight. Edmund did not want to bathe her. Oliver did not stay to make sure she wasn't bruised, to make sure she was clean, to make sure her muscles didn't ache and that she felt safe after he'd taken her to transcendent escape. Ivan, however, does not seem interested right now in bending her over and railing her. He does seem interested in taking care of her, and as Hilary watches him fill the tub and check the temperature, she gets a wary little smile on her face, small and aching and gentler than she is.

She reaches out with her hand, pale and delicate and long-fingered, and brushes her knuckles over his cheek. She follows his jawline artfully, and then turns the pads of her fingers to his skin.

She begins to stroke him, his face and then his scalp, a little awkward and a little curious but stroking him nonetheless. Petting him, because she wants to touch him, and frankly, simply: because she likes him, and he is good, and he is her vladelets and this is good and everything will be all right now.

No one can deny their beauty. Broken, twisted, mad as they are, they are possessed of such beauty in face and form, motion and poise. Look at her perched on the side of the tub; the lay of her hands, the turn of her knees. Look at him bending over the edge of the tub, his back a smooth curve, long fingers stirring the water as it rises.

Small wonder she can't seem to resist touching him. Small wonder he can't seem to keep from leaning into that touch; turning his cheek into her hand almost before he processes it. His eyes turn her way, gold and green and every shade in between, brilliant, refractile. He kisses her fingertips.

She continues to stroke him. He continues to let the water run, until of course he pushes lightly off the edge of the tub and rises out of her reach. It's his hands on her, then, threading fingers through her hair, combing it gently through and through until the strands part like sand, fall like water.

He moves on to her garments. He stretches open the collar of the leotard so she can peel her arms out. He pulls it down her torso to her hips; kneels even as he draws her to her feet. Tugs down that wispy skirt, folds those slippers off her heels and her toes. Pulls the leotard down the rest of the way.

So easily she is bared. He straightens up on his knees, kissing her between her arches of her ribs, in the center of her body. Beneath his lips, the vital viscerae of her body: the descending aorta and all its branches, the liver that primitive man thought capable of prophecy. Ivan wraps his arms around his lover. He holds her like that for a while, his eyes closed, his face to her body. For the second time tonight, the tub fills and fills and fills as Hilary stands nude, the object of idolatry or lust or worship.

Perhaps that's the thought that spurs his eyes open again. Lifts him to his feet, where he lifts her off her feet. Her toes dip into the water first. He waits to see if it is all right, if it's too warm or too cold or just perfect. She slips in: water rising past her calves, past her knees, covering her hips, up to the undersides of her breasts. His sleeves are sopping wet. His shirt is damp. He straightens to peel his own clothing off, that satin-finished black tie coming undone, that opaque black shirt unbuttoned. His skin is luminous with winter, gold-white, a shock against the darkness of his attire. His body is lean and beautiful as it has ever been, as it was that first time in the hotel room where she asked him,

so nicely,

to bare himself for her. And fuck her.

His slacks drop. He steps out of them. The belt buckle clinks as he kicks his clothes out of the way and then -- panther-agile -- climbs over the edge of the tub and sinks in with her. Behind her. Water rises, water drains. Ivan leans back and draws Hilary back against him, and he pulls a puff from the woven basket that carries such things, lotions and soaps and salts and gels and razors and washclothes and loofahs and all the rest. He makes suds, and then he urges her to lean forward, to fold her arms over her own knees or his if she likes.

Ivan washes her the way he always has. Slow and patient, kneading and rubbing, squeezing warm water over her skin again and again. It takes a long time. It's not that she's dirty. It's not that she needs to be cleaned.

It's that she was broken. And this is how he puts her back together again.

Hilary looks up at him. It is not worship right now, nothing so obvious. She is comforted, though. And this is strange, this in-between place she is tonight. This is new. To be fucked like that, and abandoned -- to put herself back together without pills, without Ivan, without enough time to retreat from the world. To come here and go through what she went through with Ivan, finding the words to tell him how she felt, finding a slow and twisted path back to him, but first,

to herself.

It lingers. It is lingering now, longer, than she has felt it for a long time. It settles a bit in her, and frightens her, and confuses her, but it does settle. Even as she looks up at him, her cold eyes

almost human.

--

Ivan undresses her, and she goes where she is led, standing when he helps her rise, taking her feet out of those slippers, stepping out of the leotard. Naked now she stands before him, her thinness evident yet again to his eyes as well as his embrace. And he, like she a moment ago, looks up at her, and then wraps himself around her, warm skin to warm skin. Hilary bows her head, her long hair over her breasts, and keeps petting his head, his face, his neck.

Her arms go around his shoulders as he lifts her up, setting her slowly into the water. Hilary goes quietly, slipping into the water like a selkie. He ignores his wet clothes; so does she. He undresses and she watches him, shamelessly and feeling mild flickers of arousal as she sees him bared for the first time in weeks. Oh, she does adore him. Oh, she does need him. And so he comes, and she wants to reach out and pet and stroke his cock and his chest just as she did the rest of him, show him in this odd and gentle way that she loves all of him, he is so perfect, he is so her master, her god, and all she wants is to make him feel good.

But not now. Not that, not them, not right now. He drenches a puff from the basket into the hot water and begins drawing that water over her arms and shoulders, soaking her back, adding gel, beginning to work that fragrant lather into her skin. He takes off the scent of the soaps that Grey bought for her; he washes her again in her own. His hands rub at her muscles, and her head rests on his knee, eyes closing, breath coming slow and steady.

This is different from every other time. And she doesn't know how. She doesn't know how to say it, or even how to broach the subject. She just feels different. And because he is Ivan, she thinks he must simply know, even in her silence.

--

Hilary, drenched wet and smelling of more familiar soaps, leans against Ivan after the tub has been drained and refilled with clear water. She strokes his arm idly with her hand, with those perfect fingernails, quite still now.

And quietly, and something she has never said to him, never even thought to say to him:

"I forgive you."

This is different from every other time. She doesn't know how, nor how to say it -- and in truth, neither does Ivan. But they both feel it. In the sequence of things. In what they've done, and what they haven't done. In the way he touches her, holds her, cares for her, protects her; even from herself. Mostly from her.

She thanks him, which she has done before. And she forgives him. Which she has never done before. Which he did not even quite think her capable of, just as he didn't think her capable of remorse. She's proven him wrong tonight, twice over. But then again: once, he didn't think her capable of love, either.

His eyes close for a moment. Strange that the forgiveness of someone so alien, so removed from humanity, could be so important. Could feel so cathartic. She strokes his arm lightly, and then that arm wraps around the front of her shoulders. Her lover kisses her temple firmly; fervently.

"Thank you," he whispers.

Yet she loves Anton. Perhaps it was the first time he saw her loving something and could believe it, and seeing it there for the child he cares so little for and not for him was like a splinter in his heart. Yet she loves him, and there have been times since that cracking-open in Novgorod that he has seen it, believed it, even if neither of them understand it.

So she can love. And she can feel remorse. And she can forgive. And all of these things are such heavy burdens, and all of these things are terrors in the dark for her. No wonder that all his gifts to her have something of light in them; it is sometimes the only protection he can give her.

Hilary drowses, and the water cools. It hardly matters; Ivan is so warm that it hardly seems to touch him. She only moves closer, and closer. It is he who has to get them out of the bath -- or refresh the water again. But when he goes, she goes willingly with him, asking -- perhaps as they are drying, or as she is settling into a robe:

"What about my other present?"

He always sees to her first. Who knew he could be so selfless and so caring: Ivan Press, he of the infamous parties, he of the shallow friendships, he of the endless train of beautiful empty relationships. He urges her out of the water when the water has cooled, and when their fingertips are wrinkled. He stands there dripping onto the bathmat, steadying her as she steps out, wrapping her in a thick towel to dry her and then settling a heavy robe around her shoulders to keep her warm.

Only after she's all taken care of does he dry himself. Does he slip into a robe himself. Their robes match: rich dark red, both of them, as red and rich as fine wine. He is leading her out of that small, sleek bathroom when she turns to him, asking for her other present.

A subtle wariness flickers under Ivan's skin. He thinks of her tantrum upstairs, thinks of all the things she shouted that she hated, hated, hated. A beat, and then he answers her.

"I had another collar commissioned for you," he says. "It arrived a week ago. I hesitated to give it to you because ... well. Because of Grey. And because you didn't like the last one. If you want to see it, I'll show you."

She is used to this. To Ivan's hands on her helping her out of places: the shower or bath, the car, down the stairs, or even up to a stone table. She is used to standing there, quiescent and accepting, as he wraps a towel around her body and gently dries her, between her fingertips and between her toes, patting the water off of her skin and squeezing it carefully from her hair. She is used to Ivan getting her robe, sliding it onto her arms and shoulders, folding it over her torso like she is a doll who cannot do these things herself. She is used to it, so used to it, that she would notice the lack of it. It makes her happy. As happy as she gets, at least.

Which is not what would be recognized as happy by most people.

Dressed in that merlot-colored robe, her feet bare but the bathroom floor heated, Hilary walks with Ivan as he coaxes her out into the main room of the lake house, her hair's wet ends dampening the shoulders of the robe. She asks about the other present from Russia, the one that came after the nipple clamps strung on diamonds. And pauses, arresting, when he says that it's another collar. She aches, and her brow tightens and wrinkles with it.

Because of Grey.

Because she didn't like the last one.

"I told Grey about my parents," she says quietly to Ivan, stepping toward him. She turns her head, resting her temple on his chest, against the soft-fuzzy texture of his robe, her hand still tangled loosely with his. "I told him that I would let him kill me if it would make him believe that I loved him above all others. And that I would kill our babies, too, so he would not doubt. Then I asked him to kiss me, after asking him repeatedly through the evening if he would like to wash me in my bath. I spoke as though I could barely conceal or control my lust, particularly when I told him what I would let him do to prove my adoration.

"He ran from the house," Hilary adds, with an undercurrent of vicious amusement. "I screamed for him, and his sons came. I threw a lamp at Oliver. John sent him away and had me tell him what I told his father. He kept asking if I wanted to marry Grey, and I --" she breathes in deep, sighs. "I made him tell me why he cared. He told me what has really become of all of Grey's wives. So I told him that if I wed his father, I would kill myself. Or feed him colloidal silver until he frenzied and did it for me.

"John let me go. He told me to make myself unreachable for a while in case Grey tried to forget what he heard and came for me again. So Miranda is moving us out of that building downtown as we speak, and I will live here for a while, and then I will be yours alone, and we will hire a new servant to go live with Anton so he can learn French and eat decent food. He will need more than one maid, anyway."

She closes her eyes, rubbing her cheek on his robe.

Ivan is a little stunned, really, when Hilary tells him what she did. He laughs with her -- short, soft, half-disbelieving -- as she tells him what she told Grey. And what Grey did. Sometimes he underestimates her. Sometimes he forgets the intelligence and cunning she is capable of. He forgets that when he met her, she made him believe she was virtuous and he was persuading her to do something she might not have otherwise. He forgets that she was the one who orchestrated that first, cataclysmic encounter, from which he never did really recover.

And then, at the end of it: Hilary tells him a fairy tale. It's dark and full of madness, the way all fairy tales really are. It is also -- he thinks -- full of fiction. The idea that they could slip away. Hide somehow. That she could ever become lost to the Tribe with her blood, with her beauty, with the purity of her lineage. I will be yours alone, she tells Ivan.

He smiles a little. It's aching. He tries not to spoil this for her too. Tries not to ruin her fairy tale the way he ruined her birthday. Besides, he thinks, the future is not written yet. Maybe he could dream of excuses. Maybe he could insinuate just the right things in the right ears. Maybe Grey would speak of what she spoke of to him. Maybe his son could be enlisted as an ally, or a tool.

Maybe. Maybe. Possibly.

"We'll hire a new servant," Ivan promises quietly. It's one of the few things he can promise. "Someone who knows how to cook, and someone who can teach him French. You can live here as long as you like. It's your house. I built it for you."

A moment of thought. His arm folding around her, naturally and thoughtlessly.

"Perhaps I should contact Edmund Grey in the morning. Hammer in all the reasons he shouldn't take you for a wife under the guise of apologizing for your behavior. If we play it right, maybe what happened with him will dissuade other suitors. And John Grey sounds sympathetic. Maybe we could use that in the future." He's thinking aloud now. "I need to gain power, though. Rank. This might turn away the strongest, worthiest wolves, but lesser wolves might think this puts you within their reach. I need to have the clout to turn them away decisively when I need to.

"And maybe -- if I'm strong enough, if the Tribe believes you've fallen enough -- I could even..."

She believes this fairy tale. She knows what gossips the Silver Fangs are. She is going to slip from the world completely, and be left completely alone, but for the one person she tolerates, and sometimes he will take her to see her son, and the rest of the time she can pleasantly, quietly cease to exist. The thought of it makes her ache with longing: the idea of days on end spent alone and in silence does not disturb her. That is what pills are for.

Tonight though, Ivan does not try and dissuade her. He doesn't tell her that he's already fending off other letters from interested parties, that even if he collars her she can't be his and his alone, that one day she may have to spread her legs for another wolf even though Ivan doesn't want her to and even though Ivan won't be there, that one day she will be trapped again.

Tonight she is free. And he gives her that.

Gaia knows such a thing is rare for her.

--

He needs to gain power. She nuzzles his chest, slipping her hand into his robe to rest her palm along his ribs. He trails off. If he's strong, if she is dishonored, worthless, derided among their kind, then...

Hilary opens her eyes, tipping her head to look up at him.

But he never finishes. What sort of Ragabash is he if he won't lie? And yet he will not lie to her tonight, either, no more than he'll ruin her fairy tale. He doesn't finish that sentence:

I could even claim you. I could even take you as my mate, mine in word and law and truth. You could be mine and only mine.

He doesn't say it. He can't.

--

He kisses her instead when she tips her head up to him like that. It is the most natural thing in the world. The only logical outcome. He lowers his head and his mouth touches hers, delicately, and then deeply; drenchingly.

And that is a fiction -- that he could love her like that. That he could stand to even know in the back of his mind, night after night, that he was shackled to a mate thus. Not just a mate but the child they made together. He would never escape. He would go utterly mad, stuck like that. He'd chew his own arm off trying to get away from her.

He would come to hate her, if he took her as his mate. If he married her.

But he doesn't have to do those things for her to be his, and his alone. Hilary wonders what he might say, but she does not know and does not guess. And Ivan does not answer. He kisses her instead, and she is very still at first. Her hand does not move. Her lips do not move. Only when he deepens it a touch does she respond, as though given permission, and begins kissing him back tentatively. He kisses harder, deeper, and Hilary's hand slides down his side, her fingertips crossing his abdominals, her skin creating a shivering trace of sensation towards his groin.

Hesitantly, hopefully, she runs her palm down his cock between their bodies. She strokes him like that, once or twice, her hand open, only closing if he permits it, working him slowly, longingly. If he lets her. If he allows her to, if he wants to give her a treat, if

he forgives her,

then she keeps going, making a soft noise of want into his mouth as she feels him harden.

Sometimes Ivan thinks maybe things could be different. Sometimes he thinks maybe he could learn to love Hilary like that. Day after day, week after week, year after year. Maybe he could devote himself to her, and to their son, like that. Maybe they could run off somewhere. Novgorod. Siberia. Live in seclusion, live in each other, until the world froze over.

Maybe he could learn to be like that. He learned to love her, didn't he? And she learned to love him. Maybe it's possible. Or maybe,

it's just his madness advancing. After all, it's only madness when you cease to be aware of it.

He doesn't say what was on his mind, though. He kisses her, and she is very still. He kisses her deeper, and she responds. And the truth is he didn't mean for it to go anywhere. Not at first. He isn't sure she wants to, he isn't sure -- after the harrowing way the night has gone thus far -- she was even capable. But oh, the way she responds, the tentative opening of her mouth and then the tracking of her hand beneath his robe. Suddenly wanting roars to life in him like an animal, and by the time her hand drifts below his navel he can hardly control himself.

She touches him. His mouth opens against hers; he groans. She strokes him, and he hardens to her touch -- it's absurd how quickly he responds to her. Suddenly he's lifting her again, sweeping her straight up and against his body, carrying her that short, open distance to their bed.

The sheets are clean. They are fresh, even if they haven't been here in weeks. He has servants for this sort of thing. He sets her down. Tumbles her down, sinking atop her, his lean strength and his subtle weight over her. Her robe comes apart with a tug. He pushes up and sheds his own, peels out of it like snakeskin. Comes back to her, kissing her, his hands coming to cradle her breasts. It's hungry, and yet: there's a strange tenderness there, which isn't something that comes often into their encounters.

Oh, she is a good girl. He's not angry with her. He forgives her. And she whimpers softly in his mouth as he reacts to her, groaning and hardening and lifting her up against his body. She keeps trying to touch him even as he does so, but it's difficult when he picks her up thus.

He carries her to that altar of a bed, pulling her robe open but not off, throwing his own off his shoulders. His hands are all over her then, his body sinking between her thighs, his mouth crushing hers. Yet: there's tenderness. His hands do not squeeze and grope roughly at her breasts, though in some way she wishes he would. In some way she wishes he would purge Oliver from her by fucking her just like Oliver did, nailing her from behind and bruising her with his hands, biting her throat, smearing her own wetness on her back, calling her whore, calling her slut, making her dirty. That want is not overwhelming, though.

The desire that does suffuse her, entire and complete, is for Ivan to love her, to forgive her, to call her his beautiful girl, his good girl. He can do anything he likes with her tonight and she will be in bliss for it. She won't even whine if he wants to lick her pussy. He forgives her, he forgives her, and she is ecstatic.

Her thighs close around his cock, the smooth skin continuing what her hands gave up. She wants him to feel good. She wants him to be pleased with her. All of her.

Her submission is so entire tonight. There is always some echo of that between them, even when she's being cutting and cruel, even when she's being vicious and proud and difficult to please. He is her vladelets. She is his beautiful girl.

She gives herself up to him. He could do anything. He is gentle with her now, but he doesn't have to be. Sometimes she doesn't want him to be. Sometimes she wants him to be so rough, to maul her with his hands and his mouth, to pound her, rail her, nail her to the bed. Sometimes he wants that too, but -- not now. Right now, he wants to cover her like this, and touch her like this, and kiss her like this, and ...

... and he does forgive her. He does love her. He wants to please her as much as she wants to please him, and yet -- when she submits like this, so utterly and so completely, he finds himself slowing.

Stopping.

He sets his brow to her breastbone for a moment. Kisses her very gently and tenderly over her heart. A sighing breath, and then his arms around her, pulling her close as he buries his face against her skin. She would open her legs and take him in a heartbeat if he told her to, he knows it, but for no reason he can readily understand, he just wants to hold her. Just like this.

Her submission is almost always entire. She plays at resistance to inflame him -- and herself. But that is not quite the same as submission. That is not quite the same as true worship, as Ivan being the center of her happiness or lack thereof. They were apart so long, though they have been apart for longer. It matters, though, that it came after that trip to Novgorod. It matters that she found in herself the capacity for true emotion, however broken it may be.

The truth is, she is deeply relieved that he is not angry at her anymore, that he is not casting her out, that he still loves her, that he will take care of her the way he does. The truth is, she would do anything to please him, and right now

letting him be gentle with her, and not leaving him for it,

pleases her, too.

--

Ivan slows, though. He stops. He rests his brow on her and kisses her breastbone, and she does not look -- this time -- startled or put off by it. She closes her eyes as he wraps his arms around her body, and though her thighs still hug his erection as though to keep him warm, her hands come to rest on his shoulders. She strokes him again, as before in the bathroom. His scalp. His neck. She touches him tenderly, she who is not capable of tenderness, and does not turn him away.

"Is it..." she whispers, after a while. "...am I pleasing you?"

Ivan makes this sound, this sort of hollowed-out laugh. He raises his head; there's an ache in his eyes.

"I love you," he says. He's lost track how many times he's told her tonight. "You always please me. I just ... I want to protect you. I want to keep you.

"We don't have to fuck. Okay? You don't have to try to please me. You always do."

Hilary looks confused. If that is what her brows tugging together as she looks down at him from her pillows means. "You are protecting me," she says, as though her terror earlier tonight, her petty 'hatred', never were. "You are keeping me."

She's silent a moment, after that, still frowning.

"But I want you to fuck me," she whispers, like it's a secret.

Like it's a secret. Like it's something she wants him to know, but doesn't want to have to tell him. Something sparks in Ivan's eyes, then. A flicker of -- something -- crosses his eyes. A touch of humor, perhaps, and not the cutting sort. A touch of tenderness, far rarer.

They who are not capable of tenderness.

He lifts himself a little on his hands, then: his elbows bent, his smooth chest close to hers. Something lithe and animal about him, sleek and supple. He shifts up over her and he kisses her again, catches her mouth and presses her back. His weight shifts. He lifts her leg along his side, her thigh sliding over his hip, his waist, his ribs. He doesn't stop kissing her; not when he settles onto her, not when he starts pressing into her. His mouth does part from hers for a moment, though. A gasp, a panted exhale.

Gentleness is a rare thing between them. But that is what this is. Gentle, and slow.

And that is the secret: that Hilary is well aware of how deep her eroticism goes, how overpowering her sex drive is. That Hilary does want, badly and often. And perhaps she got the idea somewhere that this is naughty and wrong, or perhaps somewhere she learned that being a filthy, dirty slut is the best way to get whoever she's with to do to her what she needs done, to give her the sort of nearly abusive sex that she craves. She doesn't know. She doesn't wonder about it. But that is her deep, dark secret: she wants to get fucked. She wants it so badly sometimes that it makes her ache, it makes her hurt, it makes her want to weep.

There is this, too: when Ivan fucks her, when he licks her breasts and grinds himself into her cunt, when he groans and pants and comes because of her, she feels whole. She feels like she is good, and loved, and safe.

Ivan does not argue with her, or tell her that he is not in the mood, and this is why she doesn't like to come out and tell him: she hates thinking that he's only doing this to please her. Of all the things he does because she makes some demand, the things he does because she despises this car or that house, of all the ways and times that he twists himself into knots to give her whatever she likes, sex done just for her benefit drives her mad. She can hardly bear the thought of it.

Hilary squirms a little, her brow furrowed and her lips in a pout of worry. Ivan is pushing himself up, kissing her, pushing her into the pillows and the mattress. His hand lifts her leg up, higher and higher, because he knows she can take it. He presses the head of his cock along her slit, wet but not to the point of being slippery yet. He gasps; she watches him, whimpering a little, rubbing herself against him. She looks so worried. She feels so hot.

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 1, 4) ( botch x 3 )

[SILBAR FANGS DO NOT BOTCH. OR FAIL.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 4, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )

The look on her face gives him pause. The truth is, by any measure of the word they're already fucking. They're naked, or near enough; he's inside her, or at least halfway there. She's getting wet. He's quite hard. He's kissing her mouth, nipping at her lips; she's frowning, she's furrowing, she looks so worried.

He pauses. His breathing is not quite steady. He puts his hand on her face, strokes her cheek, strokes into her hair and cradles the back of her head. His eyes open, he kisses her again. His mouth is light; the kiss is delicate. He sips at her lips until he isn't anymore, until he's drawing back a little, his eyes flickering to her brow, to her mouth, back to her eyes, black as they are.

He can't read her. Sometimes he can't read her at all. He thinks maybe she doesn't want to anymore. He thinks -- he doesn't know what he thinks.

"What is it?" he whispers. "What's wrong?"

That hair of hers is still wet, drying in coils and waves across the pillowcase. And her leg is still high around his ribs. And her pussy is so warm, growing more and more ready for him the longer he's against her like this, naked and heated and hard for her.

She pouts at him, even while he's kissing her, and she is not kissing him back. "Do you want to?" she whispers, plaintively, looking deeply distressed despite her body's response to him. Nevermind that he's halfway inside of her. Nevermind that he could barely stop, that his breathing is uneven from wanting. Nevermind that she barely touched him before he was erect, before he was aching. "You stopped before."

Ivan wants to laugh. Look at them. They're terrible people. God only knows how many times they've done things simply because they wanted to, and never mind what anyone else wanted. Never mind what it did to everyone else around them. And now: look at them, each convinced they might be doing something the other doesn't want to. Each of them wary of doing something that might hurt the other, or distress the other, or --

"I want to," he tells her. It is very soft. His eyes glimmer; he lifts her mouth to his and he kisses her. It's a devouring kiss. Just a little rough. "I want to fuck you. I always want to.

"I stopped because I didn't want to ... to force you to do something you didn't want to. I wasn't sure if you wanted to. I thought maybe after tonight, you needed some time. Maybe you just needed me to be here for you. That's all."

They each thought the other might only be doing this to please the other. And that is a little sad and funny and ironic: worse because for Hilary, it is and will always be somewhat true. The turn of the knife is that submission to pleasing Ivan isn't an option for her. It is how she feels forgiven. It is how she feels loved. It seems so pathetic, so sad, so awful, to ask him for that when it can only be trusted if it is freely given. If he only wants to fuck her because she wants it, her brain coils in on itself, devours her, makes her tremble.

He wants to.

He kisses her, and there's an edge to it, and a thrill when he tells her I want to fuck you.

The rest is so kind, so tender, and she almost can't stand it. She still looks worried, squirming under him. Ivan isn't far off: sometimes she just needs him to be there, sometimes that's all he can give her. And after Novgorod, after leaving her for weeks, after tonight, after being abandoned by Oliver as well when she was already so vulnerable -- it's as though he just doesn't know what she needs now, and doesn't know what he needs, either.

Her lip trembles. "You stopped," she repeats. "You wanted to hold me?" The words are disjointed, disconnected from one another, almost nonsensical. "I only want to please you, Ivan. Whatever you want with me."

Holding her. Fucking her. Just be pleased with her.

[EMPAFEE LIKE YOU MEAN IT.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 1 )

[Even if all he wants to do is hold her tonight that is okay. That's why she asked earlier, when he stopped, if she was pleasing him! She wasn't worried that the sexytimes were not making him happy and that's why he was stopping; she was looking for reassurance that even if they weren't having sex and she was just petting him and letting him hold her, that it's what he wanted and she was pleasing him.

And yes she likes it when he fucks her but now she's all worried that he doesn't want to and he's only doing it because she asked, because he stopped first.]

There are better nights for a discussion like this. Ivan knows it. Ivan knows what happened to her tonight. What's she's been through, what she's done. He knows that she was drained and alone and angry and frightened, and sometimes all those things at once. He knows all this.

Even so. Even so, he is stopping again. He is stilling over her; his brow, too, is furrowing. "I..."

He begins like that. He ends like that, trailing off, not quite sure where he was going. A moment later he tries again, "I do want you. You do please me." These are things he's said before. But this, this is a step further, "And if submitting yourself to me is what you want -- if letting what I want dictate what you want is what makes you happy -- then that's what we'll do.

"But it's okay for you to want, too. Or not want. It's okay for you to disagree with me. That wouldn't upset me. I wouldn't want you to do something purely because it's what I want. Do you understand?"

They have not seen each other since Novgorod. They have not had sex since Novgorod. They haven't spoken since Novgorod.

Ivan saw what she went through there. He saw her sitting taut and afraid in the rocking chair while Anton crawled around his room, banging blocks together and slobbering on things, that first day. He saw her the last day, lying on the rug on her side, staring at Anton as he banged a squeaky toy on the ground over and over because of the noise it made, and saw how she could not leave him until he'd fallen asleep. He saw the day she was panicked becaue he was crying, and saw how her instinct grabbed her and she gave her son her breast to try to calm him.

They decided there to jilt Grey, the man who she'd agreed to marry just moments before deciding she wanted to fly to Russia in the first place. That is what that trip did to her. That is how it changed her. She would kill herself, try to kill an Athro, because finally -- and for the first time in her life -- she wanted something. And she knew what it was.

Just Ivan. Just Anton. Just her little life. To dance a little and cook a little and be left alone to herself otherwise. All Ivan wants is to make her happy, at least as close to happy as she can be. And what will make her happy is simply... to know that Ivan is pleased with her. That she has him, and that she has her son even if he is not with her. That she is here, in her little house with the kitchen and the dance studio and no dark hallways, no long terrifying walks from place to place.

He keeps giving her words, and she cannot process them. Well: she understands them, but she cannot feel them. They do not translate into satiation.

"Sometimes I will want you to go away to the big house and leave me alone here," she whispers, a confession if there was ever such a thing. "And sometimes I will want you to do things because I want it for Anton, even if you think it is stupid."

She is quiet a moment, silent, then very softly: "You thought it would be smart if I married Grey. And I said no," even if it took her a while, "and that I would not."

Her eyebrows tug together. "Please just use me for what you like tonight," she pleads with him again, even if it isn't quite what she means, even if she simply doesn't have another language to put her plea into. "I don't care what it is. I just want you to be pleased with me."

It broke Ivan's heart a little that day in Novgorod, when they took Anton out and bought him all manner of things and then settled in at a little cafe for some coffee, some pastries. When he gave Hilary that scandalous chain of diamonds; when he thought, finally, and perhaps for the first time ever, to ask her what she wanted.

When she answered. When she told him all she wanted -- she who was born to unimaginable bloodlines, who married into unimaginable wealth -- was what she had on that day. Ivan. Anton. Sometimes to dance. Sometimes to cook. Sometimes to be left alone, to disappear into the darkness of her own solitude.

She tells him two more things she sometimes wants tonight. Sometimes she wants him to go away, too. Sometimes she wants him to do things for Anton. To at least pretend to care for him for her sake, even if he thinks it's stupid. And she reminds him, in her own way, that she is not wholly without free will. She is not wholly, blindly subservient to his will.

It's important, what she says. He needs to hear it. He needs to process it, and understand it, and feel -- absolved, in a way. Not so terribly and singlehandedly responsible.

--

Please, she says. Be pleased.

And Ivan, who has in all this time not quite pulled away from her, who certainly has not covered her up again or put on his own robe again, draws a breath. It's short. It's swift. An instant later he sits back, he rises up to sit on his heels, kneeling; he pulls her up and onto his lap. His arms gather her close. She's a lapful of loveliness, loose dark hair and pitch dark eyes. He takes her face between both hands and he kisses her, hungrily, ravenously, and when the kiss trails off his mouth goes to her neck. He kisses her there, too, bites at her, runs his hands down her body, grips her by the hips.

Lifts her. Groans once, low, against her throat. Takes his cock in hand and pulls her down and enters her, his hands grasping at her skin. Finds her hands, pulls her hands to wrap around his torso, hold onto his shoulders. "This is how I want you tonight," he whispers. Kisses the side of her neck. Bites the lee of her shoulder. "This is what I want."

She does not know what she is asking for. At least not in part, in this one specific area: she wants him to pay for servants and toys and things and listen to her direction when it comes to the raising of their son. She means this supeficially, or thinks she does. Ivan intuits, somehow, something deeper, and something closer to the truth: at least pretend to care. For her sake, or for his, or for Anton's -- care a little for the child, or try to. Even if he only goes through motions, it means something to her. It is what she wants. And she will ask him for it, as sometimes

she will ask him to just leave her alone.

And Ivan, profoundly, is comforted to hear Hilary say these things. To have things she wants. To remind him that sometimes, she exists even without his touch.

--

He wants her on top of him. Hilary's eyes fly open, wary and unnerved and stunned. Her hair is still wet, but her mouth is warm when he kisses her. She arches slightly over him, her hands resting on his shoulders already, even before he moves her arms to hold him. This is what he wants, he says, sinking his cock into her, drawing her down onto his body. It's almost rough. It fills her with renewed lust, makes her wet all over again, the way he bites at her neck, demands that her body move in this way, be arranged for his pleasure in this way.

this is what I want, he says, and she shudders, her cunt clenching around him, a soft moan shivering from her throat. She is panting, suddenly, the breaths catching in her throat.

They almost never fuck like this. Almost always it's Ivan on top. Almost always it's Ivan pinning Hilary to the bed, hammering between her thighs, holding her wrists down, mauling her breasts with his mouth. Or the other way: Ivan pinning Hilary to the edge of the bed, bending her over and taking her from behind, fucking her until the bed shook, until the nightstands rattled.

Almost always like that. Only a handful of times gentler and closer, the balance between them nearer to equal. And almost never like this: with Hilary over Ivan, the two of them nearly upright on that altar of a bed. No wonder she's wary. No wonder she's unnerved, stunned. For all her sophistication and grace, Hilary is a feral thing. She is an animal who is afraid of change, afraid of the wide spaces of the world and the dark corridors of the night; afraid, sometimes, of what she might do if no one was there to grip the collar. Hold the leash.

Oh, but he doesn't leave her stranded to her own devices. Not wholly. He lifts her like that, but he holds her like this: his arms around her, his hands urging her. His teeth set in her flesh, biting down when she moans like that. The catch of her breath inflames him. He lifts his head and he kisses her, it's almost savage, he takes those gasps right from her mouth.

"That's it." Soft. Barely more than a whisper while his hands grip her hips, move her, show her how fast, how hard. "That's it. That's what I want."

Hilary's robe has come with her as Ivan drew her onto his lap. It slumps off her shoulders but does not fall from her arms completely, hanging low across her back, draped from her elbows. It covers her ass, her legs, his knees, as he demands her arms around him, her hands on his shoulders, as he helps himself to her neck. She is whimpering, the sound almost resistant, almost uncertain, but this is what he wants, and this is what she will submit to for him.

And oh, how he wants her tonight. Not to cuff her and hang her from one of those hooks in the ceiling or attach her to one of those restraints beneath and around the bedframe where he can keep her all night and fuck her at will. Not to turn her onto her stomach and use her, holding her down and snarling at her to shut up and take it. He wants his good girl on his lap, moving to pleasure him, up where he can see her and touch all of her.

Hilary understands it thus. She bares her throat to it, making that soft whining, whimpering noise as Ivan works her on his cock, shows her exactly how he wants her body to move, and she bites her lip as he removes his teeth from her neck. He kisses her, lifting her on him, that's it. that's it.

It takes her time to be comfortable with this. She is never on top of him. She is afraid of what she'll do if he ever submits to her the way she submits to him. If he doesn't control her, if he doesn't protect her, she knows she will explode. She knows it. But Ivan, Ivan who loves her and forgives her and is pleased with her, knows, too. And he knows how afraid she is. He shows her. He holds her leash and tells her how to make him happy.

Hilary holds onto his shoulders as she starts to move herself, rubbing breasts against his chest, rolling her hips to ride him. She's going to make her vladelets happy, and he will come in her and be pleased with her and she will be good and safe and yes.

His good girl. His beautiful little whore. His darling little slut. That's what she thinks of herself as. That's what he calls her. That's what makes her happy. Makes her feel safe and adored, as precious and cherished as she's always been told she was.

It's not easy for her, fucking like this. It's not easy but he helps her, he holds her, he shows her how. She starts to move herself and his eyes flicker closed. He kisses her again and again, somewhere on the line between rough and tender, his teeth catching at her lip, his cheek rubbing against hers

even as her breasts rub against his chest. Even as her body rubs against his, her thighs alongside his; her hips rising and falling, his hands supporting, caressing, barely holding her.

Yes, he whispers, now and again. That's it, yes. And then a little faster: his hands urging her on, raising her up and pulling her down. His breath comes on every downstroke, a harsh panting exhale. His mouth has wandered back to her neck. Back to her shoulder. He kisses and he bites her. When she whimpers, his hand goes to her cheek. Pushes back her head, lifts her chin, bares her throat. The pulse flickering there beneath her skin fascinates him, drives him a little mad. He lets out a groan as she comes down on him again, taking him in, sliding him deep, and then

he rolls backward, he shifts, he lays himself out on that bed. Slips out of her, moves her over him, pulls her onto his cock again -- so quickly, so impatiently, as though he couldn't wait to be inside him again. "Come on," and he draws her down; he flexes up against her, his head falls back and his eyes fall shut. "That's my good girl."

[*ahem* inside HER again...]

Hilary gasps, plaintive and lost, when he slips out of her. She looks at him with something like panic in her eyes, did she do something wrong, is he displeased,

but no. He lays himself out, fits his cock to her opening again and pulls her down, panting, lifting his hips to fuck himself into her. And Hilary melts over him, laying atop him, kissing his chest as she works her hips to move him in her body.

"Am I pleasing you?" she whispers, whimpers, her robe a tangle of softness over them. She rises up, leaving his chest for a moment to shed it completely, showing him her body for a few flickering seconds before she comes back down to meet him, grinding their lower halves together. "Are you happy with me, vladelets?" Again she kisses him, panting against his skin, as he feels her grow more and more wet around his cock. "Are you going to come inside my pussy?"

Ivan doesn't even try to pretend he isn't looking. When she rises up like that, when she sheds her robe like that, his eyes run down her body and up. His hands follow: sweeping up her waist, his thumb brushing past her navel. His palms cupping her breasts, lifting them, rubbing them, wrapping over the round of her shoulders as she comes back to him.

He groans when she grinds down on him. She kisses him and he lifts his head, kissing her back. She pants. He moans. She wants to know if she's pleasing him, if he's happy with her, if he's going to come, and his answer is the same every time:

Yes. Yes.
Fuck, yes --

-- and his mouth on hers again. His hand behind her head, holding her right there as he takes her mouth. His feet planting, his lower body arching up into hers. A new urgency to their tryst now: a heaviness in the way he moves up into her, a swiftness in his breathing that matches the swiftness of their coupling. His mouth leaves hers. He keeps holding her right there, his hands cupping the back of her head, sweeping her hair out of her eyes as she rides him. He's looking at her. He holds her gaze, watches her so hungrily that one might think he derived some satisfaction, some satiation from the look in her eyes. The look on her face.

The look on his face as she moves on him: the flickering furrow to his brow; his eyes closing only to open again. His teeth catching at his lip, his mouth opening on a groan. He lets her see this, which is a gift in and of itself. Lets her see what she is doing to him, how much he likes it, how well she's pleasing him, what a good fuck she is.

How lost he is for her, sometimes. How much he adores her, and how utterly. How close he is, how much he wants her, how good she is for him.

"Make me come," he whispers. "Make me come in that sweet little cunt of yours. Make it good for me."

He is pleased. She can tell by the way he looks at her body, the way he touches her, the way he enjoys those breasts that are heavier, softer than when they met, the way he speaks to her. She's a good girl, and she whimpers when he kisses her mouth like that, hard and firm and unyielding, even as he's starting to fuck her harder. She winds her hips on him in answer, rubbing herself against his cock like she needs it,

which she does.

When he looks at her, pushing her hair back and staring at her, Hilary closes her eyes. He tells her to open them; he wants to see her eyes. And of course she obeys. She pants, starting to well and truly ride him now, meeting his thrusts in counterpoint as she gives herself over to her body's drive. In her mind she hears it over and over: that's my good girl. that's my good girl. good girl. you're my good girl. and she believes it, and it fills her with lust.

make me come, he tells her. make it good for me.

Hilary whimpers, burying her face against his shoulder, his chest, crying out against him as she tries to please him, tries to be a good little fuck for him, so he'll come in her pussy and make her a good, good girl again.

He responds when she buries her face like that. He made her be on top. He made her ride him. He made her look at him, all these things that he knows are difficult for her. Outside her bizarre little comfort zone. He made her do all these things nonetheless, but when she whimpers, when she cries out like that,

when she hides,

he protects her. He folds his arms around her, fiercely. He turns swift and sure, he rolls her under him, he moves over her and onto her and into her and now it's his weight pressing her into the bed; it's his hands fixing her thighs to his sides; it's his mouth searching hers out, kissing hers, taking those whimpers and those cries from her lips and feeding his own groans back to her

as he comes into her. Pounding into her on those last few strokes. Firm and deep and deliberate and just a little savage. Grunting, snarling on every thrust. Shuddering as his orgasm crests over him, pounds through him, pulls him under.

--

His arms are folded under her afterward. He clasps her against his chest and against his body. Panting now, his brow heavy against hers, his body heavy over hers. For a long time he doesn't stir. Even when he does, it's slow, it's reluctant. He rolls to the side, not very far, and keeps her close.

Sometimes they utter such filth to one another. Sometimes it's just Ivan, snarling at her, slapping her, making his demands of her, and all Hilary can do is whine and cry out for him. She comes so powerfully when he treats her like this. When he degrades her: slut, whore he calls her, and she loses her mind. When he tells her that she's filthy, she's dirty, she's a nasty cumslut -- this is what she needs.

But the truth is, Hilary got that tonight. She had someone yank her clothes off, tear her panties, rub his cock on her face, threaten to bring his friends to fuck her one after another. He grinned as he wrote s l u t on her back with her own wetness, smirked at the cum he left on her inner thighs. Tonight, needing so badly to be made low and filthy, needing to be abused after so long without being touched at all, she found the first person who would give it to her and begged him not to stop. Hilary has already gotten that need met tonight.

She needs something else. She needs what it is that she usually gets when Ivan is cradling her in the shower or bath afterwards. She needs the way he wraps himself around her after he's used her cunt and her mouth, the way he holds her together with the strength of his body. She needs the way he pets her hair back as he thrusts slow and heavy into her mouth, showing her that she is loved and precious to him by letting her please him. She needs this, and she needs Ivan, and she needs him to show her that he loves her.

That he understands her.

--

She is crying out against his body even as he rolls her onto her back, his hands forcing her legs up higher so she can take him deeper. Her cunt is clenching and spasming around him already, her mouth open to moan before he kisses her there, swallowing the sounds, eating them out of her mouth. Hilary takes it. Hilary loves taking it like this. She was good. She was his good girl and she made it good for him and now he is fucking her like his very own precious girl, filling her with his cum, rough and hot and savage. She whines for it, grinding as her own orgasm flows through his, leaves him a wet mess where he learns that

she liked this just fine. She is pleased, too. Even if she can't say it the way he can.

--

Her robe is half off, and her hair half dried. She is limp, drowsy, her eyes closed and her body malleable.

"I feel better," she whispers to him, as he wraps himself around her, panting against her, before he begins to roll away. "It is much better."

Ivan's eyes are closed, but they flicker when Hilary speaks. The lashes rise. His irises are wolf-green in this light; threaded with gold. His pupils are enormous, constricting as light strikes.

The corner of his mouth lifts a little. It's a tender little smile. He rolls to the side, he brings her with him. Her eyes are closed, her body malleable. She flows like warm water as he settles her against him, lays his arm over and around her. Little by little, lazily and delicately, he tugs her robe the rest of the way off. Pushes it to the edge of the bed, lets it slump off.

Then it's just them on the bed. And Ivan is tugging the sheets and the covers up. Wraps them inside-out around the both of them, because as little effort as it would take to just get under the sheets properly, it's more effort than he can be convinced to expend right now. It's more effort than he wants to ask of Hilary.

"Stay," he whispers. Even though he knows she will. Even though she's already said she will, he says it. Because he wants her to hear it. He wants her to know that he wants her to stay. He wants to be sure she will.

She is dark. Dark of hair, dark of eye, dark of spirit. Her skin is almost translucent, even this late into spring, verging on summer; she has not been out of doors, has not been under the sun, since the last time she saw her fair-haired son. The only darkness he has taken from her is in his pearl-black eyes, in the madness that will eventually spring up from the depths of his soul and claim him, as it claims them all in the end. He has her purity, her almost alien beauty, just as he has a kinship with shadows and lies from his father,

a kinship that will be nurtured by the method of his rearing.

Surrounded by light, touched by it through Ivan's hands and the memory of her golden little son, she remains shadowed. She will always be so. She is the dark, chaotic center of this serene, bright little house. And her eyes flutter open, her lashes delicate and black, as he bares her entirely to him and then covers her again. She holds onto him, her arms around him, hands on his sides, caressing his ribcage. She breathes, and he tells her to stay.

Looking at him now, she looks faintly like he is ... stupid.

"I live here now," she tells him, bewildered, soft, closing her eyes again and curling to the pillows.

Ivan huffs a soft little laugh at that. All right; he supposes he deserved that. That look; that matter-of-fact statement laced with bafflement.

She closes her eyes. She curls to the pillows. He tugs those pillows down a little, arranges them more comfortably under her cheek. He makes sure her back is covered, and her legs, and every part of her that might catch a chill in the night. As though it would even be possible for them to freeze in this season, in this house, in this perfectly conditioned and circulated air.

It doesn't matter. Some part of him is still wild, a wolf. Some tiny part of him doesn't trust the walls and the ceiling, doesn't trust the gadgets and the machinery. Trusts only his own strength, his own wiles, the heat of his own body to protect her. That's the part that tucks her in. That's the part that spurs him to wrap himself around her, cradling her as she

without fanfare, without announcement

drifts to sleep.

--

At some point, of course, Ivan wakes. The lights are all still on. He's still tangled atop the covers.

So he shifts. He urges Hilary to wakefulness. Enough, at least, that they can get under the covers properly. When Hilary is situated, Ivan gets up to turn a small, dim light on in the kitchen. He turns out all the other lights, then, and he comes back a warm shadow slipping between the sheets to find her. She's drowsing and languid. He finds himself aroused, startlingly ravenous for her. He finds himself reaching for her, pulling her to him under those expensive, smooth sheets; putting her back to his chest, parting her legs with his knee.

He touches her for a long time like that, his lean fingers caressing her, slipping and sliding, rubbing, stroking. He brings her off like that, with nothing but touch, nothing but patience, and when she starts to writhe, to arch, to cry out, he covers her mouth with his free hand. It is infinitely more gentle than what Oliver did to her earlier. More deliberate, too. Almost calculated.

He keeps her mouth covered when he finally enters her. He keeps his hand where it is, fondling her, playing with her clit as he fucks her again. There under the sheets. There in the darkness. Her hands reaching to grasp handfuls of the sheet, or catching at his wrists, his shoulders. He gets her off a second time on his hand, on his cock, and then

he rolls her face-down on the bed. He rises up on his hands, the covers sliding down his shoulders and down his back. He fucks her thoroughly, steadily, slowly, firmly: takes his pleasure in her with hardly a sound, hardly anything more than a few breaths caught and out of sync.

Afterward he is gentle with her. He kisses her back and he kisses her neck. He kisses her mouth when she offers it to him. Drapes an arm over her, a leg over her shins. Sleeps.

--

In the morning, the shades are open when Hilary awakens. The sky is blue and the lake is blue. The world is quiet. The servants have brought them breakfast, left it covered on a wheeled cart that Ivan has brought inside and unpacked onto the counter. The cold dishes are cooled on ice, the hot dishes warmed over tiny gas burners.

Her lover is wandering around in clean pajama bottoms, his hair wet as though he'd just showered. He is sipping a mug of coffee, and he is watching a movie on his tablet, the thin cords of his earbuds hanging from his ears. When he hears her awakening he turns to smile at her across the open, well-lit spaces of the little lakeside cabin

where they, at least for the moment, both live.