Ivan Press

Ivan

She does not follow him down that dock. She does not follow him across the pristine sand. She does not trail him into the house; she does not throw herself over the nearest divan, complaining of the sand and the dryness and the gaucheness of it all, no.

She

stops where she stands. She undoes a tie. She loosens a strap, and then another. He has stopped too. He watches her, fixed and fixated, eyes hungry, pupils black. Her dress comes rippling down her body. It reminds him of water. She reminds him of water too; the way she moves, the smoothness of her skin.

Which he remembers now, vividly, as his hand slides over her waist. He does not remember raising it, reaching out to her. She steps into him and it is simply there. His arms are simply around her, and she is kissing him, and he is letting loose this sound into her mouth, all hunger, all wanting.

He lifts her. It is more testament to her slenderness, her dancer's lightness, that he lifts her so easily: he is not a great beast of a man the way her second husband was; or her first. Or all those muscled, prime specimens she took as lovers over the years. He is the one she kept, though. He is the one who keeps her.

They drift down the docks a ways. Then he seems to forget he's trying to bring her inside. He sinks down with her on the sun-warmed planks; lays her out. His vest is the first thing to blow away onto the water. Then his shirt. Sunlight dashes off his shoulders, his back. He is so golden-tanned, selfish thing that he is: sunning himself while she rotted away in Siberia. Russia, at least; nearly as bad. No wonder she hates him. No wonder she loves him: Hilary, who so loves the bright, the lovely, the cruel things.

Right on the wood, Hilary -- who once refused to get onto a yacht unchaperoned with him -- slips from her dress and kisses him. Kisses him hungrily, and with intensity that borders on desperation. She presses her body against his, sighing to feel him firm, and warm, and solid where she is yielding, edged where she is soft. That gasp touches his flesh and then is sealed with another kiss, this one even deeper, her hand trailing down his jaw, his neck, touching his chest.

Her legs wrap around him when he lifts her. That dancer's grace, like she was born to it, born for it, and will never be forsaken by it: she enfolds him delicately and entirely at once, her hands on his face again, her mouth on his mouth.

Yes. This is the one she kept. Keeps.

He is the one who knows her.

Ivan sets her down on the dock. Rough as the wood is, she doesn't complain, or whimper -- not yet, and not for that. She watches him stripping free of his clothes, panting softly as she looks up at him. Her breasts and cheeks are flushed pink already, her eyes limpid and closing against the harsh daylight that she can't bear to stare into. Some movement of his, or hers, and the wood scrapes against her left shoulderblade. Hilary cries out in fragile, faint pain, but her hands are still grasping at his sides, caressing his back, soaking the warmth and the sunlight and the golden beauty right out of his skin.

He will feel her, soon, when he touches her, as he always inevitably touches her. Feel that perfect, expensive cotton between her thighs, feel it damp from her arousal. Her want. Her hunger. For him.

That sound she makes pierces him through and through. Awakens both the side of him that is gentle to her, that bathes her and strokes her and gentles her and wards her -- and the side of him that is brutal. And vicious. And cruel.

He wants to lift her up. He wants to carry her somewhere safe and soft, where that flawless skin of hers won't be marred by even the faintest of scratches. He wants to pin her down where she lies; wants to slam her against the boards, hold her there by the wrists, by the hair, by the throat. Sometimes he can hardly control these urges in him, which is strange because he never knew they existed until she tore the blindfold from his eyes. Showed him the depths of his own soul,

which nonetheless never quite approach the blackness that resides in hers.

He bites her. She cries out, and clutches at him, and he bites her: hard, sinking his teeth into the side of her neck. And biting her he does, in fact, touch her: rubs his fingers roughly over that smooth, soft, pricey cotton. Tugs it aside, tugs it down, wrestles it along the length of her legs as far as he can reach. When he touches her again it's his fingers, her cunt. He pulls back to look at her face, the mark of his teeth livid against her throat. He watches her, sinking his fingers into her, turning as they go; aligning to those unseen contours.

"Did you miss me?" he mutters, and strange that he should ask her this when he seemed to forget her so utterly. When he barely even called, barely even seemed to give half a thought to her. "Tell me you missed me. Say it."

Hilary wants both. But that is their rhythm: she doesn't want to be laid in beds covered in silk to romance her, doesn't want him to stroke her hair and kiss her softly. At least, not at first. Sometimes she can tolerate it, sometimes she wants to be held, but more often than not, this has to come before. He has to scrape her against the wood so that the satin sheets will soothe her. He has to make her cry so he can wipe away her tears. She needs him to hurt her, to bring that blackness to the surface, bleed it out and throw it away, and replace it with something else. Something softer.

Something kind.

He does not pick her up and carry her swiftly inside to the house, to security, safety, privacy, comfort. He does not slam her down, hold her throat, and snarl at her. But he does bite her, and this time the sound she makes is more like a scream. Her legs open though, right then, before he's even reaching for her. It's like a trigger that he only half-knew was there: the way to get her to open for him. Her panties don't snag or tear, just shuck down her hips and halfway down her thighs so he can touch her.

Finger-fuck her, like she accused him of doing to some bikini-clad hot young things on beaches, serving him mai tais. Wrong sort of beach, it turns out. And she knew he wasn't fucking anyone. Didn't really think he was fingering sloppy little whores.

Not entirely.

Maybe he thinks of that bitter phone call too, when he pushes his fingers in her, strokes her, stares at her pale but lust-bright skin. She gasps at the force of it, since it's been some time since Christmas. Since the last time anyone touched her. The gasp is wanton, wanting, delirious. Happy, almost. She grinds herself against his hand, squirming between his body and the wood, though it scrapes, catches at her skin, hurts her a little.

"Tu m'as manqué." She says it again, though he may not remember it on the tarmac. She gasps it, breathes it. Says it again: "Tu m'as manqué, mon maître."

He makes her so happy sometimes. Strange that he almost never realizes it; strange that she doesn't even register it as such. She's so happy right now: because he's treating her like this, poorly, like he's using her. Like she's a toy, a possession, a belonging to be flung around and played with roughly. He recognizes it for once: that she's happy. That he caused it. Somehow. Like this.

She gasps some reply to him -- in French. He bites her again; shoves his fingers in hard. Arches her off the ground and then bears her back down, his knee between hers pushing them apart, his thigh over hers pinning her down.

"So I can understand you," he snarls. "Or are you such a cock-hungry little slut you've forgotten English?"

It isn't just the brutality. The use of her. The way he makes her feel when they're like this. It's because she missed him. She missed him terribly. She missed him so badly that she initiated this, forcefully, taking hold of him and giving him that eager, heated kiss as soon as they stepped onto the dock. They aren't even on the island properly yet.

Hilary screams when he bites her the second time, fucks her harder. She does arch, and is forced back down. His knee presses her panties down farther on her legs; they slide down her shins finally, drape around her ankles. Ivan holds her down, angling his body over hers. She squirms, but not much. Mostly she gasps, sweat salting and slicking her skin.

Her eyes are still closed because of the sun overhead. He growls at her, makes his demands. And she whimpers. She nods.

There's something so mercilessly efficient about this. She strips herself of her clothes. He strips her of her words. Now she's just whimpering, just gasping, just squirming, just

screaming when he bites her. Which makes him laugh, darkly and savagely. Makes him pull his fingers out of her, clamp his hand over her mouth. Leaves a streak of her own wetness on her cheek as he turns her face to his.

"Look at me. Look at me." And when she does: "I love you. You're my little fucking slut. Aren't you? Turn over. Hands and knees. I'm going to fuck that greedy little cunt now."

Efficiency has nothing to do with Hilary right now. She isn't thinking of her lingerie when it, first torn free by Ivan, finally slides down her legs, forgotten. She isn't thinking of unfastening the bra still locked around her. The sun sears through her eyelids, her world red, her world on fire. He laughs and it makes her wet. He covers her mouth and she groans, arching.

It hurts to open her eyes. She does and they water; she tries to tuck her face beneath his shade. Looks at him, best as she can.

I love you.

Looking in her eyes, he knows she knows it. Believes it. Even as he's telling her what she is, who she belongs to, he knows she believes him.

--

When he lets her, she moves. Rolls to her hands and knees. He can see the spots on her shoulderblades and tailbone where the wood scraped against her skin. Nothing bleeds, nothing that serious, but redness where normally she's so porcelain-fair. Roughened skin that is normally so silken.

Beautiful.

It's not merely letting her. He loosens his grip. She starts to turn. He smacks her ass to make her go faster, or maybe just to hear the sound, feel her flesh, see her reaction. She pushes up on all fours and he leans over her, grabs her ass in his palms, squeezes, sweeps his hands up her back. Licks those scrapes on her shoulderblades brazenly, roughly, almost like he wants to taste her blood. Taste her purity. He never wants to see her bleed, but the truth is: her blood is a drug to him. Magnifies her desirability. Makes her a goddess amongst mortals.

And maybe that's what he gets out of this. Why there's this part of him that wants to drag her down, push her down, pin her down, make her filthy. It's because she's so fucking pristine, so fucking beautiful and fair and distant and mad. This is how he reaches her. Makes her real. Makes her feel. This is how he convinces himself:

she loves him too.

--

Pushes up then. Grabs her hips in his hands, drags her back. Her knees scrape the wood. Later he'll bathe her, soothe her, take care of her. Now, though: now he grips her waist, grabs his cock. Slides it up against her and he's muttering terrible things, calling her horrible names, slut and whore and hot, wet cunt -- like she's reduced to this, like they're reduced to this, the physicality of it, the body parts, what goes in where. He's looking at her, watching her take him, and he takes her slow: slides it in with his brow furrowed, mouth opening in a near-silent exhale.

Then he strokes her. Then he slides his hands smooth and gentle over her back, her skin. Thumb brushes that red mark over her tailbone, tenderly. Palm slides up. He wraps his fingers around the strap of her bra, and it's probably not comfortable, it's probably not particularly kind of him: but he uses her bra like a handle, like a leash, grabs hold there as he starts fucking her. While he fucks her there on the dock, there under the blank blue sky, where anyone could see.

The sound is loud in the stillness. That one little slap flies through the air to be swallowed by the endless sky, endless sea. It never reaches anyone else. Hilary doesn't wonder if there are servants in that house, who heard the speedboat and prepared to receive their temporary master again and now see through those ever-direction windows that he is fucking a woman on all fours on the dock.

This is not common behavior in Dubai.

This is not common behavior anywhere.

Hilary winces, shivers when he runs his hands over the scrapes. When he runs his tongue over them. Makes this soft sound: AH-ah, crying out in gasps, as he yanks her back. Somewhere in there he's undone his belt, pushed his slacks aside, whatever underwear he had on. Has his cock out, hot now, hard now. Rubs it on her, and even this doesn't seem engineered to please her but oh,

it does.

So she arches, tilting towards him, leaning back into him, urging him on with her body. Rubs her pussy against him as he calls her a slut, a whore. She opens for him and perhaps it's because they missed each other so much but he doesn't make her wait longer than that. He pushes into her and for a moment, right there, they have some strange tenderness between them. She's sighing, and he's gasping so quietly. He strokes her body, gentle and sweet. For a few seconds, they rock slightly, as she takes every inch of him.

Then he grabs her by the strap of her bra. Twists the lycra in his hand til the wire beneath the fabric digs into her flesh, presses into her ribs. She shudders, in reaction and anticipation both. Opens her legs a little wider, a little more wanton, as he starts fucking her. Pounding her, really. Their bodies slap together; she makes exactly the sort of noise you'd think each time he thrusts into her, each time her ass bounces off his skin.

"Come in me," she gasps, after a while. Perhaps: long before he's ready. "I want you to come in me. I want you to make me a whore."

Ivan lets loose this sound: this fast, savage laugh. Leans down, bites her, scrapes his teeth over the tender skin of her back.

Leans over her. Covers her, one hand still twisted cruelly around her bra-strap; the other planted beside hers. He fucks her like that, kissing her neck, licking her ear, biting at the lobe.

"Shut up," he whispers. You'd think he didn't love her at all. You'd think he didn't care for her at all, that she really was a thing, a toy, a fuck-slut like he calls her sometimes when they're like this. "Good little sluts don't tell their vladelets what to do. They just take cock and come like the wanton little whores they are."

And then:

his hand on the back of her neck. It's been months -- maybe longer -- since he was this rough. Months since they played like this. He shoves her down: cheek to the wood. Holds her down, hand fisted in her bra, hand wrenching her shoulder to the ground. Fucks her like that, furiously, and she can hear him panting, grunting, snarling through his teeth as he pounds her. Somewhere his belt buckle hits against the planks, a metallic clink, a dull thud. Somewhere water washes against the piles, laps the shore.

They fuck. Or more precisely: he fucks her, mindlessly and punishingly; uncommon, taboo behavior anywhere. He wants her to scream. He wants her in those rapturous tears. He wants her to break apart so he can put her back together again,

or perhaps,

so they can put her back together again.

How loving he was, greeting her at the plane. The way he held her, and cradled her. The way he spoke lightly to her of speedboats, put the top up as he drove. You would never recognize that now. He fucks her, and berates her. He forces her down, and she cries out in pain when he forces her face to the dock. She can smell the saltwater, the seat, the age of the wood, and she begins to cry, those fine bones in her face rubbing against the fine skin covering them. He hurts her: let's not deny that. He's hurting her as he fucks her, and feels a cold shudder going down her shoulders, her spine.

[EMPAFEE: too much?]

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

And just like that: too far.

Truth is he's not obtuse. He's quite perceptive. His living, his life, his entire purpose depends on that. His eyes and ears are keen; his instincts sharp. When it comes to emotion, empathy, the feelings of other people -- well; there, his selfishness dulls his senses somewhat. But Hilary isn't just another person. Hilary is his krasivaya devushka. Hilary is the mother of his cub. Hilary is -- wholly without irony, wholly without mockery -- the love of his life.

Hilary is different.

And Ivan: slows. Stops. He's still leaning over her, bearing her down. And then he's not. He's planting his hands on either side of her. Panting; wiping the back of his wrist across his mouth. Touches her, rubbing his palm over her back. There's something concerned, worried about that touch.

He doesn't ask if she's all right. He doesn't need to. Without a word he pulls out of her -- gently -- and pulls his pants up. His vest has floated away somewhere. His shirt is hanging off the pier, one sleeve wet. He retrieves it anyway, puts it over her. Slips his arms under her and lifts her up.

Maybe there are servants watching. Maybe there are scandalized, shocked eyes staring. Maybe no one at all sees it: Ivan carrying his lover down the length of the pier, so tender now.

And just like that: he stops.

Hilary doesn't start screaming, begging for him to. Sometimes she can't tell him to stop. She's starting to... sometimes. Sometimes she can tell him what she wants. She can initiate without begging him in a whisper to do what she likes. But most of the time, especially when she has longed for him and missed him and wants terribly to please him, she doesn't know quite what to do. She feels herself float away from the sharp pain in her cheekbone and the twist of her shoulder, feels herself crying but also feels those tears drying up like there's no point to them anymore. And she doesn't know what to do right that moment.

Ivan, tuned in, aware, this time, does. He stops. And he pauses, waits for something, anything to tell him to go on. Nothing does. Hilary is there, trembling under the hot sunlight, and shivering, and he knows she isn't cold. Knows she isn't afraid, either. But knows that the razor's edge they ride so closely sometimes slipped this time, and hurt her. Which makes her go away.

And that's entirely counter to the point of all this.

--

Hilary cries when he removes himself from her. Makes a noise like she wants to tell him

she's sorry.

But also she folds in on herself a little. Not entirely, not collapsed like a paper flower. But she folds, and he wraps her in that lilac shirt, and lifts her into his arms. He's still hard, his dick wet in his slacks, his hand still smelling of her cunt. Carries her, all the same, like a gentleman. And Hilary curls and rests against him, taking shaky little breaths, resting her hand lightly on his chest, over his heart.

"Izvinite," she murmurs, exhaling with what sounds like regret.

[Russian: "Sorry."]

He can't cover her hand. He does what he can: rubs his head against hers, his jaw to her temple. "Shh," he murmurs. "You have nothing to apologize for, devushka. I was careless with you. I'm sorry."

The tenor of his footsteps change. Off the pier now, on the sand -- following the large paving stones that lead into the house. Perhaps someone was watching after all. The front door opens as they approach; whoever unlatched it has rapidly and wisely made themselves scarce, however. The expansive great room is empty, pristine, quiet, cool.

This, she does not agree with. That he was careless. She doesn't think he lost control. She wants to tell him no, she was weak. And the words die false, dry deaths in her mouth. She sighs instead, not knowing how to form words around what she thinks. She doesn't quite know what she thinks.

She knows she still trusts him, and this enters her mind and she realizes, briefly, that she never says this. It galls her to think of saying it now, or at all.

Hilary strokes his chest as he carries her inside. She knows she left her dress on the pier, and that it has probably ended up in the water along with his vest. She thinks the same of her underwear. She closes her eyes and does not look around, as though she doesn't want to see the house until he shows it off to her. Or perhaps nothing more than this: her eyes still burn slightly from tears, from sunlight, and when she closes them and goes into that darkness, she can think of his vest and her dress drifting delicately, softly downward in the water, lost in the depths.

He can feel her calming in his arms, against his chest. She is soothed. Her back is red and her knees are scraped and both of them are eversoslightly marred by tiny streaks of dried blood, livid in the creases. Her cheek is roughened. Her entire body is salty from seawater and sweat and tears. She does not open her eyes again until Ivan stops walking.

He walks for what seems like a very long time. Neither of them sleep now. She is quiet in his arms, eyes closed. Sometimes she is so childlike, and this disturbs him: her strange, alien innocence, the infallible purity of her madness. He does not think she is sleeping, but to some degree he does understand: she does not want to see. She does not want to be seen.

No one is around to see them. Even hired servants understand certain things instinctively, in the marrow of their bones. These two are different. These two are terrible, and shining, and mad. These two are to be left alone, never to be approached or touched, lest one burn in their brilliance.

He carries her through the great room. He carries her up a flight of stairs. She is light and delicate in his arms; one thinks of birds, swans, though in truth she is as much a falcon as he is. Raptor, flesh-devourer, descended from an elder phylum of incomprehensible, coldblooded things. A door shuts, and now the echoes are different; they are in a smaller space, and then a tiled one. A bathroom. She knows this even before she hears water begin to run.

He fills a bath for her. Of course. He sits on the edge, Hilary in his arms and across his lap. He holds her while they wait for the tub to fill, and after a while, at length, he nuzzles his jaw against her brow again. Kisses her softly on that scraped cheek.

"It's been so long," he whispers. Perhaps this is him trying to explain. "I didn't know where the line was drawn."

It isn't until he sits that Hilary's eyelashes flicker, and flutter, and rise. She looks up at him in profile, aware only of him, his face, his nearness. She quite adores him. Sometimes she simply worships him, and praises all the blessings he gives her. When she is not crying at him, screaming at him, telling him she hates him.

At first she doesn't know what he means. It has been so long; she thinks this in echo to his voice, and her body clenches with desire at the same time. Her heart wrenches painfully, too. She wants to tell him that she is sorry again. This reminds her that he said he was careless.

Her mind reverts to his words, hearing him, listening.

"I do not know either, my love," she murmurs. Not as a defense of herself or a balm to him. Simply the truth. "I missed you so awfully."

Behind him the tub is filling. Tiny choppy wavelets rising against the broad, sloping edges. They're in the master bedroom, the master bath: enormous mirrors, enormous tub. Enormous bed through the open doorway. Champagne on ice, because of course there is; this is a vacation house in fucking Dubai. One can hardly get more ostentatiously luxurious.

Ivan is not reveling in the gauche, though. Hilary is not rolling her eyes at him. He is not fucking her, hitting her, stringing her up either. They are not playing. They are not fighting. They are simply --

well. This is what they're doing. He is holding her, she is listening to him. He is struggling with his words, but in silence: keeps the struggle to himself until he finds something to say. "I wanted to make you happy," soft. "I wanted to make you feel loved, and possessed, and safe. You know that, yes?"

Without discomfort, retreat, sudden waves of disgust,

Hilary just nods. A few times. Quick and small, like a child. But firmly, too.

This is what they are doing: they are talking.

"Thank you," she whispers, as soft as his voice. Softer.

He raises his hand. Very tenderly, he touches her cheek; the scrape that makes him frown a little. Wince a little. Backs of his fingers brush her chin. He wraps his hand behind her head, then; kisses her brow, tucks her face against his shoulder.

"I love you," he murmurs; hard to remember the last time he said this so often, so freely. "More than anything."

Now she closes her eyes. She tucks herself under his jawline and listens to the words reverbate through her as he says them. Is quiet, for a moment, as the tub fills. She shudders trying to say the words: "I'm sorry... I wasn't better. At playing." She struggles here, is unable to keep that a secret as he did for her moments ago. This is hard for her. This is terrible, and terrifying. Voice falls to a very small whisper. "I wanted to give you everything you wanted."

He can hardly hear her over the water. He has to strain to pick up the words: they're so small, so soft. They tear at him all the same, and so he wraps his arms around her; pulls her tight to his chest.

"Stop," he's almost imploring her. "No more apologies. I want you. That's all."

Once upon a time, he never would have said those words, and if he had, they wouldn't have been true. He didn't love her when he met her. God, he wanted her. Saw her on that catamaran, saw her in that club, saw her waiting for him on the docks in order to cheat on her husband, and he wanted to fuck her.

Discovered, while fucking her, that he wanted to degrade her. That he wanted to see her cry. That there was something about her that made it not just all right but imperative that he fuck her so hard she could barely breathe. Slap her. Tie her up. Fuck her mouth.

And she discovered that he didn't have to be pushed, to be taught every step of the way. He had it there inside himself to begin with. He found it, and he was so... creative. And it wasn't hatred that drove him. It wasn't simply sociopathy. Every time he finished with her, their real love affair began: the gentle massages in showers and baths, the delicate way he would touch her in the aftermath.

Neither of them, perhaps, realize this or think this, but that is where their love lives. There, and in Novgorod, sleeping with a toy dragon in his teeth.

--

"I'm here," she says, and touches him with her fingertips, tracing them over his jaw. "And I missed you. And I want you inside of me."

Once upon a time, she never would have said those words either. She wouldn't have even pretended. The words would have bored her, and so would the concept: missing one another. Being with one another, without pain, without degradation, without the razor's edge of what they call play.

She would've been ever so bored, ever so dismissive of the very thought of it: making love, being in love. How dull, how pedestrian, how listless when what she wanted was something much more rarefied and dangerous. She would've never thought -- neither of them could ever have known -- what would grow out of what they had together. Every time he tied her up. Every time he broke her down. Every time he was so tender with her in the aftermath. Every time he did what he did for her, and every time she did what she did to him. His heart. His soul.

Here they are now. And she touches him like a lover. And she tells him, without fear, without whispers so she can pretend she never said it, what she wants.

Ivan's eyes darken, subtle but perceptible. He does not respond at once. He pauses -- long enough to turn, to reach out. He has a grace of his own, lean and svelte. He turns the water off. The tub is most of the way full, and the water is hot, but it will cool before they return to it. That is all right, too.

He stands. Lifts her, and this time she is facing him; she can wrap her legs around him if she wants. His shirt slips to the floor. He carries her to the bed.

She does.

Wraps her legs around him, moves close to him. His shirt slips off her skin and falls away. She sees the bathroom vaguely, for the first time. She does not quite look around her as he carries her into the bedroom, toward the bed. Her long legs fold smoothly around his waist, his bare waist, and she gasps softly at the contact.

"I want you to fuck me, Ivan," she murmurs, arching her back slightly to move closer to him. Touching his face, tracing and tremulous, her eyes holding on to his. Her heart is pounding. How brave she is, right now. How reckless. "I wantyou to fuck me."

She doesn't finish, the second time. She gets to that word, fuck, and her teeth catch her lip and then Ivan leans up, meets her mouth. Kisses her hard, and deep, and inhaling. When it breaks apart he leans her backward, drops her on the bed. Drops his pants, that belt buckle clinking again. Kicks off his socks and his shoes, those ubiquitous, stylish boxer-briefs of his.

Climbs over her naked and lean and hard, cupping her head in his hand, bringing her up to kiss him again as he sinks down over her. Length of her legs and fairness of her body, smoothness of her skin, blackness of her eyes: all of it drives him a little bit mad, hits him somewhere so deep inside. His hands grasp at her thighs to pull them around his waist. He takes her face between his hands again, kisses her again as he enters her, gasps into that contact, shuddering.

Truth is he's little gentler now than he was outside. Still; it's different, isn't it? How he kisses her. How he moves with her; touches her, adores her with his hands and his mouth and his body. It's different. Everything about this is different.

Not so far, from the edge of the tub to the edge of the bed. Hilary has barely spoken, barely been cut off, barely had that biting kiss seared onto her mouth, but that she's being laid down an dlaid out. Her eyes are open; she can see him this time, disrobing, yanking it all off, dropping it behind. Comes over her as lithe and agile as any beast, quick as a shark, covering her. Hilary's legs open, and her eyes close, and her head tips back as he kisses her again. Her back arches, just a bit.

She rubs her cunt against the length of his cock, still hard. Newly hard. Whatever it is. He grabs at her, roughly, and it makes her wet. Wraps her legs around him obediently, cries out when he shoves himself inside of her, grabs hold of his sides with her hands.

Gentler than it was on the docks by far. But they are almost never truly gentle. And Hilary is lifting her hands over her head, her crossed wrists inviting -- all but begging for -- his controlling grip. Kisses him luxuriously as he fucks her. Even her groans are delicate, are lovely.

There's an invitation in her lifting arms. There's a surrender in her crossed wrists. There's a seduction in it all, too, just as it's there in the way she kisses him: so luxurious. He loves that she's luxurious, that she's royal, that she's rarefied and descended from purity.

His hands are lean and hard when they grip her. He pins her wrists under his palm, his fingers locking her in place. With his other hand he touches her, rubs his palm over her abdomen and her breasts, her shoulder, her face. He grasps her jaw as he kisses her, bites at her lip. Then that hand wraps around her wrists too. Aligned to her, stretched over her, he pounds her against the bed; eats those delicate, sensuous sounds out of her mouth as fast as she can make them.

"I want to watch you come," he mutters. "I want you to come."

I missed you.

I want you inside me.

I want you to fuck me.

I want you to come.

They keep saying all these things. They keep telling each other how much they love each other in every arrangement they can. This is unusual. This is unsettling, in one way. Comforting, in another. All he wants is her. All she wants is to give him everything he wants. They want to be good for each other. Neither of them are particularly skilled at being good for anyone.

But they are good at this. And in their twisted, agonized way, they are good for each other.

Ivan takes her invitation. Locks her wrists in his grip, deft and surprisingly strong. She doesn't even pretend to struggle; she just likes to be held down like this, held like this, contained, controlled. It unlocks her somehow, paradoxically. It opens her. It makes her cunt clench down on his cock, tight and sweet and hungry. She's panting into his mouth with those lingering kisses, whimpering as he bites her, and then crying out loud when he holds her tight, starts fucking her into the mattress again, fast now, making her pussy tremble.

He wants to watch her come.

Hilary shudders from her thighs to her jawline, quivering beneath him. She's pink again from her lust, the blush livid against her paleness. She's sweating again from their sex, and the smell of her fills his nostrils. She would tell him

harder

but he knows. Ever since the first time, he's known.

Maybe she feels it: just a touch of wariness. Hint of caution.

Then it tears away, like a scrap of silk flung to the wind. Ivan snarls: there's no other word for it. His fingers push between hers; he grips her hands hard, locking the grip, holding her down. It's still not enough. So he bites her too. Grips her in his teeth; gets his knees into the bed for leverage, up a little higher now. Fucks her like that,

harder,

savagely. She's so beautiful to him. She's so beautiful, period, but: especially to him. Especially like this, wanton, lost to herself, unlocked, flushed, exulting, exalted. And he's such a beast like this, when so often he pretends he is not. Pretends he's civilized and smooth and urbane and sly, when really, really, beneath the skin he's a wolf. He's a monster, bloodthirsty and primitive, concerned chiefly with survival, and lust, and dominance.

"Come on." Hardly even words, those. Mutters; growls. "Come on. That's it. That's it, you beautiful slut. My beautiful, beautiful girl."

Maybe she does feel it. And arches her back further, pressing herself against him, taking him deeper into her cunt. Gasps, tightening her legs around him. And if she sensed that caution or not, she certainly feels it being torn away, thrown aside. Like a vest, like a dress. He growls and shoves her down. He bites her and lifts himself up, and her legs open wider but do not loosen around him so much as an inch.

He starts fucking her. Harder. And she cries out for it, shamelessly, while he calls her slut, beautiful, his. She comes like that, not right away and not triggered by some utterance of his but just... because they're fucking. Because she likes it. Because it's just how she wants it, and because it's been so long, and because she adores him, and because he knows how to give it to her.

That orgasm is not earth-shattering, world-ending, or soul-contorting. It's just an orgasm. It floods through her and it elevates her above and beyond mortality and it fills her mind and body with so much pleasure that she thinks she's going to crumple in on herself, die, pierced through the heart by her own rib-bones. But all Ivan can see is how she tenses up, and quivers, and locks her legs and her pussy around him with worship and greed and possession and welcome and relief. All he can see is her cheeks, pink and flushed, her eyes fallen closed, her mouth open in gasping, shuddering pleas for air.

Watching her like that: that exquisite tension, the closing of her eyes, the opening of her mouth and the way she reaches for air -- his adoration spears through him. He supposes it's love. He supposes that's what they keep talking about, the word they try to apply to this sensation, this state of existence, which is so consuming and fleeting that it is nearly impossible for him to pin a name to it.

He loves her. That is the closest he can get. He loves her, and wants -- what? To take of her. To make her happy. To give her this; this pleasure, this completion, this safety. This. He loves her, and sometimes he hurts her terribly, sometimes she thinks the worst of him, sometimes he is the focus of all her hatred and insecurity and pain and darkness.

But sometimes she's like this. Incandescent and imploding, grasping at him, pulling him in, in, closer, near. Sometimes he goes to her, kisses her even though she can't possibly return it right now; wraps his arms around her body, that dancer's physicality, that honed precision instrument. She feels so fragile to him. He wonders how her bones can hold it all in: her lusts and her hungers and her needs and her madness. There is strength in her, though. There is a gravity to her, and no matter how far he strays

he always comes back to this.

Ivan releases his lover's hands. He wraps his arms around her; closes his eyes. Buries his face in her neck and lets go, himself. Comes like rain falling, storm breaking -- a sense of release, relief, completion. The body shudders; the breath catches. He barely notices. He doesn't notice at all when he grips her in his teeth again, bites her firm and adoring, holds her in every way he can until the rise passes; leaves him washed up on the shore.

He is quiet and still, then, lying atop her. He thinks of how large the world is, how long the distances between Chicago, and Novgorod, and Dubai, and all those other cities in which he tried to find a den for her. And their cub. There is that, too: proof that once, there was this.

Ivan stirs a little. He turns his face a little, kisses her neck. "I think of you," he whispers, like a confession; like a secret he wants to pretend he never shared. "When I'm not with you. When I've left you behind. I still think of you."

What is love, if not adoration, desire, caretaking, safekeeping, joy-giving? But they are bad at loving: every time they fixate on it, they seem to hurt. They are like children using a magnifying glass to see insects more clearly, confused and delighted and upset and thrilled when all they manage to do is focus sunshine into obliterating fire.

But they do love each other. And sometimes, it's like this.

--

When Ivan comes, it isn't because he's holding her down or biting her or snarling. Sometimes that gets him off. But truth be told, that's for her more than him. At least a little more. When he comes it's when he's enfolded her, holding her, kissing her, loving her, adoring her. Protecting her. He fucks her while she's still trembling, crying out, whimpering as though it hurts her, and he comes in her while she's gasping no, no like she can't take it.

And every single thing her body does tells him she loves it. That is how dangerous they are: they have no safe word, they have no words to tell each other this is okay even if she pretends it isn't. He has to guess, and that is imperfect, and that is terribly risky.

Still. Right now, it's all right. She melts, and she gasps, and when the waves have crashed on the shore and the tide has gone back out: they are both still. He holds her and she holds him. He drowses, thinking of vast, expansive things. She pants softly for air, thinking of nothing but how his body feels on top of hers, how his cock feels inside of her. How soft the sheets are. How her lungs burn. How her heart pounds. How her hips ache and how her knees sting where sweat has entered those slightly bloodied scrapes. She is in her body. She is in this place, and in this time, and she is safe.

This is rare, for her. She holds onto it as tightly as she holds onto Ivan, onto her son, onto what bits and pieces of her sanity she can find in the darkness. Because this is important.

--

So when he says I think of you, whispered like that, she hears him. She stares at the ceiling, nodding slightly, as he says it, as though to tell him: I know, or perhaps more simply: I hear you. She is there, taking it in. She receives it, though she doesn't look at him as he says it. When he is not with her, he thinks of her.

This is a secret. This is something she has always doubted, and something he has perhaps vocally denied.

"I'm always thinking of you," she murmurs, her voice dreamlike, drifting. "You're always there. Like a ghost."

Hilary's eyes close softly. Her chest moves as she breathes.

Like a ghost.

Ivan thinks immediately of her brother. Thinks of her pausing, listening, waiting in the darkness for her brother to come home. Did she tell him that, or does he merely imagine it? A strange, aching moment, and he thinks of the future. He wonders what would become of her if he was no longer here. If his luck ran out; if he died; if -- god, worse -- that madness he pretends is only another flavor of eliteness and privilege consumes him, if he can no longer bear to come back to her. He wonders if she would wait for him still. Pause in the darkness; listen for his breathing. Whisper his name. Wait for his touch.

The thought makes him terribly sad. He wraps his arms tighter around her, until the movement of her chest against his biceps feels constricted. And then he loosens his grip. He does not want to crush her, snuff her out. He does not want to think of her lost in the darkness, alone.

"I don't ever want to leave you," he whispers. This, too, is a confession. A naked and terrible truth. He closes his eyes so as not to see. "Sometimes I just can't help it."

"Shhhh," is how she answers this, slow and steady and wavelike, eternal. Her eyes close. She finds a place in herself where he does not say this. She knows.

So he shhs. He falls silent, and he draws a breath. A moment later he shifts; rolls aside. Sweat cools his skin. He reaches out for her; finds her thigh. Wraps his hand around, thumb and fingers following the curvature.

Silence, for a while. Ivan closes his eyes. Lets things be as they are.

--

And some time later, he opens his eyes. Whatever madness overtook him, made him spill all those secrets, has receded. He shifts; looks at her across the rumpled bedspread.

"Are you tired? Was the trip long?"

Hilary falls apart a little when he departs fro her, rolling over. Her arms and legs go limp, akimbo. She sighs. She rolls a little, tucking in on herself, while he covers her thigh with his hand, keeping her. They drowse, but do not sleep. Perhaps they do, drifting and shadowy.

Her eyes open to look at him across the rumpled sheets when he speaks. She nods. "Very," she murmurs, answering both questions.

Oddly, that elicits a little smile from him. A huff of a laugh. Ivan rolls onto his side, rises on an elbow. Sunlight pouring through the windows makes him brilliant; golden. He strokes back her hair. Leans down to kiss her brow, her nose, her mouth.

"I love your hair like that," he says. Which she knows. Which she does ever so rarely anyway, spiteful thing that she can be. "Sleep," he adds, softer. "I'll wake you when it's time for dinner."

Hilary does not move. She rests like that on her side, curled, her knees tucked up a little, her arms folded before her. She watches him, though, always watching, unblinking, even as he touches her. Kisses her face. Her eyes swivel and flick, trying to keep him in sight even though she doesn't dare move. He tells her to sleep. She exhales through her nostrils, nodding, closing her eyes. And a moment or two later, she is obeying.

Moments after her eyes close, she feels the bedding stir around her. Ivan untucks the sheets; folds the comforter over her. It is a light comforter. This is a hot land, even with central air, even with all the trappings of luxury.

She feels the mattress shift beneath her, too. Her lover lies down again, stretches out beside her. He lays an arm over her, loose but secure, keeping her near. Keeping her close.

His eyes close too. She sleeps; a little later, and albeit lightly, so does he.