Death Masks

Susan reacted instantly, going completely tense. I saw her set herself and strain against the ropes. I waited, watching for a full half a minute before she started shaking and stopped trying to break them. She let out a shaking breath, her head bowed, hair fallen around her face. I started to move toward her, when she stood up, legs spread enough to brace herself firmly, and tried again, lifting her arms.

I licked my lips, watching. I didn’t think she’d break the ropes, but I’d underestimated people before. Her face, her too-black eyes scared me. She strained against the ropes again, the movement drawing her shirt up, showing me her smooth brown stomach, the winding swirls and barbs of her tattoo red and stark against her skin. There were dark bruises over her ribs, and patches of skin that had been scraped raw. She hadn’t come away from our tumble from Martin’s car without being hurt, after all.

After a minute more, she hissed out a breath and sat down, hair a tumbled mess around her face. I could feel her eyes on me more than I could actually see them. They didn’t feel like Susan’s eyes anymore. The tattoos stood out against her skin, red as blood. I backed off, again deliberately, calmly, and got the first aid kit out of the bathroom.

When I came back out, she flung herself at me in blinding speed and utter silence. I’d been expecting as much, and snapped, "Forzare!"

The silver rope flashed with a glitter of blue light and darted toward the ceiling. Her wrists went with it and she was pulled completely from the floor. Her feet swung up, and she twisted, again in silence, fighting the bonds on her. She didn’t get free, and I let her swing there until her legs had settled again, her toes barely touching the floor.

She let out a quiet sob and whispered, "I’m sorry. Harry, I can’t stop it."

"It’s okay. I’ve got you." I stepped closer to examine the injuries on her midsection and winced. "God. You got torn up."

"I hate this. I’m so sorry."

It hurt me to hear her voice. There was enough pain in it for both of us. "Shhhh," I said. "Let me take care of you."

She fell quiet then, though I could sense flashes of that feral hunger in her. I got a bowl of water, a cloth, and set to cleaning up the scrapes as best I could. She quivered once in a while. Once she let out a pained groan. The bruises went all the way up her back, and she had another patch of abraded skin on her neck. I put my hand on her head and pushed forward. She bowed her head and let it hang forward while I tended to the wound.

While I did, the quality of the tension changed. I could smell her hair, her skin, their scent like candle smoke and cinnamon. I became suddenly, intensely aware of the curve of her back, her hips. She leaned back a little toward me, bringing her body into contact with mine, the heat of her something that could have singed me. Her breathing changed, growing faster, heavier. She turned her head, enough to look at me over her shoulder. Her eyes burned, and her tongue flickered over her lips.

"Need you," she whispered.

I swallowed. "Susan. I think maybe that-"

"Don’t think," she said. Her hips brushed against the front of my sweats, and I was abruptly so hard that it hurt. "Don’t think. Touch me."

Somewhere, I knew it wasn’t the best of ideas. But I laid the fingers of one hand on the curve of her waist, wrapping them slowly to her heated skin. Soft smoothness caressed my hand. There was a pleasure in it, a primal, possessive pleasure in touching her. I ran my palm and spread fingers over her flank, her belly, in slow and light circles. She arched at the caress, her eyes closing, and whispered, "Yes," over and over again. "Yes."

I let the washcloth fall from my other hand and reached up to touch her hair. More softness, rich texture, dark hairs gliding between my fingers. I felt a second of gathering tension in her and then she whipped her head around, teeth bared, reaching for my hand. I should have drawn my hand away. Instead, I tightened my fingers in her hair and pulled back, forcing her chin up and keeping her from reaching me.

I expected anger from her, but instead her body became pliant again, moving against me with a more willing abandon. A languid smile spread over her lips, and faded away to an openmouthed gasp as I slid my other hand up, beneath the cotton shirt, and ran my fingertips lightly over her br**sts. She gasped, and at the sound all of my recent worry, fear, anger, pain-it all faded away, burned to ash by a sudden fire of raw need. To feel her under my hand again, to have the scent of her filling my head-I’d dreamed of it on too many cold and lonely nights.

It wasn’t the smart thing to do. It was the only thing.

I slid both hands around her body, teasing her br**sts, loving the way their tips hardened to rounded points beneath my fingers. She tried to turn on me again, but I jerked her back hard against me, my mouth pressing against the side of her throat, keeping her from turning her head. It only excited her more.

"Need," she whispered, panting. "Need you. Don’t stop."

I wasn’t sure I could have. I couldn’t get enough of the taste of her onto my lips. Impatient, I shoved her shirt up, over her br**sts, to the top of her back, and spent a slow and delicious moment following the line of her spine with my lips and tongue, tasting her skin, testing its texture with my teeth. Some part of me struggled to remember to be gentle. Another part didn’t give a damn. Feel. Taste. Indulge.

My teeth left small marks here and there on her skin, and I remember thinking that they looked intriguing beside the curling scarlet designs that swept in a spiral around her body. The dark leather of her pants blocked my mouth, a sudden ugliness beneath my lips, and I straightened with a snarl to get it out of my way.

For the record, tight leather pants don’t come off easily. Berserk lust is likely not the best frame of mind for removing them. I didn’t let that stop me. She gasped when I started taking them off, started squirming and wriggling, trying to help me. Mostly, it just drove me insane as she brushed against me, as I watched her move in sinuous, delicious need. Her panting gasps all had a quiet vocalization to them now, a sound that both spoke of her need and urged me on.

I got the pants down over her hips. There wasn’t anything else beneath them. I shivered and paused to spend another moment savoring her with my hands, my mouth, placing delicate kisses around the scrapes, biting at unmarred skin to elicit more desperate movements, louder moans. The scent of her was driving me insane.

"Now," she whispered, a frenzied edge to her voice. "Now."

But I didn’t hurry. I don’t know how long I stood there, kissing, touching, driving her cries into higher and more desperate pitches. All I knew was that something I’d wanted, needed, longed for had come to me again. At that moment there was nothing on earth, in heaven or hell, that meant more to me.