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SALTBURNT AU INBOX.
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
LARK
text ❖ audio ❖ video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
LARK
text ❖ audio ❖ video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
LARK
text ❖ audio ❖ video
WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK
USERNAME:
LARK
text ❖ audio ❖ video
no subject
her body doesn't jerk. her expression doesn't so much as twitch, a bluff at muscle control that always plays well from the mezzanine. what's always given ani away is this: the close-up shot, a lens on the eyes, a betrayal of breath. she blinks slow as a camera shutter, lashes catching the light just enough to shimmer — not with tears, but something closer to disbelief. a flash of eyes across his face, watching anger — fear? — short-circuit through his cocky, golden boy smirk.
ani's own poker tell: the plush kitten-curve to her mouth when she's been dealt a winning hand, pressed right into the heat of his snarl. not mocking, just privately pleased. because the scene hit its mark, and the bet paid off. another gamble made with all she has left on the table: flesh and pain. unflinching, she presses the fragile hollows of her wrists into his grip like she's starved for the contact, willing — wanting — to wear the imprint of his fingers like a bracelet, if it means he's still holding on. arches up, instinctive, like a cat in rumpled silk.
the ache sharpens, sings up her arms like applause in an empty theater. ghost-light devotion. ani's thigh twitches, a come-up of adrenaline from the sting, the cylinder bloom already reddening into something ugly. and still, the burn is his eyes runs hotter. )
Right. I forgot you got the monopoly on doin' stupid shit. That's your job.
( like she hasn't done stupider shit since he's been put away, death by a thousand cuts. as if her whole body isn't a ledger of bad decisions made in the dark with people who never looked at her like jake did. her free hand wraps around his, drags it down until his palm cups the wound, flesh to flesh. complicity, fingerprints on a crime scene. look at what you stopped. remember what you didn't.
plainly (painfully) honest: )
I just wanted to see what you would do. ( if you'd stop me. ani whispers, sandpapered, triumph still: ) Got you, motherfucker.
( three words that echo like the click of a safe she's cracked open. the score was never the wound, but the golden proof: you must still love me, you poor fucking bastard. )
no subject
Yeah. [ Jake's voice flattens. Gives away nothing but a sneer inside of it, trying to aim for cold and neutral and coming up short. The house always fucking wins; men don't. ] You really got me.
[ Mean. Harsh. He sinks lower into her, body almost completely bowed over hers. The denim of his knee pushing hard against the chaise's frame. The span of his hand around her wrist locks tight. Moves her arm out until it's by the side of her head, pressing the back of her hand right there, into the spot of cooling ash from the end of her (his) cigarette. Ever the director. Ever aware of the strings he can pluck and pull like passkeys and pokerchips.
His thumb brushes against the burn. Just once. It's an almost tender sweep, despite the hot touch to the heated injury her skin still carries. No relief. Just adrenaline, air, and something scalding. The kinder thing to do would be to loop her arms around his and carry her into the shower stall, to run the spray as cold as it can go to soothe the sting. To pull his hand away from where she's invited it.
Instead, he stays there. Despite the thrum in his biceps, the impossibly tight way he still holds onto her wrist, his other hand on her thigh, his head lowers. Slowly, and almost gently, until his forehead comes to rest right over her collarbones. So close that his lashes blink and they sweep across her skin, a series of short, inadvertent butterfly kisses. And it's there that he says it, words loose and honest in that dark space. Below the hollow of her throat, their bodies far apart, except for where he holds her like a bruising anchor. Lowly, a soft and angry and vicious secret: ]
What the hell happened to you.
[ Whatever that means. Whatever that could mean. What the hell happened to you while I was gone. What the hell happened to make you hate me. What the hell are you going to do with me, now that you know I still love you? ]
no subject
what the hell happened to you? like she broke herself, not the carelessness of a hundred different hands that passed her around. like she should be blamed for being left to fix herself, without any blueprint for where the goddamn broken pieces are meant to go. like it's all nervous breakdown, and not being let down.
she just didn't expect jake to be the one to ask next, the one man who should know the cost of sparkle, where he chased it into a cage: steel cuffs, iron bars. the prison they make for themselves, in pursuit of the unreachable. love's always been the prize, for ani — but he should know better than her that love's never safe, never free. that sometimes it fucks you raw, robs you blind, leaves you empty.
he might as well have dangled her under a jewelry loupe and called her defective. her wrist goes slack in his grip. marionette with its strings cut, the killing blow. a heavy curtain-fall of silence. her breath holds so long it feels like rebellion against living, lungs burning. a slow, off-screen death. it sounds like it, in her throat — desdemona's last gasp, othello's hands closing around her throat — when she murmurs, )
I grew up. ( old, champagne-flat: ) You missed it.
( in a world that didn't let it happen softly. get smart about it, get mean about it, get desperate about it. just get up when they knock you off the pedestal. keep climbing until they can't knock you down anymore. isn't that how it always goes? his hair tickles her chin just before her head lolls to the side. grateful he isn't looking at her anymore because she can feel it. the cruel, little spike of tears on her eyelashes. good thing she stopped crying on cue and learned to make it silent. )
If you don't like what you came back to, door's right fucking there. ( venom under velvet, defensive. hurt. ) Bet you already mapped the fastest way out, huh?
no subject
Wordlessly, his goes slack, too. Pulls back, but not entirely, until the curl of his fingers rests against her palm. Resting, but knowing better than to knit their fingers together. It's more brutal than any tripwire or any dead man's switch — the realization that there exists a world where he doesn't know what she wants from him anymore.
Jake shakes his head, and the movement looks like some kind of strange nuzzle. He says something, some noise, too quiet to hear. Maybe Fuck. Maybe Ani. Maybe I know, I'm sorry. It all leaves him. The brutality of his anger and the fear that sits in his gut — everything that sits behind neon and flash and all-night laughter, the parts of him custom-built for audience and leverage. His body unbows, softly retreating from her space. His head lifts, and his palm unfurls from her thigh.
They were happy, once. Weren't they? They were happy once, sharing coffee too late out on midnight hotel balconies. Him with a diamond band in his pocket. Gently, the pad of his thumb presses soft into the corner of her eye. It sweeps across the rise of her cheek, catching a tear along with it. ]
You're my wife. [ He doesn't say it like fact or boast. He says it hoarsely, hopelessly. ] I'm not going to quit on you, Ani.
[ For richer, for poorer. Sickness, health. Easy to say, maybe, for a man who's known for always doing the leaving. That's the kicker: how he does know the fastest way out. Tigers don't change their stripes, the house always wins, and thieves don't stop planning for one more tip of their hand.
Jake presses his mouth to her temple. A kiss, if it can be called anything like it. He ends up on the floor, sitting with his knees raised, his spine propped up painfully against the leg of the chaise, some crumpled shadow in iron rather than glinting gold. His back to her, he runs both palms through his hair. Exhales long, and low, and doesn't say anything at all, until: ]
Does it still hurt?
[ He's talking about the burn. ]
no subject
maybe it's just her, more warped and colder than any cell, impossible to escape from. how she kills what loves her slow, death-row devotion. her fuck-ups, like embry said.
she had made it a point not to imagine him behind ironwrought bars, her songbird in a cage. her bird of a feather, mirrored fates, even miles apart. a stack of half-written letters, perfumed and smudged, still sits folded into a hollowed belly of her anna karenina. unsent, afraid to fly across the silence. too much hope, too much hurt. but she sees it now: sunshine dying, golden-boy glow rusting. hates it, hypocritically. as if she didn't want him wrecked to match her hurt, just moments ago. just so he'd shut up and see her. just so he'd feel it.
the sound in her throat — some malformed laugh — chokes on saliva and tears. thick, watery. still perfectly pitched, somehow, like pain is just another familiar note in her register, all aria and breath control, staying pretty for an audience. she smudges a hand across her cheek, mascara streaked halfway to her jaw. )
Yeah, baby. It fucking hurts. ( it's just visible now, a translation made permanent. her fingers brush the welt, test the burn of her nerves, a hitch of an inhale. still finds it doesn't sting as much as how he's looked at her, like she's a stranger wearing her own face. like she's not what he wanted waiting at the end of that prison sentence. ) Always.
( she's not talking about the burn, not anymore. she slides down to the edge of the chaise, dangling legs a bracket around his body. her fingertips trip over his neck's vertebrae, skirt over his shoulder, down to his chest. spins the golden band dangled there between her fingers, still the best damn thing any of her paychecks ever bought. a working girl's vow, the blood-sweat-and-tears kind.
same as the wedding ring still tucked in her locked drawer, center stone carved out from a stolen le bleu de france, her hope in a diamond. )
Could still hurt worse.
( if you left. )
no subject
You think?
[ He can tell she's crying. Hears it in her voice, has memorized the texture of it since that first time he heard it. Told himself he'd never be the reason it would ever crawl back to life. It's hard to tell, whether he's imagining it — whether it's the last time he'll ever be let in enough to hear her sound like this.
Silence stretches. The pads of her fingers skip over the back of his neck, climbs down the front of his shirt. A shudder works all over his frame. He doesn't bother to hide it, to open his mouth to distract from the rest: how easily he turns, almost like he wants to press into her wrist, replace that body-warmed band of gold with his jaw; how he curls his hand around her ankle, simply because that's the nearest part of her he can reach. He touches the spur of bone there the way marble fingers dig into flesh: a little desperately, wanting more than anything to freeze the feeling, this splinter in time. A moment he can't steal away and sink inside.
He expected her to write. Selfishly, recklessly. Mail call and three square meals and ten minutes of sun a day and still nothing, not even a signed photograph, a scented fuck you, a redacted letter. All that careful planning Jake built up within himself, in his life, and he never did send anything first, either. You snooze, you lose. Even kids know that fucking story. Nothing like a jumpsuit and cuffs to make you fall asleep at the wheel.
Except the once. A postcard from San Diego when he was nowhere near it, tourist chic, blue and white WISH YOU WERE HERE! stamped on the front. Scrawled on the back: Give 'em hell, honey. It arrived two days before her 24th. ]
How was your birthday?
[ Before she can pull away, change her mind, leave, his fingers catch at hers. Replacing her hold on the ring with his own hand, brushing his lips across the backs of her knuckles. Idly holding her hand up to eye-level. Like it's all domestic and affectionate curiosity, the way husbands look at their wives, studying the pedicure his pocket paid for. ]
I know I missed it.
cw: alcoholism
she forces herself to sit in the uncertainty, this time. hand gently cuffed in his grip, willing prisoner taken in for examination. the shine of her polish is as manicured as ever, pink-gold shine like it costs too much to be sad, not a chip in place. underneath: a nasty habit of picking at her cuticles, scabs almost invisible beneath the lacquer. she stretches her index finger out. grazes whatever inch of his skin is in reach, a ghost's touch. her leg stretches limber, jake's fingertips as an anklet. settles her heel onto his thigh. )
It was a shitshow. FP and I got into it. Big goddamn surprise, right.
( flat. the way it only ever is when she's too tired to do anything but divorce herself from giving a fuck. because it had felt more tombstone than celebration. because he'd missed more than that. she's counted it the way he can count a ledger, the passage of time away in holidays, birthdays, marriages, divorces, orgasms. anniversaries spent in others bed. in waking up, and realizing the man across from you isn't the one you want to see on the pillow. hell, she's probably used as many bodies as they've used hers, an empty fucking blackhole for love. )
Told him to fuck off before the cake even came out. I guess he figured it'd be easier to drink me off his mind than try to fix whatever we fucked up.
( can't blame him, she thinks. it's hard to love a woman when there's always the spirit of some other guy haunting your bed, a third body between the both of you. shitty wife, shitty husband, explosive results. she bends down like a drooping flower, nose pressed to the crown of his head. inhales quietly. he still smells like home. still feels like it, a tune you don't forget. ani never misremembers the songs that matter.
she exhales, the breath tickling his scalp. )
Got to spend it solo, cleaning up the mess he made. Happy fuckin' birthday to me. ( she sniffles, soft, just the once. more reason for fp to resent her — it hadn't mattered. not when she'd had jake's postcard to fold and unfold so many times the ink blurred. ) I kept your postcard. Figured I'd cash it in someday for a real birthday present.
no subject
Think I like him the least.
[ As if Jake's making passing commentary on something else entirely. Clothes. Shoes. One of many shades of a dress, a flight of fancy, and not the next man to hold her hand in public. Whatever he feels looking at candid photographs from four timezones away, the glossy sheen to her mouth seen in an interview on a tiny, staticky screen, shared rec space with other men just like him: it's never been jealousy. Too sharp and aching and pointed by half, to be something as common as envy.
Shaped like a comfort, his palm runs up her shin. (You didn't deserve that.) Mindless reflex, the way bodies jolt at alarm, the way green lights relax some pit in the stomach. Up to her knee and down again to her ankle, slow and meandering. He studies her nailbeds like there's something to be gleaned there, the memory of a habit knocking against his teeth. Unchanged, still. Anora Mikheeva's little splinters of self destruction. Maybe marrying him was just one of the first.
He squeezes her fingers in his. Her breath runs warm behind him. There's a reason it can't be like this all the time, pink and gold and warm and tired, a coat of color over the scabs they left behind in each other. He lets her hand go. ]
A real birthday present. [ And still, a part of him tethers. Will, always, until gravedirt. His head tips back to look at her, the round of his skull resting lightly against the plush softness of one of her thighs. The pinpricks of stubble scratching as his eyes alight, a familiar look settling back into his shoulders. Deftness. The start of a roll of the dice. She kept his postcard. ]
What, a new car? White picket fence?
[ Teasing. Gently testing the balance and weight, even though there's something almost real in there, too. If they were both different people. If history held a little less sway. ]
no subject
maybe she's just been out of the business of pretending with him for too long. maybe the return on royalties from that particular performance just aren't worth shit anymore. she looks down at the absent space like it might still tell her something. flutters her hand almost protectively back to herself, sliding it over where silk pools in the crease of her hip. )
Yeah, yeah. You're real funny, Goldilocks. Fuck off with that.
( a laugh churns out of her, quiet. not an honest one — it's ani's favorite decoy: that flirty, flighty sound when she wants something too badly to ask for it. when what's on offer tastes too much like hope. as if he hasn't always known the wistful gleam in her eye, hadn't seen her pause too long in front of degas' the dancers in blue that one time, hadn't acted like he could drop it in her lap over breakfast. like the only cost would be loving him back.
her head tips toward her shoulder, half-hidden behind a silky curtain of dark hair. not shy, because ani is never shy. but girlish, the softness of a secret romantic under all those thorns she's grown to survive. )
I'd give you two months before you get bored. ( of a life where the only thrill is her. she smiles. a sad, sepia-tinge of nostalgic. ) Sounds too fuckin' quiet. That ain't us.
( her eyelashes flutter, stealing a glance at him. it doesn't help that the sudden return of life to his eyes, like he's seeing a table worth betting on, makes her want to be stupid, be honest. doesn't help that the scratchy whisper of stubble makes her legs twitch, ticklish. a kinder burn that's left her skin red, before. her palm uselessly pushes at his cheek to save herself from her sighing, involuntary giggle, the thrill it sends up her thighs. )
Nah. I want somethin' one of a kind. Something you can't lift off some rich asshole's collection. ( she nibbles on her lip, scared he'll laugh. say no. her toes curl in his lap. she doesn't run, just leaves her cards facing him. ) So, what's the going rate on Jake Seresin these days? He still on the table, or is the birthday girl shit outta luck?
no subject
She saves him from doing something desperate. Pushing her fingers into his cheek, Jake miming biting at the air as she pulls them away. He huffs out the same laugh, less tender, more gold; his head lolls from the momentum and he takes the moment, just one, of closing his eyes, the side of his nose pressed a little awkwardly into the round of her knee.
There's a silence that chases that. It's a short silence but it still fills all the cracks and the fissures. It's not a laugh, not even close: just a quiet study. Of the lilt in her voice and the shape of her vowels and the way she says shit outta luck like he might be able to read her by that alone, some separate tell found only in audio from the source, not traveling through the wires on some late night phone call. Jake lets out a breath that's warm and close and he smiles, the broadness of it curling back, settling into his chest. ]
That all?
[ Not an I love you, still. But it's enough to live off of for a while.
A beat. Then: a twist, fully, long legs folding underneath until he's there all of a sudden, facing her. His palms rest against the edge of the chaise, but his thumbs sit right on the tops of her knees. From this angle, he can see bruises on her thighs. The red starburst of the new burn. Jake looks up at her from below and his eyes shine when he wets his bottom lip. His head tips to the left in an almost owlish movement, curious. Honest, when he doesn't mean to be: ]
Is that what you want?
[ Like she can say anything. The moon, the stars, every fucking name in this house. To never be touched again, to be touched all the time. The only cost is loving him back.
He lets out a playful click against his teeth. Replaces the cards, shuffles the deck: ]
Just might depend on what you want him to do.
no subject
maybe she could learn to. maybe there's a lifetime where she isn't stuck in the cage of her own want, bars welded from every time she's been told no, not you, too much, too late. jake's right there, dangling the key like it's a gift, not a gamble, not a risk. like love is a promise, and not some long-running con without a winner. a pull between her eyebrows, a crumpling of her expression, a wall bulldozed down. not because he's said the devastatingly wrong thing she's heard again, some played out song — because he's said the devastatingly right one.
stupid, to think he needs to offer that out. it sounds like an exit route to ani, last chance to return her gift with the receipt before it's officially hers: is that what you want? as if it didn't half-kill her to tell his dumb ass the first time. her chest hiccups, faint, around the breath she loosens. her fingers loop back into the chain around his neck again — less tender, now, when she gives it a sharp little tug. a reprimanding, just this side of possessive and heat, a statement of what the fuck do you think? without as many words.
her expression, by contrast: suitably fawny, deceptively doe-eyed. perfect costuming for: )
I could really use someone to do my taxes.
( coquettish, a playful feint — but only halfway. a beat, the sparkle dulling to seriousness. when she speaks again, it's the softest thing in the world. )
I got an impossible job for him. Big reward in it if he doesn't blow the whole thing.
( a trail off, fingertips scratching through his stubble, a knuckle rubbing over his jawline. slow, absent. )
Stay. Love me. Try not to fuck it up this time. Heard he used to be the only guy who could pull it off. You think he's still got it in him?
no subject
For a moment, he only looks up at her. There, on his knees, her fingers hooked back into the chain he wears like a collar and a promise and an oath. The golden spike of his lashes jumps, and Jake exhales, long and low and heavy. Expression unreadable, neutral, far away. He thinks back to that first glimpse of sun and cloud when he'd gotten out, a paper bag of all his old shit tucked under one arm, a hand cupped over his eyes as he'd blinked into wide open space. How blinding it had felt. How the impossible reach of his own ambition had clawed, violent and hopeful and heavy, right back into his skull. How the sky was the fucking limit, baby.
I never stopped, he wants to say. I never knew how to stop. I'll keep showing you that, as long as you let me.
Without agenda or motive, Jake smiles at her. An open, tender thing that hasn't seen daylight since she left. The press of his dimple against the turn of her knuckle. The words — better ones, more honest, more true than that first glimpse of sun — crawl up and up, touching the corners of his eyes, the way his mouth curves, the way his palms gently run up from her knees to her thighs. He says, simply: ]
I do.
[ Jake rises up on his knees. He leans into her, angling. He breathes in her exhales and lets himself, for now, for as long as he's here, be buoyed by the feeling. ]
I also hear, [ he says, slowly, faux-thoughtfully, ] that he's hung like a horse.
[ The skip of his fingers against her hair. The push and tuck of it as he cards it, a motion so immeasurably private and small, out of her eyes. Jake loves her. Her bitter edges, the way she moves in the dark; how there is a meanness in her body that kept her alive. It isn't doubt but honesty that makes his gaze drop, his head tip. He stops, for once, edging in all his tells: ]
You think we're going to get it right this time?
[ You think we're going to hurt each other all over again? ]
no subject
the shadows around her eyes burn away. in an instant, she looks younger. not the ghost of someone else. not quite a replication of who she used to be. close enough to be a rendition of a woman bet her panties against a cartier watch in monte carlo when he was just a stranger still, a wife who laughed and ran laps around hotel room furniture to make him catch her, a bride hearing i do at a quiet altar.
because of course he says it like it's another set of vows, like it's another ring sparkling in a box. in quick succession, she thinks: fuck, she wants to believe him again. fuck, maybe she already does. fuck, she's so completely fucked. she swats at his chest, a gentle shove, to keep from saying something desperate and stupid like i missed you every fucking day. )
God. ( she jingles out another laugh, breathier. ) I fucking hate you. You still say the dumbest shit.
( it sounds, suspiciously, like it translates to: god, i fucking love you. ani never was good at that language, less natural than even her bumpy french. there's room, now, for her to slide down from the chaise — settle comfortably into his lap. a familiar saddle. a roll of her eyes, all bravado, all long-suffering over having to humor him: right before it cracks into something softer, like a splinter catching on satin. )
I think we've gotta fight like hell to get it right. Don't let me tap out when it gets too hard. And you? Don't pull your Houdini bullshit. You're stickin' with me.
( she seals it with a kiss, if it can be called that, to his forehead. a promise, an i do, an you may kiss the bride conclusion to a vow. then, pirouetting away from her own nakedness, still restless when the truth gets too raw: )
So let's see if the ride's worth the trouble, cowboy. ( she lifts the body-warmed band to her mouth, lets it brush over her lip. exhales, the way he taught her to blow on dice — for good luck, baby. make the next one count. as mean as it is sweet, a little dare dangled between them: ) Put your fuckin' ring on.
no subject
His hands catch at hers. Rolls his spine and curves his shoulders inward, in clear invitation for her to take the chain over his head. The grin on his face is smaller, flashing just for her. Marquise cut, clear as a bell:— ]
You just want me to fuck you while I'm wearing it.
[ As easy as following escape routes and paths to glory, his right palm sinks into the landscape at her back, just above her tailbone. His left unsnaps the chain; lets it unspool, snakelike metal flash, to disappear somewhere into her carpet.
The first time, he'd been blinded by it. All the sacred ways going back home centered him, to a place that felt permanent even when it wasn't; the loosening of pressure when he could turn off the light, roll over, and bury his nose into the soft crook of her throat. No more sirens, no more deadbolts. Houdini fucking bullshit. Practicing easy lifts, sleight of hand he'd known since he was barely fifteen, because the weight of something as simple as a ring threw him off his game.
He knows what it means, now. A thief takes what isn't his, expatriates, but a man stays. The gold band fits just as easily as it used to on his ring finger, and Jake grins wide. Doesn't show off the sight — just presses his left hand to the creamy-soft skin of her stomach, above her bellybutton, widening the gap of her robe. Feeling it, over seeing it. ]
I'll get you a new one, [ he says. Tells, intones, promises, because he never did ask what she did with hers. Angling in, he runs his mouth over her jaw, lips working over her skin when he murmurs, ] What do you want? Tereshchenko Blue? The Wittelsbach-Graff? [ A wick of a laugh. ] Botticelli? Klimt?
[ His hand skates up. Boyishly playful, teasing, brushing against her sides, light enough to almost be ticklish. An echo, softer: ]
You and me, huh?
no subject
You and me, baby. ( a practiced silhouette, her head tips to the side, dark hair sliding down the bared curve of her robe. femme fatale charm, right before the double-cross — innocent voice, bedroom eyes, dirty mouth, worse mind. she leans in, the big reveal: ) I want everyone to know you fuck me wearing it. That ain't a crime, officer.
( a good thief works in the shadows, lets the job speak for their reputation. he doesn't have the luxury of an anonymous identity anymore; ani never had one the minute she signed away her privacy. jake seresin, retired burglar. anora mikheeva, retired wife. until that one last irresistible job comes around. if he's going to wear that ring and mean it, she wants him caught in the act of loving her. let the whole goddamn world know what he stole. some men don't stay gone. some things don't need to stay hidden. sometimes, stepping into the spotlight ain't so bad, when you've finally got something worth showing off.
she never did have the same taste for subtlety that makes a good con artist.
punctuation, the question mark at the end of that sentence: she swirls her hips over his jeans. proof she still fucking owns him, proof she can still drive him crazy without lifting a finger. she giggles around a sigh, a shivering hum. equal parts siren song and girlish glee, like playing opposite him again is the most fun she’s had in years. )
Save 'em for the anniversary. ( her head moves with his mouth, distracted, squirming when callouses catch on her sides. letting him case the joint, look for new pathways, map the old ones. wondering, all the time, if she still feels like a blueprint he'd known blindfolded, if he has every one of her structural weaknesses memorized. ) Nothin' beats the originals.
( her first love. her first husband. her first ring. sentimental, sure. always. proven by her fingers plucking up his chain, wrapping it around her wrist until it's been repurposed. finders keepers. oldest trick in the book. )
How about a deal? ( a glint in her eye. high stakes, high drama. the way she's always loved to play, if he's her opponent. the way she knows he can never resist the thrill of a challenge, especially if the prize on the other end is worth the pursuit. ) I'll wear it if you can find it. First clue: it ain't far.
no subject
He kisses her. Bruising, tender, both things all at once. His palm skips upward and over the ladder of her ribs, dragging hard-won calluses, right up to the underside of her breast. His thumb swipes at the soft swell of it. Tease, play, calling then raising: ]
You're making me work for it.
[ The kind of accusation that's approving, thick with the messy knot of attraction and desire and press of a denim zipper that might not be so comfortable in a couple of minutes. Playfully, he returns the glint in her eye with one of his own. It's all the warning before he rolls them, a strong thigh between her legs. His shoulders rolling as he crowds her into the floor. No other way to say Game on, honey. No other way except to bend his head and kiss her cheek. Chaste and slow and hiding a smile, her hair tickling his nose, smelling like smoke and cherries and too-early walks on the broadwalk. ]
How about here? [ X marks the spot, however it goes. Jake's mouth trails lower to the join of her shoulder. ] Or here? [ Lower and lower again: her collarbones, the spot between them, the place of her knitted sternum, between the valley of her breasts.
A beat. A hard stop, as his head stays bowed, his brows pushing together in thorough motion. And then, distractedly, blithely, as if he's only just remembered, a mouth that never shut up but a brain that was clocking in overtime as he looks up: ]
Locked drawer?
[ He snooped, before she found him here. Obviously, obviously, but didn't pick open the lock. Wary of time, wary of distance. Wary of what she might find sacred in a life where she didn't need him anymore. His face splits into another wide grin. ]
I thought that was where you kept your favorite vibrator.
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she nips back a pearly smile. not a tease, not a play — just the giddy shimmer that comes with making her own invaluable find: she must still feel, taste, sound like home. not so broken or reshaped that his body has forgotten how to want her. too wanted to ever go forgotten again.
he still tastes like her favorite oral fixations: spearmint, nicotine, jake. if one wasn't in her mouth back then, another always was, anora mikheeva's holy trinity of filthy habits. her tongue flicks out, drags him up by the hair to chase the flavor again. gripped too tight, like he might disappear if he travels too far down her body.
the rest of him is as familiar as it isn't — ridges of new muscle her fingertips slide over, trespassing underneath the hem of his henley. prison-strong, made hardier behind bars. her heart tightens. not arousal. not not arousal. it's an ache closer to remorse. for things she's missed. showing up to the trial, but not the pen pal letters, conjugal visits, one-a-day phone calls. what she might've gotten to see play out, if she hadn't been so fucking scared. )
Uh huh.
( dealer's choice what it's agreement to, dripping off her tongue like caramel. melted into something sweet, distracted. probably his guess. probably his observation of the obvious: you're making me work for it, as if she's ever let him have it easy. probably the solid press of his thigh between hers, her own squeezing a bracket around it. dragging herself against him in slow, syrupy glides, cunt to muscle, rough denim to lace. indulgent, unrushed, unconsciously — like a lazy sunday morning, soft warmth, nowhere else to be. she laughs a beat late, like she's only just now paying attention. )
That vibrator's 24K, sweetheart. Show some respect. ( trick of the trade he taught her: sometimes the obvious is so obvious, it's missed. other tricks of the trade: the well-made false bottom to that drawer, ani's matryoshka doll of secrets. treasure worth hiding well, even if it meant nothing to anyone but her. a sound chimes out of her, wound-up like a music box. lyrically closer to a whine, eyes hazy, dare and hint both: ) Second clue? Try goin' lower. Ain't the first time you're gonna have to talk your way into somethin' tight.
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Personal best is four minutes.
[ Like she doesn't know. Like it wasn't with her, fucked up from jetlag and starving at 2am, convincing a local restaurant to stay open just a little longer. She rocks herself against his thigh and Jake hums, tightening, pushing up, giving back, letting her take it; he looks down at her with an expression impossibly open and tender, like she isn't grinding over his jeans. His girl. His mean, mouthy, soulmate of a girl.
His left hand finds her first. A palm wrapping over her throat, a signal more than an attempt at a squeeze. He kisses her again, filthy and warm and open-mouthed. Spearmint sugar and spit and gum, passed from his mouth to hers. Jake grins, as blinding as fucking lights when he pulls away, mimes a lazy mockery of a salute, and drags himself lower. The rasp of lips and stubble against her breasts, her ribs, her belly; the glint of teeth as he bites into intricate lace, tugging her panties off with his thumbs and his mouth. Show and fucking tell.
He shoulders in between her legs. Right there, on the floor, palms cupping her hips. His cheek knocks softly into her knee and he kisses her everywhere but the small, swollen aftermark of her burn.
Doesn't avoid pressing his mouth right over her bruises. Not the way boyfriends say sorry in arguments, not the way husbands apologize for forgotten anniversaries — but the acknowledgement, instead. That it happened. That it all happened, in the dark, lying beside someone else in silk-soft sheets, while Jake stared up at cinderblock ceilings and thought about what he'd written behind a priceless painting in Saltburnt with bold, inky Cyrillic. Defacing the joy of a Fragonard because it was the next best thing to the back of a napkin. Five words, the vows that had come first before the practiced ones later: I'll take care of you. ]
Thought about you all the time, Ani.
[ He murmurs it into the softness of her thigh. Easy enough, to think he might just be talking about sex. That he's talking about that first moment when he puts his mouth over her, leisurely and wet and syrup-slow. That he's talking about the way his lashes jump, then close, the grunt before he tugs her closer, indulgent but needy, wanting to know if her thighs still shake the same. If she still tastes the same when he hungrily maps her open with his lips and his tongue and a finger, slick and easy, to give her something to clench down on. ]
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it hurts, a little. not because of jake — because her body jolts where he's pressed his mouth to the aching bruise of what she's become. months of skinned knees, trying to outrun the ghost of him in someone else's bed. weeks of begging for it to hurt just to drown out the echo of his name in her head. nights spread wide for mouths that never kissed her right, just spat her out when they were satisfied. never asked her where it hurts; never tried to make it better, only worse.
it tears a gasp from her, sharp and wanting. the whole of her sensitive, sore, starved, shuddering up to meet him like she might just come from the warmth of his breath alone. like she's waited decades for him to come back and kiss it better. feels longer still when his tongue drags a devastating line up her slit — too hot, too slow, too fucking much.
she shakes through it, the wobble of something strong threatening collapse. it's not polished or practiced; not costumed or choreographed like she's been for the others, only worth keeping around when the performance stays pretty. only willing herself to stay when they didn't ask for anything real. her spine bows, tight with tension; toes dig into the carpet, her other heel landing uselessly between his shoulder blades, sliding down his back in a restless stutter. hips squirming with a need to run from what feels too good, too raw, too ruining. )
God. ( a sobbing keen of a moan, done with all the hiding. ani's eyes prickle from the intensity. ) I fucking missed you.
( easy enough, to think she might just be talking about the sex, not how he fucking devours her even — especially — when she's mean, messy, mouthy. not how she knows, now, she's starred in his thoughts as much as he's haunted hers. not how his mouth between her legs always sounds like an i love you. her hand fumbles down to her hip, grasps at the back of his fingers. less desperate to come than to be chosen.
softer, ragged. safer to sigh, because his mouth is too full to answer fast: ) I thought you'd never come back.
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It feels so disorientingly familiar that he groans, heavy and dark and low, right against her. His fingers at her hip turn, clench; the thick band of his digits knits tightly against hers, curling so harshly that it's as if Jake is trying to anchor her there, between dirt and atmosphere, by something as ordinary as touch alone. He mouths over her folds, and the messy crease of her thigh, and his finger hammers into her with soft, slick fucks. Muscle memory that his body never unlearned, for the way she likes to come. The way she is when she wants more. The way her hips roll so hard that he uses his hand, the one that's folded into hers, to move an arm across her hips, baring her flat and down and close as he drags his tongue across her clit over and over again.
Keeping her there with a different kind of strength. An iron-bar promise. Stay. Stay still. Stay still for me, and we'll build this all over again, anywhere you want. Anywhere you ask.
I'm always going to come back for you. I'll never be late again.
There. Close. Almost. Always. There's no real force on earth that can promise any of those things like they're non-negotiables. Jake Seresin, acting like doubt isn't ever in his DNA, even when it was. (What the hell is wrong with you. Why didn't you write me. What did I do wrong. I thought you'd never come back.) She flutters and clenches and he pushes in another finger without warning, a coax and call, and when she comes he doesn't stop until it has to edge something that aches.
And then he's the one who bears all the urgency, too good and too raw and too ruining. Pupils blown and jaw shiny and thumbing open his jeans, his zipper, bowing back up and catching her mouth with his own full of her taste, the force of a shudder rolling down his back as he barely stills. ]
Ani—
[ Helpless. Right there, hook and line, target and bullseye, heart and home. He kisses her all over again, pushing the taste of her further inside, his own movements suddenly turning clumsy and fever-hot, spinning recklessly into the hairpin turn. ]
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she knows that look of desperation. knows she's wearing it now, pupils blown wide, swallowing the warm whiskey‑brown. knows she's worn it, with deja-vu clarity — reflected back to her in the glittering face of diamonds, blue glow of an atm screen, eyes that looked at her without seeing. people who were never hers, lives that she'd never get to have. the times she's drawn up short: that's not for you, ani. never for you. and the one time she'd thought, maybe, maybe that unbelievable daydream was finally hers —
jake kisses her with the same split-open longing, like she's always wanted to be kissed: not just worth wanting, keeping, but vital. precious, priceless. she whines, loud, into his mouth, wrecked by the intensity of him; drags her tongue, wet and messy, to catch the salt-sweet taste of her sugared to his teeth. spit threads between them, sticky gum still tucked behind her molars; it gets lost and caught up between their tongues, slick and saliva and spearmint, a sting of nicotine. so dizzyingly nostalgic she can only gasp, )
Jake.
( call and response. here, it says. i'm right here. you're home. look at me, look at me. a hand cups his jawline to hold it steady, licking clean the evidence of her orgasm on his skin. snags her nails in his shirt with scrambling impatience, an annoyed, pissed-off breath at finding any barrier still exists to separate them. flexes her thighs tight around his hips, taking out the frustration on his denim, the obscene drip of her darkening the fabric, a monet watercolor that's all ani's frantic, hip-arching brushstrokes. and when the blunt head of his cock catches on her clit, slips down to nudge her open perfectly —
she clenches down so violently she can only curl forward, sink her teeth into his lip to hide the high, broken sound it breaks loose in her. ragged and reedy against his mouth, like he isn't already jet fuel burning up, another match to light him up: )
You feel that? That's what missin' you did to me. ( she's never known how to beg out loud. learned real fast that it never changed a damn thing for her. still, it sounds like a plea, the please locked in her throat, when she grips at his fucking stupid, perfect hair: ) This pussy's been waiting for you, baby. You gonna stay where you belong this time?
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Fuck.
[ Inelegance and rip-roar need, pressed out between a hiss or a grunt or some other hungry noise. Undone, unspun, by the easy slip of her body against his. All those years, fought for with a blinding smile, and he unravels, for her. Jake shakes his head as if it'll clear it, the haze and bolt of all of it, even though her fingers strain into his hair and grip him tight. ] Yeah. Yeah, [ like he knows it. Like he's saying Yes. all over again, too pulled apart not to be honest. As if it's his first goddamn go around. Yes. I do. I do, I know, I know. In this frame, in this light, everyone plays for keeps.
Blunt pressure bears down. Inch by inch, slick and wet and messy and tight as his cock presses inside. Something about him stills even then, careful and sure, continuous and full until he's sunk to the hilt. He groans and resettles his weight, hitches a broad palm under her thigh to hook her knee over his shoulder. Partly folding her in half, chest to chest, forehead pressed to her temple. Deeper. Closer. The rasp of his cheek against the sticky swell of her mouth. His ring-banded hand, bruise-tight at her hip.
He doesn't move. Not immediately, not then. He stays inside her, spearing her open, swallowing both of their shudders in a kiss.
The flash of teeth in the stall of a shower. Her back slipping along the tile. It feels right even if it sits askew, and Jake's hips grind hopelessly, a shallow mimic of a thrust that's uncontrolled and desperate and raw. It spurs him into motion, the long drag back and the harsh thrust in, a brutal snap of his hips. Hoarsely murmurs, ]
You feel so fucking good.
[ He fucks her into the floor with a groan. Strong and heavy and the hard plane of his weight stretched out over her body, rhythm slow and sinuous and deep until the last, harsh jolt at every crest. ]
Gonna stay right here. [ His touch travels upward. From the curve of her hip and the flutter of her ribcage and up still, further, until he's braced over her with an elbow, fingers twisted clumsily into her hair. The green of his irises, blown into glitter-dust flecks, as he looks right at the woman he loves. ] You taking me like this. Fill you up as many times as you want it.
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a soft palm cups his jaw, possessive against the grit of his stubble. presses herself in — breath to breath, nose to nose, forehead to forehead, too needy to share the scope of his attention with anything but her. she flutters, impossibly tighter, impossibly wetter. drips slow and filthy where he's buried deep, leaking past his cock to pool into the carpet beneath them, gone by how that word — good — burns, lights up her nerve-endings worse than any cherry-red cigarette sting pressed too long to the skin. it sounds obscenely slick when he fucks back into her, hungry punctuation on her need. )
Oh. Shit. ( a punch of surprise through her ribs, a ricocheting gasp that darts out of her swollen, kiss-bloomed mouth and crashes into his. typical fucking jake seresin still unlocking new secrets in the corners of her body, even the ones ani didn't know existed, a scavenger's hunt for what sparkles in the dark. a pull of her teeth nibbles her lip, eyes sliding to the thick stretch of him swallowed by the shine of her cunt — perfect proof he was real, he was here. another breath, huskier: ) You look so fucking good inside me.
( he always did infect her with that gorgeous greed of his. because it's not enough to be good; it's only enough if he forgets every other place he's been but her, always his last safehouse, always curled around the ghost of him in her bed. it's only enough if he fucks her like he's forgiving her for every time she forgot who she is — ani mikheeva, who fights and claws for everything. ani mikheeva, who forgot how to fight and claw for him, who wears the cost of giving up like a bruise on the inside of her ribs.
her nails score down his bicep, red lines like she's tallying every thrust, every day without him. her other ankle drapes on his shoulder, despite the vulnerability in the position — folded up beneath him completely, trusting him with all of her soft parts she's spent months armoring. it shifts him deeper on his next stroke forward, the tease of his absence — the chase of him slamming home like a rhythmic promise, right into that fucking sweet spot that's always made her thighs vibrate like a body straining against g-force: i told you i'll always come back.
ani whimpers, hot and open, into his mouth — high, gutted, sounds she's only ever made for him — strobe lights in her vision, clit sparking where the hard planes of him grind against her. meets him with a desperate tilt of her pelvis, in an answer: i've always been yours to come back to. )
Yeah. You're gonna take care of me. You promised. ( an old, unforgotten vow. she tilts her head, mouths at the muscle of his forearm where it brackets her. a demand that won't settle for less — until it shakes like the rest of her, reassurance she hates needing: ) You gonna come in me, baby? Make up for every fuckin' night you left me empty?