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[ailerons]

[ Quiet, not an honest one, but Jake holds onto her laugh anyway. Answers it with a smile that he knows, in an instant, is too tender. That ain't us. Could be nice, he wants to say. Two months, pretending. Realizing at three that it isn't so bad. Remodeling the bathroom at seven. Never know until you try. Never know until we settle down, just you and me.

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.

[haggle]

( that all? like it's the simplest cipher to solve, a basic equation of the universe. like she could say she decided she wants the whole damn musee d'orsay next, and he would have it ribbon-wrapped and hand-delivered, just to grin and ask her again: that all? no sweat off his back. the most dangerous part of jake seresin isn't sly fingers, or a charm that could convince god himself to hand over the kingdom; it's the way he nurtures all the hopeful things inside of her she's left to rot, daring them to dream. sky's the limit, baby, if she would only ask. whatever the sun touches is hers for the taking. stop asking for the small shit, and start asking for everything.

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?

[ailerons]

[ Stay. Love her. Try not to fuck it up this time.

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? ]

[haggle]

( not a forgery, this time, but the real one-of-a-kind thing: ani laughs. not the pretty, soft-lipped kind she polishes for the camera. that's all closed mouth and locked teeth, keeping it to herself. they can have the headlines, the heartbreak, but not this. never this. not the sound of her sun-drenched, bursting happiness. the kind that makes her squint, nose-crinkled, against its brightness. wide open spaces, first glimpse of a blinding sky, stepping out of a prison cell to smell salt and sky. dizzy with new freedom, fucked up with hope.

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.

[ailerons]

[ Call, response. His palms hook at her hips, pulling her close and flush with a firm tug. Like a nip at her jaw, or the kind of accusation that gets followed by a real, open kiss: You like that I'm a fucking dumbass. She's close and in his lap and he watches, through half-lidded eyes, the way the pretty bow of her mouth presses into the gold band. Anora Mikheeva, as sweet as she is mean. And she is so goddamn mean. His wife who laughs and writhes and loves and runs. His wife. His wife.

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?

[haggle]

( not liable to survive a lie detector: the uptick-jump of her pulse, an arrested inhale in her throat. busted and booked and bagged, evidence to serve on trial. ani smiles through it, anyway. sticky-sweet, shameless, a mugshot that says: i'd do it again. she might have denied it, made him sweat to extract the confession from her, if she'd missed him less. if he was only another failed audition for a husband in her bed, and not the real thing. the one she wrote her life around, even when he wasn't on set. a leading man she can't recast. )

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.

[ailerons]

[ His cock jumps. Hard. Twitching with a jerk of his hips, proof that she still fucking owns him, and Jake laughs with a strain in his throat and his fingers digging into her hip. Yeah — she does. Yeah — she still drives him fucking crazy. I'll wear it if you can find it, meaning that she kept it, like she kept the postcard, and the good memories, and the bad ones, and his lit up, ambitious, greedy fucking heart. Still and still and still and always.

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.

[haggle]

( obvious spots for a secret. a locked drawer. the little tripwires of her neve-endings, the parts of her body where her sighs still live and breathe, pressure points that arch under his sweeping thumb, the clasps where she comes unlatched prettily. old hiding places he used to love. still does — she can feel it in the kiss-swollen pout of her mouth, an insecurity kissed right out of her along with her oxygen. wary of time, wary of distance, wary of what rusts in absence.

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.

[ailerons]

[ Conversationally, ]

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. ]

[haggle]

( her body still knows he's home. one of those undeniable facts you never forget: sky is blue, grass is green, and jake seresin is the only place that's ever been strong enough to hold her up. safe walls, quiet place, a solid foundation she could finally trust to carry all her heaviness. a man who built love the way others build houses: stupid, stubborn, sturdy. brick by impossible brick, promise by impossible promise. so she opens her legs wider to him, like she always did, always has, always will; petals apart with slick, shameless ease — warm, welcoming, wet. clenching down on his finger, her cunt, greedy, bossy, soaked with need: don't you dare fucking leave me again.

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.

[ailerons]

[ For a moment — one where he's knuckle deep inside of her, mouth laving hotly over her cunt, heavy lidded eyes angling up the roam of her body to watch the way her spine tenses and shakes and bows — he thinks of the skies. He looks at her and something tugs urgently inside of his chest. The same, limitless promise. Open and a wonder. Endless. Weightless. Like he can do anything, in the place where he belongs.

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. ]

[haggle]

( panic from a thief — in any room beyond this one, it's an unforgivable crime. makes him sloppy, makes his tells too loud, makes the greed a fucking neon sign lit up in his eyes. ani smooths back the wild strand of hair haloing his temple, smooth southern charm sandpapered to rough grit. his usual calm glide through life's storms, untouchable — all man-made turbulence against her, now. she's not the place a man sticks an easy landing; she's the up-draft. lifts a man up, tears him down, on a whim of nature. the only one that can ever have him like this — golden, godly icarus singed by a girl who burns brighter and bolder, nosediving down into the dirt. made real, made raw. made hers, like nothing else has ever been hers.

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?

[ailerons]

[ Her nails catch and claw. His aren't far behind, an easy bend to something as simple as her annoyed exhale, minute and passing and still held as precious. Jake rears up just enough for distance, just enough to tug his henley over his shoulders, off, strewn aside, hard muscles pulling and rolling with the tension and release. Underneath, his body wears the distance more: the up-close view of harsher times, physicality wrought out of monotonous routine. The same fuzz of his chest hair, the same broad cut of his body — nothing anew, save a small, puncture-mark of a healed scar at his side. It's funny, the kind of things you end up owing. How much, how far, to who— ]

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.

[haggle]

( when was the last time anyone called her good? the bigger question: when was the last time someone said it and meant it as more than a play? (the biggest question of all: when was the last time she didn't let them take from her anyway, let them call her sweetheart and baby while she closed her eyes and pretended they all felt the same, fucked the same, wanted her the same?) not like jake, who says you feel so fucking good like being inside of her again is goddamn biblical. looks straight into her, and suddenly ani exists as the sun at the center of his orbit, blotting everything else around her into black.

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?

[ailerons]

[ Breath to breath, nose to nose, forehead to forehead. He swallows up every sound she makes, like nothing's ever getting out of this room. His to keep. To take care of. She flutters and clenches mercilessly and he sinks back into her every time, thick veins in his forearms tensing, the messy sound of skin against skin. Need and syrupy want. Slick and clean sweat. You and me, huh? Jake's head hangs as he exhales ragged against her lips, the plush, swollen bow, and glances southward from her words alone. The sway of her breasts, the shake in her thighs. The wet shine all over his cock as it bullies back inside. It's vulgar and brutal and biological and he groans when his hips snap sharp, stuttering in the rhythm just from the sight.

Every thread of his control loosens, after that. Jake's other hand unravels from her side and holds her entire jaw, thumb a near soft, gentle counterpoint where it fits against the hinge below her ear. He kisses against her inhales and breathes against her exhales, hisses against the lick of sensation as her nails press, where his mouth runs on greedy autopilot all over again. Hoarse, rambling whispers. Up close. Hers.

About how he missed this, how he thought of her, how she still feels the same; how he'll wake her up like this every morning, her cunt easy and open, fucking last night's mess back inside, then cleaning her out with his tongue right after. He'll take her anywhere she wants. He'll buy her new houses to fuck in and move with the seasons if she never wants to see rain again. He chases out that new, vulnerable angle like he does everything else — an unrelenting dare, if only she wants to take it. Bearing her spine roughly into the floor, the clench and release of his abs as he moves above her.

Not the chase or tease or high of the honeymoon period, before or after or during, but desperation instead. She kept the postcard and she kept the ring and Jake hears her whimper and stutter and nothing about is new. Everything feels like coming home. An old, unforgotten vow. ]

I love you.

[ A hot, gravelly rasp against her jaw, all the sun-glint ease spooled out of him. The slick, messy sounds of a rhythm getting shorter, harsher. ]

Shit, I'm— [ Something knocks loose inside of his chest. A breathless, dirty, disbelieving laugh. Because he should've said it sooner, because it's his fucking tell, because he's saying it while he's buried inside of her and fucking her in deep, raw thrusts. Like he can sink even further inside of her, needy and out of control, and make her believe every consonant: ] I am still so fucking in love with you.

[ The pad of his thumb works slippery circles at her clit. In time with how violently he's spiralling, how harshly his hip bones grind into the fold of her body. Jake's mouth finds her pulse, his teeth find her throat, and his fingers tighten into her hair when he comes with a long, stuttering groan, rough jerks of his hips as he pulses and pulses and grinds into her, hot and heavy inside. ]

[haggle]

( they're not rare gems in a man's vocabulary, those three words. ani's heard the glitter and gold in them more times than she's seen it in bended knees, velvet ring boxes, soulless engagement rings that looked more at home on hand models than her own finger. i love you gets scuffed down to the cheap, nickel-plated: i love your pussy, i love what you let me do to you, all roughly translated to the obvious: i love the way you make me feel — the way men drive fast cars for sport, lift priceless artifacts. adrenaline to a junkie, cocaine to a high flyer. a fucking commodity, loved for its parts and its purpose, never the whole.

her breath hitches and hiccups in her chest. obvious as a faltering heart, the stumble in ani's rhythm. her hips jerk out of sync. the strength in her neck gives out, melting her head back into the carpet, an ink spill of dark hair floating around them. her fingertips twitch once, twice against his jaw. press down into his pulse, trying to count the truth in its hammering beats. what has ani made him feel? goddamn insane, probably. left behind. forgotten. both his crime and punishment. he can't love her for that. he shouldn't, if he saved any of his smarts. if he still knows how to run the numbers on getting away with a good haul.

she feels it, still. sticky, aching, fucked-out proof where he grinds her open, fills and floods her. a shake of her head. less disbelieving, more — coming to terms with the shellshock. jake's own russian roulette. his press of a cigarette burn to raw skin, baiting her out, proving she's always, always loved him back through the bullshit swagger and snapping teeth.

her legs slip off their perch. not exhausted by the welcome strain that means she's well-loved and well-fucked, but intentional. hitching around his waist so they can clasp together at the dimples of his back, cuffs him to her with the smooth curve of her thighs and the bruised heat of her. a life sentence spent inside of her, if she has any say in it.

it's not perfect; ani's hand presses clumsily to his, drags it on her clit for those final, urgent heartbeat of seconds it takes to come around his cock. merciless, squeezing him through every shudder like she's making sure the promise stays, that she takes him for every drop he's saved for her. still sobbing on the inhale through her own aftershocks, bossy, needy pleas of yeah, there and jake.

she folds into him. ani mikheeva, larger than life, melting down into something small enough to hold, small enough to need, allowed to ask for something back. the coil of her arms around his neck locks him close, a hand cupping the back of his skull, encourages the bite of his teeth, the marks she would willingly wear like heisted diamonds. not an inch of daylight between his body and hers, with all of ani's vining, begging limbs keeping him rooted in her. not liable for take-off, anytime soon. )

Got you, motherfucker. ( a softer echo, surrender and victory. ani tilts her head, mouth brushing wherever she can reach. his temple, the sunshine hair tickling her nose, warm exhales punched out against his ear. betraying herself, with how hopeful — hopeless? — the demand sounds: ) Say it again.

[ailerons]

[ A twitch. Slow, then still. The world, as stark and shameless as it ever was, folding right back in: the liquid slip and pool of her robe over the plush flooring. The rupturing, relentless rhythm of his heart. The tacky touch of skin against skin, chest to chest, the collapse of his weight pressing down the entire length of her body. Jake shudders, mindlessly wrecked and tender as he lashes shutter closed. His forehead half into the sweep of her neck, half against the carpet.

Breathes. Stays.

Lazily, bonelessly, his palm catches her hand in his; thumb runs across the valleys of her knuckles as he finally knits their fingers together. All romantic affection. Clammy with spit and slick and come as he brings them out from between her thighs, coming to rest in the space beside her head.

There's a name for it. This feeling. It's not the sex. It's the way Ani Mikheeva's voice sounds when she says motherfucker, and the way, immediate, his broad shoulders shake in a quiet, exhausted laugh, fond as he smiles into her jaw. His teeth flashing at her throat for another reason entirely. A grin, for now. A promise of a bite and a bruise later, for all their other laters. Any kind of jewellery she wants. Anything. Everything. She makes him feel fucking insane and left behind and forgotten and he loves her for that, because the name for it, this feeling — you don't choose what you get to keep. None of that Houdini shit. The whole take, no halfway scores.

The naked muscles of his back shift, flex, curve as he lifts his weight off of her. Not fully but enough — hips still flush, buried, nestled in the cradle of her thighs — to look into the full planes of her face. ]

I love you. [ The same way he'd said, That all? Simple. Easy. For free. ] I love you now. I loved you then, when we were still fucking around in Monte Carlo. I'll keep loving you for as long as I'm alive. [ Valiantly, he grinds into her one more time, slowly softening but still hard enough to wring out one last wet, playful pitch. His own sensitivity and bravado makes him careless, laughs louder for a single staccato, exhale loosening, his nose bumping softly against hers. ]

And I'll love you most when you're telling me to shut up.

[ She could throw him to the wolves tomorrow, and the expansive coldness of this house, and he'd still say the same. 'Til death — those're the terms. ]

You got me. [ Tender to a fault. He kisses her, gently, almost chastely. ] Fair and square, Ani.

[haggle]

( jake seresin's rare moments of stillness between the lurch and the landing. ani sees a thief's opening, seizes it. ghosts her fingertips over his face like he's something pawned, something returned to her. some jewel with notable provenance she's studying closely after years of ownership spent out of her hands, reacquanting herself with its real value. a thumb blurs at the tight laughlines around his eyes. an index finger tips down the slope of his nose. a brush of her knuckles glides across the sharp wing of his jawline. lower, still, where it matters most: the roaring engine in his chest. steady through chases, interrogations, prison bars — beating reckless for her alone. like it might fly out of his chest and into her palm, if she asks.

that's what she saw in him first, loved in him first. he's never held it as ransom, never demanded an impossible price. never made it feel stolen, something too sparkly and inaccessible for her to afford. he just shares it, as if it were botticelli or klimt — denied to girls like ani, dropped into her lap without having to be the highest bidder for his affection. robin hood with a fucking wealth of love to spare.

that easy, in a world that's never been. like it was nothing. like it's everything. her stupid man. her beautiful, fucking stupid man, not a single inch of him reformed in life or in love.

she smiles. without sharpness, without a diamond-bite edge. it's just the backstage, exclusive pass no one else gets access to: anora mikheeva's softness when she's more petals than thorns, rosy-eyed and sweet on him. not simple, or easy, or free. just earned. for him alone, she lets him catch her red-handed, eyes as bright and shiny as the slick between her thighs. squeaks a laugh into his cheek, a choked knot in her throat, when he gives into his urge for motion. when he grinds forward, carefree and slippery in the mess he's made, her hips meet him with jolt like a shock to the heart, an unforgotten vow: she'll always give as good as she gets. always matched him, always will. )

Durak moy. ( my fool, exhaled into his mouth, said the way other women would say my soulmate, my sunlight, the reason a dull world turns gold. ) Still mine, right? Forever.

( rhetorical; the answer is in the nudge of ani's body, a warning of the hairpin turn, expecting an allowance: him to roll with her, let her in the pilot's seat of his lap. ani's safe place in the illusion of control on top of him, bracing impact while charting through the fear of her hard-won vulnerability. the words don't hide in her russian — they become more honest, lacquered in ani's native language. )

"But who to love? To trust and treasure? Who won’t betray us in the end?" ( pushkin, sly. then english, hot and shaking into his ear: ) It was always gonna be you.