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[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.