He didn't even say a word to her, didn't look behind him to see if she was following. She'd disappointed him again, and it was no longer a rare occurrence. Worse still, Erin seemed to enjoy doing what she'd done. He didn't say a word to her, because he'd given up on trying to yell sense into his protege. Or at least, the girl that was supposed to have been his protege. He'd never accept her as anything remotely close to a successor if she displayed such a blatant disregard for his philosophy. Such an immature and impatient abuse of the skills he'd taught her. As he climbed the Clock Tower, Garrett's silence was what told Erin just how angry he was at her.
She didn't see why. The guard had been in their way, and there was no reason not to kill him. It had been so easy, and there would be no consequences for it. She'd tossed his body off the side of the railing, into the river. No one would find it, not for at least a week. So what was the problem? She felt a small fire burning in her chest, a small sense of annoyance with how he was treating her. He always watched her as if she were a small child, just because she didn't follow his methods with the exact precision that he demanded of her. Just because she'd taken the life of one, worthless Watchman.
"Garrett, what's wrong? Why are you so silent? I killed him because he was in our way!"
He didn't say anything to her. As he climbed in through the Clock Tower's window and she followed right after him, he swiftly walked over to the wooden crate beside his bed and unloaded his new acquisitions onto it. Emptying his pockets completely, he just left them all in a pile.
That was new. Erin knew the thief always organized and arranged his possessions in neat rows and displays as soon as he got back to his hideout.
Instead, he sat down on the edge of his bed and put his head in his hands, looking at the ground in front of him.
Soon, the planks and wood that he was looking at were replaced by black running boots and skin-tight leggings. He scanned all the way up Erin's body with nothing more but a passing interest and saw her hand on her hip, her standing in that slightly off-center pose she loved taking so often. His eyes continued upwards past her bodice, accidentally taking in the shape of her bust for just a second. He breathed out a harsh breath through his nose and shook his head.
She walked closer to him and put her hand on the side of his cheek. He looked up at her with an anger in his eyes the likes of which she hadn't seen before. "This is the third one this week, Erin. You need to stop."
"I have to take risks sometimes, Garrett," she spoke quietly, stroking his cheek slowly. She'd been doing that for the past few days. Quite frankly, he usually didn't feel anything at all about it, but now it just pissed him off.
"Is nothing I'm teaching you sinking in? Do you even listen, or do you just get me to talk because you like to listen to me say things you'll just ignore?"
"Ow, that stings."
"The truth can do that sometimes."
"Well, anyway," she said with a bit of a smile in her voice. "It didn't really matter."
"Everything we do on a job matters," he spat, still quiet. If she was smart, she'd back off and stop pushing him. The trouble was, Erin didn't even seem to know she was pushing him. Or did she? Garrett thought that on some days, she meant to anger him. It was like a game to her. See how far she could take him before he snapped. Most of the time, he was patient. Most of the time, he was calm and collected, and he never reacted exceptionally badly. A cold disappointment was the most he ever showed toward her reckless actions. Tonight would be different.
He added, "Unnecessary bloodshed is something we avoid. Understand? The word unnecessary is key, but I shouldn't have to say it to you. All bloodshed is unnecessary, except for very specific exceptions."
"What's one of them?" she asked in a sing-songy voice.
"I'm not telling you that just so you can have a proper excuse to kill more Watch guards just doing their jobs next time! We go in, we take the loot and we leave! What's so damn difficult to understand about that?"
She smiled and said, "Some bloodshed is fun once in a while."
He gritted his teeth. This girl was testing him in a way he'd never been pushed before. He cleared his mind. Reminded himself of how he grew up. On the streets, impulsiveness and recklessness were synonymous with death. Impatience was how you got caught. Impatience was how you died.
"Besides, being able to take out our threats just makes me a better thief than you, that's all."
It was the last straw.
He stood up, quicker than she expected him to be able to and shoved her toward a wooden pillar. She gasped and asked, "G-Garrett?"
"You have the audacity?" he asked, his words were like cold smoke.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"I don't care what you did or didn't mean." He advanced on her, stepping closer and closer. "For the past week you've been killing guards left and right. You've been showing your childish, stupid affection." She looked hurt. "Don't give me that look. I know as well as you do that you don't feel anything for anyone. The only things you like are taking things. You like taking things too much. I've been stealing since before I could remember how to read, but I don't steal life. What gives you the right to break my rule and claim yourself superior?"
She was nervous now.
"Garrett, what are you doing?" she asked as she felt her back press into the pillar and he came so close to her that he was face to face, his breath on her lips.
"I'm going to show you what happens if you break my patience, and show you how dangerous it can be."
"I have nothing on me," she said, raising her hands to the sky. "There's nothing I have that you can steal." She immediately corrected herself, "I-I mean, nothing that you would want to steal. I swear. I left everything on the table, just like I promised." She hadn't expected Garrett to take things in such a way. Usually, he was content with yelling at her or saying a few choice words before looking away and pretending to fall asleep until she left the tower. Then, he'd fall asleep for real.
This time, there was something dark in his eyes. It seriously frightened her. She couldn't call Garrett an evil man. Not a good man, by any means - but definitely not cruel. In that moment, she sensed that if he could be, she'd just unlocked that side of him.
"Regret what you did, and regret what you said," he told her.
"I-I'm not wrong for killing that guard. He was in our way, Garrett! And it didn't take much-"
"His blood is on your hands."
"So what? We took their jewels and we got our hands on the scroll. We're fine, and he's not going to be reporting two people dressed in black sneaking around his employer's estate."
He slapped her cheek and she stared at him, stunned. The slow burn on the side of her face eventually stabilized into what felt like an uncomfortable, hot glow. Garrett never touched her, let alone hit her.
He looked into her eyes and pressed a palm against her chest, pushing her into the pillar. She tried to press forward herself, to get away, but found that the angle his arm was at made it impossible. Crouching very quickly in front of her, he tore her black leggings from her hips down to her ankles.
"Garrett, I'm sorry," she said, sincere.
The cold night air touched her now bare thighs and made the flesh of her legs rise in goosebumps. She shivered and the master thief's other hand went around her throat. He didn't squeeze, didn't push forward but Erin knew that at any time he wanted to, he could have.
She looked into his eyes and thoughts swam through her head. She shouldn't have angered him. She shouldn't have made it worse, she shouldn't have aggravated the issue. And without a doubt in her mind, Erin now knew that she was going to pay for it. And with another shiver, she realized that there was nothing she could do about it.
With his left hand around her throat, the fingers of his right hand dipped under the fabric of her panties and rubbed her from the bottom up. His middle finger slid easily, neatly between her folds and he exhaled harder onto her face. He was trying to maintain his own self-control, but the anger she'd dragged out of him and the feelings that were pounding in his heart were at war with each other.
He'd desired Erin physically on some level or another, at some point or another. But he promised himself he'd never act on his want. She was just his apprentice, and a person like him was never supposed to give into any temptation - because the single temptation he'd already given into consumed his entire life. Sex was out of the equation because theft was the only thing in it.
"The drawings in your bedroom. How many times can you draw my face without getting bored of it?" he asked her, his voice low and confrontational.
She gasped, half from the sensation between her legs, half from what he'd just asked of her.
"Y-You've been to my hideout?" she asked, voice shaking and her breathing speeding up as his finger slid along her quicker as well. She didn't even bother denying her obsession with him. He felt his finger was slick enough with her fluid, so he brought it up near her clit and swiped over it once, enough to make her fail stifling a moan. He brought his finger lower and inserted it into her. However, before he even got a single knuckle in, he saw her tense up and hold her breath.
Suddenly, he realized what that meant. "No," he said, an evil glint in his eye. It couldn't be right. But if it was… "You escaped the House of Blossoms, Erin. You were a courtesan."
"I killed my first client before he could…"
"Killed him. That sounds just like you. I'm not surprised."
He went in for a kiss and withdrew his finger from inside her, instead going back to sliding up and down her opening and rubbing the sweet spot he'd been ever so perceptive of, right below her clit and slightly to the side. For fingers that had cracked hundreds of safes and found thousands of hidden switches, and for eyes and ears that had sensed even the slightest shifts in security measures, finding out what made Erin react harder wasn't very difficult at all. And he abused this knowledge. As her middle heated up more and more, she just noticed how cold her thighs were becoming.
His tongue forced itself into her mouth and licked hers, Erin responding in kind with her own tongue fighting back. She had spirit. That was the part of her that had made Garrett take her in. The part of her that reminded him so much of himself…
The pressure on his own pants eventually became too much to bear, and Garrett took a step back before hastily taking them off, dropping his own underwear onto the ground as well. He was already hard to an obscene amount, and the patience he'd cultivated specifically for heists was very rapidly draining away. He swooped back forward to put his lips on hers, and her hands went around the back of his neck to hold him closer. As he stepped nearer to her, he slid his finger along the front of her panties - feeling the coin-sized blotch of wetness on them. He quickly grabbed a sharp razor, the same he used to cut paintings right out of their frames, and used it to cut the outsides of her underwear, along the outsides of her hips. Her panties fell to the ground and he placed the knife back on the table nearby. He kissed her again, shoving her into the wooden pillar behind her, making her breathe faster once more.
With his own nerves about half as chaotic as hers, he grabbed his length in his hand and pressed his tip against her wet slit. In a pleading tone, she begged, "No…"
She whimpered and softly said, "Garrett, I'm not ready."
He coldly told her, "This is what impatience looks like, Erin. I could have been slow, gentle. Loving. Calm. This is what impatience feels like."
He pressed into her, without hesitation, without slowing, and felt his tip press against the thin membrane in her. He felt her insides resist him, heard her release a sound of discomfort, then pushed even harder. Suddenly, he tore her, and her flesh gave way to him as she shut her eyes, letting out a pained, "Ah!"
A tear fell out of her shut eyes and her whole face looked like she was in pain. Suddenly he was surrounded by wet warmth of various consistencies, clenching and flowing around him as he slid all the way into her.
"What were your exact words, Erin? 'Some bloodshed is fun once in a while'?"
He felt the bright red blood flow down his shaft and touch his balls, a lot of it also trickling down the inside of her cold thigh - the warmth of the crimson against it creating a contrast she would have rather not felt.
Garrett looked down, Erin following his example, her face pained and her lips quivering.
Her blood dripped down and the drops slammed into the planks on the floor.
"Oh god," she heard her voice say, shaky.
"Here," he said as he began to undo her bodice and slowly take off all the clothing on her upper body. When everything, even her bra was off, she helped do the same to him. The entire time, her discomfort was apparent, and emphasized because he didn't pull out of her.
When both of their clothes were off, Garrett told her to wrap her legs around his waist. He picked her up off the ground and carried her to his bed, just a few feet away. Lying down on top of her, he swung the warm blankets over both of them and looked into her eyes. He kissed her and began moving slowly, then faster.
"Ow…" she whimpered, quietly. The second time was louder, "Ow, Garrett…" Her voice shook and her pain was soon being expressed once every second through moans of suffering. Suffering inflicted by the thief on top of her. She found that fact arousing, and became very aware of how good the pain he was giving her felt.
As he continued to make love to her, quieting her moans with his mouth hungry for hers, the pain in her core slowly subsided, replaced more and more by the pleasure she felt.
When he pulled away from her lips for a second, her tear-streaked face told him, "Faster." Her eyes were softer than he'd ever seen them, and they looked into his as if they saw the entire world in them. He nodded and kissed her again, thrusting into her quicker and deeper. He felt her flood with wetness again and he quietly groaned into her ear with a soft, "Ah.. Fuck…"
Hearing that come from him, hearing him feel so good because of her just made her moan again, and one of his hands went to her breast, gripping it so hard his nails almost dug into it. He kissed her greedily and fucked her even harder until her moans against his lips were quick and hard.
Letting both of them breathe, the thief heard her breathlessly shout, "Garrett, I'm coming!" Her fingers and nails raked across his back, actually drawing a small amount of blood as her ecstasy climbed.
And sure enough, no more than ten seconds later, a long, drawn-out moan left her throat, her back arched and she clenched so hard around him that it drew his own orgasm out of him as well.
"Erin… Erin… Erin…"
He spoke her name, over and over again, as he melted into her - his forehead pressed against the sheets beside her head.
Both of them panted ragged breaths and Garrett felt the sweat between both their bodies. He brought his head back off the sheets to look at her eyes once more. They were tired, hazy. A weak smile crossed her face. Erin was totally drained. Garrett laughed softly and pulled out of her, collapsing onto his side. She was barely able to turn to face away from him, but as soon as she did, he pressed up against her back and his arm went around her. He kissed the back of her neck.
She put her hand on top of his as his arm went around her, and stroked it softly.
With a barely audible voice, she pleaded, "Don't let go of me."
He pulled her closer to him and assured, "I won't. I promise."
As they fell asleep, Garrett almost felt as if he'd made a terrible mistake. He'd snuck into the most impossible to infiltrate security system he'd ever known, to steal the most difficult thing anyone could ever take. His heart.
And he'd given it to her, of all people.
Putting his nose in her hair, the master thief said a final, "Good night, Erin." She murmured something almost silent in response. Their body heat warmed them and the thick blanket made sure they wouldn't grow cold tonight. In fact, it might have been the best sleep they'd had in their lives.