Title: "Hot"
Summary: When Mick gets all hot, Beth gets all bothered
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Unless that Mega Millions jackpot comes through. Hmm, maybe we should all get together and buy tickets...
Thank yous to Hydriotaphia and GuardianAngel for the help.
And this is for wpgrace. 'Cause she asked for some dirty :)
Hot air licked at her from the balcony. Even the breeze was too hot. The sun was setting but not letting go. Beth's hair stuck to her neck and cheeks after just a few minutes in her sweltering apartment. She turned toward the half release that was the Santa Ana in her face.
Sweat rolled down her back, between her breasts. She raised the hem of her tank top to wipe it. Her jacket and heels were discarded at the door. At least her skirt allowed a breeze.
She gave a half-hearted kick at the central air unit and only succeeded in hurting her foot and drawing the attention of the boy working shirtless and sweaty in the yard below.
"Excuse me!" Beth pulled a loop of elastic from her wrist, lifting her hair from her neck as she leaned over the rail. "Is Tom around?"
"Perdón?"
"Damn it," Beth sighed. Why had she taken French? "Donde esta Tom?"
"Lo siento, no se. Por que, senorita?"
"El...el aire acondicionado está ... roto," she stumbled. Roto was broken, right? If she'd needed to swear or call his mother a cocksucker, she'd have been fine. That she had the words for.
"Es demasiado caliente para esa mierda," he shook his head and gulped water from a jug at his feet, grabbing his T-shirt.
Mierda. Shit. That word she knew. She substituted a smile for broken Spanish. He kept the shirt off, waiting for something more from her."
"Tom, por favor?" she kept the smile pasted on her face and a question in her voice.
"Lo encontraré," he disappeared around the corner.
Beth sighed and pulled her damp shirt away from her body. No relief.
A sudden movement caught her eye. A flicker from the shadows and she was gasping as Mick sprang at her, like falling in reverse.
He was in front of her, on top of her, stealing her breath.
"Shit! Mick! What are you doing here? I thought I was going to meet you at your place."
"I was in the neighborhood," his hands were tight on her, uncomfortable in the heat, but not to the point of pain. He didn't let go.
That wasn't exactly true. He'd been nearby, planning to surprise her, a little Romeo for Juliet. It was the kind of weather for ice cream and rides with the top down – at least one of those he could give her. And so he'd waited as the sun roasted. Even the shade ticked up into triple digits. And she didn't come and he waited. Minutes passed into an hour, into more. The heat filled him, burning away his good intentions until there she was, singing out over the balcony, but not to him.
Mick smelled another man's lust for her, saw his eyes tracking to her breasts. Worse, he saw Beth's smile, her promising lean over the edge. He heard the burble of Spanish falling from her tongue.
The shirt fanned away from her, flashing a stretch of smooth skin, a hint of lace-covered breast. He saw the man's eyes on her, the smell of his arousal in the air. Then Mick saw himself tearing, grinding his teeth into muscle and sinew, felt the sweet and spicy blood on his tongue.
The man moved away and Mick didn't waste a look as he vaulted her balcony rail.
"In the neighborhood? In this heat?" Beth chastised. She rose on tiptoe and placed a chaste peck on his cheek. "You're crazy."
He turned suddenly and seized her in a screaming kiss, taking in mouthfuls of her. She was off her feet and in his arms. Beth felt the scrape of terra cotta against her back as he pinned her.
"Who was that?"
She gasped in the sliver of space between them. He'd moved nothing but his lips.
"I don't know. One of the kids who does the yards," she was finding it hard to concentrate with Mick so close. "My air conditioner broke. I need the super."
"Right," he rubbed a cheek against hers and held her close. "He wants to know you. In the Biblical sense."
Beth gave a growling laugh.
"He's a kid. He wants to know every woman he sees 'in the Biblical' sense," an uncomfortable stream of sweat was trickling down the small of her back. "It's too hot for this, Mick. Get off me."
She spun toward her apartment, but Mick's hand on her wrist stopped her.
"I'm not done," he nipped her hand, scratching but not breaking skin.
"Fuck you, Mick."
"Exactly," he swept her feet from beneath her, pinning her wrists above her head, and settled into the small blanket of shadow on her balcony.
She gave a good thrash, knees hitting the muscles of his stomach, narrowly missing his erection and leaving her skirt pooled at her hips, pink satin in the evening light.
"Mick!"
He leaned in for another rough kiss and she bit down. Fangs returned the favor, drawing a trail of blood from her mouth.
A second of hesitation. Blood drawn, hers, his. Fever flushed every part of him and her body shook under him. How far was too far with Beth? He never knew.
But her scent – a deep breath and he could smell her need below the anger, her hunger almost as strong as his.
"Mine," her top was gone and his tongue lapped at blood, then the salty sweat, down to her breasts. She arched her back, her slick skin brushing his. "Mine."
Mick moved his hands from her wrists to elbows to forearms, painting a path through the sweat. He freed one hand to pull at buttons and denim. They fell and he pressed against her, firm but trembling. He traced his hardness down her leg, his mouth licking its way to her.
Mick seized the bits of silk between his teeth and pulled the fabric back, tongue teasing the soft flesh at her hip. With a tug, the underwear tore, fell to the wood beneath them. He let her skirt stay at her waist.
"Mick!" her hips wiggled and she lunged against him. He pushed her back down. "Let me go! People can see!"
"That's the idea."
The first bit of cool, as the air moved lightly against her, bare and wet. She clenched and gasped, but Mick held her. She saw eyes on her everywhere, peeking through windows, gazing up at her pale skin. The sun was setting, but not fast enough.
She swallowed a scream. He was on her, ready and the tip of him tickling against her. The same hand that had bared her below yanked at her top. She twisted and pulled back, muscles screaming against the inevitability of Mick.
"No," she moaned. "No, Mick. Tom, he's coming."
"I'm coming." Her shirt was gone, her bra the next casualty of Mick's strong fingers. She lay naked beneath him as the sun drew the shadows out, thankful when his body covered her. All she saw were his pale eyes on her.
His hands migrated to her hips and the jutting bone.
Mick knocked her legs apart. Like reflex, she curled around him. He shrugged her off and threw them back,almost folding her in half. She was wide open for him. His hands fixed her legs in position, thighs against her stomach and cupped her. Thumbs edged along her, ass to clit and back again.
Beth gasped and the beginning of a scream squeaked out. With a gulp of sultry air, the heat filled her before he did.
Mick leaned in, shoulders against Beth's knees. She felt the slow burn of muscles straining in new directions. He pressed forward, sliding against her sticky skin, guiding himself to her.
Her hands pawed at his unsweating skin, grabbing at his shirt, small tears in the cloth. Her arms found purchase to pull him down. He thrust into her, a shade cooler than the shadows around them. Mick let loose a rolling, rising growl and Beth echoed his deep tone with a moan of her own.
He rocked against her, inching deeper. With an absent desperation to have all of him, Beth tried to move his lips to hers, but he found the blue of her arm, teasing the veins at the crook before teeth and tongue and lips and fangs were on her, in her.
Mick moved against her in time with her heart. A strain of muscles as he sent shivering waves down her skin, every nerve pull taut and unwound. He poured into her as she flowed into him in an act that had no beginning and no end.
And then it was over. Mick was finished with her. A last lick and a pull and she was empty.
When Beth's world came back into focus, he was above her, streaked with her sweat, hints of blood at his mouth, chin, fingers. His tongue darted out to clean away the salt and sweet.
He heard the footsteps, the heartbeats before Beth had done more than open her eyes. He smelled the man on the other side of the door and caught the thud of Beth's heart. And he didn't miss the glare as Beth dropped her skirt and fled from the balcony with arms across her breast. She scrambled into a shirt, ran fingers through her mussed hair.
Mick hiked his pants to his waist and shed his stretched shirt. The boy was back below, squinting against the setting sun at the vampire.
Beth murmured pleasantries, hands smoothing her clothes and pushing back her damp hair. The older man, with his salt and pepper hair, his tanned hide skin, hefted a tool box and entered the sauna of the apartment.
"Sorry 'bout the trouble, Miss Turner. Got awful hot in here, huh?" Tom moved past Mick with a nod as they traded outside for in, Tom cutting through the shadows filled with their lingering smell.
"Yes," Beth gave Mick a stare. "It did."