A/N: This follows "I Thought That I Was Stronger" but takes place before "Before the World's Awake." Same OC. Also, I'm looking for opinions on what type of full-length story my readers would be most interested in me writing. I'd love it if you'd care to chime in. You can find me (and this conversation) happening at my tumblr, ParadigmFlaws. I'd love to hear from you, even if it's not with a story opinion!

She inhaled sharply as the cold air of the corridor rudely invaded her space the instant she left the infirmary. Dara shivered, drawing her arms closer around her. Not even the sweater (a familiar sight in Dauntless - the scoop neck exposing more skin than it covered, the frail ridge of her collar bones left for the biting cold to gnaw at) did anything to keep it at bay. Hugging herself, the woman's footfall was nearly silent against the stone. Heavy socks did a marginally better job of keeping her feet warm (although the lined boots that came up to just below her knees might have had something to do with that as well) but for the most part, Adara couldn't escape the brutal reality of how cold it really was.

Erudite had sent out a warning the day before. In an attempt to ensure the electricity would be sufficient for the entire city, designated warming shelters had been established. All non-essential personnel were to report to their assigned stations to wait out the bitter cold.

Of course, Abnegation and Amity had complied early on - the Stiffs had only done so at the stipulation that the factionless would also have access to warming areas, how typical - and the Candor complained vociferously, but eventually fell to logic. Even Erudite had fallen quiet, the labs shuttered tightly against the winter weather.

Dauntless was another situation altogether. In their defense, Dara thought, even as she drew her sleeves over her hands, it wasn't like any part of the compound was able to retain heat more efficiently than the rest. Those in higher apartments, and in the Spire, had been forced to remove themselves to the subterranean levels but beyond that, the thick stone would be as cold as it always had been, even while offering shelter from the cutting wind that plagued the rest of the city.

It sucked for the Dauntless on fence duty, though. Her lips pursed into a tight line. They would have fallen in with the Amity shelters. Though they would (undoubtedly) complain at least they would be safe.

The infirmary had fallen to an uncomfortably cold temperature. When she had ducked into the rooms, Dara's heart caught in her throat. They were lucky that the only inhabitants were, barring a set of stitches, a broken tibia, and a shattered set of carpals, completely healthy. Had any of them been compromised with a concussion or internal damage, she wasn't sure how well they would have coped with the cold.

Ushering them into the smallest room and leaving them with the space blankets that were restricted exclusively to the infirmary, Dara left with an easier mind. They would be alright.

A hand reached out to fall on her shoulder, spinning her around. Shoving her face-first against the wall, Dara only just managed to turn her cheek in time to avoid a face-full of stone. Still, the rock was cold against her exposed chest and she yelped, bucking back in an instinctive desire to extricate herself from the situation.

"What the fuck!"

Her boot heel caught someone's shin hard enough to have him grunt, but in a matter of seconds she felt the weight of a muscled chest against her back, keeping her flush against the wall. A thigh pressed firmly against her legs, restricting their ability to kick out. Far from stymied, Adara jammed her elbow back.

He was a tall man. The bony appendage hit him in the kidney. She knew she had scored a blow from the sharp exhalation.

She hadn't managed to win her freedom, despite the well aimed hit. His thickly muscled left arm shoved its way between her chest and the stony wall, before his left hand grabbed hold of her right elbow. Before Adara managed to move, the man's free hand planted itself at the nape of her neck. His fingers curled into her hair, pulling slightly. It was enough to draw her head back.

Adara's foot lashed out again despite the hemming effect of his leg against hers. It connected solidly enough that she heard Eric swear. When she went to kick again, his fingers tightened in her hair and the forearm over her chest drew her back against him.

"Stop," he snarled, eyes dark with temper.

She clenched her teeth. "Let go!" Had there been any give at all to his hold, both Adara and Eric knew that she would have tried to score another hit. He didn't give her the chance. Instead, Dara snarled at him, blue eyes gleaming with a combination of fury and shock.

Eric didn't move. His stare was intent, a disconcerting foil for the expression of disfavor that he had adapted.

Adara fell motionless. His own preternatural stillness had finally registered and her instincts were practically screaming. Eric's pupils were blown, enveloping the normally steely grey stare. Her heart caught in her chest. Almost as if in some unspoken reward for her compliance, Eric's thumb curved around the back of her neck. It stroked the top of her spine briefly before settling just behind her ear, brushing gentle touches down the side of her neck.

Gooseflesh rose and Dara trembled in his hold. The shiver was enough to bring them back to themselves.. almost, anyway. Eric's voice was low, the gravel more pronounced than normal.

"What," he bit out, his words a chilly match for the frigid temperature in the hall, "do you think you're doing?"

It was as if he had jammed a rod of steel through her spine. Shifting her eyes to stare blankly at the wall, Adara inhaled slowly. By the time she opened her eyes again and had exhaled, her jaw was tight. She had gone pale in the passing seconds. Her arm flexed, testing the grasp he still held her elbow in - and found it inescapable.

"My job," she bit out after a moment's pause. It became clear that the question hadn't been rhetorical. "It might still be shocking to you but some of us actually do something worthwhile with our time."

His fingers curled more tightly about her arm. Shifting his grasp higher, his grasp bit into her bicep as she provoked his temper. "You-" he began, irritation and accusation lacing the tone.

He never finished though. "God," Adara hissed. "You're pissed at me for doing my job?" A pause, but she never gave him the chance to interject. "Of course you are." Derision was thick in her voice.

She tested his hold again, found it as unyielding as it had been from the first moment. The hall pressed in uncomfortably on her. Her chest constricted as the sensation of being trapped, and being trapped by who, settled into her psyche. Dara thrashed wildly in a desperate bid to escape his hands. It served to dislodge absolutely no part of him that had been restraining her.

Eric drew her closer, pressing her back firmly against his chest. Using his own body to cage her in, his hands sought hers out, grasping her wrists with terrifying effortlessness. Folding her arms over her waist, his arms settled around her. In a matter of seconds, the scuffle had again fallen back to an uneasy truce - although it seemed that the Dauntless leader had set the terms for it, and they remained favorable only to him.

"You're supposed to be in a station," he began, his voice strained as she continued to test his patience. "You're supposed to follow rules." Eric might have continued - his own authority having been adroitly called into question through her indifference, but he ground his teeth and fell quiet.

She was tense underneath his arms. It was clear she wasn't listening to a word he said. Eric shook Dara, not a rattling gesture but enough to jerk her attention back to him even though she remained facing the wall.

"I did what I felt like I had to do."

Of all of the - Eric's lips pressed into a thin line. "Of course you did," he snarled savagely, hauling her around to have Adara face him. "You won't be surprised then when I say I'm doing what I have to do."

He drew her over his shoulder with a disconcerting lack of effort. Eric's arm banded tightly over her thighs, pressing her knees to his chest as he strode through the halls. Her swears and threats fell on deaf ears. Not even her physical attempts to overset him were effective. The closest Adara came to freedom was when she pitched her hips towards the edge of his shoulder, attempting to roll down his arm.

Eric's other hand drew up to curl around her waist. He steadied her a moment, even as she cursed at him. Dara was in the process of reaching up to thread her fingers through his hair (the intent was clear - wrenching his thick skull back or to the side so he would find his balance overwrought) when Eric swore again.

"I'm doing what I have to do," he chorused at her, a mocking reminder of her own justification for her actions.

The arm whose shoulder she rested over clamped more constrictively around her legs. His other hand hitched under her waist to draw her higher up his shoulder after her aborted attempt at escape. Eric's fingers teased the back of her pockets lightly for the barest of seconds.

His hand landed on one of her rear cheeks with stinging ruthlessness the second after. For a moment, Adara was silent.

It didn't last. Her indignant sound of outrage was less of a squeal and more a feral hiss, her nails scoring Eric through his shirt. His hand laid another blow on her opposite check in rapid retaliation.

"You ass!" She snarled, thrashing on his shoulder. He laughed - laughed! - in reply.

A jarring moment of complete discombobulation had her falling off his shoulder. Dara bounced (his mattress, she wondered?) and finding herself free of his grasp made to roll to the edge of the bed. Sitting up, her feet had almost found the floor when his fingers tucked themselves in the neckline of her sweater. The scooped neck was an unconsidered casualty.

Eric drew her sweater down, letting the material stretch as much as it could before it acted as a vice around her arms. He had exposed her chest and in the motion she made to cover herself, bringing her arms up to cross in front of her, Adara realized that she was well and truly caught in the shirt itself.

"Bastard!" It was an outraged accusation.

He never bothered to fight it. Falling to the edge of the mattress, he looped his hands around her waist and drew her up to straddle his lap. Reaching up, his lips brushed with a deceptive gentleness against her jaw. It only lasted for a moment, before Eric moved. Pressing his lips against hers, a combination of tongue and teeth, startling roughness was a sharp foil against his fingers' gentle strokes at the small of her back. Adara met his intensity with her own.

While his tongue explored Adara's, Eric let his hands shift to discover more important things. His adroitness in unfastening the hooks of her bra behind her back had Dara catching her breath. The straps were still stuck on her arms but a large, calloused finger tugged at the juncture of the cups, pulling the garment lower and well out of the way.

Catching her lower lip between his teeth, Eric tugged gently while his thumb returned to her breast. Finding her nipple pebbled, his finger traced the perimeter of the sensitive peak. The touch was gentle and it drove her mad. Arching her back sharply in an attempt to press more firmly into his touch, the young Dauntless man only laughed, moving his hand to press his palm firmly against her breastbone. Parting his lips again and leaning down over her, Adara thought that if it were possible she might drown in his taste.

She ground her hips against him. Not even the layers of clothing - his pants and hers - could conceal his arousal. It certainly didn't help hers. The friction and the pressure drew a gasp from Adara. Shuddering at the stimulation, she leaned into Eric's hand.

Eric's pupils had dilated even further. Almost all of the color had been overtaken as he stared down at Dara. His fingers stroked down her chest, seemingly unbothered by the edge of fabric that continued to limit her own range of movement. It didn't keep the man from his goal.

His fingertips on the peak of her breast were rougher than she might have imagined. Eric's thumb dragged lightly over the tip before closing his fingers around it in a pinch that converged on just the right side of a sharp sting of pain. Adara's breath hitched and the movement of her hips against his abruptly ceased. A groan caught in her throat as his hand shifted to replicate the attention to her other breast.

"Look at me," Eric demanded, his voice rough with arousal. Her eyes - when had they slid shut? She couldn't even remember - opened to stare at him. "Tell me you don't want this."

And then his hand dropped from her breast. Both palms settled over her hips, fingers playing lightly with the band of skin over the waist of her pants. Adara stared at him. She blinked. Incredulousness was sharply written in her features as arousal quickly bled into irritation.

She recoiled sharply in his lap, bringing a knee up to rest on the mattress. "You think you get to stop?" Dara's voice almost cracked with outrage.

It was made worse by his response. The piercing over his brow shifted as he arched it at her. Eric's lips curled into a slow, smug smirk. She hated it. Her shoulders rolled, fighting the confines of the neckline hemming in her arms. And then he laughed and that was the most unbearable of all. "You're in no position to tell me what I can and can't do."

Adara brought her hands behind her as she rolled her shoulders again. The sound of the fabric tearing was audible in the cold room, muffled only by the ragged breathing of both Dauntless members.

She nearly crowed in triumph.

Drawing her arms out of the sleeves and shoving the sweater down around her waist (losing her bra in the process) Dara's hand reached out to settle at the back of his head. Threading her fingers through his hair, her grip firmed as she brought her other knee to the edge of the mattress.

Leaning down over him, her lips brushed against his as she spoke. "You're not the only one who knows tricks, Eric. I'm not a helpless Amity."

Instead of being annoyed, Eric laughed. The sound was disconcerting enough that Adara would have drawn back if she had been able to.

She wasn't.

One of his hands had found the button at the waist of her pants and was dedicating itself to the task of opening them. His other hand reached up to curl around the wrist of the hand that had planted itself in his hair. Dara's fingers tightened reflexively. The tug of pain only heightened Eric's arousal. His thumb traced her wrist bone with a deceptive gentleness, considering his next move was almost savage.

His fingers dug into the pressure point and with a yelp she made to draw her hand back to her side. Eric didn't let go of her wrist though, curving her arm behind her with his grasp. In a flurry of movement Dara found herself pressed against his chest as they both stood. His free hand shoved her pants and underwear down her legs. His own were just as hastily opened.

While he focused his attentions on their clothing, Adara looped her free arm around the back of his neck. Bringing herself up to the tips of her toes, she nipped the underside of his jaw before laving the irritated skin with her tongue. Interspersing love bites with open-mouthed kisses as she trailed down his neck, by the time she had come to the edge of his shirt's neckline Eric's breathing was even more ragged.

Enough with patience. His strong hands rotated them and again, Dara found herself falling to the mattress. This time, though, her shirt had been completely removed. Her boots had been kicked off, lost somewhere on the floor, and her pants and underwear had been drawn down to her knees. Other than his pants being opened and loose around his hips, Eric remained completely clothed.

It seemed that the waiting had finally become intolerable. Adara found vicious satisfaction in the fact, having had enough of his teasing.

He drew her legs over his shoulder, bending them closer to her torso as he leaned over her. Eric's cock found her slick, hot enough that as he seated himself fully within her, he couldn't repress a groan. The heavy drag of him inside her evoked a throaty whimper from Dara. Clenching around him, she raised her hips against his.

Feeling fabric rub against the back of her thighs, against her bare ass that was still smarting from the sharp slaps that he had delivered earlier, Adara shuddered at the stimulation. It was almost enough to stop Eric cold. He swore as his hands reached out to find hers. Lacing his fingers between Dara's, Eric pressed both of their hands to the mattress as he leaned over her.

She was effectively trapped, her knees over his shoulder keeping her in place even as he folded her body tightly against itself as his hips snapped against hers with thrusts that only increased in strength as the moments passed. Adara couldn't even buck her hips against his, the weight of Eric's body draping over her legs enough of an anchor to press her back into the mattress.

Tightening around his cock, she gasped again. "Eric," she whimpered, her head thrashing against the linens. "Please!"

At another time, the Dauntless leader might have drawn back. He might have slowed the heavy thrusts of his cock inside her. He might have drawn his hips back to take himself out of her entirely, leaving only the head to drag against her slicked lips, brushing against her clit only when Adara was sobbing in desperation underneath him.

It wasn't today. Not with her, nearly voiceless beneath him, wordlessly demanding for a completion that only he could give her. The rhythm of Eric's thrusts, steady through that point, suffered for the thought. His cock plunged inside of her and he leaned into it, letting his hips rest against her ass.

Finally, he let go of one of her hands. He wedged his fingers between her thighs. Dara tried to spread her legs for him to make it easier for his thumb and index finger to find her clit. Her attempts were restricted by the unyielding fabric of her pants around her knees and she almost wept in frustration. "Eric," she demanded again, rolling her hips against his.

Her concerns were unnecessary. His index finger lightly skirted around her clit, not quite willing to give into her pleas just yet. She shuddered under Eric's touch and spasmed around his cock.

He groaned low in his throat before he resumed his thrusts. Rougher this time, she felt his cock nudge against something within her that her fingers had never been able to reach. The coil low in her belly drew even tighter, her muscles trembling with the exertion.

Eric rolled her clit between his fingers and growled. "Come, now," and she was helpless in the wake of such a demand. His touch hadn't been lightly considerate.

It was forceful, requiring compliance and it was impossible not to reply. Shivering as he repeated the stroke, he felt her internal muscles flutter around him before clenching tightly in a pulse that, when accompanied with the flood of slickened arousal, had him smiling in vicious satisfaction.

He couldn't hold back any longer. The strokes of his cock inside her, even as her own orgasm continued, became raggedly inconsistent. The force of Eric's hips striking the back of Dara's thighs was a quiet thud in the room, and would have been a wet slap had his skin been bare against hers.

Shuddering as she tightened around him, Eric leaned down against her again. His weight was a heavy drape over Adara's body as he found himself boneless in the aftermath of his own orgasm. Heat pooled deep inside of her and for long seconds, their ragged breathing was the only sound in the room.

It seemed like an eternity to her. One of his hands remained curled around her, an inextricable bond. His other had withdrawn from between her legs to press against the mattress in a futile attempt to suspend his weight above her.

Failing in the task, Eric sighed deep in his chest. With a grunt, he rolled off of her. Dara hissed slightly as she felt his cock withdraw from overly sensitized tissue. The rub of his pants against her slickened lips didn't help matters. Shuddering slightly, she shifted to her side, drawing her knees closer against her torso in defense of the chill of the room.

Staring down at her a moment, Eric inhaled slowly. Shoving himself to his feet, he dropped his shirt to the floor. Trekking across his room, he reached into a drawer to withdraw a heavy sweater. Throwing it over her, he steadied himself to remove his boots, and then his pants.

Adara blinked, but didn't ask. The silence of the room seemed... comfortable, instead of expectant. She didn't want to break it.

She sat up in the bed, shoving her arms through the sleeves of the sweater before drawing it over her head. Her fingertips didn't even come anywhere near the end of the sleeves, even the naturally clingy style at a loss with her slighter figure compared to Eric's musculature.

Dara shifted again, to look at him - only to see him standing, unabashedly naked, as he stared at her. She folded her arms against her stomach to try to conceal the trembling.

"Typical," Eric drawled, nothing escaping his notice. He strode through his bedroom to the edge of his mattress. A hand snared the pants that she hadn't quite managed to do anything with and, with ruthless efficiency, shucked them off entirely. Before he let go, his fingers loosely ringed the sensitive bone of her ankle. His thumb brushed against the knobby bone gently, before Eric released her.

Instead of drawing back this time, he fell forward into his bed. An arm looped around her waist, drawing her with him as he brought the comforter up over them both. Eric settled her over his chest, his hands resting under the sweater.

She found that she couldn't meet his eyes. Resting her cheek on his chest, her blue eyes stared blankly at the far wall. "Eric," Adara began hesitantly.

"Be quiet." It was a gruff retort, although softened by the stroke of his fingers against her back. "Let me do what I have to do."