Places I've Been

So this in AU in that the stuff we saw on tonight's episode with Vincent having a fiancée hasn't happened here. This is mature for adult themes and content. Let me know if I should continue!

Preface

His big, powerful hands fisted in her hair as if by their own volition. She arched back and allowed him more access to her throat. He nibbled on the sensitive flesh of her neck and she murmured a guttural, unintelligible sound born of pure pleasure. They had been doing this for weeks now, touching, teasing, exploring, unable to get enough of each other but as his hand went to cup her pert right breast, he was aware somewhere in the back of his mind that they were moving into truly dangerous territory this time. He didn't want to stop; he wanted her with a force and passion he never could have imagined in his wildest fantasies.

He realized then with a shudder of desire that he loved her. Maybe he always had and that was the most dangerous thing for her of all.

He was lethal to her.

All those thoughts suddenly entered his mind and made him feel ill. His hand slackened on her breast and eventually fell away. He then sat there for a moment as she watched him with a mixture of confusion and hurt in her gorgeous, dark eyes.

"Vincent?" She said. His name on her tongue … it made him wish for things that could never be. What was he thinking coming here? What was he thinking touching her and promising her things he could never begin to deliver on.

"Vincent?" She said again. It sounded like a little whisper escaping her perfect, sensuous lips.

This time he responded by jumping to his feet and sailing clear to the other side of the room. She looked so hurt in that moment. She had always worked so hard to maintain an exterior of bravery and strength but in that moment he thought he saw it begin to crumble. And he hated himself even more for bringing her to that place.

"What is it?" She asked as her hands hovered seemingly absent-mindedly on the buttons of her blouse he had half worked open already.

He tore his eyes away from her. "I can't do this."

"You can't make love to me? Vincent, I'm ready. I feel like you are too. We both are."

"I – I'm not. I never will be."

Catherine nodded. Oh the hurt in her eyes. He knew he had to say something even if he mangled it. "It's not you, Catherine."

"Oh. The old 'it's not you, it's me' line," Catherine murmured.

"Catherine," he said. "It is me! You think you know everything about me but you don't. I don't ever want to hurt you. Ever."

She took a step closer to her and he retracted more into the shadows. "You won't hurt me, Vincent. I know exactly who you are. You're a good man."

"That's just it! I'm not a man, Catherine!" He shouted. "I am a monster."

"That's not true," Catherine said. "You are so much more than you ever give yourself credit for being. You are beautiful and you are kind and –"

He held up a hand to stop her. "I am none of those things. I am a fucking genetic mutation and I've done things –" He balled his hands into fists at his sides.

"I know what you've done and I'm not afraid of you. I told you once that the night you saved me in the woods, that I wasn't afraid of you, that I knew you would never hurt me, and I meant it."

"You should be afraid of me, Catherine, you should be. You haven't even begun to scratch the surface on where I've been and what I've done, the way I've hurt people…"

She moved a step closer to him, reaching out to him, and he could smell her perfume and her sex and that uniquely beautiful Catherine scent so strong in his nostrils that it drove him insane. He knew any minute he was going to come undone and that it would not be pretty. So he did the only thing he could.

He vaulted from her open window and took off like a shot in the night.

He could hear her crying out his name long after he was blocks and blocks away.

TBC