She always knew he would wind up at her door – it was never a question of 'if', only a matter of when – and so she greets him with a myriad of emotions reflected in her fathomless dark eyes: satisfaction, expectation, and a smattering of pride. But not surprise. Her heartbeat remains steady, even; her hands do not shake when she extends one to him; he is the one who is a bundle of nerves and fury held together by a breath of composure, a threaded, beautiful disaster who's dangerously close to imploding. She takes him in, in a glance, and her expression does not change, but she shifts a step closer to him, so that he'll understand, what he needs, she's willing to give, without questions of thoughts of afterward. There will be no what-have-we-done's, no we-shouldn't-have's, and no what-if's or might-have-beens. Not tonight.
Jacob inhales then, and she can see by the widening of his eyes that he's struggling, trying to hold himself together, and failing. He's very close to plummeting over the edge, and she is affected, without warning, by the sudden sense that he's big and strong and tough, and he may seem a grown man, but the truth is, Jacob Black still has some growing up to do – and right now he's hurt and he's scared, and he needs an outlet for everything that's rising like a frantic tempest to his surface. She can see all the way through him, and it's both heady and shameful; she feels, in an uncharacteristic moment of guilt, that she's seeing too much, that standing in her doorway, the wind blowing her ebony hair away from her face, she's watching Jacob come undone, and she should stop it. She should take him inside, hold him when he falls to shards and splinters, watch him through the night, and then send him home in the morning.
She's never been the type who adheres to the rules.
"Jacob," she says slowly, her gaze commanding. He looks at her and she can see him breaking, and he is not the wolf or the man then, just the boy. He's still wearing the suit he must have worn to Bella Swan's wedding; she experiences a moment of blinding hatred at the name, and then an unfamiliar emotion steals away her breath: sympathy. For all their differences, all the reasons she torments and taunts Jacob, for once, she understands exactly what he's going through.
Images swarm through her then, Sam's face, contorted with guilt for imprinting on Emily, and his apology, words that gutted her messily, leaving her choking on enough regrets to fill her stomach with acid and contempt, Emily's ruined face, Sam gazing at Emily as if she was the only source of light in his world, the images that he sends without meaning to when he changes –
"Leah." It's a whisper, a scream, a plea, and it's enough to bring her back to the present, to Jacob. His voice is hoarse with emotion, his body shakes just slightly and he grasps the hand she forgot she proffered.
"I need – it doesn't have to mean anything," he presses, no doubt thinking he has to explain. "It hurts all the way through, knowing I lost her, and I need – " he gestures, his large hands slicing, twisting through the air. He's holding her hand hard enough to bruise, but she barely notices. She's never seen him so vulnerable, so real.
And it galls her that she can't decide if she hates this side of him, or admires him for coming to her without his normal defenses.
"I know," she offers, a smile playing on her lips. "I expected you. I'll take you in, Jacob Black," she assures him, her copper skin dappled by the moonlight.
She leans toward him – she catches their mingled scents (roses and smoke, and something deliciously male) – and presses her lips against his, folding her body into his at the same time. She expects him to be hard angles and defensive lines – so when he puts a hand on either side of her waist, not to restrict her, but just to hold her in place – she loses her footing, and staggers. The motion sends her falling against him; his scent absolutely floods her nostrils, and her eyes fly open as his tongue parts her lips. Her arms circle his neck of their own volition; she hasn't given herself permission to go this far, to lose so much ground, but that's exactly what she's doing.
The kiss itself is gentle with an undertone of desperation that she clings to, to keep some sort of focus. She is many things, Leah is, but she isn't soft or caring or kind, never has been, and she won't change for Jacob Black. She hates where this is headed, can feel him unnerving her, unraveling her, and she can't let this go on, or they'll –both- break. And she remembers the vow she made long ago – to never lose herself again.
The emotions choking her leave her terrified, and she's gasping for breath suddenly, for more than one reason. She pulls back, but Jacob has her pinned against him. He looks at her, his long hair flopping into his eyes boyishly, and she hates him in that instant, really loathes everything he is and everything he represents.
"Remember," she hisses, her tone vindictive as she can make it, "this means nothing."
His expression is conflicted, tortured even. But he nods, and pulls her out into the night with him. She closes the door behind her, understanding that the time when she could have run is long past, and that now, she's with him, bound to see through what she started. She hasn't bargained for his damnable effect on her, and with every passing moment, Leah feels more exposed. And for someone who spends her time hiding who she has become, to better protect herself, vulnerability is not an option.
She tells herself all the way to his car, and miles down the road, to an abandoned field, that it means nothing, that they won't even remember this five years from now, that he is not under her skin, that the kiss changed nothing. She runs the thought through her mind like a failsafe, shines some sort of twisted logic into the situation even while she knows it's hopeless.
Jacob Black has –gotten- to her, when she thought he would never do such a thing. She doesn't like him, she's taken pride in rubbing salt into his wounds on a few occasions. To think that she's alone with him, that she has agreed to spend the night with him, is unimaginable. She feels like she's living in the fucking Twilight Zone, like she's drugged, and it goes all over her and sends her into a rage, that all she craves is his touch.
She keeps provoking him – turning his soft kisses into hard, bruising embraces, raking her fingernails across his back, attacking him in all the ways that are left to her. And he answers her brutality with tenderness like she's never known before. Leah is powerless, defenseless. Jacob breaks her concentration and her intentions with his velvet-rough touches. She drowns in his eyes, stutters out half-hearted protests and insults that he curbs with long, slow thrusts into her, strokes that she lives for. He surrounds her, he fills her senses, and she rises and falls with him, her breathing harsh. She loses the cruelty that spurred her to hurt him; she forgets to lash out. Instead, she does as she promised him she would.
Leah Clearwater takes Jacob Black in. And in doing so, she finds a sort of solace that she never expected. He manages to smooth away some of her roughness and her scars; he finds the pink, healing skin underneath, and touches that, touches her, in a way she thought no one could. She does for him what she has said she will never do again – she gives in. And she keeps giving in, because he catches her every time, holds her fast, his strength so real it's inescapable.
Her earlier lies burn her tongue as she moans his name under her breath, against the shell of his ear. She knows she was wrong, and that despite her intentions, this means something after all. It's terrible and beautiful all at the same time. She's a broken mass, pretending to be whole. And he's flayed apart with the loss of Bella to Edward Cullen. But together, they try to create something bigger, better, than the two of them. And for a moment, staring into his dark eyes, Leah can finally feel as if she's not just existing, but alive, not just –there-, but real.
She wonders if he sees anything in her eyes other than the bitch she's always been to him, the role she plays to keep up appearances. She prays there's something else left, something worth pursuing, something cleaner and purer. She prays she is not beyond redemption – and it is not lost on her that here, with him, is the first time she's sent up that wish in too long to recall.
_________
Afterward, she lays on her side, scrunched in the backseat of his car, and traces lines across his chest. Sweat stands on his skin and on hers, but she doesn't mind. She can't seem to stop touching him, but he hasn't pushed her away. He's half-asleep, on his way to dreaming. He's draped one arm around her waist, and every now and again, his grip on her tightens, as if he's trying to keep her close.
When Jacob's breathing evens, and she can tell that he's asleep, Leah wonders if he's dreaming about Bella, wishing he had made love to her tonight, if she was just a substitute, if, when he kissed her, behind closed eyes, he was imagining someone else.
And then she wonders why she cares.
By the time he wakes, Leah will again be as cold and as hard as she has to be. But for a moment, she lets the clean, burning pain and the fear rush over her, because at least the emotions are strong and imperfect and real. And real is something she has not been since the last moments with Sam she can still believe in.
After tonight, she doubts she'll feel this way again. She'll go back to her normal routine. Tonight, these stolen moments, will be a memory. But for now…for now, Leah snuggles against Jacob's chest, sighing into the stillness, letting the feel of his skin seep into her.
She will take her solace where she finds it.