Pairing: Bucky/Darcy or maybe more appropriately Winter Soldier/Darcy
Warnings: 1. All standard Dub-con warnings apply, although I don't think this is a standard dub-con fic. Still, possible triggers for violence and rape, though I don't think it crosses too many lines. Probably. 2. This is un-beta'd so if you see mistakes, (I'm sure there are lots) please, feel free to let me know. 3. I am forced to use Google translate for all my Russian. I'm fairly certain something will be wrong. If you speak Russian and notice errors, Please, let me know. Also, I left the Russian in phonic English spelling instead of Cyrillic letters because I want people who don't read Cyrillic to still be able to get a feel for how it sounds when the Winter Soldier speaks in Russian. Hopefully it's not too big a pain.
Disclaimer: Standard. These fine folks belong to Marvel ya'll.
Enjoy!
The Games We Prey
The sound of her boots on the pavement seemed impossibly loud as it echoed off the brick and cement walls of the buildings lining the shadow shrouded street. Surely, even this late at night, the sounds of the city should have been rolling through the air like the passing of distant thunder. Where were the voices and car sounds and animals barking? It was entirely too quiet.
She refused to speed her pace, though. Darcy Lewis did not scare easily. Okay, maybe she did, but only when startled. She may not have fearlessness programed into her instincts and reflexes like some people she knew, but she believed she could be brave given enough time to process the choice consciously. Within reason, of course. She very much valued her life and her relatively carefree existence. She wasn't going to needlessly or recklessly put herself in danger either. She prided herself on being brave, just not stupid brave. (Also like some people she knew.)
Then again, she was walking down this seemingly deserted street well past what her mother would call the 'decent hours' of the night, all alone and defenseless. She could admit this was sort of a needlessly reckless situation, though it was only partially her fault.
She reached into her purse to grip the handle of her trusty Taser, (she had lovingly dubbed it Carmen Electra-fry-yo-ass), before realizing she'd forgotten to replace the charge pack since the last time she'd used it. (Barton had eaten the last of the Oreos. Again. Despite her repeated warnings not to. In her defense, she had warned him.)
Well, she just hoped that the threat of Carmen would be enough, because the echoing staccato of her boots on the pavement had recently gained a syncopated companion. She quickly scanned the streets ahead of her, searching for possible escape routes, makeshift weapons, allies against a possible attack, etc. (Part of her was thrilled at getting to use the information she'd had drilled into her per Stark Industries new mandatory self-defense and evasion classes. Part of her wanted to run screaming into darkness and not look back, but she was fairly sure that constituted less than a majority of her parts. For now.)
She finally gave in and quickened her pace. She allowed herself a quick glance over her right shoulder, too, but it was too fast, and she saw nothing helpful.
The street before her seemed to stretch for miles into the darkness of the night. A few cars were scattered along the curbs, sprinkled in with the usual fire hydrants, street lights, and typical city litter. There was some cover available then, so that was good.
The steps behind her grew slightly faster and were definitely closer. The person behind her obviously had a longer stride, not that was difficult to achieve, but it did mean whoever was behind her was going to be bigger and probably stronger. Of course that wasn't hard to achieve, either. Darcy cursed her petite genes and started jogging.
Instantly, the following footsteps accelerated as well and any thoughts she'd had that her fellow pedestrian was harmless/simply walking down the same street as she coincidentally were crushed.
Her heart rate accelerated rapidly and she felt the limb-tingling rush of adrenaline. She aborted any thoughts of trying to look behind her again and moved her legs into high gear. Darcy was not a runner. She sneered at all treadmills and always chose either the stationary bike or elliptical machine on those few occasions when she did manage to drag her butt into the gym. (She didn't really have any good excuses, there were only, like, a dozen of them in the tower…)
Tonight, though, she found a speed she felt was more than respectable for someone of her naturally sedentary disposition. Thank you, adrenal glands. With her Taser tightly gripped in one hand and her purse hiked high on her shoulder and tucked tight under her arm, she fled.
Cars and buildings and streetlamps blurred by as she moved farther down the street. She glanced briefly down side streets and alley ways, but knew she would lose speed and distance if she tried to turn, so kept going straight. Surely, she would come across someone soon. The streets of New York were never this empty. It would be her luck that the city that never sleeps would choose this exact moment to be contrary.
She blew through two intersections, looking down side streets for anyone, anything, to help her, until, just as her chest was starting to really burn and her breathing grow labored she spotted her best bet. One more block ahead she could see a break in the buildings. There was a park, with trees, and foliage, and lots of places to hide. She hoped, anyway. She could definitely see the outlines of trees.
She tightened her core and pushed her speed higher, going all out. She'd been running for less than a minute, she guessed, and the pounding steps behind her had gained, but they weren't so close that she'd lost hope of losing her tail in the darkness provided by the trees ahead.
She reached the park and angled through a gap in a chain link fence. She sped over a little league baseball diamond and around the side of the small cluster of bleachers. She weaved back, just past a small cluster of cement buildings, (probably storage, concessions, and/or public restrooms), in an attempt to break line of sight as she broke the tree line.
She thanked Thor that it wasn't far enough into the season change for the ground to be covered in crunchy leaves. That would have made stealth impossible. She could still hear the thudding of her feet on the grass and hard packed dirt as she moved through the park's greenery, over jogging paths and grassy patches, but the sound was much less obvious. Also, the echo from the buildings made it impossible for sound to travel nearly as far. It was possible she'd lost the person following her.
Of course, that also meant she could no longer hear her pursuer's tread behind her. She slowed slightly as she zigged and zagged around tight clumps of trees and low bushy foliage. Spotting a perfectly dark alcove behind a rather large rock that lean awkwardly between two tall maple trees she headed that way. Knowing the pain swelling in her overworked lungs was going to make running full tilt impossible for much longer anyway, she ducked into the shadows and went perfectly still. She quieted her harsh breathing as much as possible, though her chest heaved up and down violently. She was sure that if Stark was here he'd be making inappropriate comments about romance novel heroin's or teasing her about being a mouth breather, and god, but she wished Stark was here. She'd willingly tolerate all his verbal barbs for a damsel in distress rescue just now.
Tony was not here, though. She was going to have to rescue herself.
She forced herself not to dwell on how screwed she was, and instead, focused on listening. It was still entirely too silent for being in the middle of such a large city, but she could hear the distant sounds of traffic. They were very distant, it seemed. She could also hear the quiet shushing of the leaves overhead as the smallest of breezes picked up. (Also, there was the rushing of blood in her ears and the thudding of her heart in her chest, but she hoped that was only in her head.)
That was it. She was listening for all she was worth, and she couldn't detect the slightest hint of where her pursuer was. She felt frozen with fear with the adrenaline still thrumming through her veins and her pulse slowly slowing, and the darkness lurking menacingly and full of the unknown.
Then he spoke.
His voice was low, not a yell at all, but seeming to drift to her from everywhere, spread by that same breeze that was rustling the leaves above her.
"I am going to find you, ptichka."
Whatever slowing her heart had done, it picked right back up to full throttle with that voice, low and masculine and threatening in a way that had her insides twist. Was he speaking Russian at her? And why didn't he sound more out of breath? There was no hint of him being winded at all. There was only a bizarre muffled quality she couldn't identify.
She strained and continued to try and listen. If she could only figure out which direction he was…
He spoke again.
"You cannot hide from me."
She thought he was still behind her, in the direction she'd come from, but she couldn't be a hundred percent sure. She quickly scanned the forest before her for movement. Seeing none, she crouched slowly, lowering one knee to the ground as she peaked around the boulder she'd been leaning against.
Again, she scanned the darkness, her gaze darting from one shadow to the next. It was almost completely dark here under the canopy of the trees. There were no streetlights, no headlights, and no moonlight. Only the minutest amount of ambient city light filtered this deep into the trees.
She could see nothing. Oh, darkness, you double edged blade. She resisted the urge to curse out loud and settled for mentally running through her favorite expletives. She refused the rising panic a foothold, however, and did her best to consider her options reasonably, if not calmly.
He was taunting her, which meant he probably didn't know where she was, yet. So that was good. She could A) stay here in her shadowy alcove and wait for him to leave, B) catch her breath and then run again, or C) come up with some kind of plan of attack.
She took a fair account of her strengths and weaknesses and weighed her odds.
She was not a patient person, and he sounded as though he had all night and was more than confident at his hide and seeks skills. So A was out then.
She could try B. Her breathing was nearly back to acceptable levels already, despite her still racing heart, and she figured she could muster a few more blocks of adrenaline assisted sprinting. The city couldn't stay empty forever. Then again, who was to say she would find an ally or assistance if she did manage to come across another person before this man who hunted her managed to catch her.
Even if she could find someone willing to help her, did she really want to drag an innocent bystander into this mess? She wasn't sure she wanted to be responsible for those consequences.
If only she was more familiar with this area of the city. What she really needed was a nice public area filled with lots of people. She knew dwelling on if's and wishes was only going to waste her time, however many seconds or minutes she had left, which meant B was looking less and less favorable.
C it was, then.
She scanned her immediate surroundings once more, her eyes working overtime to penetrate the inky blackness for something she could use to make a plan, some form of inspiration.
As she searched she took inventory.
One Taser, chargeless. Check.
One purse, small to medium sized, but full enough to have some heft to it. Check.
One cell phone, battery dead. (Fucking Stark tech.) Check.
Various small hygienic implements including lipstick, mascara, her glasses, a contacts case, a spare beanie cap, several q-tips…
Her mental list aborted abruptly as a twig snapped to her left. It had only sounded a handful of feet away.
Panic threatened to overwhelm her again and she froze, listening for all she was worth.
A sound rippled out of the darkness. It took a second to identify. It was a low, rumbling growl.
"Gotcha…"
She wasn't sure if she'd actually heard the word with her ears, or simply felt it vibrate through her core.
Darcy was up and running again before she could even process a direction. She just spun and moved away from that growl as fast as possible. Away from that growl. Away from the voice. Away from the man. Logic and reason had officially checked out. She was driven now by pure instinct.
It seemed instinct alone could not save her, though.
Before she had taken ten steps, she was hit from behind and tackled to the ground.
"NO!" she shrieked in terror. She went rolling across the hard packed ground, struggling against strong, muscled arms and legs with all her tiny, but mighty fury. She needed more time. She couldn't be out of time already. She had to attack now.
She raised her first with her Taser and swung down. The butt of the grip connected sharply with the side of his head. She knew it was his head because of the flash of sensation she felt as the skin of her hand and wrist had whipped through long strands of hair.
He grunted and the grip he'd established around her waist loosened as he jerked back from the impact. She rolled away, out of his arms and pushed to her feet.
His voice followed her as she tried, once again, to flee.
"You're going to pay for that." His voice was still low and calm and full of irrefutable promise.
This time she only made it six steps before his arms came around her sides, pinning her arms to her chest as he lifted her off her feet.
Darcy screamed again as her boots left the ground and he squeezed the air from her lungs. His right hand moved up to cover her mouth. She latched onto a finger and bit down, instinctively, viciously, tasting the leather of his glove. He cussed, and released her mouth. She started screaming again, but he only shifted and switched hands to cover her mouth with his left instead. She tried biting again. This time it was like biting down on leather covered re-bar. Her teeth and jaw shot through with pain and she was forced to cease her efforts.
He pressed her front to the trunk of a huge oak tree, and she could feel the press of the bark through her jacket. It was muted by the fabric, but still rough. She continued to wriggle and squirm, but the press of his arms was too much.
With a series of moves too fast and efficient for her panic ridden mind to process he had her arms up over her head and held immovably to the tree by his right hand. His body pressed the full length of her into the tree, hips pushing firmly against her backside. Only his hand on her mouth kept her face from grinding into the side of the tree. Her hair whipped around her face as she continued to struggle.
The man remained unmoved, simply holding her captive with his hands and his chest and his hips and thighs.
Her chest was heaving again as she felt helplessness overtake her. She forced it away almost immediately, and struggled to regain control of her mind and body.
She was wasting energy struggling like this. That single thought bubbled to the surface of her mind and she clung to it like a lifeline, willing it to pull her back to reason.
She stopped trying to thrash and twist, realizing, as thought returned, that she had merely succeeded in ripping her favorite jacket and making her body ache with the tension of her jerking motions.
Her body stilled against his and she tried to stop the whining sound she was making beneath the press of his hand.
After she was quiet and motionless for several dozen heartbeats, (probably only two or three seconds, really), the man who had hunted her and captured her so efficiently, lowered his face to her ear and began to whisper.
"That was quite the merry chase you lead me on, devushka. You really got my blood pumping, you know. I think this has been quite a little bit of fun, our little game, but we both knew how it was going to end."
Even though it was still strangely muffled, (was he wearing a mask?), his voice dripped like molten silk down her spine and she couldn't help the whimper that escaped.
He growled possessively in response and the press of his hips against her ass suddenly held a whole world of suggestive intentions.
The jolt of lust hit her like a freight train, a really sneaky, metaphorical one.
She growled back in defiance and tried to jerk one of her hands free. She sort of wanted to use it to slap some sense into herself. And then maybe slap him. She mentally scolded herself and reminded herself that she had no intention of submitting to this sadistic psychopath.
After another few moments of her futile efforts to pull free of his death grip, she realized that his chest was shaking oddly. His chuckling reached her ears just as she comprehended what this new sensation meant.
He was laughing at her!?
Some of her fear and the rest of her panic vanished in the flash furnace of her indignation. How dare he!? She forced herself to stop moving again. She refused to give him any cause for amusement. "Bastard," she muttered, or tried to. It sounded kind of like 'ah-are'.
His quiet laughter cut off as he titled his head and pressed the side of his face, (yes, he was definitely wearing some kind of plastic mask over the lower half of his face), into her hair.
"What was that, kukla?"
She tried to pull her head away, to turn her face so she could really glare at him. He chuckled again and moved his hand off of her mouth.
"I said you're a bastard," she hissed and resisted the urge to start screaming bloody murder again.
Even though she couldn't see his mouth, she could hear the smirk in his voice.
"Still have some fight left in you, I see," he let his left hand, now free from gag duty, slide through her hair, over her shoulder and down her back to her hip. "Good. I would have been very disappointed to see you give up so easily."
"Yeah, well," she huffed, fighting the urge to struggle under the weight of his touch, "I'd hate to disappoint you." She leaned very heavy on the sarcasm and waited for a chance to strike. Sooner or later he was going to slip up, right?
"Mmmmmm, I bet you would," he hummed and used the grip on her hip to pull her ass tighter into his groin where she could tell he was very happy to have her right where she was. Either that or he had a banana in his pocket.
"Do me a favor, dorogaya, and drop the Taser." His voice was still soft, but serious, with a not-so-subtle overtone of 'I'm-not-really-asking-I'm-telling'.
Darcy had nearly forgotten it was still clenched tightly in her right hand. She smiled wickedly as she remembered the satisfying sound of it connecting with his skull. "You're gonna have to make me, comrade," she said with what she hoped was vicious bravado.
"I can," he said, using his right hand to squeeze tighter on her wrists, pressing the soft flesh there into the rough bark of the tree, "but I promise you aren't going to like it." The way he lingered on the word 'promise' was doing funny things to her middle section again.
Darcy chalked it up to adrenaline and possibly a hysterical breakdown being imminent, and considered her best possible course of action. She must have been taking too long, though, because the pressure on her wrists started increasing again gradually.
"Ow, ow, ow," she cried and tried to pull away from the burning pain in her wrists. "Okay, okay, fine," she gasped as she let the useless weapon drop to the ground at her feet. She felt him shift slightly as he kicked it away, and then he was back, every inch of his front molded to her back. She imagined she could feel each and every taut, hard muscle, (of which he had plenty) even through the layers of their clothing.
"Good girl," he said approvingly and moved again in that, inhumanly fast, impossible to follow way that he did, and her head was swimming as she was suddenly turned around, her back now against the tree. Her hands were still pinned above her head, by his left hand now, and she suddenly had the image in her hands being shackled to the wall of some dark, dank dungeon.
That thought made the urge to laugh percolate in her chest, dangerously close to coming out, until she looked up and her eyes met his. Then that thought fled, just like all the others she might have considered having.
It was too dark to see the color of his iris', (blue, they would be cold as ice, blue), but the intensity of his gaze on hers could be seen even here, even in the dark of the forest. It stole her breath away, right along with her ability to think coherently.
In that moment, with the pulse in her neck beating like a caged bird, and the burn in her lungs and wrists and legs, she'd never felt more alive, more substantially present in the world as she did right there, right then, under that inscrutable, penetrating gaze.
She would blame that feeling later for what happened next.
With his left hand on her wrists, his right hand was now free to move freely about the cabin, so to speak. He kept his eyes locked with hers as he slid his hand inside her coat,(only the bottom two buttons had been done up when she'd left the bar and one of those had evidently popped off at some point during all her tumbling and struggling), and curled around her waist.
Her thighs were trapped between his, her feet angled out from the bottom of the tree so that she was leaning with all her weight into the trunk behind her. Without her hands to push off with, she was effectively trapped, off balance and helpless.
His thumb moved slowly back and forth in a strangely gentle caress against her left side and she felt her breathing turn shallow and fast. Her eyes drifted shut out of reflex and she felt all her focus shift to the feeling of his hand on her.
Which was not good, of course. What was good was that she was now free from his damned cobra's gaze, which allowed her to reboot at least part of her brain.
She turned her head, and pressed her ear into the tree behind her, using the ensuing pain to order her senses to fall back in line.
"What do you want?" she finally managed to ask, her voice mostly un-waver-y.
"I think you know," he said, and she wondered how it was that she could catch his words, quiet as they were through the mask, but she couldn't hear him breathing.
She opened her eyes again and looked anywhere but into his eyes. The pattern of straps and buckles across his chest was suddenly the most intriguing of sights.
"No," she said, her own voice just as quiet as his had been, "you can't."
"Oh, but I can," he said as his hand inching slowly higher, "and I will." His voice pulsed with a dark need that shook her to her core. "And the best part…" his words trailed off as he shifted closer, his hips brushing hers again, "the best part…" His face was now next to hers, his word barely a whisper.
"The best part is that you are going to be begging for it," he said and she felt as though she'd been punch right in the gut, but not in a bad way. Well, sort of a bad way. In the sneaky lust train way.
"Fuck you," she said with her best defiant snarl.
"That's the idea, prekrasnoye."
She tried to jerk a knee up, to show him what she thought of this idea, but he had her pinned down so perfectly, it was generous to call the effort futile.
"Go ahead," he chuckled, sliding his hand with its caressing thumb up another inch. That stupid thumb was now dangerously close to the bottom of her left breast. "I like it when you struggle."
"Fucking pervert," she spat through gritted teeth, "twisted, sadistic, psycho with a fucking Vader complex…"
He actually had the audacity to laugh in her face at that. "That's right, doll, talk dirty to me." His eyes crinkled at the corner and she knew that the grin behind that mask would be a world record setter in terms of shear sinful, cocky wickedness. "You've got quite the mouth on you," he said as his wicked, sinful eyes shifted dropped to said mouth and she felt her breath get caught in her throat once again.
Darcy had the sudden, overwhelming need to see his mouth.
"I want…" she started, and then cut her words off sharply. She was determined to fight this asshole to the very last.
His eyes narrowed as he shifted closer to her again, his hips just that much closer to hers and that damned thumb brushed her breast, just once, just for a fraction of a second, but she had definitely felt it.
"What is it? What do you want?" he prodded, when she didn't continue.
"Well, lots of things, really, the first of which is for you to get your fucking hands off of me, Bane-boy, and let me go, and the last of which is for you to go straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, and in between there are all kinds of ways in which I make you suffer. Some involve pointy or blunt objects; some involve mind-bleedingly catchy pop songs and a jar of fire ants."
His grin was back behind that damned mask if his eyes were any indicator and he leaned back slightly, as though he were trying to take her all in at once. "That's not the kind of thing a nice girl would say, not the kind of think a good little girl would even think about."
"I never said I was nice, or good." She huffed condescendingly and tilted her head to look down her nose at him.
"But you're one of the good guys, right? You live in that tower with all those heroes and by all accounts then seem to accept you, even care about you as one of their own…" The man in the mask let his gaze drift almost casually over every inch, every curve of her body. "I think perhaps some of those heroes would be surprised to find out what kind of girl you really are, but I know. I know that under all the smiles and fluffy sweaters and witty snark, you're just a bad, bad girl who thinks dark, wicked thoughts and wants things that she really, really shouldn't…"
"And just what would you know about what I want?" she asked, not sure she really wanted to continue this conversation, but just not being able to help herself.
"I see things others don't," he said, shrugging casually. "For example, I saw you, tonight. You were walking in the dark, alone and defenseless, in the midst of a very dangerous city, which tells me that part of you, at least, wanted to be hunted by the dark things that lurk in the shadows. Things like me, for example. I saw you recognize that you had become my prey, and in that moment, you ran. That tells me that you wanted to be chased, wanted to be caught, caught by me." His hand, (she'd almost forgotten about that hand and its accompanying thumb, she was so mesmerized by his eyes and his voice and his words), pushed up over the curve of her breast, his thumb expertly moving to her nipple, finding it even through the layers of her clothing, and she was left gasping and shuddering under the lightning it sent through her.
"I see how your body arches and your lips part and your pupils dilate when I touch you, and that tells me that when I take you, you will enjoy it. You will want it. You will even beg for me to give you more."
"No," she whispered, her voice one part determination to three parts desperation.
"Yes," he said, and that one word was so full of confident assurance, so irrefutable in its surety, that she had to close her eyes and bite her lip to keep herself from giving into him right then and there.
Arguing with him seemed as ridiculous as telling the world to spin backwards, or the Avengers to relax and take a day. It was becoming more and more difficult to fight the pull of his lovely voice and his mischievous, enticing words and the press of his flesh in all the exact right (wrong) places.
It was a war for her own body and mind, a war in which her own thoughts were turning traitor against her. Still… fight she must. It was a matter of pride.
She was growing tired, the strain of her position beginning to really wear on her muscles and joints, and she was starting to really feel the rough stabbing of the bark of the tree against her lower back. The pressure of his hand against her wrists made her ache all the way from her fingertips to her elbows.
Darcy focused on all the little discomforts and pains. He might be right about some of her dark desires, and about the way she couldn't seem to help but enjoy the way he was making her feel, but Darcy had never enjoyed pain, (not really). She used it all to sharpen her thoughts, slow her breathing and heart beat and center herself enough to open her eyes and give him the blankest, most neutral expression she'd ever given in her whole life.
"It's never gonna happen, Darth."
"Huh," he said, sounding truly surprised by her sudden lack of response. "Aren't you just full of surprises?"
"You have no idea," she said, her voice so level and cold that she wanted to give an epic self-five to her awesomely in control goddess-ness.
His eyes narrowed, ever so slightly and she braced herself for whatever was to come next.
"That's how it is, huh? You think you're just going to stop playing the game? That's not how this works, malen'kaya devochka. You don't get to just check out on me!"
His hands were suddenly gripping the lapels of her jacket and she was lifted, once again, her feet leaving the ground.
Dracy wanted to tip back her head and laugh in his face and shout some b-movie line about how she would never play his game, but she resisted in favor of more effective action.
Unlike the last time he'd held her immobile in the air, she was facing him, and this time, her arms were free. Apparently, she'd managed to goad him into making a mistake. Well, it was one opportunity she was not going to waste.
She clenched her hands together, making one big fist and swung it down in a vicious arch to connect solidly with the right side of his face. Pain shot up both her arms and she wondered if maybe she'd just managed to hurt herself more then she'd hurt him, but then her feet touched the ground. She'd managed to knock him back enough to lose his balance, if only slightly, and she had knocked his mask askew so that it now partially obscured his line of sight.
She fisted her hands together again, this time in the small, newly created space between them, down at her hips and then drove her hands upwards between his hands, forcing them apart. He didn't let go, but she had gained enough slack to pull out of her jacket.
She simply bent at the waist at the same time she pushed backwards, and with her arms still extended, she slipped nicely out of the sleeves. It was a move that worked better on an attacker that had her on the ground, but she thought her self-defense instructor would be impressed.
She turned with the momentum of pulling from the restraining coat and took off, the man still temporarily distracted by his mask and the tangle that was now his hands and her empty garment. In the commotion she thought she heard the pop as her last button gave up the ghost and tumbled to the forest floor, but that could just have been her wildly overactive imagination.
She, once again, impressed herself with a burst of speed hitherto unseen by one Darcy Lewis. Any self-congratulations would have been premature, though. In the dark, in her frantic rush, she didn't see the tree root. She merely felt it when the toes of her foot connected with it, painfully, and her momentum, so helpful before, shifted, throwing her off balance and sent her sprawling onto a small patch of grass.
More pain, this time in her hands and knees, erupted through her already throbbing body. It wasn't bad, thought she suspected she might look like a patchwork quilt when (not if, not if) she got out of this alive.
She rolled over onto her back, groaning lowly as she watched the man take the last few murder-y, stalking steps to close the distance between them and dropped on top of her.
Darcy swung her fists and kicked her legs and twisted her body back and forth to keep him from being able to get a hold on her again. Unfortunately for her, she was slowing, hurting, and relatively weak. He was bigger, stronger, and highly skilled, with a stamina and determination that she could never have hoped to match.
He easily caught her wrists and pinned them to the ground, one on either side of her head. His body pressed hers down into the cold, hard ground, his legs bracketed her right thigh, effectively keeping it from causing him any damage.
She made one last ditch effort, trying to use her left leg to knee him in the ribs, but the angle was all wrong and she barely received a quiet grunt for all her efforts.
Her eyes met his, finally as she resigned herself to captivity. Again.
"Christ," she hissed, partly in pain, partly in frustration, "Déjà vu much?"
He stared down at her, his face serious, but there was an obvious self-satisfied triumph to his expression. "When will you learn, myshka? You can't get away from me."
"When will you learn that I don't speak Russian," she countered. It was probably petty and childish, but she was unnerved at how he seemed to purr those foreign sounds right into the pleasure center of her brain. Not that she would ever tell him that.
He was smirking down at her as though her explanation was unnecessary and said, "My oba znayem, skol'ko vy deystvitel'no lyubite yego."
Damn it! Why did Russian have to be so fucking sexy. She realized then that she could see his smirk now, not just by his eyes, like before, but in its entire panty-soaking glory. His mask was gone, tossed aside and discarded somewhere next to her tattered jacket, she imagined.
His face was all strong lines and soft lips, the hair hanging in his face did nothing to obscure the beauty of his features.
"You… ass!" she growled, a bit lamely, but all her more eloquent insults seemed to be on vacation.
He just raised an eyebrow at her and held onto that amused, (gorgeous) smirk of his.
"You could at least pretend not to be so fucking thrilled by all this."
"I could," he conceded, lowering himself ever so slightly closer to her, covering her more completely as his mouth inched ever closer to hers, "but where would be the fun in that?" The words were whispered straight into her right ear. With no mask between them now, she could feel every breath and every brush of his lips against the sensitive skin there.
She barely managed to choke back a gasp and worked on thinking about anything that would distract her from the impact of his, well everything. She thought about dirty dishes and boring historical documentaries, she focused on the chill of the ground beneath her which bit mercilessly right thorough the thin silk of her top, she pictured dead puppies and open wounds and droopy old man balls.
That seemed to be working really well. Right up until she felt his lips press gently into the skin of her neck, just behind the bend of her mandible, just south of her ear. That was her spot. Well, one of them.
All thoughts, all mental images, all words, save one, evaporated like steam as her flesh ignited. That final remaining word circled through her brain, and she tried to hold onto it, though it was hardly helpful.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
His mouth moved down over her taunt neck muscles to her pulse point and the word moved from her thoughts to her lips and beyond.
"Fuck…"
The man smiled then and she felt the brush of his lips against her collar bone as he said, "Now you're getting it."
She simply burned.
"Eto verno, moy dorogoy , prosto dayte yego mne," He whispered. "Pochuvstvuyte eto."
She groaned softly, the heaviness in her lower belly spilling into the soft places farther down.
"YA khochu sdelat' vas krichat' moyo imya , zhenshchina," his mouth continued to tap a hypnotic pattern of words and wet kisses as he made the circuit of her neck an all its tingly places, his foreign words slithering their delicious hooks down into her very soul.
That was when she decided that she was going to lose this fight. If he had been rough, or cruel, (well, more cruel), had continued to force her, or make demands, she might have continued to resist. This seductive, sensual stream of, what she could only assume where Russian sweet nothings, (though they could have been anything really, from his grocery list to a recitations of all the ways in which he had ever killed people, she would probably never know), was melting her resolve into liquid lightning that danced up and down her spine.
She shivered unconsciously and he pulled back to gaze into her face. His eyes were full of heat, and darkness, and all those naughty, shadowed promises that she shouldn't (couldn't help but need) want.
"Ty moya."
The meaning of that seemed fairly self-explanatory, given the way his eyes devoured her possessively.
"Yes," she sighed in longing and resignation.
His smile was a thing of beauty, seven wonders worthy, for sure.
When he bent his head to claim her mouth, she met him half way.
Darcy was determined that if he were going to win this battle, that she was going to give as good as she got, and perhaps she could still maintain some hope for the war. He could affect her so profoundly, so intensely. Well, so be it, but she'd be damned if she'd let him get away unscathed.
She didn't wait for him to lead; she opened her mouth to his and pressed her tongue between his lips. She caressed and swirled and flicked with all her considerable skills. She undulated beneath him, slowly, arching her back and flexing her hips rhythmically in a way that left nothing to be lost in translation.
He smiled against her mouth, taking all she had to give and repaying it with his own noteworthy talents.
His right hand released her left one and moved to tangle in her hair, clasping the back of her head and turning her subtly this way or that, letting him plunder and possess her mouth completely. There was no part of her mouth that didn't receive attention from his, no molar unturned and all that.
Eventually, her need for oxygen forced her to turn her face away from his, the deep inhale forcing her sharply expanding lungs (and by extension her hard throbbing nipples) upwards to press lightly against his chest.
She pressed her advantage and put her freed hand into his hair. Darcy made a point to drag her nails gently over his scalp as she gripped his locks and used this position to direct his hungrily searching mouth back to all the fun, sensitive places on her face and neck.
He complied with a deepening of what she was definitely going to refer to as his trade mark cocky smirk and she growled and told him to shut up.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, though the trade mark smirk remained. His hand made a delightful little trail from the back of her head, down her neck, over her shoulder and down to her left breast, once again. This time she let the jolts of pleasure pulse through her unimpeded by conscious thought and the direct line between her nipple, (being flicked so expertly by that damned fucking stupid thumb of his), and her clit and she lit up like Rockefeller Center the first Wednesday after Thanksgiving.
She lifted the leg not currently pinned between his and wrapped it over his hip trying so desperately to find a way, any possible way, to get her throbbing places rubbing more fully against his. She was only moderately successful, though, and this made her groan in frustration as much as pleasure at all the ways his mouth was worshiping her skin.
He was considerate enough to shift more of his weight to his left leg and raise his right thigh to press up into her softest places.
Her groan this time was equal parts pleasure and relief. She clutched him to her with her thigh and proceeded to grind the hell out of this thigh. It had been so willingly offered after all.
She felt, rather than heard, the hitch in his breathing at her blatant wantonness, and it was her turn to smirk triumphantly. So far, he had been acting like a pretty cool customer, staying silent now that his foreign words had breached her defenses. Aside from the obvious bulge pressing into her hip, he was giving no outward signs that he was feeling anything besides smug victory at her surrender.
She started wondering if she was losing her touch, but apparently not.
He froze then, noticing her expression as he placed hot, wet kisses on the corner of her mouth. She stopped all of her squirming and grinding and gave him a raised eyebrow in innocent (totally not innocent) inquiry.
His face went creepily blank. She tried not to panic at the sudden change and slowly lowered her hand to his neck where she started making a soothing back and forth motion with her fingernails along his hairline.
"We can stop whenever you want," she said mischievously, and really she wasn't actually suicidal, or a glutton for punishment, or a masochist, or any of the other hundreds of things you might label someone who actively taunted a man who was clearly as dangerous as this one was. She just couldn't seem to help herself.
"You know, if you don't think you can handle me," she said with a slow, slinky deliberation that she hoped sounded sexy and tempting.
His eyes drilled menacingly into hers and she tried to suppress a desperate shudder.
She failed.
It was enough to bring a hint of that smirk back as he raised his lip and hissed, "But I'm so looking forward to hearing you beg."
She narrowed her eyes and him and felt a flicker of that stubborn pride returning, rising from the embers of her flaming libido and putting some steel back into the fluid mush that was her spine.
"Never," she said, shaking her head slowly, her eyes never leaving his. She hoped he could see how much she meant it. Cause she really, really did mean it. Truly.
He called her bluff and caressed a path from her breast to her stomach with his right hand, his fingers pressing strange, random patterns of varying pressures and durations as he dipped slowly under the hem of her top and pressed his gloved hand into her skin.
The textures, both soft and rough, of the glove felt nice, but it was hardly different then what he'd been working over her shirt.
She raised her eyebrow again, signifying guilty defiance now, and her ego inflated another notch.
The muscles in his jaw tightened perceptively as he scowled down at her.
She continued to be unmoved. (Mostly.) Two could play this game.
She released her hand from his neck and moved it up to cover a yawn. "Let me know when you're finished."
He growled then, like a Doberman pincher, or a feral wolf. He jerked his hand out from under her shirt and put his fingers to his mouth. Using his teeth he pulled his glove off and tossed it aside.
Damn, but that was hot, Darcy thought as she watched him, her breathing hitching ever so slightly.
"Let's just see, shall we?"
The ominous portending of his words only sort of prepared her for his next move. With his hand now bared to the night air, he moved in that hard to follow way once again. Before she knew what was happening, he was sliding higher up her body in order to give him the angle he needed to slide his hand right down under the waist band of her skirt, under her tights, and under the edge of underwear. It was all done with one swift, fluid movement that had her gasping at his palm cupping her confidently and one long finger sliding up inside her.
It was abrupt.
It was invasive.
It was hot as fuck.
It was also very telling.
He thrust with his finger once, twice, three times, and then he was withdrawing just as smoothly, his motion the exact reverse of what he'd just done.
He said nothing, simply held his hand with its extended index finger in front of her face. It glistened with her slick, even in the meager light present, and even had she not been able to see it, she could have smelled it.
It was a scent she was intimately familiar with. Its pleasant semi-sweet muskiness, that reminded her of nothing else she ever smelled, drifted to her on the still trickling-by breeze. She knew by the widening of his nostrils that he could smell it to.
She was so busted.
She gave a small shrug that conveyed her most condescending 'so-what', and refused to speak first.
Then the bastard raised an eyebrow at her, once again, and slid the evidence into his mouth. She watched his cheeks hollow and she sucked lightly, his eye lashes (is impossibly long, thick, eye lashes) brushed his cheek softly as his eyes drifted shut momentarily. When they opened again they were hooded and dark with desire and she felt her pulse slam into overdrive for the ninety-millionth time that night.
She knew how good she tasted. It was always a surprise to find the flavor to be so delicate against her tongue when the scent of her seemed so pervasive, but it was still just as light and semi-sweet.
He pulled his finger from his mouth, moving slowly and leaving a wet trail across the center of his bottom lip as, with a soft pop, said finger reappeared in its entirety.
She glared at that finger, glared at it hard. Then she glared at his stupid blissful expression. It totally didn't go with the whole Homeless-assassin chic look he was going for, (pulling off nicely).
"Well, young lady, what do you have to say for yourself?"
She glared harder and looked away refusing to meet that haughty, self-assured look.
She considered several responses, (you suck, fuck you, get off, hips don't lie, I'm just holding that for a friend…) but nothing she could think of would sound not sexual and she was sure as hell not going to give him anymore damned ammunition against her.
When she didn't speak, however, he rolled their bodies, both his legs pressing between hers, widening the angle of her thighs ever so slightly so that he was grinding that bulge, and the intervening zipper and seam of his pants, right up the line of her still engorged, (and soaking wet, can't forget that ladies and gentlemen of the jury), lady parts and she shuddered and gasped like a flying fish with terrible navigation skills. How had she gotten here, exactly? There were fuzzy details, a night out with Nat and Wanda, some disagreement about calling it a night (her) or hitting another bar (Wanda) and about how nobody should be left alone (Nat), and apparently it was less of threat to have her trying to find a cab in the middle of New York city alone then it was leaving the newly reformed Scarlet Witch to her own devices…
And now, here she was, lying in the grass, with this fine physical specimen of a man pressed against her so enticingly, but he was a bastard and a jerk, and she wanted him in her, but she knew, just knew, that he wasn't going to get in her until she begged him, which she refused to do, on the principal alone, but then, where did that leave them? Where they just going to lay here until the end of time? Him with his smirk and his eyes and the way he knew how she tasted and where that place was on her neck that made her melt, and damn it, he really was just trying to kill her, wasn't he.
She should have known better to suspect she was ever going to come out of this situation alive. This man was going to be the death of her. If it wasn't asphyxiation from kissing her brains out, it would be an aneurism from lack of him putting his big-ass cock in her god damned vagina.
She took a deep breath and tried for compromise.
"Look, yes, I want you. Are you happy now? I want you, and you want me, so let's just be adult about this and call it a draw and get down to the fun parts that we both obviously want to happen. Okay?" She was relatively pleased with the reasonableness of her tone.
He smugged at her some more and shook his head slowly.
"That wasn't the deal. You know what you have to do. It's just three little words; surely it will be worth the pleasure of having me put you out of your misery to say three simple words."
"You're an ass? Those three words?" Her snark (death wish) reared its ugly head once more. "Or maybe, go fuck yourself. How about those three words?"
"I can do this all night, upryamyy devushka." He leaned down and playfully, (a playful assassin. Huh. Who knew?), swiped his bottom lip, still wet from his saliva and her juices across her own lips.
Her primal, knee-jerk reaction had her drawing that lip into her mouth. She sucked and bit it gently. Then she bit it not so gently.
His primal, knee jerk reaction was to actually jerk his knee up, fitting it more tightly into that hollow space between her thighs. That, and growl into her mouth.
Yep, he was definitely trying to kill her.
"I can see it will take a bit more to break you," he said, his words lightly slurred with his bottom lip still in her mouth.
"Do your worst," she said, releasing his lip after one final nibble. It was possible she was a glutton for punishment after all. Perhaps therapy was in order? She'd think about that later, if she survived, when she could think again.
He unceremoniously pushed her top up, the silk sliding against her overly sensitized skin, and pulled the cup of her bra down and then his mouth, that wicked, (wonderful), mouth was on her nipple. The right one, the one that had felt dreadfully ignored up until now.
She literally saw stars. Her head went back, her eyes few wide and, with her pupils blown wide open, she was able to make out the smallest pinpricks of light twinkling between the gaps in the branches over her head.
It was pretty.
He chuckled against her skin at the way she gasped for air, and continued to assault her mercilessly. He arched his body, pressing his knee against her in a pulsing rhythm that might actually be enough to get her to come if he just kept doing everything he was doing, just the way he was doing it for another, oh, ten minutes or so.
It was just the kind of slow building pressure that made her both delighted and infuriated her to no end.
She had mentioned she was not a patient person, right?
His left hand, which had so far kept itself on her right wrist, finally joined the party, brushing down her right side and gripping her hip, kneading her flesh carefully and flirting with the idea of her ass, and squeezing it, before dancing away to rub along the outside of her thigh and then move back to her hip.
He was caressing patterns on her stomach with his bare right hand, letters that made words that she could only guess at because she was dizzy and breathless, and the slow build continued.
Darcy gripped his head once more, this time with both hands and dug in with her nails just this side of too rough and felt a small victory when his chuckle tumbled into a grunt.
He reciprocated by dipping his fingers under the waistband of her skirt again, but only briefly, only for a teasing glimpse and then pulled them back out again.
She slid her hands to his neck and shoulders, gripping and clutching at them as she tried to feel the bunch and coil of his shoulders under the thick leather and Kevlar of his armor. That almost certainly cause her just as much, if not more frustration then him, however, as she tried in vain to first, penetrate the tough material with her nails, and then figure out how to unfasten and remove the obstacle.
She did manage to get the top most fastener release before he was pushing her hands away. Which was fine, really. She was in no state to attempt to navigate the maze work of straps and plates and buckles.
Next, she tried the direct approach. She slid one hand down between them and palmed his growing excitement.
He growled deep in his throat again, and pushed her hand away. Again.
She gave her own growl and clutched at his shoulders again.
"Just say it."
His words were his own version of a plea, though of course, he phrased it like an order.
"You know you're going to give in eventually, anyway, why torture yourself needlessly."
"Damn you!" she yelled, wishing she was cogent enough to form some more inventive and descriptive curses to hurl at him.
"Say it," he ordered again, gripping her hip and pressing into her hard enough to almost hurt, his forehead rested against the curve of her neck and shoulder and she wondered if he was just as flustered, as winded as she was. He was surely better at hiding things like that then she was.
Still… she had a reason not to give in, right? She was fairly certain there was some reason… even if she couldn't quite remember just now… not with his fingers dipping under the barrier of her skirt once more, the backs of those fingers brushed over the soft skin of her lower belly and she wondered if she was supposed to be hearing the ocean, cause she was pretty sure she could hear the ocean.
"Blya zhenshchina," he said against her collar bone, "Ty ubivayesh' menya."
It was enough. Well, actually it was too much, but she was well past caring now.
"Please!" She said with a shudder and his head jerked up, his eyes fixing on her as the rest of his body froze.
"Please what?" He breathed so lightly she probably could have pretended she didn't even hear the words.
She thumped her head lightly against the ground once, twice, and then gave up.
"Please, fuck me," she begged and, felt such a strange sense of elation and release from the words that she didn't stop there. "I need you in me, please, I need to come, and I want to feel you in me, fucking me and taking me, will you just get on with it already!"
"Nakonets. Rech' idet o vremeni."
In a flash he was up on his hands and knees and lifting her by the hips and flipping her over. She heard the sound of a zipper and then her skirt was up around her waist. Apparently, he was done waiting. That was fine by her. She straightened up to help push down her tights and underwear, but a firm hand on her back pushed her back down on all fours.
His left hand gripped the top of her tights and he ripped, shredding them in seconds.
"Hey!" She shouted in protest, and then her panties where gone, too, and he was pushing into her and it was glorious.
His first few thrusts were infinitely slow, but no less hard and deep. He filled her and rubbed her in all the best places and damn. Just… damn.
Once Darcy had adjusted to his size properly she began pushing back against him, urging him to move faster. He gripped her hips then and really started thrusting in and out with a passion, and it was exquisite.
"Bog , vy chuvstvuyete sebya tak khorosho vokrug moyego chlena," he chanted and the cadence of his words left her shuddering around him, so close, and yet, not quite there. "Vy tak krepko , tak mokraya."
She let out a long, low, keening moan as the pressure swelled deep in her cunt and she hung, suspended on a moment of brittle intensity, in that place where the pleasure was so intense she thought it might just make her implode. She held her breath then, and tried to draw it out as long as possible.
"Konchit' dlya menya, kotenok," he implored fervently, "Konchit' dlya menya, Darcy."
She arched her back.
"Prosto otpustit' , dlya menya," he crooned and gave one, hard, deep thrust, rolling his hips in that he way he knew would just do it for her, and it did.
Darcy felt it rip through her like a whirlwind, and then she was falling. She pressed her face into the grass, breathing hard and hardly breathing all at the same time. She could smell the grass and the earth and feel every tiny, (or not so tiny), pulse and shudder of her vaginal walls as he continued moving within her, though he had slowed down again, moving in a fluid steady rhythm now. She shook. From toes to tangled locks, she shivered with the all-consuming warmth and feel goodiness of it all.
"Christ," he cursed, returning to English now as he continued to move through her orgasm, feeling every twitch and contraction as it made her even that much tighter around him.
The sight of her, on her knees, with her ass in the air, his cock buried deep in her quivering pussy was enough to make things start to tighten between his stomach and balls, so he forced himself to look away. He used his hands on her hips to guide himself as he continued to fuck her. Her quiet gasps and sobs and moans were the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. At least, that he remembered.
After what seemed like several minutes, her climax finally started to subside and he returned to his brutal pace. Eventually, she managed to push herself back up on all fours. He'd put her through her paces tonight and her energy was bound to be waning, but he suspected she had at least one more serious orgasm in her.
He curled over her back and wrapped his left arm around her ribs, just under her luscious breasts and pulled her back against his chest as he straightened again. He carefully regulated the pressure of his arm as he held her tight to his chest without squeezing too hard.
Darcy's head flopped back on his shoulder and he slid his right hand up her body to her face so that he could turn her towards him. He claimed her mouth in a wet and dirty kiss, his thrusts slower and shallower now that he didn't have a grip on her hips.
He leaned back and lifted her higher supporting her whole weight with his arm. He ran his right hand back down, pausing briefly for a serious grope of her right breast, and then down over her stomach and her pubic bone to her clit.
"Oh, god, yes," she whimpered against his mouth and shuddered some more, her whole body seeming to seize and stutter. "More, more, more, god that feels so good…"
He circled the tender little nub gently but firmly as he thrust up into her tight slit, pulled even tighter with the arch of her back and the angle of his thrust. He moved in a short, quick pulse now, knowing he was rubbing right on the front of her pussy, right on her g-spot, (the internet was an amazing thing that contained all kinds of interesting and informative facts).
She gasped and twisted, pulling away from his kisses in order to increase her oxygen intake, he pressed his face into the side of her neck, sucking warmly just above the junction of her shoulder. She raised both arms and clutched at his head, pulling his hair and scrapping her nails along his scalp in her desperate need to cling to something solid, something sure.
She was entirely at his mercy here. Her small frame was held suspended and vulnerable as he pressed all her buttons and played her like a well-tuned string instrument, and she made the sweetest sounds.
"James! Oh, fuck James I'm gonna…"
This time when she came, it seemed to sneak up on her and then break over her hard and fast both inside and out. He looked down at her, her shirt twisted and askew, her skirt bunched around her waist exposing her tattered leggings with soft white flesh peeking though. This time he didn't look away. When the sight of her and smell of her and taste of her and the sound of his name on her lips and feel of her gripping all around him tightened things low in his groin he didn't resist. He let her drag him with her over that razor edge and into the throbbing, warm abyss.
"Jesus, James, do you have to shred them every time?" Darcy asked, sitting up from where she lay curled against his side, (hard and warm and perfect), and taking in her appearance.
He just laughed quietly and sat up next her so he could push her hair aside and kiss her neck gently. "You shouldn't push me so far if you don't want your things to get wrecked. It's your own fault for holding out for so long. You know how crazy you make me."
She smirked as she finished tucking herself back in her shirt and stared to work at pulling off her boots so she could remove the tattered remains of her under things. "Well, you still get to replace them," she said finally, refusing to let the small loss ruin the warmth and joy of her afterglow. Besides, the rags could be used to do a preliminary clean up before she had to get up and walk around and find a way to get them home. So that was a thing.
"Yeah, yeah," he drawled as he leaned back into the grass one arm behind his head. "I know the rules. I break it, rip it, stain it, or otherwise ruin it, I bought it. It's worth it, you know. I have to have something to spend all my money on."
Darcy snorted as she shoved the messy pile of scraps away and worked at putting her boots back on and smoothing down her skirt.
"So," she began as she turned to him and then paused as she smirked and moved to tuck him in and zip him up, (he only twitched a little at the cool press of her hands on his still sensitive bits. Really), and then leaned down over his chest to give him a long slow kiss. "You must have been pretty close when Nat called to tell you I was leaving alone, huh?"
His face went blank as he watched her carefully. "I might have been in the neighborhood," he shrugged after he saw no signs of her threatening to turn moody and grumpy on him.
"With your Winter Soldier get up on?" Her raised eyebrow said volumes about what she thought about that.
"Sure, why not? You can never been too careful out here in the city."
"Uh huh," she said, heavy on the disbelief and sarcasm, "It's not like you were stalking me, just waiting for a chance to get me alone, or anything like that, right?"
He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. Had she seen him outside the bar? Nah, she was probably just guessing. "Right. Cause that would be creepy."
"Right," she agreed and then laughed brightly, her head thrown back and her hair swishing around her shoulders. Her eyes were bright as she leaned over him and looked down into his face. "You're one kinky som-a-bitch, Barnes."
"Hey," he frowned, "I told you not to call me that right after we make love."
"Right," she snorted again and pushed off his chest to stand on mostly sturdy legs. "Is that what you kids are calling that kind of thing now-a-days?"
He continued to scowl, but it was only about twenty percent serious. "You know what I mean," he said finally as he climbed to his feet next to her.
"I do," she whispered and leaned up to give him another kiss. She turned his head back and forth slowly looking his face over. "I clocked you pretty good back there. Your head okay?"
He scoffed and pushed her hands away gently. "You know you can't really hurt me, right?"
"Well, your head certainly is hard enough." She wrinkled her nose and gave him a goofy grin. "Come on. You have to admit, I almost got away this time."
"Not even close," he said, smiling softly at her and pulling her chin up with his fingers as he leaned down for one last, lingering kiss.
When their lips parted she shoved him away with both hands, catching him by surprise, (she always did that), but not really moving him very far, regardless.
"Hey, what was that for," he laughed as she turned and walked back over to where her jacket lay in a heap under a bush.
"You totally cheated!"
"No I didn't! How? How did I cheat?"
"You know. All that coo coo la and drogo ha. You know it isn't fair to use the Russian on me when we're playing."
He laughed at her messed up pronunciations and stooped to pick up his mask. "You know what they say… All's fair in love and war and all that…"
She laughed with him and looked around, spotting her purse. "Yeah, but when it's both, shouldn't that cancel it out, double negativize it or something?"
"Speaking of using words that aren't actually English…" He laughed again and gathered his glove from a low hanging branch before pulling it on.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she snarked and turned to give him a saucy wink. "Now where did you kick poor Carmen?"
Fin
Okay, everyone, moment of truth! Did you see that coming? If you did I wanna know when... I felt like it was a fine line between not giving it away and making it believable. Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Critique always welcome!