Title: Chiaro/scuro
Rating: NC-17 for adult themes
Pairing: Mick /Beth
A/N: This was intended to be the last part of the story, but it seemed too long to post all once so I had to split it. The good news is that Part 3 is already written.
Chiaro/scuro - Part 2
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Her announcement is like the shadow you see flickering at the edges of your vision, the emotional sucker punch you never see coming. He is simultaneously confused and dazed. He is sure his mouth would have hung open til sunrise had she not laughingly suggested that social interactions were usually reciprocal and that according to etiquette a gentleman would never keep a lady at a disadvantage by refusing to give his name.
She beamed at him, her face so untroubled by his familiarity that he extinguished at once the thought that she was merely being petty, pretending just to punish him for following her here. So he managed to hold it together, stifling enough of his apprehension to tell her carefully that his name is Michael and that he's here on holiday from the States. He walks her home on unsteady legs, happy to let her think that the shy boy from her homeland has left to return to his own bed after seeing her safely inside.
As she vanishes into the darkened stairwell, he decides that he has no choice, tonight he must breach two of his most inviolable rules: the first, never to enter her apartment, for surely it must contain a passport, a bank account, something that will enlighten him; and the second, never to involve Josef. He's borne enough of Josef's disapproval of the search for his errant wife in the last six months to last a mortal lifetime. Beth is an issue of contention between them and tonight he has no wish for another lecture. Nevertheless, when he does find what he is looking for, and he will, Josef may be able to provide the kind of assistance that only a lot of money and corruptible connections can manage.
Light spilled out of Beth's apartment window and as swift as nightfall, he is on the adjacent balcony, hugging the bare concrete of the building site opposite. She is confident, his beautiful wife, that from here she cannot be observed, for she never bothers to pull the shades. He savours these few moments alone with her every evening, here on his lonely eyrie. It is the only time she is completely his.
She pads around the tiny apartment, washing and re-shelving dishes left on the sink from her morning meal, flicking through a magazine, pulling a brush through her wavy crop as she prepares for bed. He berates himself for hardening as she steps naked from the shower, forcing himself back into guilty, white knuckled flaccidity. He's not here for that.
Finally, she reaches the same impasse she does every night, standing motionless in her bedroom doorway, eyeing her bed with a frown as if it were an opponent. She anticipates failure, because she reaches for a small cylinder, taps two white tablets onto her open palm, hesitates, shakes out another, then another and thrusts them into her mouth, tossing her head back and swallowing them without water in the practised motion of the habitual insomniac.
He'd thought her sleep difficulties were due to bad memories, but now he's not sure what to think. For if she doesn't remember her name or the husband who loves her, then what could she possibly recall of the rest of her past?
Regardless of its cause, tonight her insomnia will work in his favour. The tablets should sedate her until daybreak.
He watched her turn down the bed and climb under the sheets and waited while her heartbeat and breathing slowed, then with the lightness of a sparrow, he vaulted onto the opposite wall and up and onto her balcony. He stood a moment in the moonlight, then in one swift movement slid apart the glass doors sealing her bedroom and stepped inside.
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...
He closed the door behind him. The gleam in her eye meant trouble, but tonight he didn't care. He couldn't think straight, could never think straight when she looked at him like that, lying in his bed, all silken limbs and sharp nipples beneath the blood-red satin of her nightgown. He could see the shadow of her bush beneath the fabric, wanted to hook his thumbs underneath the hem, push it high around her thighs and breathe in her salty aroma so badly that his hands were shaking.
He knew from her look of triumph that his eyes had silvered. He forced the irises back to grey and retracted his fangs with a grunt. She made a little moue, but drew him to her anyway, pressing herself between his muscled forearms and kissing him with the wanton abandon of the French whores of his youth.
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...
Mick closed his eyes, lightheaded. He'd almost forgotten how fragrant she was, the intoxicating warmth of her aroma overwhelming in the cosy bedroom. Standing there over her bed, all he wanted to do was sink down beside her, mould himself to her contours and surrender to the kaleidoscopic wonder of her scent. He shook his head, blurring the images of her until they faded. He'd need to have a care his yearning didn't give him cause to stay longer than was strictly necessary. He was only here to do a job.
He began with the tallboy in the corner, pulling out the lowest drawer first then working his way up in the efficient manner of a professional thief. He supposed that's what she'd think he was if she woke to find him here rifling through her belongings. The search was swift and silent and he closed the final drawer with a sense of deflation. This girl, this 'Susie' lived simply, her drawers containing nothing but cheap white tees, candy coloured cotton skirts and underwear, not the expensive tailoring his Beth preferred. Her wardrobe confirmed his suspicions, more simple cotton clothing. Was there nothing left of his wife? He swivelled his gaze, hands on hips, considering his next step. He started for the door leading to the living room, but hesitated after only a few steps. A nagging sense he'd learned to trust rooted him to the spot, and he turned and reassessed the tallboy with narrowed eyes. In a second he'd sunk to his knees and removed the bottom-most drawer. He reached in, almost immediately feeling the touch of silk against his palm.
Mick's throat tightened. There between his fingers was the Hermes scarf he'd woven into Beth's hair as she lay there in the hospital. Its ends were knotted to create a loop and twirling slowly from its centre was her wedding ring.
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...
A promise is a promise, Mick.
Beth, I don't know if I'm..
Shh… she said, shh, pressing a finger to his lips. You're ready.
Beth, he whispered urgently, I don't want to..
..I know. You won't.
He heard the metallic clinking before he recognised the two steel circles swinging from her forefinger. Amused and alarmed, his eyebrow rose. His clever girl had thought of everything. He supposed he'd have to ask Josef to speak to his freshies about that.
Really?, was all he said, as if the idea wasn't worth considering.
Would you even attempt to do it without them?
She'd already known that he wouldn't.
The first band snicked shut around his wrist and as the final link ratcheted into place, holding his arms in place above his head as he lay prone against the coverlet, the atmosphere thickened, coagulating into an air of dangerous fervour that permeated the candlelit room in sweet heady waves like burnt sandalwood. The intensity heated his blood, made Beth's eyes gleam like sugared sapphires in the flickering gloom of their bedchamber.
She squeezed his erection through the denim of his jeans. Already the beast was pressing at his edges and he rattled the cuffs, testing the limits of the toughened steel against the bars of his bed head. Her mouth grazed against his Adam's apple, kissed along his jaw. Her tongue curled around his earlobe, the white edges of her teeth pressing against the fleshy lobe. Just before biting down she whispered to him, words that made him shiver.
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...
He replaced the scarf with shaking hands, taking a moment to compose himself before standing and scanning the room. There, on the bookshelf in the corner, crumpled into a rectangular heap is a cheap canvas duffel bag. Although it clearly isn't carrying anything of bulk, he can feel that something is inside. He unzips the bag, feels a mass of shifting papers, and in his eagerness to know the truth upends the carrier bag onto the wooden boards beneath him.
Beth's past floats down and around him like oversize confetti.
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...
It was an eruption, a veritable geyser of shiny buttons bouncing from the wall and dresser, cascading in crazy rivulets from bed to floor.
Tonight's the night, Mick, she whispered, the ends of his shirttails still bunched tight within her grip. Let yourself go.
Her hand fumbled at his buckle, fingers catching at the wiry hair beneath the denim. He groaned as the zipper lowered and she encircled him.
You know you want to.
Of course he did. Of course he wanted to, to his eternal shame, but this wasn't just some simple sex game stopped by a safe word amongst equals, and as the rhythm of her hand increased, he bargained with himself, promising he'd draw the line tonight no matter what Beth said. He groaned as her thumb lubricated the tip of his glans with its own clear liquid, and lust darkened grey eyes locked onto cornflower blues. He loved her so very, very much. Even shackled as he was, every sinew strained to touch her, his body twisting on its axis, following her hand as a bloom does the sun, unthinkingly, adoringly. Oh, how he wanted to tangle his hands in her hair, plunge the hard length of him inside her, merge his entire being with her! The pressure in his groin and gums was building, aching for the sweet release of penetration and he wanted something more, something deeper, more profound with her, one body, one soul. One blood.
He had to taste her.
His eyes silvered. Let me touch you.
She smiled then, prolonging his agony, and took her time as she slid up his body, pushing a strap from her shoulder, releasing one perfect breast. She leaned over him, a nipple dangling between his open lips. He suckled eagerly, his need for oral satisfaction sated temporarily. Only super human discipline had kept his fangs safely sheathed, but he knew her well enough to know that she wouldn't let it rest there. After all, they'd agreed. Their first anniversary he would put aside his fears and consummate their marriage, Vampire style.
Her cool fingers soothed the chafing at his wrists and in a voice so tender it almost made him weep she said, Let go, Mick. I've got you this time.
Her trust was his undoing. Grey, silver, human, vampire, in ninety years he'd only ever been one or the other while making love with a wife. He'd never had to hold himself in check with Coraline. Was it even possible to leap into the chasm while keeping one foot on the precipice?
Beth was ablaze, her skin radiating heat like a furnace, and he was burning, burning, burning under her touch. She whispered to him, using words that would ordinarily make her blush, expressing her deepest desires. He teetered on the brink, the rising flames threatening to overwhelm him, and looked into the abyss: her love and vulnerability, his devouring need. He clenched his teeth and fought, fought hard to deny the emergence of his demon, his terror overtaking him at the last, as he'd suspected it would.
Damn you, Mick, she whispered. When will you understand? I love you, all of you, the Vampire and the Man.
Her hand slipped under the pillow and as it emerged he felt a series of sharp stings, and then he was gone, his mind blank, his body rigid, hips raised and belly clenched. He bellowed, a great roaring growl of unadulterated ecstasy and his fangs punched through his gums, filling his mouth with blood. He barely had time to register the long red scratches already healing along his side, or the metallic gleam of thimble-like caps on her fingers with tips like elongated fingernails, before he was lost, launched into the stratosphere again as his wife raked the Ponto-Obrigado, the ancient pleasure spikes used by human courtesans for centuries to gratify their vampire masters, lightly across his chest.
The world spun and kept on spinning; the only light within his attention's narrow tunnel the flickering candle flame reflected in the curve of her lower lip. He knew nothing but his cavernous desire for her, and twined a leg around hers and pinned her to the bed. The pounding crescendo of her heartbeat deafened him and he growled and buried his face within her hollows, her neck, her breasts, anywhere her scent was strongest. Her body, such sweet, sweet temptation, shook beneath him, and in a low urgent voice she said that she trusted him and she raised her hand and drew the spikes across his naked back.
The chain link binding the cuffs snapped in two. He smoothed rich handfuls of her golden hair away from her neck, the cold white tips of his fangs resting against her wildly jerking pulse.
She held his face between her palms and nodded.
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...