--July 7th, 1977; Blowne House.
Propping herself up on her elbow, Aurora gave me a hard look with those pale blue eyes of hers, "If you really believed those rumors about me, then why did you keep the ring?"
"Dammit," I muttered, "must you bring that up? I don't know why I kept it. Just a hunch, I suppose." It had been a year or so since the death of Alexander Kapranos, and Aurora and I had somehow managed to patch things up, though at the same time she was more distant than she had ever been. Running my fingers up and down her left arm, I smiled thinly, "but does any of that really matter?"
Raising an eyebrow, she leaned into my shoulder, "Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. For now, I can deal with not having an answer."
"Good," I murmured, leaning in to kiss her tenderly along her jaw-line. I knew by then that she didn't like being kissed on the mouth—it made her feel as if she was being suffocated. Inhaling the scent of her hair, I added, "It's hard to answer a question when you don't know the answer yourself, eh?"
"Perhaps," she whispered, her cool breath on my neck sending chills down my spine, "perhaps that's true." Tracing a line down my chest with one finger, she smiled and weaved the fingers of her left hand into my hair, a dangerous look flickering into her eyes like blue flames. "But then again," she kissed my neck, applying gentle pressure with her teeth in all the right places—she knew better than anyone, even myself, how to make me squirm. "Then again, maybe you're right, and it doesn't really matter."
Running a hand through her long, magically darkened hair, I pull her closer and kissed the nape of her neck, tracing part of a scar with my tongue, all the while being careful not to touch the ones on her back at any point. We never talked about the scars that crisscrossed across the skin of her back, even though we both knew how they had gotten there.
Arching her back, she dug her fingernails into my shoulder blades and let out a soft moaning noise that always startled me, no matter how many times I heard it, mainly because she always managed to sound almost as if she was in pain. That's how she was though. With Aurora, there was always a very thin line between pain and pleasure, and one had to be careful not to cross that line the wrong way.
Staring into her eyes, I felt another shudder wrack my frame as her long, tapered fingers danced up and down my spine like tiny daggers digging deep, but never drawing blood. It was a game of ours—Aurora liked to see just how far she could go without hurting me, and I—well I didn't care, I just wanted her to be happy once in a while. Burying my face in her hair, I whispered, "I love you, you know that?"
Pulling away, she took my chin in her hands and gave me a long, hard look. "Yes," she eventually whispered, "I know Alastor. You don't have to tell me that."
"All right," I murmured, "No more talking, then." Suddenly, I heard her emit a small hiss of anger and surprise as I felt something cool trickle down the side of my face.
"Fuck!" she muttered, "Hold still Alastor." Turning my head to one side, she gently kissed an area just above my jaw and I realized what had happened—why she was so angry about it. She had accidentally drawn blood. A few seconds later, she drew back, wiping her lips with the back of one hand, "There," she murmured, "It should be fine now…sorry about that."
Pulling her back toward me, I laughed softly, "Don't worry about it, I don't mind…hell you could've punctured my damn lung and I wouldn't mind as long as you were the one doing it."
Laughing weakly, she shook her head, "You're an odd one Alastor."
Grinning, I kissed the scar at her throat before replying, "Maybe, but you know you wouldn't have me any other way."
