Part One: The Mercenary
Chapter 9
In Love with My Lust
It was easy to forget about what had happened. Dom's father had told her a man only remembered what he wanted to remember and it seemed he had been right, as he always was in her mind. And while they'd gone about forgetting certain events in different ways, the result was the very same.
Bane hadn't mulled over Dominique's actions and his own. As far as he was concerned he'd done the job a man did with a woman if he wanted to create a life. He hadn't given her slight aggravation that night a thought because there were other things to think about. Things like why she'd behaved so strangely after his minor health issue after sex. But with even that, he couldn't dwell on it too much because Dominique refused to allow him to become invested in her beyond the role of surrogate.
Not that he wanted to become invested in her in such a way. He'd only been… slightly curious.
Dom purposely knocked the whole night out of her thoughts because that's what men did, as her daddy had taught her. If she didn't want to remember something then it wouldn't exist, gone with the wind along with everything else she refused to ponder over or keep with her to cause emotional baggage. There had been a mishap that night, but she'd handled it. If Bane's hands tended to wander to places where they shouldn't be, then she had the capacity to keep them away before they reached their destination. She looked at it only as a job requirement if it was called for. She didn't let him touch and she didn't let him satisfy.
A woman had needs, yes. But sometimes, a woman's needs were only sacrifices in disguise.
She also didn't want to think about how that little job requirement was becoming more and more useful. Bane's hands were constantly trying to go where she didn't want them to go when he would have sex with her. And so far, she'd looked at it as a distraction.
Dom had also blocked out of her mind the image of Bane's bare skin. Neither of them discussed it so it was forgotten. Temptation was not for her so it became that immaterial her daddy had told her about.
But it was only forgotten on one end.
Bane sensed something different in her. So many things that could be traced to one simple source if he put his mind to it. But he couldn't because they were business partners and it wasn't what he'd shaken on. Bane was no fool, regardless of the terms. Dom seemed less patient and more irritable, but only when she would let her guard down and simply be. When she was calm and relaxed they got along fine, as they always had in some twisted way. But when she would stop and think, mulling over things he had no idea of and coming to whatever conclusions that seemed to plague her, her impatience rose and the frustration would come.
Perhaps, Bane decided, this was why she'd once told him she didn't mull over things. Maybe she just couldn't handle it. Maybe she just didn't know how to approach it.
For someone so carefree, Bane discovered Dominique Cross could feel so tortured and confused from the simplest things in life.
And because she was acting so strange in her small moments of uncertainty, Bane had made the decision to be with her as she took one of her many pregnancy tests.
This night, so far, was normal between them. Dominique was acting like herself and he was able to treat her as he needed to treat her. And hopefully on this night, this back and forth between them would come to an end.
The goal was still a child. An heir to his legacy. And that was one thing that couldn't be forgotten.
Dom lounged on the couch as the pregnancy test simmered on the coffee table. Bane was awkwardly standing next to it, peering down and waiting for the results like… well, like a man awaiting the arrival of his child. His eyes hadn't moved from the white stick and he wasn't talking to her, so she placed her bare feet on the table and twiddled her thumbs. Gazing at her feet, she saw she could see the reflection of them in the glass. Her coffee table hadn't been this uncluttered in a while. She could even see more of her carpet after she'd suddenly developed a strange habit of tidying up lately.
In her trained mind, the reason for that sudden development was nowhere to be found.
"The instructions are incorrect," Bane said, still staring at the stick and his voice oddly patient for someone who seemed a little impatient. "Too much time has passed. This brand is inferior."
"It's been ten minutes," she reminded him, placing her arms behind her head. She wouldn't allow one slipup of a night destroy the relaxation she forced on herself when he was around. "Stop being so nervous, Daddy."
Bane twisted his body around just a tad to glance at her. "I wish you would refrain from calling me that."
She shrugged. "Isn't that what we're here for? Or do you really only want a kid just so all your helpers can raise the perfect, obedient little killing machine to become just another you after you're dead?" Her voice was light, her words meant as a joke. But when he remained quiet, she lifted a brow. "Seriously? That's what you want? Because that wasn't in the deal we made."
"I plan to honor the terms of our agreement," he told her.
"And yet you flinch when you hear the word daddy. You do realize it's going to call you that, right? You're going to be its only parent."
"This child will be well taken care of, as I've assured you. And my future with my heir doesn't concern you."
She scrunched her face, imagining a stuffy upbringing. "You're going to make it call you father, aren't you?"
Bane turned to her, feeling annoyance even though he'd gotten used to her ways and had remained immune to them before. "My child will receive the greatest care. It will have the finest teachers and superlative facilities. The life it will have will be unmatched. Anything it needs will be retrieved, and the education and training given the very best in the world."
He seemed somewhat passionate about the issue. Dom knew she could say many things to get under his skin, but she knew passion, at times, was only an underlying issue. "Sounds like a pretty spiffy future. It also sounds like someone's trying to compensate."
Bane's eyes went back to the pregnancy test on the table. It was hard for him to think of any other life than what he would give to his child. It was hard to remember Talia's beginning years, and half of his own life. Bane wanted that perfect, intelligent soldier Dominique spoke of. But this time, without memories of a life in hell. "Isn't that what a good provider strives for? An alternate upbringing than the one already suffered."
Sometimes, it was easy to figure out how a man became what he was. There were exceptions to anything in life, but Bane obviously wasn't one. He couldn't have become the hard, disciplined mercenary that he was without pain, the abundance of it from the physical and the emotional. He couldn't have gotten all those scars from a life set in happiness. "You promised me you would be a good father."
"And I will."
There was only so much she could do. When they conceived it would be Bane's baby, and he would be the one to make the rules. Dom knew she could trust him with fulfilling those promises, but maybe certain promises created a different outcome than the one in her head. Maybe to Bane, simply giving his child everything it would need to become the perfect human was being a good father. Maybe supplying just the light of the world in general meant giving everything to his baby. And if Bane was only focusing on being a good provider and an exceptional role model for the heir to the League of Shadows, then that was his decision. Dom would have no part in the child's life she would help create.
There was only one potential parent here.
Bane straightened up. "It is negative."
Dom plucked the pregnancy test from the table and spotted the little minus she couldn't seem to avoid. "Really? Well, jeez. I'm starting to believe there're no such things as little accidents. Getting pregnant is hard."
Bane watched as she walked into the kitchen in comfy sweats and a tank top, tossing the white stick into the trash bin. "There is no lack of trying."
"Well, big guy, it looks like we're going to be trying for a little bit longer." She reached for a glass, then plucked the cork from a wine bottle. "And as long as there's no baby yet, I'm having a drink. As far as I'm concerned, that negative sign is only a go ahead to relax after all that trying." She eyed the mask on his face. She knew he wouldn't take it off around her, so she didn't bother offering him some. It would be stupid if she did anyway. Dom picked up the full glass and the bottle of white wine before heading back to the couch.
He was not the type of man to sit around when there was work to be done. But because she was allowing him to try to impregnate her so often during the weeks after the deal had been made, Bane decided to give her this night for her relaxation. On the wall he spotted pictures he'd seen before during his many visits to her home. Approaching them, he studied.
His child would not know its mother. But maybe he could paint a small picture of a woman it would never know.
If his child even came to care.
He stared at a picture of a rough looking man with dark features, but many similar traits of Dominique. His skin was tanned from work under the sun, his hands big and hard from that labor, and his eyes looking down at the smiling little girl who adored him. Dominique was wearing dirty clothes, baggy around her childlike frame. In the background, Bane could see a working garage under the glaring Florida sun. There was a basketball hoop above them and various toys in the yard for other types of sports who were no doubt all the little girl's own for playtime. Dominique's short auburn hair was pulled back in a very messy ponytail in the picture, almost as if she'd had to do it herself, and the clothes she was wearing didn't seem ideal for her age or even her gender. The tall man gazed down at her with his hand on her messy head.
And little Dominique was smiling at him as if he were shining like the sun.
"That's my daddy," Dom said, sipping her wine from the couch. "He taught me everything I know."
Bane's eyes went to the little girl who Dominique used to be. And it almost could have been another person entirely. This child here looked out of place, without gender, it seemed. The little human smiling up at the only man who'd held her heart was vastly different from the extremely feminine sensual creature he spent many hours with.
And… he was no fool.
But Dominique didn't see things if she didn't want to see them. So there was no point in mentioning the unmentionable.
Dom smiled as she glanced at other pictures of her father throughout her apartment. "I've never had to grieve for him, you know. We both knew he was going to die young. He repaired boats for a living, and it could be pretty dangerous at times. The day he died, he went out to fix a stalled cruiser out on the ocean. The waves were high and it capsized. He got stuck in the cabin." Dom could remember how the entire town thought her insane after she'd taken the news of her father's death quite well. No one had believed her when she'd said that her and her daddy had always prepared for this day. They'd known it was coming, and neither of them had wanted to waste time mourning over an event already set in stone. "He raised me so I could learn to live without him. He always said, do without me, Dom, but do what I say. Do what I say so I can live forever. And if I can make him live forever, then I don't have to grieve."
Dominique loved her father, Bane knew. He could see it in the eyes of the child within the picture, those blue, adoring eyes that matched the ones of the woman even to the present day. Bane looked to the father who supposedly had immortality. "So," he said, speaking softly. "Your father was the one to shorten your name, I see."
"Yeah. He never called me Dominique. Hey, maybe you should follow his lead and call me Dom too."
He ignored her last statement, much to her annoyance. "He entrenched quite a bit of lessons into you, it seems."
Dom tilted the glass so she could drink the last of her first round. "He wanted to make sure I could take care of myself after he died. He wanted me to carry on his line."
Bane looked back at her as she refilled her glass. "That is a difficult task, considering you were born a female who doesn't want children."
She shrugged. "He was wonderful."
Bane stared at her face and saw those eyes again. He had seen that face before, but in another face. When Talia had been a child she had looked to him with those eyes. Bane had never been able to deny her just from that gaze alone. And one day soon, he would have his own child to mold. But what Bane wanted was a child who would be built from the early years into something that would never feel pain or sorrow or failure. His child would be great with the proper training, and would only succeed in the cause.
If no eyes of adoration came his way from that, then still it would be worth it.
"Can I ask you something?"
Bane knew he shouldn't be staying in her apartment for very long. There were a million things to do, both here in Gotham and in Asia where the League headquarters were stationed in the mountains. But Barsad was always reminding him he needed to slow down. No rest would mean death. And Bane had too much to live for until his heir was secured.
He sat down next to Dominique on the couch and decided a few minutes would add onto his lifespan. "That depends on the question," he answered.
Dom tapped her fingers on her wineglass. She carefully looked over and eyed the hissing mask. Certain things had been forgotten. But other things had not. "Is something… wrong with your face?"
Considering her words, Bane wondered how he'd lived his many years with the mask without having to hear that question. Neither Talia nor Barsad had ever asked him why he refused to be alone when he would remove it. Talia's lack of interest on the issue was most likely because she was the reason for it in the first place, and had honored his wishes to be unseen when he was free from it. And Barsad only did as he was told. But because he'd never been given this question, Bane had to think of his answer. Or his refusal to answer.
"It doesn't cover that much of your face," Dom added, studying the angles of the skin she could see around the metal. "I mean… what could be so wrong with you that you don't let anyone see? Or is it just me who can't see?"
Bane's hand instinctively went up to brush lightly against the working tubes. "No one has ever seen me without it."
"Not even what's-her-name Talia? You can't be horribly deformed under there."
"No? And why is that?"
Dom blinked as Bane turned his head to look her right in the eye. A feeling came over her then as she was studying his face, trying to find any trace of distortion. A feeling that started in the pit of her stomach, and was inching up like a disease. But she refused to let it go anywhere else. She refused, even as she watched his eyes and their ever changing colors. Why couldn't he be deformed under there? she asked herself. Why couldn't he?
Because maybe everything else… was right where it should be.
And ever changing.
Bane looked away again. "If it is because of a malformation, you are not being very sensitive to the issue."
"I'm just wondering. I can wonder about stuff."
"I think all your wondering is only words that are meant to stay within the mind, and not to escape through the lips."
She shrugged again, finding it hard to argue that herself. "Maybe. I just don't see how it can be so bad for you. I can see most of your face."
"You would not understand. You have a beautiful face."
Dom sipped some more wine and continued her playful façade. "So the truth is out. You think I'm beautiful."
"It is not really what I think. It is only fact. You are an exotic dancer with attractive attributes, and would not hold your position at such a decorative establishment without them. Your features are a requirement."
She was feeling really relaxed now. She liked to feel relaxed. Leaning her head back on the couch, she let calmness flow through her limbs. "It's funny how you sound so polite when you're being rude."
Bane gazed over at her again. A woman like Dominique Cross was anything but unattractive or unbeautiful. A woman like Dominique Cross could quite possibly have any man she wanted with only the right words and the right movement. A creature of sexuality, she seemed to emit appeal to the opposite sex simply from the silhouette of her body alone. But even she, this kind of woman, this mermaid, contained certain things that would be considered wrong. And she was oblivious to them.
"I don't allow anyone to see my face because I do not wish for them to see it."
She opened one eye and met his gaze, lifting one corner of her mouth in a lazy smirk. "That sounds pretty lonely."
Loneliness came in many forms. Sometimes it was within a mask, and sometimes it was buried deep beneath a truth unrealized. A lie unseen could be true loneliness instead of companionship. And a life hidden within metal could be the only means of escape.
Or maybe it was just for control. Dom tilted the glass and drank more of her wine. Bane watched her throat as she swallowed it down.
"It is now," he murmured quietly, and didn't even realize it was the truth.
Dominique had sipped and sipped until the entire bottle of wine was emptied. Bane had somehow stayed with her, and maybe it was only to patrol the area in hopes of finding anyone who would eventually cause him irritation. Dominique blabbered on as she drank glass after glass, telling him stories of her father even as he didn't comment on them or make any gesture that he was listening. Intoxication controlled her now, one that was arriving at the point of her needing to pass out before she got sick or reached for another bottle to continue her buzz. Eventually, Bane lifted her from the couch and brought her to her bedroom.
"Babies are hard to get," she mumbled, her arms hanging like a dead person as Bane pulled the covers down her bed. "I don't want a baby. I don't want a man."
He ignored her babble and her oof as he placed her on the bed, the act feeling more aggressive than what it actually was from her drunken state. She rolled onto her stomach then, her eyes hazy and her cheeks pink from alcohol. Bane leaned over her to situate her better so she wouldn't fall off the bed. He needed to keep her body unharmed if he wanted to use it.
"You're being nice. It's weird when you're nice." She looked over her shoulder at him. Then very softly, she smiled drunkenly. "I like your face."
She didn't know what she was saying, he thought. But he also remembered her expression on that night neither of them discussed, staring at his body the way other lustful men stared at her own. Bane didn't know what Dominique really thought when it came to her attraction of men. And, according to the terms, he wasn't allowed to figure it out. He was about to move, about to leave her to her rest.
Dominique placed her hand on his cheek from behind her, and then leaned up to kiss as much of the other cheek as she could. Repeatedly.
"I like your face," she whispered.
Bane stayed still as her lips left his skin. She moved away and placed her head on her pillow, instantly passing out like a baby. He remained where he was for a moment, watching her sleeping face before his eyes drifted down the curves of her body. Curves and skin he wasn't allowed to touch. Her tank top had risen up her waist, baring the lovely tanned skin of her back before it was hidden away by the sweats riding low on her hips. She used this body as a tool, as a means to cash and control. A perfect escape for a woman who could not be tied to the ground.
Bane wondered if she ever allowed herself to feel like a woman. A real woman who could feel desire and pleasure instead of tempting men with the image of it.
He lifted his hand then as he leaned over her, letting it near the small of her back very close to her pert bottom. He couldn't touch her, she wouldn't let him. He wasn't allowed to caress the mermaid. Bane kept lowering his hand until it stopped barely an inch away, hovering over her body like a cloud. He could take his release from this woman, but he could not feel deep, carnal pleasure with her. He could not make the siren sing in lust, because the siren was so far away that she could forget herself from the distance of a man. He could empty his seed into her, but could not fill her with satisfaction.
To want a woman you could not have was a kind of torture. Bane had never felt it before, had always had a woman strictly for release before sending her on her way. Wanting a woman could bring madness, frustration. A kind of thirst never to be quenched even as a man could have whatever he desired. A man like him, the Demon Head. For the woman, he mused, that wanting could feel different. Because for the woman, it could be much worse. Bane moved his hand away, never feeling the touch of an untouchable woman.
Dominique didn't want him to touch her.
But… maybe she did.
The next few days were hard for Dom. And she wasn't even sure why.
The club seemed a little different. The club felt a little different, in a way it never had before. The other dancers stayed away from her, but she could hardly mind it. Dom had never had true friends because of her constant wandering and short attention to such things, so to be the odd loner was just another day. But that had been her choice. Now, it wasn't her choice at all. The others didn't want to socialize too much with her because of their fear of Bane, and their assumptions on the relationship she possibly had with him. Auntie rarely spoke to her because Auntie was angry with her. She cared for Dom, but she would not condone her behavior of sleeping with terrorists. Dancing for Bane was one thing. These late night visits Dom never confirmed nor denied were another thing entirely.
But Dom didn't care about those things, and they weren't the reason why everything had somehow shifted.
She found herself becoming more distracted than usual. And not in a way she was familiar with.
Before she would make her entrance onto the stage as her violins would announce her, Dom began to study herself in the mirror in her lacy or leathery lingerie. There wasn't anything conceited about it, and it wasn't to check her appearance in the way of most women. She liked to think there was nothing sexual about it either. She liked to think that she wasn't staring at her face or her body, maneuvering herself so she could look at every inch, every curve and surface, and feel heat upon her skin. When she was called to make her entrance, Dom simply forgot about it and went out to do her job.
But it was hard to forget some things. Especially the terrible truth.
There was a difference in the men, and she didn't know if she liked it. She found herself comparing them, every single one of them who would watch her, pay for her, ask her to talk or sing to them in a way that could hypnotize them so they could enter another world. The men were always nice, but there was something strange about them. Something she couldn't quite place her finger on and something that left her… unfulfilled. This one was too skinny. This one was too short. This one's voice was way too high. No one was acceptable, no one could cater to her needs.
Dom would have to stop multiple times during a shift, and tell herself she had no needs and that she was very much fulfilled.
But the heat on her skin, the wanting of it and the needs that were left very much unsatisfied told her different.
It was a good thing for her she was an escape artist. It was a good thing that she could leave something and simply forget about it.
But the bottling up of whatever was inside her was not a good thing at all.
The body was meant, in certain circumstances, to succumb to the needs it craved. Needs like food and drink, shade from the sun and even the sun itself, protection and shelter. It could surrender to a wanting so forgotten, so buried deep beneath the surface that it was only a matter of time before that body would start to rebel for its needs. The actions it would take would vary, of course. But the result was all the same.
I need it, the body would say, would cry for those needs. And be left unheard underneath controlling ice. I need it. Give it to me. Give me what I want.
But what it wanted was against the rules. So it festered. And then, it emptied in other areas.
Bane had arrived after her shift. He had given her a night to relax, a night without the worry of work and the goal of it. The little minus sign was a hindrance, but it was still a stone he would have to step on before he reached the prize. The League of Shadows needed an heir in case life caught up to him too quickly, and Bane would refuse to leave it to anyone other than his own blood. He would step on that stone. He would conquer that obstacle.
And he would return to Dominique over and over again, as often as he had to.
But there was a hill he could not seem to climb over. There was a foreign object blocking his path that he could not swerve. He couldn't place it, but something was holding back conception. Something was there, and he didn't even know what it was so that he could do away with it. Bane went to Dominique as thoughts of trying to figure out the puzzle plagued him. Bane went to Dominique…
And it seemed as if his body knew her, craved her. Gone were the nagging thoughts, replaced now with demanding desire. His body knew her, knew what she would give him and knew he could empty himself inside her. It expected release with her. It knew she held it.
But there was still that… something. That hill.
He pulled her near the small nook that separated her kitchen from her living room. Bane was already hard, so hard because he had not had the chance to make it to her within the last few nights because of work within the city. With just one glimpse of her, one wave of her scent along with the knowledge of what being with her would lead to, sent his senses on fire. He'd wanted someone to do that for him when he had still been deciding on a surrogate. He'd wanted a woman to make him ready with little effort.
A creature of sensuality. And she was, without trying very hard at all.
"Don't grab me too hard please," she told him almost mockingly. "I still have a bruise on my hip from when you shoved me against the counter last week."
"You neglected to shift," he muttered, feeling no guilt over his actions. It was hard to move her when he was busy trying to reach his end and she was implementing all her might to remain focused and steady during sex.
Dom went to stand in front of him, placing her hands on the nook so she would have something to hold onto once he began. She didn't like to be jerked too much because jerking was yet another thing she didn't want to feel, something else to keep her distant. She was also starting to grow weary, and she wasn't sure why. Not weary because she couldn't do this anymore. She was going to get paid extremely well for it, after all. But weary in a different sense.
She didn't like to think about it.
"How much longer?" she asked quietly, her words not so much a question as it was a plea.
Bane worked on undoing his belt and his pants as he answered her. "As long as it takes."
Dom sighed deeply, closing her eyes for a moment to compose herself. She didn't know why she was feeling so strange for the last few days. She'd checked again to make sure she wasn't pregnant, and still no baby inhabited her body. So this had to be something else. Something she couldn't think about because that something would lead to an answer she wasn't willing to accept. She took another breath, listened to the movements of the man behind her.
The body would start to rebel. Leave it unsatisfied, and it would take for itself.
Bane stopped his movements and eyed her as she did something he wasn't expecting, and hadn't needed to. She reached for her loose fitting pants, and pulled them down along with her panties before stepping out of them and kicking them both away.
He had seen her in erotic lingerie, had watched intently as she swayed and moved for him in a sexual manner. But during their time together as they tried to conceive, Dominique had never allowed him to see intimate areas of her body. It was one of her rules. It was something she wouldn't allow so she could remain distant and far away. To see her half naked now, or at least the entire back of her lower body, didn't so much as startle him as it confused him. As it cautioned him. Bane looked down as Dominique went back to holding the counter of the nook, waiting patiently for him to take her. Her hips were smooth and rounded, curving out before meeting her thighs that would create her tanned legs. The line down her back, he saw, went all the way to her bottom, bare now for him to see and as enticing as the rest of her. She was all curves, all wonderfully soft angles, and exactly as the siren he'd always imagined her as. The temptation of her right there had conflicting desires stirring up inside him. There was a part of her he could see and he desperately wanted to touch. The other desire inside him screamed, there was a part of her he could see, and how dare she make it so he couldn't.
But that small area of her body, that one give in her rules, made him twitch and crave her in his arousal.
The bottle of lubricant was taken so that he could enter her and release himself once again. Bane coated his cock and slicked himself. He saw her hand then reaching over. Obliging her, he poured some onto her fingers and watched as she reached between her legs, to a place he still couldn't see, so that she could slick her entrance for him.
In the midst of his desire as he sunk inside her body carefully, Bane found that he wanted to be the one to make that opening wet.
He groaned from the grip of her and that one thought.
Dom stared ahead of herself as Bane bucked into her, his hands on her hips and gripping, unfazed by her mention before of being gentle there. She had to stay focused, she told herself, trying not to feel the air, the breeze of his pounding hips on her naked skin. She had to stay focused because she didn't know what had possessed her to remove both her pants and her underwear. It was because she wanted to feel more comfortable, she decided. Her focus was all that mattered and not her nakedness. Her distance was most important.
She heard Bane moan, his chest rumbling and feeling like a machine behind her. And then his hands tried to move from her hips.
Not allowed, she scolded in her head, and grabbed them before they could go anywhere she didn't want them to go.
Bane was on autopilot now. His body knew what it needed to do to come and somehow possessed the knowledge that he wasn't allowed to further the sex in any other way than what would lead to conception. He simply moved his hips so many times to push his cock into her before he would empty, pulling out right after he softened, and the job was done. Over and over this was routine. If his body, his desires, were trying to make something else happen with the woman he was fucking, then it never got the chance to accomplish it. Dom kept him in line, holding him in that typical routine…
But the body would rebel.
Dom realized then, actually feeling his power, how strong he was. If he was strong in this vulnerable state then she couldn't even imagine how strong he was when he was focused with a clear mind. She was finding it difficult to hold his hands on her hips, keeping them there even as they tried to fight her and move up her body. And because she had no anchor to hold onto, she was jerked around from his thrusts. She tried to keep her mind on the job, staying exactly where she wanted it to stay because she made the rules. Because she knew the consequences of abandoning those rules. But Bane was so strong… His hands were bigger than her own and they didn't want to stay on her hips. She gripped his hands, willed them to stay. And all the while she tried to remain in her headspace, her place far away from what was happening to her body. What he was doing to it. She dug her nails into his wrists. She tried and tried, with all the might she could muster. Her hands were slipping, but if she kept her focus she could win. Bane growled behind her, a feral sound like an animal, like a beast.
Her memory was a traitor. She thought of him without his shirt. She thought of his bare chest, the muscles and power that consumed his body. A thought she wanted forgotten returned full force like raging flames.
Her grip lost to his strength, and she wasn't quick enough to right her mistake.
Bane's hands shot up like bullets to grab her breasts.
Dom's eyes widened some as she kept very still. Bane's hips were still moving at their usual pace, the actions taken not yet registering with the rest of him. Trying to remain calm, trying to remain distant, she slowly reached up as he continued to thrust, wrapped her fingers around his wrists to try and gently pull them down.
His hips slowed, his breathing slowing as well. Calming down, seeking and feeling. Finding something new. With an odd gentleness his palms sunk in, his fingers sliding over the swell of her breasts. He cupped her and felt their weight, their ample softness that was too lovely to release.
And then Bane pulled back, sliding his cock out. Just before the tip of him exited her, he rolled his hips against her bottom before picking up the pace, before everything felt different and he could do nothing but feel her breasts while moving inside her.
He couldn't stop.
Dom's breathing became a little labored as Bane fucked her. Her mouth was slightly open, a wave of auburn hair clinging to her face. Bane held onto her breasts in a way that would be impossible to stop, in a way that told her he would outright refuse. He rolled his hips, sinking his cock in, finding something that made her shiver. His fingers kept brushing her cleavage in a petting motion, and his moans kept filling her ears. The mask was against her head, in her hair, feeling… not the same. Harder and harder he went, encouraged now when her breasts began to bounce in his hands from his thrusts. She tried to stay far away. She screamed at herself to run, run to the headspace where you held all the control. His palms rubbed against her nipples, his cock finding that little spark once again within her center.
Not allowed, not allowed, she hissed in her mind.
Dom kept her jaw clenched, her hands now squeezing his own on her breasts. She stared straight ahead again, told herself she wasn't feeling anything even as she knew she was lying. But she had to lie. The lie was better than the truth.
Bane felt something different on his cock then. Lubricant had a certain feeling.
A woman felt even better.
She was panting now, very quietly that even he couldn't hear her. Dom held in a gasp, her eyes widening in its place. She felt like she was losing her breath, that she would burst into flame from how desperately hot she felt. Was he always this rough? she asked on a shriek in her mind. Did he always feel like a mountain?
"Jesus," she gasped as Bane fucked her. And there was no other word to describe it.
Finally he came on a muffled roar against her hair, shoving his seed into her as if that action alone would do the job. She could feel it this time. She could feel everything. His hands tightened on her breasts, painfully or pleasurably, she didn't know. She was too stunned by everything, too at a loss for words, for feeling or scolding. Bane slid out of her, seeming exhausted as his hot release trickled down her inner thighs.
She could tell exactly when he finally noticed the location of his hands.
They felt hesitant now, unsure. Not fully moving away and still holding that desire to touch more, to caress her.
Dom brushed his hands off her breasts and scurried away from him.
"I have to go."
Bane took one large deep breath, still trying to feel composure after sex. He watched her carefully as she reached for her panties, hurriedly yanked them on along with her pants. She grabbed a jacket from the floor, shoved herself into it and zipped it all the way up.
"Dominique."
"I have to go," she repeated, trying to pull on shows and almost falling over. "I have things to do. I have errands to run. I have… bills to pay."
Her cheeks were slightly flushed, he saw, her breathing unsure. She scampered and scurried, zipping around like a little mouse.
And trying, he realized, desperately to escape.
"It is midnight," he reminded her.
"You can let yourself out," she said to him, refusing to meet his eyes the entire time. "I have to go. Bye." She opened the door, stopped. She then zipped around and reached for her bag. "Forgot my purse. Bye." And she slammed the door.
Bane was left alone in her apartment. It was true that a man could become lost to pleasure if he allowed himself to wander, if there was nothing to stay aware for. But after this, this night of happenings that could be seen as wrong considering the deal they'd made, he decided that awareness was called for now. There was still that minus sign. There was still that hill he could not climb. Bane looked down at his opened pants, at his softened cock. He found himself shiny.
And it was not from lubricant.
His eyes found the door again where Dominique had disappeared. If certain issues were not going to be handled, then he would be the one to handle them. He would take charge.
And he would trap the mistress of escape.
Unfulfilled needs could cause rebellion. And rebellion could take many different forms. In the case with Dominique, Bane came to find, it was a skyrocket ascension of that impatience and irritation he'd seen little hints of before.
And it was becoming more and more difficult to do the job with her. It was becoming more and more difficult to even be around her at all.
But Bane was tolerant as he was patient. If he wanted a child from this woman, he would have to be both. Frequently.
Dominique was beginning to lose her friendliness. She wanted him to leave as quickly as he arrived, would do the same thing herself when she would meet him inside Arkham Asylum. She barely spoke to him, and when she did it was out of irritation or something he was doing wrong. If it was a good day, Dom would say hardly anything to him. If it was a bad day, she was as inconsolable as a weeping baby. Bane had seen her this way before, but never to this degree and never as often as it was now occurring. He could remember knowing that if he only put his mind to the reasons for her acting out, he would come straight to the conclusion. But because of the distance she wanted them to have, he never pried.
He was over it now. And he was pretty sure that all these rules were the cause of her minus sign. Dominique was frustrated.
A certain kind of frustrated.
After another negative pregnancy test, her irritation flared like a scorching burn. Weariness had made way for something even greater.
Dom sighed deeply, throwing the white stick to the trash can and missing, the object making a loud ring against the metal. "Negative again. Why is it always negative? Are you shooting blanks or something?"
"No," he answered, without emotion as he prepared to leave.
"Really? Because it sure as hell seems like it."
Bane didn't provoke her. He knew the cause of her frustration. He knew what this was about. He also knew, after countless times of the same thing happening ever since that night she'd practically run out of her apartment, that this was more about something else than it was their supposed inability to conceive.
"I'm tired of this," she complained, stressfully working her hair into a ponytail just to do something with her hands. "Everything hurts. I have to live with the bruises and the chafing and the soreness. I can barely do certain stretches because of that baby's arm in your pants making everything ache." She was so emotional and she didn't know why. She could only find that she hated everything. "You get to get off and I just stand there…"
She didn't know what she was saying, Bane knew. She was barely listening to her own words. But still Bane didn't engage. "I expect you to meet me for our next time at the asylum." When she was quiet, he turned to her as she continued sulking. And she didn't even realize that was exactly what she was doing. "Did you hear me, Dominique?"
She only kept on looking at nothing, lost in her own frazzled head and thinking about whatever it was that was bothering her. But Bane knew, even if she didn't. Finally she looked to him after coming to some conclusion she didn't like, and scowled at him. "For the last time, will you please call me Dom?"
And just like that, in a blink, she was off onto something else. "No."
"It's not that hard. It's short and sweet. Call me Dom."
"That is not your name," he answered matter-of-factly.
"Yes, it is." She glared now, but also seemed slightly frantic. She stood up then, her face switching to anger and then to sadness and confusion repeatedly. She wasn't used to these feelings so she couldn't handle them. "That's my name. I keep telling you something and you're ignoring me. You're not listening to me!"
"I can hear you perfectly."
Dom growled. She actually growled at him. "You are driving me crazy. I can't stand you."
His eyes narrowed. "Don't speak to me in that tone."
And that one sentence seemed to set her straight off to seething. Bane thought it a miracle she wasn't pregnant with all these emotions.
"Don't speak to you in that tone? Who the hell are you? Oh wait, I know who you are." Her cheeks flushed now with anger, she glared at him even while she stood proudly, placing her hands on her chest as if she were holding the lapels of an imaginary coat. "I'm Bane and I walk around like this," she said with an exaggerated deepened voice. "I'm Bane and I think I'm better than everyone else because I'm a fucking giant! Let me just remind you who I am. I'm Dom, and I'm the girl who's letting you fuck her whenever you damn well please. So if I want to speak in any kind of way, you can shut the hell up just like I've been doing every time you call for me with your massive erection."
They stood there, one glaring and the other oddly calm on the surface and in tune with the core of the cause.
The body would rebel for its needs.
Bane surged forward and grabbed her, hauling her over his shoulder as she shrieked. Irritated himself now, he kicked open her bedroom door and dumped her onto her bed.
"If you wish to act like a child then I shall treat you like one. You will stay in here until you gather yourself."
"Oh yeah? This is my house. You can't punish me, Daddy."
"Can't I?"
Dom shut her mouth quickly, staring up at him as she sat defiantly on her bed. His eyes were furious and threatening, swirling with color with his moods and just begging her to try him so he could prove her wrong. His large body loomed over her, casting shadows and emitting heat. She could feel all the soreness in her body as she looked at him. She could feel everything he'd ever done to her. Her head was so jumbled and she didn't know what to do with herself. This was why she'd always run from relationships. This was way she stayed away from people so she wouldn't grow attached. And this was why she'd never lived in the negative.
She knew she was lost outside of the little world she'd made for herself.
He seemed like he would feel so hot to the touch.
Bane watched as her blue eyes dropped down to his mask, right where his lips would be without it.
And with that one look, that unrealized cry for help, he knew what he needed to do.
Enough of this.
"You will meet me at the asylum when I phone for you. I suggest you sleep now, Dominique."
Bane looked at her own lips then, just a quick look so he could see the shape of them, the color of them. And before she could snip at him further as soon as she left whatever trance she'd put herself in, he left.
He was over this frustration. And he would squash it.
When a man wants something, Dom, he takes it. There's no time for thoughts, no time for consideration. Rely on something other than first instinct, and a rival will simply walk by and take what was yours. The thinkers do nothing but think. Philosophize. Those who instantly take action get there first and reap the reward. I want you to act, to do. I want you to have everything you've ever wanted, as a man deserves.
Dom sat on the bus, the lights flickering above her head and her thumbnail in her mouth, as she thought of her daddy. As she was always thinking of her daddy. She was on one of Gotham's bus routes for late-night passengers, a dangerous place to be in certain parts of town, so it was best that she was lost in thought and unable to make eye contact with any of the other riders going God knew where.
She was on her way to the asylum with thoughts of her father on the brain.
Her father Max had taught her the ways of the world and the human condition in the only way he knew how. Maybe his lessons weren't very conventional, but it was her entire life all summed up. Dom never knew anything other than what her father had taught her, even if she'd made her own tweaks along the way to suit her own needs. Dom counted on her father's lessons, his advice, his words of warning.
But this one, this one about taking what was desired, was a lesson she was having a hard time with at this point in her life.
Throughout her years, Dom had always taken what she wanted. She'd always gone where she wanted to go, and had always said what she thought should be said. She was an exotic dancer because she wanted to dance. She was sarcastic and irresponsible and unlike other women because she wanted to be that kind of girl, because she didn't want the alternatives. And she had been doing just fine. She'd slept with the men she'd wanted to sleep with and had felt no qualms or remorse on it because that was the way she rolled. No, she wasn't one for dates and relationships. No, she didn't want to get married one day and have kids of her own because she would rather vomit blood than have those kinds of responsibilities. If she wanted it, she took it. Just as her daddy had taught her.
But what happened when the thing you wanted wasn't what you… wanted?
Dom bit more on her thumbnail, the other hand repeatedly brushing through her auburn hair as the bus hit every bump and pothole on the highway. Life wasn't supposed to be this confusing. A confusing, stressful life was for other people, the people who did the exact opposite of what she lived by. So far, she'd only taken the things she wanted because it would improve or heighten her own life. She could be selfish that way because there was no one else to consider.
Wanting something and taking it was easy. Wanting something and hating yourself for wanting it was very hard and very annoying.
Very… different.
Her rules with Bane were her rules for a reason. She didn't want him touching her because she didn't want to feel the emotions that would come from him touching her. All because they were odd… friends, in their own twisted way. She didn't want to have an orgasm or allow him to please her sexually in any way because Bane was not someone who could be used and tossed away like the trash, which was a strange quality she required when choosing a lover. He was too smart, too calculated and sure of his ways. She didn't want him because she didn't want to want him. Because this was a job, and she never mixed business and pleasure. It was her most valued rule, and had been the basis of her life unattached.
Bane was forbidden because of the deal.
I don't want what I… want.
And it was driving her insane to the point where she didn't even know herself anymore.
She didn't live like this, Dom told herself, looking out the window and seeing the asylum in sight, its tall walls and dark structure a shadow against the night. She didn't live with stress, with cares, with considerations.
Bane was causing her stress because… he was doing exactly what she'd asked of him.
Bastard.
And so very forbidden from a contract made between them.
The bus stopped, letting her off before it zoomed away. Even in summer the evenings could be cold in Gotham, and every good citizen knew never to leave home without warm outerwear. The straight legged pants on her legs were gray, the jacket hugging close on her chest a dark royal blue and the thin scarf around her neck a rich red. With her hands on her cheeks to rub her round face, Dom found that she was dreading this visit to Bane.
Dom found that she was dreading him, even though she was the one acting stupid and stubborn and just plain impossible.
It was easy for her to get past his security. Everyone knew her, knew her title, it seemed. And because it was so simple for her to get from point A to point B without any fuss – her small treasures in life – she didn't allow time to feel any kind of uncertainty around the gruff, dangerous looking men who made up Bane's league of assassins. She didn't know how his circle worked, how he commanded them when she wasn't around, but she was pretty sure he kept his men in line, those who were here in Gotham and those who were stationed… wherever it was he stationed them. No one had harmed her yet and, in her book, she had no reason to fear.
That simple mindset was what had gotten her into this whole dance with Bane in the first place.
Her irritation and impatience was steadily rising the closer she neared Bane's quarters, walking with hesitancy through the halls of the asylum until she made it to the door. Dom had thought she liked it better when Bane would come to her place instead. That meant she could be on her own turf, surrounded by her own things within her own life. But it seemed even there, Bane was somehow making her feel… not like herself.
He seemed to be taking over everything.
Because she was now irritated, Dom opened the door to his large room and walked in without waiting for an invitation.
His space was perfectly neat, as always. There his full sized bed was, the sheets pulled up and baring no signs of an occupant from the night before. His desk was organized, stacked with books and files, one of them open as if he were working, and a gun set neatly on the surface. His medical supplies were secured in the corner he spared for them, cleaned and in perfect working use. She could smell him here, that male musk that would enter her head and make her dizzy when he was around for too long. Dom eyed all the equipment, wondered if he knew how to use everything himself or if his team of medical staff did everything for him. She figured he would have to know something, considering no one had ever seen him without his mask. Musing, she pulled off her blue jacket and tossed it on one of the machines, just to see if it would bug him when he finally emerged from… wherever he was.
"Dominique," Bane called, exiting the small bathroom off to the side. His head was slightly damp, a few water droplets sliding down his neck as if he'd just splashed his face.
Dom stared, as if in another trance, at those drops crawling down his skin. His thick neck corded with muscle. Shaking her head after an awkward moment of silence, she set her expression with a slight scowl, a carefree indifference.
But little did she know that Bane was sick of these games.
"You look very lovely tonight."
Dom lifted a brow, casually setting her hands on her hips above her royal blue t-shirt. She didn't like that she was so easily irritated nowadays. It didn't go with her lifestyle. So she tried her hardest to stay with her flighty friendliness. "Trying to get in my pants, big guy? Whoops, looks like you've already done that."
Bane didn't pay her any mind. He knew she was just trying to crawl back into a space that was familiar to her, a place where she could pretend to be the woman she wanted herself to be and easily ignorant of certain truths. But that wasn't working out for him anymore.
For a man to want a woman he couldn't have was torture, Bane replayed in his mind. But for the woman to want a man, it was worse.
Torture was not something he would come into agreement with.
"Did you know," he began, walking a little closer and carefully eyeing the way the dark blue of her shirt brightened her hair, collided with the blue of her eyes, "that when I first saw you I thought you resembled a siren? It was almost as if you were meant to sit at the waves as they crashed around you. As if you could lure a man to his death with only the sound of your voice. That is what I thought when I watched you dance in the yellow light." As she'd done to him, he blatantly let his eyes drift down her frame, forcing her to see it. Forcing her to feel it. Her neck, her breasts, her waist. He noticed every little detail. "Your body was covered in glittering gold."
Another thing that wasn't allowed. As Dom tried to push back the male scent of him from her nose and the heat of him from her skin she could feel growing closer, she took a small step back and tried to make fun of the whole scenario. "Oh yeah? Well that's nice. It's nice to be compared to a fish."
"Your body is a tool, isn't it, Dominique? It is a feast for a man's eyes, a beautiful, desirable feast. Exactly like a siren, exactly like the result of a lustful death. And what a marvelous body it is."
She brought her brows together as the forced playfulness was being taken over by more irritation. And by something else she wouldn't accept for the sake of the job. "Alright, let's just cut the crap. Stop it."
He tilted his head, acting confused. "Stop what?"
"Stop this. I don't like this. I told you, you don't need to give me pretty words. Let's just do the job and be done. For all I know this place could be pumping asbestos right into my lungs."
"Remove your scarf so I can see more of you."
She flinched slightly. Maybe he was just really aroused, which would be good for her, if she wanted to find a positive in all of this. The more aroused he was the quicker she could leave and go home. Dom stared at his face to find some trace of that arousal she'd seen on him before. There it was, but there was also something else. Something in his burning dark eyes, something in his smell, in his deep voice. Dom watched as those intense eyes of his wandered down her body again, unashamedly lingering on her breasts. From the way he was looking at her, the way he was inching up on her, she wanted to use the scarf to cover herself and conceal it from him. He'd stared at her body before, but something was different now.
Something was different, because that strange, frustrated state she'd been dwelling in was rising as high as the sun.
"Look, let me just turn around so I can go home. Do your business and then zip it up."
"You're not going home tonight, Dominique. You're staying here, with me."
This was all too much for her, she decided. It was all too much because this was not in the agreement. And the only reason why her irritation was rising was because he was acting out of the terms. And nothing else. Her face fell into its usual glare, the one that had been a constant ever since he'd started messing things up for her internally. "I'm not staying with you. What makes you think I want to stay here? You're out of your mind. Do I look like I want to stay here?"
Bane stopped then, easing down slightly. He knew what to do to get her riled up. And while everything he'd said about her was true, it was just to get her to see the truth. She looked like she was about to attack and run away screaming at the same time. She looked hungry and drained. She looked like a woman neglecting herself. And he could almost feel softened by it.
"You are frustrated," he murmured to her.
"You're damn right I'm frustrated. You frustrate the hell out of me."
"You misunderstand," he said calmly, seeing the hill he couldn't climb. The obstacle he couldn't overcome. "You are sexually frustrated."
She blinked at him for a moment like a little doe, then scoffed, restoring the shell he could break. "I'm going home. This meeting is off. I can't stand you…" she murmured softly, moving to get around him.
He only blocked her path, holding up a hand so she would know he had not yet dismissed her. "You cannot stand me because you desire me."
"Is that what you think? Man, conceited doesn't even begin to cover you, does it?" The pounding of her heart was only because he was angering her. Only because he was being ridiculous.
"It is not being conceited. It is the truth. You want me, and you are allowing your ignorance of that fact disturb you to the point of this frustration. These rules you've set for yourself… They aren't working out for you. Your body has needs and you are neglecting them from something as senseless as wanting to remain unattached. A woman cannot live that way. A woman is meant to be pleased and adored, and not used in the way you've allowed me to use you. If you would only admit your desire for me, that frustration could ease away and relax you."
Dom swallowed, taking another step back but finding she had nowhere to go as soon as her back hit a piece of his medical equipment. She jumped from the contact of the metal, more afraid that she couldn't get away then of the man whose eyes were like daggers, stabbing her over and over again in places she didn't want to remember she had. And, going into survival mode, Dom knew that if she couldn't physically run, she would have to use harsh words to get him to back off her.
"I don't want you," she sneered, forcing herself to keep her eyes on his. Screaming at herself not to stare down at other places that could very well be so warm. "You're just some guy I work with. I don't mix business and pleasure," she said firmly.
"It doesn't have to be only business, Dominique. There can be pleasure as well."
She was running out of ammo, Bane could tell. But she was also building that wall up so high, frantically shoving bricks together so that he could not get to her. The wall would come down, Bane concluded. And as he watched her stubborn face, her shrinking away to protect herself and live within the lie, he knew that he would have to tear it down right now. This had started off as business, he knew. But her frustration was beginning to affect him, so it would have to stop.
He would make it stop.
"I am the type of man who is given the woman he wants. That is how it has always worked for me in the past. When it comes to you, Dominique, you have allowed me to use your body, but you have not allowed me to have you. You are a lovely, desirable woman, and I am just the kind of man to break the shell so that you can be satisfied. You want me. I can see it. I am the cause of your frustration."
"You think you're so smart?" He was tall, so tall that she almost had to look straight up at him to yell at him. And she could feel his warmth. "Look at you, Bane. You're a man paying me to let you fuck me. If I'm so desperate for you, then why do you have to use lubricant?"
He narrowed his eyes at her, unwavering. "I have had no use for the lubricant lately, Dominique. No use at all."
The last of the ammo, gone. Every single bullet wasted as her face dropped, as her shoulders sunk in defeat. Never had she lost this much of her control. Never had she had to come up with excuses, lies to tell herself. Bane was changing her, causing her to live a life she didn't know how to participate in. No ties, no baggage. Only men in the past she could use before throwing out the door. She'd only ever let her daddy's words affect her. But she could barely deny Bane's any longer. What more could she do? She couldn't run, she couldn't hide. She could only stand there, letting some hulk of a man block her path.
But Bane's ammunition was hardly emptied. He straightened up and prepared to demolish her. Darkening his eyes, he towered.
"It is true when you say that I wished to bed you the first night we met. I have always had a willing woman brought to me, but that evening as I stitched you back together I was going to try for you on my own. Whether or not you chose to accept me was your decision, as this entire arrangement has been your decision. But there is a difference in you from now and then. Now… you are very willing. And I am more than happy to satisfy you and get rid of this frustration. It is not good for our business together."
She stared up at him defiantly because she didn't know what else to do. Couldn't think of anything to say other than to whisper, "I don't want you."
"No? Then you shall allow me to prove to you otherwise."
"I don't want you to touch me," she answered quickly. And only because she felt she would collapse into a puddle if he did. And then she would never have a fighting chance.
She so desperately wanted to fight.
"Silly Dominique," he murmured, reaching into his pocket and pulling out some kind of black fabric. "Remain still. You shouldn't neglect yourself this way. Just close your eyes, my dear, and feel what I do. Then you can make a decision."
Dom eyed the fabric she could see now was a blindfold. She inched her head back some as he lifted his hands to her face, but when he moved them closer she found her body staying as still as he wanted her to be, not moving at all as he tied the blindfold around her eyes and brought her into darkness. Her entire self was betraying her, she thought. Her entire being was venturing away from everything she'd stood by for so long.
And Bane knew that. He would not allow her to escape him now.
Dom reached behind herself and set her hands on whatever machine was blocking her path, almost as if she eased back into it enough that she would sink inside and finally get her escape route. But she also felt that there was this hook in her chest, a deep sharp point embedded within her that made her stay exactly where she was as she heard those same sounds of the mask becoming undone. Her heart was going a mile a minute, her head reeling. Something was throbbing down below but she would never admit to where exactly it was. She couldn't see, but she felt him lean in closer. The heat, the mass of him, inching right in front of her until she was closed in completely.
Bane knew he could be without the mask for a small period of time if he kept his body calm, his breathing secure. The use of too much energy without it would build his need for it much quicker, but with the right finesse he could make it work for him. He placed just his fingers on her jaw, tilting her face up.
And then his bare mouth was hardly a breath away from her own.
She couldn't mix business and pleasure. She had rules for a reason. Dom could feel the shape of his mouth against her own, not a kiss but something that was very close to becoming one. His lips were full, marred slightly by scarring she could feel, but still much fuller than what she expected. She didn't know then if her chest was heaving in anticipation or perfectly calm. She didn't know if there was tension in her shoulders, or a relaxation she couldn't describe. His body was warming her, his breath merging with her own. She wished she could see his eyes, but all she could see was black, deep darkness to hide what he wanted to keep hidden. She wanted to rip the blindfold off.
But her limbs couldn't seem to move. Everything, she realized, felt like jelly.
Bane tilted his head, keeping his mouth very near hers but not daring to move in closer, only testing the ground. Her face was still turned up to his, and of course she knew that if she would turn away, then he would let her. But she wasn't. She was exactly where he wanted her to be.
He then placed just one fingertip on her chin, and opened her mouth a little wider.
Dom tried with all her might to hold in a groan as she felt him slide the tip of his tongue into her mouth. Just a little taste, to sample her own tentatively, tantalizingly. He tasted the way he smelled, all male and power, and so alluring she thought she would be consumed by it. His tongue swiped the tip of hers, causing her lower stomach to clench, to tighten. When she remained still and silent, he did it again with more certainty, sampling her the way a man would with a delicious wine. And when the time was right, when he knew she would wait to see what he did next, he eased away ever so slowly, pulling his tongue back until a very small string of salvia connected them for but a quick moment.
Bane didn't move away from her completely. His mouth was right where it had been before, a breath away that could have felt like a mile, his face practically on top of hers as she looked up and he looked down. So close, right there. Ninety percent in. With the taste of her on his tongue, he waited patiently.
The frustration inside Dom surged up, flaring like a blast from the sun. If the body was to rebel then the body would get what it wanted. She didn't want what she wanted.
But… I do.
Dom only had to move in the slightest way to take his mouth with hers.
And, she realized as she kissed him, as she devoured him, he tasted as good as he smelled.
She tasted like light, warm and bright with a snap of energy. He tasted like power, like a force so unstoppable and so forbidden that it was too delicious to pass up. Dom didn't move her hands to touch him because he had reached behind her and set his hands on hers, keeping them on the machine so that she could experience nothing but the taste and feel of his mouth. Their lips opened wider against the other's, their tongues consuming as if they would never again know the feeling of a yielding mouth. Deeper and deeper the kiss became until they were all but eating each other, drinking each other up until absolutely nothing remained. If one became out of breath it didn't matter. They could simply take the air from the participating mouth before plundering back in once again. She felt desperate as she kissed him, feeling everything she'd denied herself ever since he started venturing away from the rules. Damn the rules, she thought, and was breathless. Damn them right now, right this second. On the slightest of whimpers from her, their lips smacked in a wet sound as they pulled away. As Bane felt the need for the mask.
She waited a few moments only because she needed those few to right herself, to clear her foggy head. The familiar sounds of the metal were heard once the mask was secured, and Dom shakily lifted her hand to pull the blindfold away.
Bane turned to her, stared, surveying the outcome as he could still taste her on his tongue. Her face held nothing but lust. His eyes eased right into it.
I win, he thought.
And then, carefully, he removed his shirt.
Her blue eyes instantly went over every inch.
"If you want me, Dominique," he began, tossing the shirt aside and holding his arms out like a prize, "then you can have me."
TBC
A/N: Oh boy. What's going to happen next, darlings? Tell me and I might give you an answer. Thank you for all the reviews. And for all of you who are Bane and Camille fans, I am happy to tell you that the first one shot post Mercenary/Amaranthine will be out soon. It will be called One Flesh, so, if you haven't yet, follow me to be notified, and review here to tell me if you're excited. I can't wait to see what you've all thought of this chapter, and I am graciously awaiting your thoughts on the one shot. Review, loves!
