A/N: Sorry for the wait on this one, but this chapter was a bit tricky to say the least. I ended up second guessing a lot of things throughout, but overall, I think I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. So without further ado, here's chapter 10!
Disclaimer: I don't own Spider-man or any of its characters.
He hears her still, up there on the fifty-second floor where he'd left her. In a room that hadn't been hers previously, but one that unlike the rest of the rooms on the floor, actually included a window.
She deserved that at least. He had to give her something. Something for everything he'd done and all the pain he'd inflicted on her.
I'd never hurt you.
What a fool he'd been for saying that, especially when deep down he knew all along that he already had, and words such as that had come far too late and therefore meant basically next to nothing coming from him now.
She's calling for him, for Connors, not the Lizard. For the man she knew, not the monster that occupied the tower with her presently. Not the monster that had just thwarted her plan to escape by dragging her back to the tower literally kicking and screaming.
She'd put up a good fight, he'd give her that, and she'd given him quite the chase as well. As much, if not perhaps even more so of a fight as the Captain had put up when he'd dragged him out of Oscorp and away from his daughter.
"Curt!"
It's almost funny really, for all the anger she'd been trying to convey through the volume of her voice, there's almost no trace of venom there. Annoyance and frustration certainly, but it was lacking in the ferocity that it had carried earlier on in all their arguments that had occurred before.
Congratulations, Doctor. The Lizard chimes in, unable to resist an opportunity to speak his piece. I think she's developing a soft spot for you.
Not developing one, Connors thought. It had always been there all along.
It was getting rid of it that seemed to be her problem.
He was, by all means in her eyes, a monster, a villain that had caused countless damage to the city and had, to an extent, made an attempt on the lives of innocent civilians. Even if it had been in the process of trying to stop Dr. Ratha from crossing the Williamsburg Bridge and reaching the Veteran's Hospital, if it hadn't been for Peter being there to stop the vehicles from falling into the river, the Lizard would've killed those people, unintentional or not.
But through it all, in spite of everything, Connors' heart still beat beneath the exterior of the beast she'd come to fear. Connors had wanted her there, the desire to have her with him hadn't simply materialized out of thin air. The Lizard wanted her because Connors did.
And no matter how much she didn't want to, despite how adamantly she'd deny it, Gwen wanted Connors.
She'd asked him to stay when she'd broken her hand. Her good hand had reached for his and for the first time since she'd come there to save her father, she'd voluntarily touched him.
Stay.
She hadn't had to say anything else. All she had to do was lay there with her eyes that were still blue at the time and stare up at him with such a look of desperation, that for a moment, he'd wondered if the sedative she'd been given was causing her to no longer see him as he was, but to begin seeing him as someone else all together.
But he'd known better. A sedative would cause great fatigue and maybe even slightly impair the judgment of whoever had taken it temporarily, but it wouldn't cause any hallucinations, especially not of that severity.
In the end all she'd had to do was utter a single word and stare up at him with those eyes, eyes that whether they were blue or green could always hold his gaze no matter what.
In that moment, she must've known that it was all she had to do to get him to stay.
She must've known somewhere deep down, that she irrevocably and absolutely had him.
She always had really. Perhaps even from the moment he'd met her. It had just taken him some time to realize it. Only now when the world around them was crumbling, when everything he knew was slipping from his grasp, did he really understand just how much she did.
No longer was he a husband, or a father even. His only child would surely be shielded from him now and the truths of his father who'd gone mad dedicating his life to research based on injecting human beings with the more desirable traits carried by different species. Martha would try to protect Billy from the truth as much as she could, for as long as she could, that is if the truth wasn't already everywhere and the facts had simply become unavoidable to everyone including his poor son.
He doesn't know how to be either of those things anymore. Both titles could be claimed by him no longer.
The only thing he knew how to be anymore was hers.
He was damaged goods, a broken shell of what he used to be and only hints of pieces of his former self remained.
Whatever parts of him that lingered belonged to her now.
Even if she wasn't his, even if she never would be, he was hers, through and through.
They're both prisoners, really, just two very different kinds.
Her voice had become lower now, but she was still speaking to him from two floors above. If he knew any better, he could swear that he was detecting a hint of sorrow in her tone.
"You could leave here…Before they'd come for you."
"If you let me go, you'd buy yourself some more time at least."
"Don't you realize how much easier things would be for you if you just let me go?"
She had no idea. She thought prison or the Ravenscroft Institute would be difficult to endure, and she wasn't wrong, not in that aspect. But even compared to either of those two, losing her would be the hardest thing to endure of all.
She was everything now. And if she left then all he had was nothing.
Nothing except for his research, he and Richard's research. He had the formula, the formula that Peter had found and solved, which still needed to be altered in order to be truly successful, in order to restore his right arm permanently.
But even so, even with all the time and dedication he'd put into all of it, it was all next to nothing now without her.
Without her even the serum would cease to hold any meaning for him anymore.
Her words go on still. She goes on to talk about the letter of recommendation he'd written to Oxford for her. She must've thought that one would hit him hard.
She was right. It did.
"You can't just shut me away in here and then shut me out."
She was right. He couldn't. And he didn't want to either.
He searches for a gray capsule containing a blue liquid in one of the drawers of the desk in his office, having decided earlier on to concoct a few back-ups of the counter-serum in case any of the reptilian serums had gone seriously awry.
More awry than turning him into a nine-foot-tall reptile, that is.
He hadn't actually had to inject himself with the cure yet, so needles to say, the results of the serum had continued to be more or less the same every time. Save for his right limb staying with him for a longer period of time even when the rest of the serum had worn off, but Connors had considered this a bonus and perhaps even an advancement in improving the serum.
Why so quick to change back Connors? Maybe I was looking forward to having another go at her.
He finds one of the gray capsules in the back of the drawer, the injection which held the counter-serum looking even smaller in his giant green hands.
Getting a bit jealous, are we? Jealous that I'd gotten farther with her than you ever did?
Connors ignores him, or tries to at least.
Farther with her than you ever will get.
Never say never, he shoots back.
Finally growing a backbone, I see. You know I think she prefers me to you, but who could blame her really? All you are is a coward. She has you spot on.
You realize we're the same don't you? Not only that, but if it weren't for me, you wouldn't even exist.
Even so, you know what I said before is true. And if we really are one in the same, prove me wrong. Prove yourself wrong. Prove you're not just a sniveling little worm incapable of acting on any of his compulsions. That's the problem with humans, they never act on anything. There's always something preventing them, holding them back, whether it be morals or other obligations there's always something else. Well there's nothing standing in your way now. Not even she would. She wants you. You know it and so does she. You heard the way she practically purred when I stroked my tongue against her, if I can do that much to her, just imagine what you could do.
She was right you know. I'd break her. But you won't.
Her head is still leaning against the door in the exact same position she'd been in for going on probably twenty minutes now.
She'd ceased talking about a few minutes after she realized that there was, in fact, no one listening to her on the other side.
Even so, whether he'd been on the other side of the door, two floors below her, or even down in the lobby, her voice was probably carrying and there was a good chance that he could hear her from wherever he currently was in the tower.
She'd try to fall asleep, but it's impossible. It hadn't been that long ago that she'd slept when she'd been sedated and slept while the formula worked its magic to heal her hand and a significant portion of her arm.
She wasn't tired. She couldn't fall asleep even if she tried.
This room had a television just as her old one had, she could've turned in on to watch the news and perhaps get an update on the status of Peter's health, if there was anything new on him to report, that is.
That wouldn't do either. To see or hear of anything that pertained to Peter at this point would just simply add salt into her already fresh wounds. To hear about anything that had to do with the inspiration for her thwarted escape attempt that had just conspired moments before would be too painful.
She just sits there, head leaning against the door, half exhausted but not tired enough to sleep. Not even bothering to turn the lights on, partially because she'd been too livid when he'd first tossed her in there to notice the darkness and partially because the window was big enough to emit the glow of the city lights outside and her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness by then.
A lock clicks. If she wasn't feeling so sluggish, her reflexes would've been faster. It takes her only a couple seconds to register what's happening before she snaps out of it and rises quickly to her feet.
She takes a few steps back when he enters, enough to put a comfortable amount of distance between them, but not as far of a distance as the room would allow her.
When he shuts the door behind him, he's just quiet, staring at her in the dimly lit room. With the short amount of light she'd seen when he entered from the hallway, her eyes have to take a moment to adjust to the darkness again.
He's him again. Well, as him as he can ever possibly be again that is, back to his original frame of just slightly over six feet rather than the nine foot stature of the Lizard. Not quite as menacing as his prior state, but still towering over her by nearly a foot. A fact that's especially noticeable given that she'd removed her boots again.
He steps towards her, not saying a word. She thinks to move further away, but oddly in this instance her first instinct isn't retreat. He doesn't stop until he's directly in front of her, and even then, she still doesn't move from her place, just stands there staring up at him, waiting for his next move.
He tilts his head down just enough so that his mouth is against her forehead, as she feels his lips graze her bangs.
He inhales a sharp intake of breath, taking her in as he'd always seemed to do recently whenever he was in this close of proximity to her as if he had no other choice, as if some unseen force had compelled him to.
"Why'd you run away from me?" He says in a pained voice, his warm breath hitting her forehead as he speaks.
"I thought you liked chasing me?" Her tone isn't teasing or playful, or taunting even, just passive and flat, as if she were trying to confirm a fact.
"Only when I know I can catch you."
She can't help but feel a smile tug at her lips at this. Try as she might, the tiniest smile curves on her lips beyond her control.
"You didn't think you'd catch me?"
"You definitely had me on the run for awhile, I'll give you that."
He plants both of his hands, both his good one and the one that he'd acquired thanks to the formula on her waist and pulls her even closer to him. His lips press fully to her forehead now, planting a small but lingering kiss on it.
She lets out a breath that she didn't realize before that she'd been holding, pressing her hands to his chest instinctively as he tries to pull her in, her palms coming into contact with his now noticeably bare chest.
It isn't just human flesh she feels there, no. He might've been himself again for the most part, but fragments from his other half still remained in spite of him reverting back to his mostly human state. Her fingers graze sporadic patterns of reptilian flesh. Her eyes were gradually adjusting to the darkness of the room again, and the more they did the more evident the appearance of the scales became.
She runs her fingers over them, (Purely for scientific reasons, she would later justify to herself) her eyes lingering there as she does so as well. For perhaps the first time since his change, for the first time since the reptilian formula had come in to play, she realizes, oddly, in a strange way, that it truly was beautiful.
But she catches herself, just as she had earlier that night in the lab right before she'd tried to run from him.
No. She thinks. It isn't right. None of this.
"I can't be here anymore. I have to go to Peter. He needs me."
She says it as if her stay there had been completely optional. As if he hadn't literally just dragged her back to the tower moments before kicking and screaming, as if simply appealing to whatever humanity within him that remained would be enough for him to let her leave. It may have been the poorest choice of words possible, but it didn't matter, because it had still been the truth. And in the end she thought that counted far more than a poorly constructed lie designed to placate him.
"I –."
"Don't you dare tell me that you need me, because you don't. No matter how much you think that you do, you don't. So do us both a favor and let me leave and let's end whatever this fucked up thing is between us once and for all."
Running hadn't worked, and after a failed first attempt she knew that it likely would never work again in the future. If at first you don't succeed, try again, in no way would apply to her situation at all. She knew that if she hadn't gotten away from him the first time, that there would be no second try. So she had to resort to something else. Instead of running, she'd have to muster all she could think of to convince him.
It was highly unlikely to actually work, although Connors wasn't lost to her completely, he surely must've been too far gone to see reason. Either that or he'd be completely blinded by his other feelings, namely that ones that he had for her, to ever let her leave this place, and him, behind.
She gasps when she feels him pull her flush against him. It isn't until then either that she knows that he's completely naked and pressed against her, something that she could confirm based on the fact that she could feel him hard and insistent, pressing against the front of her skirt.
"I want you." He rasped. Despite how redundant this declaration was, in the light of everything that had happened recently, with everything he'd done towards her to make this statement blatantly obvious, she could swear she'd just felt a sudden weakness in her knees.
"Well, I don't want you." She summons up all the spare defiance that she has left, hoping that it will be enough to sound convincing, even though in the end she knows that it wouldn't be enough. He'd see right through it, through her. She was sure of it.
"Oh, but you did. Just earlier today, yesterday now, when you'd injured your hand. When I was about to leave, you reached for me. I'll never forget the look in your eyes either. Almost a longing, sort of a desperation. You didn't think I'd actually forget about that, did you, that I'd actually be able to forget something like that?"
He tilts his head lower so that his lips are so close to her ear that she swore she felt them brush against it.
"Stay." His voice is no more than a low whisper, the single word she'd uttered towards him not even twenty-four hours ago coming back to taunt her as she knew that it would.
He grazes her earlobe with his tongue and she closes her eyes and feels a light gasp escape her lips. She isn't even sure if her legs are even what's supporting her anymore or if he's simply holding onto her tightly enough to keep her standing upright. Judging by the sudden weakness she was feeling in them, she'd guess that it had to be the latter.
He starts to navigate her backwards and she chooses to comply by taking a step backwards with every step he moves forward. The back of he legs make contact with the bed within about seconds, she searches for leverage, something to hold onto to prevent herself from falling backward, but all she has is him. Her hands grip his upper arms in a feeble attempt to have something to hold onto to gain stability, but it proves pointless as she still feels her back make contact with the mattress and winds up taking him down with her in the process. Something that had obviously been his goal in the first place.
And just like that he's everywhere at once. Even worse than it had been earlier in the lab when he'd pressed his mouth to her neck and his hand had caressed the skin beneath her sweater, worse even when the Lizard had her pinned to the ground a couple of blocks away from the tower and his tongue had tickled the skin of her upper thigh.
His mouth had made its way down from her earlobe back to where it had been earlier to the same spot it had been on her neck. Back to precisely the same place he'd suckled and bitten earlier which was still tender and carried a bruise that he seemed adamant on adding to.
She moans, she couldn't hold it back, not this time. The feeling of his lips and teeth scraping the freshly made bruise on her neck was such a sensation of combined pleasure and pain that the stir of this new feeling had caught her off guard.
She manages to find an opening and when she sees the chance, squirms quickly from beneath him and distances herself from him as much as she can on the somewhat limited space of the bed. She doesn't take her eyes off him the entire time during retreat, the sounds of her shaky breathing and her back hitting the headboard the only sounds in the room.
She tries her best not to look frightened in spite of the near feral look he was giving her. In truth, she wasn't afraid, not really. Not of him, or even the impending act that was certainly inevitable. It wasn't as if she didn't know what to expect. It wouldn't be her first time after all.
The first, her first, surprisingly enough, had actually been Flash Thompson.
It had happened last year, during junior year when she'd first started tutoring him in biology. It hadn't been dating, not really. Not because either of them was ashamed of the other, they'd just never really discussed the possibility. It made no difference to her that he'd been a jock struggling to maintain his GPA, nor had it made any difference to him that her academics took priority over who she would be getting shit-faced with that weekend. No, neither was embarrassed of the other, in spite of their differences and their conflicting interests. They'd simply known deep down that being involved in a way that was deeper than what they had been wouldn't have worked.
He'd been sweet, and she had to admit that he wasn't the slightest bit hard on the eyes. Whenever she tutored him, when she'd explained something, he'd had an expression that went far beyond an interest in the topics she was explaining to him. The way he'd clung to her every word, the way a spark had practically ignited behind his eyes at seeing her at one with her element, as if he'd been listening to her speak poetry instead of just listening to her rattle off facts about basic human biology.
She wonders now, if that had been how she'd looked at Connors when she'd first met him.
It had only happened once, when they were studying at his house.
His parents had been gone, working until six, if she remembers correctly.
He'd kissed her, quickly. The kiss itself only lasting probably as long as it had taken her to blink, as if it had been something he'd wanted to do for a long time, but didn't want to linger for fear of rejection or because he was worried he'd offend her in some way.
He'd said he was sorry, the somewhat dumbfounded look on her face had clearly given him the idea that she hadn't necessarily been thrilled about it.
But she hadn't hated it. And she would've been lying is she'd told herself that she hadn't entertained the idea of him before.
So she'd kissed him back, and that time it had lasted far longer than a millisecond.
It was painful, which she'd expected, but not all entirely unpleasant.
They didn't talk about it much after that day. Only once, when she'd come over a few days afterwards to help him study for a test. It wasn't that they'd regretted it, or even that it had been a mistake. There was no point in holding regret over something so trivial that neither of them could take back anyway, but still they'd both come to the mutual agreement that it wasn't something that should happen again.
And it didn't. But the two of them remained friends to this day. He'd held Gwen in far too high of regard to spread around what had happened between the two of them to his friends or anyone else at school. He had far too much respect for her to reduce her to a conquest. Even so, Flash may have come off as a dick on several occasions, but for all of the shows he put on, she was pretty sure he was the kind-of guy who didn't really kiss and tell.
The second time had been with Peter. It had only been once, being that the two had only been together about a month before he'd gotten hurt, well, before he'd gotten seriously hurt, that is.
It was the night he'd confronted Connors in the sewers. The night he'd come to her apartment with a set of gashes across his chest.
Before she'd seen his injuries she didn't know what to believe. Her father had thought he was crazy. She'd never think Peter was crazy, that thing on the Williamsburg Bridge wasn't something he'd conjured up out of his imagination, but for him to have tried to convince everyone it had been Connors that had transformed into that monster on the bridge, she felt like she was fighting with Phillip at the dinner table all over again. That it was all just another instance of her having to defend her mentor to outsiders that couldn't grasp his work in the way that she did. But Peter was far from an outsider, he knew Connors, not as well as she did, but he knew him enough not to make outrageous claims about him without having any evidence to back them up.
She didn't want to believe it even more when she saw the damage that the Lizard had inflicted upon Peter, didn't want to believe that Connors had in fact done this to him, that he'd been capable of hurting Peter to such a degree.
"I have to stop him. I created him. He's my responsibility."
She'd cried, not just for Peter, but for Connors too. Cried because this is what it had come down to, one final confrontation between the two of them, and she wasn't the least bit sure if both of them would make it in the end.
Looking back on it now, she could kick herself for actually thinking this, for actually almost saying this out loud, but in that moment, in her bedroom, when Peter had held her face in his hands, when he'd explained how he'd have to stop Connors, she'd been on the verge of asking Peter not to hurt him.
She doesn't understand how she could've almost had the audacity to say such a thing, to even think of saying something like that. To ask Peter not to hurt Connors after Connors had done noticeable damage to him and nearly several civilians on the Williamsburg Bridge.
How could she ask him to do that when Connors hadn't even tried to extend the same courtesy to him?
It had happened later that night, when he'd dropped her off back at her apartment after they'd went for a swing around New York. He was about to just drop her off, but she'd grabbed the collar of his jacket and pulled him in close.
"Do you want to come in? Just for a little while?" Her proposition had been innocent enough, but the implication behind her words was clear.
It had been better than her first time, partially because it was less painful, but mostly because she was with Peter.
When she thinks back to the night though, back to that moment, there was one detail she wishes she could forget.
She had wanted to forget everything that was going on, wanted to lose herself in this boy whose mere existence was so precious because he was putting his life on the line for others on a near daily basis. But it wasn't that easy. Forgetting the circumstances proved to be far more difficult than she'd thought.
With his shirt off and his torso exposed, all she could see as he moved above her were the bandages that covered the scratches on his chest made by the Lizard's claws.
Even despite her lack of fear, she couldn't give in to him that easily, couldn't give in to his advances so effortlessly without at least trying to delay the events that would soon conspire.
But whether she did anything in her power to delay the inevitable wouldn't make any difference. He liked it when she played coy, she knew this for a fact and had seen it first hand whenever she'd offered up the slightest reluctance during any of their more intimate interactions within the past few days.
He crawls closer to where she's seated against the headboard, eyeing her like some delectable morsel that was meant to be devoured. Before she can pull both of her legs up against herself, he reaches out and grabs one of her ankles, his grip not hard enough to cause her any pain, but firm enough to assure that it wouldn't slip from his grasp.
She waits for him to pull her back down to the position she was just in before, but instead he just continues to inch closer to where she is at the head of the bed, his hand that had previously gripped her ankle wandering farther up her leg the closer he gets to her. He doesn't stop until his face is resting at the spot just below her upper thighs.
"You know…" He's stroking the area of her stocking where it ended just mid-thigh. "I've always had such an affinity for these."
He presses his lips to the patch of exposed skin just above the stocking and below the hem of her skirt. It was as if ever since he'd had his first taste of her flesh when he'd pressed his mouth to her neck in the lab just earlier that night that he couldn't be bothered to pull himself away from her for long, couldn't leave any area of her skin unexplored, exposed or otherwise.
She tries not to moan again as he begins to work the same routine of ministrations as he had earlier on her neck when he'd left a noticeable bruise there, his mouth once again rotating in motions ranging from suckling, biting, and licking.
He'd almost never actually just kissed her. A few times. On the forehead when he'd first come into her new room, she was pretty certain he had at least once when he'd lain beside her after she'd been given a combination of a sedative and the formula and she'd been about to fall asleep.
But rarely was it ever just a kiss, never as gentle as that, never a gesture as chaste as that. It was always accompanied by several other things. Never had he ever been just content with simply pressing his lips against her skin, perhaps it had been enough at first, but that was before he'd actually done it.
It was never enough. Not anymore.
He had to sink his teeth into her, not enough to draw blood, but enough for her to feel the impact and sometimes hard enough to even leave a mark. He had to actually taste her, not just by running his tongue over his lips after pressing his lips to her skin, but to actually run his tongue full and unbidden along her flesh.
He'd developed a hunger for her that had been ignited by just a little taste. A hunger, she was certain, that he fully planned on satisfying right then and there.
He removes the stockings that had apparently always held such an allure for him, sliding them off of her slowly as if to relish the motion, as if it were something he'd fantasized about doing several times before that.
She feels his hands move up to her hips, hands, which she realizes now, could hardly be classified as human at this point, not even his left hand which usually reverted back to its natural state after the formula was no longer in effect. Both of his hands, and a considerable expanse of his arms, leading about up to the center of his bi-cep, were clad almost completely in scales with no trace of human flesh to be found there. His hands weren't his own, they were instead the clawed talons that the Lizard usually had, although more proportioned as not to seem ridiculously large on Connors' frame. Talons, she thought, that had been used to tear gashes in Peter's chest no less than about a week ago now.
Her breath hitches when those hands, the unnatural ones with their clawed fingertips, disappear beneath the gray fabric of her skirt. Her breathing stops almost completely when she feels his fingertips hook in to the waistband of her underwear.
She doesn't even bother to stop him, only lets her legs lie flat against the comforter as he slides them off of her.
He doesn't waste any time once they're gone. He pulls up both of her legs so that they're hooked on to either one of his shoulders, his face is at the exact point where it had been when he, or the Lizard she should say, had her pinned below him on the cold asphalt on a deserted New York street. The only difference was that there was nothing concealing her from him now.
She whines when she feels his tongue stroking against her cleft that was now unprotected, the motions slow and almost lazy, but agonizing all the same.
He drags his tongue along the crevice between her legs just as he had done with everything else, with a combination of practiced precision and an animalistic relish of a predator that were in the midst of devouring their prey.
She'd reached completion before, with Peter. But it had taken some time. Never had she been so close to the edge so quickly and so completely.
Much to her and to an extent probably his dismay, he extracts his mouth from her abruptly, pulling her down by her legs so she was in her previous position of laying beneath him with her back against the mattress.
He looms above her now, looking far more like a preying mantis than a reptile, eyes boring into her so intensely as if he were trying to look straight through her into her core.
"Not just yet, love…"
He makes a small tear, in the center of her sweater starting at the bottom edge in the center. Before she even knows what he's doing, the sound of fabric ripping sounds through the air, her bare torso becoming more and more exposed the more her rips upwards at the incision.
It was almost a symbol of something. Connors couldn't possible have any idea what the garment meant to her or what it represented. He couldn't possibly have known of the sentimental value that she'd held toward it since it had been the sweater she'd worn the night Peter had told her of his secret identity and kissed her. No, he couldn't have realized it. But no matter how impossible his knowledge of this had to be, it was as if in a way he had known what it had meant to her, as if by ripping apart the garment he had, in a way, been attempting to rip apart Peter and her in the process.
She opts to quickly slide off her skirt on her own, rather than stand by when she had no idea what damage he'd do to the rest of her clothes if she'd given him the opportunity.
She brings her arms behind her back to unhook her bra, slowly, not in a suggestive sort-of way, but carefully, almost apprehensively.
It's almost silly, she thinks, when her hands come up to shield herself from him when she'd just removed the very thing that was concealing them from his eyes.
He doesn't tear her hands away as she'd expected him to. He just continues to stare down at her. But instead of the look of intensity that his features had carried moments before, there was a certain softness that had crept over his expression that hadn't been there previously.
It's an impulsive decision, the kind that a person doesn't have time to think through in the moment, but would end up second guessing it for the rest of their life.
She kisses him first. She couldn't stand the look in his eyes anymore, the tenderness displayed by her former mentor was far worse than any predatory gaze she could ever receive from the Lizard.
So she closes her eyes to him again, puts both of her hands on either side of his face and seals her mouth beneath his.
If she thought she'd been having problems convincing him that her feelings for him were purely platonic, she sure as hell was going to have a difficult time of it now.
He kisses her back with relish, not that she'd ever had any doubts in her mind that he would. Apparently such acts of human intimacy hadn't been lost on him after all.
His mouth doesn't leave hers when she feels him position himself into the space between her legs, so that his hips were now being cradled by her inner thighs.
He swallows the gasp that she makes when he thrusts into her, the motion abrupt enough to catch her off guard although she'd been expecting it.
She still holds his face in her hands in spite of the facts that their lips have now parted from each other. His forehead was now resting against hers, scraping against her bangs with every movement he made while thrusting into her.
Her eyes still don't move upwards to make contact with his, her eyes remaining low in hopes of avoiding them.
He raises his forehead from hers, pulling back just enough so that he could look down into her eyes again. His expression was no longer feral or even delicate, but almost pleading as if clinging to the last shred of something that was about to evaporate before his eyes.
"Stay with me." He whispers down at her, his breathing becoming more labored the more he moves on top of her.
She's looking up at him now, his face still cradled in her hands.
"I'm here."
He'd probably meant for the long term rather than merely just right then and there, but for the moment, at that precise place and time, she really was there, with him. Clinging to him as if she'd wanted him there too, as if she wanted nothing more than to stay in that moment and to keep him right there with her.
As twisted as it all was, it was almost poetic that this would happen there in the tower, in the very place where it had all begun, both their beginning and their end. And now, in spite of everything, even another beginning still.
Every beginning comes from the end of something else.
It doesn't take her much longer to reach her peak, seeing as how she'd almost been there already.
She'd heard before that people sometimes lose their fear of dying during orgasm. She didn't really believe that theory had much truth to it.
Not until now, that is.
She didn't feel much of anything really, in the way of emotions, anyway. The euphoria was a force that had consumed her completely, leaving no room for any thoughts or feelings to plague her mind.
She almost doesn't even notice that he hasn't stopped even after she's come, the constant stimulation overwhelming enough to make the climax seem to last an eternity.
It's only when he too reaches completion that he ceases moving within her, only then that he collapses on top of her, but not to the point of letting himself and his full weight fall onto her.
His forehead rests against hers once again, both of their labored breaths mingling together.
"I need you." He says, as if he'd been holding that declaration in the whole time since she'd cut him off earlier when he'd first walked into her room.
Her response isn't one of reluctance or even of resignation, but almost one of acceptance.
"I know."